Portland Food Heads has posted a video interview with Rob Sullivan. Sullivan’s work Minumentals: Gastronomique is currently on exhibit at Rabelais Books.
Ocean Approved Get's Kelp Farming Lease
Mainebiz has published an article on Ocean Approved Co.’s new lease to farm kelp in Casco Bay.
“Kelp aquaculture is a $7 billion a year industry worldwide,” says Paul Dobbins, president of Ocean Approved. “Twenty-eight countries now cultivate kelp, but it’s not happening here in the United States. That’s too bad because this is an aquaculture product that is beneficial to the environment. There is zero discharge, we don’t feed it any fertilizer, and it’s highly nutritious. We see tremendous opportunity for growing vegetables that don’t require freshwater, fertilizer or any arable land.”
Farmer's Cart
The Natural Foodie column in today’s Press Herald examines the regulatory challenges encountered by two farmers in setting up a prepared food cart at the Farmers’ Market. The collaborative venture is called Farmer’s Cart and appears at the weekly Wednesday markets.
When life gives you bruised potatoes, make homefries. Or potato salad.
This is what Simon Frost of Thirty Acre Farm in Whitefield and Daniel Price of Freedom Farm in Freedom are doing with their unsold and B-grade potatoes. The two farmers sell vegetables, meats and fermented foods each week at the Portland Farmers’ Market. A month ago, they launched the city’s first local food street vendor venture, aptly named the Farmer’s Cart.
Hood's $10k Cooking Contest
Today’s Press Herald has a report on the New England Dairy Cook-Off. The cooking contest is offering a $10,000 grand prize and the final event will take place here in Portland at the Ocean Gateway terminal on November 1.
NYT: A Controlled Fermentation for Culinary Ideas
The New York Times has published a celebration of food in Portland.
In the last decade, Portland has undergone a controlled fermentation for culinary ideas — combining young chefs in a hard climate with few rules, no European tradition to answer to, and relatively low economic pressure — and has become one of the best places to eat in the Northeast. The most interesting chefs here cook up and down the spectrum, from Erik Desjarlais’s classically pressed roast ducks at Evangeline, to the renegade baker Stephen Lanzalotta’s gorgeously caramelized sfogliatelle (sold out of the back of Micucci Grocery, an Italian-imports shop), to Mr. Potocki’s simple but brilliant chili-garlic cream cheese and handmade bagels.
John Myers, Bartender
Down East has published an extended profile of John Myers, the Dean of Portland bartenders and an acknowledged expert in classic cocktails.
Myers is large and a bit shambling, and has something almost architectural occurring as regards to facial hair. One would be forgiven for thinking him the offspring of Grendel’s mother and Wyatt Earp. (In describing his appearance on stage last year during a national cocktail competition against well-groomed twentysomething bartenders, the Wall Street Journal’s Eric Felten wrote that Myers cultivated “a dour glower in keeping with his Wild Bill Hickok whiskers and locks. His demeanor also appeared to reflect some culture-clash discomfort, the awkwardness Leon Redbone might feel sharing the stage with Moby.”)
Caiola’s Brunch Review
Portland Food Heads has published a review of the brunch at Caiola’s.
Obviously, Caiola’s brunch isn’t necessarily the cheapest in town, but that’s not why people eat there, and that’s not what they’re going for. As far as a fully satisfying Sunday brunch goes in the area, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better option than Caiola’s.
Farm-to-Table List
Travel and Leisure has included Cinque Terre on their list of Great Farm-to-Table restaurants.
When chef Lee Skawinski travels around Italy each year, he′s not just sourcing recipes. Strains of beans, squash, and lettuce from the area wind up on a five-acre farm in Greene, Maine, then at his Italian restaurant 45 miles from there, in downtown Portland—proving that farm-to-table cooking can have geographic underpinnings an ocean away.
Calendar Island Lobster Co.
MPBN had a report yesterday on the Calendar Island Lobster Company. The new company will be selling their lobsters with numbered claw bands that you can look up online to learn about the lobsterman who caught it.
Jordan says retail lobsters will be hand-selected for quality, and wear bands bearing a number code representing the fisherman who caught the crustacean. “So that if somebody in Dallas buys these lobsters, or somebody in Denver, they can type in the number code and go on to our Web site, so they can read about the lobsterman that actually caught their lobsters, learn a little about their lives and more about their product and everything and really know right where their lobster came from,” Jordan says.
3 More on OpenTable
Three more Portland restaurants have joined the OpenTable online reservation service: Bresca, Evangeline and The Salt Exchange. The website enables you to quickly find a table without having to call around to see where’s there’s space available.