The University of Maine Cooperative Extension is teaching a hands-on food preservation workshop this morning. The weekly Food and Drink Trivia Contest is taking place tonight at Bull Feeney’s. Black Tie Bistro is teaching a cooking class on Wednesday night. There are 3 wine tastings scheduled this week: on Wednesday at RSVP, wine and cheese on Thursday at the Public Market House and Sautrday at the Scarborough Wine Outlet. The Great Lost Bear is hosting South African winemaker Jose Conde from Stellenbosch on Wednesday and showcasing beer from Victory Brewing on Thursday. Sunday evening the chefs from Hugo’s and Miyake are teaming up to cook a wine/beer/sake dinner. Farmers’ Markets are being held in Monument Square on Wednesday and at Deering Oaks Park on Saturday. For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.
Sun on GRO and Miyake
The weekend edition of the Portland Daily Sun includes a profile of GRO Cafe,
Organic fair-trade coffee and a variety of smoothies and desserts likewise tap ingredients not likely found in your traditional restaurant. There’s fresh ground flax and local bee pollen that can be added to smoothies. Wheat-free croutons and hand-picked mushrooms are mingled with red peppers, avocado and onion for a house salad.
and a profile of Food Factory Miyake.
Food Factory Miyake offers so intimate a dining experience that now just might be the time to go before the onslaught of summer moths drawn to Portland’s culinary limelight makes one of the 30 seats as difficult to get as a free pass from the Portland parking patrol.
Blue Spoon Review
The Blueberry Files has reviewed a meal at Blue Spoon.
Land of the Forgotten Cocktails: Tequila
The latest Land of the Forgotten Cocktails article in this month’s Bollard is all about tequila and tequila-based drinks.
Sadly, tequila is too often treated as the infant terrible of the cocktail pantheon, forever married to slushy margaritas and straight shots in testosterone-fueled, misguided team-building exercises.
Silver Moon now at the Market
Silver Moon Creamery has made it off the wait list and in one of the spots at the Saturday farmers’ market in Deering Oaks. In addition to the flowers (a good idea for Mother’s Day) and seedlings that predominate at this time of the year, I also saw fiddleheads, lettuce, scallions, tomatoes, small cucumbers and more.
Pandalus borealis
An article in today’s Press Herald explains the reproductive cycle of Maine shrimp (Pandalus borealis) and how the temperature sensitive process might be impacted by global warming.
Shrimp spend their brief adult lives on the dark ocean bottom and never come near blooming plankton. So, to synchronize the egg hatching and plankton blooming, it seems, the shrimp key in to the temperature at the ocean bottom.
Miss Portland Review
Travels with Hilary has reviewed the Miss Portland Diner.
My new favorite breakfast joint is the Miss Portland Diner, on Marginal Way (between Franklin and Forest). The restored, original Worcester Lunch Car Company #818 shines not only in its gleaming metal surfaces, but also in service and food.
Casa Novello Review
Down East has reviewed Casa Novello in Westbrook.
As for those entrées: The penne a la vodka was fantastic — perfectly cooked seafood in a reddish-pink sauce that had just a hint of a kick. My veal parm, however, suffered from a slight lack of attention, with the cutlet’s thin ends dry from overcooking and the accompanying dish of pasta boiled well past al dente. Did any of that stop me from gobbling it up, however? Heck, no.
Interview with Gene DiMillo
The Press Herald has published a Shop Talk interview with Gene DiMillo. DiMillo is co-owner of G & R DiMillo’s, a sports bar and restaurant.
When we opened up I really thought the demographic would be ages 25 to 40. We had the menu of basically pub food, pizza and burgers. And we did some Italian dishes as well. And slowly it started morphing into the family restaurant idea, as we were getting people who used to go the Village. The age range now runs 25 to 80. It’s unbelievable how it’s changed, and we’ve revised the menu two or three times for that reason, different items that appeal to an older clientele.
Indian Prawn Curry
Lindsay Sterling from Inside Immigrant Kitchens has published another installment in her series on authentic ethnic cooking in this week’s Portland Phoenix.
Cooking Indian food by myself for the first time felt like skydiving; it went against all my instincts. I had one thing going for me: an Indian woman, Aruna Kilaru, had shown me exactly how to do it two weeks before. Aruna, a botany teacher and school principal from Hyderabad, India, had been visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Maine. I met them in, of all places, the office supply store Staples.