2nd Annual Heirloom Apple Tasting (Updated)

| Posted in Events

IMG_0862The 2nd Annual Heirloom Apple Tasting took place yesterday. 85 different varieties of apples sourced from about a dozen orchards in Maine and New Hampshire were part of the event that I helped organize along with friends Sean Turley and Cecilia Ziko.

A few of my favorites were Ashmead’s Kernel, Esopus Spitzenburg, Hudson’s Golden Gem, Frostbite, Sundance, Ribston Pipppin, Pitmason Pineapple and Red Astrachan.

Nearly all of the apples were purchased in a single day on Saturday within a  few hours drive of Portland. It’s encouraging to realize that so many great heirloom varieties are out there if we just take a bit more time to explore.

For those of you without cars, Rosemont Market is the best in-town source of unusual apple varieties. There’s also a rare apple CSA that is run each fall called Out on a Limb run by Maine’s preeminent  apple expert John Bunker.

Update: Here’s a complete list of the apple varieties we had on-hand for the tasting. It includes information of which orchards we bought them from, and interesting details on their origin and apple genealogy.

Boston Globe: Small Plates in Portland

| Posted in General News, Profiles

Former Sunday Telegram restaurant critic Nancy Heiser, has written an article about Portland’s small plate restaurant trend for The Boston Globe.

Small plates have taken hold as a culinary craze in many cities, but in Portland, arguably New England’s small city most revered for food, they are hot, and we’re not talking temperature. Several restaurants that have opened to some acclaim are offering only small plates, and most are doing so in small spaces too. Don’t come expecting full-blown entrées with trimmings.

But you will eat well. Very well.

Central Provisions, Lolita, Sur Lie and Bao Bao are all featured.

This Week’s Events: Gneiss, Maine Wine, Filipino Dinner, Harvest in the Hood, Pumpkin Carving, Flanagan’s

| Posted in Events

Wednesday — the Monument Square Farmers’ Market is taking place.

Thursday — Slab is holding a Gneiss Brewing tap takeover.

Friday — a Maine wine event is taking place at the Custom House, and The Sinful Kitchen is serving a Filipino Feast.

Saturday —Rosemont is hold Harvest in the Hood at their store on Brighton, and the Deering Oaks Farmers’ Market is taking place.

Sunday –The Thirsty Pig’s 4th Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest is taking place, and Masa Miyake is the featured chef at a Flanagan’s Table dinner.

For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

If you are holding a food event this week that’s not listed above, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

South Portland Food Cupboard

| Posted in Profiles

The Bangor Daily News has posted a report on the work of the South Portland Food Cupboard.

On Thursday mornings, when the doors of the South Portland Food Cupboard swing open, low-income families can’t believe their eyes.

“The produce is so absolutely beautiful that our clients just cry,” said director Sybil Riemensnider, who receives the weekly bounty from Jordan’s Farm in Cape Elizabeth. “These are things they can’t afford.”

Under Construction: LB Kitchen (Updated)

| Posted in Under Construction

2015-10-11_18-43-31Lee Farrington is planning to renovate 249 Congress Street, the home of her former restaurant Figa, where she and her wife plan to open a new restaurant called LB Kitchen(instagram). They hope to open LB Kitchen sometime early next year.

The restaurant is billed as “a modern cafe”, but specific details on concept, menu, etc are at present still tbd. It’s great to hear that Farrington will be running another restaurant and that the former Figa location is going back into productive use.

 

Hunter’s Bend x Honey Paw

| Posted in Events

The Hunter’s Bend and The Honey Paw are collaborating on a mushroom dinner later this month. The dinner will feature “eight courses of fantastic vegetarian food highlighting locally foraged, cultivated and imported mushrooms”.

The Hunter’s Bend is a super club/catering operation run by Frank Anderson & Rebecca Ambrosi who are both part of the team launching Jason Loring’s tiki bar, Rhum.

Ticket for the mushroom dinner are on sale on Eventbrite.

Under Construction: Foulmouthed Brewing

| Posted in Under Construction

The Forecaster has published an article about Foulmouthed Brewing(twitter, instagram) which is under development in South Portland.

A Portland couple unveiled plans this week for the first brewery in Knightville, and only the second in the city. 

Pending approval from the Planning Board, which is scheduled to hold its first hearing on the proposal Tuesday, Oct. 13, Craig and Julia Dilger’s Foulmouthed Brewing will open in a building that was once an auto garage at the corner of Ocean and A streets. 

Maine’s Craft Beer Industry

| Posted in Under Construction, Beer

The Business section in today’s Press Herald features a report titled “Maine’s craft beer boom shows no sign of going flat“.

When it opens, Fore River will be the newest player in Maine’s exploding and intensely local craft beer scene. As of 2014, the state had the sixth-most breweries per capita in the nation, according to the Brewers Association, a national group. In 2013 and 2014, nine new breweries and brewpubs opened in greater Portland alone. There are currently 52 breweries in the state, but that number is set to jump even higher in 2016, and existing breweries are expanding.

The article includes details on Fore River Brewing(twitter, facebook, instagram) which is opening later this year in South Portland.

Maine Malt House

| Posted in Beer

The Bangor Daily News has published an article on the Maine Malt House, which supplies malted Maine grown grains to brewers in the state.

Aroostook County is not home to the bustling craft breweries that have sprouted up across Maine, New England and other parts of the country. A brewery and pub that opened in Presque Isle in 2004, Slopes Northern Maine Restaurant and Brewing Company, closed for lack of business not long afterward. But, 10 years later, the Buck brothers are not trying to sell beer locally; they want to produce and sell malts across the state through an integrated farm and malthouse business.