This Week’s Events: Cooking for Crowds, Beekeepers, Hunter Harvest Dinner, Wine Cruise, Slow Food Potluck

| Posted in Events

Wednesday — the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.

Thursday — The University of Maine Cooperative Extension is teaching a class on food safety when cooking for crowds, and The Great Lost Bear is showcasing pumpkin beers from several breweries.

Saturday — the Maine State Beekeepers Association is holding their annual meeting where speakers include State Apiarist Tony Jadczak and celebrity beekeeper Michael Bush, Bard Coffee co-owner Bob Garver will be speaking at the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast Coffee Conference taking place in Rhode Island, the Peaks Island Gastro Society is holding a 7-course hunter harvest dinner, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.

Sunday — Wine Wise is leading and Italian wine cruise and Slow Food Portland is holding a potluck dinner as a send-off for this year’s Portland delegates to the Slow Food’s International Terra Madre event.

Milbrandt Vineyard Dinner — Bar Lola is collaborating with Milbrandt Vineyard on a wine dinner October 23, 5 courses, $75 per person. Butch and Lisa Milbrandt will be at Bar Lola for the dinner. Call (207) 775-5652 for reservations.

Vignola Wine Dinner — Vignola is holding a wine dinner in collaboration with Podere Ciona Estate and Vineyards later this month on October 26. $75 per person. Call (207) 772-1330 for reservations.

Eve’s Caviar Dinner — Eve’s will be holding their annual Caviar Dinner on October 26. 4 course, $120 per person.

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.

Pocket Brunch @ Broadturn Farm

| Posted in Events, Pocket Brunch

The October edition of Pocket Brunch took place earlier today at Broadturn Farm. Coffee by Tandem, creative cocktails by Nathaniel Meikleljohn (imagine ginger-infused Hendrick’s with cucumber-wasabi puree, lime juice, ginger beer and siracha ice cubes) and fresh pressed cider accompanied premeal bites: cider donut holes, mini-muffins with goat cheese frosting and walnuts, and small buckets of fresh cooked bacon.

With preliminaries completed everyone headed into the barn where two long communal tables were set for the main meal:

  • Salad: a communal pile of fresh and pickled Broadturn vegetables paired with anchovy dust and a smoked onion dip
  • Soup: a broth of ham and toasted hay enriched with acorns, roasted garlic and parsley
  • Egg: a miniature omlet resting on a birds nest of potato sticks with breakfast mayo tamago, local mushroom, house ketchup and nasturtium leaves
  • Meat: a pork sausage corndog with a sweet potato and local berry dipping sauces
  • Dessert: gingerbread with rum caramel pear buttermilk ice cream which as a suprise were served up in clay pots filled with “potting soil” that had served as table decorations

The menu was a collaboration of Joel Beauchamp, Josh Potocki, and guest chef Karl Deuben. This was an astoundingly good meal and the room showed its appreciation with a standing ovation for the chefs and event organizer Katie Schier-Potocki during the gap between the last two courses.

A photographer from Portland Magazine was there as was Zwickerhill Photography and nearly everyone seemed to grabbing shots on their iPhones. I’ll add links here to other photo sets as they get put online.

UPDATE: David Zwickerhill has posted a large set of photos from the event online, and so has Shel Doyle.

 

4½ Stars for Eventide

| Posted in Reviews

Eventide Oyster Company received 4½ stars from a review in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram.

Eventide Oyster Co. is impressive for its variety of oysters and clever oyster accoutrements, as well as the carefully prepared non-oyster menu items. The Eventide oyster bar concept is as cool as the team of owners, and I recommend this restaurant for any oyster lover seeking a step left of ordinary. The price point skews a little high, but so does the quality.

UPDATE: The Boston Globe has also published a review of Eventide.

Liquor Law Violations

| Posted in General News

According to a report in today’s Press Herald, 5 Portland business have been cited for liquor law violations.

Portland Police said college students under the age of 21 volunteered to go into 40 stores and restaurants in the city to attempt to buy alcohol. Five of the businesses – Bonobo on Pine Street; the Express Mart on Congress Street; The Front Room on Congress Street; Bayside Variety on Cumberland Avenue; and Parker’s restaurant on Washington Avenue – sold liquor to the underage buyers, police said.

 

Flea Bites: Mobile Food Fun in Bayside

| Posted in Events

A set of food trucks and food carts were at the Portland Flea-for-All for Flea Bites Friday night. Bite into Maine, Gorgeous Gelato, Top Hat Coffee, Pretty Awesome Street Food, and Pizza by Fire participated in the event.

Shown above is Andy Graham, Chairman of the Creative Portland Corporation, buying a lobster roll from Sarah Sutton at Bite into Maine. You may recall that it was an interview with Sarah in the Portland Phoenix and Andy’s focus and energy on the topic that initially put the issue on the city agenda.

Bakery Tours at Standard Baking

| Posted in Events

Standard Baking Company will be offering tours behind the scenes tours, baking demonstrations and tasting on noon to 3 pm on October 20th at their shop on Commercial Street. Tours will start every 15 minutes, and are free and open to the public.

Standard is one of 55 bakeries in the country participating in Bread Bakers Guild of America Bakery Open House. Beach Pea Baking Company in Kittery and The Bread Shack in Auburn are also taking part in the Guild’s nationwide open house event.

Frosty’s Opening on Saturday

| Posted in Openings

According to a tweet from Meredith Goad, Frosty’s Donuts will open their South Portland location Saturday at 9 am. Frosty’s co-owner, Nels Omdal, was recently interviewed for the business page of the Press Herald about his purchase and expansion of the 47 year-old business.

Q: How did you come to own Frosty’s?
A: I was a regular customer who loved their doughnuts. When I saw the for-sale sign, I met with the Realtor to express interest in buying the business, and Bob [Frost] happened to drop by. I got to have a one-on-one with him for about an hour and we made a connection as we talked about life and doughnuts.

Interview with Chef Cheryl Lewis

| Posted in People

Sabroso, El Rayo’s in-house blog, has posted an interview with chef Cheryl Lewis.

What drew you to Mexican cuisine? Just before we opened El Rayo, my mother handed me a Mexican cookbook I had written for my 5th grade class. I had made each kid their own copy to accompany my Mexican fiesta of tacos, beans, and buñuelos for dessert. I might have even made a piñata. Mom and I laughed and said something like “we should have known then!” Later, I paid my way through college in California by working in restaurants. In California, Mexican is a powerful undercurrent and when I moved back East I constantly missed that cuisine, always full of piquant flavor and freshness.

Review of Spread

| Posted in Reviews

The Portland Phoenix has published a review of Spread.

While dinner at Spread is not bad at all, the experience doesn’t quite dispel the space’s strange aura. Spread does not transform the space, but rather seems to have joined in the oddness. It’s a place made for fall and winter (at the moment, at least) on a block famous for its summer rush. It’s a new venture with an old-fashioned feel, from the long entranceway to the dark-suited maître-d’ checking in on things. The Scottish have a phrase for accepting the quirks of your fate and flourishing within them: “dree your weird,” they say. Spread is a weird name for a slightly odd place, but it could flourish nonetheless.