Higher Grounds (website, facebook, instagram) is now open. The new coffee shop and apothecary is located at 45 Wharf street.
Higher Grounds serves coffee from Speckled Ax.
Harvest on the Harbor
The 10th Harvest on the Harbor kicks off next week with a full schedule of events that runs Tuesday through Sunday:
Sustainable Suppers – a set of dinners held at Five Fifty-Five, Inn by the Sea, Little Giant, Union, and Woodford F&B on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Flavors of Maine – a tasting event featuring a dozen main chefs along with beer, wine and cocktail samples
Maine Lobster Chef of the Year – a competition among 10 Maine chefs for the title of Lobster Chef of the Year.
Harvest Happy Hour – 15 Maine craft distillers will be serving samples and cocktails made with their spirits
Market on the Harbor – a tasting event featuring food from Maine shops and food producers
Harvest Crawl – self-guided tasting tour of food and drink spots in Portland
Drifters Wife/Maine & Loire to Expand
Orenda and Peter Hale have leased the former Roustabout space at 59 Washington Ave where they plan to launch expanded versions of their two businesses, Drifters Wife and Maine & Loire, in late Winter. Their natural wine store and restaurant are located right next door and will continue to operate out of their current space through the end of 2017.
The Hales shared that, “As always, natural wine and Ben’s soulful cooking will be the focus,” and that the new space will provide chef Ben Jackson with use of a full kitchen and that the restaurant will feature a full bar.
Drifters Wife was a semi-finalist for a James Beard award for Best New Restaurant and recognized by Bon Appétit as one of the 50 best new restaurants in America.
Maine Gleaning Network
The Press Herald has published an article about the Maine Gleaning Network and the work they’re doing to fight hunger in the state.
Gleaning is the act of collecting excess fresh foods from gardens, farms and markets to provide it to people in need. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 100 billion pounds of food is thrown away each year.
Look & See @ Space Gallery
SPACE Gallery is screening the movie Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry.
In 1965, Wendell Berry returned home to Henry County, where he bought a small farm house and began a life of farming, writing and teaching. This lifelong relationship with the land and community would come to form the core of his prolific writings. A half century later Henry County, like many rural communities across America, has become a place of quiet ideological struggle. In the span of a generation, the agrarian virtues of simplicity, land stewardship, sustainable farming, local economies and rootedness to place have been replaced by a capital-intensive model of industrial agriculture characterized by machine labor, chemical fertilizers, soil erosion and debt – all of which have frayed the fabric of rural communities. Writing from a long wooden desk beneath a forty-paned window, Berry has watched this struggle unfold, becoming one of its most passionate and eloquent voices in defense of agrarian life.
Look & See will be screened Thursday night at 7pm and on Sunday at 4pm. Tickets are available online.
The movie is presented in collaboration with the Maine Farmland Trust.
How Chefs Develop Menus/Recipes and the Last Apple
Today’s Press Herald includes a feature article on how chefs develop recipes and menus,
Recipe development and testing goes on all the time in restaurant kitchens, but is especially intense in the weeks before opening a new place. It gives chefs the opportunity to make tweaks in dishes that can transform them from just OK into real crowd pleasers. It gives the kitchen staff time to become familiar with ingredients and techniques. And it can help chefs balance their overall menu.
and the final installment of the apple series by Sean Turley.
Russets and other late-season apples, by contrast, are typically crisp and crunchy. They contain high levels of acidity and sugar that play off each other in fascinating ways. The flavors run the gamut: from well balanced or cleanly sweet to floral, astringent or punchy tart, complicated flavors that no early season apple can replicate. Some people liken the taste of russets to pears. It’s the extra tree time to ripen that makes the difference.
4th Annual Heirloom Apple Tasting
The 4th Annual Heirloom Apple Tasting took place yesterday. We had the chance to try dozens of apple varieties gathered from ten orchards across Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire and learn more from Sean Turley about the diversity of this seemingly common fruit. I think the Russet, English, Maine, and French categories had some of the very best apples.
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The event was organized by The Righteous Russet, Portland Food Map and Fork Food Lab—we’re already talking about how to make it a better event and accessible to more people in 2018.
This Week’s Events: Apple Tasting, Leavitt, Late Night Eats, Higher Grounds
Monday – the sold out 4th Annual Heirloom Apple Tasting is taking place.
Tuesday – Leavitt & Sons is scheduled to open their store on Kennebec Street.
Wednesday – there will be a Spanish wine tasting at Maine & Loire, and the Monument Square Farmers’ Market is taking place.
Thursday – the Cooking Channel show Late Night Eats will air an episode about Portland that includes visits to Nosh, Liquid Riot and Rhum, and Woodford F&B is holding a oyster and beer event with Nonesuch and Allagash.
Friday – Rosemont is holding an organic wine tasting on Brighton Ave.
Saturday – Higher Grounds is opening on Wharf Street, Hardshore Distilling is holding a pig roast with live music and cocktails, there will be a wine tasting at LeRoux Kitchen, and the Deering Oaks Farmers’ Market is taking place.
Sunday – Union is hosting a farm dinner at Wolfe’s Neck Farm.
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, please provide details as a comment to this post.
Scratch Toast Bar
The Scratch Toast Bar opened on Friday at 205 Broadway in South Portland. Here’s a look at their menu.
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Scratch Toast Bar
MaineToday.com has posted a first look at Scratch Baking’s new Toast Bar in South Portland.
The doors opened on Friday, Oct. 6 and I paid a visit the next morning to what was already a bustling location. Coffee by Design cofffee was on the ready, the space is bright and airy and yep, there were plenty of bagels to be had with various toppings along with English muffins and entire loaves you could take home. The buzz has been strong about this opening because fans of the Scratch finally have a place to plunk down and enjoy bagels.