Gross Confection Bar Kickstarter Campaign

It’s the final day and a half of Gross Confection Bar Kickstarter campaign and pastry chef Brant Dadaleares still has a little way to go to reach his $35k goal. Funds raised by the campaign will be used to pay for the build-out of the restaurant and for refrigeration equipment.

Gross Confection Bar will be a dessert-focused restaurant and bar to be located in the heart of the Old Port district in Portland, Maine. Gross will provide a unique and consistent restaurant experience featuring an ever changing selection of high-quality artfully-plated desserts, cocktails, dessert wines, digestifs, and exceptional service. Gross will also provide a consistent selection of enrobed ganaches, fruit pates, bon-bon, entremets, late night savory snacks and desserts to go.

I’ve been seeking out and happily consuming Dadaleares’ desserts for many years at Fore Street, Eventide/Honey/Paw, Central Provisions/Tipo and at his dessert pop-ups.

Portland Food Map is a contributor to the Gross Confection Bar Kickstarter campaign.

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.

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.

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.

TuesdayLeavitt & 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.

FridayRosemont is holding an organic wine tasting on Brighton Ave.

SaturdayHigher 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.

SundayUnion 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.