Oysters, 2 Buck Chuck, Robert Pieper

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes Joe Appel’s take on the Trader Joe’s 2 Buck Chuck wines,

Yet. Yet there are hidden costs. The biggest one is a general dumbing down of the wine market. I know everyone’s shopping Trader Joe’s exclusively right now, but next time you feel the need for an edible vegetable, head over to any other Portland-area supermarket and note the changes in the wine departments. See?

Everyone’s racing to the bottom, all desperate to offer an alternative to $3 Chuck. The interesting bottles lose their shelf space, taken over by more and more case stacks of faceless, automaton wine engineered to move.

a feature article on Maine oysters,

Once, oysters were as much a part of holiday celebrations as cranberries and champagne.

There’s never been a better time to revive this tradition. There are dozens of Maine oyster growers who can supply the freshest shellfish for your holiday table.

and interview with sous chef Robert Pieper from Nosh.

Paper Food: Cooking Matters, Pecan Pie, Macrobiotics . . .

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes article about Cooking Matters, a program that “recruits local culinary and nutrition professionals to teach low-income families on a limited budget how to prepare nutritious meals that also taste good”, and interviews with macrobiotic educator Warren Kramer and Ethan Toby, sous chef at Sonny’s.
Yesterday’s edition of the Portland Daily Sun provides advice on where to source ingredients for you home Mexican cooking and a reminder that Two Fat Cats made the cut for a Yankee magazine article about where to find the best 5 holiday pies in New England.

Halloween, Lobster Chef, Wine

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes: an article about and recipes from the top 3 finalist in the Lobster Chef of the Year competition that was won last weekend by Kelly Patrick Farrin, a search for healthy Halloween treats, a list of Halloween themed events scheduled for this week, advice from wine columnist Joe Appel on developing your appreciation of wine, and an interview with Rick Morey Jr. from Walter’s in the ongoing Salute to Sous series. The full set of Salute to Sous series recipes can be found on the Oakhurst Dairy website.

Immigrant Kitchens: Galchi Jo Rim

Lindsay Sterling from Immigrant Kitchens learned how to make Galchi Jo Rim from Kum You, co-owner of Korea House. See the photos and read the recipe and back story behind this dish.

Mrs. You remembers her fist pot of rice, cooked on a wood fire, when she was about nine years old. The bottom was burned, the middle was watery, and the top not cooked. Grandma laughed and said, “You are a lady. You are supposed to know how to cook!”

“But Grandma,” the girl said, “This is my first time!”

“Step by step,” Grandma said, “you learn from me.”

For a decade, she did.

Immigrant Kitchens: Iraqi Cooking Class

Immigrant Kitchens has published photos and recipes from an Iraqi cooking class held in Portland last Friday.

The kitchen of St. Pius X Church at the north corner of Payson Park (429 Ocean Ave., Portland, ME) was particularly steamy on the unusually hot night of October 1st. Forty people were inaugurating a new international cooking class series taught by refugees, a project of the Catholic Charities Maine Refugee & Immigration Services. The head cook was a woman from Iraq. She’d been an architect there, working for the U.S. government in reconfiguring Saddam Hussein’s palaces for new uses, but had to flee because her colleagues and their families were being kidnapped and killed