Switching to a New Cuisine

An article in today’s Press Herald explores the challenges for chefs when they change jobs and take on a new cuisine that they haven’t cooked before.

Chefs say they take the leap to stretch themselves and to learn something new. Their strategies for tackling the challenge aren’t so different from anyone’s strategies learning new skills. For chefs, that includes reading, traveling and lots of experimentation in the kitchen.

“This seemed like a great opportunity to manage a kitchen and to force myself to learn new techniques, new ingredients, new flavor profiles,” [Matt] Ginn said, “because it’s easy to fall into a state of complacency.”

Winter Foraging

Food  & Wine interviewed chefs David Levi at Vinland and Justin Walker at Earth about ingredients they forage throughout the winter in Maine.

Though his restaurant, Earth, is closed in the off-season, Walker gets inventive with wild Maine moss in winter. “We have a lot of reindeer moss growing on the Hidden Pond property,” he says. “It grows on ledgy areas. If it’s frozen you can reconstitute it in water, or you can burn it into an ash, which you can do a zillion things with. Or you can fry it. It’s very interesting fried,” he says. “But it’s just an addition—you don’t eat a pile of reindeer moss, unless you’re at Noma.”

Interview with Lauren Pignatello

The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an interview with Lauren Pignatello, owner of Swallowtail Farm and Creamery and manager of winter farmers’ market.

In the next few weeks, Lauren Pignatello plans to open a cafe called Milk and Honey at 84 Cove St., the new(ish) home of the Portland Winter Farmers’ Market. Her cafe will feature dairy products from Swallowtail Farm and Creamery, the family farm she and her husband, Sean, run in North Whitefield, as well as herbal products, including elixirs, that Pignatello has either foraged or grown.

Charles DeGrandpre, 88

Charles DeGrandpre, former Wolfe’s Neck Farm manager, passed away recently at the age of 88.

He was recruited to work at Wolfe’s Neck Farm in 1968 by its founders, Lawrence M.C. and Eleanor Houston Smith, early pioneers of organic agriculture. Together, the Smiths and DeGrandpre developed an organic beef farm, which became home to 300 head of mostly Black Angus. He was an early leader in developing healthy soils and nutrient-rich grasses with very few grains.

For more information on his life and accomplishments, see this obituary in the Press Herald.

Masa Miyake, Natural Wine

This week’s Portland Phoenix includes an interview with Masa Miyake,

LO: What would you say is your most popular dish on the menu, and what’s your personal favorite?
MM: The hamayaki (which the menu describes as “lobster, crab and scallop over sushi rice with truffle oil and spicy kewpie”) is very popular. I like Sashimi. I’m excited about local fish and [prepping] it. People also really like the daily Bento Box, which is chef’s choice. (The Bento Box consists of “six different small tastes, from sashimi to meat and vegetables,” according to the menu, and it’s served with miso soup.)

and an article about the emerging interest in natural wine in Portland.

“There’s definitely something afoot,” says Peter [Hale]. Though it gets a lot of attention from high-end publications, natural wine is mostly only popular in “tiny pockets within larger markets” like New York City or the Bay Area. That means Portland, “proportionally, is way ahead of the game” with its single dedicated shop, and Maine is even home to a cutting edge producer in Oyster River Winegrowers, based in Warren.

WCR Finalists: Lopez & Ahearn

Ilma Lopez, pastry chef and co-owner of Piccolo, is a finalist for a Golden Bowl award from the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs Organization. The award recognizes “excellence in baking and pastry arts and honoring a woman whose skill in the baking and pastry arts inspires others”.

Annemarie Ahearn, owner of Saltwater Farm in Rockport is a finalist in the Golden Pencil category. The award recognizes “dedication to teaching that is making a difference to the culinary world and honoring a woman who inspires her students to achieve both technically and creatively”.

Neighborhood Breweries & Maine Foodie Tours

MaineBiz has published a feature on three brewers and the steps they take to be part of the communities and neighborhoods in which they’re located.

And while both men like the popular IPA ales, when they did taste-testings in their neighborhood, they discovered they were not popular. “So we listened to our customers,” Dingman adds. The brewery is making Double C.R.E.A.M., Old Smokey pale ale, plus a hoppy season ale and rye brown ale.

The plan is to get people in the door to both taste their beers and then buy and take them home in growlers. And the men welcome other breweries in the area.

“This street is vivacious,” says Dingman, referring to the three restaurants and other businesses on the block. “Hopefully we’ll get more brewers here. The more we build up the community, the better.”

MaineBiz has also published an interview with Pamela Laskey, owner of Maine Foodie Tours.

MB: What’s the reaction to the tour?
PL: When we take people into K. Horton Specialty Foods [Portland], we serve some of the American Cheese Society’s gold award-winning cheeses and people are shocked. I remember my very first customers were from Wisconsin. I took them to K. Horton, and Kris Horton blew them away. They were ordering wheels of cheese like there was no tomorrow. I did like impressing a family of cheddarheads. I tell people the cheese in Maine is like the wine in Napa. The best stuff never makes it out of the state.

NY Times: Cara Stadler

Chef Cara Stadler was interviewed for a New York Times article on Chinese-American chefs.

“No one would give me even the lowest kitchen job in Beijing,” said Cara Stadler, 28, who grew up in Massachusetts and moved to China with substantial experience in the kitchens of the chefs Guy Savoy and Gordon Ramsay. Instead, she started the city’s first underground supper club. “Going to the markets every day forced me to really learn about Chinese produce,” she said.

Young Chefs to Watch: Cara Stadler

Condé Nast Traveler has included chef Cara Stadler in their list of 10 Young Chefs to Watch.

Terrible students can make for fine young professionals. That’s true in Cara Stadler’s case, anyway. Despite some self-proclaimed lackluster grades in high school, Stadler, 27, had a star pupil kind of year in 2014, with a James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef Award nomination and Food & Wine Best New Chef nod. Seems that bad grades don’t mean a thing when “the kitchen is my jam,” says Stadler, who owns Tao Yuan in Brunswick, ME, and Bao Bao Dumpling House in Portland, ME, with her mother, Cecile.

Interview with Luci Benedict

Great Beer Adventure has posted an audio interview with Luci Benedict. Professor Benedict teaches a class on fermentation at the University of Southern Maine.

Many of us first discovered beer; especially our love for drinking beer in college. But what if you could take a class about beer? Luci Benedict, a Chemistry Professor at the University of Southern Maine, does just that. Her students love the class on Fermentation and the science behind everyone’s beloved brews. We got out of the rain and met up with Luci at the Thirsty Pig in Portland where she told us more about the science of beer warming up over pints of Bissell Brothers Angels with Filthy Souls: an American Porter with maple syrup perfect for a rainy cold day.