Category: People

Paul Trusiani (article, obituary) passed away Saturday at the age of 81. Trusiani founded Paul’s Food Center on Congress Street in 1975.

In his early years, Trusiani worked for Hannaford Brothers Co. as a buyer, retail counselor and head of procurement. He went on to work as vice president and general manager of Martin’s Foods before deciding to establish his own company, Paul’s Food Center. He operated the business with his former wife, Annamarie Ross Trusiani. The partners have 12 to 15 full and part-time employees.

Their son, Jim Trusiani, said the family has no plans to sell or close the business.

“The family’s intent is to continue to run the store the way Dad did,” his son said.

Update: For additional information see this article from the Portland Phoenix.

The Press Herald has published an interview with Rob Tod, owner of Allagash.

Q: What attracted you to beer brewing?
A: It combined everything I loved. It had a bit of science, biology and chemical reactions and it had a big creative component with recipe-writing and a mechanical component with pipes and wiring and valves. It wrapped up everything I loved in one nice package and on top of it all, it was beer.

The Portland Phoenix has published an interview with Travis Colgan and Anna Connolly, the owners of Abilene in Woodfords Corner, and a tasting report on their menu.

I began with Anna’s favorite dish on the menu, an appetizer called Manchego Toast, which consists of homemade focaccia bread, doughy and warm, topped with melted Manchego (a Spanish cheese), garlic, shallots and fresh mushrooms, over a sherry and mushroom broth. The bread soaks up the broth, and you can dip the toast in as well. However you choose to eat it, it’s rich, hearty and satisfying. Anna mentioned that, as she and Travis were drawing up the menu, this was the first item they knew they had to include. The dish, she said, evolved from working with a Spanish chef in a restaurant down in New Orleans.

The Press Herald has published an interview with former Bon Appétit managing editor, Scott DeSimon about growing up in Cumberland and about the Portland food scene.

Q: Here’s the inevitable question: Where do you eat when you are in Maine?
A: The Portland restaurant scene continues to baffle and amaze me. How is that possible? How are there enough people in Portland to eat and keep these places going? Generally, I used to go directly from the airport to J’s Oyster and get a fish sandwich, a bucket of oysters and a beer. Less so now that I have kids. I really love Hunt and Alpine Club. I love Central Provisions. Everyone loves Eventide. I love Eventide. But it’s (expletive) annoying. It’s always too packed. There’s a late flight, a jet that gets in at 11. What makes me happy is that you arrive and Miyake noodles is open. And it’s crowded. It’s a signal that Portland has come a long way from when I was a kid. There are so many great places. It is hard to keep up. I try to go to a new place every time I’m in town, but I still try to go to J’s.

Arcadia National Bar co-owner, Ben Culver, is one of 8+ people running for Portland Mayor this fall.

The Portland Phonix interviewed Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy, chef/owners of East Ender, for this week’s edition of the newspaper.

Two worlds collided when East Ender proprietors Bill Leavy and Karl Deuben met while working at Hugo’s 11 years ago. The two grew up in very different areas of the country — Deuben in Denver and Leavy on Staten Island — and were working in education and advertising, respectively, before discovering their culinary passions. Once they got their first taste (pun intended) of the restaurant business, however, they couldn’t stop, and became staples of the Portland dining scene even before founding SmallAxe Food Truck in 2012 and East Ender eight months ago.

The Press Herald has published a Where Are They Now article about chef Jonny Saint Laurent, best know for Uncle Billy’s Southside Bar-B-Que and Uncle Billy’s Resto-Bar.

Now the chef is a caterer and restaurant consultant for most of the year. At the summer camp, his hours are filled with making three kinds of meatballs (vegetarian; gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free; and “normal”), baking 175 homemade cookies a day, experimenting with ways to get girls to eat eggs, and generally trying to please persnickety palates.

Mainebiz has selected Rising Tide co-owner Heather Sanborn for their 2015 short list of business Women to Watch in Maine. Each year Mainebiz highlights women who “have shown the skill, tenacity and smarts to make a difference not only at their own companies or organizations, but in their particular industries as well.”

If you want to know the movers and shakers behind Maine’s booming beer industry, getting to know Heather Sanborn would be a good first step. And that’s not just because she’s the director of business operations for Rising Tide Brewing Co…Sanborn’s legal expertise has been especially helpful in pushing Maine lawmakers to adopt laws that protect the beer industry and fight off the vestiges of the state’s Prohibition-era regulations. In working with the Maine Brewers’ Guild, Sanborn helped draft three major pieces of legislation that have had a significant impact in improving Maine’s beer culture.