2012 Thanksgiving Resource Guide

As usual a number of Portland area restaurants plan on serving a Thanksgiving dinner. Here are the ones I know about so far. I’ll update the list as more info comes in:

 

For those of you hosting your own meal at home:

 

Community Dinners:

  • The Wayside Food Programs is serving a free Thanksgiving community dinner to an estimated 400+ people. They have enough volunteer for Thanksgiving day but are still in need of help to prep on the day before, and with donations of food. Call (207) 775-4939 for more information.

 

Wine and Beer Buying Advice:

Inspiration:

Is there a local restaurant, market, bakery, or Thanksgiving event that’s missing? Post a comment with the info and I’ll add them to the list.

Brunch Review of Petite Jacqueline

Following up on their lunch review from earlier this Fall, Map & Menu has published a brunch review of Petite Jacqueline.

Meredith ordered a Croque Madam (a gourmet ham and cheese, with ham, gruyere, mornay, and fried egg) to follow – it was fantastic, as I think I stole at least half of it right off her plate. I decided to try the Hachage Agneau (braise lamb hash with two poached eggs, homefries, hollandaise, and toast), and couldn’t have been happier than my selection.

Photo Credit: Map & Menu

This Week’s Events: González Byass, Merriam & Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Dinners

Tuesday — the González Byass wine dinner is taking place at Bar Lola.

Wednesday — Wine Wise is teaching a class on Thanksgiving wine pairing, The Salt Exchange is holding a Merriam Vineyards wine dinner, and the Monument Square Farmers Market is taking place.

Thursday — Petite Jacqueline is holding a Beaujolais Nouveau wine dinner, The Great Lost Bear is featuring a set of Sam Adams Rarities, and a wine and cheese tasting is taking place at the Public Market House.

Friday — there will be a wine tasting at Rosemont Market on Brighton.

Saturday — there will be wine tastings at Browne Trading and at Rosemont, and the Deering Oaks Farmers Market is taking place.

SundayBig Night is the featured film at Petite Jacqueline’s movie night.

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, publicize it by adding it as a comment to this post.

Pocket Brunch: Bienvenue

The November edition of Pocket Brunch took place this afternoon at a industrial building in South Portland near the oil tank yards.

The theme was French Canadian cuisine:

  • Soup – yellow split pea, heritage pork, and spiced hog cracklin
  • Salad – a poutine of country fries, goose gravy, cheese curds and cranberry ketchup
  • Egg – cretons, hen egg, juniper matsutake salt, super sexe bagel and sausage full of secrets
  • Meat – arctic char pie with puff pastry and a seaweed salad
  • Dessert – maple/black velvet sugar pie and Allen’s coffee brandy ployes cake
  • Entertainment – the backside of the drink menus were bingo cards and the crowd joined in rounds of bingo between courses

Josh Potocki and Joel Beauchamp were joined in the kitchen by Rocco Salvatore Talarico and guest chef Nate Nadeau. Tandem served the coffee and Nan’l Meikeljohn created a set of custom cocktails for the event.

For more photos check out the extensive set of image posted by David Zwickerhill.

Planning is already underway for the December Pocket Brunch. Sign-up on the PB site for their mailing list to be alerted when tickets go on sale.

All About Cheese

Delicious Musings has published an interview with cheese expert Shannon Tallman about planning a cheese plate, storing, cheese, cheese equipment and cheese books, and her current favorite cheeses.

Cheeses for an intimate holiday dinner cheese plate? **And, would you serve before or after dinner?
You could go either way with whether to serve before or after. I like to have something to snack on if I’m going to spend the afternoon in the kitchen cooking, so putting out a cheese plate for yourself and guests to nosh is never a bad idea. It’s also something that you don’t really have to worry about–like has it gotten cold or too warm.? do you have to refill it?–while you’re off doing other things. One of the loose rules of cheese plating is to work in odd numbers (but no more than 7) as it stands out to the eye on a plate. I tend to work in 3′s to keep the plate focused and to make it easy on myself, but I will occasionally plate up 5 if there are cheeses that I’m really excited about and can’t wait to share.

Shannon is one of the guest speakers from Portland participating in the Winter Food Series at the Captain Fairfield Inn in Kennebunkport.

Under Construction: Hella Good Tacos

Hella Good Tacos is planning to scale up their successful food cart operation into a brick and mortar restaurant. Owner Josh Bankhead is raising $25,000 online to start up this new venture. If you’re a fan of Hella Good, then head on over to Peerbackers.com to learn more about his plans and make a pledge to help him out.

Online crowd-funding has been an increasing popular model for local food businesses to raise funds. Food Coma TV, Union Bagel, Roost are a few of the ones that have successfully used this approach to get the financial backing they needed to start-up.

Breakfast FAQ & Silly’s with a Twist

This month’s edition of The Bollard includes a Portland breakfast FAQ,

“I just want a regular breakfast at a regular diner. Is that OK with you, Mr. Fancy Brunch Guy?”
Go to Steve and Renee’s (500 Washington Ave., Portland). You won’t find a better basic breakfast. The prices are low, and there is no friendlier service anywhere, period. And that’s a fact.

a bar review of Silly’s with a Twist,

In keeping with the more-is-more philosophy at Silly’s, the drink menu is four pages long. A fair amount of real estate is devoted to shakes, which can be made with ice cream and milk from cows, rice or soy. They also serve shakes with booze, like the Ragin’ Ruby (made with ruby port), Twist & Stout (contains Guinness) and the more traditional Mudslide. I tried the Sherry Baby ($7.50), which is made with Sandeman Amontillado. The fruits of the medium-dry Spanish sherry came through nicely and complemented the ice cream well.