Dana Cowin, Editor of Food & Wine, was is in Portland Friday and Saturday, posting photos and commentary on Instagram of the places she visited. She stopped by:
See this post for information on where she visited in 2012.
The Partridge Foundation has made a $1 million grant to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. The grant comes with an additional $1 million challenge provided MOFGA can raise an equal amount.
According to a report from the Press Herald,
The Partridge Foundation awarded the money to “seed MOFGA’s work in encouraging a new generation of organic farmers,” according to a written statement from the foundation.
The statement adds that the grant reflects foundation founder Polly Guth’s “deep interest in healthful food and farming in her native New England.” Guth is a native of Manchester, New Hampshire, and her foundation has made grants to Maine organizations before, including several smaller grants to MOFGA.
This Sunday is Maine Open Farm Day, an opportunity to visit and learn more about our local farms. Two dozen farms in Cumberland and York counties are participating in the event this year.
For more information read this article from the American Journal.
The Press Herald has published an interview with Luke Davidson from Maine Craft Distilling.
Q. What are some other unique spirits you make?
A. We have two other great ones – one we’re calling “Sea Smoke,” an aged whiskey, and we’re taking sugar kelp and Maine-grown peat and heating it to smoke some of the grains. Then we distill the barley and make a nice, richly profiled whiskey. The other up-our-sleeve one is taking traditional-styled gin and putting it in a barrel and making it age. It’s sort of a hybrid of whiskey and gin.
The Forecaster has published an update on the 2nd South Portland Otto under construction by the Mall.
Otto Pizza’s second South Portland location at 125 John Roberts Road will open in early August, according to a liquor license application councilors approved Monday.
For the 60th anniversary issue, Down East magazine intensively searched the state for the best lobster roll, trying “scores of lobster rolls served up by food trucks, lobster shacks, and restaurants from Eastport to Kittery.”
Greets Eats, a food truck on Vinalhaven, scored the top spot. Local Portland-area favorites Eventide and Bite into Maine were among the 4 runners-up.
The article includes the online ad-on video of chef Sam Hayward at Fore Street demonstrating how he prepares a lobster roll.
An article in the Wall Street Journal about the Westin Harborview Hotel in Portland reports that strong food/drink sales at the Top of the East and other part of the hotel for a big role in its financial success.
New Castle President Gerry Chase is projecting revenue this year from the bar at $1.2 million, which would be more than double what it was before the renovation. April brought sales of $130,000, compared with previous years when that month had revenue of $15,000 or less, he says.
The bar’s success is one reason the hotel’s food-and-beverage revenue accounts for nearly half the property’s overall revenue, Mr. Chase says.