Category: Farming

Cheap Eats in Portland & Wild Blueberries

| Posted in Farming, Uncategorized, Reviews

This Week’s edition of the Portland Phoenix includes a guide to cheap eats in Portland for the newspaper’s annual student guide,

We know you’re dirt poor. Those textbooks are outrageously expensive and you’re forced to divvy out your remaining dollars on cheap beer and illegal substances. We’ve all been there. However, we wanted to remind you that there are places you can afford to eat in Portland that won’t bankrupt you (any more than those student loans will when you graduate). We even helped you with the math and organized it by how many dollars you have in your pocket. So, give up your tray and check out these places.

and a feature article about Maine’s wild blueberry industry.

Whether scooped by hand-held rakes or gathered mechanically by tractors, Maine’s blueberry crop is expected to be down a bit from the recent annual average of 83 million pounds. All told, Maine accounts for nearly all of America’s wild blueberry production, and is second to Michigan (which grows cultivated varieties) in terms of overall blueberry production in America. The US grows more blueberries than any other country in the world; Canada ranks second.

 

Monday Market, Tequila & Macrobiotics

| Posted in Farming, Distilling & Cocktails, Cooking

Today’s Press Herald reports on efforts to bring the Monday Farmers Market back to life,

Farmers on the wait list said they won’t come on Mondays because no customers attend. They can’t afford to take time from planting and harvesting to travel downtown and not sell anything. Likewise, customers won’t come on Mondays because no farmers attend.

It’s a self-defeating cycle, but a group of immigrant farmers will soon try to revive the Monday market. Dawud Ummah, president of the Center for African-American Heritage, is coordinating the effort.

an article about tequila featuring staff from Zapoteca,

For a lot of people, sitting in front of a line of three shots of tequila might conjure some flashbacks involving a pinch of salt, a lemon wedge and a pounding headache. But the shots that come in a flight of tequila at Zapoteca, a new Mexican restaurant and tequileria in Portland, are meant to be sipped and savored like a fine single malt Scotch, not downed in one gulp by a drunken college student.

and an article about the macrobiotic diet and the macrobiotic cooking classes at Five Season Cooking School,

The school is run by Lisa Silverman, and it hosts frequent visits from well-known macrobiotic teachers.

Next week, Jessica Porter, a former Portland resident and author of “The Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics,” will teach a class at the school. At the end of September, internationally acclaimed macrobiotic educator Warren Kramer will come to the school to offer a lecture and teach a class.

South Portland Yard Becomes Garden for Soup Kitchen

| Posted in Farming

Today’s Press Herald includes an article about a South Portland resident who replaced her lawn with a large vegetable garden. Produce from the garden is “distributed among four soup kitchen sites and 42 agencies in Cumberland County.”

[Liberty] Bryer teamed up with Wayside Soup Kitchen to plant a 2,000-square-foot community garden in her yard on Edwards Street, in the Meetinghouse Hill neighborhood.

“That has been part of my hope and intent, that people would realize, yes, they can grow for themselves and for other people,” she said.

Maine at Work: Raking Blueberries

| Posted in Farming

For the latest installment of the Press Herald Maine at Work series, reporter Ray Routhier learns how to rake wild blueberries at Hart’s Clary Hill Farm near Union.

Powers runs a blueberry farm that his wife’s family started in the 1930s. The land had originally been a sheep farm, but is now turning out one of Maine’s most iconic crops — wild blueberries.

The challenges to growing blueberries begin with the fact that they are wild, Powers tells me. You don’t plant them, you can’t decide where they’ll grow. This makes weeding or treating them with herbicides tricky. And it makes picking them — on rocky hillsides for instance — tricky as well.

Lobstering Licenses and the Brentwood Farm

| Posted in Fisheries, Farming

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes articles on how Maine regulates who does and does not get a lobster fishing license,

The central question is whether the rules governing lobster licenses should remain as they are — open to residents under age 18 at little cost, but effectively off-limits to almost everyone else — or whether anyone should be allowed to fish as long as he can afford to buy a license from another fisherman who has one.

and an essay by Elizabeth Tarasevich on the Brentwood Farm community garden in Deering.

Last year, neighbors and several local businesses joined to build a beautiful and bountiful urban garden. It includes plots for 65 families, 20 common share beds, community orchards, herb beds and berry patches for all local residents to enjoy.

Miyake Farm & Modern Vegan Chef

| Posted in Farming, General News

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes a feature article on Miyake’s farm in Freeport,

“They get to eat sushi-grade Japanese tuna every day,” says Chad Conley, who manages the farm. “Masa will trim a whole tuna, and there’s pounds and pounds of blood and scraps that can’t be used that normally, before the farm, were just going in the trash.

“But the pigs love it. They eat fish heads. They eat lobster bodies. They eat extra fat that we can’t use. They go crazy for it.”

and an interview with interview with Chris McClay about her personal chef service called Modern Vegan.

“It’s so interesting – nobody’s been vegan yet,” McClay said of the clients for her business, which she launched in April. “I’ve always had the feeling right from the beginning that my service is not for vegans. However, my clients do lean towards vegetarianism.”

 

Farmers Market, Blueberries & Water

| Posted in Farming, General News

Today’s Press Herald includes a report on a new credit/debit card/food stamp option at the farmers market,

“It’s something that the farmers have been talking about for the past couple of years,” said Jaime Berhanu of Lalibela Farm in Bowdoinham. “There are probably already five or six of us who take food stamps, and just maybe two or three that do credit cards. It’s one of these things that’s been on the long-term goal list.”

a survey of blueberry-flavored products and list of Southern Maine locations for berry picking,

Blueberries are even more abundant this year, thanks to the loads of new products on grocery shelves that tout them as potent antioxidants. From blueberry juices to dried blueberries in cereals, there are more ways than ever to get your blueberry fix.

This year, I thought it would be fun to look at some ways you can drink your blueberries.

and an article about a Portland firm that provides an alternative to bottled water.

In place of waste-generating and chemical-leaching plastic bottles and jugs, Blue Reserve provides bottle-less water coolers that use a nine-stage, commercial-grade water filtration system.