Source: North Spore & Wicked Sharp

This week’s edition of Source includes profiles of Wicked Sharp,

A sharp knife helps you work quickly, with precision, says David Oberton, cabinetmaker turned knife sharpener, who runs his business, Wicked Sharp, out of the South Portland home he shares with his wife, Sara (www.wickedsharpknives.com). He learned to sharpen knives while working in restaurants in Germany in the 1970s, continued the practice for friends and family, honed his skills under the tutelage of a master sharpener, and eventually hung his own shingle.

and the mushroom CSA North Spore.

Meet Eliah Thanhauser, a Maine native who, along with his friends and fellow College of the Atlantic graduates Jon Carver and Matt McInnis, started Maine’s first winter CSA (community supported agriculture) for mushrooms. Their Portland-based North Spore mushroom company also sells on the wholesale market and offers teas and tinctures made from foraged wild, medicinal mushrooms. We called Thanhauser up to talk about the company’s origins, its unique relationship with Amato’s and how often he eats mushrooms.

North Spore Mushroom CSA

northsporePortland now has a mushroom CSA.

North Spore is run by ” three friends and graduates of College of the Atlantic with an admiration for all things related to the mycological world,” Jon Carver, Eliah Thanhauser and Matt McInnis.

One of our primary goals at North Spore is to engage with the Greater Portland community and help to supply that community with local, sustainably produced mushrooms. What better way to do that then with a mushroom CSA? By becoming a member of our CSA you help to support your local mushroom farmers as well as the larger local food community. As part of this CSA you not only will receive the freshest gourmet mushrooms possible but you will also become part of our mycological network. We will be including education material with our CSA shares and will also be hosting tours and workshops that all CSA members are encouraged to attend.

The CSA will run for 18 weeks, from December 1st through March 30th. Participants receive a pound of culinary mushrooms per week for $250. Half shares are an option. Medicinal mushrooms are available for a $50 premium. Full details are available at northspore.com/mushroom-csa

 

The Kavanagh Apple Tree

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram tells the story of a rare Kavanagh apple tree in Freeport.

For us, it started when Rowan Jacobsen, author of the recently published book “Apples of Uncommon Character,” mentioned offhandedly a specific Kavanagh apple tree in an interview last month with the Press Herald. He thought it might be the rarest apple he’d encountered, and described it as growing “basically in a parking lot near L.L. Bean in Maine.” His final word, “I think that’s the only mature Kavanagh still in existence,” was catnip to Source editor Peggy Grodinsky. She sent me to find the tree, warning me we might need to shield its exact location to protect the tree’s future and asking me to tell, as best I could, its past.

Farm Produce Distribution Challenges

The new issue of Mainebiz includes a feature article on the challenges farmers and local food stores face in selling and distributing local produce.

Constant negotiating with buyers and other farmers is a way of life in Maine’s fragmented food distribution system, especially for small farmers and purveyors of specialty items like jams and honey. Those small operations practically define the local food and farm-to-table movements that sparked consumer interest in where food comes from and how it is grown or produced.

But that curiosity hasn’t helped broaden Maine’s food distribution system for the small producers to any significant degree, says Spear. The result: many small operations sell only within Maine or at most a day’s delivery drive, thus limiting their market.

Heirloom Apples/Maine Apple Sunday

This week’s Phoenix includes an article on heirloom apples in Maine.

These aren’t far-off planets as envisioned by a science-fiction writer; rather, these unusual names and appearances describe heirloom apple varieties. As students trundle off to school, the nighttime temperatures begin to dip, and the daylight lessens, apple trees all across Maine are ripening. While we have come to think of apples as only “red” or “green” (and usually disappointingly mealy), local orchards are now offering apples with a plethora of tastes, textures, and uses.

Today, Sunday September 14th, is Maine Apple Sunday. Check out the Maine State Pomological Society website for a complete list of participating orchards.

Farming Adventures in Maine

This week’s Source section in the Maine Sunday Telegram reported on farmers who are experimenting with growing produce not traditionally found in New England.

Lots of farmers like to experiment occasionally, growing the odd fruit or vegetable that doesn’t really belong in Maine just to see if they can.

Take Deborah Chadbourne of Rasmussen Farm & Western Maine Market in Freeman Township. In recent years she’s tried her hand at growing turmeric, ginger, cardamom, lemongrass and cardoon.

Alfred Matiyabo, Farmer

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a feature article about Alfred Matiyabo who grows produce in South Portland for the area’s African immigrant community.

…the pumpkins, the amaranth, and most of the eggplants are African varieties, the kind he remembers from his native Congo, their seeds ordered online. And these plants, cleaned, cut and packaged under his brand – Africando – in the commercial kitchen of a church in Portland, are crops specifically planted for a growing community of African refugees, Matiyabo’s customer base.

Gather Gardener Barter Program

This week’s Source reports on the home gardener barter established by Gather in Yarmouth.

Stephanie Ladd turned her green beans and peas into French toast last weekend.

This was not an act of magical gardening. Ladd is one of the home gardeners taking advantage of a garden-barter program at Gather restaurant in Yarmouth. Owner Matt Chappell put out the word in late July that he was looking to trade restaurant credit for produce, and Ladd heard about it from a friend.

Great East Butcher Co & SoPo Farmers’ Market

The Forecaster reports that 3 former Meat House employees have taken over the defunct company’s former location in Scarborough and are launching the Great East Butcher Co.

Great East is hoping for a mid-August opening for its second store, at 450 Payne Road. The first opened in early July in Stratham, New Hampshire. Both are former locations of The Meat House, a choice Chad Parent said was made based on relationships Moulton already had with landlords.

This week’s paper also includes an article about the South Portland Farmers’ Market.

The outdoor market, held Sundays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at City Hall, has unofficially attracted at least 100 customers a week – a small pool for the market’s 10 or 12 vendors. 

But its advocates, including market manager Caitlin Jordan of Alewife’s Brook Farm in Cape Elizabeth, remain optimistic about the market’s slow and steady growth.