Category: General News

PPH: Apples, Evangeline and Permaculture

| Posted in General News, People

The Food  & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes an article about this year’s apple harvest,

“We have two orchards, and at the one in Manchester, which is near Augusta, we ended up with half a crop because of the frost when we were in full bloom,” said Marilyn Meyerhans, who owns the orchards with her husband, Steve. “But the rest of the crop is good. And then our Fairfield orchard, it’s a full crop but it’s coming so early that we’re picking like crazy about a week before we should be. But they’re ready.”

a report on the Apple, Swine and Wine menu taking place all this month at Evangeline,

“Since the apples are in microseasons all through September and October, and the pig has so many parts, it will give me the opportunity to do a new preparation every day,” Desjarlais said.

Look for shaved Liberty apple with peameal bacon and fennel.

and an interview with Lisa Fernandez and David Whitten on their permaculture backyard farm in Cape Elizabeth.

Tucked into a typical suburban neighborhood in Cape Elizabeth where lawns and flower beds dominate the landscape, Fernandes and her husband, David Whitten, have done away with their lawn and packed their third of an acre lot, just two houses from the South Portland line, with a growing backyard farm.

Maine Chocolate Ice Cream and Truffles Win Honors

| Posted in General News

Dean’s Sweets won top honors in both the Best Truffle and Best Traditional Chocolates categories as well as placing in four other categories at the 2010 Boston Luxury Chocolate Salon.
Gifford’s Ice Cream won 1st place at the 2010 World Dairy Expo in the category for Regular Chocolate Ice Cream, according to a report in Maine Ahead magazine.

Gifford’s Ice Cream (www.giffordsicecream.com), central Maine’s third-generation family ice cream business, swept the competition at the 2010 World Dairy Expo, earning not only the title of “World’s Best Chocolate” for the third time, but also being recognized as “Grade A & Ice Cream Grand Champion,” besting the entire Championship Dairy Product category, considered a coup in industry circles.

Cape Kitchen Tour & The Costs of Industrial Food

| Posted in General News, Events

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes articles on the kitchen tour taking place next weekend in Cape Elizabeth,

In this era when the average home cook has been whipped into a Food Network frenzy, kitchen tours have become a popular way for nonprofits to raise money. Foodies love to drool over other people’s Viking stoves, Subzero refrigerators and acres of counter space begging to be filled with Kitchen Aid mixers and Dualit toasters.

a Natural Foodie article on the real costs of the industrial food system,

“What we’ve got now are microbes, such as E. coli 0157:H7, that were not common in the past and seem to have originated in feedlots and are now ubiquitous in the environment,” said Russell Libby, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

a reminder that Anna Lappe, author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It will be at Longfellow Books tonight at 7 pm for a reading and book signing,
and an article about the new Maine restaurant cook book by Michael Sanders and Russell French. For more on the cookbook see this June television interview with Steve Corry.

Cape Kitchen Tour & The Costs of Industrial Food

| Posted in General News, Events

The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald includes articles on the kitchen tour taking place next weekend in Cape Elizabeth,

In this era when the average home cook has been whipped into a Food Network frenzy, kitchen tours have become a popular way for nonprofits to raise money. Foodies love to drool over other people’s Viking stoves, Subzero refrigerators and acres of counter space begging to be filled with Kitchen Aid mixers and Dualit toasters.

a Natural Foodie article on the real costs of the industrial food system,

“What we’ve got now are microbes, such as E. coli 0157:H7, that were not common in the past and seem to have originated in feedlots and are now ubiquitous in the environment,” said Russell Libby, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

a reminder that Anna Lappe, author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It will be at Longfellow Books tonight at 7 pm for a reading and book signing,

and an article about the new Maine restaurant cook book by Michael Sanders and Russell French. For more on the cookbook see this June television interview with Steve Corry.

Outdoor Eats at The Porthole and Silly's

| Posted in General News

An article in Wednesday’s Portland Daily Sun writes about outdoor eating in Portland with special attention paid to The Porthole and Silly’s. For a complete (I think) list of outdoor eating spots in Portland see this list on PFM.

An endless summer doesn’t appeal to everyone, and even I look forward to pulling out my oversized sweaters, roasting freshly carved pumpkin seeds with different spices, and hitting the Cumberland County Fair to ogle the pies and bovines. It’s the change of seasons that makes each individual one so tasty; but for now, as Springsteen says, I’m going to keep “drinkin’ warm beer in the soft summer rain” as long as Mother Nature will allow.

Outdoor Eats at The Porthole and Silly’s

| Posted in General News

An article in Wednesday’s Portland Daily Sun writes about outdoor eating in Portland with special attention paid to The Porthole and Silly’s. For a complete (I think) list of outdoor eating spots in Portland see this list on PFM.

An endless summer doesn’t appeal to everyone, and even I look forward to pulling out my oversized sweaters, roasting freshly carved pumpkin seeds with different spices, and hitting the Cumberland County Fair to ogle the pies and bovines. It’s the change of seasons that makes each individual one so tasty; but for now, as Springsteen says, I’m going to keep “drinkin’ warm beer in the soft summer rain” as long as Mother Nature will allow.

The Locavorian Lunch Tray

| Posted in General News

The Natural Foodie column in today’s Press Herald is on the strides made by school systems in bringing locally grown food and freshly prepared food to the student lunch trays.

One of the most visible changes in Portland this year is the addition of fruit and vegetable buffets at all nine elementary schools.

Less visible is the drive to make more dishes in-house and rely less on processed food.

“We’ve made pretty big strides in bringing scratch-made food back to Portland schools,” Adams said. “We still serve chicken nuggets once a month, but now we do breaded drumsticks made in-house and baked red potatoes instead of tater tots.”

NYT: the Maine Kneading Conference

| Posted in General News

The New York Times Dining section visited the 2010 Kneading Conference that took place this Summer in Skowhegan and reports on the expanding capacity to grow and process local wheat, in Maine and elsewhere.

The Kneading Conference is part of a quiet revolution whose center is Skowhegan, a town in central Maine that produced enough grain in the 1830s to feed 100,000 people. As interest in local food has risen, federal and state agriculture departments are underwriting experiments to find the best varieties of wheat, and artisanal bakers are eagerly trying the flours they produce. But it is the conference that has helped turn the scattered movement into the next new thing for locavores, and the practical topics discussed this year — building more gristmills, making old farm manuals available — reveal its progress from infancy to adolescence.