Category: General News

As in past years, the James Beard Foundation has posted an open call for recommendations for the awards committee to consider when building the list of semifinalists for the 2024 chef and restaurant awards program. The deadline to submit recommendations is November 30th.

We’re looking for chefs, creators, food system leaders, and more who could be the next James Beard Award winners! Whether you published a cookbook in the last year, own a restaurant, or advocate for food system change, we encourage you to submit your entries and recommend your talented colleagues.

Reference this PDF for guidelines on the chef and restaurant awards categories.

To create an account and submit your recommendations visit: jamesbeardawards.awardsplatform.com

Cider Club Portland celebrated its fifth anniversary earlier this summer with a exceptional tasting of US and international ciders. The event that highlighted the progress made in cider appreciation and access over the past half decade.

The regular gathering of cider and apple folks was launched in 2018 by Sean Turley (instagram) initially as a way for local cider enthusiasts to share their passion and collaboratively taste ciders. The group has continued to evolve and now serves as an industry-focused gathering for cider producers and hospitality professionals. It has become an important crossroads for information and a networking event as much as a way to experience a diverse range of ciders and perrys that participants bring to share.

Turley shared his observation on the group’s anniversary, “It has been amazing to see cider grow so significantly in Maine over the last five years and the profound improvement in the quality of cider being produced across the country. Cider is in the same place as American wine in the 1970s, and the future is tremendously bright. It is such a pleasure too be involved with a group dedicating to helping cider realize its potential.”

A key philosophy that Turley established from the start is that all ciders—even ones that may likely be less than special—deserve to be tasted at the meetings and have something to teach. The group has collectively tasted 250+ ciders sourced from 10 countries and 18 states.

Maine now has 25 active producers with more various stages of development. According to IBISWorld there are 2,834 cider production businesses in the US as of 2023 which represents an increase of 13.6% from 2022. It’s exciting to imagine what the Maine cider industry will become and how the Cider Club organization can grow with it over the next five years.

If you are a beverage professional interested in more information on Cider Club, contact therighteousrusset@gmail.com.

The Press Herald has published an update on Petite Jacqueline.

See last week’s announcement from the Corry’s for further information.

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes an article on the growing interest in and opportunities to buy boba tea in Maine.

The boba boom has hit Maine for sure. At least five new bubble tea shops have opened in the state since November, including Kim Boba Tea & Coffee on Mellen Street and Lecha on Stevens Avenue in Portland, as well as farther-flung locations like Quickly Boba Café in Brunswick, Boba OOB in Old Orchard Beach, and Bubble Tea Café all the way up in Presque Isle.

The drink is also on the menu at many local Asian restaurants, like Keg and Kraken or Crunchy Poke, and has even been sold at major chains like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.

Leeward gets a mention in this Wall Street Journal article about restaurant wine list geekiness.

Chiaramonte told me the idea to ask for such a list came to him while reading an earlier Wine Berserkers post, about a real wine list that had been labeled geeky by another forum member, Dan Kravitz. Indeed, according to Kravitz, Leeward restaurant in Portland, Maine, has an “aggressively geeky” wine list because—at the time of Kravitz’s post on Wine Berserkers—few wines from familiar grapes like Cabernet, Chardonnay or Pinot Noir were listed. “[They] refuse to put anything well-known or popular on the list,” Kravitz said in an email.