Category: People

Solo Dining & Bartender Interview

| Posted in General News, People

Dispatch magazine has published their list of the 5 best spots in Portland for solo dining,

…I think there’s something totally underrated about alone time.  I especially like eating alone and my buds here at Dispatch agree. In fact, my twitter identity is the @thelonelymower because I often “mow” (meaning to eat quickly/aggressively) alone. Thus, we bring you a list of five great spots to go and have a meal in the company of yourself in Portland.

and an interview with Sonny’s bartender Jon Clemons.

So, what’s your favorite thing about bartending?
Making drinks and watching people—teaching people about cocktails. I love it when people sit in front of me and ask, “What’s that? Why you doing that? What’s that for?” I love turning people on to cocktails that don’t like cocktails. Like some dude sitting in front of me watching me make cocktails and he’s drinking a beer and ten fifteen minutes into it he’s asking me a million questions then all the sudden he’s drinking cocktails. That’s what I like.

HuffPo: Interview with Erin MacGregor-Forbes

| Posted in People

The Huffington Post has posted an interview with Portland Master Beekeeeper Erin MacGregor-Forbes.

Having just wrapped up a two-and-a-half year term as president of the Maine State Beekeeper Association, what are the biggest hurdles you see Maine beekeepers facing?
Education is the biggest hurdle for Maine beekeepers and beekeepers throughout the county. There are so many new beekeepers getting into the craft, and not enough educational resources. Beekeeping is much more complicated than just “adopting a beehive”. You really need to be able to understand the biology of what is going on in the colony because the bees can’t just tell you when things aren’t going well. Beekeeping is a skill best taught hands-on or in classroom…

The interview is part of an ongoing series that Maine food blogger Sharon Kitchens is writing for the Huffington Post.

Maine’s Spirited Connection to Martinique

| Posted in People

Joe Ricchio has written a piece for Bon Appetit about the Maine connection to Rhum Clément from Matinique.

Sipping Rhum Clément 10-year old Grande Reserve Tres Vieux, a special-edition rum aged in a combination of French and American barrels, may mentally transport you to the tropical idyll of Martinique, but the man behind import, sales, distribution, and marketing of his family’s Rhum Clément does does his business from a decidedly temperate place: Brunswick, Maine.

Interview with Chef Cheryl Lewis

| Posted in People

Sabroso, El Rayo’s in-house blog, has posted an interview with chef Cheryl Lewis.

What drew you to Mexican cuisine? Just before we opened El Rayo, my mother handed me a Mexican cookbook I had written for my 5th grade class. I had made each kid their own copy to accompany my Mexican fiesta of tacos, beans, and buñuelos for dessert. I might have even made a piñata. Mom and I laughed and said something like “we should have known then!” Later, I paid my way through college in California by working in restaurants. In California, Mexican is a powerful undercurrent and when I moved back East I constantly missed that cuisine, always full of piquant flavor and freshness.

Wall Street Journal: Saigon’s Pho

| Posted in People, Cooking

The Wall Street Journal has published an article by Portland author Kate Christensen about the Pho at Saigon on Forest Ave.

But now, I just got out my laptop and Googled. I found a Vietnamese place called Saigon that delivered, and on the menu was beef pho. I gasped with joy. Within a half-hour the paper bag arrived, containing two huge plastic containers of broth, piping hot and smelling incredible. We squeezed in lime juice and added cooked rice noodles, then thin slices of raw sirloin, which cooked instantly in the steaming soup, then slivers of onion and chili, crunchy mung bean sprouts and fresh basil and cilantro. We fell on it with chopsticks and spoons, too impatient to wait for it to cool. The broth was rich and beefy and very clear, full of the delicate flavors of cinnamon, black pepper and a familiar yet mysterious mix of other spices I’d come to associate with this warming soup.

the article includes Saigon’s recipe for Pho.

Interview with Frosty’s

| Posted in People

Thursday’s Press Herald includes an interview Nels Omdal, co-owner of Frosty’s Donuts. As reported earlier this week, Brunswick-based Frosty’s will soon be opening a location in South Portland.

Q: How many doughnuts do you make each day?
A: Last Tuesday, we made about 140 dozen and sold out around noon. On the weekends, I make 225 dozen. There is usually a line out the door and everything’s gone by 9:45 a.m. On Labor Day weekend, when we opened the Freeport shop, we made 400 dozen.

Maine Spirits Calling (UPDATED)

| Posted in People

Today’s episode of Maine Calling on MPBN radio will take a look at the evolving craft distilling industry here in Maine.

Host Keith Shortall will be interviewing bartender extraordinaire John Myers, Joe Swanson from Maine Distilleries and Ned Wight from New England Distilling.

The radio show airs at 12:15 on 90.1 FM. I’ll post a link to a recording of the show once it’s available.

Update: The audio recording of this interview is now available online.

Dalliances, Bread, Crystal Light

| Posted in People

In today’s Portland Daily Sun columnist Natalie Ladd provides her insider’s view on what goes on behind the scenes and stories of customers behaving badly.

I also had to half-jokingly remind the guy to punch out when heading to the love nest, which he shared with the fuse box, some cleaning equipment, and the Christmas decorations. The restaurant community adopted, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, long before the military and there are hundreds of stories equally as amusing (and fundamentally as inappropriate) as this one, which always makes me smile.