The new issue of Working Waterfront includes a profile of Pearls Seaside Market and Cafe which is run by Steve and Johanna Corman on Cliff Island in Casco Bay.
Johanna prefers to work the cafe. While neither she nor Steve had formal restaurant experience, Johanna grew up on Apple Acres Farm in South Hiram, where she ran the gift shop and created gourmet apple products that were eventually picked up by Dean & Deluca. In the morning she bakes goods like cinnamon rolls and egg sandwiches-without a stove. “We don’t have the right ventilation system for an oven, so I do it all on a griddle!” she says. Other highlights on her menu are homemade pizza (the feta and spinach pie was delicious) and the B.L.L.T, a classic bacon, lettuce, lobster and tomato sandwich.
The newspaper also features an examination of the intersection between locavorism and island living by food historian Sandy Oliver.
slanders, and everyone else, used to be so much better at producing food for themselves, especially vegetables, milk and eggs. Pigs, cows and chickens dotted our landscape, as well as the occasional beef critter. In this, we were hardly different from mainlanders. Some of this urge is creeping back, at least here on Islesboro, and a fine looking steer moored to a spike graces the yard of a neighbor about a mile away. We hear about chicks being hatched and, despite last year’s disastrous gardening seasoning, a few new gardens have been created and fenced in.