Map & Menu has published an endorsement (with beautiful photos, as usual) of the outdoor seating area at El Rayo.
I’m going to regret doing this, because I already hate waiting for open picnic tables on the gorgeous days, but I strongly recommend that the next time the sun comes out, and you find yourself in Portland, grab a seat, a drink, and a taco, and kick back to enjoy the Maine summer.
The Press Herald has published a bar review of Flask,
I met a friend out for a weekend-welcoming drink at Flask on a recent Friday. For both of us, it was our first time hitting up the lounge near Portland’s West End. Shortly after we walked in, I spotted the lineup of flasks on a ledge near the ceiling. Each one had a little funky flair to it, just like the bar.
and the What Ales You column in today’s paper challenges its readers to reach past their go-to brew for something new this 4th of July.
So, I am going to suggest you try something new — three established craft breweries that have been around for a decade or more, but which have just been introduced to store shelves in Maine. They are Lagunitas, from Petaluma, Calif.; Founders, from Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Green Flash, from San Diego, Calif.
The Grand Opening for Mark’s Place is scheduled to take place this Friday. According to a full page ad in this week’s Portland Phoenix, the doors at Fore Street’s newest bar will open at 4 pm and there will be free hors d’oeuvres, 4-6.
Mark’s is located at 416 Fore Street which most recently was a venue called The Edge.
The Portland Phoenix has published an article about all the prep work that goes into creating the food for the Greek Heritage Festival.
There will be marinated and grilled lamb souvlaki (kabobs), rice pilaf, Greek salad, spanakopita (spinach pie), moussaka (eggplant casserole), pastitsio (Greek lasagna), dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), and an assortment of desserts, most of which non-Greeks can get nowhere else in Portland except on these three days. I spent a couple hours with the pastry team last week as they prepared for the event.
The festival starts on Thursday and runs through Saturday night.
The Food & Dining section in today’s Press Herald has an article on strawberries which includes recipes from 3 Portland chefs, a guide to farms where you can pick your own strawberries, details strawberry dishes on the menu at local restaurants, a calendar of strawberry festivals in Maine and info on a strawberry jam making class taught by Kate McCarty.
“My advice to people is to get out a little earlier this year to get what you want, and certainly call the farmer ahead of time to see how things are going,” David Handley, a small-fruit specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said in an interview after last week’s stretch of hot weather. “I’ve been out in the fields for the last couple of days, and I’ve been amazed how two days of temperatures approaching the 90s will ripen strawberries so quickly.”
The season started a little early as well, anywhere from a week ahead of schedule to just a day or two, depending on the location of the farm.
Also in today’s paper is an article about Kids Gone Raw,
Sensing an opportunity, Knowles quickly contacted her friend Elizabeth Fraser, who runs the Girl Gone Raw cooking school in Portland. Over lunch at Local Sprouts Cooperative Cafe, the two came up with the idea of a raw foods cookbook filled with kid-friendly recipes.
The book is now written and the pair is in the process of determining which publisher they want to work with…In the meantime, the two are busy creating a line of raw vegan foods for children, making appearances at events and teaching classes.
Both Sweeter Salt and Map & Menu have written up their recent trips to Maxwell’s Farm for strawberry picking,
…There seemed to be quite the contest to see who could pick the most perfect looking strawberry (I maintain that I was a clear winner in this contest) – in the end, we ended up picking quite a lot of these perfectly shaped beautiful, bright berries, and have enjoyed eating them on just about everything since! They’ve accompanied our morning oatmeal and daily salads, and have made the perfect topping for an angel food cake we picked up at Whole Foods. Strawberry pie & strawberry jam are both on our list of things to make this week as well.
and via a pair of re-tweets from Maine Foodie Tours we learned that Allagash is working on a strawberry-infused variant of Allagash Four called Avance (pic 1, pic 2), and that Maine Mead Works will be putting out a strawberry-flavored mead in July.
NPR’s food blog, The Salt, has published an article about MOOMilk.
Now, things are looking up, albeit modestly. MOOMilk has been picked up by Whole Foods and Hannaford’s, as well as by a swath of small purveyors across northern New England. Even with demand for organic milk booming, though, the cooperative is struggling to push past 5,000 gallons in weekly sales.
Edible Obsessions has published a large set of photo’s from Sunday’s Taste of the Nation fundraiser at Diamond Cove.
Photo Credit: Edible Obsessions
Update: Eat Maine has also posted a set of photos on Facebook.
Mainebiz has published an article about Portland’s growing coffee industry.
“We believe there’s lots of room in Portland for people who are serious about our craft,” says [Bard co-owner Bob] Garver from behind the bar on a busy afternoon as [co-owner Jeremy] Pelkey and two baristas zip around him, pouring water over fresh grounds set over a weighed glass Kalita server and pulling espresso from the shiny Simonelli machine Garver bought recently from the World Barista Championships. “Portland’s got a wonderful food scene and we feel like the coffee in Portland should meet or exceed that standard.”
Salt Cellar is under construction in the basement space on the corner of Middle and Market Streets. Salt Cellar was founded in Portsmouth NH and this will be there second location. You can see there full product line of finishing salts on their e-commerce site.
The windows of the new retail store are filled with a set of quotes about salt: