John Myers, Bartender

| Posted in People

Down East has published an extended profile of John Myers, the Dean of Portland bartenders and an acknowledged expert in classic cocktails.

Myers is large and a bit shambling, and has something almost architectural occurring as regards to facial hair. One would be forgiven for thinking him the offspring of Grendel’s mother and Wyatt Earp. (In describing his appearance on stage last year during a national cocktail competition against well-groomed twentysomething bartenders, the Wall Street Journal’s Eric Felten wrote that Myers cultivated “a dour glower in keeping with his Wild Bill Hickok whiskers and locks. His demeanor also appeared to reflect some culture-clash discomfort, the awkwardness Leon Redbone might feel sharing the stage with Moby.”)

Farm-to-Table List

| Posted in General News

Travel and Leisure has included Cinque Terre on their list of Great Farm-to-Table restaurants.

When chef Lee Skawinski travels around Italy each year, he′s not just sourcing recipes. Strains of beans, squash, and lettuce from the area wind up on a five-acre farm in Greene, Maine, then at his Italian restaurant 45 miles from there, in downtown Portland—proving that farm-to-table cooking can have geographic underpinnings an ocean away.

Calendar Island Lobster Co.

| Posted in Fisheries

MPBN had a report yesterday on the Calendar Island Lobster Company. The new company will be selling their lobsters with numbered claw bands that you can look up online to learn about the lobsterman who caught it.

Jordan says retail lobsters will be hand-selected for quality, and wear bands bearing a number code representing the fisherman who caught the crustacean. “So that if somebody in Dallas buys these lobsters, or somebody in Denver, they can type in the number code and go on to our Web site, so they can read about the lobsterman that actually caught their lobsters, learn a little about their lives and more about their product and everything and really know right where their lobster came from,” Jordan says.

Parker's Bar Review

| Posted in Reviews

Portland Bar Guide has published a review of Parker’s.

My heavily bearded, lumberjack of a neighbor slams an enormous paw on the bar and roars “Get ouuuta heeere!” as though a bloodlust for all things Oriole had overtaken him. Nobody notices the outburst, in part because Parker’s is this year celebrating its 20th anniversary of such displays. We’ll call this Cheers parallel #1. In the fervor of the moment, I quick-grab the menu and scan for the sportsiest possible appetizer, in this case, the first thing containing the word “buffalo.”

Parker’s Bar Review

| Posted in Reviews

Portland Bar Guide has published a review of Parker’s.

My heavily bearded, lumberjack of a neighbor slams an enormous paw on the bar and roars “Get ouuuta heeere!” as though a bloodlust for all things Oriole had overtaken him. Nobody notices the outburst, in part because Parker’s is this year celebrating its 20th anniversary of such displays. We’ll call this Cheers parallel #1. In the fervor of the moment, I quick-grab the menu and scan for the sportsiest possible appetizer, in this case, the first thing containing the word “buffalo.”