Week in Review, May 23

“Our food system is paramount to everything," said herring advocate Howdy Houghton. "Tell me one person that doesn’t eat!” (1). Alewives, a spring lobster bait, returned to Webber Pond in Vassalboro (2). The Herring Alliance called fishing management out of whack (3), French fishermen protested fuel costs (4), and 30 pages of the Farm Bill were apparently lost between the Congressional signing and President Bush's veto (5).

A free-range pig was on the loose at Colby College (6), high school seniors had a raging food fight that damaged stage curtains (7), and a dining service manager said, "We salvage food here on a regular basis" (8). Then, there was dog beer (9).

An appeal for crackers in Working Waterfront (10) went unacknowledged (11). The reopening of the Chebeague Island Inn (12) had similar effects (13). Browne Trading, Fore Street, and J's Oyster Bar got a mention from Rogues Gallery founder Alex Carleton (14), Novares Res opened and Norm's East End Grille had free happy hour food (15), and you needed booze to enjoy the sashaying young men at Gauchos (16).

Tourist Day weekend

For some, Memorial Day marks the invasion of Massholes. For others, the Tourist Day weekend means eating outside. Or hitting the road. All this tourism pretty much equates Maine with lobster. Sigh.

One company zaps them with water. Others use the CrustaStun. Then, there's this recipe for lobster rolls. And a user's manual to lobster shacks. This is The Way Life Should Be.

No word on whether sustainable lobster will save the industry in apparent decline – at least if repossessions and boatbuilding are indicators. For cheapskates, there's still chance to catch a late flight to PEI, where lobstermen are giving away lobsters for free in protest of low prices.

Biopiracy

Photo: Ines Doujak,
via WC.

Bars rule

A few suggestions from Justin Ellis:

Entertainment: No riding mechanical animals of any kind. This includes bulls, horses, moose, pandas and alpacas. [Huh?]

Beer: Isn't it time to ban all beer not brewed in the Northeast? Buy local(ish), via PPH.

Hangovers

This isn't the reason for the shortage of blog posts. It's the excessive research that has the same net effect.

Benny, clam fryer

Emilitsa

Lively and pungent garlic and lemon flit in and out of many dishes, while oregano evokes a dry, fragrant hillside overlooking a sea far different from the northern Atlantic. In fact, everything on these plates at Emilitsa seem infused with another world, via PPH.

It's not a Mediterranean love shack. It's Emilitsa – on Congress Street.

The last time the trumpets emerged and the cherubs were swaddled in sexual innuendo, it spelled a four-letter word.

Fragaria ssp.

Photo: Local foodie.

Week in Review, May 15

The Icehouse closed, but its owners kept fighting Portland City Hall (1), no reporting on the ice cream war cited North East Ice Cream, LLC (2), and Chicago ended its ban on foie gras (3). Food companies were compared to defense contractors (3.5) and a proposed outdoor smoking ban led a health expert to compare cigarettes and smack: “If heroin were legal it is unlikely you would allow people to shoot up at the entrance to Hadlock Field” (4).

A Vinalhaven buoy ended up in the Dominican Republic (5), 2008 was expected to be a bad year for red tide (6), and the Chebeague Island Inn reopened (7). A Scarborough produce buyer described buying brussel sprouts in LA for Steve Corry's Food Network spot (7.5). The middle class was hit by rising food costs (8), setting off a new kind of Victory Gardens (9) and killing off Mimosas (10).

Not every Maine farmer was happy about the Farm Bill (11), which Maine representative Susan Collins opposed (12) and President Bush planned to veto (13). Bush's comments about India caused critics to blame the US for the global food crisis (14). Portion sizes increased (15) and Congress suggested the need for another Green revolution (16). A Levant dairy farmer said, "Nine percent of U.S. farms are getting 60 percent of government subsidies" (17).

DIY goes GYO

Yawns are reportedly going GYO, says TMS. Translation guide from the British:

GYO.
Cragger.
Yawns.

Homegrown Herb and Tea

A man walks into a bar. He's trades energy. But not like oil futures.

Jay Levine, an energy trader who moved to Portland from New York, comes in every day and sits at the bar with his laptop. He said he finds Richards' store "extremely comforting and very inviting. There aren't that many places that exude this kind of aura," via PPH.

That's Homegrown Herb & Tea. Nice.

Spices of Life

Photo: Stacey Cramp.

Opens at Rabelais, May 30th, 5 p.m.

Mims, the interesting

Brian Duff roasts and steams his way across Mims Brasserie. From a sort of ponytailed chef to a sort of pothead waiter to the food:

Pan-roasted chicken also offered a dualistic experience. It came with a breast that might have benefited from a more interesting sauce. The leg offered more skin, crisp in spots, still soft in others, that made the dish a bit more interesting, via tP.

Apocalyptic foreboding now

The New Yorker takes a look at authors on the dark side of the global food crisis. These are the kinds of books that fall into the category, Food Kills:

“Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System,” by Raj Patel (Melville House; $19.95); “Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood,” by Taras Grescoe (Bloomsbury; $24.99); and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” by Michael Pollan, the poet of the group (Penguin Press; $21.95).

All of these authors agree that the entire system of Western food production is in need of radical change, right down to the spinach.

A vein of criticism that follows Upton Sinclair and other veritable meat writers.

The Ice Cream Man

Not the music man. The recent problem on Councilor Donoghue's stomping ground is really about the lack of ice cream shops on Munjoy Hill (most seem to require a car and a trip to the beach).

Figure, you get a ice creamery outside the Old Port and these trucks will have another problem. The Los Angeles taco kind: parking in front of storefronts. Or the New York kind: turf war. For now, it's just the inane melody that, unfortunately, gets stuck in your head.

A little kitchen Rx

The mortar and pestle isn't just for the pharmacist. It's a recipe for fresh ground spices.

Pig out

On the obscure book finds about bacon at Rabelais, via F+W.

Fort Kent, Me. (1942)

Buckwheat ployes are about as Acadian as it gets. And Portland is flirting with some ouvert crepefication, none of which recreate Mrs. Gagnon's buckwheat pancakes (left, via LOC).

The Merry Table Creperie on Fore Street opened (review here), and Zarra's Monumental Coffee House is reportedly featuring crepes.

The Five Portland Chefs

Photo: Heath Robbins/
Yankee Magazine
(Thanks SQ!)

Local is not necessarily better

At least when it comes to the issue of food-miles and carbon output, according to one recent study, via NPR.

Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food, via ES&T

More on meat and cragging, from the BBC.

Candy wrapper dressing

Knitfitti has invaded Munjoy Hill. Which means more visibility for Portland's masked bandits and Internet craftstars.

Next stop for crafty foodsters: Candy wrapper clothing. With Skittles and Clif Bars (left, via MAKE). Wouldn't you just love to see me in a candywrapper bowtie?

In defence of provincialism

So here's a perplexing argument. Don't look into the ambiguities, vagaries, contradictions of local, just buy really, really fresh produce from a farmer you know:

What I'm suggesting is that, just as with exercise, it's more important to DO it than it is to understand the whys. And then, the more local, green, organic, socially responsible or community-oriented (the list goes on) our choices become, gradually and naturally, the information will be absorbed, via PPH.

Week in Review, May 8

A TV host looking for great Maine chefs found a rerun (1) and, in Edgecomb, Roger Bintliff attempted to rebrand Maine as an East Coast version of California's Napa Valley (2). Dan's Restaurant allows customers to negotiate the meal price, a gimmick that had already been featured on NECN (3), might make it on NBC (4).

"I think that we will survive this crisis," the owner of When Pigs Fly told a Homeland Security Committee. "My fear is that… next year we will not be so lucky" (5). Amato's Bakery used 1.1 million pounds of flour last year (6), all across Maine, people went hungry (7), and cats were fed tuna on Peaks Island (8). Police reported suspicious fires behind Bruno's Restaurant (9) and anglers witnessed back decks floating down the Penobscot River (10).

Food prices sparked riots in Somalia (11), New Zealand was called the Saudi Arabia of milk (12), and the founder of Baskin-Robbins died (13). Big Daddy's opened (14). No one baled hay for the fun of it (15) and John Golden returned from the Hamptons (16). "That's like putting a piranha into a neighborhood swimming pool," said an Sebago Lake angler (17).

Fiddleheads, canned and fresh

The furled ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) is in season.

Found by the pound at Browne Trading, Paul's Food enter, Free Range Fish & Lobster, Harbor Fish, Hannaford, and Whole Foods Markup. See also last year's prices.

The W.S. Wells & Son cannery also put up the ferns for all-season consumption, via SM and NYT.

L'amour est dans le pré (Love in the Meadows)

Before "Farmer Wants a Wife" and "The Farmer's Wife," there was French television's "Love in the Meadows." For local loves, see also FarmersOnly.com.

Photo: Julien Knaub/M6/
FremantleMedia France.

Keeping tabs on the history of eating

In the history of the countercuisine, the link between eating acid and the kind of cosmic oneness that led to whole foods, man, is like, Wow. How else do you connect the war in Vietnam with the increase in rice consumption in the US? It's in a book called Appetite for Change, by Warren Belasco.

But the BBC dredged this dude last week with the death of Albert Hoffman, the man who unwittingly discovered D-lysergic acid diethylamide. He says LSD changed the way people eat:

"It was as a direct consequence of my brother and myself taking LSD that we introduced natural and organic foods in the UK. At that point people were looking forward to the day we all live on vitamin pills. Today you can't open a newspaper without reading about organic foods," via BBC.

The Food Times

Food news aggregator.

Honesty

Newspaper blackout
poem: Austin Kleon.

Welcome to Evangeline, please turn off your cellphones and crying babies

Family dinner. "Starting May 5, Evangeline will host a rustic three to five course supper of whatever he cooks that day, for about $30, a carafe of wine included," reports Nancy English.

Some dining tips: Ballcaps or cellphones irk the ex-Bandol badboy, but he tells Nancy English there's only a slim chance he'll pull "an EMT" during service. "On the irascible scale, I'm at a 2, compared to the 11 of my youth," he says.

Also, it's good to be aSomeone Important. More on that from Marya.

"When I was there," writes the Golden Boy, "it was rammed by a crowd of familiar faces, a mix of local mavens and would-be swells."

While Evangeline declined comment to TMS, the rag got an exclusive with Bresca server Chiara Liberatore.

Week in Review, May 1

Floods on the St. John and Fish rivers threatened horses (1). Fort Kent flood victims were given bottled water (2) and others brewed coffee and watched TV (3). A homeless man in Bangor was accused of homicide, a killing allegedly precipitated by an argument over beer (4), and the Rev. Peter Panagore described a whale eating fish in a pond (5).

Agflation spread across the world (6), food delivery costs soared (7), and President Bush promised food aid (8). In Augusta, state Republicans liked the Ground Round and said, "Even though we offer lunches and dinners, we love to dine in local establishments"; a Democrat said, "Most people will eat lunch on site, but we might be out and about for dinner and fueling the local economy" (9). Turkey season began (10).

"We work for nothing and we live in hell," said a Levant dairy farmer (11). Dunkin Donuts was accused of 19th century labor practices (12). Dysart's, one of the state's estimated 2,500 year-round restaurants, added healthy food and raised prices (13). "If the truck stops," said a trucker, "the economy stops" (14). An Ellsworth farmer used 932 gallons of fuel, at $3.59 a gallon, to burn his blueberry fields (15). Montville was full of counterrevolutionaries (16), Maine had the fifth youngest farmer population (17), and Victory Gardens reemerged (18).

Dinner

Photo: Noah Krell, via tB.

Reviews this week

Where's that tax rebate going? Phoenix Todd "Tofu is too fun" Richard says The Cheese Iron.

Other profiles in the Switch this week include Bogusha's and the new Demillo's, the one on dry land.

Free Range Fish and Lobster, on Commercial St, took away the take-out, and added beef.

Lolcovore

Lolcats + locavore.

Milkin' it

HP Hood apparently refused to increase the price they pay Maine farmers for milk:

Maine organic dairy farmer Mark McKusick explains "...Organic dairy farmers are returning to conventional production at an unprecedented rate because they are losing so much money... We appeal to consumers to demand that HP Hood pay their farmers a sustainable price!" via PRNews.

Pass the blame. One culprit, says Raj Patel, is price gouging by companies. Bring on the litigation lawyers.

Clambake Nation

Gary Paul Nabhan's new book, Renewing America's Food Traditions, led to this graphic on The Ethicurean, which led to this even more interactive graphic in The New York Times.

You live in Clambake Nation.

Nabisco Pilot Cracker

The near peril of this precious island commodity and its savior, Donna Damon, of Chebeague Island, an escapade retold by Sandy Oliver, via (a redesigned) Working Waterfront.

Organic + GE

The combination of organic farming and genetic engineering is something that Pamela Ronald, professor at the University of California at Davis, likes to tout, via Reuters and Boston Globe.

Coupled with news of rising food prices, the high percentage of organic farms in Maine, and the state's recent approval of GE crops, that could mean the state could be a testing ground for the concept. But it could spell other troubles. On one farm in Iowa, the idea's divided husband and wife, via NPR.

Fulton Street Fish Market (New York)

Photo: Barbara Mensch/
Bonni Benrubi Gallery NYC,
via NYT.

Gaucho's

A reserved critique of the food and a shower of praise for the flamboyant flower arrangement. In other words, Gauchos not quite skewered:

Some of the meat tasted bland, but several cuts were full of flavor, and it's certainly a kick to taste them all and compare. The flank steak, the short ribs and the resilient, spiced chicken hearts stand out from the more than 11 types of meat I tasted, via PPH.

Fore Street

Weekend

The Milk Haul, a reading and photo show about the transportation of organic and hormone-free milk in Maine, shows at Rabelais. 5 p.m. Free (beer).

The Natural Cook, a talk with Richard Wrangham, 7 p.m., UNE, via PFM. Free.

King Corn, a video about two college grads growing an acre of corn in Iowa, plays at Space, 7:30 p.m., via PPH and tP. $7

Potato planting parties at Rippling Waters farm in Steep Falls, and Turkey Hill Farm, Cape Elizabeth, via TMS. Saturday.

Future of Agriculture in Franklin County meeting. 6 to 8 p.m. West Farmington Grange Hall, via SJ.

Page Six

Bresca made the Conde Nast Traveler hot list. (Thanks QT!)

John Bunker, apple saver extraordinaire, made The Atlantic. (Thanks MOFGA!)

Rosemont's John Naylor reportedly bought Fat Baxters. (Thanks Anon!) Premade sandwiches next week.

Week in Review, Apr. 24

Typical Mainers served guests baked beans and ketchup (1), Sugarloaf planned to run vehicles off used fryer grease (2), and plastic bags were passe (3). Beef contributed to climate problems (4), and last February, the governor received a letter asking him to encourage Mainers to become vegetarians (5). "It's going to tax the poor people in the state more than the rich people," a man said about a beer and soda tax (6).

Happy Teriyaki opened in the same building as the National Kidney Foundation of Maine (7), nurses sickened from bad event food (8), and Mousam Lake still needed to eat right and get on an exercise program (9). The diet of pregnant women appeared to effect their child's gender (10).

A baby was called a great eater (11) and a book's protagonist ran from "metaphysical predators" who wanted to "eat his memories" (12). People counted frogs and peepers (13), bird droppings influenced the history of the world (14). chefs rarely worked on the line (15), city dwellers became farmers (16), and Joel Salatin offered $1,000 personal tours of his farm (17). One is six drivers drink (18).

Rice price

Rice prices are up. Crisis! Start hoarding. Just not at Wal-Mart. Hoard! Everyone's doing it.

Shackleton's stock

Photo:
John Weaver.

The Best

With so many "Best of" lists, it's hard to keep track. Here's the easy listening guide:

Down East.
The Phoenix.
Portland Press Herald.

The worst of the Bests under comments...

Kitchen designs

Four famous chefs describe how their kitchens reflect their philosophy, via Metropolis.

Evangeline

With Zagat-style quotes and less insight than [fill in the blank], Type A weighs in about Evangaeline:

"An instant classic, Evangeline is a 'must try' restaurant for foodies living in, or visiting Portland," via TA.

"Food" calls out a shill:

i disagree completely. i was there the same night. the food was just ok.

Erik Desjarlais said...

Thank you, Food. Although we hit some highs in the first few nights of service, I am aware of the lows as well. We're working out kinks. We are trying to not be typical maine.

And now, the beauties of decontextualization, cultural appropriation, and self-referential commentary:

It now appears that the whole episode is an example of how facts can be lost these days in an online sea of opinions, via PPH.

The Great Tortilla Conspiracy

Photo:
The GTC.

Ecoseafood

A new book on sustainable seafood, called "Bottomfeeder," by Taras Grescoe, comes out next month. Grescoe mentions Browne Trading – and a whole lot more:

Though [Chef Eric] Ripert and his peers can afford to buy the scallops Rod Mitchell personally harvested, or the monkfish from the day-boat whose captain they have met, the chef at the bistro in Milwaukee, or a salmon house in Calgary, almost certainly does not have that kind of access.... It was the very prestige of the world’s leading chefs that legitimized the ongoing pillage, via Ethicurean.

It seems pretty hopeless. So, when you're lost in front of the fish case, here are some tips from the Environmental Defense Fund, via NPR, and Friend of the Sea, via City Paper. (Thanks JI!). More resources merging new technology and sea life at the barcode of life and fishphone.