Best of Show

People frequently ask me about must-see places for foodies visiting Portland. Most recently, I wrote up this list in an email, and then I thought I should post it here:

If I were going to spend a weekend in Portland, I'd want to be sure to check out:

Dining and Drinking:

• Becky's Diner - local breakfast joint
• Gilbert's Chowder House - local lunch joint 
• Fore Street - fancy dinner 
• Drifter's Wife - acclaimed hyperlocal dining, if you can get in
• Silly's - casual and fun near East Bayside
• Duckfat - trendy dinner 
• Portland Hunt & Alpine Club - cocktails
• Thirsty Pig - beer and sausages
• Novare Res - beer 
• Central Provisions - cocktails, beer and good food
• Liquid Riot - noisy distillery with restaurant 
• Holy Donut - potato donuts, go early 
• Mount Desert Island Ice Cream - Lorna still raves about the tangerine-tarragon sherbet 
• Gelato Fiasco is also highly regarded. Not an ice cream guy myself. 

Shopping

We did it again. The weather forecast was promising, so the VP Engineering surprised us with a shiny new gas grill!

The Software Developers and the QA crew had at it, with a little help from the Technical Writers, Marketing, and two industrious interns. Our CSA share came in that morning, so we had a lot of "raw material" to work with.

This was our biggest pot-luck lunch so far, maybe thanks to the creative energy unleashed by that grill. Some of it was competitive energy, and some was just the joy of sharing something delicious with our friends.

We had:

Have you seen the listing of cookbooks in What's on my Shelf? If you're the sort to enjoy whiling away a winter evening with a few good cookbooks and dreams of great ingredients and friendly farmers' markets...Well you could do worse than the two dozen+ books on that section of this site.

There is a broad variety of books listed there, with links to Amazon pages for the same books. Most (all?) of them feature in recipes on this site. And they have writer's insights about the books, and more. It's not a comprehensive list of the best cookbooks in the world, or even of the best in New England. Honestly, who has the presumption to tell you what's best? Why would you listen to that presumptuous fool?

This list is randomly generated from the sources of the recipes on this site, and the few books that simply could not be ignored - This is what's on my shelf. What's on yours?

It's maple sugaring season! This quintessential New England flavor is enjoyed all year, but it must be made in the fading days of winter when the sap is rising in the trees but they can still freeze at night.

We spent two Saturdays exploring the sugarhouses of southern Maine learning the intricacies of maple syrup making.  We visited Hilltop Boilers in Newfield, Cooper's Royal Heritage Farm in Windham, and Goranson Farm in Dresden. It was a lot of fun, and very interesting. Here's what we learned.

Maple syrup comes from the sap of sugar maples, black maples, and red maples. At this time of year you can see plastic or metal buckets equipped with roofs hanging from maple trees all over New England. A gallon of syrup requires on average about 40 gallons of sap, and each tap produces 10 to 20 gallons of sap, so the buckets must be emptied frequently over the course of the season, which lasts about 6 weeks.

I love visiting windy, rocky Pemaquid Point in the winter. The rocks there are dramatic, long banded fingers of stone with crashing surf on all sides. It doesn't look like anyplace else in Downeast Maine. The lighthouse is photogenic, there are picnic tables and rest rooms, and it's easy to reach from Damariscotta and Newcastle, and even from Boothbay Harbor.

Our destination after Pemaquid Point was in the farm country just on the other side of Route 1. I had read about Oxbow Beer and even sampled their flagship Farmhouse Pale Ale at Le Garage in Wiscasset. I knew they brew a line of "freestyle" one-off brews and other interesting brews, taking full advantage of the flexibility offered by their small size and dedicated following.

We were not disappointed! We chatted with Celeste and Jake, two young but very helpful and knowledgeable employees (Lorna also got to meet the cute and furry Director of Security, Matilda Barncat).

For the longest time I always thought sausage came in two ways - either cased like a "sausage" or else in a patty. You could mix it with tomatoes to create nice gravy for your spaghetti, grill it to enjoy with peppers and onions, pan sear it for breakfast, or whatever. It was not until about a year and a half ago that I discovered Sausage Fatty. Google it, it is a real thing that can inspire much cooking creativity.

This weekend I competed with the Andy King and The Bastey Boys in a BBQ Cooking Contest at the Harvard Fall Festival  in Harvard, MA. There were two sausage contests; People’s Choice and New England BBQ Society (NEBS) Grilling. The past two years I have entered these events using a homemade sausage from the Sausage Lady on Rt. 27 Hanson. I would buy her Smoked Provolone & Roasted Red Pepper sausage and grill it, with excellent results.

I took a vacation day on a late summer Friday and spent it exploring Boston's North End.  I love the North End for shopping and eating, people-watching and just exploring. I love the narrow back alleys and the smells and the sounds, and the shops cluttered with all sorts of good stuff that I can't get anywhere else.

I visited a number of favorite shops, including:

We left the Sunday rain behind us and took the interstate highways to Quechee Gorge and then country roads to VT100 so we could explore that fine road through the middle part of the state as far as the Mad River Valley and Rte 89, and to see Montpelier. One of the most exciting things I saw was before we ever left Quechee.

There is a big complex at Quechee that includes a Cabot store, a huge antiques coop, a winery, and some other shops. Now there is a brand new building there: the new distillery for Vermont Spirits, makers of Vermont Gold and Vermont White vodkas. In the middle of the photo you can see the still with the tall, tall column.  

I am not a big vodka fan. I buy it sometimes to make vanilla extract, but I don't keep it in my liquor cabinet. So why get excited about the vodka distillery? Against the far wall was a big rick filled with oak aging barrels. Vodka doesn't get aged, so what's the story? I discovered that Vermont Spirits is aging a new apple brandy product!