OK...I'm hungry again, so let's go check the blogs and see what we can hunt down to inspire us to shop, cook, and eat! How about Salmon, Grilled Stuffed Pork Loin, Herbalicious Chicken, Pan-Fried Gnocchi, Ancho Lentil Soup, Baby Back Ribs, Maine Baked Beans, and Orange and Spice Cookies? Got your attention yet?
Continue reading "Recipe Hunt 2: Looking for Great Recipes" »
You probably shouldn't go clicking around the food sites when you're hungry. It's no different than food shopping on an empty stomach. While most things tend to look really good under both circumstances, here are a few recipes that I've added to my "I gotta make this" list.
Continue reading "Recipe Hunt – Chicken, Grilled Pizza, Rhubarb, Asparagus, Martini" »
Those who know me are aware that music is an important ingredient in my life. Ditto for visual imagery. So imagine how amazed I was to read Virginia Heffernan's post at her The Medium blog on the New York Times Magazine site today. She raves about ThruYou, a seven-track album created by musician/producer Kutiman consisting entirely of samples from user-contributed YouTube videos. Can you imagine the work that went into finding these clips and then creating a video album from them that actually works? How cool. What talent. What fun! Check it out!
Jim Bazin is the creative director of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine
It never seems to fail. You can almost count on it. Just when you need it the most, it's not there for you. While that statement could certainly apply to many varied scenarios, in this case I'm referring to our office printer.
It's a regular trip for me on Sundays to drive "all the way" (less than a mile) to downtown Thomaston in order to visit the fabulous Thomaston Cafe and treat myself to Chef Brian Beckett's wonderful Eggs Benedict for brunch. True, the hollandaise sauce he makes is mostly why I love this brunch item so much. I've never tasted better. But it certainly helps that the eggs are always cooked egg-zactly the way I like them (medium, and just a bit runny). Delicious.
Eggs Benedict at The Thomaston Cafe on Route 1 in Thomaston
I have to give the nod to Chef Michael Salmon, owner/chef Camden's Hartstone Inn for my choice. I do enjoy a well prepared lamb dish very much, and would rate a rack of lamb cooked medium-rare with an interesting glaze or sauce among my most favorite entrées.
When we were preparing our restaurant feature, To Market and Home Again, for the Holiday 2006 issue of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, we chose Chef Michael as our subject. We traveled around Camden with him to the local Farmer's Market as he collected the freshest local ingredients he could find for the meal ahead. Then we followed him back to the Hartstone Inn kitchen to watch him prepare his chosen menu, and to document the event.
Chef Michael chose his Phyllo-Wrapped Double Lamb Chops with Rosemary-Mustard Aioli recipe as the entrée for the meal. We had left the choice of menu to him, and couldn't have been more pleased with the results. When it was plated up and served, it was one of those "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" moments. And I wanted more. Absolutely fabulous!
You can find Chef Michael's recipe for this wonderful lamb entrée along with the rest of this meal (including his recipes for Wild Mushroom Soup with Dry Sherry Cream, his Celeriac Purée, and his Macadamia Nut Guava Tartlet), in our article online at: To Market & Home Again with Chef Michael Salmon
Trust me, this was a meal "to die for" ...
Jim Bazin is the creative director of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine.
I've enjoyed eating tacos many times at many locations. From restaurants to taco stands, from the east to west coasts, and even in Mexico (much spicier) I've sampled many different combinations of ingredients and salsas. As expected, I've sampled some very good tacos and some not-so-good ones. But I hadn't expected to find the best tacos I ever tasted right here in Maine. It wasn't at a restaurant or at a taco stand; rather, a home-cooked meal prepared by best selling novelist Tess Gerritsen at her home in Camden
We were visiting Tess to create one of our "Food of Art" features for the magazine (Holiday 2006), with Tess as the subject. I was caught up in process of photographing the event, while Merill conversed with Tess and her husband Jacob to flush out the article. Tess had mentioned that she would be preparing tacos for lunch, but neither of us had really been thinking about eating at that point. We were having a great time just being there and enjoying the conversation that evolved.
And then it was time for our taco lunch, which Tess prepared for us in her lovely modern kitchen. What a surprise. Not that I didn't expect the tacos to be good, it's that I didn't expect these to be the absolute best tacos I've ever had the pleasure of eating, anywhere, anytime. Turns out that Tess grew up in a family of food lovers, has a penchant for Mexican food, pays attention to the details of it all, is quite particular about ingredients, and the right ingredients certainly do make a difference.
Anyway, those tacos were delicious. I had to bite my tongue to keep from grabbing more and more from the serving platters in front of me. I ended up restraining my taco jones, and regret it to this day. But at least I didn't eat the photo this time!
I wish Tess would take a few months from writing her novels each year and open a part time Taco stand somewhere near our Rockland office. In my wildest dreams, I really don't expect this to happen. But Tess's Taco Stand would definitely be a regular lunch spot for me if she did. For now, that's a very pleasant kind of fiction to think about.
I could tell you a lot more about her tacos, and about Tess and her fascinating background, but you can read our article as well as get her taco recipe in the Holiday 2006 issue of our magazine: Tess's Tacos
Tess Gerritsen, you make a mean taco!
Jim Bazin is the creative director of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine.
I love oysters. I've gorged on them at seafood restaurants on the both our east and west coasts. I've been fortunate to have experienced oysters from Prince Edward Island, Washington (the state), Oregon, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, various B.C. locations, and innumerable others I can't recall this moment.
Up until recently, my most favorite "oyster experience" was attending an Oyster Night special event at Chef/Food Author Chris Schlesinger's wonderful East Coast Grill & Raw Bar in Cambridge, MA. Chris invited two local oyster farmers to bring in car loads of oysters they gathered that very day. He also brought in several wonderful wines specifically selected to enhance the experience of raw oyster gorging. And they did.
Those of us who attended this event were invited to consume as many oysters as we chose from either or both oyster harvester's supply. Each harvester had their own table, and had a resident shucker in tow. The shuckers worked in an unofficial speed-shucking competition. They attempted to keep up with demand while those of us in attendance waited patiently in one of the lines to get our plates refilled with more of these shellfish gems. Truly just-in-time oysters. How could it get better than that?
Well, both the wonderful mignonette sauce Chris had created (my first experience with a mignonette, which promptly ended my long term association with cocktail sauce) and the wine selection certainly enhanced the experience. AND those attending were given the unforgettable experience of at full two-hour open oyster and wine bar. An oyster lover's dream. Nirvana. But that's not all!
After the two-hour open bar window, we all sat down for dinner. True. There was a three-course meal, consisting of -- you guessed it -- oyster recipes. These were all cooked meals and were the proper ending to the raw oyster and wine extravaganza. I thought I'd never have such a wonderful oyster experience again in this lifetime, and I probably am right about that. At least for the sheer quantity of the experience.
I wasn't afraid of the enormous Bull Buffalo. I stood there and looked him eye-to-eye, not more than 20 feet away. It was my camera that was shaking. Well, maybe my tripod also. But certainly not me.
Being that close to such a magnificent and powerful creature gave me pause to reflect on the fragility of my life in the scheme of natural order. And I thought of the various stories I heard on my many past trips to the West Yellowstone area of Montana. How many tourists had been gored to death by these seemingly peaceful behemoths? I remember the story of a naive foreigne
r who tried to climb on the back of one while his wife waited to document his mission with her camera. I believe she was successful in capturing an image of his last adventure among the living. Ride-em cowboy no more.
So I have tons of respect for these magnificent American Bison, and enjoy observing them from a respectful distance. It's amazing and wonderful to see them alive and well in our wonderful state of Maine, and to reflect on my visits to observe Montana's Yellowstone buffalo during past summer seasons. They are truly a national treasure: America's last, free-roaming herd.
So you can imagine my outrage to read today that this winter alone, more than 1,000 wild bison have been killed or shipped to slaughterhouses by the National Park Service and the Montana Department of Livestock. The reason, I read, was to protect a dozen-or-more domestic cattle that graze near the park. It's because of a theoretical risk of disease transmission from bison to cattle, something that apparently has never happened in a natural setting.
You can read more about this at the NDRC website. I hope enough people speak out and make themselves heard before we endanger yet another of our precious national resources.
Jim Bazin is the creative director of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine .
