Looking for the perfect dessert to compliment your St. Patty’s Day dinner? Irish eyes will be smiling when you bring this to the dinner table.
This is an easy one layer cake, often baked into a square shape but can be made into a two layer round cake by doubling the batter recipe. I like this cake, when presented as a two layer with an old-fashioned burnt sugar icing. There is a nice recipe for that icing at www.allrecipes.com. But the coconut and walnut broiled topping featured here really hits the spot too! Good old Irish whiskey really turbo charges the flavor.
Continue reading “Irish Oatmeal Cake” »
Maine Maple Sunday is coming to a sugarhouse near you on Sunday, March 27! This is the time when sugarmakers welcome visitors for open house and declare spring to be officially running in Maine. Never been? It’s a great experience to see (and taste) how it works. We had a great time at Froggy’s Sap Shack in Union a couple years ago.
Maine Maple Sunday is a wonderful opportunity to take a tour, meet the producers, and sample the syrup at one of the local businesses. The Maine Maple Producers Association has all the details! And speaking of details…
Did you know that it takes 40 gallons of clear sap to produce just one gallon of pure Maine maple syrup? Oh, the sticky sweet goodness!! And although it has great sweetening properties for your coffee, tea, on pancakes and waffles, maple syrup is equally tantalizing in more savory recipes like the one below.
Jim “Froggy” Freyenhagen at work in Froggy’s Sap Shack
Continue reading “Maine Maple Syrup Sunday” »
I’m excited to sit down with my son, Jacob, and watch the Oscars. This is one of the first years we’ve seen nearly every best picture nominated film. It was certainly a great year for movies. I’m still rooting for The Fighter. It had guts, grit, heart, and strength. I left the theater saying, “Now that was acting.” And most of all, I left inspired.
Maybe that’s the key to a worthy film in my book. Inspiration: that spark of hope a film leaves you with at the end, and the feeling of overcoming obstacles and rising above what could so easily keep you down. Jacob gives his nod to The King’s Speech, another truly winning film and the front runner to take home the statue. What was your favorite Academy Award nominated film of 2010?
I came across a fun Oscar food site, dedicated to each Best Picture Nominee. Each film has a fun and appropriate corresponding dish, such as The Social Network’s Chocolate Billionaires, True Grit’s Red Rooster, and Black Swan’s Easy Pavlova. Check out allrecipes.com for more winning recipes, and enjoy the show!
It’s that time again. Time to be thinking about the upcoming James Beard Awards. The semi-finalist list has been released, and some of our Maine favorites are (back) on it. And the semi-finalists are:
Best New Restaurant — Shepherd’s Pie, Rockport
Outstanding Chef — Sam Hayward, Fore Street, Portland; Melissa Kelly, Primo, Rockland
Outstanding Restaurant — Fore Street, Portland
Best Chef Northeast — Krista Kern Desjarlais, Bresca, Portland; Demos Regas, Emilitsa, Portland; Brian Hill, Francine, Camden; and Megan Chase, Penelle Chase, Phoebe Chase, and Ted LaFage, Chase’s Daily, Belfast
The final list of nominees will be announced on March 21. Congratulations and best wishes to all!
We at Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine wish to congratulate Natalie’s Restaurant Executive Chef Geoffroy Deconinck on his recent nomination for The 2011 People’s Best New Chef Award! Deconinck is the only nominee from Maine to compete for this New England regional title.
image: Irvin Serrano
This is a new award created by Food & Wine magazine in parternship with CNN’s Eatocracy. The premise is to highlight and honor 100 talented innovators who have been running their own kitchens for no more than five years. Restaurant patrons determine the winner of this national award through online voting.
Chef Deconinck, born and raised in Belgium, has been labeled “amazing because he uses his traditional Belgian pedigree to modernize French food.” His background includes an education at CERIA Culinary Academy in Brussels and work with such fine establishments as Café Boulud, Daniel, Bouley (New York City); Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée (Paris); L’Epicerie (Belgium).
Natalie’s Restaurant, the vital culinary heart of the Camden Harbour Inn, is run by Raymond Brunyanszki and Oscar Verest. From their website about their AAA four diamond award-winning restaurant, they have this to say about their Executive Chef:
“Our Award-winning Executive Chef Geoffroy Deconinck seeks out the harvest of Maine fishing boats, farms, and gardens and transforms these honest, unsullied ingredients into distinctively new presentations that reflect his imaginative interpretation of classic French cuisine with a modern twist.”
We are proud to support Chef Deconinck and encourage EVERYONE to scroll to the bottom of the following page link to VOTE NOW FOR CHEF GEOFF!
Congratulations to Raymond, Oscar, and Geoffroy on your well deserved achievements and honors!!
The 21st annual U. S. National Toboggan Championship begins on February 12 in Camden, Maine. Second only to the toboggans, the annual West Bay Rotary’s Chili and Chowder Challenge always draws a hungry crowd and many friendly competitors.
Over a dozen of the area’s best restaurants and chefs are hoping to win bragging rights and the title “Best of the Best” for their chili or chowder. Alongside well-known area establishments such as Graffam Brothers Seafood, the Waterfront Restaurant, Prism Glass, and the Boat House, Laura Cabot of Laura Cabot Catering will compete for the first time and is preparing ten gallons of her first rate and much loved haddock chowder, enough to feed 300 cold and hungry onlookers and participants.
Chef Cabot has a few tricks up her sleeve in hopes of delivering the winning chowder. One standout is her selection of a certain type of smoked pork scraps she favors to lay down a layer of flavor at the beginning of the cooking process. Naturally, she’ll use the freshest haddock and will begin preparing the chowder a day in advance to allow the flavors to “marry.”
The admission donation for all of the day’s activities is only $9 for adults and $6 for children. The proceeds go to support the charitable causes of the West Bay Rotary’s civic work and to the Snow Bowl, which is a local jewel we’re proud to support.
“As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.”
This quote is from the book “Chocolate: The Consuming Passion” written by Sandra Boynton in 1982, but I remember my Mom saying something very similar at least 50 years ago. A day without chocolate is just not a good day for Mom. Before we headed south for the winter, I stocked her freezer with a couple batches of brownies and tucked 3 jars of hot fudge sauce in the ‘fridge so she can enjoy her favorite dessert: a brownie topped with vanilla ice cream and a very healthy drizzle of warm and gooey hot fudge sauce.
If you need an excuse for all this chocolate decadence, February is National Chocolate Month. Get ready to celebrate!
image: devchengkalath.com
Continue reading “Homemade Fudge Brownies and Hot Fudge Sauce” »
Does anything taste better than Maine shrimp? Precious little comes to my mind at the moment…I wait patiently (ok, impatiently!) for the season to roll around, and before I blink, it’s over. I glut myself on a few shrimp boils and always vow that next year I’ll get a little more creative, purchase more, and store them in the freezer to tide me over for another year. Though the food purist in me knows these perfect little gems of the sea need little adornment, here is a rather exotic way to showcase this Maine seafood favorite. Call my friends at Port Clyde Fresh Catch to place your order today!!
Introduce this Creamy Curried Maine Shrimp With Coconut Rice to your yearning taste buds, and they’ll never ask for anything else for a long time to come. This recipe can be prepared in about 5 minutes. Use the freshest coconut available.
photograph by Jim Bazin
Continue reading “Curried Maine Shrimp with Coconut Rice” »
Port Clyde, December 2010.
The Rockland Lobster Trap Tree
According to folklore, collard greens served with black eyed peas and hog jowl (or smoked hocks) on New Year’s Day promises a year of good luck and financial bounty. To ward off evil spirits, hang a fresh collard leaf over your door to ring in the New Year! Headache the day after? Try a fresh leaf on your forehead. Hey, it’s worth a try!
A large quantity of greens is commonly referred to as a “mess o’ greens” in the south. My northern garden affords me many messes of greens well past snow fall and I love them with almost any bean and side meat. In fact, collards and kale are often tastier after a hard frost.
Here we’ll stick to the lucky black eyed peas with a side of greens. The greens are said to represent folded paper money and the peas represent coins.
image: nytimes.com
Continue reading “Black Eyed Peas and a Mess O’ Greens” »
Michael Salmon of Camden’s Hartstone Inn shares a wonderful and delicious Maine crab recipe in the current issue of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine. He also shares a bit about himself and his beloved Midcoast inn.
Peekytoe Crab Gazpacho, by Chef Michael Salmon. Image © 2010 Jim Bazin.
Michael shares his passion for cooking, teaching, and utilizing local ingredients to their fullest potential. Want to learn how to cook from a master? Michael offers several classes this winter, such favorites as: Mediterranean Cuisine, Maine Seafood, Holiday Artisan Chocolates, and more.
Chef Michael Salmon of Camden’s Hartstone Inn. Image © 2010 Jim Bazin.
What says “special occasion” better than lobster? We all have different food traditions surrounding the Christmas holidays. As a child, it was always Oyster Stew at my Nanie’s house in Portsmouth and then off to midnight mass at St. John’s Church. When I married and had my son Scott, the first tradition I tossed into the trash was the Oyster Stew ritual. Never one of my favorite things as a child (but I did eat it) but as an adult, it was high time for a new tradition before mass (chicken pot pie and I have no idea how we decided upon that). When said son flew the coop after graduating from college and moved to California, he decided the new tradition should be stopping to pick up Chinese food from his favorite restaurant conveniently located near the airport. And 7 years ago when Peter and I got married, we started yet another tradition: lobster bisque and popovers. And nobody’s complaining that it isn’t oyster stew.
Merry Christmas!
Continue reading “Maine Lobster Bisque” »
Betty Govan began making this great Christmas pudding in 1941, when raisins were 29 cents a pound and dates 19 cents, as she noted when she sent the recipe to me. She found the recipe in a dairy’s leaflet. It’s a love of pudding, evoking scenes of snow swirling down narrow London streets and Bob Cratchit serving the Christmas goose. The hard sauce, softened with cream and egg white, is pure inspiration.
image: foodchannel.com
Continue reading “Classic Plum Pudding with Whipped Hard Sauce” »
Baked ham is often the centerpiece of a traditional Christmas meal. Here is a special holiday rendition.
image: atablefortwo.com.au
Baked Ham with Apricot Glaze
J.M. Joachim, A Taste of It All: Celebrating the Mood of Food
1 (7-9 pound) shank-end smoked, pre-cooked ham
1 large yellow onion, cut into thick rings
Apricot Glaze
¾ cup apricot jelly
½ cup orange juice
½ cup honey
4 Tablespoons yellow mustard
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch ground cloves
3 Tablespoons cider vinegar
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons molasses
Preheat oven to 325°. Remove some of the outer fat from the ham. Score the ham 1″ deep in a cross-hatch pattern. Arrange all but 2-3 onion slices in center of a roasting pan and set the ham on top of onion slices. Pierce the ham on all sides with the whole cloves. Place remaining onion slices on top and sides of the ham, hanging them on the whole cloves to hold them in place. Cover and bake for one hour.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, whisk together the glaze ingredients and cook just until heated through and jelly has dissolved.
After ham has baked one hour, brush with the glaze mixture every 15 minutes for another 45 minutes until all but 2 Tablespoons of glaze remains. Transfer the ham to a platter and brush with remaining glaze and cover loosely with aluminum foil until ready to serve.
Serves 6-8.
Hanukkah began last night (December 1) at sundown, and traditional food for the celebration is wonderful. These delicious rugelach cookies are as festive as they get.
image: photobucket.com
Continue reading “Rugelach for Hanukkah” »
This comes to us from our friend Natalie MacLean…
Pairing wines with personalities for gift shoppers—there’s an app for that (and a web site).
Continue reading “Wines for the Top 10 Tough-To-Buy-For People on Your Holiday List” »
Doesn’t bacon make most things better? I love the smokey edge it gives to the turkey breast while ensuring its moistness. The bird doesn’t get the maple syrup bath until the last hour of cooking, lending a sweet note to the pan drippings and, therefore, the gravy.
Continue reading “Maple Basted and Bacon Barded Turkey with Homemade Gravy” »
Infuse a turkey with delicious flavor by tucking fresh herbs under the skin. Simply loosen the skin from the meat and slip in rosemary, sage, and parsley. As the turkey roasts in the oven, the herbs will give off a fragrant scent and flavor.
Continue reading “Herb Roasted Turkey with Rosemary and Sage” »
I love the sweetness of Maine maple syrup and a hint of tangerine to offset the tartness of cranberries. This unique cranberry sauce recipe is one of those “make ahead” components of a holiday meal that all hosts will cherish.
image: nourishingmeals.com
Continue reading “Maple-Citrus Cranberry Sauce” »
View an album of photos from the welcome home party for Captain Linda Greenlaw and the crew of the Hannah Boden, as they returned from sword fishing and filming the next season of the Discovery Channel’s show, Swords: Life on the Line.
NBC interviews Captain Linda Greenlaw at her homecoming event.
