What’s increasingly making Portland a worldly source of provocative dining and a contender to maintain its foodie-nation status is the diversity of what there is to eat and where to find it whether dining in or dining out. It comes up in the most ordinary places from vendors at a farmers market to a soup swap in a barn in Yarmouth to a fine meal on Munjoy Hill to a French-bistro inspired dinner in the Old Port. It makes the food lore of the daily meal so delicious.
While Portland has one of the biggest farmers markets in terms of number of vendors, Brunswick beats the odds with its contribution of buying local because it has market days 3 times a week: On the Green in downtown Brunswick on Tuesdays and Fridays and on Saturday down the road at Crystal Springs on Pleasant Hill Road.
For breakfast, Marcy’s Diner is still one of the best for hale and hearty appetites that want it big and delicious. And it’s where you still get the best serving of hash browns.
To celebrate cookbook author Kathy Gunst’s latest book,”Soup Swap,” Old Port Magazine managing Editor, Susan Axelrod, with her photographer husband, Ted Axelrod, had an open house in their barn at Rainbow Farm in Yarmouth. From simmering soups in crock pots to lots of complimentary goodies such as tarts, pies and salads, it was the perfect fall day to have wholesomely delicious food.
Sometimes all you need is the perfect cut of meat for a fine meal at home. Here is a pot roast in the making, this time with a chuck roast on the bone, seared and seasoned, ready for slow-oven cooking in a covered pot.
Gaining in popularity is the new Petite Jacqueline now in the Old Port. The room is an inviting space done in the moderne style and the food is first rate offering French bistro style cooking.
Sunday night at Lolita–or any night really–is a convivial room in which to have a fine dinner from a selection of captivating small plates such as ricotta gnocchi with braised carrots to the monumental wood-oven roasted porterhouse.