July 2021

Dining Out Summer 2021: Short Takes-Ho-Hum, Standouts and Unfortunates

July 23, 2025 / / Restaurants

From Judy Gibson to Boda to Scales and the Luna landscape, Izakaya Minato and last and very the least the sandwich shop Cera, mostly remarkable and a few blemishes.

Luna at the new Canopy Hotel is a winner. It’s everything a sophisticated, sleek urban outpost should be. Interesting bar food and drinks, it’s essentially all about the view and the uber chic interior with its outdoor terrace overlooking the best of downtown Portland by the sea. It makes you wonder whether we’ll ever have residential high rises with views like this from walls of glass overlooking our glorious waterfront? The spate of new condo buildings in Portland is architecture at its worst. What is this trend of multi-faced edifices? (Brick meets siding?) Hobson’s Landing is the worst offender. Who’s paying nearly$1 million for these apartments with terraces that look like tenement fire escapes? The Canopy building a few blocks over, however, is beautifully done, with its chic lobby and concierge entry to the Luna rooftop.

Canopy lobby, Luna rooftop pimento cheese and the Luna dining room and terrace

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Blueberry Pie: An Easily Made Version

July 21, 2025 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

I had two storage containers of Maine’s wild blueberries in the refrigerator and it was time to use up some of them. I measured out a pound of blueberries, which is about 3.5 to 4 cups and put them in a mixing bowl with 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and the zest from one lemon. Mix it all around and stir every 30 minutes. The trick is to let this mixture sit for an hour, preferably two if you have the time, for the juices to get released

And then I did something I never do: I used a frozen store bought shell-this from Whole Foods. It’s all butter based and the taste and texture was OK. I did this to avoid the mess of flour on my work surface and I just didn’t have that much time to pull this together.

Blueberry crumb pie in a store bought pastry case

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Sour Cherries are the Star of Cobbler Season

July 16, 2025 / / Uncategorized

I have finally found a recipe for cherry cobbler that works. They’re somewhat easier to make than pie-less messy but thoroughly wonderful tasting with a rusticity that’s so pleasing.

Cobblers are quick to make, or “cobbled” together in three basic ways. There’s the batter method where you melt the butter in a baking dish as the oven preheats; a milk and flour batter is poured in and then topped with the fruit of choice. Some recipes call for boiling water, sugar and cornstarch mix poured over the fruit.

Cherry cobbler in pastry dough

cherry cobbler baked in pastry

The deep dish double-crust cobbler is basically a pie made in a 2+inch baking dish; sometimes you can do just as well with a single crust in the dish with only a top crust. The double crust is beneficial because the bottom crust absorbs some of the liquid. In fact in some cobbler recipes, strips of dough are simmered with the fruit filling, thus acting as a thickener for the filling. And finally there’s the biscuit topped cobbler, which seems to be the most popular. I like them all.

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The Survivors: Three + Portland Restaurants That Still Excite, Simply Delicious Food

July 4, 2025 / / Uncategorized

The point is, can you get into any restaurant in Portland on the spur of the moment? No. From persnickety websites to various ways of reserving a table, it’s not so easy. Online is encouraged, but in person or phone discouraged. Tuesday has become the new Monday, both of which have been the day that most restaurants are closed. Then there’s the Wednesday dilemma-some closed, a few open-where dining out can only take place Thursday to Sunday. Dining tables inside or out are precious few to reserve. If your favorite restaurants are serving at full capacity, where every allowable table is ready to be booked, the restaurant’s staff may still be limited, thus affecting the easy sway that restaurants used to enjoy-yes, I’ll say it-“pre-pandemic.”

The perfect Negroni at EVO

One place that I often visit when I don’t feel like cooking is a neighborhood eatery (Munjoy Hill) that specializes in pizza. The problem is you can’t call up to order a pie. It must be done online. Recently I walked in since I was in the neighborhood to place my order for pizza pie. I was told it must be done online. (Why not in person?) I answered that I have problems with the website, filtered by TOAST, the popular format for online ordering. Sometimes you hit it just right and can breeze through the process. But doing it on a cell phone is not effortless if downright impossible. It just it doesn’t work that well. I spent 5 minutes once looking for the menu on which to place my check mark to order.

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