Travel

Note: This was originally published on July 10, 2015 and having been reminded by a Facebook post in memories I decided to include it in the Golden Dish again since it’s so terribly apt for today, seven years later showing that fine cooking is timeless and still relevant without all the hoopla that swirls around our culinary scene today.

The food world is under siege with trendiness.  Fried chicken has become an artisanal  super-star.  The rarest tomato, the sustainable fish fillet, the rigors of omikase and Asian panache–even pizza are elevated to otherworldly stardom.  Canned food is left in the dust unless you can it yourself at a farm table in the middle of your highfalutin country kitchen. Then there’s the whole wide world of farm-to-table as though it were something really novel when in fact it’s how the world used to eat simply and well:  food from the field—unprocessed, unadulterated, fair and fresh.

At table at Turner Farm supper
The table set at Turner Farm Barn Dinner Circa  July10, 2015

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Two restaurants beyond  Portland’s sturdy culinary confines are exemplary. They are  87 miles apart, the distance from Cape Elizabeth’s The Well at Jordan’s Farm to Rockport’s Nina June.  They excel for one simple reason.  The food at each is fabulous.

I visited Nina June in early June, and it was my first time there. I loved the place when it was the Salt Water Grill some years ago.  The room was lily white then, right out of a Ralph Lauren playbook, Rockport Harbor being the perfect backdrop in this gorgeous little village as the quiet side of Camden next door.   Nina June is cozier than its predecessor and more like being in a country boite rather than a “fancy” restaurant. But the food  is superb under the able hands of Sara Jenkins, owner and chef. She commands her post like a general, but always calm, not rattled  as every nook and cranny of her cooking talents emerge. If anyone from Maine should merit a James Beard Award, it’s Jenkins, leaving many others merely striving.

Nina June’s dining terrace overlooking Rockport harbor, photo courtesy of Nina June

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I went there this past Friday because I read a Facebook post that this was going to be its last weekend.  It has been one of my favorite places in Portland to enjoy not only great food-truck fare (courtesy of star chef Matt Ginn of EVO fame) but the view had been fantastic last year.  I noticed this at my first visit of the season several months ago when the food truck marina was not up to its past scenic glories that it had in its first year. The bar area had been moved down a bit, the dining bar shelf that ran along the water’s edge was gone, and the bar still hadn’t been constructed yet.

The problem was that the city mandated that all structures at the site couldn’t be movable, that they had to be constructed in a less permanent nature and it took a long time to get the city staff to coordinate its rulings because of pandemic absenteeism at City Hall.

Here is my story from last year when the marina bar opened. See link

This was the scene at the newly opened EVO X food truck marina in June of 2020

The marina and its patrons and food from scenes in June of 2020

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I never thought it would happen but I’m really fed up with cooking at home.  Even though I’m thoroughly vaxxed, I’m still hesitant to dine-in at restaurants regularly.  Yet I really don’t like take-out food unless it’s a carton of Chinese food or a box filled with pizza.  I recently went so low and bought some frozen supermarket entrees to avoid cooking and cleaning up after.  Dreadful!!!

Rao’s lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna on the left

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Most of the farmers I’ve spoken to at Portland’s “new” outdoor  market in Deering Oaks are relieved that it’s allowed to operate.  One farmer told me there were tough negotiations with the city who set out to make very strict rules governing the market to address the various pandemic  issues of shopping there.  Has the city, as it usually does, gone too far? The vendors prevailed and negotiated hard to be allowed to operate in a reasonable fashion.

The redone Portland Farmer’s Market

The lonely one way road at Portland’s farmers market

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Enterprising bagel mavens in Maine should flock to flagels, a flattened version of a bagel that some connoisseurs consider the best in class. In fact, the New York Daily News proclaimed in an article last year that these were the best and tastiest of the bagel world.  I wonder why they’re not more popular here?  The name doesn’t roll off tongue and could be mistaken for a social faux pas that invariably happens in a packed room.

Montague Street (Brooklyn) flagels

The point is there’s a bit of bagel mania across the nation with major cities trying to earn top honors in comparison to the standard bearer of the greatness of New York bagels.  I’m from New York and indeed I miss those specimens , which are as easily available as a pack of chewing gum. What’ makes them so good?  The common conception is that it’s because of New York’s pure water (not so pure anymore) and boiled in so-called artesian pools.  I think they’re good because they’re made with chutzpah, the kind dredged from the old  Red Hook.

Excellent bagels sandwich at Cafe 158

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The Harvest on the Harbor festival began anew this year, with its two new principles in charge, Stefanie Manning, the marketing and circulation manager at the Portland Press Herald (and whose husband is Tom Manning, owner of The Miss Portland Diner) and Gabrielle Garofalo, a New York City media consultant who owns Gabrielle Garofalo Inc. Consulting & Creative Energy.  These two have changed it all around.  For better or worse?  Were the crowds as robust as before when the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau ran the show all these years?  In fact, it was run very well.

Sustainable Seafood Dinner at O'Maine Studios

Sustainable Seafood Dinner at O’Maine Studios

What was notably different were several events that bit the dust.  The fabulous Buñuel-esque style feast that had played in prior years on the stage of Merrill Auditorium was replaced by a barn-style dinner in the cavernous space of O’ Maine Studios where a dinner of sustainable seafood was the centerpiece.

Crowds piling in, Lobster Tasting at 58 Fore St.

Crowds piling in, Lobster Tasting at 58 Fore St.

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I spent 24 solid hours in Rockland earlier this week for three reasons: to stay at the uniquely stylish 250 Main Hotel; to visit the very compelling Center for Maine Contemporary Art and to dine at the town’s newest restaurant, Sammy’s Deluxe.

Scenes from Rockland, clockwise: the Plaza at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art; dining room at Sammy's Deluxe and the lobby at 250 Main Hotel

Scenes from Rockland, clockwise: the Plaza at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art; dining room at Sammy’s Deluxe and the lobby at 250 Main Hotel

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At last Saturday’s farmer’s market on North Haven, there was a wealth of produce, meats and cheese to stock up on.  There was also a table filled with home-baked pies and cakes; but since I was extensively doing my own baking, I didn’t choose any of those luscious looking desserts even though they were all very tempting, especially the chocolate cream pie (center).

Standout vendors at the market included a selection of pies; Sheep Meadow's wonderful honey and lamb and display of yogurt and flowers from Turner Farm

Standout goodies at the market included a selection of pies, Sheep Meadow’s wonderful honey and lamb and display of yogurt and flowers from Turner Farm  

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During the frenetic few days that I spent in New York last week I splurged, as always, on enjoying the city’s dining diversity.  Compared to home, it’s a gastronome’s playground far from Maine’s more preciously focused seas and fields. It’s like stepping out of an exiguous puddle into the vast ocean, from food trucks to haute fare.

On West 46th Street the food trucks are an international lineup

On West 46th Street the food trucks are an international lineup

This led me to enjoy Chomp Chomp, Obica and Marta, which respectively took in Singaporean hawker fare in Greenwich Village; a midtown mozzarella bar on Madison Avenue and in NoMad the thinnest crust wood-oven pizza imaginable—that in addition to a divinely urbane menu of Roman style cooking in the pop-culture panache of restaurant guru Danny Meyer and chef Nick Anderer.

What’s immediately apparent is how New York restaurants fixate less on local fare than we obsessively (and gladly)  feed on eating local.  That’s not to say that their greenmarkets aren’t cherished both by residents and restaurant chefs.

The dining room at Chomp Chomp on Cornelia Street

The dining room at Chomp Chomp on Cornelia Street

I read about Chomp Chomp in a New York Times review from 2015 and filed it away. I made a beeline for it on my first night in New York joined by a trendy downtown friend who frequents these places.  Hawker fare, he said, is popping up in a lot of places. And fancy chefs are recreating street food in various guises.  (Hairy crab en papillote?)

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