The Farm Stand

Where to Shop Now–At Supermarkets and Other Local Food Stores Amidst an Inventory of Errors and Omissions

May 23, 2019 / / Discoveries

My favorite potato, available during the winter at farmers’ market, has been the pinto potato–red-skinned with blushes of beige and golden flesh within.  It bakes, boils, sautés well yielding an ultra-creamy texture.  Alas they’ve disappeared as a storage potato early last month at farmers’ markets.  Locally Goranson and Dandelion farms sold the potatoes until their winter stash was depleted.  They’ll be back in the markets by mid-summer.

By the end of May winter storage crops like potatoes, onions and carrots are truly getting long in the tooth.  The famous spring dug parsnip moreover is still not available at farmers’ markets. Farmers say that the ground is still too tough to dig them up.

“New” (?) potatoes from Hannaford

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For corned beef, cook it low and slow and serve with the flakiest biscuits

March 16, 2016 / / Baking & Desserts, Mains, Recipes

There’s no secret formula to preparing corned beef except this one caveat: buy the best.  Unless you’re going to cure your own slab of brisket into a “corned” beef, buy from the expert butchers who do it up every year.

I could have gone to any one of the purveyors who brine their own beef like Pat’s Meat Market, Rosemont, The Farm Stand and Bisson’s ( 116 Meadow Rd., Topsham, 207-725-7215).  Whole Foods also has several brands of commercial grade corned beef, and if you’re bent on paying up for it you might as well get it there at a few dollars more per pound.  The cured brisket from Bisson’s was $6.99 per pound.

Since this is a work in progress, here is the corned beef (from Bisson's) that I will make tomorrow

Since this is a work in progress, here is the uncooked corned beef (from Bisson’s) that I will make tomorrow

Since I was at Bisson’s last Saturday I picked up my cured beef there, which comes straight from their brining barrels.  It’s available throughout the year well wrapped and ready in their meat case next to the bacon, hams and other smoked cuts of meat.

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As American as the classic beef stew

February 10, 2016 / / Uncategorized

If you choose wisely, there’s a wealth of information on the internet for the home cook searching for recipes or ideas.  I refer to it all the time.  Several of my favorite sites include Food 52, Chef Steps and Serious Eats.  Their recipes are fully tested to be virtually foolproof, and at Chef Steps they offer instructional videos that are extremely helpful.

One that caught my attention recently was the recipe for beef stew from Serious Eats. It turned out to be the essence of heartiness, a perfect beef stew.   Several components, however, of the dish are unusual—certainly different from the typical methods used for this simple preparation.

All-American Beef Stew adapted from Serious Eats

All-American Beef Stew adapted from Serious Eats

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Pork Cheeks, bourbon, ham and veal stock: navigating the territory of new cuts of meat made into a glorious dish

December 16, 2015 / / Baking & Desserts, Mains, Recipes

Pork cheeks are one of those cuts of meats gaining popularity with the growth of nose-to-tail butchery.  We have some excellent sources locally at such butcher shops as Rosemont, The Farm Stand, Maine MEat and Bleecker and Flam who get in whole animals that are carved onsite.

You’ll find recipes for these novel cuts in the new crop of cookbooks being written mostly by innovative restaurant chefs who either slaughter the animals for use in their kitchens or rely on local farms and producers who offer these esoteric finds.

For a Saturday night dinner party at home last weekend I labored through a fairly complicated menu that revolved around my stash of pork cheeks based on recipes from John Currence in his book “Pickles, Pigs and Whisky.”  He’s a James Beard award winner and has a group of restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi (see review).

Braised pork cheeks in bourbon veal and ham stock reduction over Anson Mills grits bourbon

Braised pork cheeks in bourbon, veal and ham stock reduction over Anson Mills grits

I say “stash” because they’re not in plentiful supply at the shops because a pig, after all, has only two cheeks.  And unless the butcher is cutting up several animals in the same week you need to order in advance.  For 6 people I needed 12 checks (about two pounds), which meant that the butcher needed to work on 6 carcasses.

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Where to shop now in Portland: What’s new at Hannaford, Shaw’s, Whole Foods, Portland Food Co-op, etcetera?

December 14, 2015 / / Discoveries

I wouldn’t give up your holiday dinner reservations at Fore Street, Back Bay Grill or any of our other great Portland restaurants.  Nor should you cancel your holiday catering orders from Aurora Provisions.  But for perfectly good basic prepared food,  take a look at the new Hannaford Kitchen at the Forest Avenue store where everything from full dinners, sandwiches, pizzas, pastries, sushi, stir fry and more are cooked onsite.

The various food stations at Forest Avenue Hannaford

The various food stations at Forest Avenue Hannaford

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The shop on Maine Street: Bleecker and Flamm, a delicious display of local eats, Rockport

October 28, 2015 / / Discoveries, Mains, Recipes, Travel

When Maine Street Meats, Bleecker and Flamm (the names of the co-owners) made some news recently on a local food site–their desultory mention was buried in a story about sandwiches.  Maine Street Meats has an exemplary one, a Vietnamese bahn mi offered on Tuesdays.  But this exquisite delicacy shop also has steamed pork buns on Thursdays as well as thin-crust pizzas daily and stuffed savory breads and double chocolate chip cookies that are popular with the lunch crowd every day.

Maine Street Meats offers gourmet packaged goods, local meats, cheese, breads and house-made charcuterie

Maine Street Meats offers gourmet packaged goods, local meats, cheese, house-baked breads and house-made charcuterie

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Where’s the beef? The glorious cuts for the perfect roast beef and the master butchers who make the cut

October 7, 2015 / / Mains, Recipes

Nowadays the new popularity of the classic neighborhood butcher shop offers a vital methodology of quality that can include locally farm-raised meats.  And such catchall phrases as natural, grass-fed, pastured, organic, sustainably raised farm meats are part of the vocabulary.

The sirloin roast from Bisson's

The sirloin roast from Bisson’s

Throughout Maine the tradition of butcher shops has remained fairly constant abetted by the strength of Maine’s farmers’ markets where farmers go to sell their bounty of farm-raised beef, lamb, poultry and pork.

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Where to shop now in Portland: Are we a mecca yet for international foods or strictly local?

July 13, 2015 / / Discoveries

Specialty food retailers have not made a big push into Portland since Whole Foods entered town followed several years later by Trader Joe’s.  The latter remains my least favorite place to shop, though it certainly has its fans who swarm the frozen aisle cases for esoteric Asian entrees and small bites or coffees, teas, wine and the like.  I do admit to going there for several TJ brand items:  Dijon mustard,  packaged nuts , bags of hardwood briquettes and occasionally bottles of Gerolsteiner sparkling  mineral water because it’s 20 cents cheaper than at  Whole Foods and much less than at other retailers who carry it, such as The Portland Food Co-op who charges $1.69 per bottle.

From left to right clockwise: Whole Foods, Lois', Rosemont, The Farm Stand

From left to right clockwise: Whole Foods, Lois’, Rosemont, The Farm Stand

Whole Foods, though,  is my default store. But they’re no Eataly, Zabar’s or Dean and DeLuca whose international displays of foods are phenomenal.

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