“We [the kitchen staff] poke around at the farmers’ markets and snag what inspires us, what looks good; then we bring it back to the kitchen,” says Steve Corry, chef and co-owner (with his wife, Michelle) of 555. “We talk the menu through, and everyone has an opinion. Some are more vocal than others, but […]
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Chef Lee Skawinski of Cinque Terre and Vignola, and his partner, Dan Kary, are so committed to local foods that they farm most of the produce on their menus themselves. Chef Lee Skawinski and his partner, Dan Kary, are so committed to local foods that they farm most of the produce on their menus themselves. […]
At Hugo’s in Portland, Maine, Rob Evans uses his French, Italian, and Japanese cooking skills on “foods within the region that work together, while being creative and fun about it.” Rob Evans is having a good time. After years of cooking gigs that had him bouncing back and forth between Maine and Hawaii, Rob has […]
The plates that come from Sam Hayward’s Fore Street kitchen carry strong Mediterranean influences, but the ingredients and simplicity are undeniably coastal Maine. The plates that come from Sam’s kitchen carry strong Mediterranean influences, but the ingredients and simplicity are undeniably coastal Maine. Fore Street’s signature dish, for example — mussels with garlic and almonds — gives […]
A visit with five Portland, Maine chefs, plus recipes! Although I’m a native New Englander, I confess that I hadn’t spent much time in Portland, Maine, until the late 1990s. My first real visit was simply to eat at Fore Street restaurant. My foodie friends were raving about chef Sam Hayward’s gorgeous food and his beautiful […]
History
Blackfly Season in New England
Is there any silver lining to the nuisance of blackfly season? New Englanders take a perverse pride in their blackflies — claiming them as their state “bird,” naming softball teams after them — but behind the bravado is a certain dread. As a birder, I note that blackflies return to our backyard almost to the […]
“Tikkun olam”: to heal the world. That’s the auspicious goal of the New Hampshire-based Kaddish Project, named for the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. Sixty-three years after the end of the Holocaust, a new song cycle for chorus, soloists, and chamber ensemble by Lawrence Siegel explores the role this tragedy plays in the world […]
The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos and the End of an Era (Hyperion, $23.95), by longtime Yankee contributor Geoffrey Douglas, is several books: a memoir of his years at St. Paul’s, the New Hampshire prep school that expelled him in 1961; a travelogue of the turbulent decades that followed; and a portrait of his former classmates, including […]
When leading a revival of an all-but-dead genre, it’s not enough to be good — you have to make people believe. With two scorching EPs and a never-ending series of roof-raising live shows, Eli “Paperboy” Reed & the True Loves are converting audiences young and old back to the Church of Soul. With a clear, […]
He may well be the only horse-and-buggy egg man left in the nation.
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Simple Beauty of Lois Dodd
In terms of a sustained vision of everyday beauty, painter Lois Dodd would be hard to beat. Since the 1950s, Dodd has pursued a simple, direct, pleasurable approach to painting the stuff of ordinary life — the landscapes around her, the environments she inhabits, her gardens and yards, her homes and her friends — all […]
Here are 12 of our picks for the best art galleries in Maine. They’re sure to please any art enthusiast! In 30 years of writing about art in Maine and New England (with an occasional foray into New York), I’ve naturally become attached to some of the art galleries I’ve visited repeatedly. Were I to […]