Treats for a Foodie in Northern Michigan’s Leelenau County:

• North Peaks Brewery “Archangel  Summer Wheat” made with Michigan Cherry Juice Ale – Traverse City

• Good Harbor Vineyards – Located just outside of Leland. We liked the bubbly! $3 for tastings
  
• Forty-Five North – Great new tasting room with award-winning wines.  You receive four complimentary tastings and after that you pay $5 for reserve tastings.  Right now Forty-Five North uses CA grapes as they await the maturation of their vines.  Last year we loved the pinot noir rose and this year they featured their award winning Blanc Pinot Rose.
• Black Star Farms – $5 for tastings – This is an interesting tasting room with many guests visiting to imbibe.  You can also taste their mild Raclette cheese while sipping on wine.  Friends love their Riesling.  BSF is also a B&B which looks like it would be fun to stay a night here on the farm sometime.

For more Up North Foodie Information see:  UP NORTH FOODIE Blog
For more Blame it on the Food recommendations from last year Up North: Click HERE

A Foodie in Quebec City:

• Maple Products @ the Old Port Market – Marche du Vieux-Port: Maple Syrup, Maple Sugar, Sugar Pie, Maple Ale, Maple Wine, Maple Salad Dressing, Mini Maple Cones, Maple Candies, Maple Butter, Maple Spread, Maple Tea, Maple Beer from Boreale Beer … (A great brand of Organic Maple Products: Biodélices Organic Maple Syrup)
• Ice Cider, Cider, & Ice Wine Tasting Day Trip (just outside the city): Isle d’Orleans
• Classic Canadian Food: Tourtière = Meat Pie, Poutine (Canadian Quebec Style) = French Fries, Cheese Curds & Brown Gravy, Sugar Pie (Quebec City Sugar Pie with Thick Cream)= Maple Sugar Pie, Caribou Stew
• Drinks: Cheese Plates, Beer, & Sangria – Two spots to grab drinks before dinner: One in Upper Town is Bar L’inox - a 21 year old microbrewery, with 11 delicious beers, also pitchers of Sangria and happy hour specials + sausages in baguettes for a snack to split. *See below for rue Saint-Jean spots such as Pub Nelligans & La Ninkasi.

La Rue St. Jean Area (rue Saint-Jean - A Street beyond the city walls on the west end was a very cool area that seemed less touristy.)

• J.A. Moisan Epicier, a Gourmet Food Store (oldest grocery store in North America), with many Canadian products, prepared gourmet foods, and interesting selection of cheeses, chocolates, candies, and beer/wine.  Located in the Upper town close to some really interesting shop such as The Chocolate Museum and a clothing shop on a street I liked so much, rue Saint-Jean. A pub that we would like to try next time: La Ninkasi is the best place to have a large choice of Quebeckers beers and see a variety of shows.  Pub Nelligans, was great but we had too many people to fit inside because it was raining and we were there on the Tuesday night jam session of Irish music, which seemed really cool.

Wandering lustfully in search of the unique and delicious was the beauty of our trip.

In researching our visit to Quebec City online we found it quite hard to find the local spots as I assume the local food blogs are all in French. This made us realize that it may be difficult to have an Anthony Bourdain-type of locals experience in Quebec City. Luckily we did have help from our friends from Maine who had visited Quebec City quite a few times because of their interest in their French-Canadian heritage. So we knew our first visit was going to entail wandering, talking to locals, and exploring.

What we discovered about Quebec City:

We found the people in Quebec City to be very friendly from the man who gave us the mead to taste at the market and told us where to eat Poutine to the waiter at the restaurant who served us Poutine and told us where to drink next. The city had a very cool blend of modern and classical architecture where the new and old city met. There were many smaller shops instead of huge, mega-stores meaning you could find some unique items that you don’t often find in other cities without infinite exploration. There were many sidewalk-dining areas at the restaurants to dine and drink el fresco putting people together on the streets without glass separators. We discovered unique food and drink in our three day stay and the ability to eat it by walking constantly.

Great Food & Art Suggestions for Quebec City:

• Casse Crepe Breton Great Breakfast for Crepes in the Old City Quebec (There is always a line but the crepes are worth it.) Also try their half-coffee/half-hot cocoa with ice cream drink!
• Restaurant La Nouvelle France Great restaurant for traditional Quebec food such as Yellow Pea Soup, Poutine, Meat Pie, Caribou Stew, and Sugar Pie for Dessert (A Prix Fixe Dinner for about $20, not including drinks)
• The Market in Quebec City has great local goods and produce and is very worth a visit but make sure you have room for snacking – Le Marché du Vieux-Port de Québec
• A Contemporary Art Gallery in Quebec City – Galerie Lacerte Art Contemporain located near the Market in the Old City
  

Isle de Orleans: A Quebec City Day Trip

The Isle de Orleans was an interesting sustainable agricultural community. There were cows next to a small field of corn beside a fromagerie and orchards by vineyards and so on. All of these entities seemed to be sustaining everyone in the community as opposed to a monoculture. Many of the products they were producing were world class such as the Ice Wine and Ice Cider. As we entered the island by car from Quebec City (about 15 minute drive) we stopped on the right at the information center to grab a map of the island ($1) and to figure out where we wanted to go. We found some great wineries, cideries, a fromagerie, brewery/bar, and farms. Some tasting rooms have minimal fees of $2-3 and some are free.

Suggested Food & Drink Tasting on Isle de Orleans:

• Blackcurrant Liqueur & Blackcurrant Wine = Mixed together make their Sangria Recipe which we really liked @ Cassis Monna & fille Economusee de la liquoristerie This winery had a great outdoor patio to hang out on after sampling their products in their tasting room downstairs.  We loved the design and aesthetics of this place!
• Ice Wine @ Vignoble Isle Bacchus ($35 for 200ml bottle & $3 for wine tastings, classy spot)
• Ice Cider @ Cideries
• Blackcurrant Framboise @ La Ferme de Liz Ouellet (made by a local woman and a Frenchman from the Dijon Region of France had just come by and said her products were as good if not better than those found in Dijon)Maple Butter
• Duck Terrine, Mustards, Jams, & Cider Tastings for $3 @ Domaine Steinbach Ciderie et Relais Gourmand – Great spot for an entire range of tastings. (I liked the onion preserves and the blueberry and apple jam)
• Cheese, the very first ever made in North America (in 1635) Samples @ Les Fromage de l’isle d’Orleans

While staying in Los Feliz at a friends for the 4th of July weekend, we hopped about eating famous chicken and waffles, sipping on gourmet coffee, and nibbling on specialty cheeses.   A real hit was Gaam Restaurant & Lounge in Koreatown, LA.

• Pann’s Restaurant & Coffee Shop- “The Pulp Fiction Diner Scene!”
• Intelligentsia Fresh Roasted Coffee – Venice Coffeebar & Silver Lake Coffeebar, Also Serving Cake Monkey Baked Goods
• The Rose Cafe & Market – Venice
• Gaam Restaurant & Lounge - Koreatown
• The Cheese Store of Silver Lake - Silver Lake
• Little Dom’s - Los Feliz

To Read more about each place  ->

Pann’s received the Los Angeles Conservancy Award for the best example of a “Classic 50’s Coffee Shop” and is the spot where they filmed the diner scene in Pulp Fiction.   The fried chicken and waffles for breakfast is what to order. For a healthy choice try the Greek Omelet.  Easy parking but it is over near Englewood and LAX, towards the west side.

Intelligentsia Coffeebar is the best place to check out LA fashions on real folks, I mean local hipsters.  The coffee is pretty great.  A friend in town from New York commented that her Late was so smooth, the barista’s were really friendly, and it was about the best cup of coffee she had ever had.   I personally appreciate the modern-industrial and clean decor as well as their creative baked goods all by Cake Monkey such as the Blackberry Thyme Muffin and the Bacon Sage Scone.  Check out Cake Monkey for other creative baked good ingredient combination inspirations or even order something to be delivered in LA with a 48 hour notice! They seem to be opening Intelligentsia’s from LA, to Chicago, and NYC and they even won this years Barista world championship.

Rose Cafe is a nice casual spot in Venice with an easy-to-park lot.   Order up fresh salads (3 of your choice for $10) at the counter, sit inside or outside and chat with friends, browse their shop (little cactus and succulent planters in glazed pots), pick up a dessert, or just eat sweets and drink coffee.

Gaam Restaurant & Lounge is a seriously great place to go with friends for a night of fun or a special birthday with a large party.  For new experiences in Koreatown, this is the place.  It can be described as a smoky (yes, they let folks smoke inside at their tables) “warehouse lounge.”  Make a reservation because the tables seem to get booked on weekend nights.   People smoke inside and the music is loud, not a family spot folks!  There is a happy hour until 8:30pm such as 1/2 priced soju (Sour apple, Watermelon, Yogurt, Mango, Peach, Watermelon and complimentary Grape flavored soju) and fresh fruit drinks and appetizers.  What is Soju?  You have to have your ID or they won’t let you upstairs.  Or, if you forgot your ID, tell them that you’re so old that you don’t know if you can even have kids anymore – that seemed to work for us when a fellow thirty-something friend forgot her ID.   Order the sample plate to start off with (Sample plate included: pine nuts, garlic, mushrooms, asparagus, beef slices, shrimp, cheese fish, and bacon wrapped scallops) and the tower of sweet potato shoestring fries at the end!  They are covered in powdered sugar or something.  OK, seriously, when is the last time you payed $20 a piece at a dinner party out with friends including as many drinks and as much food to fill you up as you like?  Just get there by at least 7:45pm to have the first 45 minutes of happy hour.  Tip, check your bill at the end!

The Cheese Store of Silver Lake is next door to Intelligentsia Coffee.  We were so overstuffed after eating out at all of the places above that we needed a clean break.  For a quieter evening of cheese, wine, bread, salami, olives, Marcona almonds, grapes, honeycombs, salad, ummmm…. yea, did I say we weren’t that hungry?  Ask one of the many available cheese purveyors for assistance in choosing some cheeses at the cheese store or take a sampling of your options set out to try in order to make some decisions here.  There were five of us and we each purchased a different cheese and extra side to share.

Little Dom’s is a classic, old school, dark and romantic spot serving up Italian pastas, a Fried Oyster Sandwich w/ Crispy Speck, Arugula, Tomato, & Hot Sauce Mayo, or a Wood Grilled Hamburger w/ Burratta, Speck, & Roasted Tomato Mostarda in Los Feliz.   Dom’s reminded me of a NYC neighborhood spot with just enough classy tradition to treat your parents.  Gaam in Koreatown, not the place to treat your parents, that is the place to treat yourself.  We each ordered almost every pasta on the menu and were tempted by all of the amazing cocktails but just couldn’t pull it off after a weekend of overindulging.  I read that their breakfast pizza was featured on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” TV show.  And somebody even yelled out to us to get the breakfast pizza as they sped by in their car!

• Information about Silver Lake Neighborhood, LA
• Information about Los Feliz, LA
• Information about Koreatown

• Russian River Brewing Company – If you love beer, Russian River Brewing Co. & Pub is a must see – Santa Rosa, CA
• Bounty Hunter - Wine Bar & Smokin’ BBQ – Napa, CA
• Oxbow Public Market – Best Lunch Spot in Napa. Indoor Artisan Local Food Market – Napa, CA
• Bouchon Bakery – Yountville, CA

Russian River Brewing Co.: A Must Visit in Santa Rosa for Beer Lover’s!

Pliny the Elder Double IPA (8.0% ABV), need we say more? Russian River Brewery is one of the finest breweries in the country.  We stopped in at the Russian River Brewing Co., a larger bustling pub in downtown Santa Rosa, CA (about 1/2 hour from Napa) on a Friday evening for happy hour (M-F, 4-6:30pm).   We had numerous pints of Pliny, one of our all time favorites (the “hop-head’s” dream). We also had their large beer sampler, which consisted of everything they had that day, as their taps change often due to their limited supply.   The sour ales (Temptation & Salvation) were really interesting and definitely a taste you either love or hate.  We loved the sour ales because of their uniqueness.  They taste somewhat like a carbonated wine/beer combo with a very sour bite.

RR has very limited distribution so it is difficult to find.  Pliny the Elder is sold in 16oz. bottles for $4.30-4.95 in the SF South Bay at places Whole Foods and Lunardis, sorry not at BevMo!  Here is a list of sale locations: Where to Get the Beer Pliny the Elder was named after an interesting figure from history.  Pliny the Elder and his contemporaries coined the botanical name for hops, “Lupus salictarius,” meaning wolf among scrubs.”

Oh, and the Drew Bites (Crispy bits of pizza dough topped with Mozzarella, sesame seeds, and garlic.with pepperoni and pepperoncinis) are the bomb!

Bounty Hunter

We walked down the street from our hotel to try out Bounty Hunter, a Wine Bar and BBQ restaurant.  The decor was ironic upscale hunting paraphernalia with wild boar heads and exposed brick on the walls.  The unique part of the food was that the BBQ, pulled pork or brisket and coleslaw, was served on a slab or tile for the table to share.  We then ordered additional sides such as the grilled corn.

Oxbow Public Market: Best Lunch Spot in Napa!

I loved this spot!  It must have been CA yuppie-land love at first sight for me!  I mean organic, artisan foods, wine, cheese, ethnic foods … oh boy!  Oxbow was really nice and reminded me of a smaller or more quint version of the Ferry Building in SF or the North Market in Columbus, OH.  They had an organic market along with artisanal foods such as chocolatiers, spices, olive oils and eat-in or take-out ethnic cuisine and seafood.  We had Venezuelan Street Food from Pica Pica Maize Kitchen that was delicious and our friends had Tacos from C Casa.  C Casa had the most out of this world black-beans with Chorizo and Goat Cheese!   Why can’t we have this place in Santa Cruz or Los Gatos?  There are rumors that a similar type of market will be built in downtown San Jose.

Bouchon Bakery: Best Treats in Napa Area!

Truman Show, I mean, Yountville Show is like the most perfect manufactured town in the world!  We love Thomas Keller’s cookbooks and had not been able to get to the hub of their creation in Yountville until this weekend.  We finally hit Bouchon Bakery on a Saturday afternoon after it was closed the night before when we stopped by.  I have read things online about other bakeries being better at certain pastries and so on and so forth.  But I have to tell you, Bouchon was delicious and well worth the trip.  We tried about ten various treats and were impressed with ALL of them.  The prices were not as over the top as you would expect.  We loved the chocolate peanut butter cup with its pieces of sea salt and their jelly filled doughnuts.  Yes, the doughnuts were jelly filled which can be quite scary if you grew up with disgusting jelly doughnuts.  But not Bouchon’s doughnuts, they’re filled with deliciousness!  Next time is Ad Hoc in Yountville for us, which was closed the night we tried to go because of a private event.

This was not a comprehensive foodie journey where we were able to sample all of the local favorites. However, we were able to grab a few tastes. On past road trips it was so hard to figure out where the locals ate from the behind the steering wheel. And yes, we could ask our hotel, but they always want to tell you the tourist traps. Now, with Yelp and a blackberry or iphone, you can do it! I don’t search by the highest rated places in a city but by which ones have the greatest number of reviews on yelp. Once on yelp, you can’t listen to the locals fight and hate on particular spots through polarized reviews. Just trust that it is a decent enough spot if so many people wanted to write about the restaurant. Honestly, this method did not steer us wrong.

• Big Sur Bakery (only for a snack this time) (95 Yelp Reviews as of 4/10/10)
  
• La Super-Rica Taqueria - Santa Barbara, CA (234 Yelp Reviews)
• Tyler’s Burgers – Palm Springs, CA (76 Yelp Reviews)
• King’s Highway - Palm Springs, CA (41 Yelp Reviews)

Big Sur Bakery is pricey and if you are camping down there, you feel a bit grungy to just go in and eat a fab meal. We stopped by for afternoon coffee and baked goods. The best baked delights were their creative, maybe California inspired, options such as persimmon cupcakes with brown butter frosting and strudel with local fruit filling. We will get back there for a proper meal soon, maybe when the folks are town, wink, wink!

La Super-Rica Taqueria is backed by the word of Julia Child. On yelp people argue back and forth about the best tacqueria in Santa Barbara and that the Julia Child recco is overused. We thought it was a unique experience, and agreed with someone on yelp’s description that it is a very regional twist to California Mexican classics. After waiting in line maybe ten or fifteen minutes (the lines can apparently be unbelievable) we made it to the register to order a bunch of different dishes. One claim to fame is La Super-Rica’s homemade tortillas that are being made as you wait; they held up to the hype. You typically get a meat order such as #16 pasilla peppers and very freshly cooked pork and homemade tortillas and chow away with fresh salsa.

Tyler’s Burgers, like La Super-Rica, also had a decent line to wait in. It is located in the center of downtown Palm Springs and has a nice outdoor patio setting area. I ordered the cole slaw — a must — sliders, and fries to share with everyone. Their cole slaw is a solid classic version. The sliders were very good and served on what seemed to be homemade buns.

King’s Highway is a restored retro mid-20th-century modern restaurant located at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. It is a pretty cool spot with nice updated versions of Americana classic diner food. We ate a bit of everything and the number one star was the Sticky Date Pudding made from locally grown dates. We had the pot roast that wasn’t that impressive. The other stars were the Jicama Salad with feta and champagne dressing, the mac and cheese side, and their fries are the bomb!

The Ace Hotel is a pretty good deal.  The rooms are retro-modern and from our experience, even quiet.  There are lots of young families hanging out by the pool sipping on creative cocktails and nibbling on great fries.  The pools is open until 3am!  They have a really great pub next to the restaurant where you can play bingo on certain nights.  From this location you also have access to head to Joshua Tree or the Sultan Sea.  Check it out!

Big Sur Bakery

Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920

La Super-Rica Taqueria

622 N Milpas St
Santa Barbara, CA 93103

Tyler’s Burgers

149 South Indian Canyon Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92262-6603

King’s Highway – Ace Hotel

701 E. Palm Canyon Dr
Palm Springs, CA 92264

• Breakfast: Snooze A.M. Eatery!
• Dive Bar: Don’s Club Tavern on 6th Avenue
• Coffee: Pablo’s Coffee on 6th Avenue
• Lunch: Sputnik on Broadway
• Ice Cream: Sweet Action Ice Cream on Broadway
• Wiskey: Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Denver Distillery

I went to Denver to visit my friends.  Lindsay just moved from Chicago and is now in the business of finding the best places to eat in Denver.  Chi-town has some of the best food around and so she has been looking for the comparable spots in Denver.  She has done a great job so far!

It seems, another place it isn’t cool to be from California, is Denver!  There are too many of us there and we can’t drive.  Too funny!  Being from Ohio originally, this really makes me laugh and made me feel kind of like a Masshole.  What do you call Cali A-holes?  Watch out Texans, they don’t like your driving either.

So they took me to Snooze Eatery! Snooze is a modern diner-like breakfast and lunch spot with two locations in Denver and soon to be other new locations in other cities in CO such as Fort Collins.  Their creative Pancakes (Pineapple Upside-down Cake, Sweet Potato, Wheat’s Cherry Cobbler, and a pancake of the day) and Eggs Benedict dishes (Roasted Pork, BBQ Beef, Ratatouille, and Smokin’ Salmon)  seem to be the great edibles at Snooze.  Friends had the oversize monster Breakfast Burrito, the Burger, and two different Eggs Benedict dishes (BBQ Beef was the better than the Salmon).  I tried the Tomato Soup with grilled 3 cheese sandwich and it was great!   OK, what is the down-side of Snooze?  The wait can apparently be hours long on the weekends.

Don’s Club Tavern is a great dive bar and has been voted the best dive bar in Denver in the past.   It was definitely a better experience at happy hour time when there weren’t a ton of folks crowded in like there are on Friday or Saturday nights.  There isn’t a happy hour special so to speak but they apparently always have cheap well-drinks and beers.  Ha!  A $4 pint of New Belgium Sunshine Wheat (very tasty by the way) WAS a happy hour price for me, being a Calihole and all.  Do I get any kind of bonus points for being a NorCali-hole?

I have to mention Pablo’s Coffee on 6th Avenue because we went there everyday for four days straight and they have a great atmosphere and good coffee.  Pablo’s does not have wi-fi or internet access!  What?  This is actually a great concept and gets people to sit down and talk together rather than being isolated by technology!  This is the place that really made me aware of the friendliness of people in Denver, even though one friendly gentleman hated the hell out of San Francisco once he knew I was from NorCal.

We stopped in Sputnik on Broadway to have a casual lunch in another dive bar after shopping around on Friday.  Sputnik is a bar that also serves food and coffee.  Folks were hanging out and eating at the bar as well as sitting in the booths on their computers (Oh, wi-fi here in the bar).  We had the *MIXED FRIES *Small $3.75, Large $5 (with choice of 2 sauces- sweet habañero jam, chimichurri) and soup.

Sweet Action Ice Cream on Broadway!   Everyone seems to know this great ice cream shop in Denver.  We met the owner (super sweet and friendly) on Friday and she said they make only 1-2 gallons of ice cream per flavor and they are always making new flavors each night!  I love this!  I had the Banana Reece’s Pieces and the next day I had the Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Brittle (from a Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Denver Distillery).  Places don’t serve kiddie size scoops anymore so the small is the smallest you can get.  Sweet Action gives you a decent size scoop, none of this, it is a tiny artisanal (to refer to the craft of hand making food products) foods garbage and our ingredients are so premium that you can’t even afford an actual bite.

If you drive HWY 88 to get to Kirkwood in the winter for some skiing, stop by Tasty Maid Bakery in Pioneer, CA and pick up a warm homemade cinnamon roll for the road!   They don’t have the best coffee in the world, but their pastries are great and really old fashion, homemade style.

She also has: donuts, danish, muffins, pies, ham&cheese; Kolaches, and a famous Texas Rum Cake.  Their pies are beautiful and are about $8.

Open 7 days a week from 5am-12noon.

Tasty Maid Bakery

24140 State Highway 88
Pioneer, CA 95666

(209) 295-4100

My dad has frequented Crabill’s Hamburgers since 1955.  Crabill’s cooks their mini burger patties in a secret recipe oil. Fried on a grill in oil an inch deep makes these burgers pretty unique in flavor.   There are only eight bar stools inside but they do have a drive through and pretty big take-out service. We always leave our coats in the car so that they don’t smell like grease.

Ever since 1928 they put mustard, relish, and onion on top. But ketchup was added in 1990.

What to order:

• A couple doubles w/ mustard, relish, and onion with the buns dipped. Then just keep ordering them until you are full.  The record is over 20 something doubles!
• A bag of locally made Mumford potato chips, and a coke in the little bottles.

Home Cookin’ for Xmas – New England Style +  Some Family Traditions

• Lobster is one of my favorite foods. I have to eat lobster every time we go to Maine. Eating it at home is as good as eating it at restaurant if not better!

It is currently very affordable because of the overabundance of lobster due to the overfishing of its predators.

Pull out your Joy of Cooking and boil those “lobsta’s.”  Serve with melted butter.

Click for “How to prepare lobster”.

• Gjetost Cheese Spread

Gjetost is a cheese that is a combination of goat and cow’s milk. Our family heats the Gjetost very slowly in a pot until the water has evaporated and the milk sugar forms a kind of brown caramelized paste. Then milk or cream is added to change the fat content of the finished product which looks like peanut butter that you can spread on crackers. This is a family tradition to make Gjetost around xmas time passed on by Swedish relatives from Minnesota.

• Peanut Butter Fudge from Kellie’s Belly

Tasty recipes we either prepared or had prepared for us for xmas:

• Lobster Fra Diavolo + Shrimp & Scallops

(Seafood Fra Diavolo) from Kellie’s Belly! Kellie made this for us for dinner in Maine. It was delicious.  It had a marinara and marsala taste to it because of the Chianti. Even if you don’t think you like seafood, this dish was not seafoody in a bad way at all.

(Serves 6)

• 3-4 tbs olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (or more if you like spice)
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 24 oz jar of good quality marinara sauce
• 2 lobsters, cooked and picked
• 1 lb shrimp, cleaned
• 1 lb sea scallops
• 2 packages fresh pasta
• fresh grated parmesan
• 1/2 c. dry red wine (chianti works well)

Directions

Heat olive oil in a large pan, and saute garlic 2-3 minutes over medium-high heat.  Add all herbs and spices and saute another minute before adding the scallops and shrimp.  Cook the scallops and shrimp just until they turn opaque, then add the lobster, cooking 1 more minute.  Add the marinara sauce and bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low.  Meanwhile, be sure the pasta water is ready.  Add the red wine to the seafood mixture in the pan and prepare the pasta.  Serve with parmesan cheese.

• Simple Spiced Chai Tea Pudding Recipe

This was a great dessert by Kellie’s Belly. My mom always says that when you are entertaining, you can’t make a lot of complicated dishes because it just won’t all get done in time.   So this is a perfect entertaining dessert to make ahead.

• Poached Pears with Raspberry Sauce Recipe

This is an elegant and fairly simple dessert by our mother. You can use a variety of fillings such as cinnamon syrup or cinnamon ice cream.

Xmas Eve Dinner

• Best Leg of Lamb Recipe: + Roasted Vegetables

This recipe was an experiment as we had never made leg of lamb before.  It turned out to be pretty simple and tasted great.  Make sure you don’t overcook it – rare @ 135-140F is good. Serve it with Mango Chutney, Mint Jelly, and Roasted Veggies.

• Awesome Online Portland, ME Visual Food Map: http://www.portlandfoodmap.com/

• Novare Res: Great Bier Café w/ Artisan Cheese Plates – We want this in our neighborhood!

• Breakfast: Hot Suppa! – Best Corned Beef Hash Ever!

• Cookbook Bookstore: Rabelais

Over the holidays we headed home to Maine. This gave us the chance to checkout Portland’s foodie claims that attracted our attention in this years Bon Appetit article “Portland, Maine–America’s Foodiest Small Town.” Portland has certainly changed since the last time we visited five years ago with much more than your traditional seafood spots and pubs. There are more local breweries and bakeries, quaint & kitschy cafes that highlight modern takes on comfort food, and creative fine-dining with daily designed menus offering creative interpretations of regional favorites. We also went to a wonderful bier café with a beer list of more than 200 beers along with Maine made Meed as well as featuring great mix and match artisan cheese plates.

The Portland Food Map: This is awesome. It is a visual guide to food and drink in Portland separated by category such as kind of food, bakery, and specialty food shops and so on. When you click on the restaurant name it shows you a rating number as well as a list of the reviews about the restaurant. We are looking forward to every town having one of these.

One of my highlights was the cookbook bookstore Rabelais with books about food, wine, farming, and gardening and we of course we picked up more than our share. For one of our fathers we got a gardening for home brewers book and a canning and cheese-making book for ourselves.

At Hot Suppa! we had to try the Corned Beef Hash. It had so much more meat on it than we’re used to with corned beef hash. The meat was tender and was such a high-quality version and we could quickly tell why it is their flagship meal. We also had the special smoked duck breast sandwich with Gruyere, cranberry chutney, and dressed arugula on foccacia with the great mac and cheese side. The rolled French omelet was light and flavorful with the spinach, tomato, and chevre. It looked like there were lots of young and hip shops in this part of town just a few blocks from the old port.

At the Standard Baking Co. on Commercial Street we tried some of the European breads and pastries. We tried the Stolen bread, Fennel Pepper Crackers, and two suggested pastries. The Stolen was really great and we rationed it throughout the week.

Linda Bean’s Lobster Roll Perfect Maine had just opened and we wanted a lobster roll for lunch. Our mother had found the NYtimes article about the restaurant and we read the controversial aspects about the new fast-food lobster joint and the LL Bean heiress’s plans for its future. We have to say the roll was of a very high quality with lots of big chunks of lobster meat and not the typical mashed up, overly mayonnaise version. The clam chowder was also very tasty. It is essentially a Chipotle or Five Guys style higher-quality quick food lunch spot but we were pleased with the beer selection and tasty food.

Novare Res stole the show for us. We loved the HUGE selection of local and international microbrews and Maine flavored meeds. The bier café even seemed to be a family spot at 4:30-5pm on a Tuesday evening with young couples and their babies meeting friends. The mix-match artisan cheese bar was wonderful with the honey drenched Spanish almonds and chocolate drizzled on the plate. We want Novare Res in our neighborhood!

NY Times Article: “In Portland’s Restaurants, a Down East Banquet“