The Salt Exchange

• September: Bourbons
• October: [Naturally infused] Vodkas
• November: Scotch

Stay tuned for details.

Our favorite part of the New York Times' piece "36 Hours in Portland, Maine" is its opening:

PORTLAND, Me., is known for three L’s: lobster, lighthouses and L. L. Bean (O.K., make that four L’s). Here’s another: local. In recent years, this city on the coast of Maine has welcomed a wave of locavore restaurants, urban farms and galleries that feature local artists. Abandoned brick warehouses are being repurposed as eco-friendly boutiques. In the main square, a 19th-century building has been refashioned into a farmers’ market. And everywhere you look, this once-sleepy industrial town is showing signs of rejuvenation — usually by keeping things local.  

We are happy to know that folks have been noticing! 

The pictures above are of produce Chef Jacob picked up at the Portland Farmers' Market this week.

For your reading and web-browsing pleasure:

• Maine Blueberry Malted Waffles, photographed by Dana Moos.
• More on Maine Blueberries: "Love at first bite"
• This interview with Chef Mitchell Kaldrovich of Sea Glass at the Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth also yields a killer recipe for slow braised beef short ribs.
• The AP reports "Maine lobsterman in tiny boat pulls traps by hand"
• Mmm. Early farm and garden bounties in Maine, reports the Press Herald.
• Last week the Bangor Daily News initiated a conversation about maintaing a food economy in Maine.
• DownEast on The Little Red Lobster Shack and on baconized cornbread (and how to make it!)
• In Maine hunger news: WCSH reports that York County food pantries are hurting, Bangor Daily reports that the soup kitchen in Belfast is in dire straits, and WBLZ reports that - after a push for food - Windham food pantries are stocked.
  

Mitch Miller, resident forager extraordinaire, poses with his fresh-picked, beautiful black trumpet mushrooms. They will be served tonight (Friday) and tomorrow night along with our Grilled Pork Flatiron with Mushroom-Cabrales Blue Cheese Bread Pudding and Crispy Artichoke.

For your reading and web-browsing pleasure:

• It looks like the movement towards making local food more easily accessible to low income people is picking up across the country.  
• The Portland Press Herald reports that Good Shepherd Food Bank opened its new distribution center in Portland on Monday morning. 
• Further, the folks at Good Shepherd remind us that for many kids during the summer, no school lunch means no lunch at all. 
• According to USA Today, The First Family enjoyed cones at Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream Shop and ate at Stewman's Lobster Pound. The Washington Post reports they ate at Bar Harbor's Havana on Saturday.
• The First Family's visit to the state had folks looking at Maine as a foodie destination. Here, The Boston Globe examines prime, not-necessarily-obvious tourist destinations here in Maine. 
• The Raitt Homestead Farm Museum in Eliot is working on becoming a year-round exhibit.
• The blog Erin Cooks looks at some Maine Food Blogs.
• Finally, it looks like some lucky folks from Philly will be eating and drinking like some well-fed Mainers early next week.

A couple of weeks back, we ran a post about a Gulf of Maine Research Institute [GMRI] event called "Trawl to Table." The event was targeted at local restaurant chefs, and was intended to take a look at - and demystify - the concept of trawling as sustainable practice. Charlie attended the event, which had such an impact on him that The Salt Exchange is now offering more sustainable catch fish.

Well, the Portland Press Herald has since featured GMRI's efforts, and The Salt Exchange is mentioned:

That's the message from the Portland-based Gulf of Maine Institute as it begins an effort to create markets for under-used fish species. Seafood caught in the Gulf of Maine is among the most sustainably harvested seafood in the world, says Jan Levin, manager of the organization's sustainable seafood program.

[...]

Charles Bryon, owner of The Salt Exchange restaurant on Commercial Street, decided to offer hake, an under-used Gulf of Maine species, on his menu and donate $2 from each hake entree sold to the research institute.

Bryon said a seminar that the institute sponsored to reacquaint restaurant owners and chefs with Maine-caught fish led to several changes at the restaurant.

The article also touches on the efforts of other restaurateurs present at the Trawl to Table event, including Michelle Corry, owner of 555:

[The restaurant] started selling ocean-themed drinks a couple of months ago and donating $1 from each drink sale to the institute, for projects related to sustainable fishing.

This is a great article about a great effort, and we hope that you will read the rest of it here.

For your reading and web-browsing pleasure:

• The Boston Globe ran a story on the lobster industry, which focuses on how lobstermen are working to stay afloat. They discuss the Crate to Plate program, a model that operates like a CSA.
• Becky's Diner and the Porthole won't be the only Maine establishments to appear on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (as we touched on last month.) Kittery's Bob's Clam Hut will also appear on the show, reports Foster's Daily Democrat.
• Maine potato advocates have launched a campaign to get the food on a good foods list for a federal nutrition program.
• Saving Seeds posted a statement from the People's Movement Assembly on Food Sovereignty from the US Social Forum 2010.
• Maine Food & Lifestyle takes a look at cooking mussels.
• An important fact to consider: A Feeding America study finds that Maine ranks 8th in the nation with regard to children at risk of hunger.
• And finally: It's a little bit down the road (October), but it's never too early to start thinking about Harvest on the Harbor.

A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to have the chance to talk with The United States of Arugula author David Kamp. Kamp is also a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and GQ, and he maintains a pretty great blog in which he discusses the coffee fixation of Steig Larsson characters and mourns the loss of Law and Order. He was incredibly generous with his time - I expected him to be able to spare only 15 minutes and we ended up chatting for 45 - and, in an incident that occurred not long after our chat, a coffee spill on my laptop led to the loss of the audio and we are left without any proof that said generous, thoughtful interview ever took place.

Major bummer.

We reached out to Kamp because Charlie is head-over-heels in love with Arugula, a book that documents the rise of food culture and appreciation in the United States. The book has been praised for many reasons, particularly its smartness, and especially its optimism, which - for those who remember the pre-rise-of-Pollan mid-Aughts - was particularly rare with regard to food back in 2006. Optimistic is an appropriate way to describe Kamp's general attitude and he brought much of that optimism to our conversation. He remains fascinated by food, and the movement that has built around it.

We talked Top Chef, which had not yet reached the air when Kamp was researching for and writing the book. He explained that he had talked with Chef and show creator/host Tom Colicchio while researching, and that Colicchio wasn't even sure the show was going to work out (seven seasons later…) We discussed the role of the small, artisan farmer as the new punk rock hero, and we chatted about food snobbery, a subject that Kamp has playfully meditated on in his snob series.

We also touched on Kamp's upcoming book about the 70s, a decade he explained gets an undue bad rap (see: optimism). The subject is one that he became more intimate with by way of the research he did for Arugula, and if Arugula is any indication, it should be well worth the read. Do check it out should you get the chance. I was very lucky to have the chance to chat with Kamp, and I thank him for his willingness to do so. Should he ever find himself in Portland, I hope the next time we talk farms, punk rock, and Tom Colicchio, it will be over a bottle of wine and a great meal prepared by Chef Jacob and his team here at The Salt Exchange.

- Alex Steed

For your reading and web-browsing pleasure:

We will celebrate (!):  Today marks our one year anniversary, and we just can't believe it. We will be offering new signature drinks and complimentary canapés from 5-7. As always, there will be free parking available in the MEMIC lot and we are so excited to see you. It has been a fabulous year for us at the restaurant, and we have received so much love and support from the community. For that, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  

• Also worth noting (especially for those of you with a taste for literature): Our anniversary falls on Bloomsday, a day set aside to celebrate the life of author James Joyce. More about the day can be read here, and we encourage you to have a drink for James. The Writer's Almanac writes about Bloomsday here, and you can hear Garrison Keillor talk about Bloomsday here. 
• Finally: Joe Ricchio made a beautifully entertaining appearance on WCSH this morning, where he made tripe soup. Topics covered included soups that make for good hangover cures, living safely through vicarious blog-reading, and - of course - early morning tripe-eating. You can watch his performance below. 

Just a quick update to let you know that we're just getting our first deliveries of local farm fresh pea tendrils, greens, radishes and herbs. We've been getting some really nice strawberries from Massachusetts (there isn't yet much available locally).

To date we have been fortunate to see Matt at Sparrow Arc Farm and Beth at Dandelion Spring Farm and we expect to see them more - and more folks - soon.