Ok, so not only is 55 part of the name of one of Maine's best restaurants, the delectable 555 on Congress Street, but it is also Maine's lucky number for 2008. Saveur magazine, in its annual top 100 food "things" of the year, listed our state (in its entirety) 55th. The Maine favorite, Morse's Sauerkraut, was number 50. Of course the numbering is not a ranking but rather a random

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Looking for a new career in the food industry? You might just want to turn to syrup. The real, maple stuff, that is, that actually comes from trees. According to an Associated Press article, the Maine Maple Producers Association is predicting that prices for the sweet stuff will increase by 20 or 30 percent this year. The cause: two bad syrup seasons and increased

If I hear the term baked spaghetti, I don't think of Italian red sauce and stringy mozzarella. I think of juicy warm tomatoes, tender beef, thick pasta, creamy cheddar, and most important of all, salt pork. All of these ingredients, plus two baseball-sized onions, combine in one burned, orange Le Creuset pot to emerge from the oven one hour later, bubbling and steaming hot. I also think of Augusta.
When I was little, the Sunday after Christmas was deemed, at least in my mind, Baked Spaghetti day.

I used to be a picky eater. As a child, I clung to my staples of macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers, and Lipton's beef rice with the same fervor I employed to cling to my mother's side. I suffered from homesickness and think that my tastes (or lack thereof) in food suffered from a similar proclivity towards the familiar, the un-exotic: I was a comfort food child.

After traveling across Europe and finding myself living in New York City, those tastes expanded. They did not change altogether,