Down East Blogs
The Wit & Wisdom of Maine
Maine Media
Media Mutt
Al Diamon
Institutional Memory Lapse at the Press Herald
Doesn’t hold water: On Feb. 3, the Portland Press Herald ran an interesting story by staff writer Tom Bell on how the Shipyard Brewery in Portland had somehow been undercharged for sewer usage for years, an errors that had cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nobody seemed to know how this mistake, which occurred in 1996 when a second water line was installed, had happened.
Maine Humor
Just Ask Ida
Ida LeClair is the brainchild of humorist Susan Poulin.
Complain, Complain
Can’t believe January is over. Wow! It’s usually such a slog. But this year, didn’t it just fly by? I don’t ever remember having so many days in December and January where the temperature got over freezin’! Why, my niece Caitlin’s boyfriend, Adam, is still riding his bike to work! It’s crazy, but I’m not complaining. ‘Course, that can’t be said of everyone.
Maine Food
The Golden Dish
John Golden has written about food and dining for Gourmet Magazine, Cuisine Magazine, the New York Times, New York Post, and, most recently, wrote the blog Food for Thought on the Portland Press Herald’s MaineToday.com. He was also the NY editor of Cuisine Magazine and Publisher/editor Great Foods Magazine. In his highly opinionated blog, John reports on his experiences dining out all over Maine and on his visits to the many farmers’ markets throughout the state.
Take Two: Dinner at Schulte & Herr, Portland's German Standout
When Chef Brian Davin and his wife Steffie opened the exceedingly engaging Schulte and Herr restaurant on Cumberland Avenue in Portland last fall serving breakfast and lunch, word spread fast that we had a culinary wunderkind in our midst. This was no doppelganger for heavy Germanic cooking, but rather the chef showed an exceedingly light touch in his interpretation of his homeland’s classics.
Maine Life
Maine: The Week in Review
Maine, the way life was last week.
Explaining Maine’s Moose Lottery – Or Not
According to Maine state government’s moose-hunting website, one of the things you have to know before you can get a permit to shoot a moose is this:
“What is a WMD?”
Maine Nature
George's Outdoor News
George Smith of Mount Vernon is a writer, TV show host, political and public policy consultant, hunter, angler, and avid birder who happens to be most proud of his three children and two grandsons.
LL Bean's 100th - A Book, Events, and Much More
Eight years before I was born, Leon Leonwood Bean published a hunting, fishing, and camping guide, sort of an all-purpose how-to book that LL predicted would take no more than 85 minutes to read.
That book has been republished this year by Down East Books for LL Bean’s 100th anniversary, with updated information from LL’s grandson, Bill Gorman. Amazingly, given how long ago this book was published, much of it remains pertinent and helpful today.
Maine Politics
The Tipping Point
Mike Tipping writes about the politics of the Pine Tree State, covering Maine like black flies in June. Mike lives in Westbrook, Maine, works for the Maine People's Alliance, and blogs daily at www.mainepolitics.net
Marriage Vote Won't Affect Turnout in Nov.
With the announcement that the campaign for equal marriage in Maine has gathered enough signatures to put a question on marriage back on the ballot this November, and the announcement yesterday that the clean energy initiative has failed to qualify for 2012, we now have a better idea of how the ballot will look for the general election this year.
Maine Life
Salt Stories
The Salt Stories blog features the work of students at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, a 15-week educational program training aspiring writers, radio producers, and photographers in the art of nonfiction storytelling. We believe everyone has a story to tell, and we work with our students to use journalistic skills and ethics to produce powerful and objective work. Each semester we are proud to send a group of documentarians and nonfiction storytellers out into the world hoping that they continue to shape our ever-changing media landscape.
Port Clyde is ME
In this collage, five Port Clyde residents describe their sense of pride in the place they live. A young lobsterman, a banjo player, a commercial fisherman, a mother of three, and a retired dentist each express why they embody Port Clyde.
Produced by Molly Jean Bennett, Emily Chin, and Katrina Herzog.
Photos: Katrina Herzog
Audio Editing: Emily Chin
Multimedia Editing: Molly Jean Bennett
From the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
Maine Food
Notes from a Maine Kitchen
Kathy Gunst is a cookbook author and the award-winning resident chef for WBUR's Here and Now (heard on over sixty public radio stations). Her newest book, Notes from a Maine Kitchen, will be published by Down East in September 2011.
May I Take a Nap Now, Please?
It’s getting dark. Really dark. Yesterday I looked outside and it was nearly black. I looked at the clock: 3:48 in the afternoon. The term “afternoon” implies that we are only mid-way through the day. But according to the scene outside my kitchen window, it is night.
We are close to the shortest day of the year and my inner clock is fighting hard to stay awake all day and remain on schedule. I am ready for dinner at 5 p.m. and bed at 8 p.m. Early bird special, anyone?
Maine Fiction
Island Wars
Sex, drugs, and lobster fishing — it’s all happening this summer on Grand Seal Island! This fictitious blog by author Michael Evans chronicles the daily exploits of Donovan Graham, a recent college graduate whose first assignment is to cover the escalating border dispute playing out between the United States and Canada on an island off the Mainecoast. Add your own comments to those submitted by Donovan’s spurious online observers, and don’t worry if you miss a few entries — Down East will publish them all in book form this fall, at the end of the series.
Goodbye
The Village is holding the Summer’s Death bash tonight.
They do it every year — at least, when they remember to. It’s a big affair that involves the importation of boatloads of booze, trunkloads of pot, and baggieloads of other things. Mitch told me about it, although it took work to decipher his Venice Beach dialect into understandable English. (You start by subtracting the word “dude” from every third position in each sentence.)
Maine Life
LiveWork Portland
LiveWork Portland's PortlandNow blog covers the creative economy in Portland, Maine—from art, design, fashion and food, to film, music, science and technology. Our goal is to increase the visibility of Portland's many creative communities and connect what is going on here with cultural developments in other parts of the country. Beyond the blog, LiveWork Portland is also an informative resource for creative practitioners and entrepreneurs who are interested in relocating to Portland.
Picnic Music and Arts Festical in Portland
When Noah DeFilippis left Maine for San Francisco at the age of 17, he sought a sense of the urbane. In his return to Portland a few years ago, DeFilippis found that cosmopolitanism nestled improbably amongst Maine’s famous Pick-and-Paws and flea markets. DeFilippis and his wife, Amy Teh, started “Pinecone + Chickadee,” a business named for Maine’s state tree and bird in a tip-of-the-cap to Vacationland.
Maine Media
Coffee With That
A blog by Maine novelist Richard Grant. Art, life, gardening, kid-raising, culture, community, music, political intrigue, pointed commentary, and links to all that is cool in Maine.
SOS, Down East!
One of the livelier points of the drive along coastal U.S. 1, at least until a couple years back, was an old farm in the town of Warren that appeared to be the forward operations post for a platoon of Marines. Actually there was only one guy in there, with three generations of his family, but he made a pretty good show of it.
Maine Life
Down East Blog
A blog for Down East news, thoughts, and guests.
From Maine with Love — A Meal to Remember
On February 9th, two Maine chefs romanced a crowd at the James Beard House in New York City. Chef Michael Salmon of Camden’s Hartstone Inn and Geoffroy Deconinck of Natalie’s at the Camden Harbour Inn cooked up an incredible feast featuring Maine’s spectacular seafood, from oysters and lobster to scallops and crab.
Maine Life
Sea Glass & Scrap Iron
Eva Murray writes of all-things Matinicus, including wrenches, whoopie pies, and wayward reporters in search of quaint Maine.
Peace, War, and Political Cartoons on Matinicus Island
A former island teacher who has fallen in love with Matinicus (as people occasionally do) returned for a visit last week and was amazed at how much there was to...attend. The little community was buzzing with the goofy summer socializing we enjoy — perhaps a sophisticated tete-a-tete hanging around the grill at the Farmer’s Market (sorry, no farmers this year, but wicked good sausages).
Maine Humor
Tim Sample
Tim Sample, in the tradition of Bert and I, is a Maine humorist of the finest kind. See more of his books and cds in the Down East.com bookstore.
Maine Weather: Warm, Weird, or Wild
During a recent email exchange with a friend of mine at the Maine Department of Tourism, I mentioned that perhaps it’s time to start marketing The Pine Tree State as the “garden spot” of the nation.
I was only half-kidding.
Maine Food
The Maine Mouth is the place where you can get the word of mouth advice that will lead you to the good eats—and all that is related to it—from York to Fort Kent.
Sandwiches and Sticky Pudding for Saints
This Sunday the New Orleans Saints will be on TV screens across Maine, but there’s only one place to go to sample some authentic New Orleans grub. Po’ Boys and Pickles (1124 Forest Avenue, 207-518-9735), which opened in Portland this past December, is a low-key southern sandwich shop that is cheap enough, good enough, and trendy enough to become a local favorite.
