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.

Salt Stories: "Ice Fishing at Carnegie Hall”

Nine groups of Salt Institute for Documentary Studies students went around the state this past winter looking for short stories to share. Part 7 looks at what keeps Glenn Emmons coming back to a frozen Sebago Lake.

Maine Food

Down East Blog

A blog for Down East news, thoughts, and guests.

Recipe: Baked Brie

Learn how to make baked brie — the perfect appetizer for any party.

Maine Life

Loafers Are Skiing Early

Skiers hit the trails at Sugarloaf Friday, the earliest opening for the resort in Carrabasset Valley since 2007.

Two trails are open at The Loaf. The resort credits its three hundred new snowguns for the the early start.

Sunday River will open for the season on Tuesday with three trails.

Maine Humor

Just Ask Ida

Ida LeClair is the brainchild of humorist Susan Poulin. Visit Ida's Web site at http://www.idaswebsite.com/ or join her on her Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/idaspage

New Fangled Food

Ida LeClair, Maine's Funniest Woman, has a new home. You can visit her anytime at idaswebsite.com

Well, me and the girls were down to the Bangor Mall the other day, livin’ la vida loca, and when it came time for lunch we dropped into Panera.

As I ordered a Chipotle Chicken Panini, and I’m thinkin’, If I’d walked in here ten years ago, and saw that on the menu, the only word I’d recognized would be chicken. I mean, who come up with the idea of the Panini, anyway?

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.

Game Warden's Stories Serious to Sublime

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

Maine Air Wars Begin in Earnest

This week saw the first major TV advertising for statewide campaigns in the 2012 General Election in Maine. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has begun airing an ad attacking the record of former Governor and U.S. Senate candidate Angus King and tonight Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders will begin airing an ad in support of the referendum to allow marriage licenses for same-sex couples in Maine.

The ad against King, which is part of a more-than $200,000 ad buy, has received attention so far for both its tone and the messenger behind it.

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.

Dining Well Far Out to Sea

In the surging gastronomy of food-centric Maine, who would have thought that an island 12 miles out to sea would join the ranks of the culinary elite? But such a food escapade awaits the weary traveler at North Haven Island’s inimitable Nebo Lodge. Here dining on the island’s bountiful harvest is the stuff of memorable meals based on a   righteous pedigree of provisions grown, raised and yielding freshness and purity that’s flawless.

Maine Life

Maine: The Week in Review

Maine, the way life was last week.

Tornado Moves Woolwich To Eastern Maine

Tuesday began as just another day in the town of Woolwich (motto: Pronounced Two Different Ways: Wool-witch and Wit-ah-pit-lok). And it continued as just another day all morning long. And all afternoon. And right through happy hour, it couldn’t have been more ordinary. But about 7:30 p.m., things began to change in the general direction of the unusual. For one thing, it started to get dark. That’s not the unusual part. Which is: Woolwich was hit by a tornado.

Maine Media

Media Mutt

Al Diamon

No Spin Control At The Sun Journal

Closed case: The Lewiston Sun Journal scored a scoop on July 23 when it reported that a Superior Court justice had ruled that the state Board of Environmental Protection hadn’t followed the law last year in issuing a permit allowing construction of a casino in Oxford. The story by managing editor Judy Meyer was factually correct and reasonably complete in presenting reaction from pro- and anti-casino factions.

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

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 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.