CAMDEN—Camden, with its picturesque small town and harbor, has been the backdrop to multiple films over the last several decades, including Stephen King's horror drama, Thinner, and the supernatural fantasy, Casper.

According to a September post in Reddit Maine, Camden got another spooky close-up in the psychological horror TV series From, which debuted September 22, 2024, and is streaming on Amazon. 

The IMDb logline describes From like this: "Unravel the mystery of a city in middle U.S.A. that imprisons everyone who enters. As the residents struggle to maintain a sense of normality and seek a way out, they must also survive the threats of the surrounding forest."

IMDb notes that "The town set was built specifically for the series in North Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia;" however, eagle-eyed Maine residents spotted Camden in part of the scenes with one Redditer wryly noting, "The entire show is just one Mainer driving through Camden during tourist season."

The first episode is available for free on Amazon. 

According to IMDb: "The Matthews' family road trip takes a horrifying turn when they are detoured to a small town from which they cannot leave. When their family RV crashes, Sheriff Boyd Stevens and other residents rush to save them before the sun goes down."

From the first episode, fans of the show ruminated that it felt like something Stephen King dreamed up. In fact, King said of the show on X (formerly Twitter): "I just saw the first episode of FROM (Epix, premiering 2/20). I was absolutely riveted. True edge-of-your-seat stuff, believable and scary." 

Despite the cameo, people often ask why so many Maine-themed movies are filmed in Canada. This PenBay Pilot story explains that it all comes down to Maine's tax incentives, which have historically, been unattractive to filmmakers. 

According to the Maine Film Office, the state currently only offers a 10-to-12 percent wage rebate back to financiers for employees who work on a film in Maine, with an additional five percent tax credit for any production costs in Maine. In contrast, both Massachusetts and Canada (where many "Maine" films are shot) offer filmmakers a refundable tax credit of 25 percent of a production's qualified labor expenditures. Efforts to pass laws to boost Maine's film tax credits have met failure after failure at the legislative level. 

A 2023 Portland Press Herald story uncovered a damning report that Maine's tax incentives are "behind the times" and that the Maine Film Office "does not effectively administer the program."

The story further elaborated:  "According to a study by the Maine Film Association, the film production industry has directly brought $29.3 million to Maine’s economy and indirectly sparked $64.3 million in output."

That's not chump change. Maybe with the success of more shows like From the next time, Camden won't merely be a cameo in future films, but rather, the star. 

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penabypilot.com

SEARSPORT—At the site of the old Captain Tinkham's Emporium, a new brewery has quietly opened, becoming a new "third place" for locals and visitors to sit down at the wooden benches, talk, and enjoy a craft brew. 

Rob and Paula Martell opened Maineport Brewing on 34 E. Main Street in June, after relocating to Searsport from Los Angeles during the pandemic.

The brewery offers four brews on tap, all special recipes crafted by Rob Martell, who honed his home brewing skills while running an electrical contracting company. With his wife, Paula continuing her profession as a data analyst, the partnership allows Martell to focus full-time on a vocation he has always wanted to be part of.

Since 2002, he has home-brewed, building fundamental skills of the craft brewing business and bartering his electrician skills with a brewmaster in exchange for mentorship. 

Then, partnering up with a friend with an outdoor kitchen in L.A., he began offering his home brews to his friends and family. When the opportunity arose to brew his beer in a small-batch community under the tutelage of a brewmaster in Long Beach called Dutch's Brewhouse, Martell finally had use of the commercial equipment to test out his recipes.  

"It was a lot of fun," he said. "We drank more than we brewed."

Currently, one half of the building — the tasting room — is under construction, but the brew room, doubling as the de facto tap room, has a cozy feel with exposed brick and plain wooden tables and benches. Behind the tiny cashier stand sits his four-barrel system that the Martells bought from The Waterville Brewing Co. Where their operations are still small, he brews twice a month.

The four beers on his menu all have some special meaning. 

The Odanata, a Mexican Lager with spicy notes from the hops, is for the community. 

"A Mexican Lager is a light drinking beer, a good summertime beer," he said. "I've done a lot of research on what people like and wanted a crisp, light beer people would enjoy."

The Sugarmamaness, a malty Brown Ale with a hint of chocolate, is an ode to his wife, Paula, a big fan of brown ales, and whom he credits for allowing him to live his dream in Maine. 

"Because she kept her job affording me to do what I'm doing now, this is a tribute to my Sugar Mama," he said.

The Angler Fish IPA is a recipe he wrote for himself. 

"I really don't care for how IPAs are made these days, so I brought this recipe back to the late '90s West Coast old-school IPA," he said. "The beer is mellow with a higher ABV with piney, stone fruit notes, but none of the bitterness often accompanies East Coast IPAs."

Patty Mahoney, a light, malty Irish Blonde Ale is a recipe for his mother. 

"This one is our best-seller," he said. "People love it." 

The brewery also offers non-alcoholic seltzers and snacks.

There is no Wi-Fi in the current tasting room, something Martell feels is good for community building.

"We like to create community in this room," he said. "We don't have TVs. You're encouraged to talk with people when you're here."

A natural people connector himself, he told a story about two farming families who sat near one another and didn't know each other. He introduced them and they sat in his tasting room for four hours talking about working  on a farming collaboration. 

Martell predicts the tasting room will be finished around the holidays. At that point, they'll offer trivia, game nights, tournaments, live music, and other events. They will also have food trucks and a beer yard in the back is in the works for next summer. 

"It's been a great experience," he said. "We have about 80 percent locals here every weekend, which makes us hopeful for the winter. The brewing community has been more than welcoming. I'd say every brewery within two hours of Searsport has stopped by. We've been told by a few brewers that it's rare for a new, small brewery to open and the beer is good." 

Maineport Brewing Company is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Visit the website for more information and hours. 

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

WINSLOW—Living in Maine, it’s a fact of life that wildlife will cross the roads and in the most unfortunate circumstances, sometimes will get hit by cars.

Kristen Linscott, 32, was returning home from work on August 27,  driving behind a pick-up truck around 8:15 p.m. when she watched, horrified, as the truck plowed through a family of raccoons crossing the road.

“I’m guessing the driver was distracted because the person didn’t put on the brakes or swerve to avoid the raccoons or anything,” she said. “There was no other traffic coming from the opposite direction, so there was no reason the driver couldn’t have braked–but the driver didn’t stop and kept on going.”

She made a U-turn on the road and pointed her headlights toward the middle of the road, where one still raccoon was lying.

After a semi-truck and a car passed around the raccoon,  Linscott kneeled to see if it was still alive.

“I felt so bad for her,” she said. I could tell she was still alive and breathing and I went to get my sweatshirt to wrap her up in it, not knowing if she was going to reach around and bite me, but she just allowed me to pick her up and put her in the car. Her mouth was a little foamy and bloody.”

Linscott remembered a man named Don Cote in Vassalboro whom her parents used to bring abandoned baby raccoons. She called, apologizing for bringing the animal in so late and he told her, “It’s not late at all.”

“As soon as I brought her to Don, he checked her over limbs and told me there were no broken bones, which I was relieved about because she still wasn’t moving,” said Linscott.

Duckpond Wildlife Rehab Center is run by Don Cote, 85, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, who has run his wildlife rehab center for five decades with his wife, Carleen, who has since passed away.  As one of more than 25 wildlife rehabilitators throughout Maine, Cote is the crucial link between whether an injured wild animal lives or dies. The goal is to rescue, heal, and release animals into the wilderness. The Wildlife Care Center survives through donations, which provide the lifeline of needed medical care and food.

After reaching home, Linscott organized a GoFundMe campaign for Dote Cote, raising more than $1,800 for this animal and his wildlife center. As it turns out, many wildlife rehabbers depend upon the services of different facilities within the state, so Winnie was transferred to and is now being rehabilitated at the Wilderness Miracles Wildlife Rehab in Bowdoin.

Run by Kathi McCue, the nonprofit rehab center also takes care of injured, orphaned, and sick wildlife to return a healthy animal to the wild.

“Winnie came to me with a soft tissue rear leg injury,” said McCue. ‘It takes time, medication, and rest to heal and it’s now been about three weeks. At first, she hid in the corner not wanting to be touched, and over a few days,  I gained her trust to pick her up and help her move her legs with physical therapy. Now she’s graduated to a bigger cage with a hammock. She’s crawling up and down, lying in that hammock like a little diva. She now hangs out with another little raccoon recovering from being hit by a car. His name is Wally and they love each other.”

Like many rehabbers, her Wilderness Miracles Wildlife Rehab also relies on community donations. McCue said rehabilitating Winnie costs around $1,000, though she has personally spent up to $5,000 to save other animals with veterinary help.

Linscott went above and beyond and stopped into the Wilderness Miracles Wildlife Rehab in Bowdoin to bring a monetary donation, as well as a few groceries for McCue. Linscott has been invited to witness Winnie’s release back into the wild once she is ready.

“’I’m really grateful that she made it into the hands of the wonderful people she did who truly care about helping animals, and that she’s healing with them,” said Linscott. “That’s the best thing I could have hoped for.”

Related: If you care, leave them there: What to do, whom to call when discovering baby wildlife

Related: Rescue of debilitated wild raccoon siblings captivates animal lovers everywhere

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

CAMDEN—In one room set aside for PAWS Animal Adoption Center, more than 12 cats— mostly tuxedo and black-haired breeds hang out in their comfortable beds and boxy houses staring warily at anyone who enters. They are the Island of Misfit Toys—stray cats found in feral colonies, cats who were surrendered by owners after the pandemic adoption surge, or who landed in this room after an owner died. These cats have lived at PAWS for more than a year and still haven’t been adopted.

One black-and-white cat, Evanescence, lies curled up in her soft, nubby bed, her alert eyes on anyone who comes near, body tensed as though ready to spring away. She was part of a feral litter, among many that PAWS has taken in over the years. At the date of this interview, she had been there 805 days with staff resigned to the unlikelihood of finding her a home.

Currently, PAWS has around 110 cats in the shelter and every cat condo is filled to capacity.

“We’re getting so many cats coming in, we can’t keep up,” said Meghan O’Connor, director of PAWS Animal Adoption Center.

Most people who adopt animals want a pet to cuddle, but unfortunately, cats such as Evanescence, who didn’t grow up with human touch, see it as a threat. O’Connor said the ideal person to take on a feral cat would need to be attuned to the cat’s need for isolation and safety and be patient. According to American Pets Alive, it can take up to a year or more to socialize a feral cat.

Two days after this story for PenBay Pilot was written, Evanescence’s fate would change.

Carly Minnis, who owns an animal sanctuary, came into PAWS Animal Adoption Center on September 7 and adopted five cats, including Evanescence, along with two older feral cats and two kittens. 

“After deciding on the two barn cats we were going to adopt, I asked who the longest resident was and they told me about Evanescence,” said Minnis. “She resembled one of our cats we recently lost at 19 years old. We are happy to house nervous cats and intentionally have many places for them to hide. Since we brought her home, she is starting to relax, eat her food and treats and isn’t hiding under her blankets. My son was petting her head a little last night and she was laying there, allowing him to.”

While this particular cat’s story has a happy ending, there are too many feral and stray cats in the Midcoast, according to O’Connor, a big part of the problem with an overpopulation of stray feral cats is when owners do not spay or neuter them.

“If an owner doesn’t spay or neuter the animal when it’s young and it gets pregnant, the owner gives the kittens away for free to his or her friends who then don’t spay or neuter their cats and let them outside, it creates feral colonies,” she said.

Another hindrance is that people in the Midcoast communities are at capacity with adoptions.

“We had a lot of people adopt these animals during the COVID-19 pandemic, so now we have fewer and fewer people coming in who don’t already have animals,” she said. “If we have cats or dogs who need to go into homes with no other cats or dogs, what happens is, they just remain here year after year.”

O’Conner said that “kitten season,” which usually begins at the beginning of spring, has been extending longer and longer into November.

“We’ve had cats who live in the condos [stacked cages] who have been here for so long, that we’ve moved them into a big enclosed room and they regress with people socialization. They get their affection from other cats but the staff really has to work to gain their trust back.”

PAWS is actively working with the community to make it affordable to spay and neuter as well as to adopt animals. One is a “Last Litter” program for cats who’ve just given birth to kittens. When the kittens are eight or nine weeks old, PAWS will spay and neuter them for free. They also offer low-cost veterinary services (including spay and neuter care).

For low-income families, she said: “There are so many programs you can get vouchers for. The best advice is to call PAWS with your question and let them guide you.”

To find out more visit: https://www.pawscares.org/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKPORT—You know what Maine can never see enough of? Great Mexican food.

Joe Simko, owner/chef of the new Taco Joe’s food truck, opened quietly last week in the parking lot of The Country Inn in Rockport, next to two other food trucks: 207 Eats and Shift, wood-fired pizza.

Having grown up in Everett, Massachusetts, Simko’s family decided to move to Maine six years ago, back to where his great-grandparents once lived.

“We all decided to come back to where our roots were,” he said.

Along the way, Simko has put his time in numerous restaurants, starting as a dishwasher, then as a prep cook, a cook, and even a bartender. Mexican food was always his favorite and this year, he decided to take all of the recipes he’s absorbed over the years and turn out a little menu from a customized food truck. Inside, his setup includes steel tables, a steam table, a flat-top grill, a sandwich station, and a couple of refrigerators.

“I love to cook, but I also love the customer face-to-face aspect, so a food trailer was the right solution for me,” he said. With a two-year-old daughter and a fiancée, the time was finally right for it to all come together.

His menu is simple: tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and even hot dogs for kids. His flavors were influenced by his years in Boston, when he worked at a Mexican restaurant, and by his friends.

“Where I grew up in Everett was a huge melting pot of cultures,” he said. “I had friends from El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Portugal, and Brazil, so going over to their houses for dinner and tasting all the different flavors introduced me to a new world of food.”

“A lot of the recipes I saved in my head and tweaked a little,” he said. “I don’t use any sauces; I just use combinations of spices and everything is small-batch made daily.”

His offerings include seasoned chicken, pork carnitas, and carne asada. His pico and guacamole are all made daily from scratch.

After a week of being open, the carne asada burrito has been the biggest seller, followed by the pork carnitas tacos and the chicken quesadilla.

While prepping for the lunch crowd, the inside of the truck was fragrant with the smell of cumin and coriander. One bite of a chicken taco with its simple toppings of cheese and fresh tomato and cilantro was the real deal.

Simko credits The Country Inn for making the parking lot accessible to his business and the other food truck businesses. He said people in the trades who don’t have a lot of time for lunch have praised his food and thanked him for having on-the-go offerings.

“A lot of people have told me it’s so hard to find Mexican food like this,” he said. “I had a woman from Florida tell me she can get food like this anywhere, but not up here, so she got two chicken tacos and then came back for carne asada.” 

Simko’s truck will be parked all summer and fall in The Country Inn parking lot until November. He’ll also do some Maine fairs and festivals such as The Union Fair and The Windsor Fair. To stay on top of Taco Joe’s food and schedule, visit its Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

LINCOLNVILLE—It’s always exciting to see someone’s hobby bloom into a full entrepreneurial business as we’ve seen in past PenBay Pilot stories, from The Scone Goddess in Northport and Sunflour Meals & Cookies in Hope.

Two years ago, PenBay Pilot stumbled upon Lincolnville resident Jessica Weeks’ tiny roadside plant stand in a local story, “The beauty of roadside farm stands.”

Back then, Weeks and her husband were growing a small garden of herbs, vegetables, plants, and flowers for passersby, who used a self-serve honor system to choose what they wanted off the metal tables at the end of their driveway.

This summer, with more acreage dedicated to growing beside their house and two brand new greenhouses, Weeks has expanded her roadside business and has opened her garden center and greenhouse up to the public on weekends.

What makes this so unique is how under the radar it is. Weeks doesn’t have a business name, a website, or Facebook ads. It’s a little like a speakeasy; you might have to ask around to find it.

“We’re located three miles from Lincolnville Beach on Route 173/Beach Road,” she said. 

Weeks said her high school teacher Dalene Dutton sparked her interest in gardening in 2000 after taking her botany class to Merry Gardens, a small garden center on Mechanic Street in Camden.

“We grew scarlet runner beans and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing!’” she said. “I started growing and planting since then.”

Her home business got a major boost when she and her husband decided to invest in a greenhouse from a company called Maine AgroTech, which came and built the wooden unit in one day.

“Adding the greenhouse has really changed our business, to be able to winterize perennials and store them there,” she said. “I quit my job after the pandemic and just started growing full-time. Last year, all of my plants were available at H&H Mercantile in Searsport, and this year, we’re able to open up our greenhouse to the public on the weekends.”

Her one-person business includes perennials, annuals, herbs, flowers, vegetables, and house plants. Each plant has a plant tag identifying it, along with the price.

Weeks said that during the summer throughout the fall she’s around the house on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. and for those driving by to look for the plant flag. If anyone pulls into the driveway next to the roadside stand, she’ll come out and say hello and welcome them to view the greenhouse area.

Even on weekdays, the road stand cart will be filled with various plants and available on a self-serve basis from around 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s still just a roadside stand,” she said. Her personal Facebook page often posts what’s available.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MAINE—On Tuesday, June 4, libraries around the state put out notices on their websites and social media platforms informing patrons that the Interlibrary Loan delivery service had been disrupted and that Maine InfoNet announced that the van delivery service between libraries was halted immediately.

This invaluable service, as reported in a 2020 PenBay Pilot story, gave thousands of people around the state nearly 70 times the borrowing power of their local library card. By using the Interlibrary Loan Service, a patron could reserve items through Maine InfoNet’s multiple shared library systems from nearly 68 public libraries statewide and van delivery often brought those items to the patron’s home library within a week. Within two years, more libraries joined and the van service provided delivery to more than 200 libraries of all types across the state. 

This service was particularly useful for young and low-income residents (who couldn’t afford the cost of a library card in the tonier towns which could be as high as $50 a year) and for college and graduate students, because Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin were all participating, as well.

Maine State Librarian (MSL) Lori Fisher declined to comment citing pending litigation.

“This is a very important service to libraries all over the state and Camden alone borrows and loans some 2,500 items each month," former Camden Public Library Executive Director Nikki Maounis told PenBay Pilot. "This is the kind of service that library users really value in our fast-paced world.”

Steve Norman, of the Belfast Free Library told PenBayPilot, “We send out and receive 30,000 items a year and it’s a big part of our service here. Our patrons will definitely lament the loss of this service for as long as it lasts.” Norman added, “While this affects anyone who uses this service, youngsters are especially affected when they’re looking for a complete series of a book. There are a lot of young adult books that we get from other libraries.”

The only information on what’s happening can be found on MSL’s website.

For statewide van delivery service to occur, the state had to issue an RFP (Request for Proposal)–essentially, a competitive bidding process– to potential van delivery vendors to ensure any purchase of services was done so in “open competition.” This RFP was put out on 3/26/2024 as the current contract was set to expire on 6/30/2024.

According to MSL, The state awarded STAT Courier the conditional award of the RFP for statewide van delivery service for 2025. However, an unsuccessful bidder filed a “Stay and an Appeal.” As for the identity of the business filing the appeal, MSL’s “Attorney General Liaison has advised MSL to not discuss who filed the Stay and Appeal.” However, on MSL’s website, a master scoresheet of the four bidders was listed.

MSL further stated on its website that it cannot enter into a contract with STAT Courier until the appeal process is completed. The appeal hearing has been scheduled for 6/12/24.

How long will it take for service to resume?

Whereas some libraries such as the Rockland Public Library predicted on their Facebook page that “the situation would last more than a month,” MSL’s website FAQs stated: “It is unknown at this time how much of a gap in service there will be, due to the ongoing appeal process. This makes it virtually impossible to create a firm timeline and work out all aspects of a plan in advance for how to address a gap in service.”

On the Interlibrary Loan FAQ, MSL stated: “We do not currently have firm dates for the length of this interruption, but we expect that there will be no delivery for at least six weeks this summer, starting on July 1.”

What patrons can still do

Patrons will still be able to request and place holds on locally owned items, but will not be able to request materials from other libraries.

However, any Maine library that is a member of the Maine Reciprocal Borrowing Program can visit other libraries and check out materials in person, but also must return the materials at the same place. Most Midcoast libraries are on this reciprocal borrowing program.

“This is a temporary interruption, the service will be back,” said Norman. “The absence of the interlibrary loan for the time being should remind every one of us just how important it is.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND—It was Anthony Bourdain’s first book, Kitchen Confidential that first introduced me to the chef’s term, mise en place, a French expression for having all your ingredients measured, cut, and prepared and all your tools all aligned before you start cooking.

For Eileen Gaughan, the owner of the new kitchen store Mise En Place that just opened in May on 425 Main Street, the term was apropos of her entire store concept.

“I love to cook and I love to read cookbooks and some of the chefs I follow on TV or social media always bring up the concept of mise en place,” she said. “I’m a firm believer in the concept and it’s what I do at home. And I thought it was a great name for a kitchen shop.”

Gaughan, who has traveled the world and last lived in New York, moved to Port Clyde at the start of the pandemic in 2020. She spent years in corporate communications and had always wanted to open her own shop.

“I thought Rockland would be a great place to do that,” she said.

Her store is stocked with shelves of tools, such as Japanese knives, kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, and food items made by Maine craftspeople. And she hopes to add more in the coming months.

The shop used to be an insurance agency, and one of the standout features is a large bank vault in the back with an open steel door.

“I plan to use that little space of the vault for some kind of kitchen display,” she said.

Gaughan’s favorite comfort meal is making pasta and Mediterranean food. Knowing how Rockland is considered a “foodie” town, she is open to the idea of using the shop to host various chef talks and demos, as well as cookbook authors.

“My vision and tagline is: ‘Tools for the everyday chef’ so tools and ingredients for people who love to cook,” she said. “I want to make sure I’m catering to the community, so I will continue to expand my wares and I’m asking everyone who comes through the door for feedback.” 

She said more inventory and more shelving will be arriving in the coming months, which will be shaped by that community feedback.

“I am absolutely trying to feature as many locally made items as I can,” she said.

For more information visit: www.mis-en-place.me

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MIDCOAST—This year, we are consolidating our annual “Welcome back” article to acquaint those who haven’t been around this winter to see what’s open, what’s closed, what's new, and what's happening in Rockland, Camden-Rockport, Belfast, and inland.

New Restaurants & Businesses

Lincolnville & Belfast

The Hoot in Northport has changed owners. According to their website: “Anna and Jon Poto are collaborating with the new owners, Robert Macdowell and Janiece Fazio, to provide a seamless transition. The new owners have no intention of changing The Hoot since the restaurant already works like a charm.”

This winter was a brutal one with some of the worst back-to-back noreaster disasters Maine has seen in decades. The Lincolnville Pound sustained heavy damage during the flooding that damaged much of the Midcoast coastline and put Lincolnville Beach under water twice this winter. It impacted every single business along that low strip of Route One by the beach. Soon after, real estate notices put “The Pound” as locals knew it up for sale with the listing stating: “The building is in need of extensive renovation to bring it back to its prior glory and open back up as a restaurant.” At the time of this story, the owners could not be reached for comment. 

McLaughlin’s Lobster Shack located next to the Lincolnville Beach ferry has now moved to the former Chez Michel location and has been advertising for summer help. 

Nautilus Seafood & Grill also re-opened under new ownership this winter. Shawna Aitken, Shelley Trisch, and Mary Marchini took on the restaurant on January 1 from its previous owners, Ron and Roz Peters, who founded the restaurant in 2012. Not long after they purchased it, the winter storms previously mentioned flooded the Belfast harbor flooding the restaurant twice. Here are photos from January. However, since then, they’ve cleaned up, recovered, and are ready for the summer season.

Bell The Cat moved across the street to 18 Hatley Road next to Athena Health and they’ve been busy this winter building a new outdoor patio.

Dos Gatos Gastro Pub took over the basement lounge of the former Sophia beer and wine bar on 84 Main Street. This underground taco & cocktail gastro pub offers traditional standards as well as some taco combos such as duck confit, crab, etc. Find out more here.

Camden

Buttermilk Kitchen at Marriner’s is the latest breakfast and lunch spot in Camden to open on 35 Elm Street once Marriner’s closed. The owners modeled the Maine location after their Buttermilk Kitchen restaurant in Atlanta. Read Chris Wolf’s story. Marriner’s Restaurant changed hands when Dan and Becki Gabriele sold the business to Suzanne Vizethann after 41 years.

Per the Camden town office, The Bagel Café will be moving from its long-time location on Mechanic Street to the former Boynton-McKay space on Elm Street, which has remained vacant since the midst of the pandemic.

First Fig, a neighborhood wine shop and bar at 31 Elm Street, opened for business in late February. Read that PenBay Pilot story here.

Costa Media, formerly wolfpeach, at 50 Elm Street is the sister restaurant, South Portland-based Cafe Louis, and opened just before Christmas, offering a menu inspired by Costa Rican and Caribbean flavors.

Almost simultaneously in mid-December, Albatross, a new restaurant opened at 115 Elm Street in Camden, on the same property as the Cedar Crest Inn. The menu is a bit eclectic with a definite Asian flare to it. There is Japanese-style cured mackerel, Thai pickled shrimp, and Pho egg drop soup with a beef shank. Read that PenBay Pilot story here.

Rockport

The biggest news coming out of Rockport this winter is the completion of the Rockport Harbor Hotel, facing the harbor. See the related article here. On May 8, the hotel announced its rooftop Atrium Restaurant was opened to the public with a Business After Hours event hosted by the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Another notable story this winter from MaineBiz announced, “Rock City Employee Cooperative, an employee-owned cooperative that owns a café and coffee roastery in Rockland, is planning to move the roastery from a leased space at 252 Main St. in Rockland to another building in the neighboring Knox County town of Rockport.”

Sea Hag Cider took over the space at 315 Commerical Street, also in mid-December opening Rockport’s first cidery. Sea Hag Cider features various Maine apples and orchards as well as other local ingredients like wildflower honey and even maple syrup to make their many ciders that you can try on tap in their tasting room.

Union

Jennifer and Fabrice Roux opened Alsace Restaurant & Dining Bar opened in October 2023 at 1422 Heald Highway offering French and German cuisine.

Rockland

Fresh & Co. is opening a sister restaurant in the former Cafe Miranda space on Oak Street. The owners could not be reached for any further comment.

Mise en place, a new shop for kitchenware recently opened this month. Located on 425 Main Street, it is Rockland’s first kitchen store since The Store closed. Owned by Eileen Gaughan, a home cook herself, the store is for home cooks, offering tools, cookbooks, and Maine-created ingredients. Read that story here. 

Thomaston

Honey’s Fried Chicken Palace is owner, Malcolm Bedell’s second eatery to open in the Midcoast this spring. Springing from Ancho Honey in Tenants Harbor, Bedell’s second restaurant features signature scratch cooking with chicken being the main star of the menu. Find out more here.

If we’ve missed a restaurant or business, email news@penbaypilot.com with the relevant details (who/what/where/when) and we’ll paste it into this story.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

OWLS HEAD—Owls Head Transportation Museum held its second annual STEM Fest 2024 on April 26  and 27— this time expanding over a full weekend, to great success.

To counter the adverse effects that the pandemic had on student achievement in Maine and to give teens and tweens an immersive hands-on experience with interactive displays in science, technology, engineering, and math, the museum transformed into multiple STEM stations throughout the building.

From operating a rolling robot that spits out Frisbees to participating in a physics display that made one’s hair stand up, students met with professionals in fields ranging from engineering to virtual reality technology, aircraft design, and medicine.

The sheer level of enthusiasm last year proved to Kat Woodworth, Director of Development, and Megan Galinksy, Education Director, that giving kids free access to tools, DIY projects, and hands-on experiments is the key to getting them re-engaged again in school and inspiring them to be entrepreneurs and interested in careers in the trades.

“Post-COVID-19, we were looking at a lot of data that showed teachers were having a difficult time getting kids to stay engaged and working in groups,” said Woodworth, “At this FEST, we saw kids light up around anything they could get their hands on.”

Friday was designated as a special school field trip day and closed to the public. The museum secured enough sponsorship funding to invite schools from within an hour’s radius of Owls Head to visit all of the STEM stations in the museum for free, prompting some 340 students to partake in the field trip. On Saturday the museum was open to the public and Gaslinsky said many of these same students came back with their families to show them their favorite exhibits and activities from the previous day.

“They were amazed by the collection we had and with the people who brought the activities here,” said Galinsky. “We had kids leaving really thinking about what paths they wanted to choose in their lives from this.”

There was an activity for everyone from arts in STEM such as leather crafting and embossing to working with engines, automobile computer equipment, and experiments in viscosity, among many others.

With aviation and automobiles as their central theme, OHTM included plenty of activities in stations positioned around the museum that would tie back into these themes as a career.  For example, Woodward said that the flight simulation activities were a huge hit with the kids.

“So when you’re talking about how planes fly and how they pull and drag, we have that activity stationed right next to the aircraft, so they can look up and make that immediate visual connection,” she said. “And in the Electricity Room, students got to see under the hood of an electric car and how that all works, along with rides on a Model T as counterpoint.”

Three undergraduate students from the University of Maine’s College of Engineering and Physics Program worked with David Sturm, of the Physics and Astronomy Department to use an electrostatic generator to conduct static electricity. Once students touched the metal ball of the generator, their hair stood up on end.

“Today we’re just giving different physics experiments to show how physics can be cool and how it relates to daily life, said UMaine student Tom Murphy.

The Girl Scout Troop 191 from Rockland had a table demonstrating how to make a cardboard stethoscope to anyone who wanted to stop by. The girls nominated Hope, one of their troop members, to explain their process. “As this is part of our engineering journey as Girls Scouts, we thought why not do something at the STEM FEST?” she said. “We wanted something easy we could build and because I’m in EMT training, we chose to build homemade stethoscopes.”

View our gallery with more information and visit OHTM to see more of its upcoming events.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MAINE—I have a theory about books you were meant to find and those which were meant to find you—treat a bookstore like the open road and see where it takes you. I have found books that have changed my life this way. 

This Saturday marks the 11th Independent Bookstore Day across the country to support independently owned bookshops that continually compete against Amazon and big box stores.

Grim stats but some slow gains

It’s been an uphill battle for indie bookstores in the last decade with the Census Bureau reporting that the number of independent bookstores dropped nearly in half between 1998 and 2019 from 12,151 stores to 6,045 stores.

But, here’s some good news: Amazon hasn’t nudged out brick-and-mortar bookstores, yet.

The pandemic delivered an unexpected gift to flagging bookstores when people began reading more while stuck at home. Independent bookselling hit an uptick in 2022 with membership in the American Booksellers Association reaching its highest levels in more than 20 years. What’s more, readers were hungry for lesser-known authors in the new and diverse stores that opened nationwide.

Indies in Maine

According to a 2023 story by MaineBiz, there are roughly 37 independent bookstores in Maine. With a population of 1.3 million people, that works out to be one bookstore per 35,000 people as opposed to the national average of one bookstore per 54,299 people.

Here in the Midcoast, we have a couple of new bookstores that opened in the last two years, such as Grump & Sunshine, a romance-only bookshop in Belfast. This sweet and salty store is only one of the hidden gems in Belfast, which also includes the fiercely independent Left Bank Books as well as Craig Olson Books (formerly Old Professor’s Bookshop) selling used and rare books. Farther up the road, Anodyne opened in Searsport just after the pandemic to wild success.

In Camden, Owl & Turtle Bookshop is a homey, community bookshop with a café and Stone Soup is a hidden treasure trove of used books.

In Rockland, hello hello books is a neighborhood favorite that encourages grassroots activism, while Sherman’s Maine Coast Bookshop is one of nine independently owned stores in Maine and a champion of local authors. Arctic Tern Books is another new boutique booskhop in Rockland with a cozy vibe.

“We are really looking forward to Indie Bookstore Day this Saturday, not simply because of what it stands for—a celebration of all that independent bookstores bring to communities—but also because it marks our first birthday at Anodyne,” said owner Elly Burnett. They plan to have a festive first birthday party with balloons, cupcakes, and special drawings for gift certificates, and other bookish prizes. 

“I’m so excited for Grump & Sunshine’s first Indie Bookstore Day,” said Cassidy James Taylor, owner. “All purchases will come with a book from the ARC (advanced reader copy) table. I’ll also have the popcorn machine going so shoppers can have a little snack!”

“We look forward to Indie Bookstore Day as an opportunity to celebrate independence in bookselling and culture—the freedom to step off the worn-out track and find alternatives,” said Jacob Fricke, Operations Director of hello hello books in Rockland. “ To think and feel beyond the mainstream, to see beyond the normative, to imagine different trajectories.” They will have cooperative table games, free ARCs/galleys/advance reader copies, missed connections ads for books, and other special merch and games, along with a guest appearance by Hannah Matthews, author of You or Someone You Love, who will be on hand with signed copies of her book.

With Indie Bookstore Day held at more than 1,000 independent bookstores across the U.S., here are a dozen bookshops to explore on a road trip this weekend. If you find the perfect book that found you, let us know in the comments what the title is.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

For the holidays, we’re shining the spotlight on Maine craftspeople who make custom items by hand. Shop locally and support innovators and entrepreneurs who keep the creative economy alive in this state.

Maine Blueberry Gifts

The back story: Go to Maine Etsy and search “Maine Blueberry Gift” and you’ll find dozens of handcrafted items using Maine’s most iconic fruit for every budget, from stocking stuffers for $5 to gift boxes for $50.

Sample food boxes are always a safe bet and Maine Foodies provides the holy trinity—Blueberry Honey, Blueberry Jam, and Maple Syrup.  Wagamuffin considers dogs “foodies” as well with their handmade plant-based blueberry dog treats. But other creative entrepreneurs have used the blueberry in alternate forms, such as Downeast Doodle Candles' hand-poured soy blueberry candle that gives off a scent that one customer called “spot on.” Brayer Ridge Soap crafts a handcrafted blueberry lip balm made with coconut oil, sweet almond oil, shea butter, Vitamin E, and organic beeswax from right from their farm. 

Maine Lobster Gifts

The back story: Apart from buying lobster directly from reputable pounds who can ship cross-country, Etsy is the place to search for “Maine Lobster Gifts” with nearly 2,000 gift ideas.

Do you know someone who can’t stop talking about how much they look forward to eating lobster when they come to Maine? We see a lot of lobster-themed gifts in this state, so here are a few of the truly unusual ones that stand out made only by Maine craftspeople: PL Detailz crafts a lobster-shaped map of any town you specify and frames it for a unique house gift. Wooden Penneys has kind of a wacky gift, a saved lobster claw shell turned into a Santa Claus (Claws) Christmas ornament. Vacationlander cracks us up with a “Jaws” parody T-shirt featuring a giant lobster “Claws” coming up from the deep instead. And those who know the industry in and out will find this gift to be very cool: Lobstermans Wife offers a gauge bracelet fashioned from the tool lobstermen use to measure the length of “keepers.”

Maine Craft Beer Gifts

The back story: Maine has cemented its rightful place on the craft brew throne in the last decade and with more than 165 breweries (and counting), plenty of people who visit not only love the beer but also the memories of it that they take home. We combed through all of the unique Maine craft beer-themed gifts on Etsy to bring you a few Maine-only crafted items that are the next best thing to a cold, frothy mug.

Benoits Design Company has a Dirigo pint glass with the original 1901 Maine flag with a tree and star, but these are going fast. If you’re a big fan of Allagash Brewing Co. (Maine’s largest award-winning brewer) you’ll like the craft beer magnet set MashedPotatoMosiacs make from their bottlecaps. Geary Brewing is a Portland brewery and New England's First Craft Brewery, which poured its first flagship ale in 1986. Shop their beer soap; the Beer & Christmas Cheer soap smells like “clove, citrus, fir trees, and good memories.” 

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The comforting aroma of hot cider, ginger, and cinnamon fills the kitchen when you make the ancient mulled drink wassail, but did you know that the drink itself dates back to pre-Christian times?

Farmers in England would use the drink to bless apple trees for a bountiful harvest for the next season and to ward off evil spirits.

The word originated from Middle English “wæs hæil,” or  “washayl,”  meaning "a toast to someone's health” similar to the way we raise a glass to toast someone with the word “cheers!” 

As a verb, the word took on even more energy as “wassailing” meant to take a sip from a communal bowl filled with warm spiced cider and go house to house  and carol to one’s neighbors with good wishes and greetings.

Of course, a bit of brandy in the recipe probably aided with that.

In any case, making wassail and going wassailing has its roots in the holidays, after the harvest is through and early winter is upon us.

According to the modern pagan movement, Arcane Alchemy, wassail has literary and social significance as well, serving as a way to break down class barriers—even for just one night. 

With a slew of holiday parties coming up this month, wassail is a delight to simmer on your stovetop at home when the wood stove is burning and the music is on.

It’s so easy to make, it would even serve as an interesting appetizer to a potluck holiday party.

I got all of the ingredients locally in Belfast, starting with an organic apple and spices at Belfast Co-op.

The Co-op, in case you didn’t know, has an amazing array of every kind of spice you can want, sold by weight.

A few whole cinnamon sticks and about 20 whole cloves only cost $2.

The rest of the ingredients were easily found at Hannaford Supermarket, including the Maine-made Ricker Hill cider.

Wassail

First, stick cloves all around the apple.

Combine all of the ingredients, place the apple in the middle, and simmer on the stove for 30 minutes.

Serve warm with a slice of lemon or orange and an extra cinnamon stick.

This can be alcoholic with brandy or rum or not.

I made two cups with two shots of rum.

If you really want to go full-on Maine wassail, make it with Allen’s Coffee Brandy, then haul the warmed drink around in a flask and go sing some raucous songs to the trees and your neighbors.

Kay Stephens is a home cook with a penchant for recipes and a reporter for Penobscot Bay Pilot. Her dishes are decent enough, but not Instagram-worthy.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKPORT—Musician/artist Jon Friese’s cigar box guitar art exhibit is still up at the Rockport Public Library in case you haven’t caught it yet, and it’s worth a walk-through before it comes down at the end of this month.

These unusual pieces of functional art date back to the Civil War, according to Friese. During the early days of the pandemic, he got inspired after viewing one being played on YouTube, and it spurred a desire to go find a cigar box and make one of his own.

“I was always interested in building guitars,” he said. “I built one with my grandfather back in sixth grade.”

To start, he began sourcing beautiful vintage boxes wherever he could at yard sales and thrift stores. Customizing each box, he built out the electronic work in them and inserted pick-ups, circuitry, and volume and tone controls. He has made hundreds of cigar box guitars, amplifiers, and combinations of both, called “amplitars” since 2020. He also sources unusual candy boxes and makes guitars out of them as well.

Friese’s pandemic hobby has turned into a money-making side hustle since then, having sold 143 amps and 127 guitars to people all over the world.

“It’s been so much fun; progressing and each one just gets better and better,” he said, “I learn a little more after making each one.”

Friese comes by his hobby naturally, having always been interested in music and instruments. In the 1970s, he was just a rock n’ roll kid living the life as a drummer in several bands. In 1975, he landed a warehouse job at the biggest music store in Miami in 1972 called Ace Music, which was only a few doors down from multiple music studios of major rock bands who were about to start their world tours. 

Famous musicians such as The Rolling Stones and The Eagles used to wander into Ace all the time, sometimes to rent an unusual instrument, other times, to shoot the breeze, as they knew the music store was where they’d find their “people.” Some of those photos with Friese and various rock stars can also be seen at this Rockport Public Library exhibit.

“I was working in the warehouse one time when Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh from The Eagles came in,” he said. “We had about 250 Fender Stratocasters and they wanted to go through every one of them. So I spent the afternoon showing them each one and chatting with them.”

The library hosted Friese on November 18 for a little meet and greet so that the public could physically handle the guitars and amps and play with them. “I just sat and jammed with people all day,” he said, “It was so much fun.”

All of the guitars, amps, and amplitars on exhibit are available for purchase directly through Jon Friese (207-660-7470 or jfriese954@yahoo.com) and also via his shop on Etsy.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Rutabaga. What do you do with this alien softball-sized thing?

This is the kind of vegetable I’m likely to pass over at a farmer’s market, because it’s so unfamiliar, but it’s a fall/winter root vegetable that’s in season right now. It’s nutrient-packed, low-calorie, and high in antioxidants.

The best part? One only cost .99. A side dish for a buck that could feed four people!

But back to what to do with it—you just have to go on faith that if you peel it and cook it, it will taste good. I found a great, simple recipe that can be a comfort fall side dish or the perfect dish to bring to a potluck Thanksgiving.

Mashed rutabaga with roasted garlic and browned butter

• 1 rutabaga
• 1 head of garlic
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 3 tablespoons light cream
• 1/4 cup chicken bone broth
• 1/4 cup white wine
• Seasons: salt, pepper, fresh chives.

All you have to do is peel it with a vegetable peeler and cut off the rough ends. Dice and throw in a big pot of salted boiling water. A rutabaga is just like boiling potatoes.

After 30 minutes or so, it will be soft enough to drain. Then put back in the pot.

While you’re doing that, cut off the top of a head of garlic and drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil over the exposed garlic.

Pop in the oven or toaster.

By the time the rutabaga is done, the garlic will be roasted.

Put the butter in a saucepan and simmer on low until the butter is browned. It adds a subtle nutty flavor to savory dishes, so stir that in first, then add half of the roasted garlic bulbs and mash well.

On low heat, add the cream, and sour cream and stir.

Then at the end, give a splash of bone broth and wine; continue stirring. Sprinkle some fresh chives over your dish.

I made the side dish to go with a New England pot roast, in which I layered a thick chuck roast steak in a crockpot over new potatoes and carrots from the farmer’s market, along with half an onion.

After eight hours, the pot roast was fork-tender and the mashed rutabaga was the star of the show. Its flavor with the savory butter and garlic was more interesting than bland old mashed potatoes, complementing the rest of the simmered vegetables. This is a two-night meal, saving money at the grocery store.

The ease of this dish is that it is a perfect side to bring to a Thanksgiving potluck dinner—you’re guaranteed no one else will have garlicky rutabaga. A turkey gravy over it even elevates those flavors even more.

If you’re in the Midcoast, check out Chase’s Daily, the restaurant on Main Street. Their back room doubles as an indoor farmer’s market with an eye-popping abundance of fall vegetables, herbs, and flowers for sale.

Kay Stephens is a home cook with a penchant for recipes and a reporter for Penobscot Bay Pilot. Her dishes are decent enough, but not Instagram-worthy.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

“Quiet and thoughtful” is how I’d describe my first meeting with 15-year-old Caleb Carr, a relatively new Camden Hills Regional High School student to the Midcoast from Massachusetts.

Turns out that’s an apt description for his photography, as well.

As we chatted in the school library, I got to know him a little bit and what he’s drawn to in life, and behind the lens.

“When I was in Massachusetts, I focused on sports and aviation, which is what I was interested in,” he said.

Hockey and football are his two favorite sports and he brings his Panasonic Lumix fz300 camera to capture the action in the games. But, once he and his family moved to Camden, Caleb started to really look around—and found that capturing images in nature was just as rewarding.

 He got the camera for his birthday but admits he didn’t know much about photography at the time. 

“I wasn’t super serious about it at first, but then I attended some Zoom meetings on photography and this guy who taught it worked for major magazines and taught us how to use the camera better,” he said.

This sparked an interest in knowing the camera’s settings and how he could master them. He began teaching himself how to take quality photos through YouTube tutorials and using the online photo editor, Adobe Lightroom.

Simultaneously, he began to explore the Midcoast from all angles and paid special attention to objects and scenes that weren’t obvious to everyone else.

“I have more nature photos now because I’m surrounded by it here,” he said. “I like natural photography and don’t alter too much of it except to preserve the colors. I find these little spots and try to capture images that aren’t necessarily seen by everybody.”

The following are a few of his photographs and what was the inspiration behind capturing the image.

Island

While at Hosmer Pond this past summer, I was able to capture the sunset across the water. It created an amazing scene with the raft and the quiet pond. I did some color grading to make the light off the raft billets pop.

 

Lobster boat

 

While in Camden, I noticed The Gladys Wink tied up at the dock. They were unloading the boat and it appeared that no one noticed that compared to the other things happening in the harbor.

 

Hockey

 

After being beaten by Sandwich the previous season, Norwell was back for revenge in the MIAA D4 final. Timmy Ward, the star player of Norwell crosses over in front of the bench preparing to receive a pass.

 

Rockport Harbor

At 15, not many people know what they want to do, but Caleb is pretty serious about pursuing photography. Knowing that he loves to shoot sports, we offered him a guest column to cover the high school sports games, such as in this recent story. A chance mention of his photography on Midcoast Message Board led to this story and to a guest column—one never knows the opportunities that await, until you manifest your intent. For Caleb’s thoughtful approach to nature, beauty, and hidden gems, his photography career is only beginning.

Hail To The Rad Kids is an ongoing feature highlighting teens in the Midcoast with special talent. 

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

It’s 4 p.m. in November as dusk settles in Maine. You pull back your curtains...and sigh. Another winter approaches as the days get shorter. And everyone cocoons in their houses for what seems like an eternity.

If you’re not an outdoor person once the days get colder, don’t despair—there are a number of ways to still be social in the Midcoast this fall and winter.

Trivia Nights

Trivia Nights are a special kind of bonding with a group of pals or work friends because they require the team (usually six to eight people) to develop a clever group identity and compete with other teams — usually once a week — on questions ranging from science to entertainment. Friendly rivalries between teams are encouraged.

Marshall Wharf Brewing Co. in Belfast has Smarts and Crafts Trivia Night on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. (‘crafts’ meaning craft beer). FMI: Details

The Jack in Camden hosts a Trivia Night with Bobby on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Email for more info: thejackllc@gmail.com

Lake St. George Brewing Co. in Liberty hosts a Trivia Night every Friday at 6 p.m. FMI: Details

The Knox Clinic and Thomaston Public Library will be hosting a ‘90s Themed Trivia Night on Thursday, Nov. 16, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., at the Thomaston Public Library, 60 Main Street in Thomaston. FMI: Details

Book Clubs

Camden Public Library hosts an adult book club monthly (along with kids’ and YA clubs). For the month of November, the group will be reading and discussing “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich meeting on November 27, from 10 to 11 a.m. Visit the library’s website for more information.

At the Rockland Public Library, Catching Up With The Classics is a book group that meets monthly. This year they will be exploring classics by Maine authors and settings in Maine. The next club meets on November 20 at 6 p.m. View the library’s website for more information or contact: pking@rocklandmaine.gov.

The Thomaston Public Library hosts four different book clubs. The Intergenerational Book Club meets every third Tuesday of the month at 2:30 p.m. in the main reading room. Let's Talk About It meets on the second Tuesday of every other month at 2 p.m. The Mystery Book Club meets on the first Thursday of every month at 2 p.m.  The Pop-Up Book Club began as a limited series of book group meetings outside at the library's gazebo during the summer. View the library’s website for more information or contact library@thomastonmaine.gov.

Cozy Music Nights

Perhaps you enjoy music, but not late-night rock bands. Marshall Wharf Brewing Co. in Belfast hosts a fiddlers’ jam weekly every Tuesday around 5 p.m. People can bring an instrument and join in. FMI: Details

Homeport Tavern in Searsport hosts a "Celtic Music” night with The Irish Session Band from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. every Thursday. FMI: Details

Movie Nights

Marshall Wharf Brewing Co. hosts fun, familiar movies on Thursday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. Watching it with a crowd usually leads to a lot of extemporizing and shouted-out quotes from the audience. On Thursday, November 9, they’ll be screening Caddyshack. Stay tuned to their website for upcoming movies.

Craft Nights

Good Natured boutique natural goods store in Liberty and Lake St George Brewing Co. have collaborated to offer a Craft Night every Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. in the upstairs loft. It’s a “BYO” craft (knitting, painting, etc.) There will also be an optional simple craft each week with a donation requested for any materials used. FMI: Details

Cover Me In Art, a  DIY arts and craft studio in Belfast is hosting a Paint Night on Saturday, November 11 at 3 p.m. Connect with friends for a creative experience. Bring your own drink and snacks. All materials included to create a 16 x 20 painting on canvas. Then, on November 20, at 5:30 p.m. they’ll host a wine bottle and glasses painting party. Stay tuned to their Facebook page for future events.

PechaKucha Night

After a long hiatus, PechaKucha Night is back! On Friday, November 17, The Strand Theatre will host the latest event. Eight individuals share their passions, projects, and processes in this unique 20x20 presentation format. Doors open to the public at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $5, available in advance on the Strand website, or at the door if tickets remain. Stay tuned to its Facebook page for future PK events. FMI: Details

Skill-Building  Workshops

On November 18 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Camden Public Library is hosting an “explosion book” workshop in which participants will make a handmade small square book, which “explodes” into a series of square and triangular pages when you open it up. The fee for this seminar is $10, which covers the cost of materials and includes a small donation to the Camden Public Library.

Waterfall Arts always has some art-related events going on. On November 30, they’ll host a Fun with Fused Glass workshop from 6 to 8 p.m. In this two-hour workshop, students will learn how to fuse a glass wave using a 4″x4″ flat glass sheet and bits of crushed transparent glass in shades of blue and green.

Michael Good Gallery in Rockport is hosting a couple of book arts workshops in December. on Saturday, Dec. 2 drop in from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for a free “Simple Books” workshop with Naomi Howe and Cindy McGuirlLearn how to sew the pamphlet stitch, make an eight-page booklet from a single sheet of paper, and more.Then on Saturday, Dec. 9. drop in from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on “Paper Ball Accordion Ornaments” with Joelle Webber.  Paper ornament fun! Come see the Midcoast Maine Book Arts Holiday Pop-Up Show and make your own paper ornament.

If we’ve missed any Midcoast Maine indoor weekly or monthly events for adults, please email us a detailed sentence (who, what, when, where, etc) as well as a website or social media link so that we can pop it into this list.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKPORT — In a game that started hot, with a continuous back-and-forth between Camden Hills Regional High School girls varsity team and their counterpart, Brunswick, CHRHS eventually prevailed with a final score of 2 to 1.

The competition took place Nov. 4 at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, during a playoff for the Class A North semi-finals. Both teams have had a strong season.

Camden went into the game with a 13-1-1 record and Brunswick with an 11-2 record.

Neither team scored in the first half of the game, but going into the second half, Brunswick was able to open up with a goal at 37:51.

It didn't take long for Camden to bounce back with their own goal two minutes later at 35:25.

Brunswick and Camden battled for the next goal, but Camden was able to score one more at 15:46.

Even though Brunswick was down by one, the two teams battled until the very last second of the game.

Seeing how Brunswick handled this loss so well, it was apparent the team had a hard-fought season. Camden had speedy players who could run fast and make fast passes. Brunswick was dominant with heading and their touches and had fantastic ball control.

Both Camden's boys’ and girls’ teams are set to play in their class finals this Tuesday, Nov. 7 in Lewiston. varsity, only Girls are playing at 4:30 p.m. and boys are at 6:30 p.m.

November 1 kicks off National Native American Heritage Month, which holds significant importance in Maine as the state is home to several Native American tribes, including the Wabanaki Confederacy, which comprises the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, and Abenaki peoples. According to Four Directions in Maine, a nonprofit Community Development Corporation, the Wabanaki Confederacy or (Waponahki) — is “translated as “People of the First Light” or “Dawnland” stretching from Newfoundland in the north to mid-Maine in the south, and parts of Quebec in the west.” 

This month provides an opportunity to recognize and honor the historical and contemporary contributions of Native American communities. Here are several art and cultural events that are worth the road trip, along with a couple of virtual exhibits you can enjoy at home.

2023 Waponahki Student Art Show

Abbe, Museum, downtown, Bar Harbor

Current exhibit

This is a beautiful art collection created by Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Maliseet, and Mi'kmaq students from early childhood education through high school and is a current exhibit at the Abbe Museum. This collaboration with Maine Indian Education, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Border Towns, and the Abbe Museum (quotes) Drive to its location in downtown Bar Harbor or check out the online gallery here.

Wabanaki Collection

The Hudson Museum, UMO

Permanent exhibit

Drive to the University of Maine in Orono to the Hudson Museum (2 Flagstaff Rd, Orono) which is free to all and open Monday through Friday 9 to 4 p.m. to see its Wabanaki Collection, or do a virtual tour of Native artists who are videotaped making their art.

Wabanaki Art Market

Wabanki Health & Wellness, Bangor

November 4, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Join local Native artists for a special market at the Wabanaki Public Health Youth & Cultural Center in downtown Bangor to celebrate native artists and find some special handmade items. The event will be at 57 Park Street in Bangor and will feature paintings, traditional and modern beadwork, traditional salves, digital art, ink drawings, and more.

Performance by Firefly

Penobscot Theater Company

November 18, 2023,  8 to 9 p.m.

Jason Brown, also known as Firefly, is a Native American artist of the Penobscot Nation, with Swedish roots, born and raised in ancient Wabanaki territory. Firefly, as he goes by professionally, is a vocalist and songkeeper who has performed for the Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America series. Learn a little bit more about him here. He will be doing a one-night show at 135 Main St, Bangor, ME to “illuminate the beauty and healing power of his ancient indigenous culture through music, visuals and creativity.”

Videos & Podcast

Wabanaki Studies Learning Progression

Permanent collection

If you don’t want to drive but want a cultural immersion this month, consider watching or listening to these videos and podcasts all around the state on culture, history, contemporary issues, and arts and entertainment. Another podcast to check out is WERU’s Wabanaki Windows, a monthly podcast hosted by Donna Loring, an author, broadcaster, and former Senior Advisor on Tribal Affairs, featuring topics of interest from a Wabanaki perspective.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The Spooky Season is upon us! We have combed through every Halloween-themed event going on in the Midcoast to bring you a comprehensive rundown of events. From parties to art, from poetry to theater, we’ve color-coded these events for partying adults, parents, and kids to make finding them easier.

Thursday, October 19

· Adults: The Rockland Public Library will host Deputy Library Director Patty King as she shares her multi-year project of exploring cemeteries to find epitaphs, which she crafts into songs. This event starts at 6 p.m., is free, and open to all.

Friday, October 20

· Parents and Kids: Rockland Public Library is hosting a Halloween Hootenanny Party from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Join Miss Katie for silly Halloween stories, six MONSTER-ous crafts, and more. Costumes are encouraged. FMI: Details

· Adults and Parents and Kids:  The Trail of Terror at the Union Fair officially kicked off last Friday and will take place Friday and Saturday nights (going through Oct. 28) from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Suggested for 13 and older. $15 per person cash only. FMI: Tickets and details

· Adults and Parents and Kids: Fright at the Fort is the Annual Halloween Scarefest in Prospect when Fort Knox becomes the largest Haunted House Tour in Maine. It kicked off on Saturday, October 14 (going through Oct. 20, 21, 27, 28) and goes from 5:30 to 8:45 p.m. where monsters, aliens, zombies, and other scares lurk around every corner. Note, this year they do have a “Chicken Hour” from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. with no jump scares! Tickets are only online for $15. No purchase at the door. FMI: Tickets and Details

Saturday, October 21

· Parents and Kids: Penobscot Bay YMCA is holding a Monster Mash Halloween Open House that is free to the community, including a vampire’s ball, fun inflatables, a floating pumpkin patch, and more from 1 to 4 p.m. FMI: Details

Friday, October 27

Postponed· Parents and Kids: American Legion Post’s third annual Trunk-or-Treat Drive-Thru will now take place 11/3 takes place from 4 to 6 p.m. The event is free to attend! FMI: Details

· Adults: Three Tides and Marshall Wharf Brewing are hosting a Halloween dance party at 7 p.m. with the band Rigometrics. FMI: Details

· Adults: American Flatbread in Rockport is hosting a Halloween party with DJ Beatrix from 8 p.m. to midnight. They will have spooky drink specials, games, and all you can eat pizza buffet throughout the night. A $10 cover charge at the door includes pizza. FMI: Details

Saturday, October 28

· Adults and Parents and Kids: The third annual Belfast Lions Club Ghostly Gallop 5K run is Halloween-themed and we encourage runners and walkers to come in costume! Run goes from 8:30 to 10 a.m. and tickets are $20. FMI: Details

Postponed· Parents and Kids: Hannaford Supermarkets in Rockland and Camden are postponing their trunk or treat to Saturday, November 3. from 5 to 7 p.m.  FMI: Details

· Parents and Kids: Stockton Springs Community Library (SSCL) will host its Annual Children’s Halloween Party on Saturday, Oct. 28, from 10 - 11:30 a.m. There will be treats, a costume parade, crafts, a story, prizes, and games. The event is free and all are welcome. FMI: Details

· Parents and Kids: Trunk or Treat/Monster Mash at Leroy H. School in Winterport. Come for some spooky (but not too spooky) fun! Admission is $5 per family. There will also be dancing, games, a photo booth, playground fun, 50/50 Tickets, and popcorn from 3 to 5 p.m. FMI: Details

· Parents and Kids: SaltWater Fields Wedding & Event Barn Kids’ is hosting a Costume Tea Party. Doors open at 12 p.m. Event is from 1 to 3 p.m. Ghosts, goblins, princesses, pirates, & more. Sing with Elsa, lunch, tea-time, a spooky walk with Miranda, & so much more. Tickets: $10/15. FMI: Details  

· Parents and Kids: Inspiring Bright Beginnings Childcare Trunk or Treat at 3 Emery Avenue Thomaston has moved the original event to Saturday due to the weather. The event goes from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. or while supplies last. FMI: Details

· Adults and Parents, and Kids: Watts Hall Community Arts is hosting "Tales of Terror" a unique Halloween-themed storytelling and variety show at 7 p.m. Recommended for ages 10+. Tickets $15. FMI: Details

· Adults: Stone Tree Farm & Cidery is hosting its third annual Monster Mash celebration from 4 to 9 p.m. Serving wood-fired pizzas with a haunted tasting around the picnic grounds and various candy/wine pairings! The event is 21+ and admission is just one donation of a non-perishable food item. FMI: Details

· Adults: High Tide in Rockland is hosting a Costumes and Cocktails party with DJ Scott B. 21+ event. 8 p.m. to midnight with a costume contest and cocktail specials. FMI: Details

· Adults: American Legion Post is hosting a Halloween Party featuring the Tyler Healy Band. $15 per person. Cash bar. Goes from 8 to 11 p.m. FMI: Details

· Adults: Rock Harbor Tap Room is having a Halloween Party starting at 6 p.m. with Dirtbag Daddy and EenoR WildeBoare. They’ll have a costume contest and some interesting giveaways. FMI: Details

Sunday, October 29

· Adults and Parents and Kids: Stone Tree Farm & Cidery is hosting its first Trunk or Treat event from 12 to 6 p.m. There will also be food trucks, a BBQ pit, and live music. FMI: Details

Tuesday, October 31

· Adults and Parents, and Kids:   DoryWoman Rowing will host the 5th annual Witches Row in Belfast Harbor from 4 - 5:30 p.m. Nicolle Littrell, the owner/operator of the local rowing service and licensed Maine Guide will be rowing her traditional-style wooden dory Sorciere with a crew of witches, warlocks and a maybe even a pirate.

· Adults and Parents, and Kids: Lucky Betty’s will be hosting their annual Halloween Party with the bar open from 2 to 10 p.m. A DJ will be spinning and they’ll have candy for trick-or-treaters. FMI: Details

Note: More events will be added for the week leading up to Halloween. Check back for more listings to come or email to list your event (Midcoast only) Please include relevant details.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

More than 70 farms in Maine have been growing produce, raising livestock, producing eggs, and making cheese all summer just for you. And now that fall is the most abundant time for harvesting food, you can pick up a pre-set or customizeable box every week if you choose chock full of Maine’s most diverse and nutritious offerings, thanks to the concerted efforts of Daybreak Grower’s Alliance, a farm share business. The service additionally allows for add-ons such as flowers, free-range, eggs, bagels, and much more.

Daybreak offers four different flexible categories and box sizes that you can order either by the week, biweekly, as a rolling subscription, or as a one-time purchase:

Daybreak Box ($35/$48/75)

This option gives you access to all of the seasonal produce, meat, dairy, and a wide array of value-added specialty and grocery items. The week before your delivery, select what you want in your box from a large variety of Maine foods.

Farmer’s Choice ($30/$45)

You leave it up to Daybreak’s growers to curate your box with seasonal items with fruits and vegetables. They’ll let you know what the seasonal selection is in advance of your delivery so you can start menu planning for your week.

Green’s Galore ($18.50)

For the freshest local produce, you get four items weekly that include salad greens, cooking greens, herbs, and specialty greens.

Butcher’s Choice ($42)

They give you a versatile assortment of Maine-raised chicken, pork, and beef. As Maine enters into colder months, they’ll keep you stocked with slow-cooking cuts like stew meats and short ribs, half and whole chickens.

All of these options are especially enticing for the home cook who would like to expand their cooking skills or for the chef who’d like to source the freshest most seasonal ingredients available. They also do a wholesale delivery program for Maine-based businesses.

“We offer a diverse mix and just try to meet our customers at a place where they can get local Maine products grown from all over the state from us at one location and not have to go to the grocery store for every ingredient,” said  Daybreak Co-owner Adrienne Lee “At the same time, this supports the local farming communities and our group of producers.”

“September and October is such an abundant time in harvesting. For those months say, in a Farmer’s Box you would find key staples, such as fresh greens, broccoli, cauliflower, winter squash, and lots of tomatoes. And this is also the stone fruit season, so you’d get pears and apples and you’d start to see leeks and Brussel sprouts as well.” 

In the Midcoast, they deliver to Steel House in Rockland, Bleecker and Greer in Rockport, Aster & Rose in Lincolnville, Bayside Store in Northport. and a home in Belfast.

For more information on how to order a box visit: daybreakgrowersalliance. com 

Kale, like beets, for me, is one of those vegetables I so want to like. It’s part of the Mediterranean diet, it’s been referred to as a  “nutrition superstar” due to the amounts of vitamins A, B6, C, K, folate, fiber, carotenoids, and manganese, plus it’s only 20 calories a cooked cup—and plentiful and cheap this time of year.

I really want to like and be friends with kale. But the raw texture of it for me in salads is not my thing.

So, instead, I consulted a chef friend of mine to give me some tasty ideas. She suggested a sautéed kale with lemon, garlic, and the killer ingredient—anchovy paste—and to spread it on toast. From there, I got the idea to make an open-faced breakfast sandwich.

Poached egg over melted brie and sautéed kale on toast

• 1 egg
• 1 cup chopped washed kale
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 quarter lemon and lemon zest
• 1 tbsp. anchovy paste
• 2 pats of butter
• 3 slices of brie
• 1 slice of sourdough bread
• Seasons: salt, pepper, red pepper flakes

First, put the butter and garlic in a skillet and saute the kale until it’s wilted.

Add the anchovy paste and squeeze a quarter of a lemon into the kale, topping it off with lemon zest.

While you’ve got that going, get a piece of sourdough bread in the toaster and a pot of water boiling on the stove.

For the perfect poached egg (I’ve learned through trial and error) put a tablespoon of white vinegar into the water until it comes to a boil.

Crack the egg into a mini sieve to allow the additional water to drain out and gently lower the intact egg yolk and white into a swirl of boiling water for three minutes, then lift out and blot on a paper towel.

Top with seasonings. Finish off the kale with one more pat of butter, then, layer the kale onto the slice of toast, top with thin slices of brie, and toast again until the brie is melted.

Gently slide the poached egg onto the toast.

The crunch of the toast and crispiness of the kale complements the creaminess of the brie and the runny egg yolk and altogether (with the saltiness of the anchovy paste and bright zing of lemon) the taste and texture of kale is finally something I can really enjoy—and if you never buy kale, try it, you will too. This quick dish can be for breakfast, brunch, or lunch and packs a lot of protein, is an immunity boost to start your day, and only costs less than five dollars with each individual ingredient.

Farms and farmer’s markets are where to buy kale right now; not only are you supporting them economically in your choices, but, you are getting top-of-the-line produce. Here is a list of all farmer’s markets in Maine and use the interactive map to find the ones in the Midcoast.

Kay Stephens is a home cook with a penchant for recipes and a reporter for Penobscot Bay Pilot. Her dishes are decent enough, but not Instagram-worthy.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MAINE—Calling Midcoast people: there will be numerous Halloween-themed events around the Midcoast as we’ve compiled in our annual “Halloween Rundown” article. However, if you feel like packing up the costumes and the car, we’ve got the best outdoor events for every energy level around the state. Check it out:

Family-Friendly

(Energy level: Daytime; prefer to be home by dinnertime.)

• Pumpkin Patches: Want to go on a road trip to a farm and search for The Great Pumpkin? Here are some of the best pumpkin patches around the state.
• Frightful Scavenger Hunt at Fort Knox in Prospect: this event (Oct. 21 22, 28 & 29) is geared toward the younger monster hunters who search through historic Fort Knox’s dark passageways and creepy rooms to check off their list.  Goes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. FMI: Details
• Maine Witch Walk: This event at the Bangor Waterfront Walking Park on Saturday, Oct. 28 is calling for all witches. The walk goes from 12:30 p.m. and goes to 4 p.m. The Goblin Market opens at 12:30 p.m. Grab your brooms, hats and walking/dancing boots. FMI: Details

Kid At Heart

(Energy level: Up for anything; party into the wee witching hours)

• Portland Maine Offical Pub Crawl: This is a pub crawl that spans three days (Oct. 21, 27 & 28) in downtown Portland and includes “trick-or-treating from bar to bar, spooky decorations, and pumpkin carving. You'll be dancing the night away amidst the eerie atmosphere.” 21+ only and drinks are included with the ticket. TMI: Details and Tickets
• Halloween After-Dark Party: The Children’s Museum in Portland is hosting a Halloween After-Dark that’s not for children but for kids at heart. This is a Halloween-themed evening of costumes, elixirs, adult trick or treating, activities, and more at the Museum & Theatre’s inaugural party on Friday Oct. 27 from 7 to 10 p.m. FMI: Details
• Hallowell Halloween Pub Crawl: On Saturday, October 28, while I’m told the official Hallowell pub crawl is off this year, it’s apparently not stopping anyone from strolling the streets in costume, popping into pubs for a drink, and then hitting Easy Street's Costume Party with the band Random Ideas at 9 p.m. and the Maine House with the band Stealing Sunday from 7 to 10 p.m. FMI: Details
  
   

In Bed by 9 p.m.

(Energy level: self-explanatory)

• Farmington Fright Fest, an indoor/outdoor event in Farmington, “is an immersive journey through the darkest reaches of humanity.” Multiple attractions include multiple haunted houses, The Cabin, The Crematorium, and Mr. Marbles Maze of Mayhem. Fridays and Saturdays, Oct. 20, 21, 27 & 28 with a special event on Sunday, Oct. 29 from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. FMI: Details
• Haunted Grandview Manor is an indoor/outdoor haunted attraction in Lebanon. “As you travel through the creepy dark woods of Lebanon Maine, you’ll pass through cemeteries, hillbilly shacks, the slaughterhouse, Grandview Funeral home, and more!” Open Thursday-Sundays in October. From 1 to 9 p.m. FMI: Details and Ticket Info
• CarnEVIL of Souls & Trail of Terror Haunted Walk is a haunted woods walk in Saco each October weekend plus additional dates Oct. 29, 30 & 31 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 per adult. FMI: Details
• Costume cruise: Fogg’s Water Taxi in Portland will give us a killer tour of Casco Bay on Saturday, Oct. 28, with live dance tunes by Purpler. This event is 21+ and BYOB from 4 to 7 p.m. There will be a couple of prizes for the best costumes. FMI: Details
• Night Maze at Tweworgy Family Orchards: Nothing scary or haunted about this particular maze, but what maze at night isn’t scary? Children of the Corn anyone? Open from 6 to 9 p.m. FMI: Details

If drinking, get a ride share. Happy Halloween!

Kay stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

So, how do you solve a problem like beets?  They’re available in season now and packed with fiber, folate (vitamin B9), manganese, potassium, iron and vitamin C.

The problem is: I really don’t like the taste of them. I got them anyway at an honor-system farm, where you just slip a check or cash into the box after selecting what you want. I picked up a quart of carrots and tomatoes, too. It’s my fall challenge to take the kind of end-of-season bounty you find at farmer’s markets or are given to you by neighbors and make something delicious out of it.

I had a football party to go to this weekend and some of my friends are vegetarian, so I thought, I’d make something that everyone can snack on.

Beet Dip that Doesn’t Taste Like Dirt

• 1 bunch of raw beets
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1 small package of seasoned goat cheese
• Hot honey
• Wedge of lemon
• 1 tbs. of olive oil

This takes a little preparation, but this puts you in the kitchen and into the zone. First, cut the beets off the root and trim, then wash.

Turn the oven on to 350 degrees, wrap each clean beet in foil, and bake for an hour. When done, let them cool.

The easiest way to remove the skins is to run them under cold water, but it’s best to wear a pair of plastic gloves, because the beet juice stains.

When done, place them in a food processor, along with the goat cheese, Greek yogurt, and hot honey (basically honey with red pepper flakes) with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil at the end.

One whole bunch was enough to make this dip, but if you have more, you can also slice them thinly when cool and make beet chips.

The carrot fries were peeled and cut into quarters, then tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parmesan. The crostini was done nearly the same. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

The beet dip was savory and earthy, tinged with sweet and a little heat. It would also be good with crackers and Terra Vegetable Chips. 

Most importantly, it didn’t taste like dirt, so mission accomplished.

If you want to see a particular ingredient that you rarely buy and want me to do a test recipe on it, email me below and I’ll give it (and you) a shout-out.

Kay Stephens is a home cook with a penchant for recipes and a reporter for Penobscot Bay Pilot. Her dishes are decent enough, but not Instagram-worthy.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

It’s harvest time!

When your neighbors drop off heaping bags of produce from their gardens and the farmer’s markets are overflowing, the question remains: “What should I make tonight?”

First, let me start with the admission that I’m merely a home cook with a penchant for recipes and a platform with PenBayPilot. I don’t have Instagram-worthy photos or state-of-the-art cookware. I use what I’ve got and what I’ve learned.

Tomatoes are overflowing this time of year and I got a bunch of heirlooms and cherry tomatoes from various sources this week—almost too much! I never refrigerate tomatoes, so I knew these babies had a shelf life. Here’s what I made.

Cherry Tomato Vodka Sauce

• Dozen cherry tomatoes washed
• 2 bulbs minced garlic
• 1 tsp. minced shallot
• 1/3 cup chicken stock or bone broth
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• Squeeze of tomato paste
• 1 oz vodka
• 3 oz. pasta water
• 6 basil leaves
• Couple shakes of parmesan cheese
• Seasonings; salt, pepper, oregano, minced basil
• Garnish with minced parsley

These funky cherry tomatoes were picked up from the dirt and pavement, still fresh, still viable, but would have rotted if left to the elements, so I washed them thoroughly, then blistered them in a pan with a couple of glurgs of olive oil. I threw in the garlic and shallot until they were aromatic.

Next, I mashed them into a paste, added the stock, simmering that down for about five minutes, then added the cream and vodka, before getting the penne pasta and chicken breasts cooking.

Pasta water is the secret to superior sauce, so I saved a bit of that from draining the pasta and let that come to a simmer.

Lastly, I added the basil leaves, parmesan cheese and seasonings.

What came out is a tangy, cheesy, comfort food sauce, with just the right amount of acid from the tomatoes and the vodka heightening the flavor. (One shot for me, one shot for the sauce so we’re both happy.)

It took 15 minutes all said and done with the chicken and the pasta. Bam, there you go. Dinner for two on a Tuesday night.

Where to get produce

Along with our incredible local farmer’s markets in the Midcoast each week, there will also be a Fall Celebration selling produce at Erickson Fields Preserve on October 14  from 1 to 4 p.m.

There are also a couple of options to get fresh produce, meats, cheeses, and more right to your door including Daybreak Grower’s Alliance, a subscription farmer’s market, and Maine Produce Alliance, an online and offline network of nearly 50 farmers throughout the state of Maine.

I also just took a free Hannaford Supermarket Zoom “Cozy Fall Cooking Class” on how to use fall bounty in your everyday cooking. Here are more free cooking classes that they will be offering this fall and winter.

If you want to see a particular ingredient that you rarely buy and want me to do a test recipe on it, email me below and I’ll give it (and you) a shout-out.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BELFAST—As Mike Hurley, the former co-owner of The Colonial Theater in Belfast tells it, he and his wife, Therese Bagnardi were living in Belfast in 1995 when Bagnardi, in between jobs as a faux painter, lamented there was no work available. At that time, a small little theater in downtown Belfast came up for sale. He said to his wife: “Hey, The Colonial is for sale—you want to buy it?”

Days later, the couple closed on the theater and ran it for 28 years until last year. After a 10-day run of 40 carefully curated movies, the house lights finally went off. But, with an optimism that the Colonial would find its right owners again, the couple put the theater up for sale. It’s only apt that Hurley uses the metaphor of a movie to describe what happened next.

“It was like the movie Five Flights Up, when a long-married couple realizes they can’t climb the five flights of stairs to their Brooklyn apartment anymore and decide to sell their apartment and find a new one,” said Hurley. “The funniest part of it all is the people who come to take a look at it to buy it.”

Quite a few characters showed up to purchase the theater as well, he said.

“You could make a movie based on that, alone,” he said.

While he and Therese never doubted that the right person or group would come along, three criteria in the back of their minds would determine the right contender.

“Number one was the secret sauce,” said Hurley.

In other words, if someone came in with a vision, such as a musician with a large following, or an artist who had an established platform and could produce events besides just strictly movies, that would be a person of interest.

The second contender had to be someone with astable financial capability to keep the theater running. The third option would be a nonprofit.

As it turned out, a couple new to Belfast, Bill and Libby Catania met the third criteria they were looking for.

The Catanias had recently moved to Belfast took an interest in the Colonial Theater and talked with Hurley and Bagnardi.

“They had great heart and wanted to support the community, and we knew they were the one,” said Hurley. “I think this is the best possible solution and model and the right people. Therese and I couldn’t be any happier about their vision.” 

The Catanias explained that they wanted to see the community theater revived, but did not want to be the ones who took over the day-to-day operations. So they helped form a new not-for-profit group, Hawthorne Theatre & Arts Collaborative, to run it.

Kyle Walton is the collaborative’s executive director and the Colonial’s operations manager, along with a board of directors in the creative industries.

“The first goal is getting the marquee back on and the doors open,” said Walton, who said the theater will officially re-open the first weekend in November with an open house and a run of classic silent movies and free popcorn.

“Through the fall and winter, we’ll be adding new things to the Colonial caravan, finding new ways to make every square foot of that building entertaining and productive,” he said.

According to the Hawthorne Theatre & Arts Collaborative, the theater is set to re-open with lots of fresh ideas and plans including: “New movies. Live music. Old movies. Local artists. Great movies. Laughably-bad movies. Readings. Stand-up. Classes. Local movies. Party rentals. More free family movies. New forms of membership.”

“The Colonial is very versatile and I hope they experiment with programming the way we experimented,” said Hurley. “Not every idea will be a hit, like our John Wayne Festival when no one came, but it’ll be interesting to see what they do and we welcome them to the community.”

He said: “We loved doing what we did for 28 years, but everybody’s gotta walk away at some point. You are either carried out or you walk out. we’re certainly ready to hand off the baton.”

For more information about the grand opening and forthcoming shows and movies visit: colonialtheater.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MIDCOAST—It’s been five years since Rockport native Davis Saltonstall and his partner Tessa Rosenberry started ScrapDogs Community Compost, an innovative business to collect food waste from subscriber restaurants and Midcoast households, keeping it out of the landfills.

“When we first started, it really felt more like a project than a business,” said Rosenberry.

That was in 2018: they only had between 80 and 100 customers and no facilities.

“We were composting at a farm, and because we didn’t have an office or a facility to use, we were just washing buckets in our backyard,” she said.  “I just have this terrible memory of Christmas that year; everyone was inside celebrating and we were outside in the snow washing buckets.”

Since then, they’ve garnered approximately 600 customers in the Midcoast (both residential and commercial) and are in the midst of an expansion to the Waterville and Augusta regions. Their business has also expanded into including commercial businesses, schools, and municipalities. They’ve since gained an office/warehouse in Rockland with a commercial dishwasher and have expanded their operation of open-air compost “windrows” or aerated piles on a plot of land in Washington.

People can choose to have a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly pick-up service or a drop-off service at the transfer station. If the customer chooses, the finished compost is delivered back to be used in gardens.

Saltonstall, who studied environmental studies and economics, said he’s always been fascinated by garbage studies, which he said is a catchall phrase for “unnecessary or disposable materials” and he’s always been challenged by ways to make systems more efficient in order to reduce waste.

“It’s a particular way of looking at systems, how they work, and what the priorities are and we started to see different ways to dispose of household waste,” he said.

Just this year alone, ScrapDogs Community Compost estimates that, due to their services, nearly 260,000 pounds of food waste has been diverted from landfills so far in 2023 with approximately 870,000 pounds diverted since August 2020.

This summer, they collected between 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of discarded lobster shells from The Maine Lobster Festival to be used in their compost.

Contrary to what most people think, the business of composting isn’t as stinky as one would imagine to work around.

“Believe it or not, the smell is not that bad depending on the pile size and microbial activity taking place,” said Rosenberry. “Ideally, good compost piles stay aerated. The more air you get into the compost and mixing it with the proper ratio, it breaks down really quickly.”

“We’re just used to it,” she said laughing. “Maybe a little too much.”

To find out more about Scrapdogs Community Compost visit scrapdogscompost.com/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

JEFFERSON—In a rural corner of Maine, a sanctuary for farm animals has quietly taken shape for pigs, goats, equines, and birds who’ve been abandoned or dumped by their owners. Or, who grew too big to be “pets.”

Amanda Glenn and Andy Theriault bought the 50 acre-property in 2018, not knowing at the time, that a draft horse named Jay would change the course of their lives.

The couple both grew up in Maine.

“I quit teaching to start a pet care business,” said Glenn, Darrowby’s founder and director.  “I’d farm-sat for a woman who had a draft horse named Jay and she reached out and asked if we wanted to buy him. At the time, we were living in Tenants Harbor, and it wasn’t feasible. So, we moved to Jefferson with the idea of taking on Jay. The woman who owned him was having a really hard time financially and he was in really bad shape. One of the stressors in his life was that he didn’t have a herdmate, so we found him a mare and they were instantly bonded. Before she even got off the trailer, they were whinnying to each other.”

From that point forward, their concept of Darrowby Farm Sanctuary —and its residents— grew.

“We started with two horses, then took in some pigs, and it kept growing,” she said.

Doing this is a labor of love for the couple as the sanctuary runs purely on donations. Animal sanctuaries do not have a safety net from national organizations. That’s why almost every self-started sanctuary is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity in the United States.

The mission is to: “provide a safe and lifelong home for farmed animals, and educate people about living a mutually beneficial life with those animals in ways that do not use them for food or forced labor.”

Their 50 permanent residents include 21 pigs, six goats, four equines, four steers, and a number of ducks, chickens, and turkeys. That also includes their tabby,  Max, the “mayor of Darrowby Farm Sanctuary.”

“Dogs and cats have a fantastic network of shelters,” said Glenn. “If you have to go into the hospital or hospice, there’s a really good chance someone will take care of your pet. But if you have a farm animal like a steer or goat and something happens to you, you have no options.”

Glenn said news of their tiny operation has gotten around and those who’ve had to relinquish an animal have done so gratefully, and often in tears. But there are other mornings when they’ve woken up, gone outside, and found animals “dumped”—literally abandoned by car in the middle of the night on their property.

“We woke up one morning and these pigs were just wandering around in the road,” said Glenn. “Most of our animals have come to us from situations of abuse and neglect. Our local Animal Control Officer (ACO) is wonderful and alerted us to a few animals.”

One situation that tends to be all too common is the family that thinks it’s a great idea to adopt a teacup or pot-belly pig for the kids. Then the pig grows...and grows...and outgrows the apartment or house.

One such pig, Beatrice, who is still just getting adjusted to her life on the farm is 200 pounds.  The owners were told that 50 pounds would be “as big as she got,” which is also a stain on unregulated and unethical farm animal breeders who often dupe the owner into thinking the animal will be a certain size, take the money, and absolve themselves of any further responsibility for the animal.

“There’s no such thing as a teacup pig or a micro pig,” said Theriault. “All pigs will grow and there’s no real way to know how big they’ll get.”

Beatrice had been kept in a bathroom that was too small for her for five years and had never been outdoors or had a proper diet. When she was brought to Darrowby Farm Sanctuary, she spent her first morning in an outside pen staring up at the sunrise for hours.  Because she’d never encountered another farm animal,  she was terrified of the other pigs. Gilbert, one of their larger pigs, took it upon himself to acclimate Bea and continued to interact with her.

“And now they sleep together every night,” said Glenn. “She sleeps between his front and back legs.”

Stories like this are all too common. They also keep ducks who were likely bought as cute ducklings for Easter and abandoned.

“Do your research, expect to be responsible for them for a lifetime, and know how long that lifetime will be and have the right facilities,” said Glenn.

When news of an operation like this gets out, as per usual, more surrenders of animals begin to exceed what is economically feasible. “We have breakdowns of what each animal costs per year in terms of food, medicine, and other necessities,” she said. “So we have sponsorship programs for each animal and a lot of that helps to defray the costs.” 

Glenn said neighbors and community members have given them a lot of help, which keeps their animals in good mental and physical health. They collect excess produce from local food banks and one neighbor even collects apples out of her orchards and donates them by the bucket. “We have a lot of people who are very supportive of us,” said Glenn.

The dream is to take in as many animals that need their help. However, they have to be mindful of sustainability and what their limited means can currently provide the existing animals. They have the space.

“So far, since June, we’ve turned away 40 animals. Every time it feels devastating,” she said.

For more information on the farm visit: https://www.darrowbyfarmsanctuary.org/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

PORTLAND—Longfellow Books was the place to be on September 20 for an author talk amongst Maine writers Chris Holm, Bruce Robert Coffin, and Richard Cass with an enthusiastic audience of 20-25 people on the floor.

The topic: Author Stephen King and how each person in the audience had a personal connection to the man, his books, his movies, and his legacy in Maine.

Portland Downtown kicked off its inaugural week-long Stephen King Week event from September 18 to 22, in honor of King’s 76th birthday, which was on September 21.

Holm, one of the speakers who led the lively discussion, had his own story about King:

“Stephen King’s novel ‘The Tommyknockers’ was the first adult novel I’d ever read,” he said. “I was 10 years old at my grandmother’s house and after driving her up the wall, she told me to go distract myself and find a book in my aunt’s room. The first one I picked up was ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ and I knew I wasn’t the target audience for that book. Then I saw a book on the nightstand of ‘The Tommyknockers’ and the cover was so eerie with this farmhouse emitting this creepy, green-yellow light, I knew that was a book I wanted to read. I brought it home and read it under the bed—not even under the covers, it was so scary. Just in case anything came for me.”

Holm’s story didn’t end there. “When I was 13, Stephen King came to Syracuse to a ticketed event where I grew up, and even though he wasn’t supposed to be signing books at this event, he made an exception for an incredibly dorky, superfan,” said Holm. Imagine the delight then, when Holm’s book garnered unsolicited praise from King. “To be able to tell Stephen King a story he liked was a thrill. I’m forever grateful.”

Holm’s story echoed many of the same stories people in the audience relayed: that Stephen King was the first adult author they ever read at a young age that just made sense.

“We all touched on our first experiences with Stephen King,” said Holm. “Bruce said he was around 10 or 11 when he first read ‘Salem’s Lot,’ which is what inspired him to become an author. He said he was terrified, but couldn’t put it down. He said, ‘I didn’t know people could write about things like this.’ When you’re talking about someone like Stephen King who is so beloved, we tried to make it more of a conversation with the audience as they had just as much of a connection to his work as we do. I talked to a young King fan and aspiring writer who had his own encounter with King a few weeks ago and got a book signed.  I thought, ‘It’s wild to see this full circle moment and to see his generosity.’ It’s been a through line with pretty much anyone who has ever interacted with him.

“We talked about his influence on our own writing; on his short stories, on his film adaptations, and took a poll of the audience to see which films resonated the most. Films like ‘Stand By Me,’ The Green Mile,’ and ‘Shawshank Redemption.’ The other thing we touched on was King’s generosity, particularly in the writing community. There are a lot of authors he has championed over the years.”

Holm mentioned a few writers King has shone a spotlight on, including Michael McDowell. “McDowell was an openly queer writer of mysteries and southern Gothic novels and was not accepted in the mainstream when King described him as ‘the finest writer of paperback originals today.’ I think he just sets the bar ...and he certainly inspires me and certainly anyone else who has been lucky enough to interact with him. If a guy like that can keep paying it forward—76 years old—and take the time to lift up other struggling writers, it’s up to us to do the same.”

Happy birthday Stephen King.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com 

The latest report from the National Weather Service regarding Hurricane Lee is calling for tropical storm conditions tonight into tomorrow in the Midcoast with high surf, and rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches with gusts predicted up to 50 m.p.h. With the excessive rain we’ve had this summer causing root stress in trees, there is a major potential for falling trees and power outages. Today, residents still have time to get prepared.

Following is the National Weather Service forecast for the weekend.

Friday —Mostly cloudy, with a high near 71. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph. A 30-percent chance of showers, mainly after 3 a.m. Cloudy, with a low around 59. Breezy, with a north wind 10 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Saturday—Showers likely, mainly between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Cloudy, with a high near 68. Windy, with a northwest wind 25 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 50 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

To listen to live NOAA Weather Radio, visit wunderground.com.

• Secure loose gutters and shutters.
• Identify an interior room of your house, such as a basement or interior bathroom, that you can take shelter in during high wind warnings.
• If you live in a mobile home, identify a sturdy building you can go to if NWS issues a high wind or severe thunderstorm warning.
• Tie down or put away items in your yard so that they don't blow away or fly through a window.

Car

• Move your car to a location where it is less likely to be hit by falling trees or power lines
• Prepare an evacuation route and get a full tank of gas.
• Store a basic disaster kit or emergency supply kit in your trunk.
• Ensure windshield wipers are in good shape and that you inflate your tires properly.
• Place all important documents in a waterproof bag and take them with you.
• Charge your cell phone and plan to bring it if you evacuate.
• If you expect to leave your car behind, be sure it’s not in a flood-prone area. Rising water can seep in and damage your vehicle.

Pets

• Choose a safe place where your pets can go if you need to evacuate or seek shelters such as a friend or family member’s home, a pet-friendly hotel, or a boarding facility.
• Choose a safe room for riding out the storm—an interior room without windows – and take your entire family there, including your pets.
• Stay with pets. If crated, they depend on you for food and water. Don’t leave pets in vehicles.
• Know your pet’s hiding places. That’s where they may run, so make sure to keep them with you.
• Secure exits and cat doors so pets can’t escape into the storm.Double-check emergency supplies – including, medications, bowls, water, and food
• Do not tranquilize your pets. They’ll need their survival instincts, should the storm require that.

Maine EMA has provided the following tips:

Steps people can take to prepare for the storm include:

• Check that your emergency kit includes supplies needed for several days without power, including food, water, and hand sanitizer. Also consider medications, pet food or other special needs.
• Get the latest alerts and warnings on your smartphone by downloading the free FEMA app or National Weather Service website.
• Ensure cell phones are enabled to receive National Weather Service Wireless Emergency Alerts for tornadoes, flash flooding and other emergency situations.
• Charge cell phones and other electronic devices.
• Determine local evacuation routes.
• Bring in all outdoor furniture, decorations, garbage cans and anything else that is not tied down.
• Remove boats and other watercraft from the water and secure them.
• Ensure generators are properly installed, fueled, and in good working order.

In the event of flooding, do not walk, swim, or drive through flood waters. Turn Around. Don't Drown! Just six inches of fast-moving water can knock you down, and one food of moving water can sweep your vehicle away.

Prepare for a power outage:

• Find Alternate Power Sources. Plan for batteries and alternative power sources to meet your needs when the power goes out, such as a portable charger or power bank. Have flashlights for every household member. Remember, never use a generator indoors.
• Appliances. Disconnect appliances and electronics to avoid damage from electrical surges. Install carbon monoxide detectors with battery backup in central locations on every level of your home to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
• Food Storage. Keep freezers and refrigerators closed. A refrigerator will keep cold for four hours. A full freezer will keep the temperature for about 48 hours. If you are in doubt, monitor temperatures with a thermometer and throw out food if the temperature is 40 degrees or higher.
• Know Your Medical Needs. If you rely on electricity for any medical needs, make a power outage plan for medical devices or refrigerated medicines. Find out how long medication can be stored at higher temperatures and get specific guidance for any medications that are critical for life.
• Cleanup. After power and other utilities have been restored, you might face the issue of what to do with storm-damaged trees. Maine Forest Service offers tips and helpful guidance for those faced with questions about what to do with downed trees, limbs, and branches.

Hurricane season runs June 1 - November 30. Please visit Maine Emergency Management Agency on Facebook or Twitter.

CAMDEN—The way PenBay Pilot has historically covered the Camden International Film Festival (September 14 -17) is to focus on films that local residents would be willing to take time out of their schedules to see. We talked with Cam Howard, the program coordinator at CIFF about the overall program this year about some staff picks in “Best of Fest” and a few blocks of “Shorts” films to check out.

“I think this year’s program came together in a very interesting way,” said Howard. CIFF which is known for sleecting boundary-pushing documentaries across the world, is now in its 19th year.

“People have come to expect from CIFF that there will be films to watch that are a little more out-of-the-box,” said Howard. “We’ve got some films coming right out of the Toronto Film Festival, some distributors like National Geographic, and a lot of films that we love that have already been playing at film festivals around the world.”

Best of Fest

See all films here.

Howard suggested two films that would resonate with Mainers: Joonam and Arc of Oblivion .

Joonam

Sunday, September. 17, 10 a.m. Journey’s End, Rockland

In this documentary memoir, debut director Sierra Ulrich “feels her way through her relationships with her mother, Mitra, and grandmother, Behjat, who emigrated from Iran to Vermont, USA.”

“The daughter Sierra is the first generation of her family to be born in the United States and the film is all about her trying to learn Persian so she can communicate with her grandmother,” said Howard. “And in trying to learn the language, she comes up against all of these significant roadblocks about what it means to be politically displaced.”

The Arc of Oblivion

Sunday, September. 17, 4 p.m. Camden Opera House

Filmmaker Ian Cheney explores “life’s most existential questions: what it means to be human on this planet, whether anything really lasts; life and death and our place within the universe and in the arc of history.”

“Ian Cheney has really grown up with CIFF and we’ve really grown up with his career,” said Howard. “It’s all about him thinking through why humans have such an impulse to leave something behind when we die and the lengths we go to in order to leave some kind of archive or trace of ourselves. And the framing device he uses to build that arc is reminiscent of Noah’s Ark out in Waldoboro.”

CIFF Shorts

See all short films here.

The Shorts Program features blocks of short curated films, which have been historically free to the public with the exception of the Maine-themed Dirigo Docs. Howard chose two blocks that would appeal to locals: Where the Mountains Meet The Sea and the Dirigo Docs.

Where the Mountains Meet The Sea

Friday, September 15, 10 a.m. Camden Opera House

There are three shorts in this program, All That is Sacred, Camp Courage, and What The Hands Do.

“The films in that block are all world premieres, focusing on relationships with the outdoors,” said Howard. “Bing Liu’s film, What The Hands Do, is all about rock climbing and social justice. Max Lowe’s Camp Courage is about displaced Ukrainian refugees who travel to a summer mountaineering camp in the Alps and the third film in that block is so timely. Scott Ballew’s All That is Sacred is all about an arts community that sprung up in the 1960s in Florida and Jimmy Buffet was part of that community. “

Dirigo Docs

Sunday, September 17, 1 p.m., The Strand Theatre

There are seven short films in this block. You can see all of them here.

“These are all of our Maine-based films and this year we really took to the woods,” said Howard. “Many of these films are about the cycle of life, birth, and a couple of projects that deal with grief in beautiful ways. For example, Eat Flowers is really going to resonate with locals. It’s about local photographer Cig Harvey who was grappling with the death of a dear friend and the film is a celebration of her life.”

Tickets for individual feature-length films and Dirigo Docs are $15.  Visit CIFF for more info on the rest of the Festival’s various events and programs.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

A pay-it-forward initiative that started in the Boston area during the pandemic offering one of Italy’s most iconic comfort dishes to anyone in need has expanded nationally and is now solidly in Maine.

Lasagna Love, now boasting 45,000 volunteers around the country, was started by a Massachusetts woman, Rhiannon Menn, in 2020. Prompted by the COVID-19-related struggles of families in her community, she founded Lasagna Love, delivering lasagnas to her friends and community. This home initiative kept growing, going national, until Menn turned it into a nonprofit.

The premise is simple: someone signs up for a lasagna for a home delivery. A volunteer in that community makes the dish from scratch and does a contactless drop-off. There is no money exchanged. The purpose is to provide comfort to anyone in need—no questions asked.

In little over three years, Lasagna Love has delivered more than 350,000 lasagnas to families and has now expanded to three countries.

Angie Madore is the regional director for the state of Maine. Having moved from Massachusetts to Maine a year ago, she got involved as a lasagna chef, delivering meals as a volunteer herself.

“Personally, I love the opportunity to give back to the community or just to make someone’s day or week,” said Madore. “I love to cook and I also love the flexibility of it with two school-age children of my own.” 

Madore said the nonprofit currently has 103 volunteers in the state of Maine with most of them in the southern part of the state. They are looking to grow their volunteer base in coastal, central, and northern Maine so that they can accommodate the growing number of requests in these areas as our outreach extends further into these communities.

“Any volunteer in any part of Maine can sign up to cook,” she said.

Home chefs can put any spin they want on their own recipes and choose to cook only once, once a week, once a month, or however it fits into their schedules. Sometimes, instead of using a disposable aluminum pan, some chefs will go to Goodwill and pick up a ceramic pan for the same price and include that with the delivery. All home chefs agree to front the cost of ingredients and drive to the recipient’s house, determining how far they are willing to deliver.

As for recipients, the website also allows you to request a lasagna for someone else who might be going through a hard time.

Madore said they often get requests from single moms, working parents who might be overwhelmed, teachers, medical workers, people who have experienced tragedies, medical issues, or simply might be temporarily sick, as well as those experiencing food insecurity.

“We’re a kindness initiative and everyone is in need of kindness,” she said. “We don’t ask intake questions to determine need.”

Madore said she often gets asked why the recipe is only lasagna. When initially created in Naples during the 14th century, the dish was mainly brought out for special events and holidays. ‘It’s the ultimate comfort food and made with a lot of care and attention.” she said. “And it’s a hearty meal that can be stretched out over a number of days.”

For more information on Lasagna Love including how to be a volunteer or how to sign up as a recipient visit: https://lasagnalove.org

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Die-hard craft beer lovers who have followed Maine fests like they were Grateful Dead concerts have had a rough couple of years navigating the COVID-19 pandemic when many festivals were largely called off. And it doesn’t help when an opinion piece this summer in Beer Advocate states that the craft brew festival industry is currently in a doom loop. But tell that to Maine beer festival goers and they’re likely to raise their four-ounce glass and say, “Have a sip. It’s good for what ails you.”

September and October are raging months for craft brew fests in Maine and their popularity isn’t going away. Here is a rundown of seven festivals to catch.

Pints on the Pier

September 9, 2023

Maine Maritime Museum, Bath

This late summer sunset event along the Kennebec River features 11 vendors serving up some of Maine’s best beers, ciders, and more. Food trucks will be on-site plus, live music, featuring Dead Gowns and Darksoft, cornhole, other lawn games, and more.  Online ticket sales will end at noon on Saturday, September 9. A limited number of tickets will then be available at the door.

Visit this page for more details and to see which breweries are participating.

Maine Brew Fest

September 16-17, 2023

Sunday River Resort, Newry

With 100 craft beer and cider samples from more than 30 Maine breweries, this is one of the ultimate fall festivals to attend to take in the beauty of the mountains in the Sugarloaf area. Take a chairlift ride. Brand new for this year, they have added a Sunday session in addition to the normal Saturday tasting. The band Skosh is playing live music during the festival, an outstanding fun band to dance to.

Visit this page for more details and to see which breweries are participating

Oktoberfest Beer & Food Festival

September 23, 2023

Footbridge Brewery, Boothbay Harbor

Dress up in your best lederhosen or dirndl and enjoy the lively celebration of Bavarian culture with Footbridge Brewery, along with four other breweries. This small, but hyperlocal Oktoberfest event promises beer, food, games, and music.

Visit their Facebook page for more details on the food and beer offerings.

Sanford Brew Fest

September 23, 2023

Sanford Regional Airport at Pilots Cove, Sanford

This off-the-beaten-path event featuring around 12 to 15 breweries is a bit more pricy than the others but includes a pint glass, a koozie, food, and live music.

Visit this page for more details including the the benefits of the VIP package

Maine Lakes Brew Fest

September 30, 2023

Ham Recreation Complex, Bridgeton

If you’re looking for a medium-sized adults-only venue and want to combine it with a weekend on Sebago or Long Lake, this event features more than 40 brewers and 15 food vendors with live music by Carbon 14 and Wintry Mix. Online ticket sales only; no sales at the gates.

Visit this page for more details and to see which breweries are participating.

Acadia Oktoberfest

October 7, 2023

Archie’s Lobster, Bass Harbor

This lovely waterfront venue includes wine tastings, ciders, as well as traditional Maine brews with more than 12 vendors and six food trucks.  Entertainment includes corn hole, a keg toss, and a stein hoisting tournament with multiple live bands playing throughout the day. Bonus: There is a free shuttle service between the village of Southwest Harbor and Archie's Lobster.

Visit this page for more details and to see which breweries are participating.

Swine & Stine Brewfest

October 7, 2023

Water Street, Downtown Gardiner

For the ultimate in tastings and a party in the street, this popular event features 20 craft beverage producers from across Maine serving samples of beers, wines, ciders, rums, meads, and more. There will be live music, entertainment, and food vendors. Not forgetting the swine, an array of food trucks and local restaurants will be serving up incredible pork varieties.

Visit this page for more details and to see which breweries are participating.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

After “The Summer That Never Was,” September sure has been producing a lot of nice, hot, summery days. Make the most of them with these three Maine activities:

Pick Your Own Flowers at Half Hitch Farm

Calyx Farm, in Morrill, is an organic MOFGA-certified organic mixed vegetable farm, which is not only bursting with end-of-the-summer produce right now, but on Wednesday evenings from 5 to 7 p.m., the public is invited to wander through the farm and pick their own flowers. The idea came about from neighbors, Ellen Sabina and Catherine Durkin, who is the co-owner of Calyx Farm with her husband, Alex McCaffree. Take your own snips and a container to hold them. For more information visit: Half Hitch Flowers

Charter out an entire schooner for your pals

Recently, a group of my friends decided to do a staycation in our own hometown, and on a whim, hired The Lazy Jack II out of Camden for a private afternoon sail with Captain Gus Kodros at the helm.

Kodros, a new owner of the schooner, who was profiled by Pen Bay Pilot in a recent story, was as amiable as could be, allowing our group of 21 friends to take our own picnic foods, beer, and wine, and play whatever music we wanted for the two-hour excursion.

There’s nothing like having an entire schooner to yourselves, as you enjoy the spray of the ocean, the mountains, islands, lobster boats, and lighthouses under full sail. The Maine Windjammer Association is another website to check out other Midcoast schooners, each with its own heritage, and excursion schedules.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, the Country Inn Maine has written a summary of what to expect from each one. Some do happy hour cruises; some offer longer trips with food and wine included; some will even take you to an island for a private lobster bake.

Check out a fall festival

It’s not even close to peak foliage season, but instead, that lingering season in between. A host of renowned Midcoast fall festivals in September are making the most of the great weather before the season officially changes including the Camden International Film Festival (Sept. 14 -17), the Owls Head Transportation Museum’s Vintage Motorcycle Festival (Sept. 16), Stone Tree Farm & Cider in Union’s Food Truck and Live Music Festival (Sept. 22-24), and The Common Ground Country Fair (Sept. 22 - 24).

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Two carved wooden benches grace downtown Belfast, both nautical-themed. One is a whale with sailboats and one is a mermaid. Both works of functional art were made by chainsaw artist Pasco Grove, of Winterport. The benches, carved during the All Roads Music Festival as a live event several years ago, now permanently remain.

For Grove, it is no big deal to pick up a chainsaw and begin hacking at a large snag —or a dead, broken tree— and fashion a face or a sculpture out of it.

He works through an interesting art form called chainsaw carving that combines the modern technology of chainsaw carving either on ice or wood with the ancient art of woodcarving.

“I grew up on a farm around a bunch of machinery and my dad is a woodcutter,” said Grove. “I used a chainsaw at a fairly young age and helped him cut wood. As I got older, I started running a chainsaw and my dad influenced me a little bit to try chainsaw art. He got me my first carving bar, which is a smaller bar you put on a chainsaw, and that’s how I started carving little things out of wood like faces and human figurines. It just grew from there.”

Grove always had an artistic bent, whether it was drawing or painting as a kid or pottery-making and sculpting in high school.

“I was always making things out of junk and whittling with a knife,” he said.

Self-taught, his first commission was a large Viking carving for his high school.

His day job consists of working for G.E. in Bangor, but his hobby and avocation, which takes about three or four hours a week, is turning decrepit stumps into anthropomorphic works of art. 

“It is like my stress relief and I get lost in it,” he said.

Besides carving functional art, such as large statues, and even a lifesize Big Foot, he is hired to transform dead tree stumps on homeowners’ properties into interesting sculptures.

His artistic tools have a bite, so he has to take special care to the point of putting up caution tape around public areas where he works.

“Mostly it is for the little kids who love to come running up,” said Grove. “There have been a few times I’ve turned around and someone surprised me by being way too close and I had to shut off the chainsaw.

“It is dangerous,” he admitted, “but I just have to keep in mind certain aspects of using the saw, making sure it doesn’t kick back. There are certain cuts that can become pretty tricky.”

For more of Grove’s work, visit facebook.com/Chainsawmainah

AUGUSTA—On Saturday, September 2, and Sunday, September 3, the weirder you are, the more you’ll find your people in the second year of the Maine Odd & Unusual Show held at the Augusta Civic Center.

Founder and organizer Misty Lane is running the show with her husband, Christopher Bishop. Their home-based taxidermy business, called Hillbilly Furniture and Furs, operates out of Fairfield. Lane grew up in Fairfield but moved away for a number of years. She and her husband bought land and moved back to her hometown.

The show tends toward the supernatural, the occult, metaphysical nature-based gifts, and home goods that are on the darker side with more than 100 vendors

An example of vendors includes artists who make art out of insects, moss, and mushrooms, crafters who sell crystals and apothecary items, sword swallowers, and people who sell curiosity antiques, such as caskets.

“Pretty much if you can find it in nature, you’ll find some kind of art with it at the show,” said Lane. “It’s basically anything that people would turn their nose up at if they were at a regular craft fair.”

She said: “We sell weird stuff ourselves. We sell animal skulls, bones, wet specimens, and crystals, among other things.  We used to travel the country with a big oddities show, but decided we wanted to just stay in Maine, find our own niche, and organize  our own show.”

A wet specimen, for the uninitiated, is a dead animal preserved in formaldehyde and preserved in a jar.

“Anything from the hearts of animals to the whole animal, such as a snake” she explained.

Lane who hunted with her father, grandfather, and family as a kid, was interested in taxidermy at a young age, where she collected the bones, hides, and antlers of animals.

“I always liked the idea of preserving the other parts of what you hunted so not anything went to waste,” she said. “Whatever weird things I’d find in the woods would come home with me. It was just another way to memorialize the animal.”

Turns out more people around the country share this same love for items odd and unusual.

Hillbilly Furniture and Furs has more than 12,000 likes and nearly 260 reviews.

“I already knew there were people in Maine who liked what we did because they were buying stuff from us, but we found, through our own networks, there are a lot of vendors all over the country who share the same interests,” said Lane.

“We call ourselves the merry band of weirdos,” she added. “It’s not for everyone, but once you get into that niche or group, you find a lot more people who are into the same kind of things you’re into.”

The show will also feature a haunted house people can walk through and a special scavenger hunt for the kids.

According to Lane, the Odd & Unusual Show will take place every Memorial Day weekend and every Labor Day weekend in August.

Tickets can be purchased here. Stay tuned to their Facebook page for more information.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penaypilot.com

LINCOLNVILLE BEACH—Anyone familiar with A Little Free Library, a free book exchange in the form of a glass-enclosed box where people can take or leave books, can now find a Little Free Toy Library at Lincolnville Beach, courtesy of the Lincolnville Improvement Association.

“I saw a picture of a toy library on Facebook that another town had done years ago and it stuck in my mind,” said Christine Leary, a member of LIA. “I happened to be working on the Heart & Soul Project [a community study on what people think matters most in Lincolnville] and one of the kids wrote that he or she wanted to see more toys at the beach. Life told me that this needed to happen.”

Leary said LIA wrote a proposal, took it to the Select Board, which approved the project. Leary said the Little Free Toy Library was custom-constructed and hand-built by carpenter Will Hardy, a brother of one of LIA’s members. It officially launched in mid-July.

The project, completely funded by the LIA, started off with donated toys.

The library has been well-loved this summer with a lot of the original toys and donated kids’ sunscreen now gone, but others, mostly sandbox toys, replaced.

“It’s a work in progress,” she said. “We’re hoping the community will kick in with more donations; just drop off a small toy in good condition that would otherwise go to a donation center or a landfill,” she said.

The toy library is located behind the Porta Potty shelter on the beachside. The Little Free Library for books is on the other side of the shelter facing the parking lot.

If anyone wishes to get in touch with the Lincolnville Improvement Association for more information or donations, visit their Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

WARREN—“Creative.”

That’s Chef Derek Ronspies one-word descriptor of how The Black Goat approaches food.

“We always try to do something that’s not the norm, but some kind of play on comfort food,” he said.

He clearly likes a personal challenge and approaches each day with an open mind to the menu. 

“It’s probably self-punishment that I don’t do the same menu twice,” he said with a laugh. “I like it when people come in they’ll always know there is something new to try.”

Ronspies and his partner, Cat Biggar, both from Seattle, have only been in Midcoast Maine for two months. They have completely transformed the interior of the St. George Café right next to the St. George River into farm-to-table casual fine dining that heralds creativity as its central theme.

“We get fresh items from the local farms each week and that inspires what’s going to be on the menu that day,” said Biggar.

Ronspies, who owned a restaurant in Seattle before the pandemic, was doing underground supper clubs with Biggar in their home when they began looking at the East Coast as a place to start over. “We knew we wanted to be in the northeast; so we took a leap of faith, sold what we had, and drove cross-country until we found a place. The couple, which is renting the space for the next 18 months, is feeling out the area, from what customers want to the local produce, proteins, and seafood available.

The chalkboard handwritten menu changes frequently, depending on what Ronspies feels will spark his imagination.

Last week, the grand opening menu featured a variety of vegetarian dishes sourced from multiple local farms and a popular Asian BBQ doughnut appetizer. “We shredded up some of the ribs, hooked it up with a homemade Asian BBQ sauce then wrapped it in a donut,” said Ronspies.

The black walls, farmhouse tables, new pub area, and elegant wine bookcase give the former country café an updated urban feel. Each day the menu features specialties such as the Korn Dog—their spin on a “Korean Korn dog,” a hotdog and mozzarella cheese wrapped in dough, deep fried, and then rolled in crushed-up goldfish crackers.

During the weekdays, the Black Goat serves as a grab-and-go gourmet local market and wine bar with small plates from 1 to 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Ronspies and Biggar spend their days prepping for the grab-and-go cooler, which contains: dips, spreads, salads, soups, wine, beer, and specialty cocktails. To go with that, they also offer bread, granola, and protein balls with almost everything made in-house or produced locally.

“We’re also going to start preparing ‘picnic baskets’ so that people can come in and grab items to take out for the day,” said Biggar. “Things like chicken salad sandwiches, something easy to take on a hike or on a boat trip down the St. George River,” added Ronspies.

But it’s their Maine supper clubs, with communal dining that pairs up neighbors and strangers, that they’re both going to throw their creative energy into. “This is the part we love the best,” he said.

“It’s more than five courses and you will definitely be fed,” said Biggar.

Brunch will also be on their calendar going forward with a fun twist on eggs Benedict, such as a poached egg on a duck fat masa cake, Greener Days Farm crispy skin pork belly with an orange-tomato Hollandaise sauce, Chimichurri, and Syrian spice, za'atar collard greens.

They’ve been open nearly a month and report great support from the community. “A lot of locals came in and shared some love,” said Ronspies.

Stay tuned to their Facebook and Instagram pages the daily menu and upcoming supper clubs.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

LIBERTY—A casual bar and restaurant has come back to anchor the tiny town of Liberty once again. Isaiah Pottle and his older sister Amy Smith are Maine born and raised and are bringing their homey, quirky aesthetic to the house and tavern that once belonged to 51 Main, the restaurant.

Pottle, 35, grew up working in kitchens, starting with making pizzas and baked mac and cheese at age 15 at Center General Store in Lincolnville Center, now Lincolnville General Store.

With their grandmother Ruth’s pickle recipes and the family’s historic coleslaw, the siblings aim to offer a simple comfort-food menu along with a mini tavern that feels like a U.K. snug.

The menu is deliberately pared down to feature lunch and dinner of mac and cheese, chicken and biscuit, Shepherd’s Pie, or a pulled pork sandwich with a side of the famous slaw and two sides.

“The food we’re serving reminds me of family gatherings or going to Grammy’s house,” he said.  “It’s just going to be hot food and cold salads and we’re prepping everything ahead of time so it’ll be quick. People will get their food in five minutes.”

The house, built in 1850, will remind longtime Midcoast restaurant patrons of the old Ingraham’s in Rockport with its partitioned rooms, exposed old beams, a decommissioned fireplace, and a piano in the corner.

The pub side of the restaurant, now repainted a deep Inchyra Blue that is reminiscent of Scottish skies, will offer several local brews from nearby St. George Brewing Co., as well as Heineken (one of their father’s favorite beers) and a cheap PBR.

On the mixology side, Pottle will sling a couple of not-so-fancy drinks with fancy names such as “Wicked Pissah,” a Long Island iced tea made with Moxie, and Mosquito Mojito made with blueberry lemonade and rum.

The deck offers additional outside space with a newly stained deck and bright, red umbrellas.

The main entrance to the restaurant off the deck will become a grab-and-go space for breakfast items such as coffee, quiche of the day, and muffins, as well as soft-serve ice cream. A cooler will contain heat-and-eat portions of the regular menu.

With their father’s recent passing, Pottle decided it was time to come home again to Maine and when 51 Main came on the market, he took one look at the house with living space on the second floor and knew that was it.

“As soon as I saw this place, I immediately went home and began drawing the restaurant sign and logo,” he said.

With a light-hearted free-spirit approach to the bar and restaurant and along with vintage paintings and touches, Pottle has added his own quirky playful style to the decorations, such as a working rotary wall phone in the bar, vintage TVs, and toy VW buses that his father used to own.

Pottle’s is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and closed on Wednesdays.

Stay tuned to their Instagram page for more details @pottles.pub

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

PORT CLYDE—The lighthouse made famous by Forrest Gump has hit a setback.

On a rainy evening last week, Diane Heath, the publicity coordinator for Marshall Point Lighthouse was inside the keeper’s house when she noticed a squall kick up around the property.

“The wind started blowing, the flagpole was sort of bent over; which is unusual to see in the summertime–you see that more often in the winter. I went out to take some video in the side garden and then I got a bad feeling and knew I had to get inside,” she said.

Soon after, she witnessed a flash of light with a crack of thunder immediately on top of it and she ran to the front window and saw the light was out in the lighthouse tower.

The lightning strike “fried” the LED lens in the lighthouse lens surrounding it, foghorn, and all associated circuit breakers, according to Heath in a story initially published by Penobscot Bay Pilot last week.

“There is a lightning rod on top of the lighthouse,” she said, noting that the Lighthouse museum also possesses an old lightning rod with a crack in it, due to a previous lightning strike to the keeper’s house in 1895.

“The entire keeper’s house burned down in 1895 and had to be rebuilt,” said Nat Lyon, the Museum Director. “It was replaced by the current keeper’s house that you see today.”

The Coast Guard was summoned as they service Maine’s lighthouses and foghorns. Bob Trapani, a local photographer and Coast Guard reservist, and a crew from Navigation Team Southwest Harbor arrived to investigate, and ultimately remove the light, said Lyon.

“We understand the light would have to be replaced if it can’t be repaired,” said Lyon.

Chase Miller of USCG Aids to Navigation Team Southwest Harbor has an update on what is next for the light.

“The light, was in fact, destroyed from the lightning strike, along with the foghorn and all of the controlling circuits,” he explained. “When we went up to the tower, we removed all of the damaged equipment and replaced it with partial equipment with a controller for the foghorn temporarily. The actual light itself has been ordered last week and is en route.”

Miller noted that lightning strikes to lighthouses aren’t as rare as you think, particularly given the rainy weather Maine has experienced this summer.

“Lightning strikes are pretty common this time of year and ground moisture has a lot to do with it,” said Miller. “It was just an unfortunate event.”

On August 7, National Lighthouse Day, the Lighthouse staff always allows tours of the tower, where four people can fit up in the tiny circular room at a time. This time, given the time restraints of replacing the light, it will be empty.

The Marshall Point Lighthouse staff asks volunteers for a donation for the annual tour as their events and operations, apart from the gift shop, are volunteer-led.

“It’s an opportunity for people to come out and view the lighthouse in a way they have never seen before,” said Heath.

“We’re going to have the light back for Maine Lighthouse Day in September,” said Lyon. “We’ll open the tower on August 7 from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.”

For more information about Marshall Point Lighthouse & Museum visit: https://www.marshallpoint.org/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MIDCOAST—The weather may or may not cooperate this weekend for the third annual Wild Blueberry Weekend, August 5 and 6, 2023, but Maine’s iconic blueberry farms will be open to the public.

The Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine invites the public to make the trek all over the state to see and experience the working farms. With nearly 70 farms, eateries, and drink establishments spanning from Kittery in southern Maine to Pembroke and Robbinston in Downeast Maine, this weekend celebrates wild blueberries during their peak harvest.

Here are two local Midcoast blueberry farms within a 30 mile driving distance.

Brodis Blueberries

Hope

128 Jones Hill Road
Hope, ME 04847
207-975-4413

Google Map

Brodis Blueberries sells blueberries and value-added products, and happens to be integral in the formation of the Midcoast’s only distillery: Blue Barren Distillery! At their farm this weekend, people can purchase fresh or frozen wild blueberries, jams, and other products. For food, along with their own blueberry offerings, Brother Shuckers food truck will be there specializing in seafood delicacies and other options along with The Wyman’s “Bee Wild” truck and Mimi’s Kitchen wild blueberry pie tastings. Blue Barren Distillery will be offering its award-winning spirits including several wild blueberry-inspired favorites. Cocktails will be available for purchase each evening from 4:00-7:00 p.m. For activities, the farm welcomes visitors to take a hike around the farm grounds and handpicking some sample blueberries.

One new thing the farm has, which is in the processing packing room, so, unfortunately, the public won’t be able to see it, is a new Optical Sorter, which is a state-of-the-art piece of equipment with two cameras attached that “study” the blueberries rolling down the belt and with pneumatic air jets, picking out anything that’s not a good blueberry.

Ron Howard is the Farm Manager and a committee member of the Wild Blueberry Commission. He and two committee members came up with the concept of Wild Blueberry Weekend three years ago.

“Our hope was to connect people with farms and wild blueberries from the beginning and it has far exceeded our expectations,” he said. “I think people who attend these events walk away with a much better understanding of wild blueberries and their importance to Maine agriculture and their own health and nutrition.”

Blue Barren Distillery will also be in operation Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Ridgeway Farm

Appleton

1005 Appleton Ridge Rd
Appleton, ME 04862
207-542-9302

Google Map

Activities for Wild Blueberry Day include a “hay wagon” ride around a field (if harvest allows) to see views from Appleton Ridge. There will be demonstrations on what the a wild blueberry “picking line” looks like, and people will be able to sample wild blueberries.

Tours will be held between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. From 12 to 3 p.m., Gun Slingers BBQ will be grilling pulled pork sandwiches and brisket quesadillas with a specially made Ridgeberry Farm Blueberry BBQ Sauce. Fresh wild blueberries will be available for purchase (single, four- and eight-quart boxes), with freezer-ready options. They ask that you please leave your pets at home.

“The biggest thing people have been most interested in is our barbeque and our tractor tours, where I pull people around in a hay wagon up in the blueberry fields where the machines are working,” said Harvest Manager Tim Davis. “We also have special areas where people can pick their own blueberries while I am talking about the harvest process.”

Note: the farm will not be open on Saturday, August 5 and only open on Sunday, August 6, starting at 10 a.m.

CAMDEN—A favorite Rockland store has reemerged in Camden on the Lyman-Morse waterfront boardwalk this summer. Motifs, a boutique specializing in coastal-inspired wares, men’s and women’s fashion, home décor, vintage, and antiques, reopened Memorial Day weekend.

The store is run by Paula Jalbert, who has the same exuberant style as she did when we first covered her Rockland location in a 2014 story.

Jalbert has been in retail for 40 years having opened her first store in 1981, a card shop in Portland’s Old Port called Communiqué.

Motifs in Portland was around for a few years before the Rockland store opened.

“Then the pandemic hit and we had to close the Portland store for several months and when we re-opened it was clear to me it was going to be difficult to sell clothing,” she said.

Jalbert said people were fearful to try on clothing at that time.

“We had to steam the clothing after they tried it on and had to put it aside for 24 hours,” she said.

At that time, she and her husband had permanently relocated to South Thomaston.

“So, then we had to make some decisions of whether to keep staff once stores could reopen and commute down to Portland,” she said. “And we made the decision to permanently close.”

After taking some time to herself to reassess her priorities, Jalbert decided to link up with a good friend, Brenda Garrand, owner of a the Portland marketing firm, Garrand and Company. Garrand had also moved to Rockland, and the friends decided to become business partners for the new store in Camden.

“Brenda and I have been friends for 40 years,” said Jalbert. “We thought the Midcoast had a lot of potential and is going to be the next ‘it’ place. We both felt very strongly about positioning ourselves here. With a lot of retail stores that had left for various reasons after the pandemic, there was a great opportunity here to bring Motifs back.”

Just like her Rockland store, Jalbert is keen on appealing to the locals in the community.

“My intention around buying [items for the store] is a year-round commitment to the local population in terms of price points and clothing and I’ve been getting a huge response from my former customers saying they’re happy I’m back,” she said/.

This store, based on where it is, on the east side of Camden Harbor in a modernized marina, has more of a nautical aesthetic, a place for men and women to shop for themselves, their home, and their boat. For more information visit: https://www.motifsmaine.com/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

UNION—A new Midcoast Farmers Union site at the former Coastal Blueberry Services facility at 61 Common Road is now open to farmers to set up pop-up retail markets and to use the space for storage and/or other functions.

The Midcoast Farmers Alliance (MFA) was formed by farmers in 2015 with the support of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, which operates Aldermere Farm and Erickson Fields, two working educational farms in the Midcoast.

The goal of MFA is to increase the shared supports available to farmers in the area. MFA was formed by farmers in 2015 with the support of Maine Coast Heritage Trust. Maine Farmland Trust partnered with the MFA and MCHT to establish the Midcoast Farmers Union site by purchasing the property in 2022, with the intention to facilitate its resale to the MFA as the Midcoast Farmers Union site grows.

On July 18,  the Midcoast Farmers Alliance and Maine Coast Heritage Trust held an open house for farmers and the community as a way to see the space and generate ideas about how the space could benefit the farming community.

Emily Gherman-Lad, assistant director of Engagement for Maine Farmland Trust, estimated about 35-40 farmers and members of the community showed up to the event.

“It was great to meet so many farmers and community members who came to see the space and share their ideas on its potential,” said Adam Bishop, Maine Farmland Trust’s Director of Farmland Protection and Farmland Access.

Maine Farmland Trust felt it was really important to give the facility, with its history of supporting agriculture, a new life.

“The space is going to be used for pop-up farmer’s markets throughout the season,” said Carly Williams, project coordinator of Midcoast Farmers Alliance. “We have an herbalist market planned for October, and we’re hoping to have a Harvest Fest in the fall. Another idea that came out of the open house was to hold an evening farmer’s market for people who have daytime jobs. We’re hoping to use the space to support farmers and agriculture in the Midcoast and these markets seem like a great place to start.”

In a news release from Maine Coast Heritage Trust, other possibilities have been laid out: “Farmers can set up the pop-up markets on their own schedule or combine efforts with other farmers to host markets at the same time. The site also offers storage space for farmers to keep excess dry goods or equipment safe and secure.”

“At Maine Farmland Trust, we are really excited to see how the Midcoast Farmers Alliance and Maine Coast Heritage Trust are developing this space to meet the needs of farmers in this community,” said Bishop. “When this former wild blueberry processing facility went up for sale last year, we all saw the opportunity that its buildings and infrastructure could offer to area farms. MFT is thrilled to have brought our land transfer experience to this partnership by purchasing the facility, with the plan to resell it to the MFA as they continue to develop and grow.”

For more history and background about the space, visit: “Open house to allow farmers, community to check out new Midcoast Farmers Union site”

To learn more about the space and how to get involved, contact Aaron Englander at aenglander@mcht.org or 207-236-2739. 

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

After the pandemic left a dearth of empty storefronts in Camden around 2022, as reported in our annual Welcome Back Snow Birds series, the town has gotten a shot in the arm with a number of new restaurants.

Here’s what’s popping this summer:

Goods —A Fun Food Shop & Bar

Even though Goods, a specialty market on 31 Elm Street in Camden, has technically been open for a year, owners Megs Senk and George Korsnick have developed a new offering in the little market—a bar with snacks starting at 3 p.m., every Thursday through Saturday.

Senk describes their market as “a fun food shop” with three main categories: Food and pantry items, vintage cookbooks, and wine and beer. 

“It’s all under the umbrella of food, with a focus on small-batch vendors,” she said. “For example, we have a chili crisp from a company in London—and we were their first retailer in America—and we also have a Little Brother chili crip from Portland. No matter how far we source the food items, we want to be able to offer things you just can’t find around here and tell the story of who makes it.”

The bar stems from Senk’s own background. Originally from Vermont, she has worked with food and design, has been a restaurant server, and has a lot of friends in the restaurant industry. Started a month ago, they will offer classic cocktails such as a margarita featuring a woman-owned tequila, as fun bar snacks like dusted popcorn and marinated olives.

“We want to be more of a pre- or post-dinner situation,” she said. “There are obviously a lot of good restaurants in town; we just want to provide a space where people can meet up before or after for a snack and a drink. We also have a big non-alcoholic section.”

In addition to the bar, they plan to offer made-to-order classic sandwiches including a BLT with local ingredients, a chickpea salad sandwich, and a tuna melt, plus wine and beer during lunch hours starting at 11 a.m.

Find a sample menu here.

Find out more at goodsmaine.com

Mosaic

Hannah Scott grew up in Camden, and having lived here most of her life, opened a new restaurant with her husband, Troy Scott, and their family on May 4.

“We decided it would be a great opportunity for us as a family to do this together,” she said.

As a private chef and a previous server for Long Grain, which used to be housed in the same space, Hannah Scott decided to use what she learned in the restaurant industry and create a Latin-inspired and farm-fresh menu with an emphasis on making dishes from seasonal, local ingredients.

“We have tacos, burritos, and bowls, but we also do paella, Korean barbeque, hence the name Mosiac—an amalgamation of different flavors with different ideas, concepts, and community,” she said. “We just like to put whatever’s fun, fresh, and exciting on the menu and aren’t limiting ourselves to any one genre.”

Tacos and tequila are a sure hit with any crowd, and Mosiac’s tacos are constructed with handmade tortillas, both vegetarian and with proteins such as chicken tinga, fish, shrimp, and carnitas.

“Everything on the menu is homemade, including the tortilla chips, salsas, and house barbeque and we source all local pork, fish, and chicken,” she said.

The space seats 30 people and is open from lunch to dinner (11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.) six days a week, excluding Wednesdays.

Scott’s oldest ons host a Taco & Tequila Tuesday from 9 to 11 p.m. for the late-night crowd and for other servers just getting off their shifts. 

“That’s kind of nice because there aren’t a lot of options open at that hour,” she said. “It’s a limited taco menu and people are really enjoying a snack and hang out.”

The margaritas going out the door are made with higher-end tequilas and mezcals and customers are interested in learning more about them, she said. They’ve got some spicy margs, house marg, and one called the Naked and Famous: made with either tequila or mezcal, yellow chartreuse, aperol, and lime.

“We have gotten really good feedback; people seem very happy with what we’re creating and putting out,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of local regulars come back week after week.

Find their menu here.

Follow them on Facebook or Instagram

Paper Plane

The newest cocktail/wine bar to anchor the Lyman-Morse wharf boardwalk on the opposite side of Camden Harbor is Paper Plane, just recently opened.

Locals will remember owner Clementina Senatore, former co-owner of Meanwhile In Belfast, a gourmet wood-fired pizza place that had to close in 2022 due to the pandemic. Her newest venture uses many of the same flavors she incorporated with Meanwhile in Belfast, having been born and raised in Italy.

“The food philosophy is the same as Meanwhile in Belfast, only instead of pizza, it’s small plates,” she said. “We also apply, simply fresh ingredients. It’s a casual place, no reservation, first come first serve, just come in to have a cocktail, a glass of wine, or a snack or a dessert. We’ll be offering small plates such as a rotating offering of cheese and meats for charcuterie, a special salad, or my Italian take on the Japanese dish itameshi, which is rice, shrimp, and fresh mozzarella and nori, a sushi dish with Italian ingredients.”

For our wine list, they have a rotating list for every taste, from a $10 glass of rose to a $70 glass, from simple to sophisticated. The cocktail list will also be rotating; for example, they are offering a margaritas, a wasabi martini, a chocolate espresso martini, and a Negroni Reposado.

Find their sample menu here.

Follow them on Instagram

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BATH—Captain Angus McGregor Crosby was a lobsterman since he was 14 on Georgetown Island before he died unexpectedly in 2021. His daughters, Lauren Crosby, 29, and Sadia Crosby, 28, each had her own vocation at the time: Lauren worked as a  traveling musician and teacher, and Sadia owned an oyster farm called OysHERS Sea Farm.

After he died, the sisters felt drawn even closer together and wanted to open a business that had been a long-held dream —a raw bar with sparkling wines and beverages to honor their father and all of the fishermen and oyster farmers whom they’d grown up around.

“He was definitely a classic Maine fisherman, very hard-working, very stubborn and smart; a classic Scotsman and he never let us forget it,” said Lauren, laughing, while she recalled. “He played a massive role in our lives to become entrepreneurs and to do things your own way. Sadia asked me a couple of months ago, ‘Do you think Dad would be proud that we started this business?’ And I answered ‘I don’t care what Dad would think–we’re doing it anyway!’”

The sisters opened Oysters Raw Bar & Bubbly June 17.  

“With the passing of our dad so suddenly, it put a lot of things into perspective,” said Lauren. “One of my callings is to promote Maine seafood and the cultural heritage of Midcoast Maine and a great way to do that is by opening our own raw bar. We feel very passionate about promoting lobstermen and how important it is to working waterfront families of Maine today.”

Indeed, the business’s two main offerings: champagne and locally harvested raw oysters scream “luxury” to the rest of the world, but to the Crosby sisters, it’s meant to be reframed into what is and should be accessible to everyone, not just wealthy tourists.

“Historically, oysters and champagne have been perceived as this elite food, and it’s so funny because there seems to be this disconnect in the general public between these foods– including lobster–as being out of everyone’s price range, but we who have worked on boats, filling the bait bags, know there is nothing elitist about it,” she said. “The high stress and dangers that come with working on the water are our reality. The working families who provide us with lobster, oysters, and crabmeat are being supported when you come here.  The food we bring in shouldn’t just be accessible to people with a lot of money. That’s why Sadia and I really wanted to create a space in downtown Bath that is fun, and welcoming to all—families, people with dogs—just come hang out and enjoy life’s simple pleasures.”

The most popular items on the menu are the charcuterie board, the lobster, and crab sliders. The place boasts a massive sparkling wine and bubbly list as well with Mimosa flights being the top sellers. They also sell wine, beer, cider, hard seltzer, distilled cocktails, and non-alcoholic bubbly drinks

The Crosby sisters have not only parlayed Sadia’s aquaculture skills into the business, but also have a vision to support more female-run businesses (including oyster farms, wineries, and farmers) as well as host local artists, songwriters, book clubs, and educational opportunities at the space. The sisters also plan on providing an annual scholarship to a deserving student at Morse High School–a school where both they, their mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are alumni.

Given how seasonal the offering on the menu is, Oysthers will only be open from Memorial Day to December 31. Most lobstermen in the Midcoast have wrapped their season at that point and oyster stocks need to rest and grow over the winter.

To learn more about the sisters and the new raw bar visit: www.oysthers.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BATH—Captain Angus McGregor Crosby was a lobsterman since he was 14 on Georgetown Island before he died unexpectedly in 2021. His daughters, Lauren Crosby, 29, and Sadia Crosby, 28, each had her own vocation at the time: Lauren worked as a  traveling musician and teacher, and Sadia owned an oyster farm called OysHERS Sea Farm.

After he died, the sisters felt drawn even closer together and wanted to open a business that had been a long-held dream —a raw bar with sparkling wines and beverages to honor their father and all of the fishermen and oyster farmers whom they’d grown up around.

“He was definitely a classic Maine fisherman, very hard-working, very stubborn and smart; a classic Scotsman and he never let us forget it,” said Lauren, laughing, while she recalled. “He played a massive role in our lives to become entrepreneurs and to do things your own way. Sadia asked me a couple of months ago, ‘Do you think Dad would be proud that we started this business?’ And I answered ‘I don’t care what Dad would think–we’re doing it anyway!’”

The sisters opened Oysters Raw Bar & Bubbly June 17.  

“With the passing of our dad so suddenly, it put a lot of things into perspective,” said Lauren. “One of my callings is to promote Maine seafood and the cultural heritage of Midcoast Maine and a great way to do that is by opening our own raw bar. We feel very passionate about promoting lobstermen and how important it is to working waterfront families of Maine today.”

Indeed, the business’s two main offerings: champagne and locally harvested raw oysters scream “luxury” to the rest of the world, but to the Crosby sisters, it’s meant to be reframed into what is and should be accessible to everyone, not just wealthy tourists.

“Historically, oysters and champagne have been perceived as this elite food, and it’s so funny because there seems to be this disconnect in the general public between these foods– including lobster–as being out of everyone’s price range, but we who have worked on boats, filling the bait bags, know there is nothing elitist about it,” she said. “The high stress and dangers that come with working on the water are our reality. The working families who provide us with lobster, oysters, and crabmeat are being supported when you come here.  The food we bring in shouldn’t just be accessible to people with a lot of money. That’s why Sadia and I really wanted to create a space in downtown Bath that is fun, and welcoming to all—families, people with dogs—just come hang out and enjoy life’s simple pleasures.”

The most popular items on the menu are the charcuterie board, the lobster, and crab sliders. The place boasts a massive sparkling wine and bubbly list as well with Mimosa flights being the top sellers. They also sell wine, beer, cider, hard seltzer, distilled cocktails, and non-alcoholic bubbly drinks

The Crosby sisters have not only parlayed Sadia’s aquaculture skills into the business, but also have a vision to support more female-run businesses (including oyster farms, wineries, and farmers) as well as host local artists, songwriters, book clubs, and educational opportunities at the space. The sisters also plan on providing an annual scholarship to a deserving student at Morse High School–a school where both they, their mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are alumni.

Given how seasonal the offering on the menu is, Oysthers will only be open from Memorial Day to December 31. Most lobstermen in the Midcoast have wrapped their season at that point and oyster stocks need to rest and grow over the winter.

To learn more about the sisters and the new raw bar visit: www.oysthers.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

MIDCOAST—Two micro-bakeries have quietly opened their doors this summer. Take a look at what they’re offering:

Sunflour meals and cookies

43 Hatchet Mountain Road, Hope

For the last three years without a website or advertising, Hope resident Carrie Laurita has been quietly cooking and baking in a tiny air-conditioned shed behind her house at 43 Hatchet Mountain Road, trying to feel out a direction on where her avocation would go.  She is part of a growing number of solo entrepreneurs in food services who test out their passion for hyperlocal communities before making a bigger leap forward. And in the many rural towns of Midcoast, a number of food producers sell out of their own houses. 

Her specialty is gourmet cakes, cookies, and prepared meals — and in the wintertime — batches of comfort soups. Customers order ahead of time by emailing her and she prepares their take-out dishes ready for pick up at certain times.

“My services at the time were already take-out oriented, so three years ago, when the pandemic hit and nobody could go to restaurants, my little business started to take off,” she said. “It was unbelievably busy and so much fun.”

Laurita has decided to offer a new spin on her Sunflour cooking this summer called “Carrie-out” in two forms: 

1. Cool, summery picnic meals and soups people can pick up on Wednesdays, such as curried chicken salad, fruit and cheese kebobs, and a cookie. 

2. Home-baked gourmet cookies out of a special yellow-painted “cookie hut”  that can be sold in a self-serve, self-pay stand similar to the farmer’s stand models.

“I’m just going to put them out every day on the honor system and when they’re gone, they’re gone,” she said.

With a bit of help from two people who assist her with catering services, she is content to keep her operations small.

“People keep saying I need a website, so I’m pretty much at max right now,” she said.

Her cozy work area is a tiny shed decorated with painted sunflowers.

“The baking shed at one time was a hay shed for elephants,” she said. For reference, the large building that abuts her workspace used to be the site of Hope Elephants before the untimely death of her husband, Jim Laurita, the executive director of Hope Elephants.

“When my husband died, I stacked wood, cooked, and baked,” she said. “That’s all I did and how I dealt with grief.”

She said the act of losing herself in cooking was therapeutic and at first, was its only means to an end.

“And then it occurred to me, people might want to buy food from me,” she said.

Soon, her desserts were in demand and she began selling them to local restaurants and general stores. She then did Soup Nights once a weekend and prepared catered dinners. What began as a hobby has turned into her primary source of income.

Laurita is not done dreaming up future plans. The giant barn building that once housed the Hope Elephants, and most recently was Hope Air, is currently a space for North Atlantic Gymnastics Academy, but soon will be empty when they move to another facility.

It occurred to her that given her own interests, the barn could be a multi-use space for her own business, as well as other food purveyors and artists. Perhaps, it might even be an indoor farmer’s market — she hasn’t decided yet.

Laurita’s weekly specials can be found on Instagram @sunflour43 and she can be reached at: sunflouryellow@gmail.com

The Place

117 Elm Street, Camden

Chelsea Kravitz and Chris Dawson, both in their 30s, were living and working together in Kravitz’s bakery-restaurant in Long Island, when the two friends, who became romantically involved, decided they wanted a simpler life, and moved to Camden, Maine this past spring.

Their joint micro-bakery, The Place, launched a quiet grand opening this past weekend in a converted woodworking studio next to their house which is adjacent to the Cedar Crest Inn.

The opening weekend on July 15 and 16 was a surprising success. Despite a gloomy, rainy weekend, Kravitz said word-of-mouth advertising prompted a long line of customers to stand outside their door even before they opened.

Kravitz and Dawson use local flour, dairy, and produce and their biggest seller this past weekend were the savory danishes and a version of “Persian Bun,” a deep-fried cinnamon bun with chocolate frosting made locally famous from the Camden Home Bakery, which has since closed.  “Ours is made with croissant dough, and it has that cinnamon swirl in the middle with the chocolate frosting,” said Kravitz. “It was received really well which made us happy because it’s hard to recreate an old favorite in a town you’re new to.”

They also offer pre-orders on their website.

“We’ll also have plenty available for walk-ins when we’re open,” said Kravitz.

Next weekend they will be open July 22 and 23 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The following week, starting Thursday, July 27, they’ll be open four days a week (Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

See The Place’s weekly pre-order menu here. They can also be found on Instagram.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

WATERVILLE—If you’re one of those people who longs for fall in the midst of summer, the Maine International Film Festival has you covered. Now in full swing this week (July 7 to 16), MIFF has a special category for “Mostly-Maine Horror” shorts.

Coming up Thursday, July 13, at the Waterville Opera House for a matinee at 4 p.m., as well as Saturday, July 1,5 for a 9 p.m. screening at the Maine Film Center are four spooky, moody, fictional narratives.

While several of the stories involve the sinister side of Breton and Scandinavian folklore, several stories plumb personal family tragedies for inspiration. One hits very close to home—filmed on location in Stephen King's dorm room at the University of Maine.

Let’s take a look:

The DoubleWalker

(21 minutes)

An aimless 20-something returns to her childhood home to find closure over a family tragedy, and instead discovers she may have inherited a sinister curse in this film shot entirely in Sedgwick, Maine, and inspired by Breton folklore.

According to the crowdfunding campaign indigogo set up by filmmakers to finance the film: “On the surface, ‘The DoubleWalker’ is a psychological thriller that follows one family’s tragedy...With the feature, it's our intention to slowly and organically build relationships with more Indigenous filmmakers, actors, and artists, on our journey to completion, especially the Penobscot people. They've been protecting this land (known today as Maine) for over 11,000 years. They are the true stewards. It's long overdue that the film industry shines light on Indigenous cultures both past and present, while making concerted efforts to hire Indigenous people in front of and behind the camera. That is our big, big dream for ‘The DoubleWalker’: to tell a compelling story while using our privilege to open as many doors for others as possible.”  FMI: indiegogo.com

The Huldra

(13 minutes)

I Know What You Need

(45 minutes)

Based on the short story from Stephen King's 1978 Night Shift collection, I Know What You Need is an after-school special that dissolves into terror. It's a love story, but a Stephen King love story, so things aren't always what they seem. 

According to L.A.-based director/screenwriter Julia Marchese in an indiegogo campaign story, she participated in Stephen King's Dollar Baby Program which allows the rights of certain of his stories to be bought for one dollar. The contract states that the rights are good for one year, and the resulting film must be 45 minutes or under, plus the film must be non-profit, non-broadcast - which means the film cannot be sold, but it can be shown at film festivals and in private screenings. Marchese acquired the rights to turn the short story, “I Know What You Need” (from 1978’s book “Night Shift”) into a short film. She filmed in the exact locations mentioned in the book. King requests that all finished Dollar Baby films be sent to him to view and the film will premiere at the Maine International Film Festival. FMI: indiegogo.com

Nash

(12 minutes)

Nine-year-old Nash is determined to find the monster that killed his mother; his father George is equally determined to stop him. 

Director Tim Warren, based in Miami, is behind the film, “Nash,” which has played around the world in competition festivals including Foyle, Florida Film Festival, USA Film Festival, and Calgary Underground. According to Warren’s bio, “...he inhabits the dichotomy between the ochre dawn and solemn dusk...”

To learn more about Maine Film Festival’s films and programs visit: https://miff.org/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Shiitake mushrooms, mainly found growing in East Asia, have been a traditional Chinese and Japanese food as medicine since the 12th century. Packed with fiber, vital minerals, and unique compounds, shiitake mushrooms activate the immune system, reduce blood pressure, fight cancerous cells, reduce inflammation, and lower cholesterol.

Oyster Creek Mushroom Company, owned by Candice Heydon in Damariscotta, has been growing and selling shiitake as well as other fresh, wild mushroom varieties since 1989. Her clients come from all over the world.

“At my peak, I was doing five flower shows every year, as well as multiple farmer’s markets, and would sell to a lot of restaurants,” said Heydon, who is now semi-retired.

She has spent the last 30 years growing or purchasing mushrooms and, these days, only sells to select clients, while occasionally attending farmer’s markets. Her main source of business now is selling dried mushrooms through her website. Her specialty is Shiitake Growing Kits ($30) which include 300 shiitake plugs inoculated on hardwood dowels and complete instructions on how to transfer them into oak trees.

Borrowed from Japanese, the word shiitake comes from shī, (which means “shii or chinquapin tree”) and take (which means “mushroom”).

“Tree mushrooms are the easiest to grow because the tree is a sterile environment,” said Heydon.

Her advice for growing shiitake starts with the tree. First, select healthy, young, living trees in stands that need to be thinned. Avoid damaging the bark. Cut logs with diameters between four to eight inches, cut to four-foot length.

The traditional Japanese growing method is to use a small dowel containing the mushroom spawn and insert each dowel into the log. The white wood rot fosters the growing process. Her website provides instructions on how to get mushrooms to grow. The process takes five to 10 months and fruits in the spring and fall.

Beyond the health benefits of shiitake mushrooms, the texture has been described as “meaty,” making them an ideal vegetarian substitute with a rich, umami flavor that intensifies when cooked. Having cooked with them for more than 30 years, Heydon said some of her favorite recipes on her website, including mushrooms in cream sauce over pasta, mushroom-dusted fish, wild mushroom dip, and wild mushroom soup.

Or just cook them up with butter and you’re all set.

“Start with a very hot pan before you put them in and fry them as you would potatoes and don’t crowd them, get them nice and brown,” she said.

For more information, visit oystercreekmushroom.com

LIBERTY— From 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Nicole Moore, a first-generation Liberty farmer, does not stop working. Most farmers understand that lifestyle already, but Moore has more on her plate than just growing produce.

This past January, Moore founded Maine Produce Alliance, an online and offline network of nearly 50 farmers throughout the state of Maine. With 38 restaurant accounts, natural food stores, farmer’s markets, wholesale accounts, and individual customers, Moore and her team travel around the state to deliver everything that has been ordered each week, driving from Portland to Augusta to Bangor and up and down the coast.

Moore, 34, grew up in Freeport, and traveled for a few years, landing in California and Colorado, before coming back home and setting her sights on a plot of land in Maine. With a background in design, construction, business, and massage therapy, she bundled all of her transferable skills together and started Seed and Soil Farm in Liberty, on which she primarily grows microgreens.

“My best friend in California had a microgreens business, which I helped her with, and I just wanted a piece of property where I could grow them myself and be self-sufficient,” she said, of her initial plan.

With Seed and Soil, she built up her restaurant clientele, and one day, invention, the mother of necessity, led her to a bigger idea.

“I had all of this property to fill up and had small orders of microgreens from chefs and they started requesting more,” she said. “Obviously, with a brand new farm, I couldn’t produce more so I found a couple of farmers and we started to work together in order to fulfill the chefs’ orders and give them what they wanted that was still local.”

This past winter, her farmer friends saw the larger potential of banding together in order to fulfill more restaurant requests for blueberries, strawberries, rhubarb, lavender, rainbow eggs, duck eggs, and quail eggs.

“The chefs kept asking me for more and the farmers were excited to team up so they could put more of their energy into the farming and not have to do the selling,” she said.

Based on that initial collaboration, Maine Produce Alliance was born, giving the public wider access to proteins, produce, and products made from Maine small farms.

The business model has expanded to add subscription boxes and bundles. Each box or bundle is a farmers-choice assortment of fresh, local produce in multiple sizes that Moore personally delivers weekly or every other week to the customer’s nearest pickup location.

“It’s almost better than a CSA [Community Supported Agriculture] because it pays the farmers up front, but it gives the customer more flexibility than say, committing to a three-or six-month window,” she said. “You can skip weeks; you can pay weekly, or monthly. You can change your individual order asking for more or less of something else; you’re not stuck with produce you don’t want.”

On the website, the variety is not only a chef’s dream, but a home cook’s secret weapon with dairy, fruit, vegetables, proteins, mushrooms, eggs, honey, maple syrup and other delicacies that all change seasonally. For example, a $20 single person’s CSA-style box at the end of June will likely yield a salad kit, strawberries, herbs and mushrooms. And a $30 breakfast box will get you Greek yogurt, eggs, and chorizo sausage.

Recently, Penobscot Bay Pilot wrote about H & H Mercantile in Searsport, which serves as one of Maine Produce Alliance’s Midcoast drop-off locations. What’s so innovative about Moore’s alliance is that not only is she pairing products and services with friends and farmers, she’s expanding the model to include artisans, fishermen, and other Maine producers.

Her friend Patrick Hutchings, co-owner of H & H Mercantile, happens to be the son of a lobsterman, and so, she will be selling his father’s lobsters through the website. Naturally, once the word gets out, Moore will be looking for more products.

“I’d love to pair up with more lobstermen and fishermen, and I’d love to find an oyster farmer,” she said.

In between deliveries, she participates in one farmer’s market each week, showcasing much of her collaborations with others.

“I end up bringing a lot of Patrick’s crafter clients’ items to this farmer’s markets to sell as well and I want to do more around Maine-made natural crafts, such as goat’s milk soaps, which I also happen to make,” she said. “But I sold out on the first day, so I want to find more makers of goat milk soap. I have another farmer who makes these wonderful tinctures and I’d love to be able to offer a whole line of Maine-made home gifts and personal items.”

Asked if she works 80 hours a week to accomplish all of this she said: “Oh God, you don’t even put numbers on it. I try to get as much of the prep work and planning in the winter done as I can.”

Find out more at https://www.maineproducealliance.com/

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com