CAMDEN — There's no chance a blizzard is going to get in the way this time. The "Down the Chute Beer & Wine Challenge," originally scheduled for Feb. 8 during the 2013 U.S. National Toboggan Championships, is back on track Saturday, May 11, at the Camden Snow Bowl Lodge on Barnestown Road, from 3 to 7 p.m. The afternoon will feature samplings of Maine made beer and wine, as well as plenty of food and fun to help kick off summer.

For the admission price, participants receive a "First Eva' Down the Chute Beer & Wine Challenge" souvenir glass and tasting tickets, which will be exchanged for samples of beer and wine from six Maine breweries and three local wineries. We checked in with the participating breweries and wineries to see what they plan to offer. Note: more brewers will be adding their descriptions later today.

BREWS

Andrew's Brewing Company: "We'll offer our English Pale Ale, a traditional style English ale, with medium body, and amber in color. It has a mix of hoppy, earthy, malty aromas and flavors. This is our flagship of the fleet. Most popular with a good lobster dinner! We'll also have Summer Golden Ale, which is deep gold in color and well attenuated with a light malty palate.  It has a hop character of medium bitterness with notes of grapefruit and slight earthy tones.  A great beer to enjoy on a hot summer day after mowing the lawn."

Sebago Brewing Company: "We're looking forward to doing this at the Snow Bowl, having talked for years about having a brewers event there. We're going to be offering The Frye's Leap India Pale Ale, a medium bodied American IPA with strong hop flavor and aroma as well The Sebago Summer Hefeweizen, a traditional unfiltered Germany style wheat beer."

Penobscot Bay Brewery: "We're offering Red Flannel Ale, a hearty, full-bodied brown ale with a sweet aroma, rich malty flavors from the Special B roasted barley and Perle hops for bittering. At 42 IBUs and 8 percent ABV, this is aptly named for the red flannels displayed on the label that keep you warm and toasty. Also on tap, Building 5 Rye IPA. This India pale ale has great copper color and lacey head. It’s spicy with a hint of orange in the nose that quickly gives way to the peppery bite of rye and a soft nuttiness. A 'winnah' of a brew that started out at the Maine Homebrew Competition and continued as an all-around favorite. It is 70.5 IBUs and 7 percent ABV."

Shipyard Brewing Co: "We'll be serving Monkey Fist, which is the genesis of a new generation of IPA. The traditional elements of a classic English IPA have been redefined by American craft beer innovation. Monkey Fist is edgy, aggressive and unique in style. This beer is brilliant copper in color and exploding with Warrior, Glacier and Cascade hop character but able to maintain a beautiful balance. We'll also have the Shipyard Summer Ale. In 2010, this traditional American wheat beer was named Best in the Northeast in the United States Beer Tasting Championship.  It also received a silver award at the 2007 Los Angeles County Fair. With its inviting golden color and mellow malted wheat flavor, Shipyard Summer Ale is sure to please those looking for a clean, cool taste sensation on long, hot summer days. It's what we call the perfect lawn mower beer!"

WINES

Winterport Winery: "We're offering three wines. 1. Applause, a sparkling pear and almond is a wonderful aroma of almond with an applause of bubbles to tingle your palate. It is luscious on the nose and delectable to sip. It’s like no other bubbly around. Named for the round of applause it received upon first sip." 2. Cranberry, gently tart, and 'smackin’ good' with a smooth finish. It’s a great sweet-tartness of cranberry that was voted the Best Fruit wine in New England in 2011 at the Big E and remains an area best seller. 3. Taxi Cab, a cabernet sauvignon with a full 'fare' of fruit along with soft tannins and a great mid-palate structure to balance the oak notes."

Breakwater Vineyards: "We'll have a pinot noir and riesling; both are dry and pair well with all the local seafood and cheeses here in Maine.  We'll also have Bees Knees Mead, made from some of our own Maine honey.  The name is whimsical and means sweet and good, just like our honey!  All these wines are perfect as we enter into the warmer months of the year."

Cellardoor Winery: "We'll be offering three wines, 1. Monti al Mare, a balanced blend of Sangiovese and old vine sinfandel that is full of ripe, concentrated flavors of cherry, raspberry and Amaretto, ending with a warm, spicy finish. It goes great with lasagna or other Italian dishes. 2. Perfect Stranger, this Cayuga wine has bright aromas of juicy pear and crisp green apple, ending with a refreshing sweet and tart finish. Enjoy with a cheese plate, crackers and your favorite antipasti. 3. Sweetheart, this 100 percent Concord grape wine bursts with aromas and flavors of fresh grapes on the vine, while on the palate there is a harmonious balance of sweet and tart. Serve with poultry at the dinner table, or as a wine spritzer."

Organizers say that they to recoup their losses from the February cancellation, and hopefully be able to donate to a great cause in memory of great friends and Rotarians Ken Bailey and Don Gross. All net proceeds, after losses have been paid, will go to support the Ragged Mountain Foundation in the memory of Bailey and Gross, both strong supporters of the Toboggan Championships and the Ragged Mountain Ski Area.

Hot dogs and soft drinks will be available for sale. The State of Maine Cheese Co. will be there handing out samples and the Rotary Interact club will be selling pretzel necklaces. Down the Chute is open to people aged 21 and older, and all IDs will be checked. There will also be a $5 entry level fee for designated drivers. Tickets can be purchased for $20, in advance, at BrownPaperTickets.com, or at the door for $25 until they run out.

For more information on the Down the Chute Beer & Wine Challenge, contact West Bay Rotary at 691-9204, email westbayrotary@gmail.com or visit the event's Facebook page.

This Cheap Date has the perfect ingredients: A Maine-grown wines tasting paired with a Maine-island botanicals bath soak. (All you ever have to do is pair a wine tasting with anything, even a community organized pick-up-dog-poop day, and I'd go to it.) On Sunday, May 5, Breakwater Vineyards in Owls Head is teaming up with Dulse & Rogosa, a natural bath and beauty products company on Gotts Island to offer a unique twist on the typical wine tasting. Called "Taste, Make & Take," each person will be able to taste a particular wine, then go into another room and make a bath product from island-gathered botanicals such as rugosa rose petals, wild dulse and Irish moss, balsam needles and bay Leaves as well as natural salts and essences. The cost is $10/person.

"The idea came up because Claire Weinberg, co-owner of Dulse & Rogosa, said she really enjoys taking a hot bath and having a glass of wine," said Breakwater Vineyards co-owner Jeanne Johnson. "For instance, we have a rosé wine called Rosé Rugosa and that would pair perfectly with their rugosa rose hips for a bath soak. It's a little different way than pairing wine with food, but it's just kind of a fun way for us to offer something like this together."

Participants will get to sample four wines and make four different natural bath soaks to take home.

The event takes place at Breakwater Vineyards, 35 Ash Point Drive in Owls Head, from 2 to 4 p.m. Call 207-594-1721 or email info@breakwatervineyards.com for reservations.

———————————————————————————

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

BELFAST - It's a good thing someone knows how to make a truly good Margarita around here because Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner and we're going to need one STAT. La Vida's bar in Belfast boasts around 35 tequilas, some of which are so rare, you'd have to travel to Mexico to find them. Shelly Trisch, the manager at La Vida gave us a live demonstration on how to make their signature Spicy Mango Margarita, which uses fresh puréed mango and a house tequila infused with Habenero peppers, giving the cocktail a fresh, sweet citrusy flavor with layers of subtle heat.

Then the heat came on a little more. You wouldn't want to have five of these.

"Two would probably be your limit," said Trisch.

To make this  "Mango Chunkalicious"* cocktail at home use:

1 shot glass with fresh mango purée

1 1/2 oz Casa Sauza Giro Gold Tequila (La Vida's house tequila)

1/2 oz Triple Sec

Splash of lime juice

1/4 oz house habenero tequila

3 oz sour mix

Splash of orange juice

Shake in cocktail shaker full of ice and pour entire shaker into a Margarita glass rimmed with salt and topped with a lime.

La Vida is the only restaurant and bar in Midcoast doing five nights of Cinco de Mayo starting May 1. They will be open late each night, offering daily specials and events, such as a different margarita of the night sponsored by Cointreau where you keep the bar shaker that your Margarita comes in. There will be door prizes every night and 5 percent  of bar sales will help raise money for a different nonprofit each night, such as Our Town Belfast, Belfast Chamber of Commerce, Belfast Art Walk, P.A.W.S. and The Cinderella Project.

Wednesday May 1: Happy Hour all day and night

Thursday May 2: Buy one fajita and get half off a second fajita

Friday May 3: Double happy hour from 4 to 6 p.m. and again 9 to 11 p.m.

Saturday May 4: $12 fishbowls! 64 ounces of house margaritas for just $12.

Sunday May 5: Cinco de Mayo and Family Day. Every Sunday kids eat free (with qualifying adult).

For more information stay tuned to their Facebook page, call 930-6320, and check out their profile on penbaypilot.com Main Street.

*term courtesy of Michele DiGiralamo

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

PORT CLYDE — The tiny roughhewn bar room in Port Clyde known affectionately as "The Poon" was packed to the rafters April 24, its first opening night under new ownership. Chris Chadwick, a scallop fisherman, recently bought the original Harpoon restaurant with his mother, Cindy Chadwick. They’ve renamed it The Black Harpoon, based on its original name dating back more than 30 years.

There was "huge excitement when the news got out we were re-opening," said Neva Joseph, who used to own Craignair Inn in Spruce Head and worked for Linda Bean. "People were happy that a local boy bought it."

Chadwick persuaded Joseph to leave her position with Bean’s company and come oversee the Black Harpoon as the general manager. "I've known Chris since he was in junior high. I couldn't say no to his dream," she said.

According to Chadwick and Joseph, the original bar/restaurant was owned by Ed Black and Gary Harper more than 30 years ago. Then it was bought by Johnny Morse and Wayne and Carol Curtis, who had it for 20 years. The Harpoon burned down in 1991 and was re-built. When it was sold again, it sat on the market for several years. Last January, the Chadwicks purchased it.

"It is a local establishment, but the tourists love it. People from all over have been calling to see when we're opening," said Joseph.

Nothing to the original bar has changed. "We wouldn't dare," said Joseph, laughing. They've just added more draught beers to the bar, as well as an Angry Orchard Hard Cider. 

Most seafood restaurant chains try to approximate the look of authentic maritime decor, but hard as they might, they'll never come close to the Black Harpoon. It's a fisherman's bar — the real deal.  Original lobster buoys donated from local lobster fishermen hang from the ceilings and rafters while faded photographs of locals in grade school, high school and college, and war-time portraits line the walls.

A gentlemen coming up to the bar to order a Grey Goose on the rocks noted dryly, "I've known just about every one of these people [whose images grace the walls]; I dated some of them too."

For the tourist, it just looks like a clump of lobster buoys and gear hanging from the rafters. For the locals, every time you look up, you're seeing someone's family name and years of stories attached to the buoy's color scheme.

Roger and Betty Libby were one of the first to check out the bar's re-opening. Their sons are both fisherman. "We've been coming to this bar for 30 years," said Roger Libby. "We're very excited it's back." To prove their kinship to the place, Libby pointed out his naval photo in the corner of the bar and on the very opposite wall in the same place, his wife, Betty's photo as a young woman.

Joseph said the dining room has been redecorated and the restaurant will be opening May 9. 

"A local well-known lady, Barbara Mann, is cooking for us," said Joseph. "You could say she's sort of a celebrity around here. When we put it up on Facebook that Barbara Mann was going to be cooking for us, people went crazy. She cooked for years at the Ocean House. Her signature breakfast dish of home fries, eggs, ham and a secret cheese sauce is called 'The Morning Sunrise,' which is like a cardiac arrest in a dish,"  said Joseph joking.

The Black Harpoon will be open for dinner Monday through Saturday. On Mother's Day, they will be serving from noon to 6 p.m. They will now be serving breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays and will open for lunch starting in July. They plan to stay open in the winter on a limited schedule (Thursday–Saturday). Find them on Facebook or call 372-6304.

CAMDEN — Mimie is a calico domestic short hair stray from Belfast that the P.A.W.S. Animal Adoption Center took in a few months ago. "I think she was probably somebody's pet at one point and either she got out and ran away or some other circumstance happened and someone picked her up and brought her here," said Laura Stupca, shelter manager.

The vet estimates she is about eight to 10 years old, "but she doesn't act it," said Stupca. "She came in at 18 pounds and the vet recommended put her on a special food for weight loss or else she'd be a candidate for diabetes and arthritis, etc. Mimie is out on our lobby during the day time, but has to stay by herself in a bathroom at night because she gets her own food. If she were to live with the rest of the cats who have a free feeding system, she would try to eat food she doesn't need. But if she was in a home, it would help her lose weight faster, because she could run around more," said Stupca.

She's quite a beauty with light brown eyes that match her fur. She started purring the second my fingers touched her and is a very friendly cat.

"Oh my goodness, she's very lovey," said Stupca. "Whenever someone crinkles a treat bag, she'll perk her head up and waddle toward that direction."

Stupca said she'd thrive with extra attention and some one-on-one activity.

"She'd do great in a home with stairs. She needs to do a little Stair-Master."

Do you have a little love in your heart and room in your home for the pretty, "big-boned" Mimie?

For more information on Mimie and P.A.W.S. Animal Adoption Center visit: pawsadoption.org/available-pets/mimie

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

DAMARISCOTTA - World Book Night has a simple concept. On April 23 every year, bookstores and literary champions from around the world assemble an army of "book givers," who give free books away to "light or nonreaders, especially people who may not have access to printed books for reasons of means or geography." The book givers receive 20 free paperback copies of one World Book Night title, not too many to carry, but enough to share with a good number of potential new readers.

One book store in Maine is taking up the cause on a local level.

"This is our third year doing the World Book Night giveaway," said Susan Porter, an employee of the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta. To spread the love of reading and books, this gets books into areas to give to people who don't necessarily go into book shops," she said. "The Bookseller's Association, The American Library Association, Barnes and Noble and a lot of publishers donate free books to us to give out to people. Then we ask people to sign up to be givers. This year we have nine people who've signed up."

One such giver is Jane Najim, a cochair for the Ecumenical Food Pantry in Damariscotta. This is her first year as a giver.

"They asked me to participate and I was thriiled because they're  an independent book store and I'm the type to browse on Amazon first then call Maine Coast Book Shop and ask them to order it for me." She picked up her box of 20 books this week and is preparing to give them out tomorrow night. All 20 books, as stipulated by World Book Night rules, have to be of one title and Jane had to choose from a special list of 20 titles on the World Book Night website.

"They give you three choices of titles you can pick from and I got my choice, which is Mudbound," said Najim. "It takes place after World War II in the Mississippi Delta. It's all about the treatment of black people by white people in that area, but specifically how poor white people treated black people. And it's also about black men who go off to war and were treated equally, but when they came back home they were the 'boy' once again."

Mudbound won Bellwether Prize for Fiction. This is the synopsis:

It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not—charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.

"I loved it, it was a very provocative book," Najim said. Asked who she planned to give them away to, she said, "I'm going to give them to the people at our food pantry. We have a lot of readers who can't afford to buy books. It's going to be quite challenging for some of them to read and digest, but I think they're going to be glad to have read this book. I think it's going to be provactive and will challenge them. That's something we all could use."

On a micro level we can all be part of World Book Night and open someone's world a little more. On April 23, take a title from your own bookshelf and give it away to someone who a light or nonreader.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKPORT — It felt like the first real day of spring yesterday. After the long, dragged out winter, it felt good to sit on a large chunk of granite pier by the ocean at Rockport Harbor and soak up the afternoon sun. Boat builders at Rockport Marine were outside, moving a bunch of heavy chains, tending to business and a group of kids were attempting to skateboard off the stacked floating docks.

Real skaters know every spot in a town where to ollie, grind, slide and bomb. Having known a bunch of skate rats, I have a real affinity for the ones who take risks to do what they love. I'm already anticipating getting crap for not telling these kids they should wear helmets or suggest they take their sport over to the sanctioned skate parks, instead of running around town and practicing the old-school organic way.

They let me film them, but I decided not to use their names.

"Our parents all know we skate," one said. "They told us if you get hurt, it's your own fault."

I see it like this: This is a visual snapshot to show you what kids do in our town when adults aren't around. These were polite kids, sweet natured. They could have been doing a lot worse or wasting the first real spring-like sunny day we've had in months holed up in a dark basement texting one another or glued to a laptop.

Instead, they were messing around, playing, practicing, improvising, experimenting. Doing kid stuff.

Remember people, skateboarding is not a crime.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Every Mother's Day we are encouraged to buy gifts for our mothers, from cards to flowers to candy. And though those things are nice, three local mothers we spoke to were perfectly happy with the little things in life that money can't buy.

Here are their answers to our question: "What is the best gift you've ever received from your children?"

Traci Kirkpatrick

Traci is a fulltime working mother, who owns Traci's Diner in Belfast. She is the mother of three children, Sam, 6; Willoe 10; and Tyler, 11.

"We do a lot of things as a family together, but my kids don't get a lot of one-on-one time with me alone. Because of that, they all came up with the idea to spend one day alone with me. My daughter, Willoe, and I just got back from an overnight trip in Portland and that was our thing this year to do. Sometimes I'll take one day off from school to go Christmas shopping together with one of the kids. They all look forward to it; it's important to them. And I hope it's not because of skipping school!"

Angela Austin

Angela is also a fulltime working mother, who owns Angela Austin's Beauty Lounge in Searsport. She is the mother of a three-year-old daughter, Brielle.

"The first thing that comes to mind is her words. She'll say these little things like 'I love you momma' or 'Be careful momma.' Then, next it would be her artwork. She makes something for art every day for me, like this paper plate she put together with triangles and circles and put a little ribbon on it so I could hang it up."

Mary Carver-Stiehler

Mary is an author and on-call volunteer firefighter with the Camden Fire department. She has seven children, whom she home-schooled when they all lived in Cambodia. Now, she only home-schools her eldest son, Joseph, 16. Her 13-year-old, Ian, and nine-year-old, Daniel, go to public school while her eldest children, Pat, 18; MaryKate, 21; Brendan, 24; and Megan, 27, live out of the state.

"My kids are always asking me if I need help or the support. They ask: 'Are you okay, Mom? Do you need help?' So I'd say that is the best gift I've ever gotten from them."

Pen Bay Pilot has come up with a perfect gift for your mother, as well.  In the spirit of Mother’s Day, we’re launching a Mother’s Day Photo Contest. All you have to do is submit a picture of your mother along with a caption or description if you choose. It could be a quiet moment, a silly moment, a thoughtful portrait or a light-hearted candid. It can be anything that shows your mother in a unique light or shows the world exactly how you see her. Others can be in the photo, as well.

The winning photo will be chosen by the public so, submit your best! The winner will receive a gift from each of our advertising partners, Hoboken Gardens, Sweetgrass Winery & Distillery, Bennett’s Gems & Jewelry and Point Lookout Resort and Conference Center.

For more details on how to enter visit: Mother's Day Contest

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

CAMDEN-To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, poets "don't get no respect." (Arrgh the grammar!) Well let's just say in most places, to be a poet is to be a fairly unappreciated writer. What with laptops, iPads, Netflix, video games, etc. who has the time to actually listen to a poem? Well, given that it is national poetry month, Midcoast is about to get a real treat. Maine poet Richard Blanco, who served as this year's inaugural poet for President Obama, will be coming to the Midcoast Monday, April 22, to meet with local middle school students and do a public reading at the Strom Auditorium at Camden Hills Regional High School, 25 Keelson Drive (Route 90) in Rockport, at 7 p.m.

We turned to Kristen Lindquist, a poet, essayist and naturalist, to ask why this is so special and what to expect.

"What makes it exciting for me is probably different from what will make it exciting for the average person, because the average person doesn't read a lot of poetry," she said. "We have an opportunity to hear a wellknown poet read in our community. I can't think of when we've ever had such a high-profile poet visit the Midcoast. I'm excited because I think his reading will bring increased appreciation and respect for poetry and hopefully encourage more people to attend readings by our local poets and writers." 

Blanco, 44, who lives in Bethel, is the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person, and the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. He is only the fifth poet to take part in an inaugural ceremony, and joins the company of Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams and Elizabeth Alexander. 

"I've read all three of his books and I think he's wonderful," said Lindquist. "After reading them, it makes total sense why he was chosen as the inaugural poet because his work really speaks to everybody."

She went on to say: "He's a straightforward, accessible poet with a primary focus on place and identity and notions of home. His background is really interesting. His parents were Cuban and they went to Spain just before he was born. A month and a half later they flew to the United States where they lived in exile in New York and Miami. So, he always had Cuban family around him talking about the lost homeland. But to Blanco, America was his home."

A Cuban American who grew up in Miami, Fla.,, Blanco's work has received numerous awards and recognitions. His acclaimed first book of poetry, City of a Hundred Fires, explores the yearnings and negotiation of cultural identity as a Cuban American, and received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. His second book, Directions to The Beach of the Dead, won the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center. A third collection, Looking for The Gulf Motel, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2012.

An insight into who Blanco is beyond his poetry can be found in a little anecdote he shares on his website: "At a poetry reading a woman once asked me to share something about myself that no one would know directly from reading my bio or my work. Somewhat embarrassed, I told the audience about my poetry dance — a little Michael Jackson-inspired shtick I do around the house in my pajamas when I am high from a good-poem day."

Lindquist will be introducing Blanco on stage: "I'm working on my speech right now. I'm trying to keep it not too long, but not too short either, like, 'okay, here he is!' " she laughed.

In preparation for Blanco's visit, students at Hope Elementary, Appleton Village, Lincolnville Central, and Camden Rockport Middle schools will study his poems and choose the poems they would like Blanco to read. Organizers are predicting a full house at both the student event and the public reading.

Tickets for the public event are $10 for adults and $5 for students, and are available at Lincolnville Community Library, the Appleton Library, Hope General Store, Camden Public Library, Rockport Public Library, Owl & Turtle Bookshop, HAV II in Camden, Left Bank Books in Belfast, and hello hello Books and Reading Corner in Rockland. All proceeds benefit Partners for Enrichment.

For more information on Blanco visit his website: richard-blanco.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND —With the recent opening in Rockland of 3Crow Restaurant and Bar, Executive Chef and Owner Josh Hixson’s latest restaurant, it appears everything has come full circle.

Hixson and his family have lived in Rockland for the last 10 years, and opened their first retail store, Sage Market, there in 2006. When that business eventually closed, Hixson opened his first restaurant, Brevetto Kitchen & Wine Bar, in Camden in 2008, transitioning that to 40 Paper Italian Bistro & Bar, also in Camden, in 2011. Those moves left some Rocklandites to bemoan “Why…why….why did you leave us?”

He emphasizes that he didn’t abandon Rockland, he just had a long-term plan. “We love the Rockland area. It took getting a self-supporting business [40 Paper] to get us back into Rockland, where we always wanted to be,” he explained.

With a new location and a new look, 3Crow is like a fraternal twin to 40 Paper. There are physical similarities, but their personalities couldn’t be more different. “At 40 Paper, we do modern Italian food with a pretty hard-core cocktail scene,” said Hixson, “but for 3Crow, we wanted to do something totally different.” Their simple menu is described as “modern American food with a heavy Southern influence” and is based in part on Hixson’s own experiences growing up the South. Born in Louisiana, Hixson grew up predominantly in Tennessee and Texas, cultures steeped in the regional stick-to-your-ribs cuisine.

The menu features the kind of comfort food you’d expect from the South, like dirty rice, fried chicken and gumbo. Other dishes weave in Maine flavors, such as the étouffée with Maine lobster claws in a tomato Creole sauce over Carolina white rice.

Asked how he thinks Southern food will fly in a northern state, Hixson said, “Southern food is a big trend right now and a lot of people have expressed to me how excited they are about our food, as they haven’t had a lot of exposure to this style before.”

The entrées are reasonably priced and, in line with the Midcoast restaurant trend in the last five years, 3Crow provides small plates (around $6) to appeal to smaller appetites. This also appeals to a younger generation that isn’t accustomed to habitually dining out, but would like to enjoy a bite or a beer within their budget just the same.

Like 40 Paper, the all-mighty beverage also is a big part of the 3Crow brand. The menu puts a special emphasis on craft beers and good whiskies. “We have 16 taps of all craft brews, with dedicated lines for several Maine beer companies like Marshall Wharf, Oxbow, Allagash Brewing Co and Maine Beer Co.,” said Hixson. “We’ll also have hard-to-find imported draughts as well as 40 different whiskies.”

Also, like at 40 Paper, 3Crow will offer gluten-free options for all of its food, including desserts. These items are prepared by the restaurant’s Pastry Chef, Tara Barker, in a separate gluten-free kitchen.

Hixson has a penchant for naming his restaurants after some historical aspect of the buildings they occupy. 40 Paper, for example, which resides in the old Knox Woolen Mill, was named after the mill’s significant contribution to the U.S. paper manufacturing industry.
 
He’s brought that historical bent to his new Rockland venture as well. “The owner of this building told me that, when it was built around a hundred years ago, it was owned by John Bird’s family and they turned it into a wholesale grocery store, with spices, teas and dry goods,” said Hixson. “They started their own spice company here and called it Three Crow Spice Brand. It was very important to us that the restaurant have a name that pays tribute to the history of this community.”

The décor of this completely renovated restaurant is one more reason to solidify Rockland as one of the fastest emerging foodie scenes north of Portland. Ever since the original Sage Market, Hixson has been experimenting with mixing and matching offbeat lighting, something that has become his signature unifying element in every one of his restaurants. The big wine bottle glass pendants over the bar, with their mad scientist filaments, and the chandeliers that look like enormous strands of DNA are immediate focal points. But you won’t find these unique lights in any commercial store. What many people don’t realize is that Hixson made most of these lighting fixtures by hand, some with the help of his seven-year-old son.

Hixson’s own minimalist tastes shaped the restaurant’s décor, along with a team of designers and carpenters. “We just all put our ideas together to create something that was fun, inviting and draws you in,” he said. The main dining room has the dark, sleek and sexy look of a cigar bar, while the white walls and big picture windows balance out the starkness with lighter tones. Combine all this with the funky chandeliers, the subway tiles behind the bar, and the giant beer listings sign — which resembles Grand Central Station’s daily train schedule — and you get a whimsical twist on the primarily masculine, modernist surroundings.

Hixson also made much use of the remains of a house demolished on Granite Street in Rockland. He used the reclaimed wood to build the bar, tabletops, and even the beer tap handles, which were intentionally left unmarked so that the bartenders have to know by code which craft beer to pour.

3Crow Restaurant and Bar is open for dinner seven days a week from 5:00p.m.-9:00p.m., and offers a special happy hour menu and drink specials from 4:00p.m. – 6:00p.m. The bar stays open until 11:00p.m. weekdays, and midnight Fridays and Saturdays.

For more information, check out their Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

UNION - April is whiskey-making month over at Sweetgrass Farm Winery and Distillery and you know what that means for our Cheap Dates aficiandos: it's free, it's fun and c'mon, it's whiskey! (Anyone who has been reading my columns knows I consider it a basic food group. See my last story: What it’s like to sip a $150 glass of pre-Prohibition whiskey.

Owners Keith and Constance Bodine have been making whiskey commercially for the last two years.

"We don't even have our retail operations set up for the season yet, but we're inviting people to come see what's going on with our whiskey production," said Constance. "They can see the mash, smell it and sample it. Our whiskies are distilled twice. So on April 10, we're going to have the stripping run, which is like the rough cut and the final run on April 17, which is the spirit run. Once it comes out of the still, it goes right to the barrel for eight years."

Folks will be able to learn what goes into distilling whiskey and the difference between the stripping run which according to Constance, "has a wonderfully warm, bready aroma" after they pull off all the sugars from the fermented barley mash and the spirit run, "which is distilled down again, increasing the alcoholic content in order to age it for so long in th barrel."

The April 10 stripping run and the April 17 spirit run is open to the public from noon to 4 p.m. Show up at the tasting room.

"It's going to be a pretty casual event," she said. "We'll just be talking about how whiskey is made and people can talk about their favorite whiskies."

Bring a date, bring a buddy and get ready to enjoy the monster mash.

Cheap Dates is a series dedicated to scrounging the most amount of fun out of the Midcoast on the fewest dollars.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

In spring, a young man’s fancy may turn to love, but a woman’s fancy turns to... clothes. As in: “I hate every single thing in my closet. If I have to put on one more sweater or pair of long johns or Bean boots, I will flippin’ lose it.”

Daria Norvlaan doesn’t have that problem, see.  She’s a local fashion designer from Damariscotta with a mean sewing machine. She just has to imagine what she feels like wearing for spring, summer, fall or winter, and simply orders the fabric, cuts it, sews it and applies her own signature silk screen designs on it. Presto — an entire closet filled with new, sleek, and even eco-friendly designs appears.

She runs her own label, Luksin Designs, primarily on Etsy, featuring “earth friendly clothing, made from organic cotton and other sustainable and eco-conscious fabrics. Designed, hand sewn, dyed in small batches and hand silk screened with original drawings, all on the coast of Maine.”

Typically when you see “hand-sewn,” and “earth-friendly” in the same sentence, the image that comes to mind is one of those unflattering grain sack sewing pattern designs, like something you’d see in the Sears sewing department in the 1970s.

But it’s 2013 now, a whole new world for hand-sewn designs, and Norvlaan’s creations are both edgy and retro, like her 1940s-style black dress with the gold Maine pine tree design on the left buttock as well as clingy, natural and sexy, like her tencel racer back tank top.

Speaking of the ‘70s, apparently all the upscale stores in cities from Anthropologie to Macy’s are hell bent on bringing the God-awful dashikis and Boho caftan dresses back from the 1970s this spring. Every single scrap of clothing in these stores feature tripping-on-acid patterns, long flowy maxi-dresses and Love Child billowy tops.

With the '70s fashion era, a very little goes a long way. For Norvlaan, finding the best in a trend takes a subtle eye.

“There’s kind of a '70s sensibility in some of my designs, like the maxi dresses, or tight high-waisted jeans with a capped sleeve tees,” she said. “But I’m not doing any big crazy prints. And I’m not trying to get in on the trend. It’s just because that’s what I personally feel like wearing.”

For example, she pairs suede fringy cowboy boots with a black clingy cocktail dress. Or she’ll create a supple, sturdy black leather bag with a hint of swingy, leather fringe.

A native Mainer, Norvlaan began her career at the ripe age of eight when she began making her own Halloween costumes on the sewing machine.

“As long as I can remember, I’ve always made stuff or altered stuff,” she said.

She went to the Maine College of Art for sculpture and has forged an entrepreneurial path with her designs ever since. First, she began selling to wholesalers, but quickly discovered that the profit they extracted resulted in a higher markup on her clothes — something she didn’t want to pass down to the customer. Now, in order to keep her prices lower, she operates entirely out of Etsy and through indie craft fairs all over the eastern seaboard or through venues, such as the Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors annual event.

“It’s kind of intuitive the way I go about making a dress,” she said, explaining the process. In the winter, she’ll order large rolls of organic cotton, wool or tencel, which is a natural fiber extracted from eucalyptus or beech trees and has a silky, Rayon type of drape to it. Tencel is also eco-friendly as the chemicals used to break down the fibers are natural, nontoxic  and recycled, as opposed to making rayon or bamboo in which the chemicals used to process the material are harmful when dumped into the environment.

In her little studio in Damariscotta, she goes to the task of cutting each initial design by hand.

“I’ll make about five prototypes, one at a time,” she explained. “Then, depending on what shows I’m going to, I’ll make about 15 to 30 of each piece using a cutting machine.” 

She then hand sews most of her own creations, outsourcing certain pieces to a small cadre of stitchers she employs. Next she’ll hand dye the garment, create a unique design for it and silkscreen it herself.

She even hires a professional photographer to shoot each design, which she will often model herself amidst stormy or gritty Maine fishing backgrounds.

In a few weeks, Norvlaan will roll out her spring collection, including a new line of faded Art Deco pastels.  Then she’ll hit the road and do some shows in Philadelphia and Brooklyn.  When we often talk about the creative economy and who its pioneers are, Norvlaan is a one-woman band in this way, from start to finish. Stay tuned to her Etsy page to see what she’ll unveil next.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BELFAST — Every year around May and June, high school girls in Maine look forward to their prom. But with new dresses, shoes and accessories (not to mention hair and makeup) averaging around $400-$500, this is not something that a lot of girls can easily afford. So what’s their option — not go?

Nope, because as the fairy godmothers who runs the Cinderella Project of Maine attests, “Where there is a wand, there is a way.”

Going on eight years, the Cinderella Project of Maine has been providing free, new and gently used prom gowns to any high school girl in the state. Some have traveled hours to come to this event each year. Dresses have been donated from personal collections, vintage stores, bridal stores and even as far away as Hollywood, Calif.

This Saturday, April 6, the gowns will be given away to any girl in need with one stipulation — they must “pay it forward” and do a good deed for someone else.

This is the first year that the Cinderella Project of Maine put out an essay contest seeking one special young woman who exhibits the Project’s core value of giving back to the community, calling her their “Cinderella For A Day.” Last year, the Cinderella For A Day was chosen by raffle.

“We wanted to choose one girl who has done good things in their community,” said planning committee chairman Mandie Sawyer. “It’s important to us that girls understand that doing something for someone else is just as important as having a free and beautiful dress for a special occasion. And we wanted to pamper the winner of the contest with a special day of prom-preparation, including donated hair and makeup, tanning, corsage, plus a dinner for two.”

In addition, out of nearly 1,000 dresses and gowns to choose from, the Cinderella For A Day gets first choice of dress.

Out of 18 applicants, the Cinderella Project committee chose Mariah Ross, 16, from Mount View High School. Reading her short essay, it’s obvious why she was the natural choice.

Tell us your story. Why should we select you to be the Cinderella for a Day?

I believe I should be selected for Cinderella for a day because I’m always willing to help others, and do it with a smile on my face. I feel without our community and the supportive people in it, I wouldn’t be the strong girl, who today, follows her heart and has faith in herself. Being Cinderella for a Day, would be such an honor, and I’d appreciate it greatly.

Tell us about a challenge you have faced or a struggle you have overcome. How has this impacted you?

I’ve faced many challenges over the 16 years of my life. When I was born I was missing two toes and my right leg was shorter than my left, meaning my leg had to be amputated. Although, it has never slowed me down. In the past, I’ve played basketball, softball and field hockey. And for the past two years I’ve been part of the Varsity cheerleading squad. I recently got my license and someday hope to be an inspiration to young children facing the same struggles I have. If anything, I’m thankful for this happening, because it has taught me to be strong, and to conquer all obstacles in my way.

Community service is a key component for the Cinderella Project and Cinderella for a Day. What do you do?

One of the things I have done this past year is help coach middle school cheering. I was once introduced to a girl who had been in a car accident and her skin had to be graphed so she was worried people would make fun of her in her cheering skirt. I talked to her, and explained how supportive the people in our community are, how if anything they’d be amazed. I was happy to help her and hope to continue helping them. Another thing is my health teacher and I decided to collect can tabs to donate to a nonprofit organization. We are slowly getting it started. I was hoping to donate them to the Shriners Hospital for Children. Although, they aren’t in our community they have made such a huge impact on my life. And I hope to give back to them.

Mariah is going to her junior prom this year on May 18 at Mount View High School. At Mount View, all students can attend junior prom, so this is Mariah’s third year utilizing the Cinderella Project of Maine for her prom gown and accessories.

The day I arrived to do the story, Mariah was trying on a number of dresses. The shy beauty with a big smile had a hard time deciding between a pink satiny gown and a mermaid teal blue gown that offset her blue eyes.

“I like dresses that are really poufy,” she said. “Just like Cinderella.”

With her mother and brother looking on, Mariah beamed as she came out of the dressing room to give a little twirl. “There are a lot of people who make sure that you have help trying on dresses and accessories and make sure you have the perfect day,” she said. “I’m really thankful for this project because it has saved my family a lot of money over the years.”

Mandie Sawyer and Jessica Woods, both of Belfast, have volunteered on the Cinderella Project of Maine since its inception. In the beginning, they’d have to beg area stores to get 100 dresses donated. In 2009, Waldo Community Action Partners took on the Cinderella Project of Maine as a new initiative and it has grown to nearly 11 committee members. Now, area businesses are approaching them with donations and this year, all the businesses that donated will be invited to a “Preview Night,” a special celebratory evening where they’ll meet and talk with Mariah as she emerges in her chosen gown.

The 2013 free giveaway will be Saturday, April 6, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Reny’s Plaza in Belfast. Dressing rooms will be available to try on gowns, and Cinderella Project staff and other community volunteers will be on hand to assist with the selection process.

• The Cinderella Project seeks to promote a positive body image and increased self esteem by uniting girls in the state of Maine with "fabulous" and free new and gently used prom gowns. For more information visit their website: cinderellaprojectofmaine.org

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

April is National Poetry month and like the tulips that pop up from the ground, they're meant to be looked at and enjoyed, not hidden away.  Last month, the Good Tern Cooperative Food Market in Rockland put out a call to poets in the Midcoast to mail in a poem of any size or length — or style — and the Good Tern would put them up on the wall for all to see.

The submissions that came in ranged from Watershed high school students who did spare line drawings with quotes from famous authors or musicians to complex mix-media watercolor pieces combining art and words.

Lois Anne, a long time volunteer coordinated the exhibition.

"We probably got 60 poems sent in," she said. "Everything that was submitted went up on the wall. It was very democratic. The one exception is that someone sent in a drawing of a nude man and though it wasn't offensive, it was still going to be something kids would possibly see, so on the other side of the drawing was a painting — we had that side showing."

Anne grouped each of the pieces visually on the wall.

"I thought that grouping them that way might entice people to come closer and investigate."

Some of the poems that struck Anne the most were the high school poems. "The feelings that came out of some of these, I thought it was wonderful."

Here's one by Jarin Brooks. It touches on the natural, seasonal themes that poets like Edna St. Vincent Millay made universal. And if you've ever lost someone in your life, this poem will hurt your heart a little.

Snow is falling but will never stay.

Everything gives way to change

Nature’s sacrifice gives way to life.

Nothing is ever truly lost

Always found in something else.

And whatever beauty melts from our grasp

Gives, sprouts life to something else.

The exhibition will run until the end of April, at which point, Anne will box up the poems and leave them to be collected by their owners if they wish.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

PORTLAND - In case you feel like a road trip this Saturday, a humongous flash-mob style pillow fight is happening April 6 at Monument Square, on Congress Street, in downtown Portland at 3 p.m. Portland is joining in on the 30-plus cities worldwide that have participated year after year. According to the compendium of cool, Dispatch Magazine, which happens to be hosting the event, this wil be a "public pillow fight of epic proportions."

Da Rules according to Dispatch:

The concept is simple: Everyone meets up in Monument Square for the biggest pillow fight you've ever seen! Bring your pillow, your A-game and don't forget to bring your friends! ALL AGES ARE WELCOME!!

Team themes are encouraged! Positive energy only please - don't want nobody to harsh on your mellow, brah.

PAJAMA AFTER PARTY AT ASYLUM BAR AND GRILL DIRECTLY TO FOLLOW!! 21+ WITH VALID ID FOR ENTRY.

The rules are as follows:
- Soft pillows only!
- Swing lightly, many people will be swinging at once.
- Do not swing at people without pillows or with cameras.
- Remove glasses beforehand!
- The event is free and appropriate for all ages, so watch out for little ones.
- Wait until the signal to begin.
- Please consider the environment; no feather pillows please!

For more information: PortlandPillowFightDay

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

I’ve been following this Orono cyberbullying case very closely since it broke on the statewide scene. The Bangor Daily News reports: Teen cyberbully pleads guilty to terrorizing former Orono schoolmate. Every day, I receive stories all over the world like this: kids getting defamed, libeled, psychologically tortured by other kids through digital devices. This 16-year-old girl, Lexi Henkel, was incredibly brave to take her story public as her 17-year-old tormentor terrorized Lexi and her family to the point of vacating their home, moving schools and pushing Lexi to the brink of suicide.

So often, it seems as though adults aren’t truly waking up to the potential destruction of cyberbullying until a teenager is on the brink of suicide.

I’m not glad this happened; but I’m glad it became public. In Maine, I don’t think adults are fully comprehending how destructive cyberbullying can be. Since September, I’ve visited and spoken to parents and educators from at least 40 Maine schools to provide some perspective around the motivations behind certain types of cyberbullying and how to prevent it.  Most adults leave with a better understanding that there's not a “one-size-fits-all” solution; that each incident needs to be thoroughly understood before it can be strategically dealt with. But I’ve actually had a few teachers tell me: “We don’t have cyberbullying at our school.”

They are not seeing it, because they’re not part of the kids’ digital networks, but it’s there.  At its highest extreme, it becomes known to the principal and a news story. At its lowest to medium level, it’s being done covertly, through texting, email, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. But it’s there.

But let me go back to this Orono story for a moment, because worse than the “cyberbullying doesn’t exist” mindset is the “suck it up” mindset.

Take for example this anonymous poster “Hussar” who wrote a comment in response to this Orono story:

What ever happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me?" It appears that we are raising a generation of over emotional crybabies, scared of their own shadows, that need the nanny state to protect their feelings from being hurt. I am sorry, for Ms. Henkel's pubescence angst, but this is classic case of taking ourselves and perceived dangers to our children way too seriously.

He read the same story as everyone else. He saw that these weren’t some mild, adolescent outbursts. The posts threatened the girl’s life and safety. Here’s an example of a few of them:

 • “Ready for tomorrow night? I’d learn to sleep with your eyes open if I were you. I’m dulling my knife right now so when I stab you in the face, gut and legs it’ll be painful as possible.”

• “You know how all these environmental friendly groups say that waste should be properly disposed of? Well, come on Lexi, do the world a favor, and properly dispose of your [expletive deleted] self!”

• “Your face is like a baby seal. Fat, furry and just asking to be clubbed to death.”

Law 101: A "criminal threat" is when you threaten to kill or physically harm someone either in person or electronically. These are not “sticks and stones” comments. But unfortunately, I’ve seen this mindset appear in multiple comments to hundreds of cyberbullying stories I’ve read through.  It’s not about “protecting their feelings about being hurt” it’s about protecting vulnerable young people from being threatened, defamed, libeled and psychologically tortured—you know, the very types of behavior that will land an adult in court. Just because they’re minors doesn’t mean they don’t have the same legal rights and protections as adults.

Yet, in several Maine schools I’ve visited, students have come up to me after a presentation and told me in confidence that “adults don’t know how to deal with cyberbullying” and that “all this talk that they were going to stop it” has basically been seen as lip-service.

So what happens is: when influential people like “Hussar” reiterate this specious “suck it up” mindset; teens who are being badly cyberbullied feel completely unprotected. Like hunted animals, they feel they will never escape the torment, never find peace or a normal life again—and sometimes they look to the extreme choices.

As Lexi’s mother Judy Henkel wrote in response to “Hussar”:

Know your facts before you write an opinion such as you did. You haven't read the emails Lexi recieved, you haven't heard your daughter say that taking her own life would be easier then having to go through all this. Having your daughter tell you she is thinking of taking her life so it would all stop is just like having a knife plundged (sic) into your heart.

Thankfully, with the staunch support of Lexi’s parents, her community and the police, Lexi has been able to tell her story. I don’t know if she will ever feel safe again as she does her best to resume a normal life, but she has given voice to a deep-seated problem that hides in the very insular walls of social media and electronic communication that we adults don’t often get a chance to see. This is probably one of the biggest cyberbullying wake up calls Maine has seen. . and these kids need your protection.

Kay Stephens is the co-author of Cyberslammed: Understand, Prevent, Combat and Transform the Most Common Cyberbullying Tactics, published this year and sponsored by Time Warner Cable. She has been doing presentations to Maine schools on specific cyberbullying threats and how to understand, prevent, combat and transform them. To see more posts on this topic, visit Kay Stephens on The Pen Bay Pilot.

CAMDEN — She goes by the nickname Peytonius Maximus and she rocks. No, literally, she rocks out in an all-female band as the drummer and she just won a category in Hardy Girls Healthy Women’s statewide contest Girls Rock!, which celebrates Maine girls' voices, leadership, and activism.

She is Peyton Feener, a 17-year-old student at the Community School, in Camden.  Oh there’s no doubt she’s one of the Rad Kids. Within two seconds of meeting her at The Rig a few weeks back, she gave off this bubbly, goofy vibe, very playful, just open to the world.

In the Midcoast, the rainbow-dyed hair, piercings and rocker chick attire is still, to some degree, an alternative look (although in the cities it has become somewhat ubiquitous) and to a surprisingly large amount of adults in this area, it is a scary look Maybe not scary, but unnerving. The stereotypical association with alternative kids around here is: they’re on drugs; they’re not doing well at school; they defy authority.

Peyton is a perfect example of why you should always approach every kid in this town with an open mind. She’s a musician/ singer who is working on a demo album for a prominent record label at the moment. She participates in Roller Derby as a Jeerleader; she DJs for WRFR’s radio show “Out! On the Air With Peyton and friends.” She volunteers for Project AWARE, and Out As I Want To Be. She even worked on Obama's reelection campaign.

Sitting with her family on one of her rare days off at home, we watched as her little sister, Maggie, brought over a doll with the same multi-color hue as Peyton’s.

“I’m part mermaid,” Peyton explained, pointing to a mermaid mixed-media piece she’d created that hangs in her family’s living room.

By her own admission, she stumbled early on in her high school career, dealing with some personal issues.

"Summer of 2010, I was not doing well at all," she said. "And then I went to the Community School. There, I still not doing well and I left after a couple of months, so they told me,’ if you want to come back, you've got to work really really hard.’ I had this case manager who helped me work through things and then I did an art show at Waterfall Arts. After that, I started to get involved with all these other things,” she said.

With her parents’ and teachers’ support, she is a whole different person now. “Community school is freakin’ amazing," she said.

"It's beast." The staff, "is the best thing in the world."

She said she's thriving there. After a nine month program, she graduates in May, where she hopes to still continue working at the Good Tern.

Yeah, that’s right. On top of school, a dizzying array of volunteer roles — she works too.  

“It's really hard sometimes,” she said. “I have to call my mom all the time and ask her: ‘what do I have on my schedule today?’ But I want to be involved with everything.”

Her only day off is Saturday. 

"It's my chill day. Most of the day all I want to do is sleep and watch TV or movies, hang out with my roommates.”

Coming up on April 5, she will be honored among other young women in Maine in an all-day event titled Girls Rock! Weekend in Waterville Maine hosted by Hardy Girls Healthy Women.

She was nominated for Health Advocacy category and won partly for her participation in Project AWARE’s educational PSAs about teen pregnancy, sponsored by Family Planning. “I acted, wrote the storyline and did hair, makeup and wardrobe,” she said. She is also honored for her continuing work with Out As I Want To Be, a Midcoast organization that supports LGBTQ teens.

“I like working with groups that not a lot of people volunteer with because they don’t have a lot of help and I like to help, especially with LGBTQ rights, animal rights, water conservation and civil rights.”

She has a lot of LGBTQ friends and the discrimination they face daily makes her angry.

“It’s just not fair. It’s messed up. People should not have to vote [on same sex marriage] because it’s a person’s right to be happy and get married to someone they love. It shouldn’t even be arguable. It’s everyone’s human right to be loved.”

After some tea, we hang out in her room, waiting for her band mate, who goes by the name, Tuesday, to arrive. Her posters of Johnny Cash, Johnny Depp, Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain frame a bed still decorated with Teddy bears. A black drum kit sits in the corner, where she will practice for up to seven hours today, on her only day off.

It’s time to get down to practice. She lifts the drum sticks like she’s about to rock. Well, we already know she does.

Hail To The Rad Kids is a new feature highlighting teens with artistic or musical talent.  Another place to check out what the kids are up to is Sound Off, a monthly feature sponsored by Five Town Communities That Care to publicly recognize the contributions that middle and high school teens are making in our community.  

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

THOMASTON - It’s a little like Christmas, at first. The thrill is in opening up an old wooden crate to find bottles packed in form-fitting straw encasements. What we have here is pre-Prohibition bourbon whiskey from 1907, an extremely rare find.

“I guess this is what you’d call turn-of-the-century bubble wrap,” said Chris Burke, owner of Billy’s Tavern in Thomaston, as he put a bottle of Atherton whiskey on the bar.  Lifting the straw encasement off the bottle, he peeled away the thin, crumbling tissue sleeve. The fonts on the bottle’s label alone are retro enough to make any graphic designer giddy. The label’s writing says this whiskey has been aged four years, so its total age is 110 years.  

“Whiskey only ages in barrels, but it can mellow over time in the bottle,” said Burke.  “The flavors can change and become more complex."

Burke explained this was true Kentucky bourbon, named after the place it was made, in Athertonville, Kentucky. On the bottle it is labeled a whiskey, even though technically, because it is from Kentucky, it is a bourbon. Back then, the distilleries didn’t actually make the distinction — that came much later.

Burke, a die-hard whiskey enthusiast, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, right across the river to Covington, Kentucky. Kentucky is where all bourbons are made. Because bourbon was such a cultural fixture (as Allen’s Brandy is to Maine) Burke and his brother, Billy, were well versed in its taste.  

“Bourbon has a very distinctive quality," he said. "Now I love single malt whiskey, but back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, most of what you would see were the Johnnie Walker Blacks and Reds, the Dewar’s, Famous Grouse — blended whiskies.  Growing up on bourbon, these blended whiskies had this very cloying, thin, medicinal taste, so I stayed away from them."

When Burke was around 30 years old, his brother Billy introduced him to Lagavulin, a single malt whisky, which became Burke’s instant favorite.

“It is so smoky and peaty, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “At any rate, this Lagavulin had everything I hated about scotch, but it had such a preponderance of it, it took that thing I didn’t like and blew it up; so then I loved it.”

Because of the Lagavulin, Burke found himself immersed in the subject of whiskeys, reading about them, tasting them, and searching for them. This led him to finding the case of the pre-Prohibition Atherton whiskey. He won’t say where he purchased it or how much it cost (“it’s a trade secret") but he alludes to the fact that growing up where he did, he “knew what he had when he saw it.”

The label boasts: “Unexcelled in purity and quality. Exceptional for medicinal use.” In pre-Prohibition times, Burke said, distilleries would always make this kind of reference to a whiskey’s “medicinal use.”

“It’s very pretty old bottle,” he said. If you found a whiskey this rare, it would probably sell for $100 an ounce or around $150 per glass. Though he hasn’t sold the one empty bottle he now possesses, he said he’s seen them for sale for upwards of $500.

It’s time to taste it

But first, Burke takes me through a very detailed journey through the origins and regions of bourbon and whiskey. For the novice, a fine whiskey is like the cream that rises to the top. What makes old whiskey so expensive is that as much as 30 percent can be lost to evaporation (called “the angel’s share") depending on how long it has been aged. In the case of single malt whiskies, add to this the fact that only 10 percent of the whisky in Scotland is retained for bottling as single malts. The vast majority of the rest of it goes to making blended whisky, such as Dewar’s. (Note: for those of you spell-checking, whiskey is generally spelled with an "e," but in the case of Scotch whisky such as Dewar's, the "e" is dropped.)

Burke sets up a glass of ice atop an elegantly cut glass with a sip of the pale straw Atherton whiskey and gives me a glass of Old Grand Dad to try first as a base for comparison.

He coaches me to try it.

“First, when you’re smelling whiskey, it’s not like when you are smelling wine," he said. "The alcohol will fry your nose, so you’ve got to open your mouth when you smell it. You’ll feel a little silly, but you won’t get bombarded with the alcohol.”

As predicted, the Old Grand Dad, a solid, affordable staple, tastes oily, with some sweetness, some apple, and a lot of burn.

A sip of water to cleanse the palate, and now comes the Atherton.

“As you smell it,” Burke said, “ you’ll notice it smells lighter, sweeter, more fragrant.” The scent is much more sophisticated.

As I sip it, Burke helps put words to what I’m experiencing.

“It’s so soft, right? A tiny little spark on the back of your throat and then the flavor keeps coming,” he said. “Not a big alcohol punch, you don’t wince.  It’s like a cognac.”

I try to hold onto this taste. I don’t know whether it’s because it is so old or so rare, but it is sublime.

“To me it’s like drinking Haley’s Comet,” he said. “You’re never going to run across this again.” He added, “I know of 10 other bottles from pre-Prohibition times that are in a private collection and I don’t know of any more.”

So what we’ve just had, maybe a few other people will taste in this lifetime. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

“There will be people who will seek this out, knowing what it is,” he said. “Anybody who hangs out here knows I love talking about whiskeys. One of my favorite things is to encourage people who think they don’t like whiskey to try it. You just have to find the right one and match it up to the person. I know I can turn them on to a whiskey they will love.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Our reviewers have some of the best suggestions on what to read, what to see and and what to listen to each month. Let Lacy Simons of hello hello books,  Jim Dandy and Tiffany Howard of Opera House Video and Nathaniel Bernier of Wild Rufus Consignments fill you in on this month's killer book, movie and music reviews.

Books

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.
Reviewed by Lacy Simons

This month's pick is Lewis Hyde's classic The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. (Check out one of the covers to see its former subtitle, which I guess was too misleadingly suggestive to use for the 25th anniversary edition we have for you in the shop.)

We've been reading this aloud at home in dribs and drabs, which is, as it turns out, a sensical way to read it, given one of the early themes of the book: give it away, give it away, give it away now. (Oh, hello, early '90s. I didn't see you there. Move along now, will you?) Early on, Hyde pulls in folktales to illustrate the value and necessity of sharing your gift, whatever it may be, with a community of your choosing, even if that community is just one other person. This all sounds potentially treacle and gag-inducing, but (despite the impression its current Hallmark-card cover gives) the book is anything but. It's erudite without being forbidding or boring; it's inspirational without being gimmicky or simplistic. And, as the LA Times points out, "Over the years, The Gift has developed a cult following among writers and artists who rarely lend their names to anything as potentially sentimental as a book on 'creativity' — David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and Geoff Dyer among them. To Jonathan Lethem, it’s 'a life-changer'; video artist Bill Viola calls it 'the best book I have read on what it means to to be an artist in today’s economic world.'"

Pick it up! It's March, and we all need a pile of inspiration.

Lacy Simons is the owner and operator of hello hello books, which opened in August 2011 adjacent to Rock City Cafe, in Rockland. She is a reader, a maker and a collector of fine-point pens and terrible jokes. To find more picks and reads: facebook.com/hellohellobooks Twitter: @hellohellobooks.

Movies

Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away
Reviewed by Jim Dandy

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a good circus. Somewhere in one of my past childhoods there must have been a wondrous tent filled with unimaginable fantasies come true. Or did I just dream it? I can almost smell the dirt floor, the sweat and manure. Well, step right up! Now, through the magic of DVD, you can direct your attention to the center ring from the comfort of your own living room. Your seat awaits. Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away will fulfill fantasies you never knew you had. See gravity-defying  Japanese feudal battles performed right before your very eyes. (Hint, it's done with wires.) See freaks and other oddities as they act out a thrilling mash-up of Beatles classics. See the sad clown as they set him on fire. See the young lady chase the handsome aerialist through dream after dreamlike fantasy, all for the benefit of a thin plot to tie together all of of these wondrous sights.

This was my first Cirque De Soleil experience and I was blown away. The acrobatics and costumes defy description. So, friends, whether you love the Beatles or just hate clowns, see this movie. It's a visual masterpiece. The circus has never smelled so sweet. 

Tiffany Howard and Jim Dandy co-own Opera House Video, an independent video rental store in downtown Belfast featuring an extensive collection of new releases, foreign films, documentaries, classics and television series. Each takes turns writing the movie review. Find them on Facebook at Opera House Video.

Music

Rebirth by Jimmy Cliff
Reviewed by Nathaniel Bernier

I hadn't listened to any Jimmy Cliff for a few years, save for some of the classics, but hadn't turned up a full album.  This recording starts out with such gusto and such a heavy amount of energy that I have listened to it over and over since picking it up.  Working with punk musician (Rancid) and sometimes-producer Tim Armstrong seems to have really helped turn this album back to a root origin. In fact, in the song Reggae Music he unfolds a history of his own path, starting way back in the 1960s with Leslie Kong, recording songs "in the style of ska." This song kind of sets the mood for the entire 46-minute ride.

This new release for one of the pioneering voices from Jamaica seems to really open up a lot of old doors, conjuring up memories of the ska sounds of the past, the styling of which he started with.  It's a similar production style as T-Bone Burnett did with BB King's hugely successful One Kind Favor album from 2008, when Burnett basically had BB revert back to his single-amp reverb sound of the 1950s.  And Cliff nails it here, what an amazing way to pay homage to your humble upbringing by digging up that "old sound" and putting new life to it.  The old-school style of horn-heavy, skankable ska really shines on this.  A few slower-paced reggae songs are thrown in to mix it up for your aural pleasure.  All in all, this rebirth of Jimmy is exactly what the doctor ordered. This is five-stars.

Nathaniel "Natty B" Bernier, owner of  Wild Rufus Records (Consignments), previously retail and now online, has immersed himself in music for 35 years, hosting several radio shows, deejaying at clubs and parties, writing music reviews and interviewing artists. He is located on the coast of Maine and continues to live through music. Find him at www.wildrufus.com or wildrufus.blogspot.com/.

ROCKPORT — For 24 hours on March 22, 10 local artists will be confined at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art to create experimental art installations out of a giant pallet of discarded materials donated from tradesmen, carpenters, and fishermen, as well as items collected from machine and automobile junkyards.The next day, March 23, they'll catch a few afternoon zzzs, then come back to CMCA for the opening reception, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Jared Cowan, artist and owner of Asymmetrick Arts in Rockland, first conceived of this one-creative-day event with friend, Alan Clark, in 2010. With the original eight participants further molding the shape of the project, they hosted "Resisting Entropy" at his gallery.

Now revised in scope and with an extended roster of artists, the 2013 "Resisting Entropy II" group includes Cowan, David Allen, Johanna Cairns, Andy White, Bethany Engstrom, Andy Hamm, Siglinde Langholz, Jonathan Laurence, Eric Leppanen and Trelawney O’Brien.

"Being at CMCA, we're thinking we can do even bigger installations with a wider array of materials to choose from," said Cowan. Materials donated include construction debris, auto parts, cast-off fishing gear, and even moose and deer bones. Once the doors open at noon Friday, each artist will dive into the process, garbage picking, sifting, layering and tinkering with items to build a unique art installation. They aren't supposed to come into the event with any pre-conceived ideas, but rather, will form a theme based on what they can pick and sort, working together to transform the pile into unique and unpredictable artworks.

"This year, we've gotten everything from lobster trap wreckage to action figures, along with a lot of soft goods like cloth. It's a bit of everything. We tried to select artists of different mediums, so we have painters and photographers as well as installation artists and sculptors," said Cowan.

The last "Resisting Entropy" event had crazy cool elements, such as the "Kitchen" installation made by Belfast artist, Eric Leppanen, which literally looked like some jury-rigged Mad Max type of kitchen, complete with a full bar. Another cool installation created by Cowan was "Jawbone," which ended up being a unique gameboard crafted out of animal bones without any thought of what the game's rules would be.

The exhibition will run March 23 - April 7. For more information visit: Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

LINCOLNVILLE – Ladleah Dunn is a sailor and a darn good cook. More importantly, she aims to not take the foodie industry in Maine so seriously or make it too precious. Her culinary adventures stem largely from her own small farm in Lincolnville; what’s ridiculous is how she makes it look so easy.

Even though snow covers the greenhouse and it seems as though we’ll never see green shoots poking from the ground ever again, there’s always something cooking at Sailor’s Rest Farm. It’s been awhile since we checked in with Ladleah Dunn, and you’d think winter would be her downtime, but she has been far from idle.

For more than a year, she has been working with recognized food expert Nancy Harmon Jenkins doing recipe testing for Nancy’s new book on olive oil coming out next year. As a result of their association, Nancy and Ladleah collaborated on hosting a special fundraising dinner for the Maine Farmland Trust on March 3.

The beauty of this dinner was the self-imposed constraints Ladleah put herself under. “A late winter harvest” was the theme. With the exception of anchovies and olive oil, she was committed to prepare seven courses with everything made 100 percent from Maine ingredients.

“I love a challenge and at first I thought, no problem. As it got closer to the date, there was definitely an element of panic. All the things you take for granted — like sugar, black pepper, salt, etc., I couldn’t use regular sugar from the bag, for example. It had to a native sweet element from Maine, so preparing the meal took extra care and consideration with each step,” said Dunn.

Procuring the ingredients took more than a month to plan and spanned three days to collect, buying from Maine farmers and producers. “It’s not like going to Hannaford and getting your shopping done in an hour,” she laughed. “I am very lucky to have such a great network of food folks and in one instance, I worked with a farm in Belfast 50 days in advance to get radish sprouts.”

Jumping on an urban trend called a “pop-up” restaurant, where a high profile chef borrows someone’s commercial kitchen for one night to make a multi-course meal for numerous people — a Lincolnville store allowed Ladleah and her ersatz staff to use their commercial kitchen and space to serve 30 people.

At 4 p.m. that Sunday, the scene was set. The long tables were decorated with fresh produce representative of the season; kales, leeks, potatoes, eggs, apples, etc. Each course would be paired with its own wine, provided by Ladleah’s friend Rodney Winchell, a sommelier, who has appeared in previous columns.

To appreciate the full intensity of what went into each course, here’s a peek behind the scenes, in Ladleah’s own words.

Passed and stationary appetizers

We wanted to do fried Maine chicken livers with summer pickle and shallot petals because they have such a sweet and intense flavor along with corn meal clam fritters, which were one of the recipes Nancy will be featuring in her forthcoming cookbook, because they’re just so delicious. Sam Mudge, a farmer here in Lincolnville, produces the best corn meal I’ve ever had. With Maine shrimp at the peak of their season, the stationary centerpiece featured ceramic spoons of shrimp ceviche sprinkled with touches of toasted dulse and D'avignon radish with whipped butter and wood charred toasts.

First course
Bacon, Cornmeal Fried Smelts over Carrot and Parsnip Chips

This was a take on seasonal fish and chips. I’d gone around and around on this course, because it was the first impression, but I immediately thought smelts, because they’re running up the river right now. The smelts came from up-country; the bacon fat was rendered. The chips were hand-shaved and flash fried in a deep fryer.

Second course
Ravioli in Brodo

This is a traditional Italian dish, basically an egg yolk in a large ravioli surrounded by a super rich broth. Our girls (their chickens) aren’t laying enough right now so we got them from a number of different small farmers. We separated the egg white from the yolk and carefully placed it into a handmade ravioli made from flour grown in northern Maine and milled in Skowhegan. We made a cheese filling with farm cheese from Rockport, wild-harvested chanterelle mushrooms we harvested the year before, and spinach grown by a friend of mine. You settle the unbroken yolk in the nest of cheese, close it up and boil in salty water. Then you serve in a bowl with this flavor-intensive brodo. It took a couple of days to render this broth, from what I like to call the “barnyard blend” of beef knuckles, pigs feet, lambs ribs and turkey carcass with a mirepoix, which is essentially, carrots, onions and celery. We garnished it with a crispy kale, that blended into the broth.

Third course
Intermezzo

My mom turned me on to this Swedish chef who is doing this back-to-the-land cook hipster thing where they only use native ingredients. So, we decided to pick a bushel of new growth white pine tips, and cook them down with a syrup of honey. Then, we extracted, blended and strained them. The honey produced around here is so flavorful, it’s almost overpowering, so I was up at 6:30 that morning, tasting it, noting it was too sweet. We had buckets full of maple sap from our own farm, so I just started diluting sap straight out of the tree into the mixture. Then I put in cider vinegar produced in Lincolnville and whipped it by hand in the ice cream maker until it had the right balance of what I was looking for.  

Fourth course
Roasted Lamb On Cedar Boughs with Potatoes Dauphinoise

When I first learned we might be doing the dinner, I went straight to Maine Street Meats in Rockland, because I trust they were going to have exactly what we wanted. From them we got saddle of lamb from Northstar Farm in Windsor. A couple of days ahead, they allowed me to come into their kitchen and dress the lamb with a homemade “shmear” of butter, garlic, anchovies, sage, rosemary, and thyme before the butcher trussed it and vacuum packed it for a few days. The night of the dinner, we pan-seared it and roasted it on top of fresh-cut cedar boughs. Nancy felt very strongly that roasted lamb should be served with potatoes dauphinoise, which is like an au gratin. We used some of our potatoes that we grew, along with some celery root. One of our cooking mistakes ended up being a batch of heavy cream accented with buttermilk and chamomile that didn’t work as an ice cream, but resembled cheese and was incredible with the potatoes.

Fifth course
Cheese board and Salad

It’s actually a really nice way to settle the stomach after an intense feast to end with cheese and salad, rather than that be the first course. We served Hahn’s End Blue Velvet, (blue cheese), and St. David (a triple cream) and a York Hill goat cheese aged for one year. We served the cheese on pieces of slate that my husband specially cut. The accompaniments on the slate itself were candied cubes of ginger grown in Maine, cooked in honey, as well as cubes of pickled beets. We wanted something nutty with texture to go with the cheese, but there are no nuts native to Maine, so we smoked Maine sea salt in the smoker and added that to the Maine-grown rye crackers we made, along with homemade oat cakes. As for the salad greens that are actually growing in greenhouses right now, there was watercress, this scarlet frills mustard and I got my husband to run out to our greenhouse and pick some baby kale.  

Sixth course
Dessert

To wrap it all up, we made a honey-sweetened chamomile buttermilk ice cream served with maple oat shortbread and apples, donated by John Bunker of Fedco Trees, poached in a Bartlett apple and blueberry wine.

“You run the risk of sounding trite when you go into all this detail standing in front of the tables,” she said, which is why it works better to deconstruct it after the effect in a column. “My motto is go for the unsung heroes in the protein and vegetable world and make the meal part of what you’d make for yourself every day.”

Because of the elaborate nature of this pop-up dinner, Ladleah has now received numerous requests, from all over the state, for more specialty dinners.

“The goal is that it continues to be not only gorgeous dinners, where people enjoy themselves and are fed well, but that it gives back to the communities that are helping contribute to it," said Dunn. “For one, when we do a fundraising dinner, I never ask farmers [who work hard] for donations. If they want to donate, that’s up to them. But I firmly believe that farmers need to be paid for their hard work."

Many times when a chef is asked where they got something special, they’ll say it’s a trade secret. For Ladleah, it’s the opposite. She wants you to know where she got the special garnish or ingredient, because she wants you to buy it yourself from someone local.

“I’ve got this incredible network of people who grow or make just about anything you want. The more you give your secrets away, the more it comes back. People who cook the food, consume it and the people who grow it are all inter-connected,” she said.

To read past columns on Ladleah’s cooking adventures, visit our Pinterest page for “Whipping up something good at Sailor’s Rest Farm.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

ROCKLAND - Dodgeball. Just the word conjures up sensory memories of painful welts developing on the back of your legs.

For the past six weeks at the Rockland Rec Center, a number of adult Dodgeball teams have been working up to the final tournament. During the last championship game,  it was pretty apparent from watching the competitors that there are two kinds of dodgeball players: those who take it way too seriously and those who don’t.

Yay, just like middle school all over again!

Erica Sanchez (Dodge name: The Dirty Sanchez) organized her team The Dodgefathers largely through Rock City Café where she and a number of her teammates work. Though they take the game seriously, they have a lot of fun in the process with their roller derby-like costumes and Nacho Libre wrestling masks.

“We’ve been super energized and animated," she said. "Some on our team do this crazy jumping, some go all the way to the floor. There is a lot of physical activity going on.”

What about those painful welts? Teammate Corwin Flynn (Dodge name: Tiger) said: “People don’t generally get hurt. I have taken one of the balls to the nose, but it was okay.”

No sooner did Flynn say that when one of the Dodgefathers, Cole Fisher (Dodge name: That Guy) did a flying squirrel leap to catch the ball and landed on his face. It opened up a good inch-long cut just beyond his eyebrow but rather than go to the E.R., he slapped a butterfly bandage and got back in the game. That is why this team is called The Dodgefathers and not the My Pretty Pink Princess Ponies (Mariah Carey: Sorry that name has already been taken for my Dodgeball team).

Another interesting factor to the game is that some teams decided to choose all male players and some, like The Dodgefathers, decided to make it an equal-opportunity sport. “We don’t have to worry about getting a shot to the dingus,” said Sanchez, citing one of the advantages of being female.

Even though The Dodgefathers gave their all in the double elimination rounds, they didn’t win. Who cares, right? They all high fived each other anyway with big smiles on their faces. After each game they go to the Time Out Pub, who happens to sponsor the team, and celebrate whether they’ve won or lost. In Maine, the Five Rules of Dodgeball are: dodge, dip, dive, duck and drink.

It's been thrilling as all heck to see alternative sports like Roller Derby and Dodgeball develop in the Midcoast. Any sport where you can dress like a cross between Richard Simmons and Halloween is going to bring out a whole different kind of competitor and spectator. It's stuff like this that reminds the city kids they're not the only ones having fun.  The next sport that needs to take root in the area: trampoline volleyball and dirt bike polo. Anyone?

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

HOPE — From inside the newly-built, rustic shop across the street from the Hope General Store, Chris Pinchbeck plays Irish music on his iPod while he works on a couple sets of Scottish smallpipes for customers. They're about three weeks from being completely finished. Behind him is a 1938 South Bend machinist's lathe that he found on Uncle Henry's that he uses for boring holes, for chanters and metal cutting.

Pinchbeck grew up in Guilford. Graduation from the University of New Hampshire was followed by a few years in California, and then he came back to Maine to resume his photography business, where he met his future wife, Lindsay. Together they built this bagpipe shop — along with a new children's arts center next door called Sweet Tree Arts — from an 1820s Colonial farmhouse. Lindsay also happens to be the sister of Andrew Stewart, owner of The Hope General Store, and it's a delight for Hope residents to have this family running three artistic and community-minded businesses in the center of town.

Given that Andrew and Lindsay are both Scottish, and that Scottish kids grow up playing pipes the way American kids do with recorders and harmonicas, the obvious question was: did they teach him to play?

"No, I was playing the bagpipes long before I met Lindsay," Pinchbeck said with a laugh. "In fact, she jokes with me, 'if you'd learned how to play the pipes after you met me, then I probably wouldn't have married you.'"

Pinchbeck first started to play bagpipes nearly 19 years ago and his deep passion for the music has turned into a business.

"They say it takes 22 years to become a bagpiper, and yet I don't feel like I'm even a 20th of the way there yet," he said. For him playing the highland bagpipes naturally led to playing the Scottish smallpipes, which are not only easier to handle, but, in his words, "less obnoxious sounding."

"There are about 200 kinds of highland pipes. Every culture has a set they call their own, the Irish and the French, and so forth. They were originally designed as 'war pipes' to be as loud and jarring as possible when played well. Behind a hill with a few men playing them, they were designed to scare the the enemy into thinking that there were thousands of men behind the hill waiting for them," he said.

The Scottish smallpipes, which are much smaller — have a more melodic, quieter sound. They were developed back in the 1980s and are "kind of considered the new kid on the block, " he said. "These were invented as a way to practice playing the larger highland pipes without the blasting volume and to blend this highland music into playing with other instruments, such as fiddles, guitars and concertinas."

For the past 15 years, he has worked on mastering the Scottish smallpipes. Only in the last four years has he set out to craft each individual piece of the pipes himself.

"You have to start somewhere and dive in. There's not a lot of tutelage on how to make a set of bagpipes," he said, pointing to his "wall of shame" (a window ledge) holding early templates that weren't up to his standards. Pinchbeck is now one of five commercial Scottish smallpipe producers in the U.S. and finds his customers through the Internet, at workshops and through local word of mouth.

"It's not an easy instrument to play," he said, strapping a custom bellows on across his chest. It takes years to learn all the fingering and the right amount of pressure to put on the bellows and bag so that air flows through to keep the instrument in tune and steady. He picks up the chanter, the actual piece that he will play, which looks like a cross between an oboe reed and a bassoon. The drones are the pipes that rest on his shoulder.

Pinchbeck said he has no plans for playing out on St. Patrick's Day, as he's got to take care of his two young children, but check out his website, pinchbeckpipes.com, for more information and any future public perfomances.

Watch our video to see Pinchbeck play a tune called Jenny Nettles. "All my friends laugh at me becuase this is the one I play the most," he said. That tune thenwhich then blends in with another called, The Piper is Weird. (Assuredly, he's not.) 

Contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com.

First off, interviewing Bob Marley takes a lot of discipline, because if you laugh too much, you can't hear the playback on the tape recorder. Too late. He killed inside three seconds of the first interview question and I missed about 30 percent of the interview answers because of my own hyena cackling.

Maine native Bob Marley, known as the New England King of Comedy, is an everyday kind of guy — as at home at a tailgate party as he is on stage with David Letterman. He's been a stand-up comic going on more than 15 years, has done the Laugh Factory on both coasts, Comedy Showcase, MADtv, and the Steve Harvey, Letterman, Craig Kilborn and Craig Ferguson talk show circuit. Variety named him one of 10 comics to watch.

Based in Portland, Marley is on the road touring at least four days a week. In Las Vegas, it's more like 14 shows a week. "It's crazy, but it's a good problem — what we call first world problems," he said via phone today.

Marley is performing at Oceanside High School in Rockland for their Project Graduation on Wednesday, March 13, at 7 p.m. In anticipation of this event, we bring you "Five Things You Need To Know about Bob Marley."

Q. As a Maine comedian, you have been all over the country.  What impressions do people have of our state and its people, from the good, to the bad, to the off the wall?

A: Well the good stuff is that people are always saying, 'Oh Maine is so beautiful, it's a wonderful place and the people are nice.' The bad stuff is: 'How do you live there, it's so cold! What are you people doing up there? How do you eat food, how do you find it?' And then they always want to talk about lobster, which isn't a bad thing, it just becomes annoying after awhile. They ask, 'Do you eat a lot of lobster?' I'm like, 'Not really.' It's like if you live in Texas, you don't just go tackle cows.

Q: When you do shows at home, your material has many inside joke topics that Mainers respond to, like Allen’s coffee brandy, mud season, going upta camp and so on. Do you stick with this same material when you do shows in other states or do you have to come up with new material that applies to their culture?

A: You know with my accent, I sound like a Mainer and that's what shines through, that's what they like. They're like 'Who's this guy? We don't have one of those.' When I talk about Amato's or Mardens or Renys, it's more provincial. But 90 percent of my act I can do on the road. Like a lot of Maine people will ask, 'How do you do your act anywhere else? It's all about Maine.' But I joke about putting beers in the crisper, where you put your vegetables in the fridge. I go, 'If you're putting them in the crisper, you're an alcoholic.' And everybody goes, 'Oh yeah, that's Maine people' and I say, 'No, that's everybody.' It's kind of a magic trick. A lot of places I go to they like the Maine point of view, the voice, the attitude. When I go to Arizona in May and I'm the whitest guy in the room, they're looking at me like what's wrong with him and I'm like, 'Listen, we still have snow.' Last year, I went there — it was 118 degrees and I thought, I'm probably going to die right here. I went to the hotel pool, which is, by the way, what everybody in Arizona wants to see, a white Irish guy from Maine making his first poolside appearance of the year. The cocktail waitress is like, 'You're going to need to go in now, sir.' I'm like, 'What did something fall out of my shorts?' She's like, 'No, your skin is bubbling, you're gonna want to head in."

Q: Who did you grow up with that influenced and inspired your type of comedy (both personal friends) and stand-up comics you admired?

A: I was most influenced by my two Irish uncles, my uncle Brendan and my Uncle Richard (pronounced Rich-id). They were these two hilarious Irish guys who'd sit there down at camp on an 80-degree day with a suit jacket and pants on with suspenders with tumblers full of some kind of liquid. I thought, if I can make these guys laugh, that would be great. I remember when I got to the point at sixth grade I could consistently make them laugh. I'd practice all year, come back to camp and slay those guys. But professionally, I like the older guys, I like Rodney Dangerfield, who I actually opened for and did a small part in one of his movies. And Don Rickles and Bob Newhart, all great comedians.

Q; You are in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous standup routine (40 hours) with the first 18 hours without any repetition of material.  Did you have those first 18 hours memorized or were you going full force extemporaneous?

A: Well, you were allowed to have a playbook, so I went down through all of my 25 albums and listened to all of them. I'd just write down one word like a trigger phrase and it's like a song in your head. It would open a door in my mind and there was like 20 minutes [of material] there. I remember 20 hours into it, my tour manager had said the Guinness rules stated you only had to do four hours of original material before you could repeat yourself. I'm like, 'Well that would have been good to know two and a half months ago. I was like down in the basement like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting writing stuff on the window.' But it was a great event and we raised $25,000 for the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital.

Q: Speaking of Guinness, are you taking a break for St. Paddy’s Day? If so, what are your plans?

A: That's a great day. I'm Irish Catholic and my mother used to boil steak. Everybody wants to be Irish. I'm like 95 percent Irish. A lot of people like to talk in percentages, like 'Yeah, I'm 4.5 percent Irish.' You go out to the bars and there's people with T-shirts that say 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' and I'm like, 'Nah, I'm good.' For St. Paddy's Day, I used to go out with my buddies and go drinking all day. But I've got three kids so we go over to Shawnee Peak and we go skiing. In the morning, I start cooking. I have a couple of shots of Jameson but I'm spending time with my kids and we call it a day. 

Check out Bob Marley at Oceanside. Tickets are $15 at Oceanside East and West, Planet Toys in Rockland and Thomaston Grocery. Or visit www.bmarley.com.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

CAMDEN — Bob McGowan, a longtime butcher for French & Brawn Market Place in downtown Camden, drags out a couple of 8 pound cuts of corned beef from the cooler and lays them down on butcher paper. "Real corned beef should look gray on the outside, like ours, not red inside the wrapper," he said. "A lot of people shudder when they look at our corned beef at first, because they are used to seeing it in a grocery store and it's pink--but that's from nitrates. When you cut into ours, it's pink inside, but the outside should look gray."

This brined cut of meat is going to be on a lot of people's tables this Sunday. McGowan delves into the meal's historic origins. "Originally, it was a poor man's meal--something that would last in your cellar all year long, so you'd butcher the animal in the fall and make a brine that would pickle the meat and it would store all winter long. And on St. Paddy's Day, most Irish people wouldn't have much money. What vegetables they'd have left over in the cellar from the winter would be root vegetables--cabbage, potatoes, carrots and the like. And they would all go together naturally very well."

Salt was the main pickling ingredient. "Some people use garlic or peppercorns to corn it," he said. "We use just salt and water." McGowan said F&B makes their corned beef from Western Steer. "We use briskets because that's how it's been traditionally made.""What we do is you fill a barrel  with water and add a raw egg or potato. Next we start adding canning salt until the egg or potato rises to the top. That means it's at its proper salinity for corning the beef."  "It's the way they always did — it's so simple. Pretty scientific, huh?" he said, with a laugh. At this point the brisket is left to sit in the brine mixture for a minimum of four days. "To cook the corned beef place it into the boiling pot and cook it for three or four hours until you can stick a fork all the way through the meat."  (He cautions against using a crock pot, which he says doesn't get hot enough.)    

Corned beef is one of those comfort foods steeped in memory. "People remember going to grandmother's house and eating the whole dinner," he said.

French and Brawn sells 8-9 pound cuts of corned beef, but can trim it to any size, depending on what the customer wants.

Will he be having this meal on Sunday? "Oh yeah, I always do," he said, smiling.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

St. Patrick's Day is on a Sunday this year? Well, that's just all kinds of wrong for employers expecting bright-eyed bushy-tailed workers Monday morning, now isn't it? Regardless, there will be other things to do for the weekend leading up St. Paddy's Day. Enjoy!

Friday, March 15

Billy's Tavern, Thomaston

Billy's Tavern traditionally hosts the largest, most authentic St. Paddy’s Day Celebration in the Midcoast. This year, the celebration will be all weekend long, with Irish food and live Irish music Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On Friday night, local favorites The Alehouse String Band will entertain with their own brand of Celtic and traditional tunes, sure to put the crowd in a festive mood. Irish food, including Billy’s own corned beef and cabbage dinners, corned beef sandwiches and Irish Egg Roll, will be served.  Music starts at 7 p.m.  Admission is free.

Saturday, March 16

VFW, Waldoboro

A St. Patrick's Day dance with music by country-rock band Bad Penny will be held at the VFW Hall on Mills Street in Waldoboro starting at 8 p.m. Admission is $8 per person, $15 per couple. Wear green and get $1 off admission. Proceeds will go towards the Waldoboro Fire Department's 175th anniversary celebration. For more information, contact Fire Chief Paul Smeltzer or Assistant Fire Chief Bill Maxwell at 832-2161 or 631-7208.

Billy's Tavern, Thomaston

On Saturday, there will be live Irish music by Belfast-based An-Grian. Billy’s will be serving a full Irish menu all day.  Music starts at 7 p.m.  Admission is free.

Sunday, March 17

Billy's Tavern, Thomaston

St. Paddy's Day officially will kick off at 10 a.m. when Billy’s Tavern will be offering a full Irish breakfast, corned beef and cabbage dinners, Irish Egg Rolls and lots of Guinness drink specials.  A night of phenomenal Irish music will be provided by Boothbay Harbor-based, Curlew. Curlew is recognized as one of the leading, most authentic Celtic bands playing in Maine — and this show is not to be missed. For more information, call 354-1177 or you can visit their website.

Trackside Station, Rockland

Trackside is hosting a Lucky Leprechaun 5K run. Walkers start at 9:45 a.m. Runners start at 10:10 a.m. St. Patrick's Day costumes encouraged. Strollers and well-behaved dogs welcome. Proceeds benefit Go! Malawi. Pre-registration and details can be found at their website or call 691-3510.

Rock Harbor, Rockland

Rock Harbor is gearing up for a Patrick's Day Weekend with traditional Irish meals, specialty Irish drinks, new brews on tap, yummy treats, and much more, including
Guinness, and Smithwicks on tap. The Pitch Black Ribbons will playing 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. Acoustic band headed up by two brothers, PBR's music "sounds like a downhome distillery, but their soul is steeped in rock n' roll."

Rollie's Bar and Grill, Belfast

For the die-hards, there is a possibility that Rollie's will open at 6 a.m. on Sunday, if legislation passes to be able to serve alcohol at that hour. If not (check their Facebook page for updates) they'll open at 9:00 a.m. (You'll live.) They'll be serving corned beef breakfast specials, including everyone's favorite, corned beef hash and morning drink specials like Irish Coffee, and Bailey’s. For lunch and dinner, they are serving all-you-can-eat corned beef and fixings for $10.99. Traditional Irish beers like Guinness and Killians will be on tap and there will be prize giveaways throughout the day.

Point Lookout, Northport

Point Lookout will be offering an Irish brunch from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for $20.95 adults (includes complimentary Mimosa or Bloody Mary) and $10.95 fpr children 12 or younger. View their menu and call 789-200 for reservations.

Hatchet Mountain Publick House, Hope

They will celebrate St. Paddy's Day with Irish food, music and spirits including boiled corn beef and cabbage dinner, bangers and mashed potatoe, Guinness, Harp and Smithwicks on draft as well as Jamesons, Bushmill and Tullamore Dew whiskeys.  Open from noon to 8:00 p.m. Call 763-4565 

Stay tuned all week as more listings are added! Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

CAMDEN - For many people, owning one’s own restaurant is the American Dream. Night after night of working in someone else’s kitchen, chefs can’t help dream of what it would be like to run their own kitchen, come up with their own menu, and introduce regional flavors to a new community.

Tom Sigler’s time has finally come. He is the chef-owner, along with his wife, Lisa Laurita-Spanglet, of the new Latin-inspired restaurant Comida on 31 Elm Street in Camden next to Zoot Coffee. They’ve been open just a month now and word on the street is that he’s on to something here.

This tiny 24-seat restaurant  is cozy but not cramped with banquettes along the walls, hand-crafted tables, a copper bar and simple, throw pillows and wall decorations. The compact kitchen feels like it belongs on a boat; two people can work beside one another comfortably. As the prep cook toasts fresh coriander in the pan, the restaurant fills up with the savory and citrus smells that compliment the warm persimmon and cream walls.   

This little spot on Main Street unfortunately has had a high turnover for businesses, something Sigler and his wife plan to change.  To start, they tore out some of the walls and reconfigured the space to allow more seating, building many of the tables and banquettes themselves.  In the spring, they plan to make full use of the outdoor patio.  They also made a conscientious decision to keep each meal on the menu under $20.

“We want to be a place that you can go back to over and over to get a small bite or on a Friday night if you want to have two or three courses,” said Sigler.

Sigler started his career in South Carolina, working in kitchens to put himself through college.

“At some point I realized I preferred cooking to philosophy,” he said.

After graduating from Culinary Institute of America, his kitchen connections brought him up to Maine, where he served as a sous chef for Natalie’s Restaurant and Atlantica. His travels in Central America and a stint as a chef consultant to three restaurants in Mexico have given him many flavors to experiment with in designing Comida's menu.

Trained in French cuisine, Sigler brings a French flair to Latin flavors from Mexico, El Salvador, Cuba, Central and South America.

“I’ve always leaned toward Latin flavors,” he said. “I’ve worked in many kitchens alongside many Latinos, including many Guatamalans, and El Salvadorians and observed what they would make for family meals.

Comida is the Spanish word for “food” and Sigler intended to make the restaurant name uncomplicated.

“We’ve created a very rustic, but refined menu out of those tastes. Plate by plate we’re winning people over.”

He points to the plain, one-page menu that offers two sets of offerings, Platos Pequeños (Small Plates) and Platos Grandes (Big Plates).

“For example, this mole we serve over the sautéed chicken breast comes from my friend’s grandmother’s recipe. She’s from Pueblo, Mexico, right outside of Oaxaca. I twisted it a little bit, but wanted to make it respectful.”

Taking risks to try something off one might not normally order this menu pays off. For example, I expected a small plate of Ensalada con Coles de Bruseleas (Brussel sprouts, cilantro, daikon, manchengo, with a guajillo vinaigrette, $7) would be like three little hard brussel sprouts in a sauce. Instead, it presented as more of a flavorful slaw with bits of manchengo. The guajillo sauce absolutely popped with a sweet, light heat. Similarly, the Arepas Con Camerones Barbacoa ($12) offered two sweet, chewy corn cakes with Maine shrimp drizzled in the same guajillo sauce, only it was tinged with sort of a cross between New Orleans southern barbeque and a mole sauce.  It’s easy to understand why this is already one of their most popular dishes. 

They have a full liquor license, but are only currently offering a small selection of specialty cocktails, including margaritas and mojitos. They offer an eclectic wine and beer list, such as a zippy Vina Puebla Macabeo ($7.50) which compliments their small plate of Ensalada Batabel ($8), essentially a beet salad with freshly made queso fresco (out of locally procured raw cow’s milk), black radish and a cumin-orange vinaigrette.

“We wanted to offer beers and wines that are funky and fun for people who are interested in trying something they’ve never had before,” he said.

Sigler buys many of his ingredients locally, buying his meats and fish from Maine Street Meats, Jess’s Market, and milk and produce from Dandelion Spring Farm and Hubbard Brook Farm.

Comida is now open for lunch and dinner. You can find their menu on their website, www.comidarestaurant.com or see their daily specials on their Facebook page.

Yes, it's 40 degrees out and it is still snowing. We're almost upon mud season, yet it it is likely to snow some more. Welcome to March, the month when everyone in Maine is ready to go a little bonky. It doesn't help that your friends on vacation in Thailand or Hawaii or wherever are still finding time out of their sun-drenched days on the beach to post photos of themselves on a sun-drenched beach.

<sarcasm>I'm so happy for you guys! </endsarcasm>

Invite everyone by Facebook and Evite, but make sure you call to follow up because no one checks their Facebook or Evite request.

Cheer up, chickens, we have the will and the means to alleviate the symptoms of "the cruelest month." This Cheap Date just takes a little imagination and a list of the best places in the Midcoast to get your tropical fix. Find a partner, someone with just a little more enthusiasm and will-to-live than you, and plan a night of Tropical-Luau-Beach party at one of your houses. Invite everyone by Facebook and Evite, but make sure you call to follow up because no one checks their Facebook or Evite request.

Because I'm all about shopping local, we're going on a virtual tour of the Midcoast and where you can get everything you need for this beach blowout. Start with the decor, and go to Party Fundamentals: i.e. grass skirts, coconut bras, hanging palm trees, leis, etc. You can also get a ton of paper bags from the local supermarkets and strip them up to look like the thatching of a tiki hut. Reny's in Camden and Belfast also has cheap leis, fishing net, starfish, a limbo kit, tiki torches, bamboo skewers, cups, plates, tealights, an entire row of hot sauces and real sandals made in Hawaii. Lastly, if you're going whole hog (ha ha-luau joke) and want to dump real sand all over your floor, Plants Unlimited in Rockport has the kind of white play sand you need for only $5.99 for a 50 lb bag. Cost of cleanup, not included.

Oh, and because March is Exotic Winter Fruit & Leeks and Green Onions Month (like I'd lie about that) I'm told Hannaford Supermarket in Belfast is the best place for exotic fruits such as: coconuts, pineapples, star fruit, bread fruit, mangoes, papayas, cactus pears, kumquats and sugar cane. Use as centerpieces, parts of drinks or in dishes. For seafood in Rockland, check out Jess’s Market, which sells coconut shrimp, stuffed clams, macadamia nut Panko crumbs for lightly breaded island fish and will even special order conch for you if you want to make a sauce, salad or chowder.  For a traditional pig roast, Curtis Custom Meats sells any size pig you want roasted (as well as the raw pig before roasting). Just call 207-273-2574.

And please, post all the photos you want of the fun you're having at your tropical party to our Facebook page and we'll make a gallery of it. Because you're still in Maine, nobody's going to be jealous.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

A long time ago, like a lot of adults, I used to buy into the teen complaint that “there’s nothing to do around here.”

But then I realized, it’s not the exterior world we live in that defines what we’re capable of; it’s our own interior world.  There are teens who just make stuff happen. All Jalina “Jolly” Brown had to do is hear a haunting, driving song called “Sail” by AWOLNATION one day and something in her brain caught on fire. See accompanying video.

The next time a kid shows you a scrap of sketchbook or poem or says, “look at this video I made” or wants to show you a riff they just learned on their guitar, make the time.

Even if it’s not your kid, cultivate their interior world.

We’re the village it supposedly takes and the teens in this town could always use one more person on their side.

Imagery came to her in flashes.

“I heard the song and had all these images in my head of the fire, the words being washed away in the sink, the moth, the close-up of the eye, all that stuff,” she said.

She got ahold of a high quality camera and decided to make a short artistic video in two nights and edited it together in one night.

I love that in this video, she allows us glimpses of her, but not the whole her. There’s something deeper at play here. She has a story to tell in three minutes and she does it with a sophisticated filmmaker’s ability to zero in on an image and connect it to certain beats of the music, whether it is her own wide, unblinking eye, or a piece of paper seemingly boiling in an beaker. At times, the video veers from being sweetly childish to viscerally honest.

“This is the kind of stuff I get really excited about,” she said. “I hear a song and see an image and find a way to create a story. There's a lot more symbolism in the video, like how there's just a match with a small flame in the beginning, there's a large, roaring fire toward the middle, and the end has smoke. I like thinking that people can find their own symbolism within the video and interpret it in their own way.”

“Throughout the song, the singer says ‘Blame it on my A.D.D’ and I often feel like I have trouble getting my thoughts out because of my A.D.D.-like thought process. I also felt like the song made me think about the future and how, at the time, I was really nervous about picking a career in film. A lot of people told me to pick a more reliable career and that film was really just a hobby.”

Jolly is about to graduate Camden Hills Regional High School in June and has been accepted into Emerson College in Boston.

“I’m a little nervous, because I come from a little small town in Maine but hopefully I’ll get to know the city, get a job, go to school, do some writing and maybe a little acting. I get a little scared before live performances, but I think it’s good to get out there and try that.”

She’s lucky, really. Some people spend all their lives trying to be good at just one thing.  Jolly’s interior world is open to most anything that is creative, so she has that young, flexible attitude that art is experimentation, art is play. It’s not work yet. If there is failure-oh well, try something else.

“I love singing. I love cinematography. I love directing. I’m into all that. My dream job would be writing and acting on Saturday Night Live because I love playing characters,” she said.  “I’ve been watching SNL since I was really young and I really liked that some writer was behind the performer who could make an audience laugh. When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I’d try writing these short SNL-style comedy sketches and my friends and I would film them.”

Folks might argue that my “Rad Kid” columns all feature driven teens, kids who’ve had advantages, who are naturally adept. But the fact is no, not all of the kids I’ve worked with in this town have had those advantages. Some have actually overcome some serious disadvantages, including a complete lack of any creative cultivation from their own parents, because they are moved to discover what they’re capable of. What sets them all apart is the complete eradication of the mindset “there is nothing to do around here.” Jolly could spend all of her time on Facebook every afternoon, could waste hours watching stupid reality TV, or hang out with a crowd that doesn’t actually do anything but wish they were somewhere else.  

Or she can pick up a sketchbook. Get inspired by a contest to build cardboard robots who hula hoop and skip rope. Practice writing funny sketches with her friends.

“I just create random weird things that come out of my brain,” she said.

On the other side of the camera, Jolly has done a number of live performances and auditioned for Project AWARE's public service announcement videos and played the part of a pregnant girl.

"The PSA was basically about how two seconds can change your life and how you should think about the decisions you make before you make them."

A short teaser of that PSA is embedded in this story.

Jolly’s one of the Rad Kids — she’s on a clear trajectory. But even glimpses of her interior world leave us all with a teeny bit of a lesson. There’s always something to do around here. The next time a kid shows you a scrap of sketchbook or poem or says, “look at this video I made” or wants to show you a riff they just learned on their guitar, make the time. Even if it’s not your kid; cultivate their interior world. We’re the village it supposedly takes and the teens in this town could always use one more person on their side.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

THOMASTON — Over the last three years, something has been subtly shifting in the Midcoast. It hasn’t been overtly noticeable to everyone, but if you grew up here in the 1980s, raged in the decade-long party that was the 1990s, suffered through the stagnant, suffocating lack of a cultural scene in the 2000s, something is different now.

Midcoast is becoming way hipper. But it’s still an underground secret in a lot of ways.

National magazines have already picked up on the art and foodie trend in the Midcoast, and now live, original music is picking up steam.

The Strand, Camden Opera House and Rockport Opera House are largely responsible for higher profile acts, but bar bands have traditionally been small, local and well, what you come to expect from a bar band — until now. Along with Rock City Café (Velvet Lounge) in Rockland, and Three Tides in Belfast bringing in national, alternative, high-energy acts, there’s a new kid in town. For the last six months, Billy’s Tavern in Thomaston has begun to stand out as a tastemaker when it comes to attracting outstanding, up-and-coming music.

Portland band Tricky Britches (try saying that three times fast) is coming tonight to play at Billy’s. While Tricky Britches describes themselves as “old-time country, with a bluegrass kick and the bounce of a street-corner jugband” Burke puts a finer point on it.

“They bring a young, alternative and a little more edgy sensibility to their music,” he said. “They have taken the old style of bluegrass, country and freshened it up with a very contemporary feel.”

Burke is Generation X, with musical influences drawn strongly from the 1990s. “We like to bring in original music," he said. “We’re very eclectic, but want to draw a high caliber of talent. We’ve brought in Irish bands, Gypsy bands, indie folk-country-alt bands. We brought the 1920s and 1930s jazz band, Tuba Skinny. We were the first to bring Primo Cubano, a Cuban band, here, and now they’re regularly coming back to the Midcoast. Only in the last six months have we been getting very serious about making Billy’s a premier music venue, bringing bands from all over the country.”

The atmosphere at Billy’s Tavern, named after Burke’s father, Billy, is modeled after an Irish pub. The bar opened in 2007 and ever since, they’ve been finding ways to connect the small town of Thomaston into the larger developing cultural scene of Rockland. Burke, whose wife, Brooke and two children, have lived here since 1999, said, “We’re always so amazed at how many cool things are going on in the Midcoast. We’ve gotten such a huge reception to the music, that we feel that’s a way we can distinguish ourselves, even in the summer time, when people have so many great choices. You can go for a hike, go for a sail, go out to dinner and then, after 9 p.m., you can come out and hear a world-class band.”

The large expansive room with dark walls, dark wooden tables and a gas-fired stove appeals to the type of patron who likes a hometown bar to feel cozy, but not overly fancy. On live music nights, all the tables and chairs are moved out of the way to accommodate dancing. On several online reviews, some patrons have complained that the music is way too loud, but others will counter that’s why the phrase “if the music is too loud, you’re too old” was invented. 

Dan Engel, who does the live music booking for Billy’s “is doing a phenomenal job,” said Burke. “He has the passion for music and a keen eye for talent.” Their spring lineup includes bands from Brooklyn, N.Y., Athens, Ga., and all over Maine. Next weekend, The Ghost of Paul Revere, a “holler folk band” from Portland will be back up to play at Billy’s.

“If you want to sit in a theater and watch an act perform, that’s great for some. But, for those who want to have a drink, dance and have some fun, it's a very different scene. We’re trying to showcase the cream of the crop in terms of original music and give people in this area an opportunity to see bands that are on a big-time trajectory. What we’re trying to do is get the bands here so people can see them before they get too big,” said Burke.

• March 1: Tricky Britches, starting at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 and proper ID is required. To keep on top of their upcoming musical lineup, follow Billy’s Tavern on Facebook or visit their website.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

CAMDEN — Whether they're starting small lifestyle businesses or bigger operations with a few employees, women in Maine are proving themselves to be strong entrepreneurs.  Former Maine Women's Fund Executive Director Elizabeth Stefanski said in the last 10 years she had seen "massive growth in women-owned businesses," with women starting them "twice as often as men."

But starting a business, as anyone knows, is not easy. Running counter to the "Superwoman" credo that women can do it all, there are roadblocks to running a business. That's where Marita Fairfield comes in. She is the Women's Business Center Program Director & Business Counselor and is known statewide as a business counselor and workshop presenter on issues related to business website development and Internet marketing.

Up until this year, if women wanted free business counseling from CEI, they had to travel to Wiscasset to the main office. But some restructuring of CEI has now freed Fairfield to travel to the Midcoast twice a month to meet with women in two outreach locations. Through the generosity of Ballou and Associates, a bookkeeping and consulting service at 48 Washington St. in Camden, which donates a free closed conference room in their office complex, Midcoast women can make appointments to meet with Fairfield regularly as they take the pulse on their businesses. Another smaller outreach location donated by Camden National Bank in Belfast will allow Fairfield to meet with women in Waldo county and counties north of Belfast.

"This is an ideal space for women to have confidential meetings," said Fairfield. "Some women just feel it makes a difference that their business counselor is also a woman. We work in collaboration with our counterparts at the Small Business Development Center as well, regardless of where Maine women are located around the state. We can have someone get back to you in person or through virtual conferencing, phone or email."

Who is the ideal candidate for this kind of business counseling?

"Either someone who wants to start a business but doesn't know how to go about it or someone who is already in business and just needs to bounce her ideas off a business counselor," she said. "Perhaps you're good at what you do, but not good at finances or you're very good with bookkeeping, but don't know the first thing about how to market your business. We find that new business owners who work with a business counselor are more successful."

Fairfield added that the majority of her clients are micro-businesses, such as one-woman businesses, couples or people with two or three employees.

CEI has just revamped its online directory, www.wbcmaine.org, which features women-owned Maine businesses and offers in-person workshops and online webinars that cover everything one needs to know about starting a business, including record-keeping and financials, applying for a business loan, Quickbooks, marketing, child care business management, and websites/ecommerce.

Women who've already started their businesses can also join this directory at the free level. A premier level allows more online visibility and better discounts for workshops. Even without a premier listing, the workshops are considered reasonably priced, at $15 to $35. And, Fairfield stresses they never want income to be a barrier for woment to get the business training they need so they also offer a fee-waiver program and financial aid.

One other way the Women's Business Center works with the realistic schedule of modern women is to offer pre-recorded online workshops.

"That way you can listen to a workshop at 2 in the morning or when you're at home with a sick kid," she said.

Sometimes women just need a little push, along with a hand to hold, to make the transition from dreamer to business owner. The way to start is to make a request for free business counseling by visiting their web page. Or call Fairfield directly at 207-882-5158 or email mfairfield@ceimaine.org. She is in the Camden office (48 Washington St.) biweekly (usually Thursdays, but it's flexible) and in Belfast bi-weekly.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com.

Every once in awhile we get one of those bad mama jama type of weekends where there are so many fun things happening, you can't actually attend them all. Here is your "fabahlus" (the correct way to pronounce it) weekend rundown of things to do in the Midcoast.

Friday Night Feb. 22

Great Cabin Fever Escape Dance Party

Rockport Opera House, Rockport

The NEMO storm of the century may have canceled the Feb. 9 Great Cabin Fever Escape Dance Party, Pt. II (Release the Funk) featuring Motor Booty Affair, but the Mother Ship has indeed landed this time and the party will go on. Notice to ticket holders, the original location of the Camden Opera House has now been moved to the Rockport Opera House. The show starts at 7 p.m. and goes to 10:30 p.m. Tickets from the postponed Feb. 9 show will be honored and new tickets are now available at Zoot Coffee and HAV II in Camden A portion of proceeds to benefit The Seton School (see our original Pilot story).

Patrons need to be 21+  with positive I.D. Cash bar provided by The ChiChi Chef. As always, outrageous disco attire is heartily encouraged.

***

Sistalicious Dance Party

Nautilus Seafood And Grille, Belfast

Two sisters, one band. One crazy, fun, dance party. Sisters Lee and Joanne Parent headine the band and play everything from Christina Aguilera to Aretha Franklin, from B52s to Earth Wind and Fire! They do R&B, Funk, Disco, Rock and Roll... and jazz too! Show starts at 8:30 p.m. and goes to 12:30 p.m.

**

Saturday Night, Feb 23

Hot Havana Night with Hot Pink Flannel

FOG Bar and Cafe, Rockland

**

Billy's Tavern Whiskey Tasting

Their Fifth Annual Single Malt Whiskey Tasting may be sold out this Saturday, but that doesn't mean there's no more wiggle room to get in This highly anticipated evening is an all-inclusive dinner and dessert, whiskey tasting, port, cigars and music for $100 per person. Jacket Required. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for warm-up drinking. Bagpipers commence at 7 p.m. And the first glass is poured after everyone has arrived, usually around 7:30 p.m. They promise "exceptional single malt whiskies from premier distilleries with sampling from the four major Scotch producing regions—Highland, Lowland, Speyside And Islay.  We take whisky very seriously," said owner Chris Burke, who said the event sold out in four weeks. Asked if they were truly sold out, Burke said call him on his cell phone (207-593-2988) if your weekend will truly be ruined if you don't go to this. They might be able to squeeze a few more people in. And if the ticket price is too much for your budget, "Come on down another time and we'll give you a nice introduction to some fine whiskies," he said. FMI: Billy's Tavern

**

Three Tides and Marshall Wharf party with DJ Southpaw

2 Pinchy Lane, Marshall Wharf, Belfast

You knew that Three Tides is now open year-round, right? As such, they've been making a special effort this winter to bring in music, dance and DJs. Join them and  DJ Southpaw, a.k.a Mark Kelly, who is a serious afficianado of the ska, rocksteady and reggae genres. "Mark Kelly is a great friend and all around awesome
guy," said David Carlson, co-owner of Three Tides, who noted that the subtitle of the event "Mark Kelly is a jerk" is actually an inside joke.  "Mark has it dialed in and spins great music. He is in his mid 40s so has the 80s stuff, the classic alternative and dance 80s stuff down pat too." The show starts at 10 p.m. There is no cover, but patrons need to be 21 or over with positive I.D.

Sunday Night, Feb 24

Oscar Party 2013 at the Strand

The Strand Theatre, Rockland

For the seventh consecutive year, the Strand Theatre invites you to walk the red carpet and mingle with Rockland’s Elite for Hollywood's biggest award sow, presented live on the big screen in HD.  Don’t miss your chance to throw off the winter flannels and dress to impress, walk their own red carpet, and maybe take home some prizes yourself!

Kay Stephens will definitely be attending some of these and can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Our reviewers have some of the best suggestions on what to read, what to see and and what to hear each month. Let Lacy Simons, of hello hello books,  Jim Dandy and Tiffany Howard, of Opera House Video, and Nathaniel Bernier, of Wild Rufus Consignments, fill you in on this month's killer book, movie and music reviews.

Books

Black Swan Green
 
This month, I'm revisiting one of my favorite novels, David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. Simple summary from the cover: the book tracks a single year in what is, for 13-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. My summary would go on for three or four or nine pages, so I'm going to keep it simple and repeat one of my favorites of Jason's thoughts: "The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making. But who says the world has to make sense?" This is no average coming-of-age novel; it is a masterwork of reflection on the ever-shifting human interior world.

Lacy Simons is the owner and operator of hello hello books, which opened in August 2011 adjacent to Rock City Cafe, in Rockland. She is a reader, a maker, and a collector of fine-point pens and terrible jokes. To find more picks and reads: facebook.com/hellohellobooks Twitter: @hellohellobooks.

Movies

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Tiffany Howard

Sometimes a movie is so touching — almost magically so — that to analyze or deconstruct it feels somewhat criminal.  Perhaps The Perks of Being a Wallflower is not so different from any other coming-of-age story, and my affection for it is simply due to my weakness for and ever-fresh memories of the heartbreak, struggle and growth of adolescence.  If I had previously read the popular book this film is based on, I might not have been surprised by the story's successfully delicate balance of humor, nostalgia, and emotional honesty.  This expert weaving of elements is only enhanced by those cinematic qualities a book cannot have: a carefully chosen soundtrack, unassumingly lovely lighting and photography, and evocative performances by an exemplary cast.     

An earnest Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson & the Olympians) plays the meekly strong protagonist, Charlie, a lonely freshman battling challenging inner demons while trying to survive the social minefield of high school.  He finds kindred spirits in the step sibling team of Patrick and Sam, played by a loveable Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and a luminous post-Harry Potter Emma Watson, as well as in a supportive English teacher and informal mentor Mr. Anderson, played by Paul Rudd (This Is 40).  To say too much about this beautiful little jewel of a movie would be to do it an injustice and cheat you out of your own experience of its pleasures.  I will say that if you’ve ever been lucky enough to find love, loyalty and friendship among your own island of misfit toys, there is something here that will surely resonate, leaving echoes in your heart for days and weeks to come.  

Tiffany Howard and Jim Dandy co-own Opera House Video, an independent video rental store in downtown Belfast featuring an extensive collection of new releases, foreign films, documentaries, classics and television series. Each takes turns writing the movie review. Find them on Facebook at Opera House Video.


Music

Lumineers-self titled

by Nathaniel Bernier

I got my first taste of these guys as my children flipped through the "pop music" channels and I was instantly mesmerized by the way they sounded.  It wasn't until months later I decided to purchase the whole album and am very glad I did. The minimal packaging and lower price suggested I was going to receive something bare-boned--actual music, not over-produced pop crap.  I love it when I gamble on an album and it deals me a 21.  Bam!

Second track in "Classy Girls" is a lilting, listing, lifting piano-infused building track- a jumping party filled with fun lyrics.  The song "Dead Sea" is another great tune which  represents the great melting-pot mixture of genres well, including alt-country (I hear some Ryan Bingham in here), folk-rock (definitely some Bob Dylan happening) and even a hint of Steve Earle.  It's done with a sometimes gravelly voice, yet thrillingly harmonious.

Their wildly popular "Ho Hey" comes in at track five and will definitely have you singing along to this wonderfully crafted tune.  Plinking banjo, strumming guitar, humming cello and a hand-clap beat will surely put a smile on your face.  "Stubborn Love" with its violin provides pleasant sounds sliding through my speakers while a driving drum beat churns up the air. It really got my feet stomping, making me think of what might happen in a pub in Dublin.  I am definitely very well pleased with this album, a true collection of Americana and a boastful production of many instruments, pure enjoyment.  Wonderful!

Nathaniel "Natty B" Bernier, owner of Wild Rufus Records previously retail and now online, has immersed himself in music for 35 years, hosting several radio shows, deejaying at clubs and parties, writing music reviews and interviewing artists.  He lives on the coast of Maine and continues to live through music.   Find him at www.wildrufus.com or wildrufus.blogspot.com/

This nugget of Pilot distractions is brought to you by the website, Know Your Meme, which is dedicated to documenting Internet phenomena, viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, web celebs and more.

“You Had One Job” is an expression used to call attention to perceived blunders made by individuals on the job. Take a look at the gallery photos to understand why someone would shout in frustration, "You had one job. One!"

Feel free to email us any photos that can be added to this gallery at news@penbaypilot.com with "Send to Kay" in the subject line. (Hint: Dollar stores in the Midcoast and Job Lots in Belfast is are great place to search for discount products that have been oddly packaged and fit this category.)