Stories and recipes from my Portland kitchen
I’ve created this blog to bring under one roof my food writing that has been published online and in print and new stories and recipes as I create them.A bit about me: After several decades working as a writer and filmmaker in New York City, I decided, with my new-ish husband Wayne, to move to Portland, Maine.
Here there are no garbage trucks whining outside our window at 4 am. I enjoy freedom from I may have imagined from neighbors and doormen when walking my dog first thing in the morning. Our house, a historic New Englander that’s a longer-than-(our)-lifetime restoration project, is just a few blocks from beautiful Casco Bay.
I miss my City friends, but I don’t miss the stressful pace of living the City. I miss the Met Opera being only a subway ride away, but I don’t miss the subway itself. I miss easy soup dumplings and roast duck lunches in Chinatown. But restaurant for restaurant and resource for resource, any fears of “I’ll-never-find-it-in-Portland” were unfounded.
We have a few excellent Asian markets, one acceptable Indian market, and a couple of world-class fish markets that offer a mind-boggling and ever-changing array of super-fresh, sustainably sourced fish and shellfish—local, close to local, and flown in from the West Coast, South America and Europe.
Inspired by travel, reading, relationships, observation, and years of experimentation in the kitchen, I’m most attracted to food that people around the world put on their tables at home: the dishes they prepare and eat with friends and family. None of cooking I write about special tools, sophisticated techniques, or make-it-or-break-it presentation. For the most part, even if guests arrive a half hour or hour late, nothing will suffer (except maybe your nerves).
If you have thoughts or suggestions, please let me know.
Carolyn
