Maine Foodie Tours Review

     One of our absolute favorite activities is to take a walking tour of the area we are visiting. And if the walking tour includes, history, food and alcohol we are in TOTAL heaven. For our trip to Portland we booked a foodie tour of the old port area. Staring at 10:30 am at the Old Port Wine Shop (what a PERFECT starting point for us two), This a great little wine shop with some very eclectic wine. You should definitely make a stop if your in the area.

      Our first official stop was Vervacious, right next door, http://www.vervacious.com/. This is a great gourmet shop of flavored salts and vinegars. We had a really nice sampling including Anise salt sprinkled on apples YUM and chocolate balsamic vinegar and a nice mead wine. Some pics of Vervacious and the walk to our next stop.

      From there we walked to a great little mixed use market with several different vendors sharing the rent on one building (pizza, sandwiches, beer store, cupcakes) and our stop was for a selection of great local Maine cheeses. We continued our walk and went next to Stonewall Kitchens, http://www.stonewallkitchen.com/, now a giant food emporium but originally started by two people to sell homemade Blueberry jam. And what else to eat but fresh baked blueberry scones topped with the now world famous jam. Heres a quick pic;

      After another walk, (good thing we were able to walk off some of these goodies), through the historic old port area, we were in a locals only fish store, the Harbor Fish Market, http://www.harborfish.com/about.php. This is the exact kind of store I would visit every week if I live here. Tons of extremely fresh fish, the boats deliver at the back of the store, that FRESH. We tasted some incredible smoked fish made in Maine and we ended up going back later and buying three packs.

      From there it was off for chocolate, YUM!! We stopped a a teeny, tiny little shop called Dean's Sweets, http://deanssweets.com,  making incredible truffles. The ginger/wasabi was to die for. From there, time for some more sweets, over to the Two Fat Cats bakery, http://twofatcatsbakery.com/,  for one incredible whoopie pie. And our final stop, liquid refreshments at the Shipyard Brewery, http://www.shipyard.com/, While I am not a huge fan of Shipyard beers, this was a fun and informative stop. Last set of pics;

      This was an incredible walking tour, one we would highly recommend. I give Maine Foodie Tours an A Plus.

Madeleine's Bakery Review

      We have a new bakery in Milton, Madeleine's. Located in the same building as the new Ace Hardware on Route 7. At first glance its hard to get a feel for this bakery, the outside door and storefront are very plain, looking like nothing more than another entrance to Ace. But step inside and be prepared to be amazed. As you step in, you see cases of goodies right in front of you, but what's even more amazing is look past the cases though an open window and see the actual working part of the bakery, and it is HUGE. it stretches back what must be 50-60 feet and filled with all kinds of cool equipment, (I love baking equipment).

      As I mentioned earlier, the first thing you see is two nice cases devoted to "normal" bakery type items. Doughnuts, bearclaws, cookies, croissants and many other items of the same ilk. To the left against the wall is another rack devoted to breads and rolls. This rack was rather sparse on the day I was there but I was assured many more bread items were coming. I did buy a loaf of white sandwich bread and it was good. There was a very good selection of dinner rolls.

      Off to the right hand side were two other cases, these are filled with more elegant desserts. napoleons, cakes, pies, really yummy looking stuff.  I will make one suggestion, DO NOT enter here on a hungry stomach. In the interest of a proper review, I felt I needed to test a number of products. HA, if you believe that I have some swamp land to sell you. Anyways here is what I ended up going home with;

      Let's go over the goodies one at a time. First plate, (starting at the top and in a clockwise rotation), cinnamon roll, nice and sweet, great cinnamon flavor, strawberries and cream croissant, point for using whole strawberries, point off for not enough cream cheese, maple walnut scone, only clunker of the bunch, dry with not alot of maple flavor in the scone, frosting was good, and finally bearclaw, great flavor but a little on the small side, must of been a baby bear.

      Second plate, cookies were both very good, chocolate chip and ginger. Donuts we ate the next day so they were a bit dry, but great flavors on the frosting, not cloyingly sweet. and finally the bread, not extraordinary but then again nothing bad. just a good old white bread. All in all a great addition to our little town.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing

 Price,                And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4      Really good , fresh made goodies. Scones are dry.
Beer and Wine,    no   Its a bakery people, though I did just read about a dessert and wine bar (next business idea).
Service,                 4.5    Excellent, I was waited on right away and the person was very helpful.

Ambiance,             no    Strictly take out, no tables inside.
Price,                     3.5  A bit pricey but excellent selection and overall everything tasted great.

Overall                  4.0  This is great addition to Milton. now if we could only get a DECENT restaurant we would be in heaven !!.  

Cooking 101; Duck a L'Orange (sort of)

      First of all, sorry about the delay between posts. Summer has interfered with my writing. I seem to have scheduled WAY too many things to do in a short period of time. Surprise birthday party for wife's brother. Family reunion on her side of the family (post to come from that ). Vacation to Wisconsin, (LOTS of post from that one) and finally a major home remodeling, windows and vinyl siding ( maybe a post if it all goes well). Whew no wonder I am exhausted (NO nothing to do with age).
      Rest assured in the weeks to come you will have MORE posts than you care to read, (OK maybe one post is more but whatever). First up another product review. I know the title says Cooking 101 but really this is pre-cooked food so how hard can it be. When all is said and done, not hard at all. Let start with the ingredients for a delicious supper, one pre-cooked Maple Leaf duck in two halves, sold at your local Costco store (maybe, the one big complaint with Costco is one week it's here the next it's gone). One salad, your choice of ingredients, we had romaine and arugula with a poppyseed dressing , some grilled bread, again your choice , I love store bought naan on the grill and for dessert, scones in a box, surprisingly good if you dress them up a bit (more on that later).
     Ingredients lined up for cooking;

      First make the scones according to directions on box, I buy the King Aurthur brand ( good old Vermont company) and to the lemon and ginger scones I added some finely chopped candy ginger. Pop them in the oven and turn your thoughts to the duck, don't think long and hard about the sauce for the ducks like I did, there is actually a good orange sauce right in the package DUH !! Could of saved me some time. I suggest cooking the ducks on the grill, cuz even though they are pre-cooked there is still some fat (keeps them moist) and you WILL smoke up the kitchen. Since the ducks are pre-cooked, all you are doing is warming them up and putting some nice grill marks on them. Cooking time is 5-10 minutes per side. Throw some naan on the grill, make yourself a nice salad. We did romaine and arugula, the pepperyness (another new word) of the arugula balanced the sweetness of the sauce nicely. Take the scones out and make a quick glaze, (mix together confectioners sugar and milk to the right consistency to frost scones. I added some lemon juice to compliment the flavors in the scone) and sprinkle over the top of the scones and VOILA;

      Quick, easy and delicious. Try it for your next supper. OH and a perfect meal for either a powerful white like a crisp Chardonnay or a subtle red , California Pinot Noir comes to mind.