Editor’s note: The following excerpt was taken from a new blog available at www.keepmecurrent.com, where South Portland reporter Linda Hersey is posting news, insights and anecdotes that don’t appear in the stories she writes each week for The Current. Hersey will cover a South Portland candidates forum in her blog live Tuesday night.

(Posted Monday, Oct. 8)

Terra Cotta Pasta Co., known for its fresh and creative gourmet pastas and sauces, is about to open a retail shop on Cottage Road in South Portland. Owner Kevin Cambridge, a former chef and Culinary Institute of America graduate, offers such tantalizing pastas as sweet potato-squash ravioli and ginger-spiced garlic linguine at shops he runs in Kittery and Dover, N.H.

The South Portland store – located at the former Lobster Station near the Cape Elizabeth border – will carry the same line of hand-prepared pastas, sauces filled with fresh vegetables and homemade flat breads. The Kittery and Dover stores are strictly for buying take-home prepared foods. The freshly prepared pastas and sauces cost a little more than the boxed brands you find at stores, but are restaurant quality.

They not only draw locals but are a tourist attraction. The shops have been written up in guides and major newspapers. Look for the Cottage Road retail shop to carry such Terra Cotta favorites as peppercorn linguine, lobster ravioli and black bean and cheddar ravioli. Terra Cotta stores also sell cold pasta salads, fruit cups and stuffed breads, similar to calzones, filled with mushrooms and spinach or chicken and broccoli.

The finishing touches are being put on the new wood-shingled South Portland shop, which will open soon. People driving by already can spot the new green awning, with the Terra Cotta Pasta Co. name on it.

Terra Cotta in South Portland joins a growing line of food establishments that rival places found in the Old Port. They include Scratch bakery in Willard Square; 388, a Cottage Road bistro; and Fresh! on Ocean Street, which offers eat-in and to-go soups and salads prepared from locally grown produce.

(For a picture of owner Kevin Cambridge and posted comments, go to Linda Hersey’s blog at www.keepmecurrent.com.)