The word is from the Dutch koolsla (kool means cabbage, sla is salad). This side dish, which has been known in this country for a couple of centuries, is really indispensible to summer cooking. In New England, coleslaw is most often of the creamy variety, and it’s one of the ways to take the measure […]

If you’ve ordered a salad at the Cockeyed Gull on Peaks Island this summer, there’s a good chance you’ve eaten lettuce grown at the Island Micro Farm. Located on the back side of Peaks Island down a winding gravel road, the farm is a new enterprise created by resident Mark Shain. But unlike traditional farms […]

Stephanie Hedlund scoured the Portland Farmers Market in Monument Square on Wednesday, looking for just the right vegetables to put in a tamale casserole she was thinking about making for her clients.

No doubt some of the local vegetables she found will also go into her bestselling vegetable lasagna. On another day, Hedlund might pick up some steaks from grass-fed cows raised at Harvest Hill Farm in Mechanic Falls, or stop by Green Spark Farm in Cape Elizabeth.

“I’ve been obsessed with this vegetable they grow called tat soi,” Hedlund said. “It’s a green sort of similar to spinach, but it has a little bit more of a bitter taste. I’m using it in everything I can think of. I made a quiche out of it. You can put it into any kind of Asian dish.”

This time of year in Maine you can throw a rock just about anywhere and hit some kind of seafood shack. If you’d like to re-create the ambience of a seafood shack at home – or in February, when you’re dying for a dose of summer sunshine – pick up a copy of “The Summer […]