Transcription of Eat Maine # 129
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast. Show number 129, “Eat Maine” airing for the first time on Sunday, March 2, 2014. Today’s guests include Harding Lee Smith, executive chef and owner of The Rooms and Boone’s Fish House and Oyster Room, and Joe Ricchio, food editor with Maine Magazine. Maine is a food lover’s paradise. We know how to grow our good, how to prepare it and how to savor it. It is a joy to live in a place where such a fundamental aspect of life is cherished.
Today’s guest understand why nourishing ourselves is so important. Chef Harding Lee Smith and Maine Magazine food editor, Joe Ricchio have made it their life’s work to bring food to the forefront. We hope you enjoy our conversations and are inspired to eat Maine. Thank you for joining us.
There are people who dedicate their lives to food and have some success in doing that. There are several of these people here in Portland, one of whom is Harding Lee Smith who is the owner and chef proprietor of the Rooms and now also Boone’s Oyster Room which I guess is your latest room, the fourth room. Clearly the ability to say four rooms says a lot.
Harding: The fourth room is a house we like to say.
Dr. Lisa: The fourth room is a house, right. Thanks for coming and joining us today.
Harding: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa: We’re talking today about food because Maine Magazine every year does a food issue and it does on “Eat Maine.” In fact, food is a very big part of what Maine Magazine has to offer its readers. You already knew that though. You already knew that Mainers like food and you’ve known it for a long time because you are from Maine and you’ve been doing food in Maine for many years.
Harding: I have been. It’s a lot different now though. They really love it now. Before it was about sustenance and making sure you’re using what was around you. We tap trees when I was kid and made maple syrup. We’d burn it now and again but it was always using that natural resource that was around you. I think a lot of it comes from frugality. I think that we didn’t have a lot of money and my parents were educators and so you try to make the best of what you could. If you had a chicken, you were going to roast it then make a stock out of it, make soup with it. You’re going to do everything you could do. I think that goes to Italian food a little bit. They are very frugal. A lot of their recipes and things come about from using everything you can use, using the whole animal kind of thing.
Dr. Lisa: You grew up in West Bath.
Harding: West Bath, around the water, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Your parents still have their house?
Harding: Yeah. My mom and stepdad have the house. They renovated it a few years ago. It was a little 900 square-foot sort of shelter institute style-house. It’s been renovated to about 3,000 square-foot beautiful home on the water. Yeah, very happy, my mom’s kept it over the years.
Dr. Lisa: What is it then like for you to have grown up in Maine and you went away for a little while to get your education and then you came back again. What are the contrasts? What are the things that you’ve noticed?
Harding: I think if you grew up here, you have to leave in order to know how great Maine is. I left when I was 18. I came back of course, for vacation. I just didn’t abandon my family all together but I went out to California. I went to Boston University first so I learned a lot about the big city there. Then moved to California to San Francisco, then went to Italy and Europe for a while, and then to Hawaii. Then you get to that point, you’re gone 18 years or so and you realize that Maine’s not so bad. Maine’s really actually a great place.
I came back to visit for an extended period and decided to it was time to move back. It was really a lot had to do with the Red Sox too by the way. I’ll just mention that. They don’t have professional baseball in Hawaii but you realize it’s insular and small but it’s also its people are so close to the city, so close to Boston that there’s that big city feel to it without having all the chaos that goes along with it. I think because we’re getting to that traffic thing a little bit that we didn’t used to have. The food scene itself that everything happens five years later in Maine they say.
We’re getting that five years ago, the thing that happened in New York and Boston. We’re getting it here now. It’s just fantastic. I mean the restaurants and chefs it’s remarkable compared to when I was growing up here. They were at the Village Café. There were at the Di Millo’s. There was not very much. There was F Parker Reidy’s which is a great place. All these are great places, iconic but they weren’t the kind of restaurants we have today. They weren’t the foodie restaurants or they weren’t the big named chefs or just people who are dedicated to the craft like you were saying before. They were just live and breathe restaurants and food, and the lifestyle that goes along with that.
Dr. Lisa: As you’re saying all these names it’s causing me to have flashbacks to my own youth. I grew up also in Maine right here in Yarmouth. I think that a fancy restaurant visit for us was the Roma. We used to go there on Congress Street. I think it’s closed several years ago but that was the experience. That was sort of the hallmark but what we would consider the upper end food these days, it doesn’t necessarily have to be fancy surroundings. In fact the focus really is more around the food.
Harding: Everything now seems to be good. It’s like in New York. I was just there a few weeks ago, a week ago actually. Everything is good. Their pizza place in the corner is good because there’s so much you have to be. They demand it. I think that’s what’s happened here. It’s the same thing. Some good restaurants came, people expected they raise the bar so to speak and people expected them to be like that. The ones that didn’t raise the bar themselves or come up to that bar, they fell away and other ones replaced them that are maintaining that quality.
You don’t have to have the beautiful fancy surroundings with the right fork at the right time, and all that sort of thing. You want to have a nice warm surroundings certainly and something that’s been cared for but it really is about the food. It really is. To Maine restaurants, you don’t see places that don’t survive or places that seem like they’re hotel restaurants or that have that sort of odd look. They have to be Maine. You look at what Hugo’s did with their renovation, that’s a Maine restaurant. Brick and everything made right there. They sourced the wood from the bottom of the lake and all that. It’s just beautiful the way that is.
Dr. Lisa: It isn’t that there aren’t beautiful settings. I mean if you go to Fore Street. It’s beautiful in its own way.
Harding: Gorgeous. Love it.
Dr. Lisa: It’s just not the classical like white tablecloth formal setting although we do have those in Maine as well.
Harding: We have a few. We have the White Barn Inn down there. I’m having a hard time thinking one off the top of my head. Arrows was one. Arrows is now closed. Primo has a white tablecloth but their food is very much farm to table kind of rustic kind of food. I can’t think of any of that, a really fancy. We were just down in Boston. Excuse me, in New York and we went to super high end. Marea and I can’t think of the other one, DB Bistro. That’s ultra white tablecloth, cramming the table and everything so different than it is here. Maybe in five years, that’ll come here too. Who knows?
Dr. Lisa: May be, I think the nice thing about Maine and the restaurants here in Maine is that there is something for every person. In fact, this is kind of the thing that I’ve noticed about the Rooms, the Front Room, the Grill Room, the Corner Room and the now Boone’s is that there’s something for everyone. They’re all slightly different in their own unique way.
Harding: We try to fill a niche like when I opened the front room, it wasn’t about, “I want to open a comfort food spot necessarily or I want to open a steakhouse.” That was the space available. We thought it was a great space. It was in the neighborhood and I live around the corner. I walk by it all the time. That’s what spoke to me from that space was a comfort food neighborhood spot where you can grab a pint, have a pork chop and know it’s going to be good and not break the bank.
As opposed to saying, “Well, I want to watch a game. Where am I going to eat wings at in so and so.” Which is all great too but at that time in Portland, there wasn’t that comfort food neighborhood kind of spot. They really fit that niche. I think that’s the thing of it is I tried it fill with a steakhouse too. At that time, there was no steakhouse in Portland. To speak of, there might have been a place that served meat and so forth but we needed that urban kind of feel where a traditional side and nice cuts of stake but cared well and naturally raise beef was very important to us.
Cooking over the wood fire was huge. It was really important what each space says it is. I think the Corner Room with the windows, it just says have some nosh, have a glass of wine, have a craft of wine and some salami, and some cheese. If you want to go deeper and do it, have some pasta, sure but it’s that kind of place near the theatre. Go grab a quick bite, great for lunch. That’s kind of what we try to do.
Dr. Lisa: Boone’s was an institution for many, many years so you’re doing something even slightly different with Boone’s than from the other restaurants that you opened.
Harding: Definitely, much different than the other ones that we opened. Once again, it spoke to what was there. Did I bend knee around some different ideas of what I could call it, what I could there? Sure but first of all the sign was still there. You could still use the sign. You couldn’t put that kind of sign up ever again, that kind of neon, beautiful arrow pointing to the water kind of sign. It became available through much negotiations and much hemming and hawing. Because knowing that the great expense was going to be to renovate it because it really fallen on hard times.
I guess in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it sort of went way downhill. The iconic place since 1898 for years and years but it definitely had a sinking shall I say. We knew we were going to have to take it board by board and put it back together again. We took that opportunity to do much differently than it was, much differently than we had before but trying to get that feel of its old, we’ve used all the old timbers there. The 120, 130 year old timbers are still there. We replaced the hardwood with what we thought would’ve been there back in the day.
We recovered the hardwood in the second floor of the old Douglas Fir so that’s all original. We try to make it also kind of like a boat like its different parts of it, different levels. It’s all trimmed with wood as if you’re on some beautiful liner or old vessel with the teak lined everything. It really worked that well I think. Plus we took advantage of the decks. That was the big thing being done there.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. I was actually on the deck at Boone’s, very early on when it first re-opened. You’re right on the water and in fact, we saw some people we knew. It felt very comfortable. It felt very familiar and at the same time, new menu, very interesting.
Harding: I apologize now for any mistakes we might have made. It was definitely a crazy time for us. We were very, very, very busy right out of the gate. I mean so busy you would never would’ve expected how busy we were been, 800-900 covers a day kind of thing whereas the Grill Room on the really busy will be 250, the Front Room with the 200 on a really busy day. We were quadrupling what we were used to doing.
Since it’s calmed down, we’ve able to really write the ship. I think we’re doing a very good job down there and trying to do some of that nostalgia food where we have some classics like seafood Newburg and finnan haddie. Old main things like that that you don’t see any more or if you do, they are just gluey, gross, flavorless, frozen seafood things. We’re trying to really do the right thing and making it into something that is an iconic restaurant again, kind of a restaurant that if you have friends that come to Maine or you come to Maine on vacation or Portland per se and you’ve missed it. You miss something. You didn’t go. You missed something because it’s really that man experience.
Dr. Lisa: You also have a raw bar.
Harding: We do.
Dr. Lisa: Which is there aren’t that many of those in Portland at this point.
Harding: There’s only three really. I mean there’s J’s which is an institution in some right. There’s even Thai which is becoming an institution in its own right, fabulous place fantastic place. Then there’s us. I think that’s really pretty much it that does full on mini varieties of oysters. We have 10 to 12 varieties of oysters, several different raw things as well on the menu. Some other real interesting things as well there but the second floor of the restaurant is that oyster bar.
We’ve discovered so many varieties from Maine itself. I mean for us we’d get some in from outer state like Alaska or Washington state or even New Brunswick just so we can have fun and taste the different ones. We try really hard to have them all from Maine. We have 12-13 varieties that are from Maine.
Dr. Lisa: That is pretty neat. Oysters, they are such a delicacy and at the same time, it’s nice to know that they’re local. Maine’s producing this very high quality food. It used to be lobsters and still is to some extent but I think to know that this treasure that we have access to.
Harding: I think it’s kind of sort of like an old cottage industry. I have some people that come in, sit at the dining bar sometimes and talk to me about the fact their daughter just started an oyster farm two or three years ago. Would you like to try some? Absolutely, I’d like to try some. It’s difficult to do but it’s I think that some of the people that they can do without and live a kind of cool lifestyle. They can have their oyster bed without and you don’t necessarily go to work. They can sit there on their own sort of be by themselves. It’s only at certain times when you have to really work hard and get them.
It was interesting. I found out, I didn’t know this before, is that all the oysters are the same around the world except for the wild ones from the European variety. The rest are American oyster. They change by where they’re being grown or being harvested. Like the ones from Basket Island right outside of Falmouth here are different tasting than the ones from Boothbay Harbor. It’s really the same variety of oyster. They all start with the same seed. It’s very interesting. I didn’t realize that.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah, I hadn’t realize that either.
Harding: It changes. Our coast is so broken up and the rocky trailing edge coast. Some even go way up into a river in the Saco River in the brackish water and have a completely different real creamy style oysters as opposed to the cold waters of Boothbay Harbor where it’s coming in right off the ocean as being really crisp and clean. It’s interesting.
Dr. Lisa: It’s kind of similar to your restaurants and you’ve placed them in very distinct places which are kind of picking the flavors of their neighborhoods. Really also it reminded me, The Front Room is up on Munjoy Hill. Munjoy Hill, I was a resident there back a few years. It wasn’t always the nicest place to live and there are definitely still some pockets that are challenging. There’s been a revival of that when I was growing up in Yarmouth. The old port was troublesome for a while. There was a lot of crime, a lot of bar fighting that’s experienced a renaissance. Now, you’re on the waterfront. The waterfront is the same thing that some point, something has shifted and something is new again.
Harding: There’s a huge renaissance down there. A lot of new high end furniture stores. There’s Edgar Allan, I think it’s Edgar Allan.
Dr. Lisa: Is it Ethan Allen?
Harding: Ethan Allen, that’s the one. That’s the writer guy. Ethan Allan has opened right across from the commercial street pub. It’s a very peculiar how this renaissance is going on with the old port and the commercial street. Right across from me, from Boone’s, that whole Wharf that kind of dilapidated Three Sons Lobster. They had to leave a short time ago or about a year and a half ago has been purchased and being completely renovated. They replaced all the piles underneath. They’re tearing the building down, putting up beautiful buildings. There’s going to be more restaurants down there. It’s coming in again. It’s really, really fun.
Dr. Lisa: Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast, we’ve long recognized the length between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: As I consider the topic of today’s show, Eat Maine, I thought not about food and restaurants but more about what feeds me? What is it in my life that really nourishes my entire day? It wasn’t hard to find the answer because it’s my work. Helping clients realize that money is a living thing, they have a relationship with. That like all relationships is complex and has its ups and downs. This brings me great joy because each time a client sees the bigger picture and has that aha moment, I know that what I’ve helped them understand lets them live a more fully connected life. Living a good life is truly food for the soul. Be in touch if you want to know more, [email protected]. You can evolve with your money.
Speaker 1: Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepard Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is brought to you by Dream Kitchen Studio by Matthew Brothers. Whether your style is contemporary, traditional or eclectic, their team of talented designers are available to assists you in designing the kitchen or bath of your dreams. For more information, visit www.dreamkitchenstudio.com.
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Dr. Lisa: In each of these situations, you’ve had to maintain a vision to convince people to support something that wasn’t previously in existence. I can imagine that that would create friction at times to be the first person that sees what something could be.
Harding: You have to stick to your guns. That’s something that I tell all the managers, my wife, my bookkeeper, everybody. You have to stick to your concept. Don’t try to get out of it. Yes, you want to give you what they want but you also have to be true to your concept. Like at the Front Room, after a year and a half of doing comfort food and short ribs and so forth that I maybe tried to start to stray a little bit towards doing a little bit higher and fancier plating stuff. Just for my own growth and so forth.
I did but then I kicked myself and stopped myself from doing it. It’s a comfort food place, the neighborhood spot. I used to yell across the dining room for somebody coming through the door. Hello, how are you? So and so because the plumber and the mayor could be sitting right next to each other. The plumber and Eliot Cutler could be sitting next to each other. It’s really is very interesting thing but you have to stick to that thing.
Same thing at the Grill Room, it’s a steakhouse. It’s a dark restaurant. It’s bricky. It’s about smoke and blues play for music and that sort of thing. It’s a martini kind of bar. Don’t try to be something cutesy and so forth. We’re not that. I’ve worked for many, many different restaurants over the course of my career and the ones that do well seem to me that stick to their guns. You can’t have an identity crisis or not know who you are or what you are, same thing with the Corner Room
That was the thing. It’s an Italian place. Did we think maybe we need to Americanize a little bit and put American Chardonnay on it instead of an Italian Chardonnay? Yeah, that crossed my mind more than once, more than ten times but we stuck to our guns. It’s been very successful. It gains that after the course, you can’t be in a hurry I think to be super successful. You’re always going to be really busy right out of the gate, always.
Then you’re going to have quite a lull where it just evens out into your regular business or low business or something. If you stick to your guns and you let people appreciate it and the word of mouth really starts, they either come back or they stay or business continues to grow. Just naturally, organically I guess you could say. Them a lot of it has to do with social media and stuff that you can do keep your message out there and so forth. Sticking to your guns is hugely important same thing with Boone’s.
We’re a fish house down the stairs. We’re not a steakhouse. We have meat options obviously. We have wonderful pepper steak and some other things on the menu for the non-fish person and some vegetarian things as well. We know we’re about the finest fish we can get. We get it from right across the street or right down the road or literally right off the lobster boat. He comes in and brings his lobster traps right up there and carries them into the restaurant and drops them down. I mean that lobster was sitting in the bottom of the ocean four hours before.
That really does make a difference by the way in how they taste. The ones in the Hannaford case are, the supermarket case I should say are not the best ones in the world. When it starts to slow down and you’re over that original blotch period when you’re so busy. You always think, “Okay, how can I do this better? What do I have to need to do? How do I need to tweak it or whatever?” You need to stick to that recipe for it. You think of a cocktail bar say like downstairs here, like the Hunt & Alpine Club. Great place.
Would they be smart by bringing Budweiser and putting draft beer of the nuts with good beers so they could tourists in the summer time? No, they wouldn’t. It would ruin everything that they’re trying to do. I applaud people that continue to do that. You have to stick to your guns. It can be tied on the pocketbooks sometimes to do that because you know that if you just ran the special or you ran some Miller Lite special and you got a bunch of 22-year-olds to come into the restaurant, sure you’d be busy for a few hours but it’s not worth it. It takes everything, everybody out of the game. I think it’s really important to do that.
Dr. Lisa: I also want to make sure that I thank you really for providing food. You’ve talked about the fact that you have a steak room and you have comfort food, you have Italian food but as an individual who eats mostly vegetables and no red meat and no chicken, and sometimes fish. It is very important for me to be able to go to a restaurant with other people that do eat those things and have food available for me to eat. I’ve always been able to find things at the Front Room and at the Grill Room. I haven’t spent as much time on Boone’s but I suspect that’s equally the case.
Harding: Probably I have more there than any place.
Dr. Lisa: Well, it means a lot. I mean I’ve never wanted to be the special person who asks for the special things. I just want to be a person asking for predominantly plant-based menus, and having it be tasty. You actually do provide that at your restaurants. I mean it means a lot.
Harding: You don’t want to be stuck ordering the green salad every time.
Dr. Lisa: Right. Yeah, no that’s very true although I will say one of my staples at lunch when I’m doing the radio show is going across the street to Grill Room and you guys have a couple of great salads that I rotate back and forth. I think that this is what always to me shows the mark of a good restaurant is a restaurant that can provide, can take whatever the food is whether its vegetables or whether its oysters, and make them tastes great without kind of gilding the lily.
Harding: Yeah. It’s been always been important for us. I mean obviously, clearly, I mean this is radio so you can tell exactly but I don’t eat just vegetables myself. I enjoy all manner of food but I’ve lived with, dated, know friends who have their spouses are and been very good friends with some. People, that’s not what they enjoy. Not necessarily because it’s morally wrong or something like that but because it doesn’t make them feel well.
At the Front Room, when we first opened being on Munjoy Hill particularly and knowing the kind of population that lives there, it’s very important for us to have vegetarian options or light options. The soup there has always been vegetarian since day one, since the absolute day one. We’ve always had a vegetarian entrée of some sorts, sometimes two and sometimes three. Making part of their menu and staying on the menu even though they’re not meat-based. I mean the vegetarian pot pie that was on the menu for two and half years.
We just took it up because we were basically tired of making it but it was still very popular. I think at the Grill Room, it’s always an interesting thing when because we do have the bull hanging over the door. It is mostly about steak but we do have some very light dishes on there as well and we have the salads. I think you’re probably talking about the Grill Room salad which is full of crunchy vegetables. It’s pretty healthy.
You get it light. You get it without the blue cheese and it’s very light. The Corner Room and tops the just the inherency of Italian food is a lot of things are vegetable based. That’s probably where we do the most business with some of the local farmers. I’m still in sight for a farm particularly. We had our own farm for a little bit. We’re always providing a lot of our vegetables and eggs for our pasta and so forth. You eat what’s in season in Italy because it’s just what there is.
It’s just coming from ancient culture and there wasn’t airplanes and so forth to bring you things that weren’t in season. That sort of became part of this, the way we did things there even knowing that we had done it in the past and it’s important to do. This just evolved into being really big part of the menu. I think a lot of it had to do with our chef de cuisine, Sean Doherty, the original chef de cuisine there. His girlfriend, not vegetarian per se, but she won’t anything she won’t kill. That limits her to a lot of things because she’s not a giant woman.
We sort of learned to do that and to make things that way. You and I were talking before about gluten-free and how that’s a movement, I guess you could say. This is not going away. The gluten-free thing is becoming very clear to me and I think a lot of chefs that it’s not necessary, just a thing we used to joke about. Absolutely did, we used to laugh when we get the gluten-free comments three and four years ago. “Oh, boy, here they go again. Here they go again. What can we make this gluten-free?”
You realize that it’s actually a thing having known several people, some very close to me who found that not eating gluten or not eating it in great quantities makes them feel much better, makes them digest better. Makes them have more energy, makes them not be tired, and makes them digest better so they can then enjoy their life freely instead of living in sort of fear. We’ve crafted our menu with Bryan Dame, the original chef there to a lot of it to be gluten-free. To have our fried food strangely enough is not necessarily always the most healthy thing.
If it’s done right, it shouldn’t be unhealthy actually. It should be very ungreasy and crispy and delicious if you fry it properly but it’s all gluten-free. It’s all based off of that. Our oyster menu, we have a separate kitchen upstairs. We produce a lot of vegetarian things up there and just naturally because that’s just what we’re doing. We make our own cashew cheese instead of some of the things are vegan.
Most of the soups are vegan or vegetarian. It’s funny because you’re saying how it’s important to you and you’re thankful for that. We didn’t really do it for that. It’s just another part of the food that we do. We didn’t do it because we needed to fit some niche or something like that. It was just something that we just was along the course of cooking I think.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I think maybe that’s what I’m thanking you for is that it didn’t have to be special thing. It was just as important as every other thing. It wasn’t that vegetables were reduced to a sort of lesser place on the plate.
Harding: Yeah. A lot of times, vegetables are the center of the plate and the meat just sort of adorns it. We’ve really done that a lot of times actually.
Dr. Lisa: I think that more and more are realizing that’s probably the way that people will need to eat moving forward in this life, not only for health reasons but also for sort of economic and social reasons.
Harding: Somewhere there’s a cook snickering knowing that I eat bacon every morning but that’s okay.
Dr. Lisa: Everybody does their thing. Everybody’s got their own way of eating.
Harding: I shouldn’t but I do.
Dr. Lisa: Well, Harding, it has been really a pleasure to spend time talking with you today and encourage people to learn more about The Rooms, the Front Room, The Grill Room, and now Boone’s Oyster Room, right on the waterfront. You have website people can go to?
Harding: We have several. Hardingleesmith.com or boonesfishhouse.com or anyone in the restaurants is pretty much their website. You can get there somehow. It’s the frontroom.com, grillroom.com, so forth and so on. You can find it pretty easily.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I can wholeheartedly attest to the fact that your restaurants provide delicious food often very healthy food and I hope that the people who are listening take the time to look into your restaurants and spend some time eating there.
Harding: I hope so too.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Harding Lee Smith who is the owner of the Rooms here in Portland, The Grill Room, the Front Room, the Corner Room and now Boone’s Oyster Room. Thank you for coming in today.
Harding: You’re welcome.
Dr. Lisa: As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from BOOTH Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
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Dr. Lisa: When you think of Portland and food and the Portland food scene, you probably think of Joe Ricchio. I’m not sure if that’s good thing or a bad thing. You’re certainly a personality. We don’t have a lot of food personalities that aren’t specifically chefs here in Portland. I’m really glad that you, Joe Ricchio have come in to talk to us today about the work you’re doing with Maine Magazine and as the now again, food editor with Maine Magazine for our show which is talking about food.
Joe: Yeah. Well, I’m happy to be here. We’ll talk about food all day.
Dr. Lisa: Joe, I knew you always back in part because we both grew up in Yarmouth.
Joe: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: You’re friends with one of my brothers, I think.
Joe: Yeah. We used to play dungeons and dragons together back in the day.
Dr. Lisa: Back in the day.
Joe: It was amazing.
Dr. Lisa: Well, you are doing something that is very unique. I actually don’t know if any other Yarmouth high school graduates currently who are doing the type of work you are doing which is you’re out there in the world, not only are you actively involved in aspects of sort of food delivery service creation but also evaluation critique. Tell us how you came to be so interested in food.
Joe: I think it’s funny because obviously, I mean just by looking at me, you can tell that I’ve always enjoyed eating. I think I really got serious about it I’d say in my mid20s when I really started to branch out and try a lot of kind of unique things and definitely things that I didn’t have any exposure to when I was growing up in Yarmouth for sure. The more I kind of got out, I lived in Chicago for a while in my 20s and I started kind of experimenting with things like caviar and foie gras, and offal and things like that. Then it’s just be kind of a game of obsession on top of that also being in the wine business obviously. Though things go hand in hands. Basically, the end of the day, it started to feel like a great way to combine business and pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: It’s also caused you to need to kind of take on multiple roles at once.
Joe: Yes. Well, idle time gets me in trouble. The busier I am generally, the happier and more productive I am. I figure if I can just have three jobs that all kind of cross-paths and sort of work with one another then that’s great for me. I think that that’s what keeps it interesting really. It’s just the constantly going in different directions.
Dr. Lisa: Then there’s the writing.
Joe: Yes. The writing which I’m actually really excited to be back with Maine Magazine and kind of take that in a more exciting direction I think. I mean we’ve been doing a lot of things in the past and now, I think it’d be fun to just sort of really branch it out and try some new things there. Yeah, I mean the writing has been I guess I’ve had a lot of different faces there where it’s my personal Food Coma and things like that and then with the magazine and I’m starting to kind of branch out on a national level as well which is really nice.
Yeah, once again, I mean I think the most important thing is I do all of these things anyway. I might as well write about them. This is basically I don’t do this because it’s my job, it jus works out well that it is my job.
Dr. Lisa: I have been struck in the past when reading the work that you’ve put out there that it is all very personal to you. It’s as much of a narrative about your life as it is a narrative about food which is different than a lot of standard food critique.
Joe: Yeah. That’s kind of what I was going for. I wanted people to get a feeling for not so much what I’m eating. Well, obviously, what I’m eating but why I’m eating it, why I’m doing this like why I like things or choose to live in a certain way. People tell me sometimes makes them feel exhausted after just reading it which I’m fine with. Yeah, I think that’s I guess why I considered myself different than anybody else because there can only be one you writing about your unique experiences and perspective so I think it’s fun to combine the sort of travel writing and autobiographical element to it to the food writing. I think that keeps interesting for me.
Dr. Lisa: There are a lot of people out there doing blogs these days but not everybody has the quality of writing that I’ve noticed that your blog has or the work that you’ve done for Maine Magazine. Did you have any formal training?
Joe: No, formal training at all. I just kind of basically just started writing as I kind of like I talk I guess you could say. Obviously, as I went you sort of just absorb the more people kind of read your writing or even when working for magazine, you see a writing get edited. You pick up on that and absorb it and eventually it just kind of becomes second nature. You just start thinking that way and by no means do I consider myself an amazing journalist. I’m sure my drafts are filled with grammatic lyricism. I don’t know. That’s fine. I guess that’s why they’re editors right.
Dr. Lisa: I think you might be selling yourself a little short because I’m pretty sure you edit your own blog post.
Joe: I do.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve read many of them and you’ve got some skills.
Joe: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Dr. Lisa: There is a difference between writing for your own blog and writing for a magazine. There is some sort of well, collaboration that needs to take place and sometimes, needing to maybe work within some boundaries.
Joe: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: Boundaries aren’t something that you seem to like as much as the next person.
Joe: Yeah. I don’t love boundaries but at the same time, I think that without boundaries, the further I go, it can get a little out of control. I think that boundaries a good thing for me. I think that they force me to actually be a little more professional in writing within boundaries is good for me as a writer. I mean everybody wants to just write whatever they feel like writing which what the blog is and that’s great. I think you’re a better writer if you can tell the same story within boundaries with a few guidelines.
It’s more satisfying when I succeed and I write a story that I really like. It’s actually within the boundaries and they aren’t ridiculous boundaries by any stretch the imagination but they’re definitely like my readership which is basically based on what I like at any given second. It’s completely different from Maine Magazines. It’s a business and this is a job so obviously it’s important to appeal to the readership of the magazine. Hopefully, I don’t manage to offend too many people. That’s my goal.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I think that you’ve spoken to something that is very profound in a way. That’s boundaries are sometimes a good thing. They don’t have to be something that kind of traps you instead they become just a place within which to work. Understanding that is something that probably came with time in your life.
Joe: It definitely did. It’s something that I thought at first but then every time I would fight it the next day, I’d be thinking about it. I’d actually would write something and read it back. I don’t know what my problem was yesterday because they like this. I like, brought back as I said before I like the challenge of it. I don’t know, it’s nice to have both worlds but I’ve really enjoyed especially now, I think just watching. I mean I was with Maine Magazine in the very beginning and just watching the just the food coverage in general has been evolving constantly and now I feel like after spending a year away, I feel like we’re ready to come back. We’ve all collected our thoughts and we’re really ready to branch out in a lot of really exciting new directions with it.
I have a very different perspective on it now. I have more ideas. I really want to get not so much into the kind of tit for tat like restaurant review or anything like that. I want to just really get into the cooking and just the concepts and the ideas and where they come from and the people because there are so many amazing food personalities in the state that they are just a whole story in themselves. I think a lot of people will talk about the food they eat and what foods certain restaurants offer and that’s great but I think there’s a lot more to it than that. That’s where I feel like I’m at now. I’m really excited to come and delve into that.
Dr. Lisa: Just before you left to go to Boston, you did a lot of work on your Food Coma series. I’m assuming that that continues.
Joe: The web series?
Dr. Lisa: The web series.
Joe: Yes. The minute I got to Boston, actually, literally my second day there, I was selling wine there. I was in an account and a stranger came up and was like, “I’m Cris. I really like your show. I’ve always thought I could do it better.” That’s sort of how now, we have a new show called “Off the Wagon.” That’s how I kind of started and then five months later, we started filming episodes.
Yeah, I think that’s also more evolved than the first show. It’s amazing how little you realize you know. With video, there’s so much to it. It’s just such a constantly work in progress. It’s always something you can make better whether it’s like the voice over like I thought that’d be easy but then all of a sudden you realize, it’s really hard not to sound incredibly awkward when you’re forcing something like reading from script. Just little things like that, the editing and just really trying to tell a story with the episodes rather than just showing people drinking and eating for no apparent reasons. I hope but that’s one once again. I think that we’re finally starting to achieve that with the show as well.
Dr. Lisa: Yet, there were some interesting stories I think that came out of the food coma work that you did here in Maine.
Joe: There’s no doubt that there are interesting stories that came out of every time we filmed an episode. I mean it was such an amazing experience. I mean I don’t regret a single thing. I mean maybe Anthony Bourdain on the show. We drove seven hours to spend three days in a rustic county, eating and drinking. It was amazing.It’s funny how that sort of has really tied in with Maine Magazine because it’s enabled me to just travel the state. I mean I’m from Portland or from Yarmouth as we said from Yarmouth or southern Maine.
Up until doing these shows, I’ve never been north of Bangor. I mean I just never really gone up there. Now, I’ve got to explore so much of the state and then I see these places and I can bring it all into the experience. I feel like that makes me more valuable to the readership because I’ve just traveled more of Maine with the sole intention of eating. That’s really exciting. It’s been nothing but helpful for me moving forward just knowing the layout of these different towns that are off the grid.
Dr. Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is used to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: I am always amazed at sort of the invisible hand that works side by side through life with us. I have an old Spanish bread table in the living room of my home in Buxton and a children’s book sits there with carefully pressed flowers in between the pages. As you open the book, you see inside the yellowing jacket “To Louise Jameson from Mrs. Cope, July 8, 1911.”
Last month, I went with my sister Abby Carter. She’s a prolific children’s book illustrator but we went to Mrs. Cope’s seaside home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island. Of course, she’s no longer alive and the place was just dormant but we walk the grounds that my grandmother walked when she was a child. My great grandfather, my grandmother’s father designed the home for Mrs. Cope and granny used to spend long summer days in the fields picking flowers and pressing them into the pages of her children’s book which I now posses.
As I walk through the land with my sister, Abby, through the grounds of the old Cope Homestead, we felt as though we were guided to this very special place. walking the fields and meadows granny played in over 100 years ago. At last we could see the land and the landscape my grandmother had loved as a child. I think it’s important for us to remember that as we designed and create our own landscapes that we too can create powerful magical memories for our loved ones, our friends and all those that enter these magical spaces. Let’s not forget that these places that we create, form and shape our life experiences in so many ways. I’m Ted Carter. If you’d like to contact me, I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
Dr. Lisa: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast understands the importance of the health, of the body, mind and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body is Travis Beaulieu of Premier Sports, a division of Black Bear Medical.
Travis: At Black Bear Medical, our priority is to find solutions for all our customers. We take exceptional pride in the work we do with our customers who have extreme life challenges. Our rehab department and service department provide wheelchairs and other adopted devices to make life more manageable for those with the disability. Our service department installs accessibility products in your home such as stair lifts, vertical lifts, and ramps. Our job at Black Bear Medical is to help people live life to the best of their ability.
Whether you are disabled or having some difficulty in the golden years, we at Black Bear Medical can help the differently abled level the playing field. Visit blackbearmedical.com or stop by at retail locations in Portland and Bangor to see how we do it.
Speaker 1: Experienced chef and owner Harding Lee Smith’s newest hit restaurant, Boone’s Fish House and Oyster Room, Maine seafood at its finest. Joining sister restaurant’s the Front Room, the Grill Room and the Corner Room, this newly renovated two-story restaurant at 86 Commercial Street on Custom House Wharf overlook scenic Portland Harbor. Watch lobstermen bring in the daily catch as you enjoy baked stuffed lobster, raw bar and wood-fired flatbreads. For more information, visit www.theroomsportland.com.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve done a lot of traveling with Maine Magazine as well for the 48 hours pieces that are written. I’m with you. I think I’m constantly surprised by the food that little gems, the little restaurant gems that you find in different parts of the state and I think it’s called the Mill Hill in Bethel. This guy who used to be a teacher and then for the last three to four years has been perfecting the food that he creates. He serves on these plates that he makes as a potter himself.
Joe: See, yeah. That’s the kind of thing. That’s really the most exciting things to me about Maine is being some place like Bethel and discovering something like that. That’s an amazing story like the guy’s not only doing amazing food but he’s also like involved and takes pride in the actual flatware and the place that you’re eating off of. I think that’s amazing and I think it’s really interesting. I think that’s the Maine that I think more people want to know about in addition to the obvious, the Portland which is got a lot of press but there’s still a lot to say about Portland that hasn’t been said. Maine’s a big state. There’s a lot of places and I feel like I haven’t really even scratch the surface. I mean if in every town, there’s one place worth eating then I’ve got a lot of work to do.
Dr. Lisa: You also spend time with people who aren’t from Maine, who have come to Maine. They’ve transplanted themselves into the state and they become deeply engrained in the culture, almost create their own little Maine culture. I’m thinking of the restaurant Miyake for one.
Joe: Yes. You can’t really beat the standard of living here. I think a lot of people in another … then they’re really impressed. They come here to set up shop and then they’re really impressed with how may be savvy the dining population is or they’re just completely enamored with the landscape. Yeah, then they end up staying and I mean in Miyake’s case obviously flourishing. I mean it’s about to be a third restaurant opening up and even involve some trial and error. Everybody kind of finds their way. I don’t know if that answers the question you’re asking or not. It’s sort of different for everybody.
Dr. Lisa: Well, does it ever occur to you that people in Maine end up wearing so many different hats. That you can’t necessarily say, “Okay, this person is a chef and a chef alone.” That they end up being so multifaceted in ways that maybe other cities don’t allow them to be.
Joe: There’s a lot of stuff you want to do here so why limit yourself to one thing when you actually can do a lot of different things. There’s just a lot to write about. It is interesting though that people sort of are multifaceted in their profession here but I don’t know. I guess that for me, it’s just the idle time thing. I don’t like idle time and there happens to be a lot to do here so I’m going to do it all while I can, while my body still permits me to do so which is where your job comes in as the wellness editor.
Dr. Lisa: That’s true. You’re the food editor. I’m the wellness editor and hopefully we can create some wealth.
Joe: Somehow you wrangled that job away from me. I don’t know how. I’m not sure how you did it.
Dr. Lisa: That’s right. I know you came in a close second for that one, Joe. I’m sorry.
Joe: Really thought I had it this time but apparently goes back to the eating.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I think eating is a big part of wellness and in fact, we’ve proposed multiple articles for Maine Magazine. It is that fine line between, “Okay, what is wellness? What is eating?” That’s very blurry.
Joe: Yeah. It’s the hardest topic. Whenever we talk about food for the wellness issue, it’s like do we do “unhealthy food” because technically is unhealthy if you have enough of it. You can technically overdo it with anything I think. Then you’re like, “Yeah. Was it restorative food? Is it food that’s just kind of good for you? Is it raw food but it’s a really hard thing to kind of get a definitive answer with as far as from a wellness point of view.” I guess you almost want to write more about like eating habits than actually the food you’re eating. Just like the way you view food. It can be a big part of it.
Dr. Lisa: What does the food issue have in store for us this month?
Joe: Well, it is actually my kind of return to Maine Magazine so as far as my contribution to it, it’s sort of as much a love letter to Portland but it’s more of a entry backend. It addresses things that I missed about Portland, a little bit of sort of getting a perspective. It’s amazing when you’re … you don’t really get perspective until you move away as far as all those press that Portland has got.
You talk to people in Boston and they ask where you’re from. You’re like, “In Portland.” They look at you like the streets are just paved with gold there. We’ve heard that everything you eat is the most amazing thing in the world. Its like “Wow! Okay.” Portland’s come a long way where people and major metropolitan areas look at me like I’m insane. Like why are you here when you could be in Portland. You’re a crazy person. Why would you ever move away from that.
I guess my piece in the food issue’s sort of address that a little bit and maybe where I think some of this reputation stems from but at the same time, how … I’m just as excited to come back and have access to the Maine Italian sandwich again because they’re delicious and nobody can explain why but they’re just so good.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. That’s very true. I’ve tried to explain people why I like the Amato’s Italian and why their pickles are the best that I’ve ever tasted, and why the tomatoes seem to taste so good. Unless you’re from Maine and grew up on them, I just don’t know that it’s something you can explain.
Joe: If you refer to that as an Italian sandwich or the north end in Boston, it is like you could probably lynch for that. They’re like green peppers excuse me and you’re like, “That’s it. That’s it for you.” They are delicious and I love them and so nobody else. It’s just funny. I love like regional dishes like that and regional sandwiches. Everybody has like something that only people from a certain place really understand. At the end of the day, is it because we just grew up eating them and it’s like nostalgic and really comforting or is it because it’s actually really good. I mean I don’t know. I think that’s really fun to address but anyway, that’s the extent of my involvement with the food issue this time around. Of course, they’ll offer the statewide coverage I’m assuming.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. There’s a lot of good stuff coming here.
Joe: I’m a little bit late to the game here as I’ve just got back but I manage to get my thing in.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. I think the people who are listening probably understand that magazine deadlines are usually several months in advance so there are a lot of great articles for the March issue and people are going to enjoy that and also the Eat Maine guide which is going to be coming out very soon which offers a listing of restaurants across the state. Actually our interview, I believe our interview with Sam Hayward in the Q&A form at the back.
Joe: Nice. Nice. Yeah, the Maine guy who just keeps every year, he’s getting better. The kind of cumulative coverage throughout Maine Magazine since its founding. We sort of keep adding on and adding on as we explore more of the state.
Dr. Lisa: I’m with you having traveled quite a bit outside of Maine. I’ve gone to beautiful locales that have wonderful beaches and brilliant sun. Then try to get a good meal and I feel like I’m so spoiled.
Joe: You are.
Dr. Lisa: Having lived not only in Maine but in southern Maine and actually in other parts of Maine as well. I think it’s a very interesting time to be living in Maine and to be working on the food scene.
Joe: Yeah, we have it really, really good here. I mean obviously, we have great restaurants but people also don’t necessarily always acknowledge how amazing our markets are. We have so many great butcher shops, fishmongers and then there’s like five Asian markets. For a small city, that’s incredible. You can pretty much get anything you want here. If you can’t get it in a restaurant and you can get the ingredient somewhere to make it yourself which I am absolutely in love with and I miss like crazy when I was gone.
Dr. Lisa: We also have access to local foods and farmers who are growing it and increasingly in every different season of the year. I think that Maine used to be known I believe around the Civil War time. The Bethel area was actually known as the bread basket and served a lot of the soldiers so it’s fascinating that we’re kind of coming back around to this again and the importance of our local Maine foods is becoming increasingly known.
Joe: Absolutely.
Dr. Lisa: Well, it’s a pleasure to have you in our studio today.
Joe: Always a pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a pleasure to have you acting as the food editor again for Maine Magazine.
Joe: It’s good to be back.
Dr. Lisa: We look forward to great things. How do people read more of the writing that you do?
Joe: Well, obviously, through Maine Magazine, through the Maine blog in the Maine Magazine. I still maintain foodcoma.me and then I pretty much, I guess if you put my name in Google, you get a pretty varied list of things I do. I want the whole experience but I think in the meantime, the Maine Magazine stuff will be the one to watch I think for now.
Dr. Lisa: Well, thank you for coming in.
Joe: Thank you very much for having me.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve speaking with Joe Ricchio who is a fellow Yarmouth high school graduate and friend of mine.
Joe: Actually I’m a Cheverus graduate but I did some Yarmouth and I’m from Yarmouth.
Dr. Lisa: Okay.
Joe: I had to set the records straight.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. I’ve been speaking with Joe Ricchio. He’s a fellow Yarmouth native.
Joe: Native, yes.
Dr. Lisa: Let’s say. I encourage people who are listening to spend some time reading his work in Maine Magazine and through Eat Maine. Maybe he’s seen you out in about in the food scene.
Joe: I’ll be out.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast. Show number 129, Eat Maine. Our guests have included Harding Lee Smith and Joe Ricchio. For more information on our guest and extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. Also visit the mainemag.com to find out more about food in Maine. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and wellbeing on the bountiful blog. We’d love to hear from you so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Eat Maine show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors. Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of BOOTH Maine, Apothecary By Design, Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage, Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Dream Kitchen Studios, Harding Lee Smith of the Rooms, and Bangor Savings Bank.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Our assistant producer is Leanne Quimet. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our online producer is Kelly Clinton. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is available for download free on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.