Join renowned Maine chefs & cookbook authors for their lively “local and fresh” cooking demonstrations and samplings, scheduled every hour throughout our festival. And if you’re looking for that perfect holiday gift, signed Maine cookbooks, sure to inspire and delight, are a must have!
Click schedule below to enlarge.
Presenter Biographies
CYNTHIA SIMONDS was a caterer for 13 years. Currently she is a marketing consultant and designer of custom-made church vestments, as owner of Simonds Originals. She lives with her family in Newcastle, Maine. She is the author of three cook books for Down East Books:
Superb Maine Soups: Innovative Recipes from Simple to Sumptuous (July 2007)
There’s nothing like walking into a room and getting a whiff of a favorite “comfort food” soup simmering on the stove. The aroma nourishes the spirit even before the soup begins to satisfy the appetite. And who can resist the great variety and versatility of this most fundamental food? As a first course, a clear soup sets the stage for a memorable dinner. Flanked by fresh bread and a crisp salad, a rich cream-based soup or hearty stew makes an entire meal. Chilled soups, piquantly flavored and colorful, make delightful centerpieces for light summer feasts. In the hands of innovative chef Cynthia Finnemore Simonds, soup can even crown the meal as an elegant dessert! Superb Maine Soups offers 100 recipes to inspire anyone who appreciates the pleasure of transforming wholesome, locally produced ingredients into a nourishing meal meant for sharing with friends and family.
Delicious Maine Desserts (September 2009)
Third in a series of Maine-influenced recipe collections, this book features desserts built on regional foods such as blueberries and other fruits, pumpkin, rhubarb, maple sugar and syrup, and products from Maine wineries and distilleries. Includes such delicacies as Blond Butterscotch Brownies, Blueberry Peach Crisp, Pumpkin Cheesecake and Chocolate Custard Pudding. Family favorites and Cynthia’s own original recipe creations round out the mix.
KATE SHAFFER
Desserted: Recipes and Tales from an Island Chocolatier (October 2011)
Who doesn’t fantasize about starting a chocolate shop? How about living on a beautiful Maine island? Kate Shaffer did both when she moved to Isle au Haut and eventually opened Black Dinah Chocolatiers. From the island community to the difficulties of getting precise ingredients to the shop by ferry, you’ll experience island life through Shaffer’s essays. And she’ll also share delicious recipes not only for chocolates themselves, but for incorporating chocolate into a variety of sweet and savory dishes.
For Kate, a California native, chocolate wasn’t even part of the equation when she agreed to her new husband’s wish to move back to his former home in Maine. A veteran of countless California restaurant kitchens, Kate immediately landed her dream job—cook at an almost impossibly romantic lighthouse inn on remote Isle au Haut. When, five years later, the owners decided to retire, Kate was determined to find a way to use her rather limited battalion of skills to stay on the island—and with the community—she had accidentally grown to love.
Severely impaired by the inability to think inside the box, Kate and her husband, Steve (both of whom knew squat about chocolate) dreamed up a business making gourmet truffles out of their home kitchen, with a café in the middle of nowhere from which to sell them. Armed with degrees in English Lit and Philosophy, a shelf of cookbooks, unlikely highspeed Internet access, and the surprising support of the island’s tiny community of fishermen, Kate and Steve set out to make a living—and, almost in spite of themselves, ended up making a life.
DANA MOOS
The Art of Breakfast: How to bring B&B Entertaining Home (May 2011)
A Maine breakfast is more than just blueberries. Dana Moos of the Maine Innkeeping Academy shows you how to whip up a delicious and beautiful breakfast, whether you’re cooking for your out-of-state in-laws or running your own B&B.
Maine is a travel destination, and its B&Bs are some of the most visited places in the state. Dana Moos, the former innkeeper of the Kingsleigh Inn in Southwest Harbor, has great advice on serving a breakfast that not only tastes great but looks good too. Perfect for B&B owners, but also great for folks with out-of-town guests, this book makes preparing an artful and tasty breakfast easy.
LISA TURNER
The Eat Local Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes from a Maine Farm (May 2010)
Maine has an abundance of fresh seasonal produce—all you need to know is what to do with it. Lisa Turner, of Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, has gathered more than 100 recipes from Maine’s top chefs, farmers, home cooks, and her own kitchen. From what to do with loads of leafy greens to how to cook hakurei turnips, this cookbook teaches hot to eat locally—and eat well—all through the year.
Lisa Turner might not be a chef, but she deserves a lot of the credit for how good the food tastes coming out of Maine’s top kitchens. Turner’s Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Maine, not only provides delicious produce to many of Maine’s best restaurants, but also has about eighty people enrolled in the farm’s community supported agriculture (CSA) as well. A former civil engineer who designed landfills, Turner views her job—which she has been enjoying for more than a dozen years—as bringing better-tasting food to the proverbial tables of Maine.
SANDRA OLIVER
Maine Home Cooking: Three Hundred Recipes from Down East Kitchens (Publication date: September 2012)
Residing on Maine’s Islesboro Island, Sandra Oliver is a revered food historian with a vast knowledge of New England food history, subsistence living, and Yankee cooking. For the past five years she has publisher her weekly recipe column “Tastebuds” in the Bangor Daily News. The column has featured more than 250 recipes—from classic tried-and-true dishes to innovative uses for traditional ingredients. Collecting more than 300 recipes from her column and elsewhere, and emphasizing fresh, local ingredients, as well as the common ingredients found in most kitchens, this volume represents a new standard in home cooking.
Sandra Oliver is pioneering food historian who began her work in 1971 at Mystic Seaport Museum, where she developed a fireplace cooking program in an 1830s house. Sandra is a freelance food writer, with her column “Tastebuds” appearing each weekend in the Bangor Daily News, and regular columns in Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine and The Working Waterfront. She is also the author of the books Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Foods at Sea and Ashore in the 19th Century, The Food of Colonial and Federal America and Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving History and Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie, which she co-authored with Kathleen Curtin. She often speaks to historical organizations and food professional groups around the country, organizes historical dinners, and conducts classes and workshops in food history and sustainable gardening and cooking. Sandy lives on Islesboro, an island in Penobscot Bay where she gardens, preserves, cooks, and teaches sustainable lifeways.
TARA SMITH
Standard Baking Company Pastries (Publication date: October 2012)
Standard Baking Co. is Maine’s most well-known bakery. Located directly across from Portland’s harbor, the bakery is a daily hub for hundreds of people. From almond crossiants to butter cookies to a pear frangipane tart, more than sixty coveted recipes comprise this cookbook tailor written for the home baker. Never before has Standard Baking co. divulged its sweet secrets — this cookbook is sure to become a baking bible for Standard fans and newcomers alike.
Co-author Tara Smith is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. After graduation, she served as a teaching assistant at the school’s award winning Apple Pie Café. She now is head pastry chef at Standard Baking Co.
DENNIS McCARTNEY
Hospitals are rarely known for their great cuisine, except when it comes to St. Joseph Hospital. Patients and visitors often ask for our recipes! Chef Dennis McCartney is behind many of these delicious meals, creating great tasting, nutritious food for patients with a variety of dietary limitations – that’s no easy task. Chef Dennis can often be found giving live cooking demonstrations in the Hospital’s Cafeteria and at Hospital events. Remember to stop by the Main Stage at this year’s Maine Harvest Fest on Sunday at 2 p.m. to watch Chef Dennis prepare Pumpkin Risotto and try a sample. A St. Joseph Hospital dietitian will also be available to help answer your questions. And be sure to stop by St. Joseph Healthcare’s booth anytime to meet Chef Dennis and watch ongoing cooking demonstrations of pumpkin waffles, harvest soup, spaghetti squash and more! Pick up a recipe and a free sample!
ABBY FREETHY
Abby Freethy is Chef and now creator of Northwoods Gourmet Girl all natural pantry goods.
Before landing in Greenville Maine in 2004 Abby studied culinary arts at the C.I.A in Hyde Park, New York. After graduating in 1994 she moved on doing stints in New York city & Philadelphia until she found her way to private service where she was fortunate to travel the world with her clients gaining a diverse understanding of world cuisine as well as meeting extraordinary people.
Currently, tucked away in the sleepy Moosehead Lake region of Maine, Northwoods Gourmet Girl has been producing all-natural, elegant pantry staples since 2005; “one jar at a time”.
Inspired by the impending birth of her son, Dustin William, and by the myriad of artificially flavored, chemically altered condiments that line the shelves of supermarkets around the nation, chef Abby Freethy set out in 2005 to create a company that specialized in healthy alternatives to common pantry goods. Northwoods Gourmet Girl started with country ketchup produced in Freethy’s own home kitchen, and quickly moved into a commercial space. NWGG has expanded to a product line of over 18 items, including relishes, jams, preserves and desert sauces. Northwoods Gourmet Girl has grown from its humble beginnings to a sustainable business with a heavy focus on community enrichment for both children and adults.
Northwoods Gourmet Girl products can now be found on countless shelves of specialty food stores throughout New England and beyond. This summer NWGG took a brave step forward and is in the final stages of completion of a brand new commercial production facility, mercantile & cafe in Greenville Maine. This will allow the growth of this small company to follow Abby’s vision creating jobs close to home and marketing a strong value added brand “proudly made in Maine”.
On the horizon Abby has a line of Chef ware coming as well as a cookbook.
LAURIE TURNER
Born in Maine, Laurie is our Resident Chef here at Pairings Food and Wine Education Center. Spending the first part of her career in the business world, it was when her two daughters went off to college that Laurie decided to pursue her passion and enrolled in the EMCC Culinary School in Bangor, Maine. Laurie was named Student of the year in her graduating class, and is a member of the American Culinary Federation and National Honor Society. A big believer in fresh ingredients, Laurie spends her days off working at her farm.
DOUG WINSLOW
Chef Doug Winslow, originally from Maine, started cooking at summer camp on Sebago Lake when he was 14 years old. He trained in Kansas City at Johnson County Community College and did his apprenticeship with Westin Hotels. Doug was also the Executive Chef at Lucerne Inn for three years before joining the Pairings family in the kitchen at Winterport Winery in 2011.
Chef Doug is a master at bread making and his artisan breads and baked goods are available fresh every Friday and Saturday at the Winery. He also enjoys sharing his love of cooking in preparing creative and wonderful menus for Pairings’ monthly Beer or seasonal Wine and Ale dinners. From beautiful wedding cakes to delicious simple foods to simply delicious foods, Chef Doug is one of the best. In working with Chef Laurie with catered events there is an exciting blend of chef creativity and expertise that makes the culinary team at Pairings so great.
SCOTT BELANGERScott Belanger: Today is the best day of my life, thank you! I have been on and around farms for as long as I can remember. When I was young, my dad built some of the largest dairy barns in New England. My first memory of he and I is at the age of 2, and we are at the top of a massive barn pounding nails. I guess dariy got in my blood at an early age. People joke about all the many and varied things I do from restoring VWs, to hanging fabric sculptures, to being a licensed nurse practitioner, and pretty much everything you can imagine in between. I always laugh and tell them, “it’s all for the goats” which is the absolute truth. I get a good nights sleep when I know the ‘girls’ are happy and healthy, their living and grazing areas are secure and prepared, the cheese we make is good and good for you, every person that came to the market that day got a ‘hello’ and a smile because they deserve it, and ‘team cheese’ is ready to go at it all again tomorrow. To make all that happen every day on the farm takes everything I have ever learned from all the things I’ve ever done, “it’s all for the goats.” If I ever had time to write all the stories down in a book that would be the title. When I do get a moment here and there I like brew beer, make stained glass, canoe, camp, ski, and anything else that strikes me in the moment.
JENNIFER MAEVERDE
I come from a long line of farmers on both sides of my family, and as has happened in many families my parents and their parents before them chose to leave the farm behind. Farming was not something that was ever on my radar as a career or a lifestyle. So, to find myself owning and operating a dairy goat farm and cheese making business is a bit of a shock some mornings, albeit a pleasant shock most of the time. Now that farming has chosen me, I only hope to live up to the standards set by my great grandmothers and great grandfathers. My real joy on the farm are the hordes of goat kids that arrive every spring with the first robins and the melting snow. They are the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and to be with their moms when they are born is a real privelige. I get the same kind of satisfaction when a child at the market tries our cheese and is immediately hooked. I love having my under 10 ‘regulars’ every week tell me about school or their sports teams while they’re picking up a cheese for snack at school the next day. When I’m not busy on the farm or at market I like to weave, and garden, cook and swing in the hammock.