Baking in Morrill's Corner

I had a chance to meet the great folks behind the new Dollaro's Bakery in Morrill's Corner yesterday. They're baking up an amazing assortment of Italian pastries and American classics. The place is super cute inside and owner Danielle Buck reports that business has been brisk. You can get the full scoop in next Thursday's edition of Switch magazine.

Go green, eat gelato

Tomorrow is Green Streets day in the Greater Portland area. It's a great day to wear green and walk, bike, take a bus or ride your horse to work (is that allowed in Portland?). Anyone who participates can score free java and other discounts around town. But the real prize comes in convincing more of your co-workers to ditch their single passenger vehicles too. Just like these good looking folks at the Council on International Educational Exchange did last month.

They had the greatest participation rate of any local business in July and, as a result, won a gelato party from Others! in Monument Square.

But when you're deciding how to get to work green, just remember not all alternative transportation methods are created equal. Some just happen to have a little added cachet.

A little bit of Rome

G&R DiMillo's is getting a new look. I caught the artist in action yesterday afternoon. Looks like Portland is going to have its own piece of Rome. Or at least a very close facsimile.

Thai takes over

According to the Portland Food Map, Portland is blessed with 13 Thai restaurants. You'd think this would be enough for a small city. But it's not. (Personally, I could eat Thai food morning, noon and night and never get sick of it.) It looks like we're soon to gain another one, Thai Chef Buffet. It's located on Congress Street in the spot previously occupied by a chain sandwich shop and near the Maine International Trade Center.

I'm notoriously afraid of buffets, but even I might be persuaded to give this one a try.

I spotted the "opening soon" sign while strolling through yesterday's Sidewalk Art Festival. The street was packed with 300 artists and hundreds of art lovers. And the weather couldn't have been better.

Graffiti galore

Talented graffiti artists always grab my attention with their electric colors and embrace of the abstract and the surreal. Artist Tim Clorius, working under the name Subone when he hits the streets, does amazing things with an aerosol can. I'm also fond of Murad Sayen's translation of graffiti through the lens of his camera.

Portland is blessed to have a dedicated wall on the Eastern Prom Trail where graffiti artists can legally paint. And there are numerous spots in town where property owners have commissioned a graffiti-style mural.

The most prominent commissioned graffiti mural is located on the side of the Asylum. It was just repainted a few weeks ago by a team of more than 25 local artists, who created a traditional "wall of fame" this year. The previous mural contained war imagery and a large portrait of President Bush. In an unusual move, motivated in part by the public support for the work and its message, the building owners allowed it to remain on view for five years. Typically the works are repainted after about one year.

"Mural art is a direct link to the public," Clorius told me when I asked about the previous mural. "It's one of he ultimate ways of communicating a political statement."

This year the traditional work lacks any overt political message (other than "Trix are for kids".) Instead Clorius says the wall allowed the artists to "show what level they're on and how far they can take it."

Clorius himself worked on the giant guard dogs at the back of the alley. Funny story about those dogs. When I snapped these photos, my co-worker Wendy Almeida generously volunteered to come along and capture me capturing the wall. (You may notice I have a new graffiti-loving graphic at the top of this blog.) Turns out by standing just so in front of the dogs, I succeeded in making a completely unintended statement. Too bad it wasn't political.

Get your garden on

Portland has a stellar network of parks and hiking trails for city dwellers looking to swap out pavement for greenery. Another great resource for those of us looking to commune with nature can be found in our community gardens. Of course the real purpose of these plots is to give urbanities an opportunity to grow their own food, but I like to enjoy them as a pleasant walking path.

Last night I strolled through the Bayside Community Garden. It was a relaxing walk, and it was great to see all the vibrant flowers and the about to ripen tomatoes.

Unlike the other gardens in the city, this one is a bit of a maverick. Because it is on privately owned land, it is managed outside of the city's community garden network and plots are generally reserved for people who live in Bayside.

However, the rest of the gardens in the city are open to any resident. If you're thinking about doing some of your own gardening next year, now is the time to get on the list. The wait is generally more than a year. FMI call 874-8793.

Public art primer: "Michael"

Since public art in Portland has suffered its share of controversies in recent years (i.e. "American Baseball Family Group" and "Tracing the Fore"), I felt it was time I get better acquainted with the city's collection. For no particular reason (other than I happened to walk by it the other day), I begin my exploration with "Michael," by John Raimondi. This abstract piece, installed in 1974, sits in a grassy strip where Free Street meets Temple Street and is fabricated out of COR-TEN steel.

Raimondi first attended art school in Portland (at the forerunner to the Maine College of Art) where professor Norman Therrien got him interested in sculpture. Since then, he's gone on to create public art for numerous cities, corporations and museums in the US and Europe.

According to Raimondi's website, his initial works created in the '70s are examples of geometric minimialism, of which "Michael" is a perfect example. As his career progressed, he moved into environmental abstractions, then figurative abstraction, followed by his jazz series and finally his Native American Indian series (in which he is currently working).

Show your locavore pride

Portmanteau has these fun, locally-made, organic cotton T-shirts for sale at their Old Port shop for $19.50. ($2 from each purchase goes to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.) Adam bought one the other day. I particularly like the double entendre on the sleeve.

I also love the overall message. As more of us realize that we can pump up the local economy and get the best tasting food from nearby farmers and food producers, we're slowly but surely reducing the demand for the tasteless and contaminated food produced by industrial agribusinesses. Even though these huge corporations have mastered the art of selling us cheap food, we're beginning to smarten up and realize that we pay the true cost of that food with higher healthcare costs and tax bills. Of course, no one wants to be responsible for such atrocities as rainforest clearcutting or the ocean's dead zones. Which is good to keep in mind when you're considering that factory farmed hamburger or that high fructose corn syrup laden soda.

Case of the missing chalice

For a chill bar atmosphere, it's hard to beat Novare Res. It's not the sort of place where you expect amateur night antics like vomiting in the bathroom or testosterone-fueled bar fights. Which is why when I was in there last night, I was so sad to see that owner Eric Michaud had posted this message on the wall. Stealing someone's wedding memento is pretty low (and sure to inflict the culprit with years of bad relationship karma). But with a reward of $100 worth of beer at stake, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Eric and Julie soon will be properly reunited with their nuptial goblet.

Breakfast all day at Mousse Cafe

There's a great new all-day breakfast/lunch spot in town, thanks to Keith and Yan, a 30-something chef/pastry chef couple who opened the Mousse Cafe & Bakeshop on Monday in Monument Sqaure. I talked to them earlier this week and will have a full report in this Thursday's edition of Switch Magazine.

This morning Adam and I enjoyed a delicious breakfast outdoors in the square. I had the coconut banana cranberry granola with soy milk and the homefries with peppers and onions. Adam ordered the breakfast burrito, which came with homefries, homemade salsa, guacamole and sour cream. Everything was tasty and the service was quick. We'll definitely be back.

In other food news, today marked the first day this season you could buy apples at the Portland Farmers' Market. Early Macs were for sale at a number of stands. I love their sweet tart goodness, but their appearance makes me feel misty eyed for our rapidly shrinking summer.

Art for oil

One of the very few downsides to living in downtown Portland is the thick, lung-chocking stench of crude oil that sometimes blankets the city. When I lived in the West End, I would frequently wake from a dead sleep because this toxic air had blown in through the open windows. In Bayside, we don't get the foul odor as often, but every few weeks it pollutes our air and drives away the sea salt scented breezes. When I lived on the Hill, I never once smelled this petroleum stench. (But then that part of town has its own odor issues.)

Since the smell is so much stronger and more frequent in the West End, I'm figuring it comes from oil tankers off-loading their ethically-challenged product into the ugly storage tanks on the South Portland side of the Fore River. I keep hoping someone will come up with a solution to this smelly problem. And while I'm still waiting for my oil smell Superman to arrive, someone has come up with an idea to de-uglify the storage tanks themselves.

That someone is the Maine Center for Creativity. Just this week the organization unveiled the five finalists vying to have their designs painted on "the most prominent oil tanks at the Sprague Energy tank farm in South Portland." And while I knew enough not to expect anything political (such as a big "No blood for oil" graphic), I was hoping for humor (something like "Can you smell me now?" would have been good). Instead, these artists are obviously professionals and they all went the graphic and mostly abstract route. (Which means any number of subliminal messages could be hidden within these works, and who could prove it?)

The winner will be selected next month and installation should be complete by 2011. If it was up to me, I'd pick the Catherine Callahan design that looks like an airplane level view of the harbor. Which one would you pick?

Catherine Callahan and Bret LeBleu of South Portland

Holger Friese of Berlin

Jaime Gili of London

Nicole Langille of Columbus, Ohio

Bo Nathan Newsome of Durham, N.C., and Sara Lambert Bloom of South Portland

Sunset on the Prom

Because summer is so crazy busy and the monsoon season has managed to cancel many of the outdoor music offerings here in town, the first Sunset Concert Series I managed to make it to was the final one of the summer. Last night's free concert on the Western Prom featured the soothing sounds of Will Gattis . He's got a wonderful voice and his fingers danced across the keyboard.

Meanwhile, I let my own fingers dance across the farmers' market beans and carrots I brought along for our picnic. These were quite the hit with our multi-generational group. And I even managed to get normally veggie adverse photographer extraordinaire Tim Greenway to try one of the yummy beans. (I'll pretend I didn't see his pre-swallow grimace.) Tim was there to snap Scene photos for next week's Switch magazine, so be sure to look for them.

We washed these fresh eats down with some crisp Yellow Tail riesling. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Portland has laws against drinking in public. But those of us who show up year after year for these Western Prom concerts have a long tradition of enjoying our picnics with a nice bottle of wine or a few microbrews. And who wants to break such a fine tradition? Not me.)

The refreshments aside, it's events like this that make me really appreciate my Portland tax dollars at work. Because when the sun dips below the horizon and I'm surrounded by pleasant music and good friends, I'm reminded, once again, of why it is I choose to call this city home.

Mimes & margaritas

So it's no secret that I really wanted to try out the bike-powered margarita mixer at last night's Greendrinks. (For the exercise, of course.) But, sometimes life doesn't work out as planned.

As you can see, the bike was there at the new offices of ad agency SOAP, but it was experiencing technical difficulties. (Thank god such problems don't plague my cocktail shaker!) I did manage to sample one of the margaritas, despite the malfunctions, which helped curb my disappointment.

Speaking of SOAP, its new offices on Fore Street are the bomb! The space is the old home of Planet Dog and it features a fun mix of exposed brick and timbers, modern furnishings and punchy colors. It's a perfect environment for brainstorming creative marketing strategies for their green & socially minded clients.

The social networking event pulled in a wall-to-wall crowd. We drained the keg and drank all the beers generously provided by Peak Organic.

And I have to say that any party where a mime serves fresh cut vegetables rates highly in my book.

Bike for your margaritas

Some people go to Greendrinks to meet other green business types. I plan to go to tomorrow's get-together so I can use a bicycle to mix a margarita.

We've all got to have priorities, right?

Read Business & pleasure in The Maine Switch mag.

It's a circus out there

The words farmers' market tend to conjure up one image: stacks of colorful, organic veggies. But there's so much more to the Portland Farmers' Market than food. At yesterday's market in Deering Oaks Park, the acrobats and tightrope walkers were showing off their talents by the stone bridge.

Music was in the air too, courtesy of these guys who filled the market with a folksy beat. Tucked here and there between the farmers' stands, artists and jewelry makers offered their wares to the crowd.

Because eating local food is all the rage these day, the sheer number of people shopping at the market can be a bit overwhelming. While this can mean you'll have to fight to get your hands on the last heirloom tomatoes, signature gatherers and politicians say the place can't be beat. In the center (with her back to the camera) is Anna Trevorrow, who's running for Portland School Committee. In less than three hours, she and her team picked up 160 signatures supporting her bid for office. Current Mayor Ed Suslovic (who's facing two challengers for his city council seat) was also there looking for John Hancocks to add to his nominating papers. So whether you're looking for politics, art, music or food, you can find it at the farmers' market.

Portland Farmers' Market
Wednesday, 7 am-2 pm
Monument Square

Saturday, 7 am-noon
Deering Oaks Park

Bayside is a changin'

As a Baysider for the past five years, I've seen my share of change. When we first moved in, our house in downtown Portland was the last thing on the street before it dropped off into an industrial wasteland. Our view was of abandoned buildings and those infamous scrap yards. But, on the upside, we could see Back Cove beyond the metal heaps.

Since then, things have changed dramatically. We've watched a gorgeous Greek Revival house moved onto the lot next door; the Whole Foods rise amid the recycling piles; and the new Pearl Place apartment complex transform the skyline (and introduce us to a new siding style I'm calling creative scrap heap reinterpretation).

Here is a view from the past (note the building being torn down where Whole Foods now stands):

And one from the present: