On Thursday, January 29th at SPACE Gallery Slow Food Portland will be hosting our Annual Writers Night for 2009.  This year’s line-up of writers includes:   

Anne Mendelson, author of Milk, The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages.  Mendelson is a contributing editor at Gourmet Magazine and has written for the New York Times and Saveur.  She is also the author of Stand Facing The Stove, a history of The Joy of Cooking and it’s authors.  

Nancy Carlisle, co-author of America’s Kitchens, an illustrated history of that beloved room. Carlisle, a graduate of Bates College, is a curator at Historic New England, the most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the country.  

Sam Hayward, chef and co-owner of Fore Street restaurant. The James Beard Award-winning chef who barely needs introduction will read from his story Island Sheep, published in The Art of Eating in the Fall of ‘08. 

Renier Nieuwkerk, Owner & Captain of the F/V Hannah-Jo of Kennebunk will read from his segment of Sharing The Ocean, Stories of Science, Politics and Ownership from America’s Oldest Industry, a new book from The Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.  

And in a first for the Writers’ Night, Russell Libby, the Executive Director of MOFGA, will read some farm poetry from his new book Balance, A Late Pastoral.  

As in years past, there will be sample tastes from Maine’s soil and sea contributed by local cooks, this year including seafood from the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and Mead from the Maine Mead Works. Books from all the authors will be available for purchase and signing at the event.   

The evening will begin at 6:30, doors will open at 6:00, at Space Gallery, 538 Congress Street in Portland. Tickets are $25, $20 for Slow Food members, and will be available at the door, or in advance at SPACE, 207 828 5600. For more information contact Don or Samantha Lindgren at 774 1044 or SPACE Gallery at www.space538.org.  

A bit tardy in posting, forgive us, but the group has chosen the Gustaf Sobin title, The Fly Truffler for it’s next read. This time we are reading fiction with the truffling traditions of Provence as the background.

The book is available now at Rabelais for $12, with a 10% discount for Slow Food members.

The next meeting to discuss The Fly Truffler will be on Wednesday, January 7th from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at Rabelais, 86 Middle Street.

Please join Rabelais this Friday, December 5th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM when will be hosting a reception for Russell French to celebrate his show of photographs, Island Sheep.  If you don’t know him already, Russell is a founding member of Slow Food Portland and a local photographer who focuses on food.  Each Spring, sheep head via boat to remote Maine islands to spend the summer feasting on salt grasses and seaweed.  If you dine at Fore Street in the month of December chances are you’ve seen island-raised lamb on the menu.  Russell spent a couple of days with farmer Lee Straw and chef Sam Hayward, among others, corralling the sheep for their trip back to the mainland.  A few of these images appeared recently in Ed Behr’s magazine The Art of Eating, where they accompanied a text by Sam Hayward. These beautiful black and white images will be on display at Rabelais from the reception on Friday through the New Year.