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Transcription of Food & Family #233

Lisa:	One of my favorite restaurants really anywhere but definitely here in Maine is Earth at Hidden Pond. Today, it is really quite wonderful that I have with me Justin and Danielle Walker. You pretty much keep Earth at Hidden Pond moving. You guys are Earth at Hidden Pond. Justin is the Chef there. You’re considered the Executive Chef.
Justine Walker:	Yeah.
Lisa:	That’s your official title.
Justin:	Yeah.
Lisa:	Danielle, you’re the general manager.
Danielle:	Yes.
Justin:	She’s my boss.
Lisa:	It’s good.
Justin:	Yeah.
Lisa:	Not only is she your boss in your work, but possibly in your home life. I don’t want to presume anything.
Danielle:	He’s my husband if he’s admitting that.
Justin:	Yeah.
Lisa:	Thank you for being here. I appreciate it.
Danielle:	Thank you.
Justin:	Thank you for having us.
Lisa:	Because you’re really busy and it’s hard to sometimes schedule the time. I’m fascinated by people who are able to work together professionally, but also share a life personally. Tell me how that’s been working for you.
Danielle:	It’s been working for us since we met, essentially, because we worked together before we were together. Those boundaries were establish really early on, so it’s just something that we’ve carried through and you blink, it’s 15 years later.
Justin:	Having your significant other understand, at least as the chef understands what you go through as a chef, the long days, and the tough decisions, and the stress, and the chaos, all things that we go through, it’s great to have somebody that understands that, because they live it as well, and have the support from somebody that understands that is important for a chef. That’s why you see so many couples now running restaurants together, and you’re doing something together for each other. We’re lucky that our profession is recognized the way it is, and it’s been great.
Lisa:	Your son Jackson is five years old, started kindergarten this year, what’s that balance been like?
Danielle:	That was a new facet to things, because before we could really write our own schedule, we could put him to bed later and get up later, because that’s what our life is. Now that we have to find the boundary that helps us put him into school, get up at 7:00, on to the bus at 8:00, it’s definitely been new and challenging in different ways, but he is his own little person with his own schedule and ideas and things like that. It’s turning a corner out of a really great new chapter.
Justin:	It’s definitely hard being away from him, because we take … we’re working 16 plus hours a day, sometimes even more not very often, less. You miss a lot of things. You suddenly realize you didn’t feed … actually physically feed your child in two days, we have a good supporting network. He’s had really great preschool and obviously in kindergarten. We rely on each other, we help each other, the family. It works out. Generally, he’s happier when he gets to go to his auntie’s house than he is to hang out with his parents. That’s the luxury that we have, which is really great.
Lisa:	I want to clarify for people who are listening, it’s not that nobody has fed your child in about two days. You just have not fed your own child for two days, somebody else is stepping up.
Justin:	Exactly. You have family that helps with that, but it does give me gut wrenching feeling to know, “I wish I could be there for him.” It’s definitely a balance that’s hard to achieve. No matter what we’re up with him early in the morning and it doesn’t matter if we’ve been sleeping two hours or five hours, or whatever it is. We try to stay as consistent with that. We always are consistent of that.
Danielle:	You find your family time shifts from what “the norm” would be, because our family time is … in the summer time he’s out of school, it’s in the morning, it’s from 8:00 to, sometimes I don’t leave the house until 10:30, 11:00. That time where most people … the kids are getting off the bus at 3:30, that family time, the shift it’s different. We’re usually out the door, we’re on the front yard, outside, been playing, that stuff is just … you have a cup of coffee in your hand instead of come in, it’s time for dinner.
Justin:	When we’re off or we have to be completely off from home responsibilities. In the summer time we split our days off so that neither one … we’re not going to have a day off together, which is hard, but our son gets to make sure he gets two days with his parents. That way the restaurant is covered as well, which is important. It’s all about him. Everything else gets figured out some other way. When we’re in season and working, we’re either working or we’re with him and that’s it. That’s our life balance difficulties.
Danielle:	You find time in the winter time …
Justin:	To catch up.
Danielle:	… to catch up, this is our slow time, we do have that 9:00 to 5:00 lifestyle when the restaurant is closed, so we do get to enjoy everything as it goes by.
Lisa:	When is the restaurant actually closed? This is the time of the year where things are just taking a rest.
Danielle:	Yes. It’s closed for six months. It’s from November 1st until first week in May, it’s closed. We fill our time doing different things, we’ve been doing a couple pop-up events, where you can see the Earth team. It’s really nice this year, it’s the first time we’ve done it consistently over January and February. We get the band back together every two weeks. It’s nice to keep that momentum going. We work on the following year, everything from programming, whether its food based or health based, lots of different things that we look forward to next year and just putting them down on paper, so that when the train does start moving we keep it on the tracks.
Lisa:	I was fortunate to go to Table in Kennebunkport. I always get to Kennebunkport, but I think its Kennebunkport.
Danielle:	It’s lower village Kennebunk.
Justin:	Technically that’s Kennebunk, but if you walk 15 the other direction it’s Kennebunkport.
Danielle:	Okay.
Justin:	Kennebunkport.
Danielle:	Kennebunk, lower Kennebunk.
Lisa:	I was there. This is a place that you have also been. You’ve also spent time. Is this where you are talking about doing your pop-ups?
Justin:	Yes.
Danielle:	Yes.
Justin:	Yeah, we’ve been doing sneak peeks in 2016. Generally in the winter time we’ll spend four to six weeks very casually testing menu ideas. We try not to push the issue of time, we’re not trying to, “Let’s get it all done today.” Really try to have ideas that are on a page happen. Sometimes things get thrown away, sometimes we love them, sometimes we tweet them, whatever. During these pop-ups is a great way to keep the guys and girls busy that we work with, give them some winter work.
	Also test out ideas. It’s actually better … It’s a better way to do it, because then you see how things morph in a night of service or whatever. It’s great for the guys. We’re really lucky to have a following that really trust us. We just did a dinner with … they were sitting through seafood on every course; there was octopus, and oysters, and different things that would normally scare most people away. They love it to be different and they trust us. That’s really great. It’s been a lot of fun, for sure.
Danielle:	That was in the Table space where we actually did the restaurant pop-up. When Justin is doing menu testing, this is the first year where they’ve really had a beautiful space, there’s a wood oven there, the room is really warm and inviting and the kitchen has beautiful natural light on one side. It’s really wonderful because the past couple of years we’ve been using our kitchen at home, different spaces, going in to a different chef.
Justin:	One of our other smaller properties, which was great, this is just it could be more ideal and you feel comfortable there, there’s lots of light, like she said. We bought the storage. It’s been great, so really happy with it, for sure.
Lisa:	The Table is one of the newest; I believe properties as part of the Kennebunkport Resort Collection.
Danielle:	That’s correct. It’s a culinary event center, so we have the opportunity to have guest chefs, other than the regular Kennebunkport Resort Collection chefs come in and do dinners there. We’ve had brewers, I got brewing company held an event there, we’ve had Andrew Volk, and Hunt and Alpine Club come down and do some mixology. Some of our own bartenders, the Earth guys did one this past Saturday. You can do anything that you can dream up in that space. We’ve changed the room several different times, so we’ve done big community tables, we’ve done date night, we’ve done all different types of things.
	It’s versatile space, so you can bring people there and do your own party or you can just have someone and come in to be your guest. It’s a living, breathing thing, and it’s very organic process that it’s going through. Sky’s the limit with that building.
Lisa:	I was at a birthday party that David Turin from the Boathouse and also David’s 388 and David’s Restaurant, but he works with you obviously through the Kennebunkport Resort Collection. It was very beautiful. It was something that was very simultaneously elegant but homey feeling about it. It just reminded me that we don’t always have to be in a fancy, well-appointed place in order to have a really great meal that really feels special, although this place certainly is very elegant.
Justin:	It’s not over designed or trying to look like it wasn’t designed, it’s been the restaurant before, it has a soul, it’s got that central fireplace, and it feels comfortable. Just with changing some of the appointments in the room you can make it feel elegant, or casual, or whatever. The restaurant was designed a long time ago. Things have changed, obviously, but it’s still timeless, very, very little effort to turn into what it is, into its new look, which is cool.
Lisa:	One of the reasons that Earth at Hidden Pond has become one of my favorites is that you do so much with local produce, local seafood, locally grown greens and vegetables. It’s also in such a wonderful, natural setting. It’s unique. It’s a unique place, the actual physical footprint of the restaurant is very unique, as it is actually the entirety of Hidden Pond. How was that been for both of you, it’s such a special setting?
Danielle:	The setting at Earth was a hook for me the second that I walked into the space, and that was in December of 2011. Walking into that room, the cathedral ceiling, the apple tree that they had strung from the roof, all the lights, every section of that room. In a bias, I do love it and I work there. There’s always something interesting to look at. You hear that from guests who have come back several times saying, “I didn’t notice this the last time I was here.” It’s always evolving and the gardens outside, the bonfire that you enjoy after dinner, the farm bar outside, the cocktails and the food.
	That is what really drives the heartbeat of the restaurant is the ever changing scape that just goes into every little movement that is there. You definitely have those moments of pause when you are there in the middle of the summertime, and look outside, and things are blooming and growing.
Justin:	I can’t agree more, I also, as a chef to have a property that’s rural. My former jobs have always been lucky enough to have gardens and all these things that even going to back to 1991. 1990 to 1995, I worked in a restaurant in New York, and we used to help the farmers that would grow for us and we were buying things like shiso, and all kinds of interesting herbs, and basils, and vegetable. This is a long time ago. The chef would bring us all out for a week and we would help plant the seeds.
	It just seemed normal. It’s funny to me now that it’s so … it is important but it’s so catch phrase now. With all that over the years of learning how to use local people and things even out your back door, we do a ton of forging, and a ton of learning. Hidden Pond is so wonderful because you can walk all … just not even going into the hinder lands, you can just walk around the property that all the guests can see, and there’s a million things that are edible. Not just things that are catchy or whatever, things that actually are good. I love that. That’s super inspiring to me.
	We can also go in the forest for walks, sometimes we go every day, every other day when it’s good, and we can do 400, 500 pounds of mushrooms a year, and other things. That to me is what defines the place. Being a chef there, it’s such a valuable resource. All the cultivated gardens that we have on the property, which we try to keep it as interesting as possible. The farmers and all the people that we’ve developed relationships with over the years, the local butters. Of course I want to have a small dairy goat herd, we do a lot with that. You have to be that chef that’s willing to think outside the box and use the things that are available to you, that aren’t symmetrical, don’t come in perfect little boxes. If you are willing to do that, you could so some pretty neat things.
Lisa:	Justin, you spent 15 years at Arrows before it transformed itself, it’s called the Velveteen Habit. The chefs that you work with, Mark and Clark, they just were well known throughout the state of Maine and probably nationally. How did that impact your cooking?
Justin:	That’s what brought me to Maine. I came for the job to work there. Just looking around, looking at restaurants in the northeast. Really at that point, it was wherever I wanted to go in the country, I could go wherever. I was young and didn’t really matter. Maine seemed far enough away. I lived in Upstate New York, New York, Vermont.
	It had that setting, right? The ocean was different, which was cool, but the setting of … the rural setting, all the things that I grew up with and what not. The restaurant was cutting edge. Way back when, it was … It was a successful restaurant for a really long time. The fact that they were willing to take a chance and plant a garden, I think Kelly can attest to this. She did it after they did it.
	It’s hard for a restaurant, it’s not cost effective, it’s extremely … It’s like another department to manage. On the business side of things, it’s tough. You can spend lots of money to plant tomatoes, several thousand dollars a year and get nothing. It’s a challenge for a lot of different reasons. I feel fortunate to have worked with them, we did things, we cooked all over the country, I took every minute of my time there, and tried to learn, and tried to better myself, better the restaurant. It was a great experience, for sure. Any restaurant that can milk with 25 years is pretty neat place, especially in a rural setting.
Lisa:	It’s interesting, because in addition to Earth being one of my favorite restaurants, I really enjoyed Arrows when it was around, but you’ve referred to Primo, which is up the cost, which is Melissa Kelly’s place, also one of my favorite restaurants. There is something that, although I know that it has become the thing that we’re all trying to do with local foods and foraged is even becoming more popular. As someone who is really partial towards vegetarian eating, to have that is really special, it’s really important. You’re not eating the grainy trucked in from California beef steak tomatoes. You’re eating fresh off the line, still maybe a little warm. It makes a big difference.
Justin:	If you look at Earth’s spring menu last year, it just happened we could source broccoli for instance. Of course when we opened, we had to buy some. We tried to buy organic. We bought organic, the best thing we could get. Once the smaller farms in New York started producing, and we rolled into a more local product. The base of the dish was broccoli, instead of being, whatever beef, or scallops.
	American diners are changing where you can base a dish off of a vegetable or something other than a protein. People are comfortable with the protein, the garnish. That’s where everything is going now. We try to do that Earth like. The eggplant is the center of the dish. I’m making this up completely, but the halibut is the garnish.
	That’s just your upbringing. If you’re used to cutting pre-portion proteins out of packages of the chef then you think of the protein as the center of the plate, where I don’t think that way. Recently I was speaking with somebody about a sponsorship for a dinner and they wanted to sponsor the center of the plate, I was, the center of the plate is going to be … You know what I mean? I understand what she was saying, and then I asked for some off cut and it was, “Okay.” We were expecting … I wanted to have some big primal cut of beef or something and I actually chose something completely not normal, so she was surprised. That’s how we think about it now.
Lisa:	The first time I ever had shishito peppers was actually at Earth. They were so simple, they’re just roosted with a little bit of salt. The surprising thing about shishito is you can have three of them in a row that are not hot, and then you get that forth one and it’s really hot. Since then, of course, more and more people are doing this, but when I first had them I was, “Wow, what are these things? Why are they in Maine?” It makes perfect sense.
Justin:	That’s a particular ingredient that we buy. We do buy some from California, we go through that for the amount that we use but then once the east coast catches up, we can get things a lot closer, and then even we grow some at our house. We had our Fairier, who shoes our horses, grow some for us. Those are the goals, those are our goals. They’re completely a million times better than anything that gets trucked in and moved around. We’re always trying really hard to satisfy our demand, as far as the amount of people that we do and try to get the products as close as we can, the best we can.
	It’s almost a fulltime job. I’m almost thinking about adding somebody to the staff, that’s literally all they do is make sure we know where every little thing comes from, how we get it and how we can communicate to get it, more consistently in the future.
Lisa:	It’s really important.
Justin:	It’s super important. The GMO thing is very important to us, the organic thing is very important to us, really understanding. We start with our basic products, really trying to make sure the sugar is the right sugar, and the flours we’re using are the best we can use, so we’re offering a product that’s more wholesome. We try constantly using local butters which are three times the price commodity butter for certain things. Not just for flavor, because we want to support the local business and we want to … Sometimes in the butter’s case, the product is amazing. Sometimes it’s not hard to make those decisions and it’s just a matter of communicating to the purveyors, and to the small producers, and developing a relationship.
Lisa:	Danielle, your family actually has a farm. You grew up in Southern Maine, you actually went to school with our audio producer Spencer. You went to kindergarten, in fact, from what I understand. You left to go to college, came back to Maine, but you’ve never gone that far away from the soil of Maine.
Danielle:	Right, I went to college at University of Rochester in Upstate New York. I did go, again, far enough away to try my own wings. I enjoyed it there. It’s actually where I started in the restaurant business, because I was working my way through college in the restaurant business. I came home for one last summer. I was going to come back to Maine, of course, we want to be in Maine in the summer time. Who doesn’t?
	I met this guy, he was the first person I shook hands with when I went to Arrows as well, which is where we met. I never left again. Great plans of going to work in Boston, somewhere else doing a different profession, which I went to school for. Hard left turn into the restaurant business, started really enjoying the wine list, so I had a genetics and ecology background, so I feel in love with the wine and the innuendos of it. I started working with Clark Frasier on the wine list at Arrows. It just went from there.
Justin:	Danielle grew up in a family that … Her dad used to raise beef cattle, they’re little girls and he would suddenly move and disappear, and their girls were wondering what was going on and he would tell them they’re in this other field somewhere, but they weren’t. That’s a really important way to grow up. Understanding what it takes to have a farm. We have horses, we have goats and chickens. Really Danielle was the driving force to turning it back into a farm. She really wanted to have horses there, which is what it was back in the 1700s, a draft horse barn, and breathe some life back into it. It snowballed from there, we realized there is nettles, and there is frog’s bellies, and there’s cranberries, and there’s black birch, and there’s all different kinds of things that grow on the property that you can use.
	Now it’s the life we want to live. We realize it’s a financial commitment for us. It’s instead of having that fancy car payment that we’ve chosen to have a farm. We have committed to it. This morning after our son gets on the bus, we have to feed all the animals before we can do anything. It’s constant. If it’s a bad snow storm the last thing you’re thinking about is putting the windshield wipers up on your windshield of your car, you’re thinking, “Do we have enough water? Incase the power goes out. Horses are having enough hay tonight.” The goats hate winds, so you need to make sure they’re going to be out of the wind.
Liza:	It’s a labor of love, though.
Justin:	Yeah. As a chef you start realizing that it doesn’t start with the phone call with the purveyor sometimes. For me it starts with the phone call to my hay supplier. This year in particular was a terrible year, and our goat’s milk is better if the hay is better. We’re driving three hours north to find good hay now. You realize when you actually do it … We’re not doing it on a big scale of any stretch, but you realize how much goes into it and its generations. Her father is the man that can fix everything, he knows a little bit about everything known to man. It’s a need to see that and to try not to let it die with him. You know what I mean, to keep passing it on, like passing it on to our son, and passing it on to us. That’s the key to the future.
Danielle:	Our son is the sixth generation to live on the farm. To have his grandfather there and then also have him listen to stories about him being a kid in that same farm, are running across the bedroom, my mom used to hate that, I use to bounce off the bed before I made that one or two. It’s just one of those things that you understand how many generations have been in that farm. My grandfather was a kid in that farm. When you go out the door and you are in the field and you do have to feed the animals, there’s a sense of place that gets passed on that I don’t think you can get anywhere else.
	Because we’re making a commitment to doing this, it is a labor of love, but it’s something that’s going to get passed down. Things that are important to us, we try and show our son, but we also try and show the people who are coming to eat our food that this is important, that you are making a good choice to eat well and eat vegetables. We’ve taken that next step and thought through, we’re not going to give you a GMO bit sugar. We’ve already done that step for you, so you can just come and eat, and enjoy what we’re doing. It does take some extra effort, but it’s so rewarding to know that we’re doing that.
Lisa:	I know that you have some events that are coming out in support of Share Our Strength in cooking matters. How can people find out about these events and also about the work that you do at Earth, and actually about Earth itself?
Danielle:	We have our website, earthathiddenpon.com. We also have a fairly active Facebook page, so that is always pulling links from Share Our Strength, from no kid hungry. We’ll keep you up to date on Justin’s chef cycle ride, which is a partnership through Share Our Strength to feed kids year around and especially through the summer when they don’t have their backpack, where people can …
Justin:	That’s really an important thing, a really important cost for us. Share Our Strength started with sharing chef’s strengths and now this is an offer. Chefs are no longer the rock star, maybe they still are, but rock stars, going out late at night, and barely making it to the next day. Now I have lots of friends all over the country that are chefs and some pretty well-known chefs that start their day by putting their kid on the bus and then jumping on their bike for two or three hours. You can realize that once you start to, as a chef, specially, when you start to exercise and get healthy you can do your job a lot better, a lot better. It just passes on to your staff. The staff, they can’t complain, they say, “I’m tired.” If I just get up, I can ride to work and put 50, 60 miles before I get to work on my way in and then I work all day long and all night long.
Lisa:	That was Share Our Strength, that was a catalyst?
Justin:	Yeah.
Lisa:	Share Our Strength.
Danielle:	He is rally committed to the cause, we both believe in it very strongly. He committed to doing 300 miles from Santa Barbara to San Diego last June. Did 300 miles in three days, you need to do some work ahead of time. He started in February for the June ride, and because you have that goal, you really did something amazing.
Justin:	Yeah, thousands and thousands of miles on the bike, just to get to fitness, to push it. The group was very diverse, we have some chefs that rode a lot. Everybody was super into the cause, obviously. Everybody prepared very, very well. I’ve been riding for years and I never made it a super big commitment. It’s always like my work is my commitment.
	I realized at last few years that I needed to go back to that, I needed that in my life. Danielle supported me 100%. To see some of the chefs are excited about next year I’m going to get in shape. How can you ride so much faster? There’s always somebody faster, right? It was fun to see that.
	It levels the playing field, it’s not about a chef’s accolades, or the gross of the restaurant, or whatever. It’s about this cause, how it brought everybody together, it shared a different strength and it also is creating a new lifestyle for a lot of people. Almost everybody that did the ride last year is still riding, and they’re going to do it again this year. They know what to expect now, they know how to prepare. It’s a wonderful thing, it’s very, very important to us, for sure.
Lisa:	I’ll give you a lot of credit for having supported Share Our Strength, and making sure that there is no kids hungry, as they say, also for getting yourself healthy, and also for continuing this generational farm, the multigenerational farm that you are engaged in, Danielle. I feel like we could just keep talking forever, because there’s so many interesting things that you’re engaged in. I encourage people go to the website or go to the Facebook page and learn more about the work that you’re doing and your passions. I, myself will be at Earth as soon as it opens, hopefully. I’ll definitely be there during the Kennebunkport festival in June. We’ve been speaking with Justin and Danielle Walker, who are the husband and wife team who run Earth at Hidden Pond, in Kennebunkport. Thanks so much for coming in and talking with us today.
Justin:	Thank you.
Danielle:	Thank you very much.
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Lisa:	Today it is my great pleasure to have the time to speak with Karen Watterson, who not only is the new food editor for Maine and Old Port Magazines but also a longtime friend of my mine from Yarmouth. Karen Watterson is a former copywriter, food blogger and bookseller. She may have started out in life as a picky eater, but she’s making up for lost time as she explores all the deliciousness that Maine has to offer. The only thing that equals Karen’s love of good food is talking and writing about it. She is the food editor of Maine and Old Port Magazines. Thanks for coming in.
Karen:	Happy to be here Lisa.
Lisa:	You are doing a great job, I must say. We’ve been so impressed with your energy and your weekly blogs and all the stuff that you’ve done for Old Port and Maine Magazine. You’re equaling the energy of the foods seen in Maine, you’re just as excited and energetic about all of this as all the people who are coming here to eat.
Karen:	I try to be, there’s a lot going on that’s really exciting. I love to look at it as brand new and not as cynical or jaded, it’s exciting. Sometimes people get, “It’s this, it’s that.” Every day I get excited about the new openings, the new dishes, talking with the chefs. It’s great energy here in Portland, we’re really lucky to be here.
Lisa:	You’re not originally from Maine.
Karen:	I’m not, I’m from Massachusetts, I’ve been in Maine almost 14 years, and spent all my summers here as a child.
Lisa:	Of course I’ve know you because our son has played baseball together.
Karen:	That’s right.
Lisa:	They’re now young men and out in the world, but now our daughters play basketball together.
Karen:	What goes around comes around. That’s true. We’re back in the stand together.
Lisa:	Exactly. We can’t get away from kids sports.
Karen:	Go Clippers.
Lisa:	Exactly.
Lisa:	The nice thing about the writing that you do and I think you just alluded to it is that even though you are looking at food with a curatorial eye, you’re not critical, you’re not out there to make people feel bad about the great work that they’re doing in their restaurants.
Karen:	No, not at all. I don’t think that serves as well. I like to talk about the experience of eating some place. I also really love getting the chef’s stories, the background, how they got to where they are. To me that’s a huge part of what makes a restaurant. They’re so interesting and every day that I interview a chef or an owner, I’m surprised by their story. There’s really no reason to be critical at this point, we just want to tell people what something is like.
Lisa:	Tell me about that. What are some of your favorite chef stories?
Karen:	I’m really surprised to find how many husband and wife couples there are that work together really well. There’s Briana and Andrew Volk at Portland Hunt and Alpine Club. There is Damian and Ilma at Piccolo and at Paciorino there is Fabiana de Savino and Enrico Barbiero who moved here from Milan. Everybody really works well to get it, at Earth, of course, Danielle and Justin Walker. That’s a really hard thing to do to, to work next to your spouse and in a high pressure environment, like a restaurant. These couples have really made it work, and that’s exciting.
Lisa:	Yeah, even as you’re talking, I’m thinking about Guy and Stella Hernandez.
Karen:	Exactly.
Karen:	Also Isa, Suzie and Isaul, and Sur Lie. You could just keep going because there is 555, there’s just so many of them. That talks about how family is important to us, also in this area. People move to this area because its family friendly. They can have a business and still have a family without the high pressure stakes, as if they were in a bigger city.
Lisa:	When I’ve been to some of the restaurants that are created by couples, including Terlingua up on Munjoy Hill. I often noticed that the children are invited to come in and be part of the restaurant scene itself, in a very safe way. When I was up at Terlingua, the grandmother was there with the children, and I know and Guy and Stella Hernandez at Lolita, their son will often come in. This actually for me harkens back to the type of farming, fishing communities that Maine has always had, where things really are a family affair, and everybody understands what needs to get done in order to make the money that pays the mortgage and live a daily life.
Karen:	Yeah, I would agree with that. People make it work however they can. Like you said, extended families are helpful. I’ve seen kids doing homework at the bar, and I don’t mean while people are drinking at the bar, but in the afternoons, their kids are sitting up there, working on homework or getting help from their parents, while their parents are working on setup. With young families, you just have to make it work the best you can and do what you love doing, run a restaurant and take care of your kids at the same time. If the kids are fine with it, then there’s nothing wrong with it.
Lisa:	It’s interesting that our conversation has taken a turn into the family realm, because food recently, it seems like it’s become a very precious thing, it’s become this very special occasion work of art type thing. What I really enjoy about food is sharing it with the people that I love. Whether it’s just going and having pub food somewhere while the football game is on, or whether it’s going for a birthday meal with my 15 year old daughter, you can enjoy different levels of food and cuisine, and you can begin enjoying it with your children at appropriate ages, but from a pretty young age.
Karen:	Absolutely, Lisa. It’s important to take young children who are well behaved to restaurants and teach them how to eat out, how to be considerate of other guests, how to occupy themselves, hopefully without looking at an iPhone or an iPad, but crayons of course are fine. Teach them manners, and teach them to try different foods, expose them to sushi or various ethnic foods. You can reinforce that at home by trying to cook similar things, letting them help you. Kids love to be in the kitchen. My kids always have. That just reinforces how food is a family thing that everybody can do it together.
Lisa:	One of the ways that we have enjoyed the local restaurants is by making them part of our quality time. We love cooking at home, I like to cook at home, but sometimes being able to sit, everybody sits together and nobody is preparing the food, nobody is washing the dishes, you’re all just sitting and being present with each other, and having a really good conversation. That can be as important as the meal itself.
Karen:	Absolutely right. When they are no things that the mom or dad have to be standing in this kitchen sink or at the stove or whatever, it can be a more relaxed atmosphere. Like you said, it doesn’t have to be a fancy experience, it doesn’t have to be sophisticated or precious, it can be anywhere that you’re comfortable. I found that restaurants enjoy having families. They’re accommodating to children. I find that kid’s menus have taken off from the old chicken fingers, and macaroni and cheese, and offer much more sophisticated taste of things, or will just offer smaller dishes for the regular menu, which is a huge step forward and will help bring in new customers as well.
Lisa:	Now that we’ve talked about the ways that we can enjoy food as families, tell me what restaurants you have particularly enjoyed? I know this is a really hard question, because there are so many different restaurants, not just in Portland but really all over the state of Maine.
Karen:	Yes.
Lisa:	Tell me some of your Favorites and why.
Karen:	People ask me this question all the time, and I always like to say, my favorite restaurant is the one I last ate at, because it’s always fresh to my mind. For instance last week I was at Congress Square at the Western Hotel, that’s really fresh in my mind. The chef was wonderful. The manager was lovely and very accommodating. Before that I was at a family run Italian restaurant called Bruno’s which has been around forever. It was so great to sit with the whole family, the dad, the wife who runs the dining room, the son, the cousins eating pasta, I felt like part of the family.
	As far as my personal preference for food, I have to say I’m a big fan of Evo at the Hyatt Hotel, although they’re not really attached to the hotel. I love Boda and Green Elephant, because I really love spicy Asian food. Pai Men Miyake is a favorite. Any place I can get good seafood, that’s my favorite thing, Street and Company, is great, you can’t beat their clams and linguini. Love the pizza at Tuscan Bistro in Freeport. In Bar Harbor, I’ve had fabulous meals at Red Sky and Havana. Camden is wonderful, of course Natalie’s and Long Grain, again, because I love Asian food. I’m really open to any kind of new experience, there’s so many places in Maine that I haven’t had a chance to eat yet that are on my list to keep saying, “I’ve got to get there, I’ve got to get there.” There’s only so many days in a week.
Lisa:	Somehow you’ve already managed to squeeze in a lot of restaurant visits in a relatively short period of time. How long have you’ve been doing this job?
Karen:	Seven months, I started actually on my birthday last July. I’ve squeezed in a lot, but boy that keeps growing, every time something new opens. Got to add it to the list, but that’s exciting and that’s what I love about the job too.
Lisa:	One of the things that is interests me about you, Karen, is that you have been a food blogger, you had a beautiful food blog that I enjoyed reading, especially the cookies for some reason, cookies and the pastries.
Karen:	My specialty.
Lisa:	Yes, those were always very delicious looking. You are a political science major at the University of Vermont. You’ve also been a copy editor. You’ve always had your hands in sort of the world of words. You’ve also always enjoyed food, but you’ve had this broader view of life. How do you get from being a poli-sci major at University or Vermont to the Maine magazine, Old Port Magazine food editor?
Karen:	That’s a good question too. I was a poli-sci major because I am a political junkie. I pay attention to politics and international relations. I really enjoy that kind of thing, and I still do. I thought at one point that I wanted to work in Foreign Service when I was in college. I over slept when the Foreign Service exam was being given, so that was the end of that career.
	I went into advertising right out of college in the Boston area, worked for some of the ad agencies there as a copywriter. Like you said, I love words, playing scrabble is my favorite pass time. I grew up in a family where words were valued like that and reading was really important. I’m big reader. I just kept doing the things that I really enjoyed doing. I did the copywriting. After I had children, though, I was a stay at home mom for quite a long time, although I was doing some freelance writing.
	If opportunities came up I was always happy to do that, including pro bono work for different charitable organizations, just to keep my hand in it. When we moved to Maine I, again, was a stay at home mom for quite some time, including … I did some volunteer work. Then the opportunity came up to work at this little independent bookstore in Yarmouth, Cape Royal River Books. Bookstores are my happy place. To the have opportunity to work there as fantastic, I was there for over five years.
	The woman who owns it gave us the opportunity to run it as our own. I could order whatever book I thought were necessary for the store, whatever I liked to have. Neighbor is stopping and chat with everybody in town, in an open door policy, literally. I would keep the door open every time the weather was good enough, so that people felt welcome. People would just stop in to talk with me. I live recommending books to my friends, to strangers, and it’s a little … I’ve discovered like a Sommelier would recommend wine.
	You ask questions, you say, “What have you liked in the past? What kind of things do you like? Do you like a dry red or do you like a good mystery?” It’s all the same questions leading up to finding a right choice for somebody. I loved that and I’d probably still be there if it wasn’t for a project I did for Maine Magazine several years ago. I had the opportunity to do a 48 hours piece. It was probably the most fun I ever had.
	Handed it in and I said to Kevin and Susan, “Please keep me in mind if anything else ever comes up.” They said, “Okay.” Not thinking that maybe it would. Every time I saw them I would say, “Hi, remember me? Please keep me in mind if anything else ever comes up.” Last May I got a phone call from Kevin, he said, “We’re looking to have another food writer, would you be interested?” I said, “Yes, I would certainly be interested in that.”
	Started doing the blog, the Eat Maine blog for a month or so. One thing led to another, and here I am as the food editor, which to be honest is a dream come true. If I could have chosen any job for myself, it would certainly be this, especially in Portland, especially in Maine. It combines everything I love, the writing, the meeting new people, the talking about food, the testing of food, taking pictures, just learning new things every day, I’m so lucky to have this job.
Lisa:	You just finished with the March issue, which was the food issue, how do you feel about that?
Karen:	It looks fantastic. I’m so excited about that. I wrote about The Velveteen Habit, which is a terrific place in Cape Neddick, it’s on the old Arrows property. Ben Goldman and his team have really turned it into something completely different, a very casual farmhouse restaurant. They’re taking full advantage of the garden that was started there, discovering new things that they can grow, fermenting, distilling, preserving all kinds of vegetables. It’s a very casual atmosphere, come as you are kind of place.
	Ben is happy to talk to you about wine, that’s his real love. He is practically jumping up and down when people ask him questions about wine. He’s very enthusiastic, and that enthusiasm runs soft in the restaurant, you get that impression when you’re there. It’s a lot of fun. I can’t wait to go back next summer.
Lisa:	There will also be the Eat Guide that is coming up soon.
Karen:	That’s right. That talks about all the restaurants we’ve covered in Maine over the past year. Some we haven’t quite got into but checking in on. It’s a very comprehensive guide for people who are looking for a place to eat. It’s wonderful for people coming from out of town, especially in the summer, tourists. I hope to see that Eat Mine guide in every hotel room. It’s also great for locals who are wondering, “Where should I eat tonight? I want to try something different.” Especially the photography and it is going to be amazing. People can really almost taste the descriptions.
Lisa:	We started this conversation with the idea that there really isn’t one great restaurant that is the best restaurant that all of us should go to, there really is the just the best restaurant for whomever it is that you’re talking to, like being a bookseller or a Sommelier. It’s you who are trying to fit the right restaurant for the right person, the right family, the right group of people. Really, that’s what Maine Magazine and Old Port, that’s what we’re trying to do, is offer a broad array of possibilities, so that people can be inspired to figure out what works best for them.
Karen:	Exactly, there is literally something for everyone here. There’s OTTO Pizza, if you want a slice of pizza all the way up to white table cloth dining at Tempo Dulu and everything in between. There are very few formal restaurants in Maine anymore. If that’s what you want you can easily find that. If you want a lobster roll and fries, you can find that too, you don’t have to spend a fortune. There’s a broad range of price points, so you don’t have to feel like you’re breaking the budget to eat out in Maine and you get a great experience at any price point. I find that Maine restaurants are very hospitality oriented, they’re friendly.
	They enjoy locals and they enjoy tourists, and they keep an open mind about both of them. The locals keep them going in the off season, and the tourists are always welcome. Sometimes they’ll see the same tourists come back every year, they welcome them back just like locals.
Lisa:	Karen, it is truly been a pleasure to talk with you today. You are doing a really phenomenal job. If you’re out there, if you’re listening, if you’ve seen the food coverage that has been in the magazines over the past seven months, this woman just works and works and works. She loves it, she’s so joyful. When you come to our editorial meetings, you’re just like brimming over with the happiness of your job. That shows in your writing, and that shows in the March issue of Maine Magazine, which is our food issue.
	It’s going to show in the upcoming food … the upcoming Eat Guide, so I really appreciate the work that you do with Maine Magazine and Old Port Magazine as our food editor, and I appreciate the time we spend together in Yarmouth.
Karen:	Thank you Lisa, I love the time we spend together in and out of the office too, and I appreciate this opportunity to talk about it. You know I’m happy to talk about food anytime.