How to get a better price for lobster, how to better market it, lack of trust between fishermen and dealers, sustainability of the fishery and how better to diversify the fisheries and take the pressure off lobster: These issues and more held everyone’s attention for four hours on March 10 in Ellsworth at the task
Maine’s working waterfront, fish processing supported in Pingree bill
The state’s working waterfront access program would receive $5.5 million if a bond bill proposed by Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree makes it through the State Legislature and is approved by voters. The bond bill also includes money to preserve farmland and help create food processing for both the fishing and agriculture industries. Pingree’s
Shrimp season succumbs to sinking economy
Port Clyde fisherman Randy Cushman estimates his income from shrimp this season has been cut in half. Shrimp are abundant at sea but the market on shore has dried up. “It’s not good when you’re sitting on a mooring and the shrimp are out at sea,” said Cushman. This year’s shrimp season is 180 days,
From the Deck
You have a new boat! She is a neat little sloop of which you are sinfully proud. You need a good picture of her. Surely you have a friend with a small power boat and a camera. On the appointed day subject to proper conditions of sun, wind and water, be ready. Scrub off any
Journal of an Island Kitchen
We started with island apple wine and beer brewed in Lincolnville, sweetened rhubarb juice and currant shrub with appetizers of Bacon Bomb served on baked potato slices. (The Bacon Bomb recipe came straight out of the New York Times and is that outrageous item made of a mat of woven bacon slices overlaid with Italian
Lobstermen line up for last chance at rope exchange
It is a bitterly cold March morning. Pick-up trucks are clustered on a patch of frozen dirt behind the Marden’s store in Ellsworth. The bed of each truck is loaded with brightly-colored rope; the cab of each truck is loaded with disgruntled lobstermen. They’re awaiting the start of a rope-exchange program sponsored by the Gulf
Ralph Stanley, legendary Maine boatbuilder, hands off business to his son
Master boatbuilder Ralph Stanley turned 80 and is feeling a little less chipper than he used to. That’s why son Richard, his lifelong business partner, is taking over the business, helped by Richard’s wife Lorraine. Ralph Stanley, dean of wooden boatbuilders in Maine, once dreamed of working at the United Nations in New York City.
Food advocate from Maine helps persuade Obamas to plant White House garden
Because I was impatient for winter to end and the growing season to begin, I recently sought vicarious pleasure by reading others’ accounts of gardening. First was Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, describing how her family made a commitment to grow as much food as possible, or obtain it locally near their home in
Rowing their own boat
Four years ago, in the spring of 2005, SAD 51 proposed elimination of the fourth and fifth grades at Chebeague Island’s K-5 school- a proposal that would set in a motion a small but powerful revolution in Casco Bay. At the front lines stood Mabel Doughty, then 82. “It’s time to row our own boat!”
The mouse that roared
Søren Hermansen, the spokesperson for Samsø Island-Denmark’s alternative energy island-was back in Maine last month. Hermansen first came to Maine as a guest of the Island Institute last November where he gave presentations to packed audiences in Portland and Belfast and to island communities. During his recent visit, Hermansen addressed the Governor’s Offshore Energy Task