Rabelais Books - Portland - Maine - Recommendations - Find. Eat. Drink.
Rabelais Books, Portland, Maine, ME, Samantha Hoyt Lindgren, Don Lindgren, Food, Wine, Fine Wine, Lifestyle, What to read, Where to buy books, Best Book Stores, Where to shop, Portland’s Best Book Stores, Bookstore, Book Shop, Chef Recommended, Insider Recommendations, Where to drink, Where to eat, What to read
LAURIE COLWIN
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Cookbooks
RICHARD OLNEY
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Olney, because they’re cookbooks, not food writing.
Cookbooks
Authors
Who
Samantha Hoyt Lindgren and Don Lindgren are the husband and wife co-owners of Rabelais Books in Portland, Maine.
Why
Samantha was once a photo editor and pastry chef, and her husband Don has been in the book business for three decades. They have become world-renowned for their curated lifestyle collection.
Rabelais Books | Samantha Hoyt Lindgren & Don Lindgren
December 5, 2011
Portland - Maine
Recommended By
- Chef Krista Kern Desjarlais (Bresca)
- Stella and Guy Hernandez (Bar Lola)
Recommendations
Samantha and Don’s recommendations for the books you should be reading and where you should be eating, drinking and shopping in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, London.
Interviewed By Erik Desjarlais
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THE LOBSTER SHACK AT TWO LIGHTS
225 Two Lights Road, Cape Elizabeth, ME 04107
T: 207.799.1677
Cape Elizabeth
Lobster / Seafood
Restaurants - Portland, ME Area
If our “from away” friends insisted on lobster I would either cook it ourselves or take them to The Lobster Shack at Two Lights in the summer months.
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Author: David McMillan, Frédéric Morin, Meredith Erickson.
A COOK’S YEAR IN A WELSH FARMHOUSE
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A beautiful meditative book from the well-respected, and well-traveled, food writer. The recipes are seasonal and simple, following the course of the Welsh garden year.
Author: Elizabeth Luard
Top 5 Favorite Books Released This Year (2011)
A collage of a cookbook that breaks out of the traditional mold. From the Montreal restaurant of the same name, known for making visiting chefs very comfortable.
THE FAMILY MEAL
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Author: Ferran Adria
JENI’S SPLENDID ICE CREAMS AT HOME
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A delicious and simple book of ice cream making that does not involve a custard base. The flavors are inventive and fun without being trendy.
Author: Jeni Britton Bauer
An El Bulli book that home cooks can actually cook from. A great book for dinner party cooking, as all of the recipes have ingredient quantities and yields for small and for large parties.
MOURAD: NEW MOROCCAN
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Author: Mourad Lahlou
The San Francisco-based chef offers a detailed, technical, and yet personal look at Moroccan food. A master class.
FRENCH PROVINCIAL COOKING
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Author: Elizabeth David
GOOD THINGS IN ENGLAND: A BOOK OF REAL ENGLISH FOOD
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White, the founder of the English Folk Cookery Association, was an early proponent of English historical and local cooking. This book looks at 500 years of English recipes she thought were worth saving. She was right.
Author: Florence White
Favorite British Cookbooks
All of Elizabeth David's books are gems, but this is our favorite, with her sharp wit and attention to historical and culinary detail on every page.
HONEY FROM A WEED
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Author: Patience Gray
THE KITCHEN DIARIES
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Possibly our all-time favorite go-to book. Slater's whole approach appeals to us so thoroughly, from his casual yet careful approach to preparing a meal to his magnificent vocabulary and the inviting photography.
Author: Nigel Slater
Gray led a peripatetic life following her stone sculptor husband from one rock strewn Mediterranean locale to another. Her life was simple and hard, but there is poetry in the food and in the recipes.
THE RIVER COTTAGE MEAT BOOK
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Author: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Once you get past Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s introductions you really feel like he’s just giving you advice on making dinner.
WEEK IN WEEK OUT
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Eminently cookable, yet amazingly sophisticated modern British food, assembled from the best of the author’s weekly newspaper columns.
Author: Simon Hopkinson
THE WHOLE BEAST NOSE TO TAIL EATING
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Author: Fergus Henderson
The language that Henderson uses is unlike most any other modern book. He actually writes his recipes. A joy to read, and to cook from.
One of our top choices.
Downtown
Italian
Restaurants - Portland, ME
HUGO’S
Downtown
American
I would take someone from away here.
One of Portland’s jewels.
West End
Japanese / Sushi
Drinks - Portland, ME
HUGO’S
Downtown
American
Libation of choice: in the summer, an Aperol Spritzer from Roxanne Dragon of Hugo’s.
SEEMA’S
The place was very quiet, but they brought out dish after dish of well-prepared, tasty food. I was thrilled by how good it was.
Norwood
Pakistani
Restaurants - Norwood, MA
Restaurants - New York, NY
GRAND SICHUAN
Chelsea
Chinese
Real Chinese, minimal service, always a wait, don’t linger they will literally take your table away from you. We try and hit them up every time we’re in the city.
INCANTO
1550 Church Street, San Francisco, CA 94131
T: 415.641.4500 (make a reservations)
Chris Cosentino’s marvelous restaurant.
Noe Valley
Italian
Restaurants - San Francisco, CA
LA CICCIA
It’s a tiny Sardinian restaurant. Celia and her girlfriend Paula and I shared an intense meal prepared by the husband and wife chef /owners. Octopus stew, Sardinian flatbreads, sea urchin tomato and cured tuna heart, and lots of Carignano and Cannonau wines to chase it all down. Delicious.
Glen Park
Italian
ZUNI CAFE
We had a transcendent lunch at the Zuni Café. Our server spoke just loudly enough to be heard, didn’t give us her name, knew the menu and the wine list backwards and forwards. We had a lovely half-bottle of Vouvray. I couldn’t actually tell you exactly what we ate, I don’t remember the details. But I can tell you all of it was delicious. I hold that meal in my heart.
Civic Center / Van Ness
Modern European
Book Stores - San Francisco, CA
OMNIVORE BOOKS ON FOOD
Noe Valley
Bookstore
SWISH BY HAN
38 Wellington Street, East Toronto, ON M5E 1C9
T: 647.343.0268 (make a reservation)
We both really liked the oddly named Swish by Han, a Korean place in Toronto. The ingredients were fresh and everything was well-prepared – a bit inventive, but still grounded in flavor. The crowd was young and the music loud, but we went back twice.
Downtown
Korean / Fusion
Restaurants - Toronto, Canada
Restaurants - London, UK
MORO
I had my favorite fish preparation ever at Moro: some sort of walnut and yogurt sauce on top of a perfectly grilled filet of snapper.
Clerkenwell
Spanish
NOPI
21-22 Warwick Street, London W1B5NE, UK
T: +44 (0)20.7494.9584 (make a reservation)
This is the newly opened place by the Ottolenghi people.
Covent Garden / Soho
Mediterranean / Asian
OTTOLENGHI
Notting Hill
63 Ledbury Road, London W11 2AD, UK
T: +44/(0)20.7727.1121
Islington
287 Upper Street, London N1 2TZ, UK
T: +44/(0)20.7288.1454
Kensington
1 Holland Street, London W8 4NA, UK
T: +44/(0)20.7937.0003
Belgravia
13 Motcomb Street, London SW1X 8LB, UK
T: +44/(0)20.7823.2707
We are huge Ottolenghi fans. For me, Middle Eastern cuisine is comfort food, and he does it soooo well.
Multiple Locations
Mediterranean
26 St. John Street, London EC1M 4AY, UK
T: +44/(0)20.3301.8069 (make a reservation)
Our dinner at the St. John in Spitalfields held the most delicious Brown Bread ice cream and a pork cut I am unfamiliar with, but that was lip-smackingly delightful. And all this when we were thirty minutes late for our reservation, because we had misjudged the distance from from our hotel. They were so gracious. We were so embarrassed.
City & East
British / English
Drink - Liquor / Spirits
BULLEIT BOURBON
American / Kentucky
Bourbon
MAKER’S MARK
American / Kentucky
Bourbon
Pantry Items
TIPAROS
Purchase on Amazon.com
Fish sauce that we like.
Fish Sauce
Food Stores - New York & Brookyln, NY
KALUSTYANS
We buy a a lot of our spices, including sumac and cumin from Kalustyans.
Murray Hill
Spices / Ethnic Foods
SAHADIS
When we're able, we buy our nuts from Sahadis.
Brooklyn Heights
Ethnic Foods
Norwood, MA
San Francisco, CA
Toronto, Canada
ELEVEN MADISON PARK: THE COOKBOOK
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Author: Daniel Humm & Will Guidara
Cookbooks
A terrific book.