New2Maine.com

Cinque Terre will usher in the first signs of spring on Sunday, March 16th when it holds its First Annual “Eco Appetito – Good Eating for a Good Earth” event at its Portland restaurant, located at 36 Wharf Street. Scheduled for 1:00 - 4:00 pm, the festive Eco Appetito event will showcase abundant samples of local Maine food and beverages from dozens of producers. Most notably, guests will enjoy hand-crafted beer selections from Portland’s Allagash Brewing Company and the debut of Maine Oat & Maple Beer, brewed by Peak Organic Brewing Company.

The open house event, expected to draw a capacity crowd, will benefit the “Food for Thought” program, offered at Ferry Beach Ecology School (FBES) in Saco, Maine. The innovative program at the school’s coastal campus teaches the value of eating naturally grown and organic food, and how to live and eat sustainably.

DETAILS:

What: Eco Appetito – Good Eating for a Good Earth

Where: Cinque Terre, 36 Wharf Street, Portland

When: Sunday, March 16th 1:00 - 4:00 pm

How (much): $50 per person. All proceeds will benefit the Ferry Beach Ecology School and its “Food for Thought” program.

To purchase tickets or locate additional event information, visit www.fbes.org or call Maggie Daigle at (207) 671-0643.

To learn more about the Ferry Beach Ecology School and its acclaimed programs and offerings, visit www.fbes.org.

She and I try to go out at least once a week for a “date night.” On a few occasions, we’ve gone to a movie. So far we’ve been to three different theaters in the area, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on them.

First, in downtown Portland, you have the Nickelodeon Theater on Temple Street. Containing six theaters using analog projectors, this cinema has an indie theater feel to it. Small theaters are the norm, and stadium seating is nowhere to be found. They also use analog projectors and we’ve noticed that they’re not always monitored as closely as one might like–we saw the top half of I Am Legend for about three minutes until someone fixed the projector. The prices are decent ($7.50 for adults; $5.00 all day on Tuesday) and the selection is usually pretty current. If you’re planning an evening out in Old Port, this is a pretty good option. If the object of your evening is to go see a movie, you may want to look elsewhere.

The second theater we watched a movie in up here was the CineMagic Theater on County Road in Westbrook. This is the most up-to-date (and therefore most expensive) theater we’ve been to up here, but not by much. At $9.00 each, the tickets are not as bad as Crossgates 18 in Albany (where I believe they’re now up over $10 a piece). The selection is great (they currently have 20 films on the schedule) and the stadium seating ideal. They even have an IMAX theater for $13.00. We don’t spend much time over that way though, so we’ve settled on the next theater as our regular movie night destination.

The Hoyt’s Cinemas Falmouth 10 is both slightly more convenient and slightly less expensive that CineMagic (only by $0.50 a ticket). It offers 10 THX certified theaters, a good selection of current films, and some decent restaurants nearby on Rte. 1 for before or after snacking. She happens to be a waitress up there too, so we get to eat at one of those restaurants for a discount (don’t worry, I won’t shill for them here). Our most recent movie night found us seeing The Bucket List at Falmouth. Though the theater lacked CineMagic’s stadium seating, the view was great nonetheless, and the digital projector was a much nicer experience than Nickelodeon’s older analog.

Weighing all the pros and cons, I think we’ll stick to Falmouth except for those movies that just cry out for IMAX. The fact that we got a $50 gift certificate to Hoyt’s for Christmas certainly helps make that decision easier too.

Black Bear hockey is something of a religion in Maine. I am an alumnus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where the school provost specifically blessed the men’s hockey team during our class convocation (no, I’m not kidding). So when I heard that UMaine was to play my Engineers (no, they’re not the “Red Hawks” and they never will be as far as I’m concerned!) at the Cumberland County Civic Center in January, I just had to get tickets. She picked up tickets more than a month in advance of the January 6 contest and was told that almost all of the good seats were already sold out, so we had seats in the corner behind the RPI goal. Not a bad view, but nowhere near as good as our Pirates seats in November. I suppose the fact that Portlanders wouldn’t have to make the 2+ hour trek up to the Alfond Arena made this game even more popular.

There were many people wearing red in the arena, but I soon learned that most of those were Red Sox- or Pirates-related. We RPI fans were sorely outnumbered, and She and I sat amongst a sea of blue and black. Luckily, we’d just come from church, so we weren’t wearing any RPI paraphernalia. There were several RPI jerseys and hats throughout the crowd—we ‘Tute alumni get around I guess. Next time (if there is a next time—Maine apparently plays a different ECAC school every year in Portland) I’ll wear my RPI jacket with pride.

The game was entertaining, though Maine manhandled the RPI boys a bit, and I think the scorekeeper was quite biased in awarding shots on goal. The 4-2 final score is a bit misleading: the game was 2-1 half-way through the 3rd period. Maine scored its third short-handed on a bad giveaway by RPI deep in their own zone and the 4th was an empty netter when RPI pulled Mathias Lange with 2:20 showing on the scoreboard. RPI scored a junk goal with 30 seconds left, but She and I weren’t around to see it. The “home” crowd was not nearly as raucous as those in Troy, but it was a good time nonetheless. We’re glad we went, and we’ll have to take in a game up north some time to see what the Alfond experience is like. Oh, and Maine’s pep band can play circles around the Engineer band. Sorry, but it’s true…

Gingerbread men (and Bean boots) at L.L. Bean’s flagship store, originally uploaded by new2maine.

One of the great Maine traditions in the winter is to go Christmas shopping at Freeport’s L.L. Bean flagship store. The store is open 24 x 7, 365 days a year, but during the Christmas shopping season, you probably don’t want to be anywhere near the place during daylight hours. Even at 8:30 PM on a frigid Saturday night, She and I had to park in the back parking lot and walk a few minutes to get to the store.

I tried to snap some pictures outside, but they didn’t come out very well. If I go up to Freeport again, I’ll bring my tripod so the exposure times can be long enough to actually capture some detail. I included a few of the not so terrible outdoor pics on the photoset. The indoor ones, like this gingerbread cookie display, and the gingerbread L.L. Bean store complex came out much better. If you get a chance to head up to Freeport during the Christmas shopping season, and you have the patience to shop in a crowd, L.L. Bean is an experience not to be missed.

Portland, Maine is a busy place, especially for a city of just over 65,000 people. From the bars and restaurants to the theatre and art scene, it seems there’s hardly a dull moment. She and I have just begun to scratch the surface of what’s going on around here, but I thought it might be a good idea to share with you where we come up with some of the ideas for our “date nights.” Having decided that Old Port is more of a fair weather destination (wandering half-drunk down brick streets in the cold isn’t as much fun as doing it in shorts and sandals), we’ve begun to look for indoor (i.e. heated) things to do.

I’ve already blogged about the hockey game and some of the restaurants we’ve tried. For other ideas, we have come to rely on two main sources: MaineToday.com and The Phoenix. MaineToday.com’s Entertainment Calendar contains myriad listings for all sorts of events and happenings in and around southern Maine. The Phoenix, a weekly free newspaper, also contains many of the same event listings, and some interesting local flavor pieces to boot (please note that The Phoenix is not exactly kid-friendly, so watch where you leave it laying about).

So, if you’re looking for something to do in Portland that doesn’t involve the typical dinner and drinks in Old Port (which is great, don’t get me wrong), take a look at what MaineToday.com and The Phoenix have to offer. Of course, if you’re hungry before or after, you can’t go wrong with one of the many fine eateries in Portland.