Hi there, I’m Leah. I’m cooking, eating and drinking my way through the great state of Maine and writing about it at Mainely Eating, a Maine Food Blog.

Here’s a picture of me with make up and clothes on (usually I’m working from home in my PJs):

25 food-ish things you probably didn’t know about me:

1. I’m originally from the UK and I still pine for the many crisp/potato chip flavors that you can’t get in the US, especially roast chicken and sage.
2. I can’t leave a supermarket without buying butter.
3. My recipe book collection is out of control. Old favorites by Delia Smith fight for space next to coffee-table-food-porn from Thomas Keller and then there are the worn, regularly used books by Nigel Slater, Barbara Lynch and Food 52.
4. I’m happiest ending dinner with a cheese plate. I’m also not averse to starting dinner with a cheese plate. I like cheese, a lot.
5. Vacations are routinely planned around restaurants I want to visit.
6. I’m deadly allergic to pistachio nuts and have to carry an epi-pen with me. So now you know how to kill me.
7. Basic boiled rice is my nemesis in the kitchen. I can cook perfect risottos or garlic fried rice but ask me to boil rice and it’s a disaster.
8. A perfect day might start with an early morning visit to the Portland Maine Farmers Market, stopping by Eventide for a brown butter lobster roll on the way home to cook my market haul.
9. Champagne is my drink of choice followed by a crisp Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region of New Zealand but I can’t eat Indian or Mexican food without a cold beer.
10. If I can’t sleep I’ll plan out menus in my head, it makes me happy and sleepy at the same time.
11. Having to touch raw meat kind of creeps me out but I’m working on it.
12. I’d like to have afternoon tea with Mary Berry (Great British Baking Show).
13. Some of my favorite childhood memories involve “midnight feasts” at my grandparents house. My younger brother would be asleep and I’d be allowed to come down for (of all things?!?) a lettuce sandwich.
14. My last meal would be my Mom’s lasagne or I’d toast a couple of slices of focaccia, lightly butter them, layer with super thin slices of prosciutto di Palma and then drizzle over good olive oil and a little Maldon sea salt.
15. On any given Sunday afternoon in winter, there will likely be a homemade chicken stock or maybe a rich meat bolognese sauce simmering on the stove.
16. I adore oysters but don’t like mussels, although I’ll happily dip my bread in the garlic-y juices.
17. One of my most memorable meals was at the now-closed Firebird restaurant in New York.
18. I vowed to never eat foie gras. That was until I ate the prune-stuffed gnocchi with foie gras sauce at No. 9 Park in Boston, MA.
19. I was an incredibly picky eater as a child and my parents would have to pack boxes and boxes of Coco Pops to get me through our annual summers in Italy. I regret this now.
20. After reading “Life, on the line” by Grant Achatz, one of my new objectives is to fly to Chicago for dinner at Alinea.
21. I’ll can’t/won’t eat egg white on its own, it’s the texture. Scrambled eggs or an omelet are fine but if the egg is poached, fried or boiled I only eat the yolk.
22. I love to try new recipes or to use them for inspiration but I’m not a huge fan of following recipes to the letter, I’m more of an “add a bit of this, taste, add a bit more, taste” kind of cook.
23. The smell of tarragon or tequila is very upsetting to me.
24. I only drink gin and tonic in the summer. My preference is Cold River Gin made right here in Maine or Hendricks with lots of ice, tonic and cucumber or lime.
25. Cooking, eating and drinking make me happy.

Note: this blog may contain affiliate links to my favorite cookbooks on Amazon if I’m referencing a recipe. If you click on the link and buy the book I believe I get a teeny tiny percentage of the sales 🙂