Some restaurants leave me cold. Some make me feel trapped like a spellbound bug in the hothouse, flitting haplessly into the corolla of a carnivorous plant from which there’s no escape other than to pay the check and run.

Fortunately I can avoid such places. Why cast the heart of a hungry fool into a house of dearth when dinner from a street vendor might be just as good?

Traveling lately in a very limited circle of dining options I stick to the tried and true, to places where I feel welcome and where money is well spent because I leave happy and well fed. I won’t name these places because we all know who they most likely are: my favorite neighborhood haunt on the West End; or that downtown legend that never disappoints; onto the wondrous Italian duo on Dana or Wharf streets; to the sleek surrounds of a Congress Street bistro that gets better and better and ultimately our Bayside Citadel of fine food lolling incongruously in the parlor of the squalor zone where forgotten men and women lounge.

I’ve been cooking at home more than usual. I have a brand new kitchen with 6 burners, an extravagant oven and an expensive refrigerator with a prolific ice maker.

Then too I will soon be in mourning over our farmer’s markets closing shop for the winter. I’ve been stocking up on items that I won’t see for a long while, mostly meats from our organic farmers. The pork from Thirty Acre Farm is transcendent. I have, at last count, 8 roasts tucked away in the freezer; the Whole Grocer carries some of their meats so it won’t be like total dipsomania. The chickens from Sumner Valley Farm have been a steady favorite, too. But Maine-ly Chickens are good contenders. I still have a few frozen lamb roasts from a North Haven farm, but locally the lamb from Sunise Acres can be purchased at the Winn Road farm in Cumberland year long.

I’ve purchased every new cookbook that seemed promising and haven’t hit a bad apple yet. Edna Lewis’s new book, The Taste of Country Cooking, is a marvel of down home southern cookery. Buy it just for the Baked Tomatoes recipe.

Another good find and enjoyable read is Recipes from a Very Small Island by Linda and Martha Greenlaw. Linda is famous for her book the Lobster Chronicles and together mother and daughter have brought the lore and the larder of Isle au Haut to life in this sensational personal cooking memoir. The apple cobbler is as good as that simple dessert gets; the baked haddock casserole is delicious and another must make is the sweet potato casserole—it will change your Thanksgiving menu forever.

Dishing Up Maine by Brooke Dojny is a good cooking tome too. Her recipe for scalloped tomatoes is another tasty rendition, more refined than the Edna Lewis version, but both are sensational.

Though not a new book, the Balthazar Cookbook, which has lingered underused until recently on my bookshelves, offers a great recipe for braised short ribs. I had been in Warren and stopped into Curtis Meats where among other items I bought, I asked if they had short ribs. They were beautiful, very meat ribs, almost Mahogany in color and lean.

The Balthazar opened in New York’s SoHo in the late 1990s and has been the place where the elite still meet. But it’s not just a place for the pretty or the famous but one of the rare American restaurants offering true French bistro cooking.

The recipes from the book are not necessarily easy. You need to have veal stock on hand and prolific preparations that are more easily made in a restaurant kitchen than at home. Still, for a straightforward dish like braised short ribs, the procedure is still intense. As described in the book, it’s a dish that calls for “patience not precision.” It also relies on fine quality root vegetables as accompaniments. We still have these in our farmer’s markets so the time is right for this kind of dish. And it’s worth the trip to Curtis Meats to get high quality short ribs or any other meat they sell. The Rosemont in Portland carries some of Curtis Meats products.

To adhere to the trend of buying local, these books and many others are available at Longfellow Books who will gladly order for you anything you want in less time than clicking onto Amazon.

After all is said and done, the biggest culinary dilemma in Portland that I face is lunch. After all the sandwich places and quick-stop shops, choices are limited. Good sit-down options include 20 Milk Street, Walter’s, Portland Sea Grill or Oolong.

I like to go out to lunch, to leave my office, meet a friend or business associate or sometimes be by myself with something to read over a good bowl of soup.

Sohpia’s was always a handy choice this time of year but now their new hours are limited--Thursday to Sunday--which is a shame. Chef-proprietor Stephen Lanzalotta prefers to ride the success of his Diet Code, a blustery volume based on hypothetical teachings of the Da Vinci Code. Basically he preaches a Mediterranean diet loaded with chickpeas and other grains and legumes soused in olive oil. His food codes and formulas, though, need the skills of a DaVinci practitioner to decipher.

Still his breads are the best and his assemblage of ingredients work well. He’s open for dinner, too, charging, I’m told, high prices for food served on paper plates. Each to his own.

Occasionally I go to Walter’s or Oolong for lunch but have also tried some of the Commercial Street eateries that I assumed were mere tourist traps like the Dry Dock or Gilbert’s Chowder House, which weren’t half bad.

I went to Rosie’s a few days ago, that pub on Fore Street, because there was a parking space in front of it, I was hungry and it was lunchtime. I splurged and ordered a hamburger, which I don’t eat often. Rosie’s hamburger is the best in Portland. It’s grilled and charred perfectly, a half pound of good quality meat housed on a huge whole wheat bun. The enormous square cut fries were sensational. For ten bucks, including endless refills of Coke, it was great.

I like the Cumberland Club for lunch either in the Member’s Dining Room or the porch. Their lobster stew is the best I've had in Maine. But dinner there recently—usually a serene respite from the madding crowd--was an evening spent dining in mishap.

Otherwise the city seems overrun—no, overwrought--with Panini’s and wraps, a so-called gloomy food group akin to the wheelie bins of bilious disorders.

Another place that I’ve not been to since I was a Portland tourist is the Flatbread Company. A friend of mine hates the place because she detests the signs that hang everywhere, pithy mottos of the way life should be.

We went Saturday afternoon, a beautiful bright, sparkling sunny day where a trip downtown, such as it is, seemed liked an amusing idea. There are many places in town to get the epochal American pizza: thick crusted, heavy-cheese, canned tomato sauce concoctions, the most reliable of which is probably found at Anthony’s Italian Kitchen on Middle Street.

I’m never quite sure what to think about the Flatbread Co. other than their version of pizza is terrific. The place enjoys a delightful harbor setting, with actual water views, a rare sight from our water-bordered peninsula, an anomaly that would be disallowed now in the spirit of our city’s arcane--and failing--waterfront zoning ordinances. Still, there it is, with a fresh view of the sea and we should be grateful for such things.

Of course those dreaded signs are everywhere, but don’t bother to take your reading glasses. The room is fun, large, inviting, and every waitress there wears low-rise jeans. The clientele is a mix of kids, aging boomers still in Woodstock paraphernalia, some tourists, a few rejects from the Lava Lounge and people like you and me who like their pizza and a water view.

What’s so good about their pizza is the crust, a marvel of dough turned crisp after being baked in the blazing heat of a wood oven. Of course everything at Flatbread is organic, to good effect. From the organic whole wheat flour milled to be white to all the toppings it’s marvelous pizza. We chose two small pies, big enough for an army. One was with crabmeat on a bed of cream cheese and herbs. It was good, though the thought of crabmeat (and cream cheese) on pizza was ultimately unappetizing to me. The other was prepared with olives, tomatoes, feta and olive oil. It was delicious. The crust is sensational and I will go to Flatbread again and again when I want pizza. If only they sold it by the slice.

Last Sunday we had brunch out. Two favorite haunts, Uffa and Local 188, can be found at the intersection of Pine, State and Congress otherwise known as Longfellow Square. We decided on Uffa.

Chef-proprietor James Tranchemontagne is a wonderful cook, and his talents are not wasted on this midday meal. Though I hardly ever eat eggs, I did this time and ordered a hearty version of Eggs Benedict, this one made with blackened fish. It was beautifully seasoned and thoroughly enjoyable.

I may try Local 188 ton another Sunday though I'm curious about dinner there since my last experience about a year ago had its ups and downs. It deserves another go.

Another choice—a well-liked brunch spot recently hailed for its fine food at dinner—is Bintliff’s which has always been a popular breakfast and lunch spot.

I’ve been to the various Bintliff’s that seem to come and go all over the state and have always been unimpressed. The Portland Bintliff’s wins the haphazard décor award: The furnishings are truly state of the art trash. A few years ago, Bintliff’s took over the old Giovanni space on Wharf Street, rechristened it the Commissary, after the old Portland Market eatery, and it’s where I had one of the worst dinners ever as though one were expected to eat stinky detritus with delight. It closed within weeks.

The buzz is they have a new chef, a Fore Street disciple, as though Sam and Dana’s place was a launching pad for chefs going out on their own. Would it be like going to a heritage tomato tasting? Sniffing pulp in a glass? Sitting on whoopee cushions?

I was keen to see for myself how this upstart upstairs Bintliff’s kitchen fared now, even if it meant bowing to happenstance surroundings and a menu written in jabberwocky. Alas, I haven’t gone yet. We tried to go this past Sunday for brunch but there was a line out the door. As for dinner, the hours are limited, from Wednesday to Saturday, nights which often find me elsewhere.

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