Dear Readers:

I'm away this week, feeding on southern flavors and tropical warmth.
I'll be back next week--not to watch the tulips grow, at least not yet-- but to resume our quest of culinary feasts and food finds.

For me, Street & Co. is a mixed bag of pleasure and pain. The tables for two are small, jammed in helter-skelter. The dining room off the kitchen is stuffy and noisy. In warmer months it’s downright unbearable. When I do go, I ask for the back room where the climate is temperate.

Gripes aside, I would go more often because the cooking is so very good. Every dish is original and victorious. Taste sensations are often boundless revelations.

I suppose less critical creatures would call the place cozy and my complaints crazy. If I wanted to dine in a snug corner, I’d stay home and have dinner by the fire. On the other hand, I don’t mean to imply that the two dining rooms or the bar area are not easy on the eyes. The restaurant evokes a charming European nonchalance. It’s easy to imagine that you’re in a Mediterranean city along the waterfront, with minstrels in the alley.

Who says downtown cool can’t be found off the peninsula and still survive?

Other than if you live in the neighborhood, there’s compelling new reason to ride down Brighton Ave., even if you’re not going to the gas station, car dealer or creeping along this notoriously slow route to Westbrook.

Several weeks ago the new Rosemont Market and Bakery opened in the former Piscopo’s bakery building at 559 Brighton Ave., just past the Route 9 intersection.

What makes it newsworthy is this: They aim to fill the void left by the dismantled Portland Greengrocer—who, some feel, left many Portlanders in the lurch when they decided to stop selling fresh produce.

Reports are coming in that newcomer DuckFat, the only bastion of walk-in gastronomic pleasures in the city of Portland, has been SRO at lunch for the last two days.

A friend called today to say that he just had the Apple Wood Smoked Bacon, Cheese and Tomato panini, which he pronounced "fabulous." Then he adds, personnel from Fore Street were there, ordering take-out for the office staff.

I just goes to show, feed them well and they shall come.

When I noticed Shays on Monument Square, resurrected in the space where Michaela’s had been, I was delighted to see that place filled again.

Michaela’s was a big hit when it first opened. Though the room was small, it was attractively done, with its flaming red leatherette booths and cool interior. But after several months, regulars, which included yours truly, tired of the restaurant because the menu never changed. Right up to its last wheezing gasp you would be presented with the same choices as Day One. The chef/owner defended this. But his blind arrogance eventually got the better of him, and Michaela’s bit the dust, rightly so.

This is one of my main pet peeves when dining out. If restaurants don’t change the menu frequently, I stop going. Many places tweak their offerings on a daily basis or present a fixed list with many specials.

Meat loaf panini with onion relish and cheddar, Maine sun choke soup with bacon, gorgonzola accompanied by fig jam on brioche toast—where are we? At DuckFat, of course.

I’ve been both excited and skeptical about the new Duck Fat, the latest dining venture to slip into downtown Portland. It’s brought to us by Chef Rob Evans and his partner Nancy Pugh, the brains and brawn behind the ever fabulous Hugo’s

I went there for lunch today and enjoyed a delicious if not exotic meal. Don’t misunderstand. I mean this in a good way. This could a winner for many reasons. I’ve only sampled a few of the dishes, so perhaps it’s too early to offer ironclad opinions. But this much I know. There’s no other lunch menu like this anywhere in Portland, and there’s no other chef of such brilliance and competence around anywhere—at least in our part of the world--who’d dare to open up what is basically a panini shop and food to go.

At lunchtime today the Portland Public Market was as busy as a food hall could be. If the market’s visionaries had a certain concept in mind, today’s vibrant scene was symbolic. With practically every vendor tending to customers, the overall scene was one of lively commerce.

People were lined up at Big Sky Bakers (228-2024), ordering sandwiches or buying their delicious bread made from stone-ground wheat.

Stone Soup was serving to capacity. El Mirador was cranking out tacos and chile rellenos. Scales, where I was having lunch at the raw bar with a friend, was as jammed as Fore Street on a Saturday night. Even Maverick’s had its share of enthusiastic diners.

The market’s long-awaited success is no surprise. What the Portland market needed all along was food: prepared food, stand-up food, take-out brown bag food, fine restaurant food and other riders along the culinary highway.

For those of us who collect cookbooks seriously, big collections are ripe for recipe gridlock. With so many books to choose from some are bound to get lost in the shuffle. We grow tired of the tried and true and look for renewed inspiration.

I’ll often use the same 10 books out of hundreds until one day the recipes seem stale. Then I search for new books until I’ve built up another collection for everyday reference.

Recently I had new bookshelves built for my study at home and was able to unpack 20 or so cartons of cookbooks that had been stored in the attic. As I unpacked and arranged them on the shelves it was like being reunited with old favorites, recipes that I hadn’t looked at or made in years.

Some were like time warps, by food authors who had had their day in the sun. Examples include Giuliani’s Bugialli's Foods of Italy, The New James Beard, Pierre Franey’s Low-Calorie Gourmet, Norman van Aker’s, Feast of Sunlight, Madeleine Kaman, When French Women Cook, Paula Wolfert’s, The Cooking of South-West France and the entire collection of Lee Bailey’s cookbooks. Bailey in particular brought back amusing memories because none of his recipes worked very well. But he was a great stylist, the books were beautiful and the recipe concepts, once altered, were terrific.

Contemporary restaurant chefs are of two minds. Those who want to make it big, with celebrity status and endorsements, or those with tidier aspirations. Laura Butler, more widely known in our parts by her restaurant moniker, Rachel’s, seems to have hit her stride with the tidy operation she and husband Robert operate.

In a city teeming with citadels of pocket-sized dining haunts Rachel’s towers over her Lilliputian peers. It was one of the few places I’ve been to recently that I could actually call delightful.

Against all odds, I was determined to go there the other night, in the middle of a snow storm when saner options should have prevailed. We scraped along the quiet, deserted streets until we arrived at an ignominious stretch of Woodford’s off Brighton Avenue, where Rachel’s is discreetly tucked away.

The start of a new year is a good time to reflect.

It’s remarkable that such a compact city as Portland can support so many good restaurants. While the best are often the most popular and the most expensive, what’s left is a hodgepodge of good, fair and indifferent.

I’m thrilled, though, that we have so many special-occasion places in our midst. No urgent need to travel to New York or Boston when we have the likes of Bandol, Hugo’s, Fore Street, Back Bay Grill, Cinque Terre and Five Fifty Five right here.

Café Uffa, manned by Chef James Tranchemontagne, is another one of my favorites. It’s probably the most underrated restaurant in the city. His handling of rustic French country cooking is often sublime. Where else can you order pork rillettes or beef Wellington and other rustic dishes?

Apparently I belong to a quiet minority who doesn’t fawn over Chicky’s Fine Diner. It’s supposed to represent the new cool of a revitalized Westbrook. To me the dining room was nothing more than a noisy cavern.

Chicky’s tries to effect such a delicate balance with allusions of cool. It’s not that easy to recreate the modern trendy diner. Rather, it’s the acquired art of a savvy restaurateur who instills such authenticity.

Though such places are not meant to resemble the likes of Moody’s, the A-1 or the Maine Diner but strive instead to be nostalgic renditions, facsimiles to the beat of rock music.

There are plenty of them in larger cities. New York, Boston and L.A. are awash with these vast dining halls that ride the waves of studied self-consciousness, with smirking waiters and leggy hostesses who don’t need to say much to handle a brash clientele.