Different format for this installation (previous ones are from earlier this month and last). I got a book at the office today: Fresh From Maine: Recipes and Stories from the State's Best Chefs (Table Arts Media), by Michael S. Sanders with photography by Russell French. The book highlights meals, recipes, and food philosophies from 20 restaurants (and chefs) up and down the coast.

2009 was an incredible year for Maine restaurants. Saveur, Bon Appetit, and Gourmet all raved about our food, how wonderful it is, how talented the chefs are, etc. Restaurant Week began. All kinds of foodie-centered spots opened, and even the farmers' market stayed open later into the year.

So when the Maine Restaurant Association announced its annual awards, we figured we'd see something reflecting that.

Patrick Alan Coleman, a food writer for the Portland Mercury over in the other Portland, is trying to start a cross-country inter-Portland food fight, with this post, in which he pledges to "continue to bait" us over here in the original Portland. I say let's take him.

First up, Portland, Maine, is the original Portland - Coleman dismisses this claim, but he should check the program his crosstown rival Willamette Week issued at the 2007 conference of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies