Frosty’s Donuts, a Maine Street institution for 50 years, closed its doors last June in what appeared to be the end of a delicious era in Brunswick.

The Brunswick Times Record and Bangor Daily News set mouths watering this week when the publications announced that Frosty’s has been purchased and will reopen soon, using Bob and June Frost’s original signature recipes.

Food Service Warehouse put together this infographic showing daily caloric intake around the world — and what portion of their income goes toward food. Click to see full-size, interactive version.

Infographic: Food Service Warehouse.

Mathematicians, physicists and even architects are turning to pasta for new inspiration. Its multivarious shapes are the subject of complicated math problems and computer codes, and have spawned several new studies and books.

An architect has even designed a new, tubelike pasta that resembles a spiral wrapped round itself.

NPR’s Lynn Neary tastes the French-Canadian Christmas tradition of tourtiere pie. The spiced meat dish has as many varying recipes (and pronunciations) as the families who make it, and given Maine’s border with Canada, it has long been a staple on holiday tables here in our home state. Listen and find out why tourtiere pie can even inspire bake-offs that “are like hockey rivalries.”

As 2011 winds down, the wrap-ups of various aspects of our lives are in abundance. Zagat takes a look at the year in dining, compiling top-10 lists from cities across the country and serves up the biggest food stories to sweep the nation.

The article “Give a Gift and Benefit a Charity” in Tuesday’s New York Times recommended a few holiday gifts “that will please more than just the recipient,” including  Ajiri Tea, a company founded by Sara Holby ’08 and her mother, Ann. Ajri’s packaging is made by hand by women in the Kisii area of Kenya, where Sara volunteered while a student at Bowdoin. Through a spin-off non-profit foundation, Ajiri’s tea income returns to Kisii to employ those women and to pay for the education of village children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

In addition to its philanthropy, two-year-old Ajiri has won recognition for its taste and it’s container, taking top honors in the Black Tea category at the 2011 North American Tea Championships; the Buyer’s Choice Award at the World Tea Expo for Best Black Tea; a Specialty Outstanding Food Innovation Gold Award for Innovation in Packaging Design; and the 2010 Best New Product Award for Packaging at the World Tea Expo.

Just in time for the holidays, TIME unveils its best stuff of the year about to end. From books, to movies, to tweets—even the best people NOT running for president—it’s all here.

Bowdoin’s Dining Service has been served its share of accolades for its fine fare.

The latest recognition lands the College at the top of The Huffington Post‘s list of  “The 10 Healthiest College Dining Halls in America.”

The article also notes that Dining buys local and grows from its own organic garden. Read about Dining’s commitment to sustainability.

As we gather around the table this Thanksgiving Day, engulfed in a flavorful holiday cloud, it’s unlikely we’ll wonder why we like the bread stuffing but not the bean casserole, only how we can reach for more of it.

Nature has held close the secrets of flavor, mystifying scientists and foodies alike.

“But in recent years progress has been made in parsing out its complex and often counterintuitive nature,” explains Gordon M. Shepherd, physician and a professor of neurobiology at Yale University School of Medicine, in his new book Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters.

Tommy Wilcox '09 (Illustration: Chelee Ross '12)

This profile originally appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of Bowdoin magazine.

Hometown: Philadelphia

Current residence: Washington, D.C. Web: www.AnsoniaWines.com Gchat: ansoniawines Twitter: @AnsoniaWines Role: I run the Washington, D.C., part of our business, selling to restaurants and retail customers through our store. My father runs the importing side of the business. Ansonia Wines is just the two of us, so we both do a bit of everything.

A typical day: Mornings are usually spent working on content for our Ansonia Wines Direct (online) offers – we design a page on our website, an email and a handout for each offer. I’m on the phone quite a bit with my father to discuss strategy and importing details. Some days I conduct a tasting with sommeliers, or make deliveries to their restaurants. In the afternoons and evenings, I work from the store, mostly packing the next day’s shipments, hand-selling bottles and helping customers pick up wine they’ve ordered online.

Next steps: Since we introduced Ansonia Wines Direct in March, our online sales have really taken off. We’re now shipping all over the country, and will soon be increasing the frequency of our email offers. We’re adding to the number of states we can ship to, and hope to develop the New England market this fall. We’re also starting to experiment with getting QR [quick response] codes onto our bottles to enhance our customers’ experience.

Favorite trip: We go over to France twice a year to taste with the producers. They’re very busy trips (20 to 30 wines a day), but it’s the good kind of busy. Favorite Bowdoin memory: Taking the stage with the Longfellows. Favorite Color: Red (wine and the Phillies). Best food-wine pairing: Roasted pigeon and Michel Gros’s 1999 Vosne- Romanée 1er Cru. (But it’s hard to beat a young Chianti Classico with Rose Begonia from Scarlet

Continue reading Profile: Tommy Wilcox ’09 (Bowdoin Magazine)

Thanksgiving has come early for Bowdoin students. The most anticipated meal of the year — Dining Service’s annual Thanksgiving feast — was served Thursday to 1,600 diners, many of whom lined up some 45 minutes early to wait for the doors to open at  both Moulton and Thorne.

Bowdoin chefs prepared for days — roasting 40 whole, 25-pound turkeys and 480 pounds of turkey breasts. They stewed venison in dark, rich, red wine sauce and made 30 gallons of turkey gravy. Various local vegetables were roasted, candied, mashed and glazed, and the bakeshop whipped up 280 apple, pumpkin and chocolate cream pies.

Students are, of course,  looking forward to being with their families for the actual holiday, but it seems sharing this delicious meal with friends and teammates at Bowdoin, their home away from home, is something for which they are especially thankful. Photos by Michele Stapleton.

[portfolio_slideshow]

Solar panel array atop Thorne Hall.

The Polar solar panels atop Thorne Hall landed Dining Service and the College in On-Campus Hospitality magazine’s special sustainability issue, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The article also mentions the College’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2020, the Building Dashboard that lets you see energy usage in real time and Dining Service’s involvement with local vendors.

Scroll down to the article “Bowdoin Goes Solar” in this PDF.

As an early observation of National Food Day, coming up Monday, Oct. 24, Bowdoin Dining hosted another in a series of locally sourced meals, calling this one “Celebrating Maine Culinary Traditions.”

Held Thursday evening at both dining halls, the menu was almost entirely local, comprising such dishes as roasted squash soup, Maine fish chowder and shrimp cakes, and pot pies and Yankee pot roast with Maine chicken and beef.

Phil Gaven, owner of the Honey Exchange in Portland, and David Israel, beekeeper and associate director of communications for new media, were on hand in Thorne Hall along with bees, a honeycomb, and, of course, honey. Two people from Greenwood Orchards in Turner, provider of Dining’s local apples, spoke with Moulton Union diners.

[portfolio_slideshow]

Bowdoin’s Dining Service has the key ingredient, according to The Washington Post.

Its All We Can Eat blog features the recipe for Balsamic Chicken and Vegetables among satisfying meals that can be pulled together easily, writing that it was “inspired by a Bowdoin College dining hall dish that is just as easily prepared at home.”

Read the article and get the recipe.

Hydration station at The Peter S. Buck Center for Health and Wellness, one of several across campus.

While an eco-friendly push toward hydration stations — fountains designed to refill water bottles — has been embraced by colleges across the country of late, Bowdoin has been drinking from that well for a while now.

Hydration stations in the Peter Buck Center for Health and Fitness, Farley Field House, Smith Union, and Moulton Dining Hall, installed during the 2009-2010 academic year, and another in Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, minimize waste and save students from having to buy new bottles of water.

“We’ve seen a steady increase in the number of students who regularly carry a water bottle around with them for drinking water,” says Coordinator for a Sustainable Bowdoin Keisha Payson. “The hydration stations provide students, faculty, and staff with fresh drinking water in a sustainable way.”

What better way to spend a chilly, rainy Sunday (like here in Maine this morning) than making homemade soup? Here’s a recipe from an Instructables reader, a beef, macaroni, and tomato concoction that’ll remind more than a few of us of our own grandmother’s kitchen.

For more tasty ideas, browse Bowdoin Dining’s “Favorite Recipes.”