Perfect Pairings: Winter Fun and Local Food

The secret to enjoying a Maine winter lies in embracing the outdoor opportunities the season heralds. We gather, recreate, and explore outdoors all winter long. Warming food and drink are central to cold weather merry-making, snowy adventure-taking, and winter blues-shaking activities. In this year’s edible MAINE holiday gift guide, we’ve curated a list of outdoor fun and food events to which you can treat yourself and anyone else on your list.

Big Tree Hospitality Alpine Feast

Carrabassett Valley
mainehuts.org

The trek up to Maine Huts and Trails’ Stratton Brook Hut, one of four eco-lodges along the operation’s 80-mile trail network, is not for the faint of heart. But this once-a-winter mountaintop feast is worth the climb. For one weekend in February, the cozy oasis atop the snowy Oak Knoll Trail bustles with chefs from Biddeford-based Big Tree Hospitality. They might serve hot chocolate as thick as soup, oysters grilled over an open fire, or snappy franks in pillowy buns to diners outside, then have everyone head inside the lodge for a decadent meal. Guests then ski, fat bike, or snowshoe down the trail—taking in views of the Bigelow range and Sugarloaf Mountain—or spend the night in the hut’s bunkroom. The 2023 feast will take place February 24 and 25. Follow @bigtreecatering on Instagram for ticketing details.

Carnaval Maine

Portland
carnavalme.com

Between March 8 and 12, Carnaval Maine offers family-friendly (and food-forward) outdoor events on Portland’s Eastern Promenade. Opening night fireworks rival Fourth of July shows; skiers and snowboarders compete in the USASA Rail Jam, launching themselves off jumps on a groomed track; and food trucks serve up warm fare under floating globe lights. Days begin with family programming: ice sculptures, face painting, and ski lessons. Local and national bands perform each evening on an outdoor stage. Signature Bites & Brews sessions are offered most afternoons and evenings inside a heated, glowing igloo, where attendees sample local beers paired with tasty bites from Maine’s nationally recognized restaurants. Tickets go on sale in December.

Cedar Grove Sauna

Montville
cedargrovesauna.com

Cedar Grove Sauna sits on a hill overlooking Jackie Stratton’s homestead. From October through May, Stratton invites guests pre-book sessions in her bespoke sauna. With its angled green roof, neat rows of cedar shingles, and arched doorway with beckoning twinkle lights, the sauna invites you to shed worldly baggage. A small changing area leads into the peaceful, dark room where a wood stove throbs with heat. A cast-iron tub filled with spring water sits just outside the doors for periodic cold plunges. On Valentine’s Day or full moon weekends, Stratton offers guests a cheese board piled high with Maine crackers, meats, cheeses, fruits, and fermented veggies. Stratton has a mobile sauna that pops up all over Maine’s coast—like at Glidden Point Oyster Farms in Edgecomb—where visitors can shuck fresh oysters post-sauna. Sessions start at $55.

Fine Dining, Snowmobiling, and Skiing

Mount Chase Lodge
Patten
mtchaselodge.com

Want to unplug? The North Maine Woods has you covered—or rather, uncovered as the area has almost no cellular service. On the shores of Upper Shin Pond, in the vicinity of Mount Katahdin, Baxter State Park, and the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Mount Chase Lodge offers outdoor adventure and inner quietude. This year-round lodge is connected to hundreds of miles of snowmobile trails with dozens of miles of ski and snowshoe trails located just down the road. Visitors can rent snowmobiles and skis by day and retire to play cribbage by a fieldstone fireplace at night. Come for the snow and serenity, but stay for the food. The lodge provides hearty daily breakfasts, optional packed lunches, and a well-executed dinner menu that offers fresh sourdough bread, robust braised meats, fish dishes, vegetarian specials, and rich desserts. Cabins start at $149/night, double-occupancy suites at $150/night, and waterfront townhouses at $349/night.

Outside Ramen

Broad Arrow Farm
Bristol
broadarrowfarm.com

Coastal Maine gets plenty of play in the summer, but farmers and event organizers at Broad Arrow Farm prove great food and fun can be had outside on the Pemaquid Peninsula in winter, too. With pigs, lambs, and poultry raised on the farm, resident butchers and chefs have an arsenal of quality ingredients to create innovative fare served at The Rooting Pig charcuterie bar and special events like the Fire on the Farm ramen lunches. Guests don parkas and wool caps, tromp over squeaky snow toward a line of crackling fire pits, and grab steamy bowls of tonkatsu ramen with house-made noodles, ginger pork, chashu belly and golden-yolked soy-marinated eggs. The date for the upcoming ramen lunch was not set in stone at press time, so follow @broadarrowfarm on Instagram for ticketing information.

Community Ice Harvest

Thompson Ice House
South Bristol
thompsonicehouse.com

Sometime in mid-February, folks gather at Thompson Pond to participate in the centuries-old practice of harvesting ice. Using handsaws, tongs, and chisel bars, trained volunteers cut the ice in a grid across the pond. Attendees prod the floating 300-pound blocks through a channel and up a conveyor belt, where they are wrangled into the ice house for storage. While ice harvesting has nearly vanished with the advent of refrigeration, residents of South Bristol keep the tradition alive with a celebration that includes hot beverages, warm soup, and home baked goods. The event is free, though donations benefit the preservation and operation of the Thompson Ice House. This year’s event will take place February 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Ice Skating and Hot Lunch

Sugarloaf Outdoor Center
Carrabassett Valley
sugarloaf.com/the-outdoor-center

Strap on your ice skates for some wholesome winter fun at Sugarloaf Mountain’s outdoor skating rink. Best known for its alpine skiing, the Outdoor Center at Sugarloaf rounds out the resort’s offerings with access to Nordic trails, an NHL-sized ice rink, and a hidden gem of an eatery: the Bull Moose Café, which offers cold beer and hot entrées by a roaring fire. The rink is open mid-December through mid-March, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with on-site skate rentals. Every Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. is devoted to family skate time, and spirited games of pickup hockey heat the rink on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Pass prices range from $6 to $14, depending on the age of the skater.

Oxbow Beer Garden’s Trails, Pizzas, and Pints

Oxford
oxbowbeer.com/location/oxford

Whether you’re in it for the ski or the après-ski, Oxbow’s Beer Garden (the Newcastle-based brewery’s Western Maine outpost) is a one-stop shop for wintertime recreating, eating, drinking, and relaxing. Behind the restored barn housing the restaurant and taproom, you’ll find a network of mixed-use trails for skiing, snowshoeing, and fat biking. The Portland Gear Hub offers on-site equipment rentals. Work up an appetite zipping around the miles of wooded trails before retiring en plein air with a pizza (starting at $14) and a pint of one of Oxbow’s dozens of farmhouse ales. Diners can cozy up in a heated lean-to, sprawl in an Adirondack chair near an open fire, perch atop a stool at a barrel table, or take cover under an open-sided pavilion. Well-behaved four-legged friends are welcome on the trails and in the Beer Garden. Open Wednesday through Sunday. Gift certificates are available in $25 increments.

Toboggan Championships

Camden
camdensnowbowl.com/toboggan-championships

This annual three-day Mardi Gras/Super Bowl/country fair mashup happens the first weekend in February at the Camden Snow Bowl ski area, home to a historic gravity-operated wooden toboggan chute. Thousands of spectators watch hundreds of tobogganers lock legs around torsos, lay back in their sleds, and fly down the 400-foot track, hitting speeds as high as 40 mph before popping out of the chute onto frozen Hosmer Pond. Teams named Mitten Sniffers, Whiskey on Ice, and Sliding Dirty wait for their turn on the track. Spectators tailgate on the ice while food trucks and a beer garden keep them full and warm. A costume parade (think sledders dressed in pink flamingo hats, lederhosen, and mermaid tails) and a team of sled dogs offering rides around the pond offer even more entertainment. Entry is free for spectators. Parking is $10.

Tops’l Farm Winter Raclette

Waldoboro
topslfarm.com/winter-raclette

Tops’l Farm’s immersive raclette meals will transport you to the Swiss Alps. Bundled guests gather outside around crackling fires to sip aquavit hot toddies and slurp Maine oysters. Inside the heated barn, diners sit at long tables laden with evergreen sprigs, softly glowing candles, baskets full of crusty bread, and bowls of mustard, garlicky honey, cornichons, and pickled onions. The centerpieces are electric grills outfitted with six coupelles: eaters’ personal pans for melting slices of golden raclette. Once this nutty alpine cheese is bubbling hot, guests pour it over pillowy piles of paper-thin prosciutto, boiled purple potatoes, marinated mushrooms, and blanched brassicas. As is the draw to any raclette party, diners easily pass hours chatting with friends and assembling their own perfect bites. Tops’l Farm will have lunch and dinner seatings on six select Saturdays this winter plus Valentine’s Day. The cost is $85 per person, including tax and gratuity but not beverages.