TV • PAGE 21
THE BULLETIN • OCTOBER 21 - 27, 2021
tastytv
BY GEORGE DICKIE
Erin French
How ‘The Lost Kitchen’ chef Erin French
learned to roll with the COVID-19 blows
Viewers of Season 1 of “The Lost Kitchen”
on discovery+ got to bear witness to an
entrepreneur’s mind in action, as restaurateur
Erin French brainstormed ways to keep her
Freedom, Maine, eatery The Lost Kitchen
afloat amid the lockdown conditions of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Among her solutions was to create an online
farmers’ market, where she could peddle the
meats, seafood, cheeses, produce and other
locally sourced ingredients that would normally
go into her menu items to retail customers, a
venture that turned out to be quite successful.
Needless to say her vendors, who were also
feeling the financial stresses of quarantine, loved
her for it. But it also underscored to her an
important point about the industry she’s in: That
it’s not just a group of buyers and sellers but a
financial ecosystem, where if one piece falters,
the community feels it.
“To be able to support people and small
makers in a place you call home, I think there’s
no greater way (than) to eat the food that’s
grown in the place you live ...,” French reasons.
“I had this black box of the most amazing
farmers who were making the most food and it
was like my Rolodex of the best makers around.
And I got to share that through COVID with
my customers and saying, ‘I’m going to get
this food straight to you because I can’t cook it
for you right now.’ And that was a really nice
piece of joy to be able to share all of those secret
ingredients and to introduce people to those
farmers in this place because that’s how you
thrive in the place you call home.”
“The Lost Kitchen” returns for its second
season Friday, Oct. 29, continuing to follow
the day-to-day machinations of French and her
staff at the rural Maine eatery about 30 miles
northeast of Augusta, where she has a long
waiting list of diners from around the country
and world waiting to feast on dishes created
from the best of locally sourced ingredients.
“If I had to tell you (one of the) things that
made this place successful, it would be sourcing
local food,” she says. “I mean, part of it is that I
believe that vegetables feel jet lag and the closer
(to harvest) you get them, the fresher they’re
going to taste. And even as a cook, it’s shaped
me because I never make a grocery list and go
shopping. I look at what there is available and
then it’s my job to figure out what to do with it.”