Leslie Bridgers

Columnist

Leslie Bridgers is a columnist for the Portland Press Herald, writing about Maine culture, customs and the things we notice and wonder about in our everyday lives. Originally from Connecticut, Leslie came to Maine by way of Bowdoin College and never left. She joined the Portland Press Herald in 2011 as a reporter and spent seven years as the paper’s features editor, overseeing coverage of arts, entertainment and food.

Food, Recipes

A Serbian Croatian pancake meets Italian flavors in this family recipe mash-up

by Kara Elder Special To The Washington Post July 12, 2020July 9, 2020

Sometimes a recipe is more than a set of instructions for a certain dish. It’s a gateway to something else – a person or place that existed once, but is now gone. It doesn’t matter if infinite iterations exist, or even if the method has changed over time. For Robbie Tutlewski, the chef and owner […]

Do This

See if you can solve these Maine-themed word games

by Leslie Bridgers July 6, 2020July 7, 2020

Test your skills and love of your state.

Arts & Entertainment, Do This

Indie Film: Filmmakers find right place at the right time for ‘Wrong Lanes’

by Dennis Perkins July 6, 2020July 2, 2020

The Maine crew’s submission to the 48 Hour Film Project made it to the semifinals.

Do This, Food

Bar Guide: When life doesn’t give you lemons, make these limeade summer sippers

by Angie Bryan July 6, 2020July 2, 2020

Fresh or from concentrate, limeade can be mixed with most any kind of liquor.

Books

Book review: Political lies aren’t new, but the methods of spreading them are

by Aziz Huq Special To The Washington Post July 5, 2020June 29, 2020

Before Breitbart and 4chan mastered the art of the strategically incisive political lie, the Greek deity Zeus was already at the bleeding edge of fake news. In Book II of the Iliad, the god sends Agamemnon, king of the Achaeans, a dream urging him to dispatch his men into battle, promising that this will end […]

Review

‘I’ll Be Gone in the Dark’ isn’t just another true-crime docuseries – it’s a brilliant look at how the genre pulls us in

by Hank Stuever The Washington Post July 5, 2020June 30, 2020

What you already know about California’s notorious Golden State Killer and his prolific string of rapes and murders in the 1970s and ’80s might depend entirely on how plugged in you are to the world of true crime. There is no succinct way to describe our culture’s surge in true-crime stories, not just for entertainment […]

Review

Movie review: Will Ferrell dials down the crazy in run-of-the-mill rom-com ‘Eurovision Song Contest’

by Michael O'Sullivan The Washington Post July 5, 2020June 29, 2020

As Will Ferrell movies go, “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” ranks somewhere in that vast, gray, paunchy middle area, perhaps wedged just above the waistband of “Zoolander 2” but just below the belly button of “Kicking and Screaming.” If the movie, about an inept Icelandic music duo with dreams of winning the […]