Maine Tasting Center, at 506 Old Bath Road in Wiscasset, will host the second annual Maine Needham Festival on Saturday, Sept. 28.

This family-friendly event celebrates the cultural and culinary tradition of Maine needhams with food, games, vendors, themed drink specials, needham-making demonstrations and classes, and even a homemade needham contest.

Needhams, also known as “potato candy,” are a traditional Maine candy consisting of a coconut and potato filling covered in chocolate. With a history dating back over 150 years, needhams have long been one of Maine’s favorite sweet treats.

Last year Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill that designated the last Saturday of September as Maine Needham Day, thereby creating an annual day of commemoration for this historic treat and the small businesses that have kept it going for well over a century.

Motivated by this official recognition, Malaika and Gerard Picard, owners of Maine Needham Co. in Saco, partnered with Sara Gross, of Wiscasset’s Maine Tasting Center, to plan the first festival to celebrate Maine Needham Day.

This year, the planning committee has grown to include Kristen Fraizer, of Wilbur’s of Maine in Freeport, and Bob and Kate Gartland, of Robin’s Confections in Biddeford.

A display about the first Maine Needham Festival. (Courtesy photo)

The festival is intended to be a day of celebration centered around the culinary tradition of the Maine needham, Maine potatoes, and, of course, Maine itself.

“There are many candymakers here in Maine that carry on the needham tradition and we’re thrilled to have so many of them participating in the festival – as vendors, sponsors, and even as judges for our homemade needham contest!” said festival coordinator and Maine Needham Co. owner, Malaika Picard.

Wilbur’s of Maine and Robin’s Confections are two such candymakers, who will both be participating as vendors, judges, and sponsors of the event.

Maine Tasting Center is proud to, once again, host the festival on its newly renovated campus.

“Our entire purpose is to educate about and promote Maine’s food industries and producers, so participating in this event was an easy decision for us!” said Maine Tasting Center General Manager Sara Gross. “We’re really excited to help bring this community celebration to life.”

Amongst the festival’s many attractions will be needham-making demonstrations led by Maine Tasting Center Culinary Director Liz Gross, and the debut of a specialty needham-inspired brew by Blaze Brewing Co., of Biddeford, in the campus tasting room.

Other attractions include local artisans and vendors, live music by Isaac Boll and Jud Caswell, food trucks, and much more. Thanks to its generous sponsors, the Maine Needham Festival is free to attend.

Planning for the festival is well underway but additional support is needed to make it the best it can be. The committee continues to seek sponsors, vendors, volunteers, and homemade needham contest competitors.

For more information or to sign up, go to meneedhamfest.com.

This week there’s a major shakeup on the Billboard 200, which ranks the week’s top albums: Not only has Taylor Swift’s 12-week reign at the top of the chart come to end, but a whopping four new records make their debut in the Top 10. The Hot 100 songs chart offers a bit more stability, though Shaboozey does return to the top spot, displacing Kendrick Lamar.

TOP SONGS

Last week, Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track “Not Like Us” returned to No. 1 after a long time away: The song entered the chart at the top spot more than two months ago, only to settle in for a long run lower down within the Top 10. It’s recent boost was thanks in part to the release of an official video (and also the ongoing fact that lots of people dislike Drake).

This week, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” further makes its case for “song of the summer” status by returning to No. 1 after that week away — a brief pause in the chart dominance of a track that’s resided in the Top 5 for months. Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,” which enjoys an assist from last year’s song-of-the-summer champ Morgan Wallen, came in at No. 2, followed by “Not Like Us,” Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”

The bottom half of the Top 10 feels awfully familiar — Carpenter’s other summer smash (“Please Please Please”), plus sturdy staples by Hozier, Teddy Swims and Benson Boone — but there is one new/old entry. Eminem’s “Houdini,” not to be confused with Dua Lipa’s “Houdini,” made a chart climb from No. 18 to No. 10 as the rapper’s new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), entered the world.

TOP ALBUMS

Say, remember the previous sentence — the one that mentions the release of Eminem’s new album? Turns out that’s relevant to this week’s Billboard 200. The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) has done what many recent albums couldn’t: It unseated Taylor Swift’s seemingly untouchable The Tortured Poets Department from the top of the chart after a record-setting 12-week run at No. 1. (As my colleague Anastasia Tsioulcas noted in this column last week, Poets now holds the record for longest run at the top by a Swift album, as well as the longest run at the top by a female artist who’s made her debut at No. 1 and stayed there.)

As a concept album in which Eminem does lyrical battle with his long-running id/alter-ego Slim Shady, The Death of Slim Shady was perhaps destined to dislodge Swift’s three-month-old opus — especially given that it’s his 11th consecutive album to top the chart. But there are three other new entries on the Top 10 by artists who aren’t quite so venerated. With Romance: Untold bowing at No. 2, the South Korean boy band Enhypen instantly scored its highest-ever Billboard 200 position — 2021’s Dimension: Dilemma peaked at No. 11 and its EPs have charted as high as No. 4 — while two enormously promising (and very different) singer-songwriters also made their first-ever visit to the Top 10.

Like Enhypen, Clairo hit the Top 20 with her previous album — 2021’s Sling hit No. 17 — only to see its follow-up exceed that performance in week 1. Charm entered this week’s chart at No. 8. And country singer Megan Moroney has enjoyed an even more precipitous rise: Her 2023 debut, Lucky, peaked at No. 38 last year. Am I Okay? just bowed at No. 9.

As for the remainder of the Top 10, everyone’s slipping to make room for the new faces: Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene (from No. 2 to No. 3), The Tortured Poets Department (from No. 1 to No. 4), Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (from No. 3 to No. 5), Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (from No. 4 to No. 6), Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (from No. 5 to No. 7) and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (from No. 7 to No. 10).

WORTH NOTING

It’s fun to pull apart the various metrics that go into gauging the popularity of a given artist, album or song: radio airplay, sales, streaming audio, streaming video, TikTok and so on. But other factors can be crucial to a kind of sustainable success that doesn’t dent the highest reaches of the charts, including live performances and depth of fan engagement. If you were to scan the Billboard 200, you might notice relatively modest chart debuts for Cigarettes After Sex’s new album X’s (No. 32) and Phish’s Evolve (No. 69). But when those bands head out on tour, they’ll perform in arenas, first-week streaming and airplay numbers be damned.

Still, some disappointing numbers are impossible to place in a positive light: Just three weeks into its existence, Camila Cabello’s new album (C,XOXO) plunged from its debut at No. 13 to No. 82, and now all the way down to No. 191. It’s tempting to suggest that the letters X, C and X are cursed, but Charli XCX’s Brat is still holding strong at No. 13.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Maine Football Coach Jordan Stevens has a little bulletin board material to inspire his team as they begin official practices on Wednesday, July 31st as the Coastal Athletic Association released their preseason coach’s poll.

Maine was predicted to finish 13th.

You can head up to Alfond Stadium and watch the Black Bears practice as they get ready to open the season on August 30th.

Here’s the preseason practice schedule

You can catch all the University of Maine Football games on 92.9 The Ticket with Rich Kimball and Bob Lucy on the call. The 2 will begin their 28th season broadcasting UMaine Football.

Here’s the full 2024 schedule.

• Saturday, August 31 – vs, Colgate University 7 p.m.
• Saturday, September 7 – at Montana State University 8 p.m.
• Saturday, September 14 – vs. Monmouth University 3:30 p.m.
• Saturday, September 21 – at Merrimack College 1 p.m.
• Saturday, September 28 – at University at Albany 3:30 p.m.
• Saturday, October 12 – at University of Delaware 1 p.m.
• Saturday, October 19 – vs. Villanova University 1 p.m.
• Saturday, October 26 – at University of Rhode Island 1 p.m.
• Saturday, November 2 – at University of Oklahoma 2:30 p.m.
• Saturday, November 9 – vs. Bryant University 1 p.m.
• Saturday, November 16 – at Elon University 2 p.m.
• Saturday, November 23 – vs. University of New Hampshire 1 p.m.