The Rest is History
Finding freedom
Driving southwest out of Bangor, Maine, are winding roads, plants and trees displaying their full foliage in the spring, and a beautiful display of leaves changing colors in the fall. In addition, there are streams, waterfalls, and other breathtaking sites in and around Freedom, Maine, a quaint little town with a population of less than 800.
At the edge of town is the Mill at Freedom Falls, a historic water-driven mill that houses {the} Lost Kitchen, Erin French’s restaurant. The restaurant serves 48 guests four nights a week, from May through October. The menu changes daily, providing local purveyors a place to sell what they grow, farm to table at its best. Soon after the restaurant opened, the phone was ringing off the hook for reservations. She soon realized that there were far more people wanting a reservation than the seating would allow. So French instituted a reservation system where people mail a postcard before the beginning of each dining season. A postcard is picked at random. The guest is contacted to determine when they would like to come, and plans are made for the most difficult reservation to acquire in US dining. If cancellation occurs, another postcard is picked to find a guest that can take the spot.
The Lost Kitchen started as a supper club in her basement, where her weekly dinners sold out almost immediately. She and her then-husband bought a building and opened a restaurant on the ground floor that was crazy successful. Within a couple of years, French lost almost everything in her divorce, including custody of her son. Moving back to Freedom, her parents helped her purchase an old Airstream trailer that she gutted and turned into a mobile kitchen that she took throughout the countryside of Maine serving pop-up dinners that were a raving success. She heard about the old Mill that was available after its renovation, and as they say, the rest is history.
French has written two books: The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine: A Cookbook. This cookbook offers glimpses into her life and the recipes written in a manner that is easy for all to understand. She is a self-taught cook that is easy to relate to. This book gives glimpses of the food served at the restaurant and offers the home cook an opportunity to create a meal that one could find at the restaurant.
Her recent book Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking Life From Scratch is her memoir, and I just adored it. I loved learning more about her early life and those struggles, her early baking and restaurant career, and now her restaurant {the} Lost Kitchen. In between all of this was a marriage that she had so many hopes for and what I perceived to be a husband jealous of her success. The more successful she became, the more controlling and jealous he was until she spiraled into abusing prescription drugs, soon losing the restaurant and custody of her son. The book details how she went to rehab, picked herself up and got clean of the drugs, and created a life to be proud of with her son and her mother by her side. The book is fascinating, sad, unbelievable, inspiring, heartwarming, and so good I devoured it in one sitting. I had not heard of her until I saw the Today Show interview in April of this year. After watching it, I was so impressed I had to learn more about this incredible woman and the restaurant and legacy she is building.
In my online travels to learn everything that I could about her story, I was so excited to find that Magnolia Network on Discovery+ has created The Lost Kitchen, I couldn’t subscribe fast enough. The first episode is the last service of 2019; little did they know then what 2020 held for the restaurant and the world. The remaining five episodes of the first season show how French pivoted the restaurant and her business to salvage some of her income when the pandemic hit. She also created an online farmers market to help the struggling farmers and purveyors that supplied her restaurant. I don’t know if there will be further episodes, but count me in as her story is so inspiring.
I hope you have a chance to read her memoir, and if you have, tell me what you thought about it in the comments. Also, had you heard about her show on Discovery+ and will you watch it?