At Maine Foodie Tours we pride ourselves on providing a highly informative, entertaining, and delicious experience for our customers. Our tour guides know Portland inside and out and love to share their knowledge and stories. As you will see from the individual bios below, our guides are an eclectic bunch with varied life stories to share, but one thing they have in common is their passion for Portland, meeting new people, and having FUN!

Please scroll down to meet our wonderful team:
Patt Bagg, Pamela Laskey, Bess Welden, Dave Mason,
Randy Judkins & John Hickson

Pat Bagg—Tour Guide Pat has been a true “foodie” all her life and is now thoroughly enjoying the chance to share her knowledge while walking the streets of her own neighborhood. She was professionally trained in french cooking and baking at the Peter Kump cooking school in NYC before creating her first business,“Fetes Accomplies”, in Central Massachusetts. Her catering company specialized in gourmet and everyday french cooking with exclusive. long-term contracts with businesses such as the Worcester Art Museum. While owning and operating the catering business for ten years, Pat also founded “Special Teas” shops in Central Massachusetts. Realizing she enjoyed sharing all that she was learning, Pat also began teaching cooking classes, originally in Whittinsville, MA, and now out of her home in Portland, ME. Pat offers hands on instruction to small groups in her comfortable home kitchen and participants love her instruction, patience and attention to detail. When not at work, Pat has traveled extensively to study world cuisines, and she has enjoyed training in France, Italy, Vietnam, Cambodia, Morocco and Turkey. She also spends spare time at various cooking schools, including her favorite, Tante Marie in the San Francisco Bay area. If Pat is your guide, you may ask her any food and cooking questions you like! If she doesn’t know the answer, which is doubtful, she will collect your contact information and get back to you. Ever a teacher and true foodie, Pat’s tours offer an interactive occasion to make new friends and learn a lot!

Pamela Laskey-Director Pam’s energy and enthusiasm are the heart and soul of Maine Foodie Tours. Until recently, Pam channeled much of her creative energy into marketing endeavors for major publishing houses, including Houghton Mifflin, Addison-Wesley and Pearson-Allyn & Bacon. On the side, however, she was having lots of fun–performing in an improv troupe, doing stand-up comedy, and inspiring students at Northeastern University while teaching classes in communications. Since a big part of her career involved wining and dining with authors, Pam felt the pressures early on to master strategic seating charts for the restaurant tables and know which wines to select when the author orders the bouillabaisse. The work required an extensive amount of 5-star travel, affording Pam the opportunity to shamelessly eat her way throughout the country. Maine Foodie Tours represents an amalgam of Pam’s passions. Always up for a great meal, she loves finding new restaurants, learning about up-and-coming chefs, pairing food and wine, gathering fun-loving groups of people together, and of course, as a born educator, sharing her knowledge with others. It has been an eye-opening experience for her to delve into the local Maine food scene, learning about dishes indigenous to this region, and she is eager to share this information with guests on her tours. “I have so much respect for the resourcefulness of Mainers,” Pam says. “Whether it’s an old family recipe handed down from generation to generation, or a new way of presenting and serving one of our state’s staple crops, I’m just constantly amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of Maine artisans, cooks, and chefs.” Pam’s new goal in life is to have as much fun as possible, and surround herself with others who also don’t take themselves too seriously. The Maine Foodie Tours venture has been a delightful – and tasty – sojourn into the history and culture of Portland, a city that seems to continually reveal new and delicious offerings to adventurous and fun-loving foodies.

Bess Welden—Tour Guide Bess Welden is an actor, playwright, storyteller, teacher, and self-proclaimed foodie, which makes her a perfect guide for the new “Just Desserts” tour. When she doesn’t have her nose stuck in a cookbook or her eyes fixed on the Food Network, Bess can be found making, eating and talking about food with her husband and two children in Portland, Maine. A native of Ohio, Bess spent nearly a decade in New York City after earning her MFA in Acting from the National Theater Conservatory in Denver, CO. She has appeared at theaters all over the country including Williamstown Theater Festival, Denver Center Theater Company, Mabou Mines, New York Theater Workshop, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, Cleveland Public Theater and more locally at Portland Stage Company and the Opera House at Boothbay. Most recently at Portland Stage, she premiered her latest one-woman comedy, The Passion of the Hausfrau, which she wrote in collaboration with Portland author/cartoonist, Nicole Chaison and NYC director, Annette Jolles. The Portland Phoenix called the show “comedic genius.” Bess has worked with student actors as a voice/speech teacher and dialect coach at Vassar College, The School for Film and TV, University of Southern Maine, Colby College and has been a guest lecturer on voice production and solo performance on college campuses from NYC to California. She is the librettist of “A Little Miracle,” a 40-minute musical piece composed by David Stock for mezzo soprano and orchestra commissioned by the New York Chamber Symphony and premiered at Lincoln Center. She has recently turned her creative writing skills to very short stories about food, kids and Maine, which will be published in a regular column called “Potluck” on the brand-new website mainelovesfood.com.

Dave Mason—Tour Guide Dave once received the following advice: “Find the one thing you truly are passionate about and concentrate on it; make it the focal point of your existence.” Remaining true to his nature, Dave promptly set about ignoring this advice – he’s always had a difficult time choosing one thing over another, so he decided not to bother. When asked why he has so many interests he simply quotes Mark Twain: “I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.” His love of history and written language took him to the classroom. Dave has taught American History and American Literature in high school and middle school classrooms from Maine to Florida. He’s been at it now for 33 years. He lives for what he calls the “Aha moments!” of teaching. “There’s a lot of nonsense going on in education today and teachers are being pulled in many directions. But the core of education remains the relationship a teacher establishes with his students in the classroom. I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.” Dave is also an accomplished actor and storyteller. He has appeared in lead roles in over 40 productions ranging from Moliere’s School For Wives to classic musicals like Fiddler on the Roof and Anything Goes. His storytelling credits include festivals, workshops for young storytellers and one-man shows featuring a variety of genres, including Maine humor, historical fiction, and ghost stories. Dave grew up on the coast of Maine and at an early age developed a love for the ocean and all things associated with it. By age three, steamed clams had become his favorite food and he claims he’ll try anything that comes from the sea at least once. “Every time Jacques Cousteau discovered a new undersea creature, I’d have it on the menu within a week.” Predictably, lobster holds a special place in his heart, and if you’re interested, he has some terrific recipes for scallops that he’ll gladly share. A true “Mainah,” Dave relishes the chance to share his knowledge of the beautiful and historic city he loves.

John Hickson—Tour Guide John is relishing (pardon the pun) the opportunity to share his love for all things culinary, now that he’s retired from the high ranks of a Fortune 500 company. The most delicious part about his previous life was that he spent some 40 years traveling to (and eating in) cities from Montreal to Mexico City, and just about everywhere in between. His passion for food is heartfelt and inspirational. He boasts that he retired to Portland ten years ago because he could get all the fresh haddock he could ever want! John knows good food and he certainly knows Portland. The combination was a perfect fit for Maine Foodie Tours. John entertained thousands of visitors working as a tour guide on the duck boat tour here in town for the past four years. The history and culture of Portland were brought to life through his powerful story telling and infectious sense of humor. At the age of 30 John began dabbling in theatre which soon became an obsession. To date, he has acted in or directed more than 150 productions, been named New Jersey’s Director of the Year and nominated for Best Performance by an Actor by the New York Daily News. John will tell you that he did not have a foodie type of upbringing. During World War II, food was scarce and culinary skills limited. It wasn’t until he moved to New Jersey that he was bitten by the food bug. Savoring authentic Hungarian, Italian, and Chinese cuisine opened up a whole new world for him. Advice he received as a young traveler still resonates today. A fellow restaurant customer once told him, “Wherever you find yourself, ask what the locals eat and order that. It will be the freshest and best prepared.” John faithfully heeds that advice, and it hasn’t failed him yet. John finds that his love of food is a natural complement to his passion for theatre. “It helped me see food consumption as so much more than stuffing one’s face…I had a gourmand uncle who would derisively ask, ‘Would you rather eat or dine?’ Eventually I came to appreciate this question and now emphatically answer, ‘Dine…definitely dine!’”

Randy Judkins—Tour Guide Is there anything more satisfying than a good strong belly laugh? Randy Judkins doesn’t think so. He has successfully integrated humor into most everything he does. He finds that looking at life through the lens of humor lends invaluable perspective on life and he joyfully shares this insight in lively, interactive presentations to professional groups, schools, and organizations throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Randy’s “Be a Friend, Not a Bully” was an original creation for elementary schools in New England, and his “Laughing in the Face of Change” was an original creation presented at wellness conferences in thirteen states. Randy also has put his creative stamp on numerous theater productions, including gigs at Tanglewood, arts festivals throughout the country, television commercials, and independent films. He has made guest appearances on national morning shows, including CBS This Morning, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s The Today Show. After teaching stints with Ringling Brothers, Tri-Star Pictures, The Julliard School of Drama, and Circus of the Stars, Randy founded the Maine Hysterical Society, a comedy trio touted as “the best variety comedy act in New England.” Their portrayals of eccentric Downeast characters and comical songs keep their audiences in stitches. Most recently the group participated in The Humor Project’s 52nd International Conference on The Positive Power of Humor & Creativity, and performed with Lucie Arnaz at Birdland, New York City’s legendary jazz club. Among his most notable accomplishments, Randy raised more than $1200.00 for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Portland by running in the Beach to Beacon 10k Road Race, while juggling three balls. He finished the race in under an hour, and he didn’t drop a ball! A native Maineiac, Randy has had a long and ardent love affair with one of our state’s most delicious agricultural bounties – wild blueberries. He recalls fondly handpicking his first cupful some five decades ago in his hometown of Mexico, Maine. He has remained true to these antioxidant wonders of nature and still enjoys them on a daily basis, blending them into refreshing smoothies or incorporating them into various gourmet recipes.

“Maine Foodie Tours offers visitors to our region an enticing way to discover the delectable delights offered by the many talented food artisans of Maine. The Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau welcomes the opportunity to work with Maine Foodie Tours to position Maine as a culinary travel destination.”

Barbara Whitten
Director, Greater Portland Convention & Visitors Bureau