BELFAST—If you've ever strolled around the bustling United Farmers Market of Maine in Belfast and came across Claire Fuller's 'Glo's Carinderia' Filipino food stand and enjoyed her lumpia (similar to spring rolls) and other Filipino hot dishes, now you can try to make some of these recipes on your own.

Her new market, an Asian and specialty store called Glo's Market, opened in early December in Belfast at 382C Starret Drive (next to Foster's Pets store) as an offshoot retail location of her food stand.

"Every ingredient I cook at the farmer's market each weekend wasn't available here," she said. "I had to go to Portland once a month to buy cases of ingredients."

A Midcoast entrepreneur, Fuller worked at Oriental Plaza and McDonald's in Belfast, before pivoting to cooking her family's dishes for the public and selling them through the United Farmers Market of Maine in Belfast, where she still works each weekend.

"I learned a lot on the business side from those jobs, learning about ordering, scheduling, and food costs," she said.

Both the Carinderia (the Filipino word for 'eatery') and the new market are a homage to her mother, Gloria.

"I came to Maine in 2003, and three years later, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer," she said. "I told her she needed to come to the United States, and I'd pay for her treatment. In the Phillippines, if you don't have money, they [the doctors] won't even see you; they won't do surgery. So, I borrowed money to help my mother get surgery and chemotherapy, but the cancer spread throughout her body, and she died in 2008. That's why I've named my businesses after her."

Fuller said she learned how to cook from her mother by doing the prep work.

"I helped her chop all of the ingredients," she said. "She was such a really good cook. When there was a wedding in our village, they would invite her to cook, and she would never charge them; that was her gift to the bride and groom."

Her market has a front area and two back rooms, each with multiple shelves filled with Asian ingredients that are hard to find anywhere else. Dark soy sauce is the most popular item most people buy.

She sources from distributors in New York and New Jersey. Although limited space prevents her from offering fresh produce, Hannaford Supermarket is just around the corner, and Chase's Daily Farmer's Market is down the road. All of her pantry products are Filipino staples such as soy sauces, rice, cane vinegar, coconut vinegar, fish sauce, shrimp paste, banana ketchup, calamansi concentrate, Mang Tomas, Toyo-mansi, as well as seasoning packets and mixes. There are also many Pan Asian and East and Southeast Asian ingredients. In one of the back rooms, one shelving unit is dedicated entirely to Asian snacks not found anywhere else.

For many born-and-bred Mainers, who have not historically had access to a diverse array of Asian pantry ingredients, the market might seem intimidating at first, but Fuller pointed to a row of spice and sauce packets on the bottom shelf in one of the back rooms.

"You can learn how to cook just by following the directions on these spice packets," she said.

She demonstrated by pulling out a packet of spring roll shells, the kind she uses to make her own fried lumpia, the recipe her mother perfected. On the shelf next to it was a packet of Mama Sita's Lumpiang Shanhai Mix—fried roll seasoning mix with the recipe on the back. She also has the sweet chili dipping sauce to go with it, but for her food stand, she makes her own.

People can also learn how to cook this dish by following the recipe on All Recipes. More Filipino recipes can be found on dedicated food blogs like Panlasang Pinoy and Kawaling Pinoy

All of Fuller's efforts come back to her mother. "In our culture, we don't say 'I love you,' but that's how my mother showed me, by cooking," she said. "The reason she loved to cook is because she loved us. For her, cooking was love."

To follow Glo's Market, visit her Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com