Slow Food Portland

Last week I met up with Amanda Peden chair of Slow Food Portland. We met at Ecotrust so I got to have a cup of tea from Citizen Coffee which I'd been wanting to check out ever since Laughing Planet Cafe owner Richard Satnick told me about it. I showed up three hours early for my meeting with Amanda when I was supposed to be on the other side of town meeting with the folks at Nossa Familia Coffee. Lucky for me it all worked out and I blamed my calendar. Stupid calendar.

Even though Slow Food Portland is the oldest Slow Food chapter in the country (it precedes the national Slow Food USA in New York) and even though I've been in Portland now for seven years I've never been to a local Slow Food event. Many have piqued my interest though especially in the past few months.

Slow Food has the reputation in some parts as being a foodie wine and cheese club but it isn't in Portland and not so much in any of the worldwide chapters. The Portland chapter has 450-plus members and hosts mostly low dough and sometimes no dough events. Within the last couple years more young people have gotten involved -- half of Slow Food Portland's steering committee is now 35 years old and younger.

Here are some images taken from some popular Slow Food Portland events this spring and summer...

Glen Andresen is one of many who talked at Slow Food Portland's bicycle tour of urban homesteaders this June.

Music at a Slow Food Portland hosted Farmworker Housing Development Corporation tour this May.

In March Slow Food Portland hosted Bryant Terry author of Vegan Soul Kitchen at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center for a book event and cooking demo.

Some other things that I learned while talking to Amanda:

Slow Food Portland members pay dues that go to the national office -- $60 a year per individual, $75 per couple, $30 for students. Since the national office doesn't financially support its US chapters each one does its own fund raising. Slow Food Portland is volunteer-run.

On July 21st Slow Food Portland will host another of its well attended happy hours from 5:30pm to 7pm at the North Mississippi Pastaworks. Cory Schreiber, former chef-owner of Wildwood will speak about Oregon Department of Agriculture's Farm to School program for a bit and then folks can ask questions and hang out. The happy hour is free and food and drinks can be purchased. At Slow Food Portland's last happy hour at Castagna Lisa Weasel spoke and about 70 people attended.

Another big Slow Food Portland event will be on Labor Day, September 1st -- in conjunction with Portland's TBA. Have you ever been to an Eat In? Read more about it here.

Slow Food Portland www.slowfoodportland.com

Tea drunk with Portland's Tea Monk

Last week was hectic. It was one of those weeks where I felt like I just couldn't quite keep up. I was late for a couple appointments for the book (I'm usually on time or early) and felt overwhelmed by too many freelance deadlines. In the mornings coffee didn't seem to have the usual zing to the point that it felt like someone may have switched my beans out for decaf. And then I drank tea. With the Tea Monk -- aka Paul Rosenberg -- of Portland's Heavens Tea and Sacred Arts Center.

As I walked up to the big purple Southeast Hawthorne area bungalow that's home to Heavens Tea I felt a tug of deja vu and when I stepped inside and saw Robyn Shanti at the dining room table I knew why. I'd been to this house -- Shanti's house -- in late 2006 to interview her for a story for the Portland Tribune about the Sustainable Business Network of Portland and its Buy Local Day. A few months after that interview the Tea Monk moved in. I talked to Shanti for a bit and then took off my shoes before heading upstairs for my date with the Tea Monk.

At the top of the creaky staircase I was met with incense, candles, shrines and offerings, tea in all sorts of shapes and sizes, sacred art from various centuries and a tiny burl table with pillows for seats on an Oriental rug in the middle of the attic room. We took our seats across from one another and for the next few hours did nothing more than talk, laugh and tell stories over round after round of rare and transportive teas.

I hope that more people will experience the magic that I did in drinking tea from more than 200-foot tall trees; tea from 1,500 year old trees; tea that tasted like the essence of root, bark and leaf from one steeping to the next. With a lot of aged puerhs -- which Rosenberg specializes in along with aged oolongs -- you can get more than 20 steepings from the tea. Each steeping brings something new to the cup.

I tried a couple Chinese and Taiwanese teas that afternoon that were so deep and elemental in flavor that I had what Rosenberg refers to as "memories of things that never happened." I hope that's not just a nice way of saying delusional.

If you get a chance I highly recommend you check out some of the Tea Monk's tastings. Some upcoming sessions include:

Rare oolongs of China and Taiwan Drinking the forest -- the aged teas of China The art of brewing tea and the classical tea ware of China and Young puerh tea tasting

Here are some images from the afternoon that saved my week...

White tea leaf buds from 1,000 year old trees in Yunnan Province.

White tea with the Tea Monk

Paul Rosenberg aka the Tea Monk with a rare 8-pound Golden Melon aged puerh from Yunnan Province

Flower tea -- sacred spring rose buds from Sichuan Province.

Heavens Tea and Sacred Arts Center 503.230.0953 www.heavenstea.com Visit the website for a full calendar of Heavens Tea tastings and tea sessions

Uwajimaya + Portland Chinatown = Happy

The only time I ever went to Disney World was with my grandma and her friend when I was in elementary school. I rode some rides and they were ok but I wasn't all that impressed. I grew up in Cincinnati and was somewhat of an amusement park connoisseur. I had a season's pass to King's Island for years and one of my first jobs was at the Ohio River hugging Coney Island. Yes, that's the right name. Anyway, I wasn't wide eyed over the rides at Disney World due to my longest-wooden-rollercoaster background. What I was impressed with, however, was Epcot. Why? Food. Food from around the world. Particularly Chinese and Japanese food.

I had never seen a lot of the teas, nori, rice crackers, wasabi peas and more that lined the shelves at Epcot's Chinese and Japanese "markets" and I used my allowance to buy as much of it as I could. I remember my grandma and her friend waiting under a tree outside as I sniffed jasmine tea from beautiful tin canisters and checked out lychee, plum and rice candies for a very long time. When I finally emerged arms filled mostly with spicy, salty treats I was worried that they'd be upset with me for taking so long but they weren't at all. They were just happy to be seated in the shade and free of me for a bit so they could talk.

All of that brings me -- in a strange consumer culture way -- to my deep seated love of Asian markets and of course Uwajimaya. I don't get to this Asian mega-market often because it's in Beaverton but when I do I always spend a lot of time walking the amazingly diverse aisles and winking at the fish case. There are always beautiful specimens to wink at at this 10-plus year old market that got its start in Seattle.

A while back there was talk of an Uwajimaya opening in Portland's Chinatown. I hadn't heard anything about it for months but I'm very happy to say that I heard last week through the tattoo grapevine -- my boyfriend is a tattoist here -- that it's happening. Chinatown Uwajimaya is on!

Here are some of the reasons why I love Uwajimaya. This is a bit of what you'll find at the Beaverton location...

Exotic fruits...

A large cooler of housemade sashimi...

Live geoduck, oysters and clams...

Live Dungeness crab...

Asian beer...

Lots of sake...

Uwajimaya Beaverton 10500 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway 503.643.4512 www.uwajimaya.com

Homemade Cherry Wine Pt. 1

This year was a big year for cherries in the Pacific Northwest. Our friend planted two backyard cherry trees a few years ago -- a Rainier and a Black Tartarian -- and both had full boughs loaded with big, tasty fruit this June. The birds got some, as usual, but by the time the cherries were ripe and ready they'd had their fill and it was time to pick. So pick we did. The Black Tartarians ripened first.

We had ideas for lots of different cherry preparations and one that we followed through on was cherry wine. I used Sandor Ellix Katz's basic fruit wine recipe from his book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. If you want to check out an abridged version of the recipe head over here for a fruit wine story I wrote earlier this summer for Portland's alt. weekly Willamette Week.

Cherry wine is really easy, like most country wines, and the hardest part is having the patience to wait the nine-plus months till it's ready to drink.

We picked three gallons of Black Tartarian cherries for five gallons of wine and then we rinsed and sorted them into two large food grade buckets. We covered them with boiling water and let them steep, buckets covered with towels, overnight.

Black Tartarian cherries steeping

The next day, when the buckets had completely cooled, we added a packet of champagne yeast. For the next few days we stirred the wine regularly -- I'd say six or seven times a day. Once the bubbling had slowed a bit we made a big vat of simple syrup and added that to the buckets.

The wine bubbled and fermented a lot with that for several days. Again, at this stage we stirred the buckets regularly. After a couple weeks once the fermentation had slowed and the bubbling had settled down we filtered the wine.

Bonnie milking cherry udders

And then we funneled it into a 5-gallon carboy. Next we took the fermented cherries, covered them with water, and mashed them by hand to create enough juice to fill up the remaining space of the 5-gallon carboy. For the record, mashing cherries by hand feels great -- especially when the mash is cool and it's a hot day.

Sitting pretty -- homemade cherry wine

I tested the sugar content today and it's good to go -- I don't need to add any more. Now it's the waiting game. In two months I'll rack the wine -- siphon it into a clean carboy -- but until then it'll sit pretty in a corner of the kitchen. I'll keep you posted on its gurgling.

Homemade Cherry Wine Pt. 2

If you're still thirsty you can read about my dandelion wine here and here.

Read about my dandelion wine here.

Ready about my hard cider here.

Salt, Chocolate, Flowers and Wine: The Meadow

Mark and Jennifer Turner Bitterman opened North Portland's The Meadow in the summer of 2006 as a floral shop with a small section of specialty salts in the corner that they'd acquired during years of travel. The North Mississippi shop is now home to more than 90 specialty salts, a wall of hard-to-find wines, ciders, bitters and vermouths, more than 300 types of chocolate bars, edible flowers such as acacia, apple blossoms, hibiscus and more.

It's the kind of place where you crouch down to see what's on a low shelf and discover what Mark Bitterman deems, "A game changing soy sauce." Then you turn 90 degrees and discover a tin of the couple's favorite anchovies.

Ever heard of black truffle salt or sugar maple salt? They have these and other hard to find culinary salts at The Meadow.

The Meadow regularly hosts classes in the evenings on everything from Himalayan salt block cooking, to an introduction to artisan salt or salted caramels. These classes usually cost $15-$20 and fill up fast. Go to their website for more information and to check out their growing online selection of 600-plus salt products and more.

Flowers and chocolates...

The staff is always super informative if you have questions otherwise you can just take your time checking out the food, drink and flowers. My favorite thing to do is check out the vials of specialty smoked, sea, flake, gray and more salts from around the world that line the walls.

Owner Mark Bitterman sampling wine and salt with customers

The Meadow 3731 North Mississippi Ave. 503.288.4633 888.388.4633 www.atthemeadow.com

Farm Direct: Portland Roasting Coffee Company

A week ago I visited Portland Roasting Coffee Company in Southeast Portland and talked with owner Mark Stell and national sales director Marie Franklin. The almost 14 year old coffee company is one of Portland's first direct trade roasters. On average PRC pays coffee growers 30 percent more than Fair Trade. I learned about the history of the business and current goings-on while drinking a Clover brewed, lightly roasted cup of their tasty morning blend in the cupping room. I also got a tour of the 18,000 square foot space which used to be a popcorn roasting facility.

Stell owns a coffee farm in Tanzania, situated right next to Ngorogoro Conservation Area, with his two brothers and a Tanzanian partner. The farm is 1,000 acres total but only 160 acres are devoted to coffee. The last couple years the farm has produced two shipping containers worth of coffee per harvest that's been used exclusively for PRC's Tanzania brew. In the future as the farm produces more they'll distribute excess to other roasters. When Stell and his brothers bought the farm two and a half years ago it employed 12 farm workers, PRC now has 70 full-time Tanzanian employees on payroll.

If you want to participate in a free Portland Roasting Coffee Company tasting (afternoons Monday through Friday) call the office at least 24 hours in advance. Tastings can usually accommodate up to 10 people and last about an hour.

Portland Roasting Coffee Company regularly roasts small samples of beans from farms from around the world.

Several times a week employees participate in cuppings that are often open to the public.

Mark Stell visits the Tanzanian coffee farm three times a year. The elephants are not on payroll.

Portland Roasting Coffee Company www.portlandroasting.com 340 SE 7th Ave. 503.236.7378 800.949.3898

Yard Fresh

I buy plenty of farm fresh local food year round but my favorite time of the year for eating in Portland is the summer and early fall because so much of what's on the plate is yard fresh -- straight from our garden. Last year I expanded the vegetable garden to the front yard -- before I just had beds and mounds in the back. The front yard up until then was mainly fruit trees, berries, herbs and perennial vegetables such as asparagus, artichokes and cardoons. This year I have tomatoes, tomatillos, basil, chiles, celery, pickling cucumbers and more in the front in addition to a whole bunch of veggies in the back. In the last several weeks the garden has been very giving. Here's a bit of what it's offered and what I've made of the offerings...

I harvested this year's hard and softneck garlic last weekend and now it's curing in the utility room. Rubin eats just about anything -- in this case dirt.

These are some of the softnecks. I mulched them with straw this year and it really seemed to help with weeds and warmth. These are the biggest softnecks I've ever harvested.

A couple weeks ago I took this...

And made this -- garlic scape pesto from the hardnecks finishing off in the backyard.

Gooseberries look like marbles.

I made them into gooseberry chutney with mustard seeds and all kinds of curry spices.

Dandelion salad with hot bacon vinaigrette and a side of canned tomato chile puree from last summer.

Vine to mouth sugar snap peas

Butter lettuce, sorrel, mint, chive and chive flower salad with red wine vinaigrette and crumbled feta

Caramelized onion spaghetti with roasted hazelnuts, arugula and feta

Sorrel pesto with hazelnuts, parmesan and lots of olive oil

Yes, I do eat meat and seafood too but other than what the cat drags in and we drag back out -- every spring a couple unlucky starlings and usually a mouse or two -- we aren't producing any animal protein on our urban lot. I have half wondered about the slugs but will leave that culinary experiment for someone else to try.

Eat, drink and be hairy!

You can also check out: Yard Fresh Pt. 2Yard Fresh Pt. 3

Fish Friday -- Newman's Fish Co. Wholesale

I was surprised when I asked John Cleary -- owner of Newman's Fish Company in Portland -- how many local chefs stop by the 10,000 square foot North Portland warehouse to check out daily fish deliveries, cold smoking, live tanks and fish cleaning stations. For the most part Cleary says that the only chefs who stop by are ones that don't make the minimum delivery order of $100. Well, those are the lucky ones because there's a lot to see and learn especially if you're at the warehouse in the early morning.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Newman's Fish Company in City Market in Northwest Portland -- the retail arm of Newman's Portland that gets its pick of the lot in terms daily fresh and frozen deliveries. I met with Cleary at the Newman's warehouse on an early June morning when halibut was on the verge of becoming cost prohibitive. Cleary was on the horn back and forth with processors across the country trying to bring them down in price but not sacrifice quality. Halibut is a big deal since the company goes through 3-4,000 pounds of it a week.

Newman's isn't Pacific Seafood or Ocean Beauty -- it's a small 20-plus-years-in-Portland independent business with very high standards when it comes to sourcing but not as much leverage as the bigger guys. Cleary orders a lot of Newman's seafood air cargo as opposed to barged because he wants his fish hook to table as quickly as possible.

Newman's Fish Co. John Cleary holding a Southeast Alaska chinook just after arrival from PDX airport

That same air cargo of chinook from 100 pound gel iced and lined boxes about to be headed and gutted

Newman's gets its rockfish, in this case rougheye (a bycatch of the halibut industry) whole. They head, gut, dress and fillet it

One of the prettiest fish Cleary's seen all year -- the latest delivery of Kona yellowfin tuna

Newman's Fish Company www.newmansfish.com 503.286.5950

To read about Newman's Fish Company retail in City Market go here.

Roux's crawfish feed and Bites For Rights

This Sunday June 21st -- Father's Day -- Roux is hosting their annual crawfish feed party from 11am to 7pm. I went last year -- late September -- and vowed that I'll never let another year pass without. Last year's all-you-can-eat menu included crawfish hush puppies, crawfish beignets!!!, spiced pick and peel crawfish with boiled potatoes and quartered corn, deep fried crawfish, crawfish etoufee and much much more.

It's $25 per person and you need to call ahead to make a reservation.The tables are lined with newspaper and servers bring out as much as you can eat for up to two hours -- then you get the boot. There's an abridged drink menu with rocks cocktails served in Mason jars but you can also order from the full bar. Unlimited soft drinks are included. Roux doesn't advertise this event because it's sells out faster than a crawfish can pinch every year.

So sad to say -- Roux is RIP as of mid-July 2009Roux 1700 North Killingsworth St. www.rouxrestaurant.us 503.285.1200

And next on the agenda...

This Thursday -- June 18th -- 60-plus Oregon (many Portland area) restaurants are participating in the 10th annual Bites for Rights fund raising event to benefit Basic Rights Oregon. You don't have to by an expensive ticket for a mediocre dinner, you don't have to sit through long winded introductions and speeches in an uncomfortable chair. All you have to do is eat. Well, go out to eat at one of many tasty restaurants around town dontating 15% of their sales on the 18th to Basic Rights Oregon. Go here for a full list of participating businesses.

Some of the many Bites for Rights restaurants, cafes and bakeries that I like: Pizza FinoDi Prima DolciHaven CoffeeLittle T American Baker Zell's Cafe Roux

Portland Beer: Widmer Brothers Brewing Company

Widmer's brewmaster Joe Casey is not short but the 1,000-barrels-of-beer (on the wall...) fermenters he's standing in front of tend to dwarf things. I met up with Joe Casey recently and even though I've lived in Portland since 2002 and really dig Widmer beer I'd never taken a brewery tour. I highly recommend it. I learned a lot including the fact that beer regularly flows underneath Russel Street between the two Widmer buildings which gives a whole new meaning to walking on sunshine. Walking on Widmer Hefeweizen...

The fermenter behind Casey in the photo is filled with that liquid sunshine -- Widmer Hefeweizen -- the brew that made 20-plus-year-old Widmer Brothers Brewing Company famous. The Hefeweizen (pronounced HEH-feh-vite-zen) sits in the fermentation tank for only about a week since it ferments quickly and doesn't need a lot of cold conditioning. Most Widmer beers spend two weeks in the fermenter.

Here are a bunch of other things I learned while walking around the brewery with Casey...

* Widmer brews about 320,000 barrels of beer in their North Portland brewery annually. * They brew 24 hours a day. * They use a New Zealand variety of hops that Joe Casey says sometimes tastes like onion. * Widmer operates a 10-barrel pilot brewery at the Rose Garden where they brew a lot of small batch Gasthaus Pub beers that aren't available anywhere else (Including the Collaborator Series beers in conjunction with the Oregon Brew Crew) and festival beers. * Their 100,000 pound malt silos are filled by tanker trucks several times a week. * The spent grain and yeast goes to a cattle ranch in Central Oregon and a farm on Sauvie Island. * In the summer the brewery often pushes 110 degrees. * Widmer hops come from Oregon, Washington and New Zealand.

No that's not rabbit food it's Oregon hops pellets

Most commercial brewers brew with hops pellets or extracts these days. Casey told me that Anheuser-Busch was one of the last major breweries to hold out on pellets and use whole hops.

Where eight to nine Widmer beers are brewed daily

If you're looking for Widmer's version of the Everlasting Gobstopper -- the Widmer Altbier yeast strain that Kurt Widmer brought back from Bavaria in the early 1980s -- head to OHSU and book flights to Chicago, the UK, and New Hampshire because its safeguarded in labs in all these places.

Take a tour and the mystery of this photo from Widmer will be solved

Widmer Brewing Company 929 N Russel St. 503.281.3333 www.widmer.com Schedule a brewery tour