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

Plant a Row for the Hungry -- Oregon Food Bank

My Plant a Row for the Hungry

I've been volunteering now and again this spring at the Oregon Food Bank'sEastside Learning Garden. Along the way I've helped plant bush beans and calendula, lay garden paths, harvest collards and more. To sign up for Eastside Dig In! shifts go here and fill out a quick form. There's also an OFB Westside Learning Garden in need of volunteers. The last time I was on the OFB site I came across Plant a Row for the Hungry. The gist: plant a row of vegetables and donate all of the food it produces throughout the season to local hunger relief agencies.

Oregon Food Bank has made this national campaign easy with various online Portland maps with Plant a Row drop-off points, contacts and times. There are three drop-off spots in North Portland close to my home so that makes it easy.

I planted my Row for the Hungry this weekend -- well really my small mound -- and I think it'll be make for a nice and diverse mini harvest. I started everything from seed during the past few weeks except the eggplants which a friend gave me.

My Plant a Row for the Hungry:

3 Thai green eggplants

4 royal burgundy bush beans

2 purple calabash tomatoes

2 Cabernet grape tomatoes

1 pineapple tomato

The OFB site has a list of vegetables that they'd most like home gardeners to plant for the campaign. They also remind gardeners to cultivate and harvest vegetables that will store and transport well i.e. harvest your tomatoes when they're a bit under ripe...

Oregon Food Bank's most wanted produce:

Food pantries and soup kitchens need produce that stores and transports well.

Refrigerated space is often limited, so foods that don't require refrigeration are always wanted. Here are some recommendations:

* Tomatoes (pick while slightly under-ripe) * Green beans * Winter squash (acorn or butternut) * Garlic * Hot peppers * Cucumbers * Zucchini * Collard greens * Onions

If you have any additional questions contact Eric Sopkin at 503-282-0555, Ext. 260, or esopkin@oregonfoodbank.org.

It doesn't look like much now but come mid-summer I'll be making weekly deliveries from my Plant a Row for the Hungry to local hunger and relief 

Oregon Food Bank

Oregon Food Bank Learning Gardens

Plant a Row for the Hungry in Portland Plant a Row for the Hungry national campaign

Grand Central U-Bake -- June 6th, 9am-1pm

I'm much more of a cook than a baker. I make my own pizza dough and every once in awhile I'll bake a cake or some cookies but that's about it. So when Piper Davis of Grand Central Bakery came by the other day with a big bag of GC's soon to hit the market U-Bake frozen cookies, puff pastry and pie dough I felt pretty unworthy. Turns out I'm the ideal person to give them a try because I'm a novice baker who loves tasty baked goods but rarely takes the time to make them. For my U-Bake pie I started by making this...

A strawberry, pear and rhubarb filling

Then I filled this...

Grand Central's U-Bake pie crust

And I ended up with this...

Just out of the oven and soon to be topped with vanilla ice cream

The line of frozen pre-made and formed cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter and ginger molasses) are even easier. You pull out the frozen dozen, separate a few cookies, roll them in sugar, put them on the cookie sheet and 10 minutes later you have delicious home baked cookies.

Ginger molasses cookies straight from the oven

I made a whole bunch of savory treats with the puff pastry dough for dinner with a friend's family but I didn't take any photos of the cheesy puffs because the dinner was at their home and I didn't want my camera to get in the way of our eating. Luckily right before we left for their place I took a photo of the fillings...

Ricotta/sorrel pesto/mozzarella mix with bulk spicy Italian sausage

If you have a chance this Saturday, June 6th GC is rolling out its new U-Bake line (pie dough, puff pastry dough, pre-made pies and cookies) at all of its Portland bakeries. From 9am to 1pm each bakery cafe will be staffed with a baker sampling U-Bake products and sharing recipes and advice. Added bonus: 50% of the proceeds of U-Bake products sold that day will be donated to the Portland Schools Foundation. Be sweet and go buy some sweets.

Grand Central www.grandcentralbakery.com 9am-1pm Saturday, June 6th U-bake roll out at all Portland Grand Central Bakeries

Portland Wine: Cork

I like baths. One of my favorite things is to bring a cup of coffee and good book into the bathroom, fill up the tub and read and sip coffee until the sun don't shine. I like the coffee part especially because it counteracts the sleepy steamy side of the bath a bit and keeps me from falling asleep in a towel on the couch.

I also on occasion like to drink a glass of wine or beer in the bath but this is a showstopper and I have to be committed to the fact that I'll accomplish nothing more that day or night. So you can imagine that when I was at Cork on Northeast Alberta a few days ago their bubbly-in-a-clawfoot display above made me really happy.

Darryl Joannides opened Cork on Northeast Alberta in 2006 and last fall he opened a second Cork in Northwest Portland. I love that Cork is owned an run by a first-rate chef -- Joannides was chef-owner of Sellwood's much missed Assaggio so beyond Joannides passion for wine (he's worked harvests in Sonoma and regularly makes his own wine at home) and great selection of wine you can also buy all sorts of other tasty sweet and savory treats at Cork.

I also appreciate that Cork will never call you a cheapskate -- even if you always go for the $8 bottle. The majority of bottles set up on crates and shelves throughout the shop are $20 or less and according to Joannides you'll always find at least 20 wines less than $10.

In addition to a large selection of wine at Cork you'll also find bulk and bottled olive oil...

Reuse your bottle and you get a buck off

Bottled beer...

Lots of local OR, WA and CA beers and lots of Belgian beer

Chocolate bars and truffles...

Chocolate is one of Joannides' favorite things

And right now a great selection of light and sippy rosés....

Rosé is not girly

Stop by the Alberta Street Cork for Friday night drop-in tastings and the Northwest Cork for First Thursday tastings. if you never got to Joannides' restaurant Assaggio he also hosts regular multi-course food and wine pairings. Check out the online calendar for events and tastings.

Cork: A Bottle Shop 2901 NE Alberta St., 503.281.2675 1715 NW Lovejoy St., 503.501.5028 www.corkwineshop.com

Seafood: Newman's Fish Co. in City Market

And gets daily deliveries

Even though the Portland area is woven by rivers, studded with lakes and not far from the Pacific we're not known for our seafood. I recently had coffee with the editor of a local magazine and she was bemoaning the fact that our fair city has such slim pickings in terms of fish markets.

It's true but with a little effort and a little more gas or peddling you can source some super fresh, delicious seafood here. When most people think about seasonal food they think of produce but everything is connected to the seasons including seafood.

Right now Newman's Fish Company in Northwest Portland should be rolling in Copper River salmon but prices are way too high this year -- so high that they'd have to charge $40 a pound to make any kind of a profit. Newman's manager Angela Stewart isn't shedding any tears -- she'd much rather eat ocean caught wild, fresh salmon any day. Yes, she's a little biased -- her family runs a chinook and coho salmon fishing boat out of Southeast Alaska -- but she claims that river caught salmon doesn't have the fresh flavor and great texture that Pacific salmon is known for.

Newman's smokes all sorts of seafood at their North Portland warehouse

Other fresh and seasonal Newman's seafood -- halibut started in March, crawdads open the first of June, and Oregon albacore is up in July. Pretty much year-round you'll find all the tasty farmed shellfish -- clams, oysters, mussels -- as well as crab, lobster, squid, shrimp, scallops, herring and more.

There's always a great selection of locally farmed oysters, clams and mussels

Dungeness and Maine lobster are usually in the Newman's tank

A vast majority of what's in the case is fresh and line caught and almost everything else is frozen at sea.

Newman's Fish Company 735 NW 21st Ave. 503.227.2700 www.newmansfish.com

Read about the wholesale side of Newman's Fish Co. here.

Biked Beans: Courier Coffee

I recently met up with Courier Coffee owner Joel Domreis and employee Alex Geddes at their small backyard roastery and talked coffee, and of course drank coffee, for a couple hours. Alex had roasted some Bolivian Cenaproc Cooperative coffee that morning and he brewed us a pot in one of their new Hario vacuum pots. This was my first experience with siphon brewed/vacuum pot brewed coffee, even though I've heard a lot about it, and it was delicious and really fun to watch. The standout for me was that there was no silty residue in the cup and the coffee was hyper full of flavor. I don't think I'd ever own a vacuum pot though. I have a hard enough time not breaking the glass in my French press. These are works of art.

Most of my interviews for the book so far have been about an hour long but the really good ones often seem to spill over. There were a lot of beans to be spilled in this case...

Where 10,000 pounds of Courier Coffee is roasted annually

28 year old Domreis started his bike delivered Courier Coffee three and a half years ago and for a year and a half he ran the show. Now he has one full-time (Alex Geddes) and one part-time (Matt Sperry) employee to roast beans with and peddle around town with. A typical day for these guys starts at 4am and ends after the sun has set and all the coffee for the next day has been roasted. Deliveries are made from as far southeast as Southeast 92nd and Johnson Creek Blvd. to as far north as St. Johns. And even though Courier only has about 30 accounts (coffeeshops, restaurants, bars and offices) they deliver daily to many of them in order to ensure super fresh, super tasty bean. Some of their most valued clients include Half & Half, Little Red Bike Cafe, Sel Gris, Olea, Two Tarts Bakery, Eastmoreland Market & Kitchen and Dove Vivi.

Domreis talked me through their roasting process, showed me their burlap sack stacked coffee storage area and discussed the merits of slow growth in particular to his business. Understandable since every new account adds many miles literally and figuratively to their work week. That's not the only reason Domreis is reticent. Courier has a certain ethic and culture that clients need to jive with. If you don't want to discuss things like first and second crack, or if you want all your coffee ground and delivered a couple times a month Courier doesn't want you.

Joel Domreis of Courier Coffee hopes to open a Courier Coffeeshop one day soon

Map of Portland's coffeeshops and Courier's Hario vacuum pots

You can buy bags of Courier Coffee beans at Half & Half, Little Red Bike Cafe, Eastmoreland Market & Kitchen and Two Tarts. You can also have Courier Coffee delivered to your door step or pick it up at the roastery -- just call ahead first.

Courier Coffee SE 40th and Hawthorne -- call for directions www.couriercoffeeroasters.com Joel Domreis -- 503.545.6444