Wordless Wednesday: Of Cabbages and Kings

Market Photo Report: Peaches, Peppers, Pops, and a Birthday Pose

Today brought the first (early) peaches of the year to the market.
The first bell peppers rang in July, and Sol Pops had a very good day with the weather the way it's been.
Jamie, one of our fabulous market coordinators and the organization behind the Chef in the Market, celebrated a birthday in style.
In other news, my apartment is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hot.

In fact, it's too hot for writing full paragraphs. Enjoy the pretty.

Chioggia Beet Salad with Cucumbers, Chevre, Red Onion, and Mint

Hey Portland, thanks for being absolutely gorgeous this time of year. They say you can't count on sun in this town until after the 4th, and so far we've proved the adage true - It's supposed to be in the 90's all week! While I'm nursing my poor sunburned knees and my poor over-frisbee'd-and-beach-trekking body in front of a brand new tower fan (it was quite the intense camping adventure, despite the tranquility you see in my photos!) I've been avoiding turning to oven on, which means lots and lots of salads. Seeing as most of my body is pretty darn red, I thought eating beets seemed appropriate.

Check out these gorgeous Chioggia beets from Spring Hill Farms - a perfect summer pairing with Oregon chevre, diva cucumbers from Groundworks Organics, and mint from my patio garden (where, incidentally, a little cherry tomato is almost ripe!) I like Chioggia Beets best because they don't stain my hands (and the cutting board, and the bowls, and the knife...) so I steamed them cut in half, peeled them, and cut them up with other tasty things in my fridge. I dressed it all with balsamic and olive oil, just a simple summer salad.

Now where did I put that aloe...

Pastanxiety, or how I learned to stop worrying and make homemade noodles.

Thanks to the miracle that is instant social networking, all of Twitter now knows that making my own pasta was quite possibly one of the most stressful experiences of the year. I thought I'd share the melodramatic pre-pasta breakdown, the live tweeting of the main event, and the (almost) edible results. Consider it confessional pastanxiety therapy, so I can move on from tonight and never have to think about it again.

allisonejones: We're attempting to make our own pasta tonight, and I'm really nervous. Like, really nervous. #pastanxiety

RadioConelrad: Unless you're making the pasta with nitroglycerin, what's the worst that could happen? (fettuccine al qaeda?)

pdxlilly: When I have made pasta, I used regular flour, one egg, and some water! Really simple. Can even roll it out with a rolling pin.

allisonejones: I don't have any semolina! Help! Do I need semolina? I don't even really know what semolina IS! #pastanxiety

billgalusha: wait, what.. a food question from @allisonejones ?!!? it's a kind of flour, and yes, I believe it's pretty crucial.

hedinthecloudz: When Jen makes pasta the way her Italian boyfriend's Italian mama taught her, she just mixes regular flour and an egg.

hedinthecloudz Also, Jen and I (when I help) always mess up and have to add water because we didn't mix the egg+flour quite right. Also fine

allisonejones: Recipe says mix pasta ingredients as if mixing cement. Who do they think I am? Maybe we should just give up + go to @pastaworks

amigadehelado: are you making pasta by hand or by machine? Don't be afraid. You don't need semolina. I like egg and flour best anyway

allisonejones: Making it by hand, worried that I've got people coming over and it'll take too long and/or be a total gummy disaster...

amigadehelado I use the Babbo basic recipe. Once you get going, pasta rolling goes fast. Stuffed pastas harder. + you have panna cotta

allisonejones: I was just informed that pasta has been found to reduce stress and anxiety. Nice try, internets. I've still got the #pastanxiety real bad.

amigadehelado: I say go for it. Effort means more to me than perfection when someone is actually cooking for ME

allisonejones: Stay tuned for live tweeting of Pasta Fiasco 2k10, starting @ 6! Keyboard will be covered w/ flour+eggs, but I'll need support. #pastanxiety

allisonejones I've heard of using guitar strings to cut pasta. I wonder if Sam Cooper would mind me using the guitar he left in my apartment. #pastanxiety

foxtotally: this #pastanxiety endeavor of yours sounds like a Haruki Murakami nightmare. Are you the only participant?

allisonejones: @foxtotally Nope, I've got a fellow pasta neophyte tackling the endeavor conmigo. It was her dammed idea. Luckily she's not on Twitter. [after-the-fact edit: Alix, don't buy all my twitternonsense. It was fun! I don't think it was a bad idea, and we had a great night. But my fears were TOTALLY warranted, admit it...]

foxtotally: Throw a couple wet ones against the wall and Twitpic what it spells! #pastanxiety

foxtotally: My guess is that it forms the likeness of a minotaur #pastanxiety

allisonejones: I don't even know if homemade pasta sticks to walls! How do I know when it's done!?! It cooks too quickly to have time to check!

allisonejones: If the homemade pasta fails tonight, I've a free delivery coupon from @pdxpedpow as Plan B. Man the phones dudes, who knows what'll happen.

allisonejones: My horoscope says to take "reasonable risks" today. "If you can consult with an expert you should do well." Help! I need a pasta expert!

allisonejones: I'm so ready. Homemade pasta, here we come. Checkout my bowl, BOWL:



allisonejones: OK guys, here we go. Dumping cups of flour on my dining room table, which is making my OCD itch uncomfortably. #pastanxiety

allisonejones: Cracking eggs into said flour and preparing to "mix as if mixing cement" whatever that means. Bright yolks make me a lil less anxious.



allisonejones: Mixmixmixmixmix... hey it's kind of working and isn't chasing me like a raptor. But the eggs are spilling everywhereohgodtheeggsareEVERYWHEREohgod...

allisonejones: Doesn't seem very elastic... adding more water... more oil? Ugh. Don't want a #pastafail

amigadehelado: After you mix/knead it's gonna need to rest before it becomes elastic.

allisonejones: Letting it rest... do I knead more afterwards? #pastanxiety

amigadehelado: Nah, you don't want to work the gluten too much esp. since you still need to roll it.

allisonejones: Ok, rolling it out... it's not getting very thin. Not worrying too much about it as I'm frying up bacon, onions, mushrooms and fresh peas.



allisonejones: Ok, water's boiling, here we go! 2 minutes... oh wait, it stopped boiling. BLAH. #pastanxiety

allisonejones: So, it's totally, ridiculously, chewy. Think it was too thick but it TASTES like pasta...

allisonejones: OK: Pasta is pretty chewy, but the sauce is phenomenal (because it's cream and bacon and peas, duh.) so it's not a total #pastafail


So that happened and now I never ever have to do it again. It's like canning and real gardening - I'll leave that stuff to people who really love it, and I'll keep eating my salads and waxing poetic about vegetables and how much I love to cook when the fact is, when it comes down to it, I really just love chopping and mixing flavors and eating good, simple foods. Homemade pasta still totally scares me. Maybe if I had one of those attachments for my KitchenAid that rolls and flattens the pasta, but, honestly, I can get such good, fresh pasta at the farmers' market and not have days like today where I stress about kneading flour and eggs for hours before I actually do it. I just don't get the appeal.

Actually, I think the real answer is going to Italy and having some Nonna teach me how to do it correctly. Yep, that's a good plan. Until then, I'm gonna let my jaw rest and get over the chewy semi-disaster that was Pastagate 2010. Thanks for not unfollowing me, everyone. You're real troopers.

Also, let the record state that, once again, bacon makes everything better and good friends make culinary failures kind of fun. Plus, there's always dessert.

A Most Revealing Meal

As I was cooking dinner tonight, I realized that the dish I was preparing was very revealing, though I don't mean to say that the little french lentils were scandalously rubenesque or that the spices were showing too much cleavage. I mean that a simple meal of a lentil salad says a lot about the way I eat, the way I shop for food, and the cooking habits and stories I've developed over the years. I thought it'd be fun to break down the elements of the meal to give you a glimpse, a tease, a revealing peep into my little world.

The lentils: I can't believe I've never talked about lentils. I just ran a search of the Lemonbasil archives, and I've typed the word "lentil" into these posts a grand total of ZERO times. Not once. Considering how often I eat lentils, I'm actually a little embarrassed. My parents could tell you about the countless times I've informed them over the phone that I'd eaten lentils and rice for lunch (or dinner, or breakfast, or all three...). Although there were indeed times when I ate them because my fridge was empty and I was left to rummage through my non-perishables for sustenance, the majority of the meals of lentils have been made because I simply love them. I love how humble and filling they are. I love the way they perform differently depending on how you cook them. Al dente, they're perfect for salads; cook them longer and they turn into the creamiest soups and daal. Alright, I also love how cheap they are. I bought these gorgeous french Puy lentils for $1.29 a pound at the International Food Supply on SE Stark and 80th, and they'll last forever. They will take on any flavor, adding their own peppery earthiness to anything I cook them in, and they look like river stones, smoothed and tumbled... what is not to love about these gorgeous little guys? I cook them in broth (usually 1.5 cups of lentils to 3.5 cups of broth) with a bit of cumin, coriander, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a diced onion for about 25 minutes. Oh, the broth, you ask? Well...

The broth: Even though I can't really compost up here on the ninth floor (even though I'm sure my two patio tomato plants would love it if I bought one of those fancy indoor composters) I do keep a big, sturdy snap-lidded plastic container in my freezer to throw in anything and everything that can go into a broth. Onion skins, Parmesan rinds, herb stems, lemon peels, chicken bones, celery bottoms... it all goes into the bin. Once it fills up, I throw the whole thing into my huge stock pot fitted with a smaller strainer pot (elegant phrasing, I know... what are those called?), cover it all with water, add some fresh garlic, and boil the hell out of it. After a few hours, I've got a decent broth that I use for everything from deglazing a pan to, yes, cooking rice or lentils. It's always a little different, and I end up making a lot of it, so I store it in the big glass jugs my olive oil comes in. Which brings us to...

The olive oil: When my parents are in town, we eat out. Yes, we're all major cooks, and in our separate lives we're in our own kitchens preparing 9 meals out of 10. But put us together, especially in Portland, and we turn into restaurant FIENDS. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, dinner... I show them the places I've been writing about and shooting, they take me to their favorites, and by the end of a long weekend we're over-sodiumed and empty-walleted, but very, very happy. During one of those filling visits, my dad and I went to Ya Hala, my favorite Lebanese restaurant, and ordered up the mezza platter and some fattoush. One bite of the hummus and we just had to ask the server where the restaurant bought their olive oil. Turns out the owners also operated the little international food supply place right next door, called, quite logically, International Food Supply. The olive oil brand was Saifan, and it came in big 1.5 liter glass jugs. This was January, and I've already gone through three jugs. It's that good. And because I started going up there to get my olive oil, I found that they have a great spice collection, the cheapest cured olives, the best yogurt, and a good assortment of nuts, dried fruit, and lentils. Outside of the farmers markets, I shop here more than anywhere else in the city. It's a tiny place, but they have what I need, and I get to chat with the owner about what size bulghur to buy and our shared love for the little vacuum-packed bags of peeled chestnuts.

The method: I call this my kitchen-sink tabouli, and I probably make it a few times a month. My friends know that my favorite foods are tabouli and toast, in that order. Depending on the season, what's in my fridge, what's growing in my garden, and who I'm cooking for, it has endless variations, grounded mostly by the parsley. Sometimes, like tonight, it gets cashews, cherries, carrots, celery, and these amazing "diva" cucumbers from the farmers' market that I've been hoarding every week. They are a local variant on those Persian cucumbers that you don't have to peel or seed, and they are killer. I eat so many of these, they're like my version of potato chips. Anyway, it all goes into a bowl with lots of parsley, lemon juice, garlic, some mint, more garlic, cumin, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little bit of garlic. Other times it will get some feta, or rice, or chickpeas, or currants, or grape tomatoes, or little pieces of pita. It's the kind of food I could eat for every meal, and sometimes I do. It's briny, crunchy, and satisfying. Plus, it keeps in the fridge for days.

According to my friend Matt, writing a food blog is 80% about the food and 20% about stroking my ego. Fair enough, but I also know it's about realizing that life is good when you take the time to notice that every ingredient has a story. I may live alone, but when I cook a meal full of habits and stories, I'm there with my dad, and my friends at the market, and the farmers, and the cows, and the olive trees... And you. So thanks for that.

Eat well.

(Also, the beautiful blue bowl above and and the earthy one below were both made by my insanely talented friend Karah Bruce-Larkin)

Memorial Day BBQ

There's nothing I love more than lounging in bed going through photos and video clips the morning after a really great party. My eye makeup is more than a little smeared, the sink is overflowing with baking pans and mixing bowls, and it's STILL raining outside, but I can cocoon into my comforters and pillows and scroll through hundred of pictures of my friends faces, relive the good food, and hear again the laughter and jokes of the night's misadventures. With Gillian Welch singing to me from the record player, and my socked toes all comfy under layers of cool cotton, I've spent a few blissful hours cropping, rotating, and sharpening these memories...

We had amazing weather for one of Portland's favorite holidays - the Rose Festival was lightly toasted by warm sunshine and high clouds, the river looked beautiful as I crossed over to the east side, and our humble little BBQ in the big, beautiful orange house known as Crib Largo went off without a hitch. I was in an extra-fantastic mood because I just got a new job (!!!) and a summery white dress, two factors I'm relatively sure had a direct impact on the good weather... We even played a little frisbee in the intersection, yelling "CAR!" (or, just as often, "BIKE!") and skittering to the side of the road to let passersby pass by. Chess games were played, Jim Beam and Icelandic Schnaps were sipped and shot, and somehow most everyone ended up in random articles of womens clothing...



Anyway, the food. Oh, the food. The boys got started on the brisket pretty early, smoked it to perfection. Honestly, it was the best meat we'd ever had at a Family Dinner^® gathering (aside from Travis' Dancing Ladies Chicken, of course...). Meatmaster Jesse made the rub from the scrappy spice collection of the Largo kitchen, set up the Weber for success, and painstakingly monitored the smoke levels over the course of a few hours. Damn, that was good brisket. We also had a huge pile of variously-flavored sausages, grilled veggies, roasted kale, confusingly good pickles, Sweet Tea, watermelon (both in cocktail and analog form) and my contribution, strawberry shortcakes and strawberry thumbprint cookies. In the past four days, I've eaten at Kenny & Zukes, Hash, Foster Burger, and Tastebud... but the dinner we had last night topped them all.



Rereading that last paragraph, I just realized I ate a LOT OF FOOD this weekend. Which is likely why I'm drinking tea and eating cucumbers while digitally thumbing through my photo uploads. A girl needs balance. A girl also needs great friends, and this girl has them, and how. Summer may still be a few weeks off in this crazy town, but I can already tell it's going to be a good one.

Eat well.












Strawberry Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies
adapted from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family Style, 2002

• 3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (Or more, if you want. I always up the kosher salt in cookies... it's kind of my thing...)
  
• Good Strawberry Jam
  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until they are just combined and then add the vanilla. Separately, sift together the flour and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a floured board and roll together into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Place the balls on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and press an indentation into the top of each with your finger. Drop 1 teaspoon of jam into each indentation. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until lightly golden. Cool and serve.

Inside-Out Carrot Cake Cookies

I have a habit of sneaking root vegetables and other clandestine, healthy foods into my baked goods, including beet brownies and a zucchini chocolate cake that once prompted my friend Calvin to exclaim, "We may be BFF forever, but I will never let you molest my desserts with vegetables."

I think even Calvin would like these cookies, seeing as carrots have somehow passed the cultural acceptability test. Why is that? What makes a carrot any less of an "un-dessert" food than a beet, or a new potato, or beans?



Since the middle ages, whenever sugar was expensive or hard to come by, certain fruits and vegetables were used to add sweetness to puddings and baked goods. Carrots (and sugar beets, I might add) have a very high sugar content and were able to add that extra something to cakes and sweets. The popularity of carrot cake peaked in the Second World War, due to sugar rationing, and by the 1970's, there was no looking back. Those little iced orange and green carrots on top of a thick layer of cream cheese frosting became a staple in bakeries, cafeterias, and American kitchens. I asked for a carrot cake year after year for my birthday as a kid, and I still love the textures and colors of the old favorite, though I'm now more inclined to favor the natural orange (or other heirloom colors) over the artificial neon colors of yesteryear.



Though we now combine carrots with the sugar they were intended to replace, it's hard not to feel a little virtuous when you pour in a cup of grated, raw carrots to a bowl of cookie dough. This take on carrot cake is a really fun, portable way to bring individual, hand-held desserts to a BBQ. I incorporated more spices and mixed carrots directly into the frosting, which gives great color and texture to the sandwich filling. If it feels a little decadent to eat two cookies at once, slathered with icing, just think of it as a small portion of cake. But don't argue with yourself too much over the merits or demerits of the inside-out carrot cake cookie, or they'll disappear before you make up your mind.

Eat well!

Inside-Out Carrot Cake Cookies with Carrot Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Gourmet, April 2004

Ingredients

1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups coarsely grated carrots, divided
1 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar or 1/4 cup honey

Preparation

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper (these can get sticky, I recommend the parchment).

Whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

Beat together butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in 1 cup of the carrots carrots, all of the pecans and cranberries at low speed, then add flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Drop 1 1/2 tablespoons batter per cookie 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are lightly browned and springy to the touch, 12 to 16 minutes total. Cool cookies on sheets on racks 1 minute, then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.

While cookies are baking, blend cream cheese, butter, and sugar (or honey) in a food processor until smooth. Add the other cup of grated carrots to frosting, mix well.

Sandwich flat sides of cookies together with a generous tablespoon of cream cheese filling in between.

Enjoy!

Browned Butter Eggs with Ramps and Miatakes

I don't have too much time to rhapsodize this week (my Thesis draft is due on Friday!) but I picked up so many quintessential spring foods at the market yesterday that I couldn't not share.

I used to hate eggs - my sisters would always ask for fried egg sandwiches for breakfast before school, but I was usually happier eating leftovers from the night before. I still like savory things for breakfast, and have never really craved pancakes or waffles, but my attitude about eggs has completely changed. I don't want to insult my parents, but the eggs we ate as kids weren't anything like the kind I can get at the market. If I had access to these eggs back then, with their near-orange yolks and adorable blue and brown shells, I'd likely have eaten them every day.


Miatakes from Springwater farms (above) and ramps in my market basket.


For this rather decadent meal, I sauteed chopped miatake mushrooms and spring ramps (also known as wild leeks, great wild-gathered spring onions that have a great garlicky flavor, pink and white stems, and flat, green leaves) in a bit of butter, and in a separate pan, made a bit of brown butter, and fried some fresh eggs. They weren't the platonic form of fried eggs--they were, in fact, kind of brown--but oh, goodness, they were delicious. I piled on the mushroom and ramp mixture, added some chives, and toasted up some sourdough. Yes. Eggs have certainly come a long way.

Some people think you need to do something elaborate and time-consuming with local produce to really get the most out of it, but I think it's the opposite. Simple preparation, a little butter and salt, and you've saved time and tasted our local foods at their best. Using things like eggs, pasta, good bread, and good butter and olive oil, you don't need to have fancy tools or techniques to eat really, really well. And don't worry if things get messy - if it tastes good, and it makes you happy, eat it. Even if its a rather ugly egg.

Farmers' Market: Opening Day

  M  

 y emotions upon waking up yesterday morning could have been likened more to those of a five-year-old on the morning of a trip to Disneyland than to those of a twenty-two-year-old waking up at 7 am on the next to last day of Spring Break two weeks before her thesis draft is due. Improbable as it was, I was grinning even before I was fully conscious. I couldn't wait to get up, get dressed, and walk down the park blocks before the first opening bell of the year rang. My first surprise of the day was how ridiculously short that walk actually was. I knew that moving downtown would put me close to the market, but I hadn't thought it would take me all of three minutes to stroll past budding trees, an ambush of daffodils, and shining streetcar tracks before I came to the white-topped tents of the market vendors. I was giddy - the market is in my backyard, and it's back!

The weather was record-breakingly, breath-takingly, earth-shakingly gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky and reaching 70 degrees, the sun seemed just as excited as I was to greet the farmers after what felt like a year, but I suppose was only three months. I arrived just in time to hear the opening bell, its ringing met with the cat-calls and happy cries of farmers and foodies glad to be back in the sun after a winter of cold storage and/or shipped-in produce. The air smelled like wood smoke, coffee, wet wool and Pine State biscuits and gravy. Truth be told, it was a little overwhelming. The market has doubled in size, everyone has moved around to new spots, and the market staff were energized but a bit frazzled with all of the new logistical changes and early-season pressures, but there was no doubt that we were all glad to be back.



I had friends coming to meet me for brunch at my apartment around ten, so I had an hour and a half to shoot photos for the market newsletter and Lemonbasil, plan a menu based on the available veggies, and gather everything while eagerly greeting and catching up with my favorite farmers and market enthusiasts. I was so happy to see my friends at Rainyway Farms, Gathering Together, Jacobs Creamery, Spring Hill, and so many others, not to mention new vendors and the PFM volunteers and staff that make it all possible.


I grabbed my first bunch of asparagus of the year as soon as I saw it (only Spring Hill had it this early, a small batch with cute tiny stems, so I knew I needed to get it before it was gone) and a basket full of other goodies, including kohlrabi, french breakfast radishes, gorgeous rainbow chard, a gluten-free sesame sourdough loaf, a dozen fresh eggs, some Holy Habanero pepper jam from Rose City Peppers, leeks, yukon gold potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and a dozen eggs. I'm lucky my building has an elevator - walking up nine flights of stairs with all that would have been a bit tricky.

All in all, it was a day to remember. My fridge is so colorful, my brunch went well, the asparagus went far too quickly (I might run by the Hillsdale Farmers' Market today to see if they've got some more) and Spring is here! It finally feels like the new year. Even though Sunday has brought back the rain and clouds (this IS Portland, I suppose) I got a glimpse of great things to come.

Were you at the market? Let me know what you bought and what you plan to do with it! Here are some shots from Opening Day - hope to see you there next week!

Field Roast Grain Meat Chipotle Tacos

First off, let me geek out for a moment and say that this time next week I'll be showing off my gleanings from the first Portland Farmers' Market of the year. ONE WEEK. Also, I'm going to be writing for the PFM eNewsletter this year - so click here to sign up!

I've always been skeptical of "fake meat". Don't get me wrong, I've gone through many a stage of filling my freezer with veggie burgers, fake sausage, and chickenless nuggets and my cheese drawer with fake lunch meat, but something felt funny. It's probably because, since I've lived on my own, I've really fell in love with ethnic vegetarian cooking, food cultures that adore the vegetables, pulses, and grains of the world, that I haven't felt the need to mimic meat. I much prefer getting the goods "from the source" and avoiding all the processing and stabilizers necessary to a lot of widely-available meat-less meats. If you've ever felt the same way, it's time for us to look again at that often intimidating section of the supermarket that caters to those wishing to cut down on or eliminate their meat intake. A few years ago, soy was the ruling class of the vegetarian world. As food sensitivities, phyto-estrogen concerns, and GMO fears have us all thinking about soy with a skeptical face, different forms of vegetarian foods have started making their way to the scene. Grains, mushrooms, legumes, and seeds are being used in really interesting ways. Even better, if you're in Portland or a similarly-minded locale, it's getting easier and easier to find products from local producers with readable ingredient lists.



My favorite by far is the grain meat sausages and loafs from Seattle-based Field Roast. These wonderfully seasoned, ready-to-eat sausages are really great, mostly because they aren't really trying to taste like meat, they're aiming to replicate the taste of the flavors that have traditionally been added to meat (which is one of my own tricks in the kitchen). From lentil-sage loaf with fresh garlic, pardina lentils, and rubbed sage, to a chorizo-like sausage with smoked chipotle and chili de arbol peppers, the flavors that hit you are the spices and herbs, and it totally works. Their Celebration Roast is filled by hand with sausage-style stuffing, fresh butternut squash, Granny Smith apples, and mushrooms seasoned with rosemary, thyme, and sage. I was introduced to them a few months ago by my friends Ryan and Allie, who fried up a couple sausages and served them up with pancakes for Thanksgiving breakfast. Everyone, even the carnivoriest amongst us, was floored by how great they were.

Today I sliced up one of their Mexican Chipotle sausages and sauteed the bits with red bell pepper and onion, cumin and dried oregano, threw them on a few tortillas. I topped them with greek yogurt, salsa, and fresh oregano. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I added a little lemon zest, which proved to be a very good choice. They were a great, spicy, and filling distraction from writing my thesis. Which is pretty much the best thing I can say about food right now.

I hope to see you at the market next week!

Photos from the Week

So, here's a visual tour of food-related events of my past few days, because I have little to no time to verbalize blog-worthy musings this week. I'm writing my Senior thesis, painting murals, apartment hunting (and generally getting ready for a big move), and am finishing up work before leaving for my Fall Break. Next week on the East Coast, next year in Jerusalem. Or something.





























Be back to words soon! Eat well!