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.

Labor Day Feast

Labor Day is pretty special to my group of friends. It was on Labor Day, two years ago, that a group of us got together for a potluck that would turn into a veritable institution - Family Dinner. Every Friday night dozens of people fill a home, a feast is made, instruments are brought out, music is made, people fall in love, I make cookies on the fly without a recipe, someone covers a Radiohead song, people fall asleep, and in a week's time, it happens all over again.

The cornerstone of "My Portland", Family Dinner has bred our sometimes band, The internationally acclaimed Ivonrose Family Jamboree (as featured in French Glamour and, more often, our front porches), has been the source of the best friendships a girl could ask for, and has required a hell of a lot of cooking. It's also probably the reason I'm single, but hey, that's another story. I really think it is greatly because of this rag-tag bunch of hooligans that I am who I am today. Week after week, when school, work, family, or Portland weather has got me frazzled, it means so much to be able to walk into a kitchen and help cook food for my best friends. Who gets to do that? It's amazing, and it's ours. So, I don't know if any of you read my blog, but I love you, each and every one of you.

Ok, emotional blathering aside, let's get down to the food. Because that's what you are really here for. You know how they say you don't want to watch the sausages being made? Well, they say something like that, and apparently they weren't talking about veggie sausages, because that process is relatively benign.

Full disclosure, all of these recipes were either made up on the fly or were from books at my dear friends' abode. So, I'm not tracking them down unless someone is desperate, in which case I'll do my best, because I'm nice like that. We made homemade veggie sausage, bean burgers, Greek green beans, potato salad, and more grilled vegetables than twenty people could eat, which is a lot.

Many of us are vegetarians, so aside from the occasional (and beyond amazing) roasted bbq chicken from our humble tattooed glickenspiel player, we consume a whole lot of beans, quinoa, and veggies. Which makes it a lot easier to feed about twenty people a week on a budget of, well, not much. But don't think we can't grill a mean Labor Day feast from scratch. Because we can.

I hope you find yourself lucky enough to be able to make food and music with friends as often as I do, because let me tell you, it's an absolute lifesaver. Just don't ask me to do the dishes.

Cauliflower on the Coast

I promised I'd show you my camping food set-up for the summer, so here it is, plus the above shot from Yachats, Oregon's coastline. I know, it's a rough life.



I'm set up with a small Coleman grill, which doubles as a burner for a saucepan. I've been slicing up onions and whatever grillable veggies I have on hand, tossing them with canola oil, salt and pepper, and grilling them up. Add some beans, some cumin, and a salad with walnuts, radishes, and grapes, and I'm not missing my kitchen at all.



The only thing that is really hard about camp cooking is the lack of hot water. It's near impossible to de-oil a salad bowl with cold water, much less cold water in a small bucket on a wooden picnic table. But it's manageable, and I'm having a great time.

The surprise of this meal was how great grapes and grilled onions tasted together. I know, kind of odd, but a real treat.

Happy Earth Day with Grilled Asparagus and Ramps!

Take a moment and thank the earth today for being our home, the earth's water for quenching our thirst and giving us power, the trees for giving us fresh air and beauty, and best of all, the soil for feeding us and every other living thing. Today would be a perfect day to cook a special "Earth Day Meal" - try to use local products, avoid using plastic bags or non-recyclable or re-usable packaging, and eat with the lights off. Talk to your kids or your friends about the great world that sustains us, and try to give back - plant a few seeds, build a bird sanctuary, ride your bike instead of drive, and keep the earth in your thoughts. Gratitude and respect brings health, and the healthier the earth is, the healthier we are.

My treat on earth day is going to be a yummy potato and chard casserole, but I thought I'd share a delicious way to prepare two of my favorite spring vegetables.

Last weekend at the market was pretty inspiring - the asparagus was piled high, the rainbow chard brought colors other than green and brown to the tables, and the rhubarb is showing itself to be a stable spring top seller. Also, the ramps are here! I love ramps - also known as spring leeks - the beautiful, flat-leafed alium is similar to a scallion, but has a real garlicky kick. According to John Mariani, author of "The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink," the word ramp comes from "rams," or "ramson," an Elizabethan dialect rendering of the wild garlic. They are native to North America, and can be used in everything from buscuits to pesto. Mmmm... ramp pesto...


I decided to pair some ramps with my other favorite - asparagus - on the grill. Portland had her first really GORGEOUS stretch of sunny days last weekend, and in order to celebrate and extend these delusions (or anticipations) of summer days, I busted out the Weber and tossed the veggies in olive oil and rosemary, grilling them for a few minutes - just until they are slightly browned and tender.

You could also broil them, if its too early for the grill - but this gave them a great smoky flavor, and the leaves of the ramps crisped up like chips, while the asparagus was perfectly tender. Simple, flavorful, and earth friendly. Eat Well!



How are you going to thank the earth today?

A Diamond Birthday

Oh, there has been so much to celebrate in the past few weeks! The beginning of the holiday season (marked in Portland by the onslaught of rain and the Thanksgiving & Christmas issues of my favorite foodie magazines, among other signs), the outcome of the election (I'm still floating in a state of red-white-and-bluephoria), and, this past weekend, my Grandmother's 80th birthday!

My grandmother is an amazing woman.  She is one of the strongest women I know, a breast cancer survivor, with a PhD in her pocket, and countless students inspired by her passion. A teacher, a poet, an entrepreneur, a mom, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother, with eternally classic style and the best hugs around. The party was really a testament to the amazing community she had a part in creating, with four generations of the clan in attendance (with a gaggle of great-grandkids in tow), artists, musicians, craftspeople and academics of all varieties, and of course, TONS of food.

I flew down to Southern California to join my family in the celebration, which for us means preparing food for 24-hours straight for 80 party guests. No catering here, my friends, and nothing frozen, pre-packaged, micro-waved - though some doubting individuals tried to sneak in some bite-sized frozen shrimp snacks into the mix. Not while I'm on appetizers! I spent the week ahead plotting my attack, looking forward to the never-ending bounty of Southern California produce - strawberries and asparagus in November? I'm still flabbergasted - and crafting a few tasty dishes to feed the army of party-goers.

My older sister was on dessert - and cranked out 8 gorgeous classic Pineapple Upside-Down Cakes, the kind with the maraschino cherries in the center of pineapple rings, and a Four-Layer Carrot Cake with Pine Nuts and Cream Cheese Frosting - SO good, and I'm sure the house still smells like yellow cake (the tasty baked good, not the enriched uranium ore). My dad was manning the grill - enough lamb and chicken kabobs to feed about three times as many people as we were expecting.

The lamb had a red-wine, garlic, and rosemary marinade, and the chicken got a soy, ginger, and garlic treatment. My mom made a HUGE pasta salad - we were all amazing at how much pasta three bags made - and my little sister was the all-around champion of veggie-plates, odd-jobs, and official taster. Aunts and cousins brought cheese plates, crackers, beautiful fruit, famous rice salads, a keg of local brew for the big kids, and a box of "bunny noodles" for the little ones. Some families gather around sports teams, some around religious traditions, but for us, it's all about the food. 

My dishes might not have been the main attraction, but I was pretty pleased with them, and the way they disappeared, I'm guessing a few other people were as well.

First up - Deviled New Potatoes! These little guys started off as 40 small, adorable new potatoes, boiled until just tender, and chilled overnight. The next day, I used a melon baller to hollow out the centers. I reserved the scooped-out potato to add to the filling, which was really delicious. I sautéed three sliced leeks and four big shallots in olive oil, seasoned only with black pepper and kosher salt. After this mix started to brown - and smell amazing - I deglazed with a few tablespoons of good red wine at a time, allowing the liquid to evaporate before adding more, until I'd used about a cup. This mix went into the food processor with capers, basil, fresh meyer lemon juice, the reserved potato centers, and cream cheese. After the mix was thoroughly blended, I packed it into a big ziplock bag and piped the filling into the potato cups, sprinkled with chives, and moved on to the next dish...

Endive Boats with Roasted Garlic, Eggplant, and Orange Bell Pepper Puree. These were so fun to eat - the individual endive leaves were the perfect size for a little scoop of the savory filling. I roasted two whole eggplants, about 8 garlic cloves (peeled, and wrapped in a packet of tin foil with olive oil) and three orange bell peppers at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes. Everything went into the food processor with cumin, more olive oil, capers, lemon juice, and a but of curry powder. Yum!

My last dish was a simple bruschetta, with olive tapenade, tomato, and basil. I made the tapenade using three kinds of olives - kalamata, brined green, and black, a can of each - all pitted. I threw these in the food processor with fresh garlic, anchovies, lemon juice, capers, basil, and a good amount of olive oil. This stuff was strong, in a good way, so I put about a teaspoon on a fresh basil leaf on each toasted baguette slice - topped with a slice of cherry tomato. Classic, simple, and delicious - brought to you by California sunshine. So jealous.

It was a great party - 80th is the Diamond Anniversary. Sorry you didn't get any diamonds, grandma, but I hope you loved the good friends, good beer and wine, and great food as much as I enjoyed helping out. Even now, as I sit looking out at the Portland rain, roasting a pumpkin in the oven, and I can still feel the warmth of the grill and the California fall, hear the babies playing, and see my grandma's smile as she popped the champagne. 

May we all live to be as successful and beautiful. Eat well!