Livin' in the Blurbs: Plowing, Cheeses and Changes at Culinate

There are a few annual events that make me extra happy to live here: Jim Dixon's Olive Oil Garage Sale. The apple tasting at Portland Nursery. The farm ramble at Ayers Creek Farm. And the one that totally brings back my horse-loving eight-year-old self, the Yamhill County Farm Fest and Plowing Competition sponsored by the Oregon Draft Horse and Mule Breeders Association. This year the rock-em, sock-em competition, featuring classic draft breeds like Belgians, Percherons, Haflingers, Shires, Suffolk and Clydesdales, plus teams of doughty mules, is coming up this Saturday, April 12, on what's predicted to be a stunningly gorgeous day. The event includes blacksmithing demonstrations, historic farm equipment, quilts from local quilting clubs and other family-friendly activities. So throw the kids in the buggy and trot them out to the country for a day of country fun. (Be sure to say hi when you see my eight-year-old self patting the horses…)

Details: Yamhill County Farm Fest and Plowing Competition. Sat., April 12, 10 am-4 pm; $5 admission, kids 12 and under free. Yamhill Co. Historical Society and Museum, 11275 SW Durham Ln., McMinnville. 503-434-0490.

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Community Supported Cheese is an idea whose time has come. Fortunately, Sasha Davies is all over it with her monthly Cheese Club at Cyril's. Unlike many buying clubs, where you're stuck with whatever that month's featured product is, Sasha has created a club where participants can opt in depending on how they feel about the selected cheese and whether their budget that month will support the purchase of a pound of cheese. How awesome is that? She does it by (get this!) posting the month's featured cheese to Kickstarter, then letting folks commit or not. Plus if it doesn't get funded, then everyone's off the hook! That's my kind of club.

Details: Community Supported Cheese Club at Cyril's. Thurs., April 10, 6:30 pm (pledge must be made before Thurs., April 10 at 6 pm; future monthly meetings and cheeses will be posted); $10 to taste the cheese of the month; price for the pound (or piece) varies monthly. Check the website. Cyril's at Clay Pigeon Winery, 815 SE Oak St. 503-206-7862.

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Some sad news came this last month from my friend Kim Carlson at Culinate. After seven years of publishing a nationally recognized online food magazine, she and her husband James Berry will be closing up shop, or at least that part of it that publishes stories and recipes. I've written stories and contributed recipes to Culinate over the years and found their passionate commitment to the cause of good cooking, great ingredients and sustainable sourcing to be thoughtful and inspiring. The good news, if it can be spun that way, is that they are keeping the website's content available for the foreseeable future. The website was only part of their business, and now they are turning their focus to the partnerships they have with cookbook authors and publishers to create mobile apps from cookbooks. These have included Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything series and the app for the incredibly successful Hello, Cupcake! series, recently awarded the iTunes App Store Editor’s Choice and Best App of the year. Now rumor has it they're about to release a huge new cooking app project that will rock the foundation of the cookbook world. Stay tuned!

Varying the Morning Routine

Like contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food, I have a morning routine…dogs, coffee, breakfast. Recently he decided to do something little different for the breakfast portion.

I eat the same breakfast most days. I make an espresso in my Francis Francis machine with Andrea Spella’s amazing coffee, pour a glass of OJ (I switched to the relatively spendy Columbia Gorge Organics stuff a few years ago after reading about “flavor packs”) and spread some old-school Adam’s crunchy peanut butter on a couple of slices of toast (preferably Great Harvest’s Dakota bread).

But I do like some eggs every now and then. Usually I just fry them over easy in extra virgin olive oil, but I last week I had some leftover cooked bacon and was thinking about Judy Rodgers' breadcrumb eggs. This is what happened next.

Eggs with Toast and Bacon

I think everybody should have breadcrumbs in the pantry all the time, and if you take the last couple of slices from that loaf getting stale, leave them out on the counter until they’re totally dry and grind them in your food processor, you’ll be on your way to having your own stash.

Gently heat some olive oil in a skillet, add a tablespoon of breadcrumbs for each egg and let them brown. Chop a slice or two of cooked bacon into fairly small, breadcrumbish-sized bits and add to the pan. When they start to sizzle, scrape the crumbs and bacon into rough circles and break the eggs onto them.

You can do the eggs sunny side up, but I like mine over easy. Cook 'em how you like 'em, hopefully with runny yolks, and eat.

Photo from Culinate.com.

Bitten Again

Mark Bittman must be a really busy guy. Aside from his weekly Minimalist column in the New York Times, he has a very active blog, regular speaking engagements that take him around the country and one of the hottest apps on iTunes based on his book, "How to Cook Everything."Not that he had much to do with the app…it was written right here in Portland by my friend, fab programmer and co-founder of Culinate.com, James Berry.

He used to have his own blog on the New York Times site, Bitten, but it's since been mooshed in with the newspaper's other food blogs and retitled Diner's Journal. (One might wonder if the Grey Lady was a little jealous of his traffic numbers and wanted to draft off his success. But I digress.)

Our own black cherry tomatoes simmering to perfection.

I've referenced Bittman's recipes multiple times on this blog, and realized recently that there was one that I hadn't told you about. It's one of my favorite easy dinners, especially during tomato season, and it calls for garlic, anchovies and cherry tomatoes. Yes, really, just three ingredients. Well, and pasta to put it on, optional red pepper flakes for zing and some grated parmesan. But it's that simple sauce that's the beauty part, rich and flavorful and the perfect combination of comfort and freshness.

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes, Anchovies and Garlic

Adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe for the New York Times

Salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
10 garlic cloves, peeled
2 or 3 dried red chiles, optional
20 anchovy fillets, more or less [I usually use 1 tin, drained]
2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound cut pasta, like penne
Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish
Grated parmesan 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat; a minute later, add garlic and chiles, if using. Cook garlic so it bubbles gently. When it is lightly browned all over, add anchovies. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about a minute, until anchovies begin to fall apart, then add tomatoes. Adjust heat so tomatoes bubble nicely, and cook until mixture becomes saucy, about 5 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary.

Meanwhile, cook pasta until tender but not mushy. When it is done, drain it, reserving a little cooking water to thin sauce if necessary. Pour sauce over pasta, sprinkle with parsley and serve with parmesan alongside.

25 Random Food Things

My friend, neighbor and cookbook author Ivy Manning just posted "25 Random Things About Food and Me" on her blog at Culinate.com.

Number 13? "I don’t see why everyone makes such a big deal of beef tenderloin. Braise me a knuckle, tail or neck bone and I’m all yours." At number 20 she wrote, intriguingly, "I have shaken hands with Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Charlie Trotter, Ming Tsai and Alton Brown. Only one really impressed me." But the one that made me laugh out loud was number 24: "My favorite quote is by Dolly Parton. When asked if she had a sweet tooth, she replied, 'Oh honey, I’d much rather have one little potato than a whole pie!'"

She asked others to post their lists, so here's mine:

1. When I was around 10, I ate only Velveeta cheese for two weeks. I haven't touched it since.
2. My downfall is eating when I'm not hungry. That said, I'm lucky I don't weigh 300 lbs.
3. I'd be a vegetarian, but I can never turn down a nice steak.
4. On that same note, I believe that the best people like their egg yolks runny and their steaks medium rare.
5. I will pick up a piece of food that's fallen on the floor, blow on it and eat it.
6. My favorite cocktail is the one I have in my hand. Given a choice, though, I'll take Dave's Negroni over any other.
7. I still crave the Big Ol' Chocolate Cake from my brother's Shakers Cafe, but the Devil's Food Chocolate Cake at 50 Plates comes close.
8. I got through my pregnancy in large part because of the (pre-Starbucks) decaf cafe au laits at the old Victoria's Nephew downtown.
9. Red wine goes with everything.
10. As a toddler, my son would name his broccoli after us ("This one's Mommy!") and then gleefully chomp the head off.
11. I liked the food (and the people) better in Korea than Japan.
12. I want to write about food and travel for the New York Times.
13. My mom's tuna casserole (made with, yes, Campbell's cream of mushroom soup) is still my idea of the ultimate comfort food.
14. I curse the day that Kettle Chips came out with their "Krinkle-Cut" salt and pepper chips.
15. I would rather have a fruit pie or crisp than anything made with chocolate. (Not that I'd turn it down, mind you!)
16. The perfect man? He grills me steaks and makes me cocktails. And he's my husband.
17. The best time to try out a new recipe is when you have guests.
18. People who are picky about their food (or, really, about anything) are exceedingly tiresome.
19. Well-behaved pets should be allowed in restaurants and pubs.
20. My brother is one of my favorite cooks. I'd reschedule almost any event if he invited me over.
21. The best food is the simplest. That's why, currently, the best restaurant in Portland is Evoe on Hawthorne.
22. I was devastated recently when I broke my great-grandmother's potato masher.
23. Speaking of cookware, the good stuff (like Le Creuset) is worth the price. But it's even better if you get it on sale.
24. I like my pot roast better than anyone else's, including those I've had in restaurants. Ditto for my paella (photo, top).
25. Best quote: "Life itself is the proper binge." By Julia Child, the woman I want to be when I grow up.

Now it's your turn! What are your 25 random food things?

Vermont Vacation: Da Big Cheese!

It had been way too long since we'd been to see Dave's mother and sister in Vermont, so we decided head up to New England this summer for a little quality time with the fam. And since Culinate.com had asked me to do an article on artisan cheese for their fall issue, I made some appointments with a few artisan cheesemakers to see what they were up to.

According to Jeffrey Roberts, whose Atlas of American Artisan Cheese was just published and lists 34 producers in Vermont alone, "great cheese starts from complex, vital relationships among land, climate and animals." And perhaps no one in Vermont exemplifies that better than Peter Dixon of Dairy Foods Consulting, the go-to guy in the country if you want to start making artisan cheese. Like a latter-day Johnny Appleseed, he's spreading the gospel of artisan cheese across the country and working with new and established cheesemakers to start up their businesses or expand their existing product lines.

He's worked with four cheesemakers in Oregon alone, and is currently consulting with owner Angela Miller of Consider Bardwell Farm in West Pawlet, VT, on their cow and goat's milk cheeses (photo, upper left; notice the date on the house: 1819!). The day we talked he was cutting curds and making wheels of their Manchester cheese (photo, upper right). He says, "This is a wonderful kind of business to have. It's easy on the land because you're grazing and the animals are eating forage. You can get by with less grain because when you make cheese you don't need to have the cows or goats produce as much milk as when you're selling your milk. And the value of the milk is high because you're making it into cheese. It lends itself to going back to the old-fashioned way of dairy farming."

He also notes that the proliferation of farmers markets has "developed enough that people can jump into this type of business and become successful. Just look at Jasper Hill. Three years ago there was no Jasper Hill. Now there's 70,000 pounds more cheese mostly in the northeastern seaboard market. There have been ten new ones starting up to contribute another 100,000 to 200,000 pounds. Some kind of market is gobbling up all this production." And to that we can only add, "Bring it on!"

Read the rest of the posts in this series: Burlington and Environs, Twig on a Branch, My First Time, Muddling Through Middlebury and Cheese and Community.

Paella for Twelve!

You know when you get all excited about a project and then at some point it sometimes spirals out of control? Well, we almost had Mercury leaving its orbit and crashing into Venus, starting a galactic pinball game around here last weekend. As part of writing an article for Culinate.com on making paella on the grill (based on the blog entry you all read here), I volunteered to have the photo shoot at the house.

My most excellent and talented friend, Mr. Bloch, said he'd do it gratis (thanks, Steve!) and Culinate editor Kim and her husband James accepted our invitation to supervise. Then, of course, I invited my brother Bruce and his partner in crime Wendy. So we're up to, what...three...four...six...eight? And Kathryn and Jeff weren't busy and Tim and Luan had missed the last paella feed opportunity, so that brings us to...EEK!...twelve???

Fortunately the paella recipe is infinitely expandable and Cost Plus has very reasonably priced glassware and table accessories, so with a little creative mixing of silverware patterns, we were all set to go. The evening came off without major hitches (okay, okay...I miscounted and set the table for ten instead of twelve, but we squeezed in two more without too much fuss), everyone had their fill of appies, including, if I do say so myself, a lovely fava bean spread (see above), there was rosé and red wine aplenty with rhubarb crisp and coffee for dessert.

As they all toddled off home and Tim zipped off on his new scooter, we sighed and started working through the detritus of yet another successful evening. Now all I have to do is hope that the article I wrote last week measures up!