Farm Bulletin: Feeding the Dog

While contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm spends a good deal of time each legislative session testifying before various state committees on proposed legislation affecting small family farmers, this week he expresses his appreciation for, and the necessity of, small farm advocacy groups like Friends of Family Farmers.

A good watch dog is well-fed and cared for, and spends its time protecting the premises rather than thinking about its next meal or wondering whether people appreciate its snarling diligence. This applies to watch dog groups as well as the canine sort. On 25 August, you all have an opportunity to feed the best watch dog on matters pertaining to small farms in Oregon, Friends of Family Farmers (FoFF), and tuck into a meal prepared by Chef Dave Anderson of The Original Dinerant. Nothing one-sided about that deal.

Shari Sirkin and Bryan Dickerson (left) of Dancing Roots Farm will host the benefit dinner at their farm in Troutdale. And there is not just a great meal in store for you, Bryan's jazz trio will soften the night air, and you will get a tour of a very different farm. We are not all stamped out of the same mold. Just to underscore this point, we have never been civilized enough to serve cocktails at an Ayers Creek ramble, but you will get them up there at Dancing Roots, and a bit of auction action.

In the thicket of groups claiming to be advocates for family farms, Friends of Family Farmers are the real deal, standing head and shoulders the rest. They are not trying to tell a story, the warm and fuzzy approach that accompanies the usual table in a farm event where people dress up in stylish boots and nuzzle chickens and pigs. This dinner is a celebration of real accomplishments in Salem this session, including a temporary ban on rape seed production in the Willamette Valley, something near and dear to the hearts of seed producers, as well as a vehicle to pump up the FoFF coffers before the next legislative session.

It is a tough business being an advocate and lobbyist for the larger public good, and it helps the soul to have friends celebrate successes. If you can't attend the event, we would endorse sending an encouraging note and a bunch of greenbacks as a fine alternative.

Details: Farm To FoFF Dinner at Dancing Roots Farm. Sun., Aug. 25th, 5:30 pm; $115 in advance. Tickets available online. Includes dinner, cocktails and beer or wine and a one-year membership in FoFF. Event at Dancing Roots Farm, 29820 E Woodard Rd., Troutdale. 503-759-3276.

Read a profile of Chef David Anderson and his identical twin brother, Ray, that I wrote for the Oregonian's FoodDay, titled "Twin Chef Face-Off."

Photo of Shari and Bryan of Dancing Roots Farm by Shawn Linehan.

Livin' in the Blurbs: A Dram of This, A Slice of That

I don't know a soul who wasn't heartbroken when Kurt Spak decided to close his Piedmont-comes-to-PDX Alba Osteria in the Hillsdale neighborhood. Unfortunately, as of this week he's also closed his Caffé Autogrill next door where you could still pick up some of his justly-famous handmade and hand-filled pastas by the pound. Word just came out that a lease and liquor license have been filed for Alba's former space by local whiskey expert Stuart Ramsay. As reported by Andy Wheeler in the Hillsdale News, Scotland native Ramsay plans to open Ramsay's Dram, a gastropub with "a stellar local beer portfolio and world whiskey selection." Stay tuned!

Details: Ramsay's Dram (proposed), 6440 SW Capitol Hwy.

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A new effort by the USDA, called Chefs Move to Schools, is working in conjunction with Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to get chefs involved with local students. The program now has a celebrity booster in Genoa's David Anderson (right). He spent last year working the students at Lewis Elementary School in Portland, giving hands-on lessons in taking produce picked in the garden and turning it into meals that any kid would love. Noting that some kids had never seen a pea pod on the vine, he said he loves to "watch those kids eyes light up." He and his brother, Chef Ray Anderson of Nuestra Cocina, are looking for other local chefs to sign up and adopt schools for the 2011-2012 school year.

Details: Chefs Move to Schools. Contact Sarah Medeiros by e-mail at Share Our Strength or call Tim Parsons, 503-866-1822 for information.

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In Portland, pigs are as popular as backyard chickens, and seemingly as ubiquitous. While, unlike chickens, they're not (yet) allowed in back yards unless contained on a grill or spitted on a rotisserie over a bed of hot coals, pigs and their requisite parts are popping up like early spring daffodils on class lists all over the city:

• Whole Hog Butchery Class: Josh Graves and Eli Cairo teach the basics of breaking down and cutting, tying and processing a whole animal. Includes bag full of fresh, local pork. Sun., Mar. 6, 2pm; $125, 18 students, reservations required. Olympic Provisions, 107 SE Washington St. 503-954-3663.
• Basic Pig Butchery for Home Charcuterie: Gabriel Claycamp teaches how to butcher a pig to utilize all the muscle groups to produce cured pork specialties. Includes a share of meat and recipes. Sat., Mar. 12, 1-5 pm; $225, 12 students, reservations required. E-mail Portland Meat Collective to register.
• French Seam Butchery: Dominique Chapolard and Camas Davis teach how to transform a pig into premium French cuts using seam butchery, a traditional European method of breaking down animals according to their muscle seams. Includes charcuterie tasting and butchered meats. Wed., Mar. 16, 1-5 pm; $225, 12 students, reservations required. E-mail Portland Meat Collective to register.

Refreshing Reincarnation

re·in·car·na·tion 1 a) the action of reincarnating; the state of being reincarnated. b) rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; especially: a rebirth of a soul in a new human body. 
2) a fresh embodiment.

When I heard that last year that Genoa was closing, it frankly didn't surprise me. It seemed like every few months there'd been an announcement of a new chef or, worse, a team of chefs, at what was once considered Portland's premier high-end Italian restaurant. Its seven-course meal was so expensive that no one I knew had been there in many years. Plus with the competition from the exploding eastside dining scene, it seemed as though Genoa had become a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit.

Crab bruschetta.
When the news broke that it had been bought by a local couple who'd loved the old place and wanted to revive it, my first thought was a sarcastic, "Good luck." A few weeks later they made the startling choice to hire the very talented but very young David Anderson, chef and David Machado protégé from Vindalho, one of the early and successful upstarts on lower Division. (Full disclosure: I interviewed David and his twin brother, Ray, for an article a couple of years earlier, and it was David who'd given me the scoop that he'd been hired for the position at Genoa.)

So when an invitation came from the restaurant's PR firm to try out the new menu on their dime, I was all in. As I've said before, these freebies bother me on one level, but I always make it clear to them that buying me dinner doesn't buy a good write-up. That said, it's also obvious that they know I plan to write about the experience, so they may go the extra mile (or fill the extra glass), so that my treatment might differ from that of the average diner.

Wild mushroom fettucine.

But if the experience we (Dave, my brother and myself) had is any indicator of what's in store for Mr. or Ms. A.D., this place is going to be a serious competitor for Portland's dining dollars. Especially with its new price point of $55 for five courses, and with the support of its sister restaurant next door, the wine-and-small-plates Accanto.

The new facade.

The face of the place has not been lifted so much as completely reborn. The structure of the old building was rumored to be so rickety as to be unsafe and major infrastructure changes had to be made, which allowed the entire space to be reconfigured. While the kitchen still wraps around the restaurant, the side door is now open to the street so passersby can watch the chefs preparing meals. Chef Anderson also said he likes being able to see diners exiting the restaurant and gauge their reactions to the meal. The former private dining room accessed through that side door is now part of the main dining room but can be closed off by a couple of heavy refectory doors salvaged from a historic building. The room also has a big screen TV for meetings, but Anderson is more excited about the potential Super Bowl parties that could be held there (talk about a change of tone…).

The interior will be completely unrecognizable to past diners, with the spacious front windows making the dining area visible from the street (rather than blacked out as it had been before), slightly screened from passersby and arriving customers by sheer, floor-to-ceiling draperies that create a narrow waiting area. Once inside, the dining room itself is dominated by a fireplace that spills warmth from its gas flames, and an atmosphere unlike any other restaurant in town, a cozy yet elegant sitting room of golds and greens, banquettes and linen-covered tables. From a distance the several hanging light fixtures made of cascades of gold-colored glass rectangles seemed like they belonged in a 50s-era hotel, but once seated they give an overall warmth and glow to the room.

The salad.

The meal began with an amuse-bouche of shredded endive and white truffle oil served on large spoons, one for each of us. We had chosen to have wine flights paired with each course so my brother, the wine guy, could check out their cellar. The first course, a crab bruschetta, came with a French sauvignon blanc that was one of my favorite wines of the whole meal, with its brightness and slightly spicy nose bringing out the super fresh and lightly dressed crab.

Black cod with mussels.

For the second course I chose the wild mushroom fettucine while the guys had the tortelli filled with duck confit, mushrooms and prosciutto in a Marsala sauce. Both were good, the tortelli having a nice richness but slightly bland flavor. The fettucine, however, was outstanding, with a mix of wild and cultivated mushrooms providing an earthy, chewy base to the dish and a rich coating of madeira, herbs and cream smoothing it all out. An '07 Felsina Chianti was served with this course, and since all of us pretty much love all of Felsina's wines, there was no nitpicking of this pairing.

Panna cotta.

The salad course was…well…a salad, with sectioned blood oranges and shaved fennel for heft and pomegranate seeds adding crunch. The wine, an '05 Arneis, though, wasn't a good match. This wine is usually served at a much younger age, and this was the equivalent of having a cranky old aunt at the table, making the salad course (which is supposed to be a break in the parade of richer dishes) a spiky and rather unpleasant interlude.

The main course, though, put that behind us. My Cattail Creek lamb riblets were outstanding, served with a dollop of whipped sweet potato that our very funny waiter said "was like eating a cloud." And unlike the previous incarnation of the restaurant, I felt completely comfortable picking them up by their "handles" and chomping away. Dave's black cod fillet with mussels in a saffron broth was perfectly moist and deeply flavorful, and the smear of aioli with crusty toasted bread slices were a nice nod to the human impulse to dunk. The wine, a Mastroberardino Aglianico, couldn't have been more appropriate…or more appreciated!

Chocolate and hazelnut Cimabue.

The desserts, which at all too many Portland restaurants are an obligatory afterthought rather than being an element as important as the other courses, were wonderful. The panna cotta was a pyramid of creamy silkiness showered with crushed pistachios next to a crispy wafer holding tiny grapefruit sections. The chocolate and hazelnut Cimabue was, to paraphrase our waiter's comment about the sweet potato, like eating a chocolate cloud with chocolate flakes and little chunks of hazelnut swirling in the layers of meringue and Chantilly cream.

Overall it was a truly incredible meal, one of the best I've had recently, though I'd love it if they'd have a three-course option or allow à la carte ordering so we could go there more often, but I suppose that's what Accanto is about. It's a great deal for the (admittedly) special-occasion price, and the wine list has many terrific deals on it. One hint: make sure to have your favorite wine guy on standby to help you choose one. Thank goodness mine usually picks up even when the caller ID says it's me!

Details: Genoa, 2832 SE Belmont St. Phone 503-238-1464.

Check out my brother's impressions of our meal in this blog post.

The Perfect Couple

Some pairings are meant to be. And I'm not talking about Brangelina or Bennifer or whatever poor devil might be Madonna's catch of the day.

I'm talking about the cuisine of India and beer, a pair that was meant to make beautiful music together, or at least some downright memorable meals. Most people automatically think of India Pale Ale when the subject comes up—the British did ship highly hopped IPAs to their colony because the strong ale could withstand the five-month journey—but this complex cuisine deserves better than tastebud-dulling hops or too-pallid lagers.

So when David Anderson, chef at Vindalho in Portland, and Beer NW magazine publisher Megan Flynn put their heads together to come up with a three-course dinner featuring Vindalho's spice route cuisine and (mostly) Northwest craft beers, they looked way outside the box in their quest to find innovative matches.

My brother and I walked in with the other guests to find champagne flutes filled with a light and delightfully bubbly libation, a Krait Prestige Champagne Lager, that accompanied Mr. Anderson's spicy samosas (above left), along with tender and juicy lamb meatballs and his justly famous masala chicken wings. (Read my brother's review of the evening here.) Though it was almost impossible, I tried my hardest not to chow down on too many of these lovelies since I knew there were three courses yet to come.


And come they did, with an appetizer of black pepper and curry leaf prawns paired with Laughing Buddha Mango-weizen (above) the light and slightly sweet-tasting beer accentuating the richness of the crustaceans. It was followed by the oh-my-god richness of the dish I can't seem to not order, the pork Vindalho accompanied by saffron pullao and crispy shoestring potatoes (top photo). It was backed up by the smokiness of Southern Oregon Brewing's porter, a match made in heaven if ever there was one.


By now our heads were swimming from flavor overload, but our intrepid hosts weren't done with us by a long shot. Before we could protest that we really needed to be going, they slipped onto the table a miniature plate of orange-spiced chocolate mousse with a crisp coconut tuile that looked to my addled senses like a scorpion about to sting. Fresh glasses were filled with Cuvée du Jongleur from Cascade Brewing, a Belgian-style brew that has more similarity to wine than what is normally thought of as craft beer here in the NW. Fine, slightly sour and with notes of citrus peel and wood, it was the perfect accompaniment to the dessert and probably my favorite pairing of the evening.

Megan dropped by as we were sliding under the table to let us know that the magazine will be hosting more of these dinners in the future, so stay tuned. If they're anything like the evening of deliciousness this one was, even you non-beer drinkers out there may find yourselves converted to the malty side of the street.

In Season: Pears!

As regular readers know, I write the Market Watch column for the Oregonian's FoodDay section and get to travel to farmers' markets all over the metro area. And right now pears are the big deal. You'll find everything from Green Bartletts to Starkrimson to Comice, Seckel and Forelle, not to mention my personal favorite, the Bosc, at markets and stores all over town.

Which is why the Pear Bureau Northwest hosted a competition called Pear Panache, asking chefs all over the country to submit their favorite pear recipe. Seven winners were chosen and the first to be featured for his Pear Ginger Chutney was Vindalho's own David Anderson, whom I wrote about last February in an article profiling David and his twin brother, Ray.

To celebrate, the pear folks and Vindalho hosted an all-pear Indian lunch. Now, this might seem like overkill, but each course (there were three) had a distinctly different flavor profile, yet with a thread of flavor and texture that ran through the whole meal. First was a Bhel Puri salad (photo, above left) of pears, potatoes, watercress, puffed rice and chutneys that got things off to a fabulous start with the crispness of the pears playing off the savory chutneys and the textural intrigue of the other ingredients, pulled together with a creamy dressing that made it, in my opinion, the best dish on the menu.

It was a close competition, though, when the main course of tandoor roasted lamb Boti Kabab was served with that winning Pear Ginger Chutney, along with Vindalho's classic saffron basmati pullao and their always-incredible naan. And the dessert of a tamarind-pear samosa with spiced creme Anglaise was to die for.

Like I've said before, how lucky am I?

Pear Ginger ChutneyFrom David Anderson, Chef de Cuisine, Vindalho
Makes 4 cups

4-5 Comice or Bartlett pears, peeled, cored and diced (about 6 cups)
2 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
8 whole cloves
4 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
2 dried arbol chiles
2 Tbsp. fennel seeds
1 Tbsp. nigella seeds
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. julienne sliced ginger
2 Tbsp. garlic, thinly sliced
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
3/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. finely chopped ginger
1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. turmeric

In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add whole cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, chiles, fennel and nigella seeds. Cook 1 minute or until fragrant. Add onions; sauté until browned. Add julienne ginger and garlic; sauté 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add remaining ingredients except pears and simmer until slightly syrupy, 10-15 minutes.

Add pears and simmer until tender but still hold their shape, 15-30 minutes depending on ripeness of pears. When pears are cooked, use a slotted spoon to transfer chutney to a tray to cool. If desired, remove large pieces of whole spices. Return any remaining liquid to stove and simmer until thick and syrupy. Combine hot syrup and pears in a bowl. Cool completely to allow flavors to mingle. Serve with naan or pappadums.

And In This Corner...

This writing thing is such a gas. When I heard that there were identical twin chefs cooking at two of this town's top ethnic restaurants, it was like someone had dropped a set of keys to a brand new car into my hand. Then when David Machado (owner of Vindalho, one of the restaurants) suggested giving them a box of identical ingredients and having a cook-off, all I heard in my head was, "Vroooooom!"

Today's edition of the Oregonian's FoodDay features that article, "Twin Chef Face-Off," with excellent photos by Michael Lloyd (which are not, alas, included on their website), a side-by-side comparison of their individual stats and recipes for you to make at home. Oh, and a little blow-by-blow of the competition just to make it interesting.

Thanks to Martha for buying the story in the first place (and for the great editing), and Lindsey for her most excellent coordination!

Very Vindalho

That's Vindalho, pronounced vin-duh-loo', for those who may, like me, have been wondering about the odd spelling. But that's one of the vagaries of Americanized spelling of foreign words in foreign alphabets (Devanagari, in this case). This relatively new entry on David Machado's resumé, starting with Pazzo and Southpark, then the wonderful Lauro Kitchen, is a welcome addition to Portland's Indian restaurant scene, which has been dominated by the same tired curries and rice dishes, not to mention the horrifying lunch buffets of over-cooked foods steeping in gooey sauces or congealing under heat lamps for hours on end.

But any bad memories were immediately blown away when we entered this large open dining room and were shown to our table, where we ordered martinis and dug into our appetizers of shrimp pakoras, which were bursting with fresh shrimp flavor, and mussels in a terrific coconut curry with fresh chiles. The coriander chutney, a gorgeous green sauce accompanying the pakoras, was oddly flat considering the punch that fresh coriander usually has.

On the recommendation of the kind and helpful hostess, Lisa Belt, we ordered a 2003 Lagrein Alto Adige to have with our entrées. First was the evening's special of seared ahi tuna marinated in lemon and black pepper and served with a coconut curry and chayote squash. The tuna was perfectly cooked and slightly pink in the middle, and the lemon and black pepper counterpointed the lushness of the curry. The chayote squash was a fun addition, with it's braised apple-y color and texture.

The second dish was the house pork Vindalho, pork shoulder braised with chilies, garlic and vinegar. This deeply flavored, richly sauced pig was served with mildly flavored saffron rice and topped with deep-fried slivers of julienned potatoes. It's a dish to be envious of, and one I'm going to try to duplicate at home sometime. I love pork shoulder, that cheap, fatty, chunky cut that's exquisite for braising and has tons of flavor, enough to stand up to heavy spicing, which is why it's used in everything from chili to pulled pork.

We skipped the sides and condiments, of which there are many, so coming with a crowd would be a great chance to sample more dishes on their menu, plus you'd get to impress lots of people all at once with your restaurant selection prowess. The staff works hard to impress, and Mr. Machado himself was bringing food to the tables the night we were there.

The only drawback we found was with the cocktails. We just weren't impressed with the skills of the bartender on duty that night, and our martinis sat on the bar for a good five minutes before they were brought to our table, a definite no-no in cocktail-land.

But, all in all, you'll like everything about this place. It's very adult and very enjoyable, and the fact that it's located on a little-used stretch of lower SE Clinton St. makes it a perfect hidden treasure.

Details: Vindalho, 2038 SE Clinton St.; Phone 503-467-4550.