A Community Kitchen That Will Build Community

Stacey Givens has a vision for her community of a place where people of all ages, from all walks of life, and from every corner of our city can gather and share their stories through the food they grow and make.

She started The Side Yard Farm in 2009 on a couple of lots in the downtrodden Cully neighborhood for just that purpose. A short summary of its work would include providing 20 local restaurants with organic local produce, giving space to schools to teach kids about farm to table, offering the farm's outdoor dining area to beginning pop-up chefs trying to get their foot in the door, donating large amounts of produce to organizations, providing space for instructors to teach classes, and hosting The Lost Table, a grief group for those who've lost loved ones. This year Givens' "Welcome Refugees" supper series benefited refugees here in Portland and gave attendees a chance to hear their stories.

"The Side Yard has become family to many chefs, artisans, instructors, kiddos, beginning farmers, aspiring chefs, grief group folks and people from all over that world who are interested in learning more about the seed to plate movement," Givens said.

And she's not stopping there.

To celebrate the farm's 10th year in business, Givens is planning to expand to build a Community Supported Kitchen (CSK) in her neighborhood. With a $175,000 price tag to build out a new kitchen space in the former Delphina's Bakery on Northeast 42nd Avenue, she's asking for help with a Kickstarter campaign (video above) dedicated to purchasing equipment for the new kitchen.

"We have been searching for a suitable kitchen for more than 5 years to allow growth in a shared space with other like-minded culinary entrepreneurs," Givens said. "When we heard that a spot was opening up right down the street from the farm, we grew excited about the possibility of building deeper connections through education and visibility of hyperlocal farming and sourcing. The CSK will exist to provide other local businesses with a holistic model that prioritizes the flow of local produce from the farm to the kitchen to the consumer."

As of today, Givens is almost halfway to that goal with slightly more than $22,000 raised. But she'll get none of it if you don't chip in to help before the deadline of December 22nd. Please consider doing so!

Go to The Side Yarm Farm Community Supported Kitchen page on Kickstarter for more information and to donate.

Garden Hose, an Urban Farm Stand, Opens in NE

She may not have walls yet, but Nikki Harding (above), does have a toehold in the up-and-coming urban ag scene that is currently taking root in Northeast Portland's Cully neighborhood. The definition of vivacious, she's working to establish a small scale urban farm supply stand providing locally sourced chicken feed, bedding straw and seasonal plant starts and seeds as well as seasonal vegetables from nearby urban farms like The Side Yard Farm and Simpson Street Farm. I'm particularly enamored of the tangerine-yolked eggs she pulls out of the cooler that are on par in flavor, color and richness with the best pastured eggs I've found in town.

Small businesses like Nikki's, which include other farm supply stores as well as urban farms growing straw, vegetables and even grains on plots as small as 50-by-100-feet, a plethora of farmers' markets (more than 60 in the metro area at the height of the season) and retail stores built around local suppliers, are contributing to the city's booming agriculture scene. Farm supply outlets like hers are supported by residents who are turning their yards, front and back, into productive gardens, as well as raising chickens, goats and the occasional pig. And, of course, all of it adds to the vitality of our local economy, not just as an incubator for small businesses, but in keeping local dollars circulating here and contributing making ours a more vibrant community.

On a stretch of NE Simpson just west of Fernhill Park, her farm stand hours are from 10 am till 6 pm on Tuesdays and Fridays. The plan is to build a structure, hopefully before the rains come, on a corner of the large plot that's planned as an extension of The Side Yard Farm. Until then, look for her smiling face under the shed roof, surrounded by the bounty of her neighborhood.

Details: The Garden Hose, NE 48th and Simpson. Open Tuesdays and Fridays, 10 am-6 pm.

Vive la France!

"The Intelligence Cycle is the process by which information is acquired, converted into intelligence, and made available to policymakers. Information is raw data from any source, data that may be fragmentary, contradictory, unreliable, ambiguous, deceptive or wrong. Intelligence is information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed and interpreted. Finished intelligence is the final product of the Intelligence Cycle ready to be delivered to the policymaker." - World Factbook

It's probably something known to every fifth grader on the planet, but it was a surprise to me. The CIA, yes, our Central Intelligence Agency, has a website called the World Factbook, one that lists (nearly) every country on the planet, with their flags, history, political systems and all the stuff I used to get from an encyclopedia.

Unfortunately it doesn't include the juicy stuff like which diplomat's wife is having an affair with which consul's assistant or how the Pakistanis could have missed a certain tall, bearded man living in a high-security compound in a retirement community inhabited by its own military. For that I guess we have to go to Wikileaks which, by the way, Wikipedia is quick to inform us that it is not associated with (in case you were wondering).

What the CIA is missing are the sections I used to love in the encyclopedias of my youth that illuminated the way people lived in the country, their cultural traditions and the foods they loved. So I didn't find the CIA's dry recitation of facts much help in coming up with a brilliant detail about French cuisine that I could riff off of to open this post about our dinner at Cocotte, the charming French bistro that recently opened on the corner of NE 30th and Killingsworth.

The amuses.

Originally opened as the Middle Eastern-inspired Grolla, it closed and was briefly home to Fats, Micah Camden's unfortunate venture into pub cuisine. It is one of my favorite spaces in the city, with nearly floor-to-ceiling folding wooden doors that let in the maximum amount of light for its north and east-facing site. I'm hoping the new owners have left the doors in functioning condition, since I've always thought they'd be wonderful thrown open to catch the summer breeze.

The vichysoisse.

Those owners, Kat Liebman and Zoe Hackett, met while both worked in the kitchen at Lucy's Table, and they've cleaned out the Brit tchotchkes and Frenchified the place with framed botanical prints, mirrors and country antiques. Like fellow newcomer St. Jack, the Gallic vibe spills out of the menu with dishes rooted in France and executed with Northwest ingredients like produce from Side Yard Farm, an urban farm located in the neighborhood, and meat from Eat Oregon First, a network of local farms banded together to distribute their products.

Duck confit.

The amuses were delightful bites, one a light chicken liver mousse and the other a triple cheese mousse, both served on different delicious, crispy house-made crackers. The vichysoisse soup was also light and creamy with a tiny touch of unusual pesto made from burnet, though the advertised splash of rhubarb lemon verbena vinegar, which sounded really interesting, was virtually undetectable.

Pork loin.

The duck confit was crazy good, served on a bed of farro, baby arugula and watercress and adorned with wild mushrooms, braised spring leeks and a dollop of blood orange marmalade. The grain and vegetables complemented the duck perfectly, and had me making a mental note to get some farro on my next trip to the store. The excellent pork loin chop had my two carnivorous companions raving, but over the mustard French lentils that were beneath it, behavior unusual for them, to say the least. I managed a taste of the bing cherry and roasted shallot jam that topped the meat, but got a definite "stay away from my lentils" glare from both of them when I attempted to scoop some. Sheesh.

Celery and fennel sorbet.

After a palate cleanser of an interesting celery and fennel sorbet, the salad of straight-from-the-garden spring greens with shaved fennel, castelvetrano olives, grapefruit sections and marcona almonds dressed with a creamy peppercorn vinaigrette was a nice combo I want to imitate at our next dinner party. My dessert, a crêpe suzette drizzled with caramel and topped with a scoop of poppy seed ice cream, was a surprisingly light and lovely finish, but was totally upstaged by the chocolate peanut butter ice cream lusciously melting over Mr. B's choice of crême fraîche chocolate gateau. Magnifique!

Dave and I chose to include the wine pairings for an additional $15 per person, which brought the $35 prix fixe price for the four courses with amuse-bouche and palate cleanser to a total of $50 each. While it's a great deal for the quality of the food and wine offered, what concerns me, of course, is whether they'll be able to draw a regular crowd to support that price tag on a regular basis. I'd frankly rather see some of the items offered à la cart, even if it's only at the bar, since the food is genuinely terrific and worth seeking out on more than a special occasion basis.

Crêpe suzette.

The service the night we were there was stellar, and the kitchen bent over backwards to accomodate Dave's lactose intolerance, giving him a specially concocted amuse course and a dessert of broiled grapefruit glazed with caramelized sugar and marcona almonds. It's a lot to ask of a French restaurant without much notice, but they rose to the occasion admirably.

Like Le Pichet in Seattle, this place could easily become the go-to when you need a fix for your inner Francophile, and we're anxious to return to try the happy hour when food specials are available for $5. I'm sure the CIA is uninterested, but I wonder if Julian Assange knows about this place yet?

Details: Cocotte, 2930 NE Killingsworth St. 503-227-2669.