Posts for March, 2010
March 30, 2010
When Life Hands You Cold Wet Muddy Rhubarb, Make a Spring Feast
According to my Justin Bieber wall calendar, it’s supposedly spring, and although all the classic signs of spring are here–the tender young leaves bursting forth and proudly unfurling on the maple trees outside my window seem to be doubling in size every day, I see puppies and lovers slobbering all over each other everywhere, the Portland Beavers open the 2010 season next week at PGE Park, and I ordered a J. Crew swimsuit that will without a doubt not fit–I am having trouble believing. Maybe it’s the 90-mile-an-hour winds and the muddy bootprints all over my kitchen floor. Read full story »
March 18, 2010
A Wondercookie for your Stomach Chakra’s Thoughts
This week we tried two new Northwest lunch spots, sampling Dragon Bowls at Yoga in the Pearl’s new neighbor Prasad, and stuffing sloppy gloppy (in a good way) meatball sandwiches at new Breken Kitchen in NoLo. This sort of hard-hitting food journalism takes energy, and nothing fuels an intrepid foodster quite like the mighty cacao bean, so I’ve also been rather shamefully scarfing Double Chocolate Nibby Wondercookies at Meat Cheese Bread and massive wedges of Mom’s Chocolate Cake at Alma Chocolate. Here’s the sordid tale. Read full story »
March 17, 2010
Olympic Provisions Now Open Saturdays!
This Saturday, celebrate the first day of spring any number of ways–go on a cleaning spree, balance an egg on end, buy a skimpy swimsuit and book a Cancún vacation, dust your collection of sparkling rosés, and join the staff of Olympic Provisions for your first lunch or dinner of the new season.
Beginning March 20, Olympic Provisions will offer Saturday lunch and dinner service, and will now be open Monday through Saturday from 11 am to 10 pm. The Saturday lunch menu will expand to include a selection of brunch dishes, breakfast sandwiches and sweet and savory pastries, and the bar will be mixing mimosas. Olympic Provisions’ popular Aperitivo Hour menu, offered daily from 3-6 pm, will also be available on Saturday, so stop in and while away the afternoon with a charcuterie plate and a refreshing glass of rosé or Prosecco. Read full story »
March 16, 2010
Ladies Who Brunch
This past Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending a lovely brunch put on by my lovely friends Andrea Slonecker and Lila Martin.
Andrea (left) is an accomplished cook, food writer, and IACP committee member, and is conspiring on a soon-to-published cookbook with local author Diane Morgan. Lila (right) helps promote Portland and its vibrant food scene as the Media Relations Coordinator for Travel Portland and writes a fun food blog called Eat This! Read full story »
March 13, 2010
Banana Bum
This man is wearing banana underpants. Or rather, underpants made from banana tree fibre, courtesy of AussieBum. For all those times you’ve asked your guy “is that a banana in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”
March 10, 2010
Luck Of The Irish Soda Bread
You can tell how old you’re getting by how you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Once upon a time, St. Patty’s Day meant breaking out my green and white striped cropped tube top and plastic drugstore shamrock baubles and drinking enough green beer to turn my belly button emerald from the inside out.
These days, I stay home and watch my Far & Away DVD and make Irish soda bread, with only a smidgen of wistfulness.
Searching for recipes, I found that soda bread is something of a touchy subject, everyone seems to have their own variation, to which they’re very loyal. Going to the source is always a winning strategy when seeking an authentic formula, so I browsed flights to Dublin on Aer Lingus. Then I remembered I was out of vacation time, which squelched that dream, so I started poking around for a more local source. Did I know any Portland Irish? Read full story »
March 9, 2010
Champagne Cleavernova
There are certain party tricks I’d like to master–how to dance the tango, how to turn water into Châteauneuf-du-Pape and loaves into toasted coconut cream cupcakes, and above all else, how to open a bottle of bubbly with a cleaver.
In the video clip below, Olympic Provisions sommelier Carly Laws demonstrates one of her favorite party tricks, a technique known as sabrage, which was apparently very popular with Napoleon Bonaparte’s crowd. Not one to need a fancy saber when a vintage cleaver will do, Carly deftly beheads a bottle of Prosecco with one swift slice, earning our eternal admiration. She also tells me a little bit about how she came to possess this talent in the below interview.
It goes without saying–don’t try this at home. And please excuse my less-than-skillful videography. It’s on my list of things to master.
March 8, 2010
Farmer-Chef Connection
Today my friend Mollie and I attended the 10th Annual Farmer-Chef Connection at Clackamas Community College. We aren’t farmers or chefs, just eaters, but they let regular people come too.
Put on by the Portland Chefs Collaborative and Friends of Family Farmers and sponsored by New Seasons Market, FoodHub, and Cascade Pacific, the event was both informative and inspirational. We were a bit late, rather ironically due to a distracting stop at New Seasons en route, so we missed the opening remarks by HOTLIPS Pizza co-owner David Yudkin and had to slink into seats at separate tables in the standing room-only auditorium. Read full story »
March 8, 2010
Belly Up to Cheese Bar
When Steve Jones announced that he was moving his revered cheese shop from its cozy nook inside Northwest Portland’s Square Deal Wines to the old Parkside Deli digs in Mt. Tabor and fattening it up into a cheese shop/café/neighborhood hangout, you knew instantly which side of the river Portland cheeselovers lived on by the resulting screams of joy/great gulping sobs. Read full story »
March 3, 2010
Tasty & Sons
This just arrived from Toro Bravo, so I thought I’d pass it on.
H
ello from Toro Bravo!
We would like to share with you some exciting news…
We are working on our next project: Tasty n Sons – a Portland brunch restaurant that will be located on 3808 N Williams, at the southern end of the building (in the old Nutshell / Anju space). Read full story »
