Edible Portland Blog

The “Organic v. Local” story in the summer issue of Edible Portland has generated a lot of discussion. Some people, rightly so I might add, are asking, “Wait a minute, why can’t it be local AND organic!?” Of course we can have local AND organic. In fact, you need look no farther than Lizzy Caston’s story about Ladybug Brand Organics for proof. I love this story because it demonstrates that we’re getting closer to "mainstreaming" local organic – not just organic produced en masse in places far from home.
–Deborah Kane



Organic and Local? Yes, It's Possible!
Written by Lizzy Caston

THIS IS A STORY about a cute little ladybug and what happens when a dedicated group of regional growers band together with a well respected organic produce distributor to create an innovative and successful business model for local, family-owned farms. The results have changed lives, preserved farms, and provided Portlanders with fantastic locally grown organic produce.

Getting quality organic food to consumers and having a quick and easy way for shoppers to identify what they are buying has always been a challenge in the “buy local, eat sustainable” equation. Confronted with long commutes from rural farms, prohibitive shipping and labor costs, and the effort it takes to educate the public on specialty crops and organics, many of our region’s smaller specialty farms have faced serious business challenges. Some have thrown in the towel altogether.

Ladybug Brand Organics is an instantly recognizable brand symbolized by a sticker on vegetables and fruits in local stores. It’s that cute little black and red ladybug with the red hat carrying a basket of produce. Easy to spot and remember, it represents over 38 family-owned certified organic farms in the Pacific Northwest. The Ladybug Brand was developed as a way for small farmers to cooperate rather than compete for the often elusive organic consumer market. It allows them get their produce to retailers easily, and it offers them a support system to better promote their products.

Organically Grown
Created in the early 1990s, the trademark Ladybug Brand is an offshoot of the Oregon based Organically Grown Company (OGC), the largest wholesaler of organic produce in the Pacific Northwest. While OGC sells organic products from Oregon and elsewhere (pineapples from Hawaii, for example), Ladybug is a cooperative model developed specifically for organic family-owned farms operating from southern Oregon to Vancouver, British Columbia. This model allows rural farms with small markets to reach larger population centers. It’s a business model that works.

Edible magazines' message food for thought
By Melissa Allison
Seattle Times

Alex Corcoran waxes romantic about discovering his first copy of Edible Portland on a business trip last summer.

"I was just swept away," he says. "I realized the magazine had been written directly for me."

Within months, Corcoran, who has been an actor and has studied architecture, photography and sculpture, became publisher of Edible Rhody in Rhode Island, where he lives.

He plans to launch Edible Seattle next spring, the latest in a chain of magazines that start with the word "Edible" and focus on the local food movement.

What began as a single magazine — Edible Ojai — in California in 2002 has caught the spirit of a national trend toward food awareness and eating locally in particular.

Edible Communities, the eight-employee parent company, started what's basically a franchise program three years ago. It has 30 magazines in print and several in the works, from Edible Seattle to Edible Hawaiian Islands.

Local food — the concept of eating fresh food that doesn't require transcontinental gas fumes to reach your table — has become so popular that Edible Communities' founders believe they can launch 12 new titles a year with no end in sight.

This weekend you have the opportunity to participate in a one-of-a-kind workshop at Tryon Life Community Farm. Sandor Ellix Katz, fermentation revivalist, activist and author or The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, and Frank Cook will lead you through the healing world of fermentation using wild foods. Spend time walking outdoors, get to know local plants, harvest edibles and medicinals, and together learn to make kimchi, idli, kefir, herbal elixir meads and more.

Saturday, July 14 & Sunday, July 15, 2007
10am-5pm each day
$85-$120 sliding scale

Tryon Life Community Farm
11640 SW Boones Ferry Rd
Portland, OR 97219
workshops@tryonfarm.org

For more information, visit:
www.wildfermentation.com
www.plantsandhealers.com

Luna Marcus and Larry Kaplowitz, founders of Coconut Bliss, at an organic coconut farm in Thailand.

BLISS IS MORE
Coconut milk-based ice cream bridges the gap between dairy and non-dairy fans
Written by Joanna Miller
For Summer 2007

I LOVE ICE CREAM. I love ice cream atop warm apple crisp laced with buttery brown sugar and oats and I love it sandwiched between chewy homemade cookies. I love ice cream with caramel sauce. And dark chocolate sauce. And salted almonds. I love it in a cone and in a bowl. But most of all, I love ice cream when it’s inside my mouth.

Luna Marcus and Larry Kaplowitz, the Eugene couple behind Luna and Larry’s Coconut Bliss, clearly share this adoration. However, both Marcus and Kaplowitz gave up dairy several years ago after suffering its negative physical effects. They did not, thankfully, lose their hankering for great-tasting ice cream.

Armed with a cast-off, hand-crank machine and the drive to find a worthy alternative, the two began experimenting, using coconut milk as a base for more than 20 different flavors. A houseful of spoon-wielding guests gave them an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and Coconut Bliss was thus born in late winter 2005.

It was only after sampling several flavors of Luna and Larry’s Coconut Bliss at the Sweet Life Bakery in Eugene (where the product is sold by the scoop) that I realized what I was swooning over was dairy-free. I also realized that what I love about ice cream is its cool, buttery-sweet richness—not necessarily the fact that it is made from the milk of a cow.

Curt Ellis is the little brother of a dear friend of mine. Over the past few years I’ve watched on the sidelines as Curt, Aaron Woolf and Ian Cheney sketched out, filmed, edited, and finally completed their movie King Corn. Phew, what a project! King Corn should be playing in Portland soon. We’ll be sure to let you know when.
–Deborah Kane


All Ears: An Oregonian harvests wisdom in Iowa
Written by Curt Ellis
For Summer 2007

GROWING UP IN THE SUBURBS of Portland, Oregon, my favorite childhood project was planting tomatoes in the vegetable garden I tended with my dad.

We planted on Memorial Day, leaving the house at 6 a.m. to pick up the rented tractor, driving it home with bar-tires buzzing on the pavement, and tilling a neat square on the edge of the yard before breakfast. When the soil was turned, we planted our 50 Willamette tomato seedlings, holding the hose by the base of each one for a count of 20. Dad didn’t enter into our gardening lightly—he had his sights set on the 100 quarts of sauce, juice, soup, and whole-peeled fruit we’d be lining up in Kerr jars come fall. We were, as he explained, “gardening to win.”

So when my college friend Ian and I arrived in Iowa in January of 2004, eager to grow an acre of yellow dent corn and make a film about our harvest as it became food, I pretty much knew what to expect out of farming. I’d grown up in a garden.

After much anticipation, our first day of chores finally arrived in April, when, following the local protocol, we went to spread fertilizer on our farm. The nutrients, which came in the form of injectable anhydrous ammonia gas, made the farm smell like window cleaner, and the neighbors stay inside. In the wake of the tractor, our neighbor, Rich, dug down into the soil to find an earthworm, but it wasn’t wriggling when he held it up. “The gas kills everything in a 4-inch swath on either side of the injectors, so most of what was in the soil is dead now,” he said. This was not what I expected to find on the farm.

With or without worms to eat, the spring robins descended on Iowa in May. The grassy contour strips between the fields greened up, and the bare brown soil on our acre dried out. Sure enough, around Memorial Day, it was planting time.

This, too, was a day of surprises. Ian brought out a pair of work gloves a friend had sent him as a gift, but we didn’t need them. We barely touched the dirt. Instead, we drove over it twice in Rich’s tractors, once to prepare the soil and once to set 31,000 seeds in the earth, with a stiff drink to get them growing—a cocktail of herbicide, fungicide, and fertilizer in liquid form. The planting took 18 minutes, and Ian’s gloves stayed clean.

In All Ears: An Oregonian harvests wisdom in Iowa, Curt Ellis gives us a preview of his movie King Corn. His story got us at Edible Portland thinking about summer movie releases. We’re looking forward to seeing King Corn on the big screen this summer. Also, here are a few other great movies that we recommend. Why not hang a sheet in your backyard or on the side of your building, invite some friends over, and screen your own summer blockbuster?

Compiled by Deborah Kane

EAT AT BILL'S: LIFE IN THE MONTEREY MARKET
By Lisa Brenneis

Eat at Bill’s is a love letter to the Monterey Market, a family-owned produce market in Berkeley, California. The focus of this movie is on the market’s owner, Bill Fujimoto. Farmers across California will tell you that Bill was their first retail customer and that his support was crucial to their success. Lisa Brenneis was inspired to make this movie because she is one of those farmers. Bill’s passion for what he does and for the farmers who make it possible leaps from the screen. It’s a love fest from start to finish and a deeply inspiring movie.

FISHER POETS
By Jennifer Brett Winston

I missed the 10th anniversary Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria this year, but thanks to this wonderful documentary, now I feel like I’ve been going for years. This documentary proves that what fishermen and fisherwomen take from the sea is much more than the catch of the day. Indeed, these men and women share their passions in tight rhymes and loose verse that will stick with you long after the movie ends. And don’t be fooled when the movie ends—the bonus material on this DVD is not to be missed.

MEDIA THAT MATTERS: GOOD FOOD
A project of Arts Engine, Inc.

This collection of 12 shorts about food—from singing peanuts to teenage tomato growers—is sure to provide something for everyone. Missed your calling as a farmer? Watch the Young Agrarians short. Tired of your kids’ incessant requests for sugary soda and juice? Don’t Worry and Profit Cola will make you simultaneously laugh and cry. There’s even an asparagus “stalkumentary.” Rabble-rouser Jim Hightower sips lemonade on his front porch in Texas while he introduces the collection of short films. He’s the picture of lazy summer days, but the ambitious filmmakers behind these films have a lot to say and are, I suspect, anything but lazy.

BROKEN LIMBS: APPLES, AGRICULTURE, AND THE NEW AMERICAN FARMER
By Jamie Howell and Guy Evans

Apple orchardists by the thousands are going out of business and thousands more await the dreaded letter from the bank announcing the end of their livelihoods and a uniquely American way of life. After his own father receives just such a letter, filmmaker Guy Evans sets out on a journey of discovery to try to find out what went wrong in this natural Garden of Eden. This one makes me cry every time I see it. It is one of my all-time favorite movies.

At the Pearl District's Ten 01, not only can you enjoy farm-to-table seasonal American cuisine using local ingredients, but you can also sip cocktails mixed with spirits created in Oregon.

Ten 01's resident cocktail connoisseur, Kelley Swenson, uses locally-produced gin, vodka, and aquavit as well as vermouth and grappa from local wineries and distillers such as House Spirits, Clear Creek Distillery, and Ransom Wine & Spirits.

Learn how to use these spirits to create classic summer cocktails from Kelly himself at these upcoming classes:

The Evolution of the Martini
Thursday, July 26, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
Learn the history and evolution of the most lasting cocktail, the martini.

Reconstructing Summer Cocktails
Thursday, August 30, 5:30- 6:30 p.m.
Create modern day summer cocktails and sample, sample, sample!

Classes are $20 each and include appetizers and drink samples. Call 503-226-3463 to register, or just show up.

Cheers!

Story and Photo by Jen Marlow
For Summer 2007

THE PORTLAND FRIDGE IS BREAKING TWO TRADITIONS in this issue of Edible Portland. First, we’re changing locations from the household to the workplace, this time reporting from the Pearl District office kitchen of Nau Inc. Nau’s new clothing line—featuring corn-based fabrics—has no logo. Its hybrid, monochromatic design combines a sexy, asymmetrical look (think Urban Outfitters) with the sustainable manifesto of the wear-it-out crowd (think Patagonia).

Headed by a bunch of do-gooder ex-Nike execs, the company soulfully nurtures community, which is why we’re breaking another Portland Fridge tradition: meet Alex Hamlin, studio production manager; Otis Rubottom, Nau writer and editor; and Jolynn Ovington, vice president of merchandising. Three voices capture the Nau spirit better than one. Read on to sample the wild assortment of foods stashed about the Nau kitchen:

MARK’S GOURMET CHEESES
Alex: We ate the cheese right before you came.
Jolynn: Mark always keeps a selection of cheese and chocolate stockpiled in the fridge. We have a lot of fine food aficionados in the house.
Otis: Let’s be clear. I like soft, ripe, cow’s milk cheeses.
Jolynn: He’s the food snob. He’s not picky at all!
Otis: I like mac and cheese and cheese fries, just like the next guy. It just has to be Gruyère.

BRIDGEPORT BREW
Alex: The kitchen is the only non-work space in the office, so it’s where the impromptu groupings occur. Friday at 4 p.m., we typically meet up here and pull all the leftovers from the fridge—cheese, crackers, chocolate, whatever. People will snack, pour themselves a beer and hang out.
Otis: Technically, we’re not allowed to drink during the day, but that doesn’t stand in the way.
Alex: We have a keg in the kitchen—c’mon. And Darcy, our office manager, keeps wine and Champagne locked in a file cabinet.
Otis: I know where she keeps the key.

TRIPLE-CERTIFIED JOE
Otis: Darcy orders the coffee from Percasso coffee service. Stumptown used to be in the coffee rotation, but we had to trim some costs. I’m lobbying hard to get Stumptown back, and I think I might be successful.
Alex: Tanager Song is what we’re pouring now. It’s organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee.
Otis: It’s not my favorite, but it does hew all the ethically important qualities. As an office, we drink a lot of coffee. We made a concerted effort to buy two cases of travel mugs after we noticed the kitchen trash bin filling to the brim with nonrecyclable to-go cups. There are more people in the office toting reusable mugs now than there were six months ago.

OREGON BERRY AND PEACH SANGRIA
From the Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission
Serves 6

A deliciously fruity and refreshing summer beverage best enjoyed from large wine glasses, filled with ice and garnished with fruit.

750 ml (about 3 cups) dry red table wine, such as a Burgundy
1/2 cup orange juice, or juice of 2 large oranges
1/3 cup lemon juice, or juice of one large lemon
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp brandy (optional)
1 cup raspberries or blackberries, fresh or frozen
2 peaches, quartered and sliced
12 oz (1 1/2 cups) club soda or sparking mineral water
Ice

In a punch bowl or 2 1/2 quart pitcher, stir together first 5 ingredients. When sugar is dissolved, add berries and refrigerate 2-3 hours to allow flavors to mingle. About 1 hour before serving, add peaches. Add soda/mineral water to sangria just before serving. Pour into glasses filled with ice. Garnish with berries and fruit slices.