Edible Portland Blog

Read Edible Portland's story about grass-fed beef here. Learn where to purchase grass-fed beef here.

SIRLOIN STEAK WITH SPICY PEPPER SAUCE
From Abigail Chipley
Serves 4

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, thinly sliced
Kosher salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 roasted poblano chile peppers (see Note), thinly sliced
1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tsp ground New Mexico or ancho chile powder
2 sirloin steaks (about 1 1/2 lbs)

1. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add onion and red peppers; season with salt. Cook, stirring often, until golden-brown, about 10 minutes. Add garlic; cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomato, poblano peppers, and 1/2 cup water. Reduce heat; simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat; add lime juice and season to taste with salt.

2. Meanwhile, prepare steaks: Rub with remaining tablespoon oil and chile powder; season generously with salt. Heat a charcoal or gas grill to medium-high heat. Grill until medium-rare (130 degrees), 2 to 3 minutes per side. Let rest, covered, for 5 to 10 minutes. Cut steak into 4 serving portions; spoon pepper sauce over each.

Note:
Freshly roasted poblano peppers are often available at the Portland Farmer’s Market. To roast your own: place on an aluminum foil-lined sheet pan 4 inches below a broiler. Turn regularly until blistered and blackened all over, 5 to 10 minutes. Place in a bowl, cover with a kitchen towel, and let cool for 10 minutes. Rub the blackened skin off and remove stems and seeds. Rinse chiles to remove skin and seeds, if necessary.

ROMAN GRILLED CHICKEN — DEVIL'S STYLE
Adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
From Cathy Whims, Owner and Chef, Nostrana, 1401 SE Morrison, Portland, OR

Serves 4 to 6

1 chicken, 3 to 3 1/2 lb
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 Tbsp black peppercorns
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil and more for drizzling
Sea salt

1. Place chicken on a meat cutting board. Using strong scissors cut out the backbone on both sides to remove. Crack the breastbone from behind, flattening out the chicken with your hands (as flat as you can). Turn the chicken over and make cuts where legs and wings go into the body (so they may lay out flatter), but without detaching them completely. Turn the chicken over and pound out as flat as possible using a meat pounder or rolling pin.

2. Wrap peppercorns in a towel and crush them coarsely with a clean meat pounder or rolling pin. In a shallow baking pan that will hold chicken flat, mix lemon juice, peppercorns, pepper flakes and olive oil. Mix well, then add the chicken and rub all over. Marinate at room temperature 2 to 3 hours, turning and basting from time to time.

3. Light a charcoal or wood fire and let a large bed of white ash form. Remove chicken from marinade and salt well. Place skin side down on grill and cook until skin is colored brown. Baste it well, then turn over and cook until cooked through, turning and basting from time to time. When done, drizzle with olive oil and serve at once.

Edible Portland's summer issue will be available at these locations by the end of the week!

Things we're excited about in this issue include a primer on homemade ice cream, a story on how to find, buy and cook grass-fed beef in Oregon and Washington, a fascinating profile of food writer M.F.K. Fisher and, of course, delicious seasonal recipes. (Here's a taste that will get your mouth watering for more.)

Most of all, we are looking forward to the conversations we hope are sparked by our cover story on farmworkers in Oregon. The complexity of the issues is immense, but we need to understand them in order to build a food system that is fair, affordable and legal for farmworker and farmer alike.

We hope you enjoy the summer issue as much as we did bringing it all together!

Don't miss the opening of Edible Portland's favorite farmers' market, the Portland Farmers Market at Ecotrust (conveniently located in our parking lot at NW 10th & Irving).

For Opening Day this Thursday, Portland freelance writer Ivy Manning will be doing a cooking demo and book signing for her new book, The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally.

Organized by season, Ivy Manning offers a spectacular collection of recipes calling for the freshest local ingredients. Recipes are made even more appealing due to the full-color photographs taken by Gregor Torrence.

SAVE THE DATE for these upcoming Berry Festivals at two Portland Farmers Markets:

Thursday, June 19, Eastbank Market, 3:30–7:30 p.m., SE Salmon & 20th
Thursday, June 26, Ecotrust Market, 3:30–7:30 p.m., NW 10th & Irving

What's happening? The markets will dress fresh-baked shortcake with your favorite berries topped off with organic whipped cream. Berry shortcakes will be served to shoppers who make a $5 minimum purchase from any market vendor.

Read Edible Portland's story about grass-fed beef here. Learn where to purchase grass-fed beef here.

BEST BURGERS
From Abigail Chipley
Serves 4

1 1/2 lbs ground beef
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable oil, for grill grates

1. In a large bowl, combine beef, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and garlic; season very generously with salt and ground pepper. Using your hands or a fork, gently combine. With a light hand, form into 4 balls; then gently shape each into a 3/4-inch thick patty.

2. Heat a charcoal or gas grill to high. Brush grill grates with oil. Place burgers on grill and cook until desired doneness, 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium-rare. (Do not press down on burgers, as this will release juices.) Serve on toasted buns with desired accompaniments.

ALL-BUTTER FLAKY PIE DOUGH
From Piper Davis, Co-owner and Cuisine Manager, Grand Central Bakery
Yields almost 2 lbs of dough, enough for 3 single-crust pies or 3 galettes

Make a double batch so that you have a stash in the freezer. There’s nothing better when you’re in the mood to bake a pie, tart, or galette. Defrost it overnight in the refrigerator and the rest is easy.

3 cups (1 lb) all-purpose flour
10 3/4 oz unsalted European-style butter, cold, cut in 1/4–1/2-inch chunks
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2–3/4 cup ice water
1 Tbsp lemon juice

By hand
1. Place the flour, sugar, and salt in a metal or ceramic mixing bowl with high sides. Chill for at least 2 hours, and up to overnight. Blend the cold butter into the chilled ingredients using a pastry blender or by rubbing the chunks of butter with the flour using your fingers. Stop mixing when the texture of the flour changes from silky to mealy; this should only take a few minutes. Don’t worry if a few larger chunks of butter remain.

2. Make a well in the flour mixture and drizzle the lemon juice and 1/2 cup of the ice water in while gently mixing with a fork. Check the moistness of the dough by gathering a small fistful; if it holds together, it’s ready. If it is dry or crumbly, slowly add the remaining 1/4 cup of water, testing the dough by pinching it occasionally.

3. Be careful to add only as much water as it takes to combine the dough into a ball or disk. The exact amount of water you will need depends on a number of circumstances, including the moisture content of the flour, the quality of the butter, and the weather. When it has the proper amount of water, the dough will come together without much effort or deliberate packing. If you need to add more water, make sure the ingredients are still cold.

4. Form the dough into three 12-ounce disks if you are using it for pie crusts, or a rectangle if you plan to make puff pastry. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours before rolling and forming.

With an electric stand mixer
When I make this dough at home, I like to use my 5-quart KitchenAid mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

1. Once again, chill the bowl and dry ingredients before cutting in the cold, cubed butter. By mixing between speeds 1 and 2 for 1–2 minutes, the silky texture of the flour will become mealy but will still contain some larger chunks of butter. When this happens, reduce the mixer speed to 1 and drizzle in the lemon juice and 1/2 cup of the ice water while the paddle is turning. Check the moistness of the dough and continue as you would by hand, adding enough water for the dough to hold together when you gather a fistful.

2. Form into three disks or one rectangle and chill.

"Here's the Beef: One Woman's Quest to Cook a Quarter Cow" (Edible Portland, Summer 2008) features Wallowa Valley Grass-fed Beef from Carman Ranch. Our featured video this season tells the story of another Oregon farm that raises grass-fed animals, Abundant Life Farm. Scott and Marilyn Jondle raise and sell pasture-raised eggs, chickens, ducklings, turkeys and pork, and grass-fed beef and lamb in Dallas, Oregon.

Thanks to a partnership with a local film company that produces Cooking Up A Story, a show about real people and their special connections to food and sustainable living, we’re able to bring Edible Portland stories to life in video format. Cooking Up A Story’s work is shot unscripted, and the stories are told in the voice of the subject.

Previous videos featured in Edible Portland can be found here.

Like Carman Ranch in the story below, Abundant Life Farm near Dallas, Oregon raises grass-fed animals. Thanks to Edible Portland's partnership with the local film company Cooking Up A Story, you can watch the story of Abundant Life Farm come to life here: Raised On Grass: Pasture Fed Animals.

Hereford cattle graze on a ranch in the Wallowa Valley. Photo by David Jensen

HERE'S THE BEEF
ONE WOMAN'S QUEST TO COOK A QUARTER COW
By Abigail Chipley
For Summer 2008

In a church parking lot in southeast Portland, my husband and I surveyed the contents of the cooler in front of us: 147 pounds of vacuum-packed frozen cow parts — a quarter-cow to be exact. There were long tubes of ground meat, sinewy-looking hunks of chuck, flat flank steaks, thick-cut rib eyes, large roasts with unfamiliar names like “arm roast,” and piles of meaty soup bones.

Along with a handful of other Portlanders, we had just picked up our share of grass-fed beef, delivered direct from a Wallowa, Oregon ranch in a small U-Haul trailer. At home, we loaded the chest freezer in the basement, exchanging dubious glances. How could our family — two light meat eaters and one 26-pound toddler — consume such a bounty? I got out my calculator and did some quick figuring. I kept dividing the numbers until they became less frighteningly large. Finally, I came up with the answer: We would need to eat a mere 2.82 pounds of beef per week to get to the bottom of it within a year.

I’d ordered the meat because I was convinced of the nutritional and environmental value of eating grass-fed beef. But the bargain hunter in me also liked the price. At less than $3 per pound, the beef — fattened on nothing but green grass and hay from the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon — was cheaper than supermarket ground beef. Cheaper, by far, than the premium steaks I inevitably succumbed to at expensive butchers and high-class grocery stores. I was ready to accept the challenge. I would cook all 147 pounds of this animal, if I had to make vats of Bolognese sauce and invite the whole neighborhood to dinner.

This culinary adventure began last August, when my husband and I discovered a small stand at the Portland Farmer’s Market—it was Carman Ranch, selling Wallowa Valley Grassfed beef. There was no product on hand, merely a young woman with a sign-up sheet. In an uncharacteristically spontaneous move, I agreed to buy a share. I dashed off a deposit for $100, and we left the market. To taste our first grass-fed meat, we would have to wait until fall.

Read Here's the Beef: One Woman's Quest to Cook a Quarter Cow (Edible Portland, Summer 2008). Watch the video of Abundant Life Farm, an Oregon farm that raises grass-fed animals, here: Raised on Grass: Pasture Fed Animals.

Resources for Purchasing and Cooking Grass-fed Products

WEBSITES AND CERTIFICATIONS

EatWild.com
Your source for safe, healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles. Visit the Directory of Farms for farms listed by state. For retail locations that sell grass-fed meat and dairy products in Oregon, go to Beyond the Farm.

American Grassfed Association
Protects and promotes true grass-fed producers and products through national communication, education, research and marketing efforts. Website features a grass-fed FAQ, a list of certified AGA producers by state, and recipes.

Certified Humane Raised & Handled
An inspection, certification and labeling program for meat, poultry, egg and dairy products from animals raised to humane care standards. The program is a voluntary, user-fee based service available to producers, processors and transporters of animals raised for food. Website lists certified producers and retail locations that carry Certified Humane Raised & Handled products by state.

BOOKS AND COOKBOOKS

Pasture Perfect by Jo Robinson
Robinson explores why tens of thousands of people are saying "no" to factory farming, and buying their meats, eggs and dairy products from pasture-based ranchers. Learn why grass-fed meat and dairy products are safer, healthier, and more beneficial for you, the farmers, the animals, and the environment.

Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald's Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat by Catherine Friend
Friend takes us on a wild ride through her small farm (with several brief detours into life on factory farms), while raising questions such as: What are the differences between factory, conventional, sustainable, and organic farms? What do all those labels — from organic to local to grass-fed and pasture-raised — really mean? If you’re buying products from a small farmer, what are the key questions to ask?

The Farmer and The Grill: A Guide to Grilling, Barbecuing, and Spit-Roasting Grass-Fed Meat, and For Saving the Planet, One Bite at a Time by Shannon Hayes
Hayes runs a sustainable farm in upstate New York that raises and sells only grass-fed meats. In this cookbook, she offers simple, straightforward recipes and useful tips on grilling, barbecuing, and spit-roasting all cuts of pasture-raised meats.

In the Summer 2008 issue of Edible Portland, Lola Milholland writes: "Homemade ice cream is easy to make and delicious, plus it offers a number of advantages to the store-bought stuff: I have complete control over the quality of my ingredients, and I can make any flavor I have the power to imagine." Lola also emphasizes that the chemistry of making ice cream is important. Read more in Edible D.I.Y. - Homemade Ice Cream.

Photos by Leah Harb

BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM
From Lola Milholland
Makes approximately 1 quart

1/2 cup sugar
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cups heavy cream, cold
Kosher salt

1. Combine sugar and 1/4 cup water in a large saucepan over low heat. Whisk constantly until the sugar dissolves completely. Add the blueberries, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.

2. Cook until the berries become tender, and then mash the berries to release their purple juices. Simmer 5–10 minutes.

Click here for Lola's Blueberry Ice Cream recipe.

Photo by Leah Harb

HOMEMADE ICE CREAM
By Lola Milholland
For Summer 2008

As a kid, I became frenetic at the sound of an approaching ice cream truck. I would scrounge for change and then rush into the street to chase after the promise of a Push-up Pop — delicious ice cream in a toilet paper roll. A little more grown up, there’s still nothing in the world I love more than soft-serve ice cream.

I’d been reluctant to make ice cream because it seemed like a lot of hassle for something inferior to Haagen-Dazs. But one batch of buttermilk ice cream later, I knew I had been obtuse. Homemade ice cream is easy to make and delicious, plus it offers a number of advantages to the store-bought stuff: I have complete control over the quality of my ingredients, and I can make any flavor I have the power to imagine.

WHAT IS A BEAN?

In preparing the Summer 2008 “Now in Season” column, Laleña Dolby asked a group of farmers what they would have available for this summer. It was clear that beans would be on the list, but she was not prepared for the specificity of their answers. Confounded, she asked Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm, long known for his great variety and high quality of beans, to explain the difference between string, pole, runner, bush, wax and shell beans.

Beans: What we call “beans” belong to the family Fabaceae, with two notable exceptions. Members of the Fabaceae are known colloquially as pulses or legumes. They all bear a fruit that botanists call a “pod.” Most of the beans we eat are in the genus Phaseolus; all of these originated in the Americas. Though it is never that simple when botanical classification is mixed with colloquial terms.

Fava beans are actually a vetch, genus Vicia. The “yard-long” or “asparagus” beans are a species of edible podded field pea, genus Vigna. Mung and Adzuki beans are also the genus Vigna. To keep things confusing, most members of the genus Vigna are called “peas.” They are in a different genus from the English or French pea, which is a species of Pisum. These are all “Old World” types, and were brought to the Americas by settlers.

Fava beans (left) and adzuki beans

There are also coffee and vanilla beans. Coffee is in the family Rubiaceae. Coffee bushes bear fleshy red berries, and inside the berries are two seeds we also call beans. Vanilla beans are the fermented pod of an orchid.

String beans: These are traditional varieties that have a “string,” or tough vascular tissue, along the suture of the pod. If you break the bean and a stringy thing dangles forth, it is a string bean. If it breaks cleanly, it is a snap bean. Some beans “snap” when they are young, and develop a string as the pod matures. Others snap until they are too tough to eat. String and snap beans belong to the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) species. Traditionalists believe string beans are the best flavored of the beans, but they are a lot of work because they must be picked very young, or the strings must be removed with a stringer or a paring knife.

Common string bean

Runner beans: These are perennial bean plants that form a tuber and generally have a climbing habit. They are a separate species, Phaseolus coccineus, from the common green bean (P. vulgaris), which is an annual. The flowers or runners are large and showy, and they are often planted as ornamentals. Lima beans (P. lunatus) and tepary beans (P. acutifolius) are two other species of beans commonly eaten in the U.S.

Scarlet runner bean

Pole beans: These are climbing beans that can be trained up poles or twine. The beans that climb include: garden beans (snap and string, fresh shell and dry, green and wax), pole limas, and runner beans. Pole beans are sought out because of their exceptional flavor and tenderness. The Willamette Valley grew hundreds of acres of Blue Lake Pole beans; all had to be picked by hand. Today, they have been replaced by bush beans that can be machine harvested.

Blue Lake Pole bean

Fresh shell beans: These are beans that are harvested when the seed is mature, or nearly so, but not dry. The seed, not the pod, is eaten. Typically, green bean varieties do not make good fresh shell beans. Flageolet, cranberry and cannellini are examples of good fresh shell varieties. They have a tough pod and would not be welcome as green beans. All three are tasty as dry beans. There is also a middle point in the drying referred to as “demi-sec.”

Cranberry bean

Wax beans: Yellow snap or string beans that probably picked up the name “wax beans” because their color is similar to bee’s wax.

Yellow string bean

Bush bean: As the name suggests, it is a bean variety that has a bushy habit. They produce beans in a shorter time than pole beans, and the beans tend to be ready about the same time. Bush beans can be harvested by machine. The beans that are bush beans include: garden beans (snap, wax and string, fresh shell and dry, green and wax) and bush limas. The tepary beans do not climb, per se, but have a viney habit, sprawling across the ground.

LENTS INTERNATIONAL FARMERS' MARKET
Sundays, June 15 – October 12
9am – 2pm
SE 92nd and Foster, Portland

10 new vendors join the Lents International Farmers' Market this season, increasing the market total to 19 vendors.

What will you find at the market? All your familiar summer veggies plus produce such as Chinese long beans (here's a great recipe from Epicurious.com), Thai basil (delicious in mojitos and salad rolls), Russian cucumbers (tasty fresh and wonderful pickled) and bitter melon (learn all about this fascinating fruit from the National Bitter Melon Council). You'll also find fresh eggs from chickens raised just blocks away, Armenian and Ukrainian bread and pastries, and tamales.

Read Growing New Roots: Immigrant and Refugee Farmers Dig In to learn more about the market.

Wed., June 18, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
RENEWING AMERICA'S FOOD TRADITIONS
Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods: An Evening with Gary Paul Nabhan

Powell’s City of Books
1005 W Burnside, Portland
Free to the public

Ethnobotanist, professor, social activist, and author Gary Paul Nabhan will speak about his book Renewing America’s Food Traditions. Nabhan is a national leader in the movement to reconnect citizens with American food heritage. With eloquence and wisdom, Nabhan brings to light both our tremendous agricultural diversity and the role we can each play to keep it alive with every delicious bite.

Wed., June 25, 2008, 6:30 p.m.
ONE SOLUTION TO THE FOOD CRISIS: EAT LOCAL!
An Evening with Michael Shuman

First Unitarian Church
1011 SW 12th, Portland
$10 in advance; $12 at the door
Sponsored by SBNP; 503-232-2943

Michael Shuman, author of Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age and The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition, will discuss how communities are increasingly feeding themselves and simultaneously reaping huge economic, environmental and social benefits. As a forerunner to Eat Local Week (July 4–11), the night will kick off with seasonal delicacies along with a presentation by Lisa Sedlar of New Seasons Market.

Zoë Bradbury left her urban job in Portland to start farming on the south coast of Oregon. She's blogging here about her experiences. Below is her eighth entry in Diary of a Young Farmer.

BARNEY & MAUDE

I’m long overdue in introducing Barney and Maude, the two Belgians who arrived on the farm in April. They are quite the couple: tireless farmworkers and completely inseparable.

Barney is the sensitive one — tall, lanky, and pigeon-toed, with a bleach-blond rockstar hairdo. Maude is mouthy and affectionate, with a personality as big as her battering ram physique. She cracks me up on a daily basis.

Each of them weighs over a ton, and they have feet the size of dinner plates. Meet my team of draft horses.

To be honest, I didn’t really intend to haul home four thousand pounds of Amish-trained horsepower in the first three months of starting my own farm. There was plenty else to tend to, but fate had its way with me.

It’s a long story that apparently started 26 years ago when I disappeared from the house as a two-year-old. My mom searched frantically for me, fearing the worst — that I’d fallen down the compost toilet. I hadn’t. Where she finally found me, though, was almost as worried: I was sitting in the dirt corral amidst the hooves of four heavy horses, entranced.

She managed to extract me unscathed, but it foreshadowed the lifetime of horse adventures and misadventures that I was destined for. By the time I was five I had two shelves cluttered with dozens of plastic molded horses, and by nine I had a little Arab mare stabled in the barn. I rode her all over the countryside, exploring old logging roads, galloping along the beach, and swimming bareback on her in the river. She was the heart of my childhood.

But kids grow up and get jobs and go to college. And childhood mares get old and stay behind in the barn. For me, as it became more and more apparent that I wanted to farm, I found myself reckoning with the reality that despite my love for horses, I wouldn’t have time to ride one — especially in the summer when the weather is good.

That's when the idea of draft horses started to tickle my consciousness. I was 16 when I had my first daydream about farming with horses down along the river. Over a decade later, after three years of training with a master teamster, here we are: Maude, Barney and me. Crazy what can happen once you think a thought.

CAR-FREE IN PORTLAND

On June 22, join your fellow citizens to celebrate our incredibly walk-able and bike-able city at Portland Sunday Parkways. This 6-mile, car-free temporary park is being created to give people more open space to be active without worrying about oncoming traffic. Bike, skate, jump, or skip your way through the streets to imagine what a city with fewer cars might be like!

June 22, 2008, 8am–2pm
Route Map here
Highlights - including food vendors - here

- Kathleen Bauer

"If our kids forget how to live with the land, how will we survive? Education about ecology and food security is key."
- Cori Longstreet

PSU graduate Cori Longstreet. Photos by Gregor Torrence

PORTLAND'S NEW WAVE OF EDUCATORS
Three Portland graduates are growing the seeds of sustainability through education
Ivy Manning
For Summer 2008

Thousands come to the Portland State University (PSU) campus every Saturday from April to November for the Portland Farmer’s Market, rejoicing in the diverse agricultural bounty that this area has to offer. As shoppers shuffle towards the dozens of stalls full of local vegetables, cheeses, and seafood, they probably don’t notice the University’s motto — “Let Knowledge Serve the City” — carved in stone in the bridge overhead. But for a growing number of students graduating from PSU, the motto speaks directly to another facet of Portland’s strength as a great food city: education.

Students nationwide are coming to Portland State University for its unique programming. Whether enrolled in the School of Community Health, School of Business, School of Urban Studies and Planning, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, or School of Education, among others, students at PSU are studying food. Multiple aspects are covered — from supply chain issues and regional distribution infrastructure for getting food to market to the relationship between food and climate change, diet and health, and gardening as an educational tool.

The School of Business boasts a Food Industry Leadership Center, and the Portland Institute of Metropolitan Studies and the Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices both emphasize food-oriented research and education. In fact, the Institute of Metropolitan Studies asks questions such as: Can healthful food be affordable while farmers make a profit? Will we have enough farmers and workers to produce food in the future? Will our land and water supplies support food production and a growing population?

Still other PSU students take a hands-on approach to their food education by participating in the student-run Food For Thought Café. The café uses sustainably grown ingredients, including some grown on campus, to serve food-conscious faculty and staff. They reduce waste by using nondisposable plates and silverware, and integrate their planning and management into school curricula. Students’ efforts to establish Food For Thought Café led to the incorporation of local, seasonal and sustainable food goals into PSU’s overall food service contract.

Edible Portland caught up with three recent graduates from one program in particular: the Portland International Initiative for Leadership in Ecology, Culture and Learning (PIIECL), an interdisciplinary master’s degree program in the School of Education. The program addresses the emerging field of sustainability education and focuses on teaching in the community through projects like the Learning Gardens Laboratory, a student-faculty run garden in southeast Portland that works with elementary schools to teach youth everything from the biology of worms to helping the hungry.

These three graduates of the PIIECL program have put down roots, literally and theoretically, working in careers that are helping Portland to a brighter, and greener, future.

Thank you to everyone who filled out our Annual Reader's Survey! You were generous with your time, and we promise to make the most of every minute you spent. Hearing directly from our readers is invaluable — we will work with new insights and inspiration.

What did we learn? You enjoy stories that look at real people within the food system — the farmers, ranchers, cheesemakers, food processors, and community activists — rather than celebrity chefs and the trendiest restaurants. We discovered that many of you want to learn more about Oregon’s oyster harvesting and fishing communities. You appreciate the quality of our advertisements. (Hoorah!) And when we hit it right, our photos and recipes make you hungry for farm-fresh food.

Our 1st, 50th, and 500th respondents have received word that we will be treating them to dinner with a sweetie or a pal at Castagna, Nostrana, and Three Square Grill, respectively. We wish them delicious meals.

Please stay tuned for more opportunities to give us feedback. Until then, good luck to all of our little tomato plants that are dreaming of the sun — warm, sunny days are here at last!

It’s official, with a proclamation from Governor Ted Kulongoski, July is Oregon Craft Beer Month.

Did you know? Oregon hop farms stretch back over 130 years. Oregon's first brewery, Liberty Brewing, opened in 1852. Portland has more breweries than any other city in the world. And the Oregon Brewers Guild has decided to celebrate this rich history of craft brewing with over 100 events across the state.

Where to begin? How about at the official kick-off event at Portland's Horse Brass Pub, which will be featuring 20-25 taps of all Oregon beers including new releases, world premier exclusives, and rare and vintage beers.

Tuesday, July 1, 5 p.m.
Horse Brass Pub
4520 SE Belmont, Portland, OR 97215

Not in your neighborhood? There are 22 other events to choose from on July 1.

Other Oregon Craft Beer Month events to take note of:

July 9, 7pm, Beer and Oregon Cheese Pairings with Steve’s Cheese, Hopworks Urban Brewery
July 24–27, Oregon Brewers Festival, Waterfront Park
July 25–July 26, 12-6pm, Homebrewing Demo by the Oregon Brew Crew, Waterfront Park

Firefighter Adam Gibson. Photos by Leah Harb

PORTLAND FRIDGE
Vancouver Fire Dept. Station 81
Lucy Fulton
For Summer 2008

The Vancouver Fire Department is made up of nine stations spread out across the rapidly growing city. More than 150 firefighters respond to 20,000 emergency calls each year. At Station 81, the A-Shift is comprised of six men who live and work together for 24 hours straight every three days: Jack Anderson, Paul Coolimore, Adam Gibson, Rick Huffman, John Larson, and Jeremy Stuart.

When the team is not busy taming flames and answering other types of emergencies, they spend their time at the station house, ready to jump into action as soon as they get their next call. One of their favorite things to do while hanging out at the station house is cook.

ADAM: We have a full kitchen. It’s built symmetrically, with two double ovens and two stovetops, one on each side. We’re getting a remodel because the kitchen is not friendly enough. I mean, the kitchen is social, so we want to open it up and put in diner-style flat grills. Still, we use what we have and turn out great meals.

Each shift has its own refrigerator. Then we all share a condiment fridge with tons of stuff: mayo, Tabasco, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire. Salsa, definitely. Groceries we buy daily. We know that the ads change on Tuesday nights, so Wednesday morning, first off, we’ll look at what’s on sale. Collectively we say: What do we want for dinner? We haven’t had lasagna in a while so that’s why we chose it for tonight. Plus, John was craving lasagna.

You might think Adam would pull out a few commercial frozen lasagnas and stick them in the oven, but you’d be wrong: The whole team comes together to create a fully homemade meal. John and Paul pull out the cutting boards to start chopping onions and slicing coins of zucchini. Jeremy is busy opening cans of tomato sauce. When the prep work is done, John sautés the onions while Paul starts constructing the lasagna in an extra-large casserole dish. It doesn’t take long to realize these guys are pretty serious about food prep.