Edible Portland Blog

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 tenth entry in Diary of a Young Farmer.

YOUNG FARMER GETS OLDER

I turned 29 last week to a riotous rainbow of blooming dahlias and painted tongue. It was an emotional Tilt-a-Whirl day: a Monday, on the heels of my first full weekend off in months. All of us — family, friends, and dogs — had gone up Elk River to our favorite swimming hole on Saturday, cranked homemade strawberry ice cream by the campfire, slept under the stars, and laid flat on our backs on the hot rocks. No weeding. No moving irrigation pipe. Just bliss by the river. I even started a novel.

I was back at the farm on Monday morning, the sky filled with smoke from the California fires. And for some reason, in spite of the brilliant orange baby carrots and the candy stripe chioggia beets and all that is growing and good and beautiful on my first-year farm, I was having a sad birthday. Probably because I thought I should be skipping down my verdant rows, celebrating this milestone year in my life — but instead I was dragging myself around, tired, wondering how my body was going to feel in another twenty birthdays of farming.

The weekend at the river had been my first true, aimless break. A reminder of how good it feels to not work eight days a week. And it broke the head-down, don’t-stop trance I’ve been in since December. Oh my god, it turns out there is a beautiful world outside of my deer-fenced farm compound. It is the world I knew as a kid when we would play like otters in the river all summer, graze on thimbleberries and red hucks, and eat sugar snap peas until our bellies bloated. That’s the world that my favorite memories were made in. These last many months I’ve been living next to it, but not in it. Time for that to change.

Leaving Elk River, the Sunday night blues claimed me, and on Monday — back at it on the farm in my dirty Levi’s and leather boots — I moped. I wanted to be ten again when Mondays were another day in an endless weekend.

That night, though, there was a summer feast to lure me out of my funk: wild fish from the ocean, fennel from my fields and the last of the June-bearing strawberries atop a homemade cheesecake. We toasted the start of my 30th year — the last year that I will be statistically significant in Curry County.

As it turns out, in all of the U.S. Curry County is reported to have the second lowest percentage of people under the age of 30 — second only to a county in Florida. Most of the population is retired, which is something that only begins to seem a bit odd when you make the five hour trip to Portland and notice all the young faces in the city. All of the young faces that you don’t see in Langlois.

Not to say there aren’t a handful of us who are making our under-30 way here, but the current reality puts 75% of Americans in cities and the other quarter of us in rural communities — and of that 25%, most are not youngsters. These stats are tied at least partially to our run down grange, our faltering rural schools, our almost bankrupt county government…

It’s un-nerving, but I can’t help but believe that the trend will reverse itself, both out of necessity and out of interest. Necessity because there will be a time when cheap oil is gone for good and we’ll need more hands on the land to put food on the table. Interest because I can’t count the number of young people I’ve come to know who are heading for the hills, or who profess to want to farm and get free of the concrete jungle. I know for myself it was important to do a stint in the urban world before I settled in for good in this quiet valley. The running joke: that I had to go get a husband before I could come back. Joke or no joke, mission accomplished. The wedding invites are going in the mail this week, after I finish weeding the carrots.

Photo by John Valls

GREAT GALETTES
Piper Davis
For Summer 2008

If the world were divided into two taste teams — sweet and savory — I’d play for the savory side. I’ll take fried trout over blueberry pancakes for breakfast any day. Of course, there’s a certain irony in that: My family has been in the baking business for 35 years and my livelihood depends on bread and pastry, something most people associate with double-crust pies and Danishes, cream puffs and chocolate croissants. Sweets. The other team. But even though flaky pastry — mostly the sweet kind — is my livelihood, I’ve always insisted that Grand Central Bakery’s cafés offer several savory pastry options. A savory galette is my favorite.

Think of a galette as pie’s rustic kissing cousin, a simple free-form tart that showcases the season’s bounty in a flaky crust. I like to begin the same way we do at the bakery, with a base of caramelized onions, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and enriched with an egg and some cream; it’s the perfect platform for seasonal toppings throughout the year. Between a CSA share, trips to the farmers’ market, and my garden (mostly tomatoes and basil), my kitchen is bursting with ingredients perfect for filling a savory galette.

Summertime produce in Oregon is a proverbial embarrassment of riches, inspiring galettes filled with everything from late-season asparagus to roasted corn, chiles and cotija cheese. Bakery favorites include zucchini with feta, and roasted eggplant-tomato. At home, I usually end up making my take on the classic pizza Margherita, which combines thinly sliced ripe tomatoes, basil, and Parmesan cheese. As summer turns to fall, new fillings step in: wild mushrooms with sherry and thyme; roasted squash and bacon; or thinly sliced potatoes and chèvre with herbs. Garlic mashed potatoes on an onion base might get my vote for the most irresistible, especially in the winter.

The point is that a galette should be improvisational. If you start with delicious all-butter pastry and use what you have on hand or what looks good at the market, it’s hard to go wrong. Use your intuition and don’t worry too much about a recipe. If you keep the following guidelines in mind, you’ll be fine.

FRESH FROM THE FARM

If you’re passing through Corvallis, make a detour to the little town of Philomath and stop by the farm stand at Gathering Together Farm. Well known for the amazing produce they bring to many Portland-area farmers’ markets, this stand features all that and more, including potato doughnuts (made from their own potatoes), pastries, pickles, honey, jams, and salsa. Plus, they serve lunch Tuesday through Saturday, breakfast on Saturday, dinner every Friday, and wine dinners once a month.

25159 Grange Hall Rd. on Hwy. 20, Philomath | Farm stand hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday

- By Kathleen Bauer of goodstuffnw.blogspot.com

Photo by Dan Gonzales

A Slice of Portland Life

Pies can hold so many things: stone fruits, berries, custard; leafy greens, mince meat, ground beef. Whenever you leave the recipe behind, you discover yourself a little more. What suits your tastes? What suits this moment?

This summer, a number of Portlanders responded to a contest asking them to create a pie that tastes like the current state of their lives. All in all, these home cooks created a flavor map for Portland aka Pietopia.

You can read the recipes and rationales for the five winning entries here. Intimate, sincere, diverse: these pies express very different lived experiences, but each feels earnestly real to this strange city where we live — each pie holds a revealing self-portrait.

Do you want to experience what life in Portland tastes like? Do you want to actually eat edible Portland? You can! This Thursday you have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to try samples from each of the five winning entries. Bring your fork!

Eastbank Farmers’ Market
Thursday, August 21 | SE Salmon & 20th | 3:30 – 7:30 pm

Ecotrust has canceled the video presentation and discussion, The Hands that Feed Us, originally scheduled for August 20th. Thank you for your interest and we’ll keep you up-to-date on future events. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

HELLO HUCKLEBERRY HOUNDS

Huckleberry Hikes
With Mount Hood and Mount Adams so near our fair city, Portlanders are blessed with the chance to amble like a bear and enjoy the taste of Western wildness. That’s right, it’s huckleberry season! Grab an old bucket, pack a sack lunch, and go on a hike through huckleberry country!

24th Annual Mount Hood Huckleberry & Barlow Trail Days
For those who couldn’t possibly get enough huckleberry thrills this summer, take a drive up to Welches for the 24th Annual Huck Fest!

Fresh huckleberries, huckleberry pancakes, milkshakes, and fresh tarts – oh, just the thought makes us growl in joy.

August 22, 23, 24, 2008 | Mt. Hood Village | (503) 622-4798
65000 East U.S. Highway 26 near the Village of Brightwood
Sponsored by the Cascade Geographic Society
Free admission and parking

Huckleberry Recipes
Want to indulge in something too good for words in your own kitchen? Try these crispy fritters from the adorable Huckleberry Cookbook by Alex and Stephanie Hester.

HUCKLEBERRY BEIGNETS

2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup milk
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup huckleberries
Vegetable oil
1/2 cup powdered sugar

In a large mixing bowl, whisk eggs until light and fluffy. Add flour, milk, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk well, making a smooth batter. Fold in huckleberries.

Fill a large deep pot or electric deep fryer with vegetable oil, about halfway up. Heat on high to 360 degrees.

Gently drop about 6 heaping tablespoons of batter into the hot oil. Be careful not to overcrowd the pot. Fry and turn until beignets are evenly brown on all sides. Remove from oil and place on paper towel. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Best served warm.

Makes about 20 beignets

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 11th entry in Diary of a Young Farmer.

THE EMPTY FULLNESS OF AUGUST

It was last Friday that I wondered – momentarily – if my brain was going spongy. It was a harvest morning and I began to notice that all I was doing was noticing: the dahlias, the red-handled flower shears in my right hand, the white five gallon buckets sitting in the row behind me, the yellow, polka-dotted cucumber beetles mating on a burgundy petal, their innards the same regal color as I squished them between my thumb and forefinger – reducing by a few hundred the number of larvae that will hatch in September and maul my butterhead lettuce.

I got the flowers into the shade and moved on to lettuce. Down the row, counting. One hundred forty-four heads of romaine toppled at the tip of my lettuce knife. Lime green, white-ribbed heads lay on their sides down the length of the bed. The sun started to get higher. I moved faster. I packed a dozen heads per tote, onto the cart, into the truck, under shade.

Then beets. I was bent at the waist, pulling, looking for big, round ones. Down the row. Armloads of beets, side by side with the fennel, fennel bulbs looking juicy and white and fat under their canopy of lacy green foliage. The orders were for topped beets, but I saved all the greens and packed them into a bag for the owners of a local restaurant – whose tortoise loves beet greens. Does the tortoise prefer gold beet greens or red beet greens? Chioggia? I tasted them to see if I could discern a difference.

It was when I caught myself dwelling on the tortoise and its culinary preferences that I had my moment of worry. Is this all that’s left in my head? I vaguely remembered springtime when I was planting out lettuce starts and building my greenhouse, always thinking about new farmer issues and pulling the write-in-the-rain notepad from my back pocket to jot down the bones of my next op-ed. Sending essays to The New York Times. That was April.

This is August. And August is so full, it does to a vegetable farmer what many people spend hours of meditation trying to achieve. August makes you empty. Amidst the everything-ness, August brings you close to nothingness. I have become the vessel, doing the quiet bidding of lettuce and strawberries, day in and day out.

Not stupid. Not spongy, I realize. Simply present. More present than any other time of the year. Later, the other thoughts will return. There will be time to listen to the news, and more time to write again. I will come out of the produce tunnel and re-encounter the world that is meanwhile out there, full of its wars and Olympic games and Hollywood gossip and presidential campaigns.

For now though, eat sleep farm squish cucumber beetles. Their innards are always the same color as the petals that they have eaten holes through.

ANNUAL TOMATO FESTIVAL

This Saturday, Farmington Gardens will host a free tasting of over 80 varieties of locally grown, heirloom tomatoes.

August 30, 2008, 11am-3pm
6th Annual Tomato Festival
Farmington Gardens
21815 SW Farmington Road, Beaverton, OR
503-649-4568
www.farmingtongardens.com

While there, watch cooking demonstrations by Chef Dan Brophy, from the Oregon Culinary Institute, as he shares recipes using different types of tomatoes. And, learn more about how to grow the best tomatoes right in your own backyard.

Tomatoes and basil are a great August addition to Piper Davis's seasonal galette. Read more about the galette, "pie's rustic kissing cousin," here.

SEASONAL SAVORY GALETTE
From Piper Davis, Co-owner and Cuisine Manager, Grand Central Bakery
Yields one 12-inch tart, or 8–10 servings

1 lb All-Butter Flaky Pie Dough or your favorite flaky pie or tart dough
2–3 medium-size onions (1 1/4 lbs), thinly sliced
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup cream
1 egg

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy sauté pan or skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the onions, sprinkle them with salt, and cook until they release some liquid and begin to develop a few dark spots, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat and continue cooking until the onions are soft and toasty brown, 35 to 45 minutes. Try not to stir too often during the caramelizing process; instead, give the pan a good shake every 5 minutes to redistribute the contents. Allow the onions to cool, check the seasoning, and add more salt if necessary.

2. Whisk the cream and egg together and fold in the cool onion mixture. Add seasonal ingredients of your choice to the onion base. Depending on the ingredients you add, they can be introduced raw (thinly sliced tomatoes, zucchini and asparagus) or partially cooked (eggplant, potatoes and winter squash). If 40 minutes in the oven is enough to achieve the desired texture, don’t worry about cooking them beforehand.

3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (350 for a convection oven). On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 14–16-inch diameter circle, 1/8-inch thick. Fold the circle in half and then in half again, and transfer it to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet (Silpat).

4. Spread the filling (about 2 cups) over the pastry, leaving a 3-inch border. Fold the border up over the filling, allowing the dough to fold over on itself, or pleat, as you lift it. It should pleat about 8 to 10 times as you work your way around leaving you with an octagonal shape. If you have time, chill the galette for 20 minutes or bake immediately in a 375-degree oven (350 for a convection oven) until the filling is bubbly and the crust is deep golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes.

Owner and executive chef Kenny Hill of Trébol to teach this class at In Good Taste Cooking School:

Trébol - Old World Mexican Cuisine
September 15, 6:30 pm
In Good Taste
231 NW 11th Ave, Portland
Register here

Menu for the evening:
Mango Mint Agua Fresca
Prickly Pear Cactus Margarita
Sautéed Mexican Spot Prawns With Chorizo and Tossed In A Chipotle Cascabel Salsa
Late Summer Salad Of Roasted Beets And Wilted Spinach With Candied Walnuts
Slow Braised Pork Cheeks With Brick Red Mole Served With Seasonal Vegetables
Tequila Caramel Flan

At Trébol, Kenny Hill and his team has created a Mexican cantina using locally grown sustainable ingredients and quality tequilas for house-made cocktails. The cantina serves old world Mexican cuisine, combining Hill’s love of Oaxacan fare with his passion for using ingredients close to the source.

After eight year as the sous chef at Higgins, Hill saw firsthand how choosing the right ingredients and building relationships with local farmers makes a difference when preparing food. Now at the helm of his own restaurant, Hill continues embracing the local food movement and changes his menu based on what is available locally.