Congressman Earl Blumenauer was in Portland recently championing his Local Food and Farm Support Act. The Act is intended to strengthen the local farm economy, make local and healthy food more accessible, help the environment and improve the quality of food served in our public schools. Alright Earl!

Now is a good time to remind the folks in Washington that the Farm Bill is about FOOD. And since we all eat, we all have a stake in the Farm Bill. I sent off an email today. It was really easy. I just followed this link: www.healthyfarmbill.org

Need a refresher course on why any of this matters? Continue reading for Dan Imhoff’s article from Edible Portland, Food Fight 2007: A Citizen's Guide...

Continue reading " The Farm Bill is still on our minds " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by Ellen Jackson
For Spring 2007

YOU SAY HORSEBEAN, I say tickbean. You say broad bean, I say Windsor bean. You say faba, I say fava. Cultivation of the vicia faba, or fava bean, dates back so far that its wild form is uncertain today.

Found in some of the earliest known human settlements, the legume’s long, rich history begins in the Neolithic Middle East (think Lebanon) where botanists believe it was first domesticated. Favas have been used in Chinese cooking for at least 5,000 years and made gastronomic film history in 1991, when Hannibal Lechter, who was “having an old friend for dinner,” included them in his disturbing menu.

But fava beans haven’t always been a foodstuff. Pythagoras, the sixth-century Greek philosopher, believed they contained the souls of the dead and forbade their consumption, while Greeks and Romans used them as ballots in magisterial elections—a black bean for ‘nay,’ a fava for ‘yea.’ They even suggested a namesake for one of four distinguished Roman families with legume-inspired monikers: Fabius (fava), Lentulus (lentil), Piso (pea) and Cicero (chickpea). A Fab(a) Four, if you will.

Continue reading " Edible Seasonals - Absolutely Fava-lous: The Journey of a Humble Fava Bean " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Written by Jean Johnson
For Spring 2007

MOST EVERYONE KNOWS that egg-laying hens on large corporate farms don’t have the greatest lives. But few realize these birds are among the most abused animals in the world of factory farming. Nearly 300 million chickens in the United States—95 percent of the laying hen population—are confined in batteries of cages stacked 10 high in huge barns. These birds have less room than a standard-sized sheet of paper and cannot even flap their wings.

When it comes to doing unto our animals, America lags light years behind Europe. Sweden abolished all confined animal farming back in 1988, and the European Union is now moving in a similar direction. We’re coming along, though. After the Humane Society of the United States publicized Ben and Jerry’s use of eggs from caged hens, the ice cream maker pledged to shift to cage-free eggs in the U.S. beginning in 2007. “We’ve used cage-free eggs in our UK plant for some time,” says Ben and Jerry’s public relations Grand Poobah, Sean Greenwood. “In Europe, mainstream consumers have an appreciation of where their food is sourced from.”

One problem with sourcing in the United States is labeling designations—which, with eggs, can run the gamut. While cage-free refers to hens that have the run of the chicken barn, organic eggs requires that the birds have access to outside pasture. That said, many Portland-area growers are small enough to circumvent formal regulations and use their personal integrity to attest to humane treatment.

Continue reading " Happy Hens: Your Guide to Cage-Free Eggs " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Written by Ellen Jackson
For Spring 2007

ONCE UPON A TIME, a sour-cherry pie with lattice crust, still warm from the oven, was the ultimate expression of hearth and home. A thick slice of homemade bread, slathered with sweet butter, was a hallmark of hospitality…if your name was June Cleaver.

Now we live in an age of convenience foods, and everyone complains that they haven't any time. Bread making has a reputation for being fussy and old-fashioned, a tricky collaboration of yeast, time, and expertise, with long odds of a payoff for the amateur baker. The thought of baking a loaf can be overwhelming and conjure up images of an entire day spent in its service.

Actually, baking is the perfect pursuit for busy people because it is well-suited to being divided into steps and stages. Significant chunks of time are spent waiting, but you needn't plan your day around the schedule of a loaf of bread. In fact, the methodology is quite logical and far more flexible than you might imagine.

Continue reading " Edible Expert - Easy as Pie: A Busy Person's Guide to Scratch Baking " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by Harriet Fasenfest
For Spring 2007

THERE IS A PARABLE I like to tell related to the form versus function debate. That debate, not unlike the chicken or egg controversy, questions what comes first and how we often take on forms or behaviors that no longer serve a purpose. Not surprisingly, the parable finds its best audiences with architects and first-year philosophy majors. But as a Universalist-cum-food preserver, I offer it now as a lovely, if not tangential, segue to today’s discussion on pectin. It goes like this:

A little girl was watching her mother bake a ham and noticed that she cut off the end of the ham before putting it in the oven. The girl asked why. Her mother said, “Because my mother did it that way.” So the little girl went to her grandmother, and asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before putting it in the oven. And her grandmother said, “Because my mother did it that way.” Being blessed with a healthy and thriving matriarchal line, the little girl went to her great grandmother, and asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before putting it in the oven. And she said, “Oh, I don’t do that anymore. I only used to because my pan was too small.”

I love that story. It is a perfect example of our tendency to take on form and traditions even as they outlive functionality. In most cases the folly is benign and, like the ham, represents no more than a wasted stroke. Other times, like the proverbial unexamined life, the consequences are more severe. But then there is the middle ground, and in the case of pectin, the reliance on form versus function stands in for nothing more than a missed opportunity for creativity, serendipity, and jam making outside the box.

Continue reading " Edible Preservation - Pectin: A Study of Form and Function " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by Kevin Allman
Photo by Carrie Branovan
For Spring 2007

THE WINTER SNOW IS GONE, and grass is sprouting in the paddocks of the Double J Jerseys organic dairy farm in Monmouth, Oregon, an hour’s drive south of Portland. Several large barns in the distance hold nearly 200 cows, but farmer Jon Bansen isn’t letting them out just yet. For three months, they’ve been inside, eating a diet of harvested alfalfa, clover, and grain, but soon they’ll be grazing in the fields, eating the chlorophyll-rich grass that will result in spring milk. Fall milk, which is richer in fat, is better suited to cheesemaking, but spring milk has charms of its own.

“It has a lower protein and butterfat content,” Bansen says. “It has a sweeter smell, a lighter smell. And you can really taste the difference. Milk is just sweeter in springtime.”

This is the seventh spring for Bansen’s organic farm, but he’s been a dairyman all his life. Dairy farming is a Bansen family tradition, though Jon is the first to operate an all-organic farm. Since he converted from traditional to organic farming in 2000, his father and his brother—convinced by Jon’s success and the quality of his milk—have also gone organic. But Bansen says his approach is really nothing new: “We’re just using the same techniques that my grandfather used, but they didn’t call it organic back then.”

Continue reading " Spring Milk: A Delicious Way to Welcome Springtime " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by Angela Sanders
Photos from the Turturice Family Collection
For Spring 2007

WHEN I TOURED THE SMALL HOUSE in southeast Portland that I eventually bought, I asked the owner about the sink, cabinets, and stove hookup I was surprised to find in the basement. "Oh," she said, "the first owners were Italians. They practically lived down here in the summer to keep out of the heat, like they used to do in Italy." Dotted through the neighborhood were fig trees, and my own backyard sprouted leeks and elephant garlic here and there. Oregano filled the side yard. Mint ran rampant, no matter how many of its runners I pulled out. I had moved into Portland's Garlic Gulch.

Between 1880 and World War II, nearly 30,000 Italians immigrated to Portland. They came to escape economic depression at home and to start truck farms, craft stone bridges on the Columbia River Highway, and work in the lumber mills. The first Italians in Portland settled in an Italian and Jewish neighborhood in the Duniway Park area, obliterated in the early 1960s by an urban renewal project.

Italian children earned a nickel for lighting the stoves of their Jewish neighbors on the Sabbath. As the population of Italians grew, it spread across the river to Ladd's Addition, the western portion of Colonial Heights, and the Clinton neighborhood. This second wave of Italians seeded vegetable gardens in empty lots, dried tomatoes on their roofs, and dragged their feather beds into their yards in the summer for the sun to bleach clean.

Continue reading " Garlic Gulch and the Italian Food Legacy in Portland " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 )

Story and Photo by Jen Marlow
For Spring 2007

MATT ZAFFINO WATCHES the sky from Eagle’s Nest, his home office. The highest room in the house, it’s connected to the second floor by a dizzy climb up a wrought-iron twist of spiral stairs. From this carpeted perch, computers, microphones, even a weather cam hooked to the roof come as no surprise. But beckoning out the small, square row of windows above Zaffino’s desk is Sauvie Island. “This is why I moved here,” explains Zaffino, gesturing to the view. He points to where the Willamette drains into the Columbia River.

The view is simple and stunning. So is Zaffino’s kitchen, which is downstairs on the first floor. With Finnish alder cabinetry, earthy granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances, weather’s elemental shades are invited inside. A flat screen TV next to the fridge broadcasts CNN. A pyramid stack of oranges and bananas shows that Zaffino and his wife, Lisa, love to eat healthfully.

In summertime, Zaffino’s favorite fare—Italian food—takes a back seat to salads, peaches, strawberries, and blueberries. But in winter, when it’s cold outside, he says, “Bring on the pasta.” Today is that kind of day. It’s been snowing on and off all morning.

It’s perfect for Zaffino, an avid skier who is also a marathoner, hiker, and climber. His house—and his eating habits—match his lifestyle. “Some people live to eat. I eat to live,” he says. True, I think, for the most part. But wait until you hear what gourmet treats he brings back-packing. First let’s hear about what’s in his fridge:

CHEF ZAFFINO'S SAUCE
My wife Lisa loves to cook Italian food, but she can’t compete with my spaghetti sauce. My mother, who happened to be Irish, handed down the recipe. Marrying into an Italian family, she had to compete with my Italian grandmother so her sauce is extraordinary.

Growing up Italian, I was raised on great food. There is no better meal than a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs—my favorite comfort food.

Continue reading " Portland Fridge - Tonight's Dinner Forecast, with KGW-TV Weatherman Matt Zaffino " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )