Have you been to the Oregon State Fair yet? You have until September 3rd to see who won "Best Pie" this year.

THE BEST PEACH PIE IN OREGON
How one woman saves her grandma, pleases her friends and wins a blue ribbon--all in the name of pie
Written by Angela Sanders
For Summer 2007

LAST SUMMER IN THE NOISY Home Arts exhibition hall at the Oregon State Fair, Patricia Dugan made her way past displays of loaves of bread, platters of cookies, and cakes festooned with sugar roses. She stopped in front of a case laden with fruit pies and shouted, “I won!” Patricia’s pie tin, once full of peach pie, was licked clean. A blue ribbon sat in the empty tin.

Patricia, a 33-year-old human resources specialist at Providence Health System, learned to bake pies when she moved from San Francisco to live for a summer with her grandmother in Hamburg, New York, a small town outside of Buffalo. Her grandmother was ill and needed someone to look after her.

Patricia was between jobs and unsure of what she wanted to do with her life. She filled her days in Hamburg playing cribbage with her grandmother, going to sing-alongs with neighborhood octogenarians, and visiting local farm stands.

Patricia wasn’t used to having so much time on her hands, so at one of her stops at a produce stand she bought a bag of Golden Delicious apples and decided to try her hand at baking a pie. Her pies were an immediate hit.

She baked an apple pie for her grandmother’s 89th birthday party, and as one of her grandmother’s friends helped himself to another slice he remarked that it had been years since he’d had such a good crust. Soon her pies were expected at every family gathering. She scoured the produce stands for peaches, sour cherries, and more apples.

Continue reading " The Best Peach Pie in Oregon " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 17 )

Zoë Bradbury's story, Organic, Local and Everything Else, was a great starting point for discussing just how it is we navigate our modern food system. What questions do we ask ourselves when facing two similar products at the grocery store? Which is local? Organic? Fair trade?

Deborah Kane by comparing Breyers ice cream to Coconut Bliss (which we profiled in the Summer 2007 issue - read that story here). Zoë promised us that she'd have some answers to our questions from Coconut Bliss founders Larry and Luna. This is what Larry says about their purchasing practices:

THE FARM
"All our coconut milk is organic and all of it comes from an 880-acre farm in Chanthaburi, which is one of the only USDA-certified organic producers in Thailand. The milk is canned in 5 gallon tins in a plant owned by the same family in a nearby town (which we also visited). The farm and factory are owned by a Thai family, and their workers are paid a living wage and work under conditions very similar to those that we have observed in farms and plants in the Willamette Valley (except that the coconuts are harvested year-round and migrant workers are not employed).

DISTANCE TRAVELED
"The coconut milk is shipped to us in containers on large cargo ships, and travels around 9,000 miles to get here. While this is a long distance, sea transport uses only 12% of the fuel per pound of goods as trucks. So the coconut milk shipped from Thailand uses less fuel to transport to Oregon than oranges or strawberries trucked from southern California.

Continue reading " Organic, Local and Everything Else: The Conversation Continues... " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by Ellen Jackson
For Summer 2007

“DO YOU KNOW ABOUT RATATOUILLE?” she asks me.

I’m talking to my young niece who lives in New Jersey.

“Mm-hmm. I love it.”

“Me too!” she says with unmistakable enthusiasm.

I’m equal parts pleased, proud, and perplexed. When it comes to food, she’s always been open-minded and adventurous, with a palate more discerning than both her older sister’s and younger brother’s. But I never imagined she’d cozy up to the popular French dish from Provence. When and where had she made its acquaintance?

She hasn’t, exactly. Her ratatouille isn’t a vegetable dish; it’s an animated feature film of the same name. This nine-yearold’s first and only experience with ratatouille is pure pop culture à la Pixar! She gives me a synopsis: Remy, a rat living in the sewers of Paris, realizes his ambition of becoming a great chef by insinuating himself into a famous restaurant kitchen, where—quel surprise!—rats are unwelcome. We always end up here, talking about books and movies. I do what I can to nudge the conversation back to food. Isn’t it my duty as an aunt to encourage her epicurean leanings?

I tell her about the ratatouille I love, the one with tomatoes, peppers, onions, and eggplant. “Ugh. Eggplant might be my least favorite vegetable.” Ironic, since two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in her home state of New Jersey. I suspect more of it ends up in the region’s celebrated eggplant parmigiana subs and pizza than in caponata, ratatouille’s Italian sister.

Continue reading " Edible Seasonals - Eggplant " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

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.

Continue reading " Portland Fridge - Lunch Break Nau " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

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.

Posted by Deborah Kane at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

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.

Continue reading " All Ears: An Oregonian harvests wisdom in Iowa " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

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.

Continue reading " Bliss is More: Coconut Milk-Based Ice Cream Bridges the Gap between Dairy and Non-Dairy Fans " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

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.

Continue reading " Organic and Local? Yes, It's Possible! " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

A note from Deborah:
A friend of mine, Lisa Sedlar from New Seasons Market, once told me that 75% of the top 100 U.S. markets are controlled by five grocery companies. Each of these companies has a Director of Produce doing all their buying.

While talking to me, Lisa paused for effect and went on to underscore her point: “That means that five guys (and they are all guys) are deciding where most of the produce in this country comes from!”

That doesn’t seem right! I was reminded of this exchange with Lisa after reading the following article in the last issue of Edible Portland.

Freedom of Choice?
Written by Aimee Witteman
For Summer 2007

IF ASKED TO USE ONE WORD to describe the U.S. food system, my bet is that many Americans would say “Choice.” The aisles and aisles of products in most American supermarkets make our choices as consumers not only appear abundant, compared to many other countries in the world, they seem practically limitless.

But do these supersized supermarkets and scores of new products within their big box walls really represent an expansion of choice in the marketplace?

Let’s pull back the curtain and see what is really going on. I submit that we should not conflate the sheer abundance of products with: a diversity of food companies in the market; our welfare as consumers; or the notion that our food system is on a healthy path. Yes, you may be able to choose from 20 different flavors of canned spaghetti sauce, but consumers’ power to choose what company they can buy from and what supermarket they can shop in, or farmers’ choice of who they can sell to, has shrunken considerably in the last decade.

Understanding this dynamic is essential to addressing many economic, social, and environmental problems facing today’s food system.

In the last several years there has been rapid market consolidation in the food processing, marketing, and retailing sectors. There has been a “merger madness” with firms at each link of the supply chain that runs between farmers and consumers, buying out or being bought out by their competitors.

Continue reading " FREEDOM OF CHOICE? The 2007 Farm Bill may offer real variety for consumers " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by Paul Greenberg
Photo by Janna Nichols
For Summer 2007

IT'S ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO EAT A LOCAL FISH. It feels fresher, more sustainable and, somehow, more “true.” And so, up and down the Pacific Coast, as shoppers’ thoughts turn to warmer weather and lighter fare, they will be seeking out that local fish that feels right. Often, it’s the red-skinned fillets in the seafood counter that draw the eye and make the mouth water. Inevitably, those fillets will be tagged with the label “red snapper.” It's a good name and most consumers will put a couple of pounds of it in their shopping carts without asking any more questions.

But is that red snapper really red snapper? Even more importantly, what is red snapper in the first place? And most important of all, given the dire state of so many of America’s wild fish stocks, should that red snapper be eaten?

The answers, like so many of those that concern the wild ocean, are not straightforward.

First of all, let us talk of names. “Red snapper” was originally used to apply to Lutjanus campechanus, a large, bottom-dwelling animal native to the Gulf of Mexico, not the Pacific Coast. It is often called the “true red snapper” and many chefs insist that you make sure that the snapper you’re getting is campechanus and not some imposter.

But as fisheries conservation problems go, true red snapper is one of the more intractable. Not only is Lutjanus campechanus identified as overfished by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, it is also the inadvertent target of the Gulf shrimp fishery. Because juvenile snapper often mix with shrimp populations, millions of little true red snapper are caught, killed, and dumped overboard by the shrimping industry every year. So all in all, “true” red snapper is not necessarily the “right” red snapper.

Continue reading " Fish Tales: The truth about "snapper" and other finny friends " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Written by David Machado
For Summer 2007

PORTLAND NATIVE JAMES BEARD published the above ode to the noble hamburger in 1972, which was my junior year in high school and the same year that a much-anticipated burger chain from California, called McDonald’s, opened its first location in my hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts. My first taste came years earlier courtesy of my Uncle Tom and his cast iron skillet. A transplanted Southerner and Iwo Jima veteran, Tom would cook me up a thin and gristly after-school version that he served between two slices of fluffy white Bunny bread. I loved it!

Several years later, I would step up in quality when I began to frequent Almacs Diner with Father McCarrick and a carload of altar boys fresh from a Friday night Novena. These burgers were professionally flipped and garnished with hot cheese and griddled onions by tattooed, paperhat-wearing war veterans. They were a divine revelation.

WHAT MAKES A TRULY GREAT HAMBURGER?
It’s a popular and well-worn cliché that Foodie Nation members must seek out and use only the best quality ingredients in their pursuit of producing remarkable food. So let’s start with the beef itself. Chuck is the correct choice in either the ground or whole muscle form. The chuck muscle has a natural fat content of 15-20%. This is the perfect ratio of protein to fat and makes for a flavorful and juicy burger, if handled correctly.

TO GRIND OR NOT TO GRIND?
If you decide to grind your own chuck in a hand grinder or Kitchen Aid attachment, make sure of two things: The equipment should be clean and sanitized before you begin, and the equipment as well as the meat should be extremely well chilled. The meat should be placed in a freezer for about 20 minutes and then cut in one inch wide strips before being placed in the grinder. Grind it twice by starting with a large-diameter plate and finishing with a medium-diameter plate. The resulting mix should be liberally seasoned with salt and black pepper and then gently formed into six-ounce patties.

To help form a consistent patty, use some sort of mold or template. At my restaurant, Lauro Kitchen, we use a small Spanish terra-cotta cazuela that does the job perfectly. Be careful not to overknead the beef. Try to form the patty with just enough force to shape it into a secure form. This step is essential—it promotes even cooking and results in a tender and juicy finished product.

Continue reading " Edible Expert - The Divine Hamburger " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

I ABSOLUTELY ADORE the hamburger at Lauro Kitchen on SE Division. Sometimes when I really can’t stand the thought of cooking for myself, I’ll head to Lauro for the burger and fries. It is one of my all-time favorite meals. We shared Dave Machado’s tips on how to make the perfect burger in the Summer issue of Edible Portland (See "The Divine Hamburger"), but we didn’t have room for his thoughts on fries! Read on for more musings – about fries and childhood adventures and first jobs that all include the classic American meat patty – from Lauro Kitchen’s Dave Machado.

–Deborah Kane

Dave's youth
As a young man, I moved to San Francisco and became a regular at an Italian counter joint called Little Joe’s. Joe’s was in North Beach, and you always had to wait in line for a seat. They served a massive hamburger – at least a half pound of ground beef molded with chopped onions and served on a French roll with melted Provolone cheese. I often washed this down with a glass of California Burgundy. What a perfect combination.

In 1985 I enrolled at the California Culinary Academy and secured a part-time job cooking at the famous Balboa Café. My job? Flipping gourmet burgers and dropping crisp shoestring French fries for San Francisco’s society set. I lasted a few months and then quit after a humbling shift: I cooked over 150 burgers in the hours following a San Francisco 49ers football victory.

My Balboa flameout did not discourage me from becoming a chef nor dampen my love of the hamburger. Why such devotion to the humble hamburger? It might be that the hamburger represents to us, as Americans, one of the most emotionally satisfying gastronomic experiences that we can partake of. The preparation and eating of a well made burger can be a deeply stirring and evocative act.

Burger history
Where did it all start? Common hamburger folklore tells us the hamburger is an offspring of the “chopped steak” favored by German immigrants who came to the U.S. from Hamburg in the early 19th century.

Continue reading " Edible Expert, continued - The divine hamburger meets the perfect fry " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Zoë Bradbury suggested we join her on-line to continue the conversation she began with her article "Organic, local, and everything else: Finding your way through the modern food fray." I have a burning question to get the conversation started….

Our recent issue of Edible Portland featured Coconut Bliss, a non-dairy ice cream produced by a locally owned company in Eugene, Oregon. It is darn delicious, though the coconut milk base and exotic flavors leave little room for local sourcing.

Let's compare Coconut Bliss to Breyers ice cream. I don’t know where Breyers is based; it isn’t clear from their website. I do know Breyers is owned by Unilever, a mammoth food industry giant. But I’m told that many an Oregon strawberry ends up in those pints of Breyers. If true, which scoop makes for the better choice?

Here is Zoë's response:

Your tough question inspired me to do a Google search on Breyers and Coconut Bliss both. An innocent little query about ice cream quickly turned into an hour-long research project! It drove home the point that being an informed food consumer in this day and age really does require 1,000 questions.

This is what I learned about Breyers to help lend some insight to your “which is better” question:

Who: As you said, Breyers is owned by Unilever and is the world’s largest ice cream company.

Where: Corporate headquarters is in Wisconsin, but Breyers has regional plants around the country and world.

How: Breyers uses rBGH milk to make their non-organic ice cream. That’s a genetically engineered hormone injected into dairy cows to make them produce more milk, which is known to cause cancer and is banned in Europe.

Fishiest of all: Breyers is now using a genetically engineered (GE) protein derivative of an eel-like Arctic Ocean fish, known as the Arctic pout fish, to make “creamier” low-fat ice cream varieties. (I’d be pouting, too, if someone were genetically engineering my proteins and putting them in tubs of Rocky Road!).

The protein is a natural anti-freeze that keeps the pout fish’s blood from freezing in sub-zero water, and as it so happens, the GE version (made by altering the genetic structure of a baker’s yeast) works to reduce ice crystal formation in ice cream. (Read more here.) The jokes about “van-eel-a” ice cream abound, as you can imagine…

Continue reading " What's the better choice? Coconut milk from afar versus hormones and genetic engineering " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 )

Written by Zoë Bradbury
Illustration by Tae Won Yu
For Summer 2007

AWHILE BACK, I DID SOMETHING in the produce section of the grocery store that made my boyfriend, Danny, stare down into the cart in shock. I stared, too, a little confused by the impulse that had just landed a tropical bromeliad flown thousands of miles from Maui into our cart. It was squatting resolutely next to the tub of yogurt.

“A pineapple?” I looked up sheepishly and he reached to feel my forehead in mock concern.

“Organic, at least?” I shook my head and bit my lower lip.

“You feel okay?”

A few feet later, he returned the volley, snatching a bunch of ripe bananas and settling them next to my pineapple. My eyebrows went up.

“For my smoothies,” he quipped, and rolled ahead to the checkout. I began to wonder if the mini-quiche samples we’d tried by the front door had been laced with something.

This was a few months ago in early spring, and as we unpacked the groceries at home, an odd countertop disjuncture developed with the pineapple and bananas camped out next to our late-season basket of winter squash. In a kitchen that typically housed seasonal produce from nearby farms, it was as if we were suddenly harboring illegal aliens—secretly exciting, and at the same time I hoped fervently that our neighbors wouldn’t drop by that day.

That afternoon, I harvested a bucketful of pea shoots out of the cover crop I’d seeded last fall. From the yard, I could see the spiky silhouette of my pineapple sitting inside on the counter, and as I turned back to the tangle of delicate pea tendrils, I had an uncanny sense that I was witnessing two opposite extremes in the big, complicated continuum that is our modern food supply—homegrown spring pea shoots at one end and a foreign industrial pineapple at the other.

What lies between those two archetypical foods is an entire landscape of food choices that can be bewildering even to the most literate eaters amongst us. For the consumer seeking “natural,” “healthy,” or “sustainable” options, organic used to be the obvious and easy answer. Now “local” has become the latest buzzword, with a myriad of other labels, stories, values, and standards proliferating in the grocery aisle that can turn a quick trip to buy eggs into a nerve-wracking test of your personal belief system.

Continue reading " Organic, local, and everything else: Finding your way through the modern food fray " »

Posted by Deborah Kane at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

There is nothing better than a sweet, simple plate of Strawberry Shortcake on a warm June day. Robert Reynolds of Chefs Studio shows how to prepare a quick Strawberry Shortcake in this delightful video. Click here to find the video and his unique recipe:

The Return of the Berries

Today, we plan to buy lots and lots of strawberries at opening day of the Portland Farmers' Market at Ecotrust - right outside our front door!

Still have leftover berries? Harriet Fasenfest gives us preserving tips and recipes in this issue of Edible Portland. Check out two recipes here:

Edible Preservation

Posted by Laura Ford at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

How dare we publish "The Best Peach Pie in Oregon" with no Best Peach Pie recipe? Not to worry. Click the links below to find two great peach pie recipes. One from Ellen Jackson, whose love of pie was inherited from her grandmother. And one from Chef Joseph Carey, whose recipe borrows from his Louisiana roots. Bookmark these recipes and enjoy them come August - when peaches hit their peak!

Perfect Peach Pie
Louisiana-style Peach Pie with Candied Pecans

Posted by Laura Ford at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Written by Harriet Fasenfest
For Summer 2007

WALKING THROUGH THE BACKYARD IN SPRING fills me with giddy anticipation. Flowering strawberries stand tall and promise full glory in June. Every year I harvest the crop and every year it produces ever more strawberries. What started out as a sensible patch has grown into something a little less so, but then a certain degree of overzealousness is to blame.

In the early years of my marriage, I would do anything to please my stepson and strawberries seemed the way—they are his favorite fruit. Imagining an appreciative, curly-haired boy walking barefoot through patches of glistening strawberries, I planted large patches of three different varieties: Shuksans, Bentons, and Tristars. Though I still love my patches, I would advise any erstwhile backyard farmer of the following:

• A few strawberry plants go a long way; be patient lest you like to divide and conquer.
• Kids grow up. That curly-haired child is now a teenager with limited interest in the garden (evidently, weeding seems to diminish the joy for some.)
• Freezing excess berries for winter jam making is not only a solution, but a darn good one.

I recently made jam using frozen berries and it tasted just as wonderful as making it with fresh berries. And, as an added plus, it filled the kitchen with warmth and lovely fragrances. It’s a great help should you be short of time, but follow the guide for proper freezing methods. And whether using frozen or fresh berries, there are some jam making tips you should know to understand the science of jam and jelly making.

Continue reading " Edible Preservation - Strawberries Eternal " »

Posted by Laura Ford at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

For those of you searching for ways to use up those flats of berries you just bought on a whim at the farmers' market, not to worry. Harriet Fasenfest writes about jam making in this issue of Edible Portland. Here are a few extra recipes that she submitted but didn't make it to print. And remember, you can always glean great preserving tips and techniques from Harriet's website: portlandpreserve.com.

STRAWBERRY-CURRANT JAM

STRAWBERRY JAM WITH FROZEN BERRIES AND HOMEMADE PECTIN

Posted by Deborah Kane at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

A FEW LUCKY SOULS in the Ecotrust office got to see advanced copies yesterday. Several of them were perplexed. “Peaches aren’t in season!” they told us, like we were totally off our rocker to have peaches on the cover of the summer issue. (a) Hooray that they even know when peaches are and are not in season!! Hats off to them for paying attention. (b) Our summer issue covers June, July AND August, when peaches are, in fact, in season.

So there.

The cover gives you something to look forward to.

Posted by Deborah Kane at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )