Green papaya and lemongrass at Uwajimaya

The only time I ever went to Disney World was with my grandma and her friend when I was in elementary school. I rode some rides and they were ok but I wasn’t all that impressed. I grew up in Cincinnati and was somewhat of an amusement park connoisseur. I had a season’s pass to King’s Island for years and one of my first jobs was at the Ohio River hugging Coney Island. Yes, that’s the right name. Anyway, I wasn’t wide eyed over the rides at Disney World due to my longest-wooden-rollercoaster background. What I was impressed with, however, was Epcot. Why? Food. Food from around the world. Particularly Chinese and Japanese food.

I had never seen a lot of the teas, nori, rice crackers, wasabi peas and more that lined the shelves at Epcot’s Chinese and Japanese “markets” and I used my allowance to buy as much of it as I could. I remember my grandma and her friend waiting under a tree outside as I sniffed jasmine tea from beautiful tin canisters and checked out lychee, plum and rice candies for a very long time. When I finally emerged arms filled mostly with spicy, salty treats I was worried that they’d be upset with me for taking so long but they weren’t at all. They were just happy to be seated in the shade and free of me for a bit so they could talk.

All of that brings me — in a strange consumer culture way — to my deep seated love of Asian markets and of course Uwajimaya. I don’t get to this Asian mega-market often because it’s in Beaverton but when I do I always spend a lot of time walking the amazingly diverse aisles and winking at the fish case. There are always beautiful specimens to wink at at this 10-plus year old market that got its start in Seattle.

A while back there was talk of an Uwajimaya opening in Portland’s Chinatown. I hadn’t heard anything about it for months but I’m very happy to say that I heard last week through the tattoo grapevine — my boyfriend is a tattoist here — that it’s happening. Chinatown Uwajimaya is on!

Here are some of the reasons why I love Uwajimaya. This is a bit of what you’ll find at the Beaverton location…

Exotic fruits...

A large cooler of housemade sashimi...

Live geoduck, oysters and clams...

Live Dungeness crab...

Asian beer...

Lots of sake...

Uwajimaya Beaverton
10500 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway
503.643.4512
www.uwajimaya.com

Make mine wine -- Black Tartarian cherry wine

This year was a big year for cherries in the Pacific Northwest. Our friend planted two backyard cherry trees a few years ago — a Rainier and a Black Tartarian — and both had full boughs loaded with big, tasty fruit this June. The birds got some, as usual, but by the time the cherries were ripe and ready they’d had their fill and it was time to pick. So pick we did. The Black Tartarians ripened first.

We had ideas for lots of different cherry preparations and one that we followed through on was cherry wine. I used Sandor Ellix Katz’s basic fruit wine recipe from his book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. If you want to check out an abridged version of the recipe head over here for a fruit wine story I wrote earlier this summer for Portland’s alt. weekly Willamette Week.

Cherry wine is really easy, like most country wines, and the hardest part is having the patience to wait the nine-plus months till it’s ready to drink.

We picked three gallons of Black Tartarian cherries for five gallons of wine and then we rinsed and sorted them into two large food grade buckets. We covered them with boiling water and let them steep, buckets covered with towels, overnight.

Black Tartarian cherries steeping

The next day, when the buckets had completely cooled, we added a packet of champagne yeast. For the next few days we stirred the wine regularly — I’d say six or seven times a day. Once the bubbling had slowed a bit we made a big vat of simple syrup and added that to the buckets.

The wine bubbled and fermented a lot with that for several days. Again, at this stage we stirred the buckets regularly. After a couple weeks once the fermentation had slowed and the bubbling had settled down we filtered the wine.

Bonnie milking cherry udders

And then we funneled it into a 5-gallon carboy. Next we took the fermented cherries, covered them with water, and mashed them by hand to create enough juice to fill up the remaining space of the 5-gallon carboy. For the record, mashing cherries by hand feels great — especially when the mash is cool and it’s a hot day.

Sitting pretty -- homemade cherry wine

I tested the sugar content today and it’s good to go — I don’t need to add any more. Now it’s the waiting game. In two months I’ll rack the wine — siphon it into a clean carboy — but until then it’ll sit pretty in a corner of the kitchen. I’ll keep you posted on its gurgling.

Homemade Cherry Wine Pt. 2

If you’re still thirsty you can read about my dandelion wine here and here.

Read about my dandelion wine here.

Ready about my hard cider here.

Himalayan salt block mortars, bowls and more and a store filled with salt

Mark and Jennifer Turner Bitterman opened North Portland’s The Meadow in the summer of 2006 as a floral shop with a small section of specialty salts in the corner that they’d acquired during years of travel. The North Mississippi shop is now home to more than 90 specialty salts, a wall of hard-to-find wines, ciders, bitters and vermouths, more than 300 types of chocolate bars, edible flowers such as acacia, apple blossoms, hibiscus and more.

It’s the kind of place where you crouch down to see what’s on a low shelf and discover what Mark Bitterman deems, “A game changing soy sauce.” Then you turn 90 degrees and discover a tin of the couple’s favorite anchovies.

Ever heard of black truffle salt or sugar maple salt? They have these and other hard to find culinary salts at The Meadow.

The Meadow regularly hosts classes in the evenings on everything from Himalayan salt block cooking, to an introduction to artisan salt or salted caramels. These classes usually cost $15-$20 and fill up fast. Go to their website for more information and to check out their growing online selection of 600-plus salt products and more.

Flowers and chocolates...

The staff is always super informative if you have questions otherwise you can just take your time checking out the food, drink and flowers. My favorite thing to do is check out the vials of specialty smoked, sea, flake, gray and more salts from around the world that line the walls.

Owner Mark Bitterman sampling wine and salt with customers

The Meadow
3731 North Mississippi Ave.
503.288.4633
888.388.4633
www.atthemeadow.com