Zenger Farms seed packets with all Burgerville kids' meals through May!

There’s a great promo. going on at all Burgerville locations throughout Oregon and Washington that you should know about if you have kids in your life. Local, sustainable fast food chain Burgerville is offering seed packets in its kids’ meals. They’ve partnered up with urban farm education center Zenger Farm and this spring through May — until supplies last — when you purchase a Burgerville kids’ meal you get a packet of seeds, an illustrated plant stake and a Zenger Farm activity bag. So go get some burgers and fries and plant some seeds!

Straight from the press release…

“It all starts with a seed. When kids plant, tend and harvest vegetables, they are more inclined to eat them. We see it over and over again at Zenger Farm,” said Jill Kuehler, Executive Director of Zenger Farm. “We are proud to partner with Burgerville to encourage families to plant a garden this spring and cook with what they grow.”

About Zenger Farm

Founded in 1999, Zenger Farm is a working urban farm that models, promotes and educates about sustainable food systems, environmental stewardship, community development and access to good food for all. It now consists of 9.7 acres of farmland and wetland in outer southeast Portland. Learn more at zengerfarm.org or call (503) 282-4245.

About Burgerville

Burgerville is a restaurant company with 38 locations throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington, serving guests fresh, great tasting food from the mission “serve with love.” Burgerville’s values extend beyond locally grown berries, all-natural Country Natural Beef, Walla Walla onions and cage-free eggs. At Burgerville, the commitment to fresh, local and sustainable values is about helping people and communities thrive. The innovative company, established in 1961, is redefining industry norms by providing affordable health care for hourly employees and their dependents, purchasing wind power equal to their electricity use, converting used trans-fat free cooking oil to biodiesel and implementing comprehensive resource stewardship and recycling. For more information about Burgerville, please visit burgerville.com

The meanest pie I ever laid eyes on...

This post isn’t about Portland — it’s about Portland people enjoying food and drink somewhere beyond Portland. Earlier in the summer my boyfriend and I and our friends Loly and Faulkner went to our friends’ Jude and Colleen’s wedding in Prescott, Arizona. It was such a great long weekend and wedding and some good eats were had by all. Consider this a post about wider eats — a photographic tale from Portland to Prescott…

First respite of the trip on the way from the airport in Phoenix to Prescott.

Deep fried hot dog. Need I say more?

Old school club with cottage cheese.

I love where we stayed. Look them up...

We drank at fine saloons such as this on Whiskey Row...

And this...The Raven Cafe. Our favorite Prescott place.

Cheers Prescott! Hope to see you again real soon.

Our favorite spots in Prescott, Arizona…

The Motor Lodge
www.themotorlodge.com

The Raven Cafe
www.ravencafe.com

All work and no play makes Liz a...freak. Actually it makes me hightail it to Oaks Park with my good friends.

The past several weeks have been a little nutty but the best kind of nutty — extra special hazelnut butter nutty — because of the book. I’ve done so many book events now some of them are blending into one another in my memory. I think because of that that it’s high time I post about them.

Oh, and another good reason for this post is that there’s a great event taking place tomorrow night — Tuesday, August 10th — that I want to tell you about. Friends of Family Farmers has found a new monthly InFARMation space at Holocene. FOFF was hosting this monthly PDX agricultural event at Roots Brewing Co. but they closed shop (so sad) and now FOFF is now hosting its InFARMations every second Tuesday of the month at Holocene. Read more about InFARMation here.

I’ll be at InFARMation tomorrow night — Tuesday, August 10th — sitting at the back selling my book and talking with folks from 6:30pm-8:30pm. This month’s InFARMation is all about the Eater’s Bill of Rights. InFARMations are free and run from 5:30-8:30pm (talk/presentations from 6:30-8pm) with food and drink for purchase. Should be great. Stop by if you can.

Since July 1st here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to with book events that I haven’t already written about…

This year’s Mississippi Ave. Street Fair was a great time…

I got to hang out all day with this fine fellow -- Paul Gerald -- at the Mississippi Ave. St. Fair. Paul is author of a bunch of books that I love and his booth is Stumptown Scribes.

Paul's hiking and camping books along with my food/drink book are a good mix. He's working on the second edition of Breakfast in Bridgetown at the moment.

They expected 30,000-plus at Miss. Ave. St. Fair -- think they got it.

Overlook Village Celebration was fun too…

Stumping it with Stumptown Scribes and Paul Gerald at the Overlook Village Celebration.

The Powell’s book event with Nick Zukin, Sarah Hart, Steve Jones and John Cleary was a dream come true…

Doesn't get better than a book event at Powell's...

(L-R) John Cleary, Sarah Hart, Me, Steve Jones, Nick Zukin at Powell's.

Full house at Powell's City of Books Food Lover's Guide to Portland book event.

Chocolate covered cacao bean from...Cacao!

There was a lot of competition on Saturday, July 10th when we decided to have a mid-day book event for Food Lover’s Guide to Portland at In Good Taste in the Pearl — everything from the Mississippi Ave. Street Fair to Bastille Day at Jamison Square Park to the NW 23rd Ave. Street Fair. Not to mention sunshine and summer which we hadn’t had a lot of until mid-July.

Although we still had relatively high hopes we weren’t surprised when only 30 or so folks dropped by for the event. We had a great time despite. Aubrey Lindley and Jesse Manis were there sampling out delicious chocolates from Cacao; Morgan Grundstein-Helvey brought all sorts of vegan sweet and savory pastries from Dovetail Bakery; Athena Pappas of Boedecker Cellars poured tastes of her Stewart Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; and Michele Knaus of Friends of Family Farmers gave out tastes of her homemade ice milk (made from Kookoolan Farms’ milk) blended with mascarpone topped with a strawberry honey balsamic glaze. (Michele also teaches fresh cheese classes at In Good Taste.)

So, basically if you weren’t among those 30 folks you sorely missed out. I’m sorry but it’s true. It was fun, it was delicious and so nice to hear all of these Portland food folks talk about their very special businesses and organizations — ones that I happen to love immensely. Here’s what you missed…

Cacao sampled this incredible hazelnut cream and whole hazelnut chocolate bar. I've thought about it several times since. I want one NOW!

Dovetail Bakery's awesome sweets and savories...

Morgan Grundstein-Helvey of Dovetail Bakery sampling her pastries.

Athena Pappas of Boedecker Cellar sampling her delicious Stewart pinot noir and chardonnay.

Michele Knaus of Friends of Family Farmers with her perfect for a hot summer day homemade ice milk with strawberry balsamic glaze.

Where it all went down.

Thank you Barbara and all the staff at In Good Taste who made this event happen!

In Good Taste
231 NW 11th Ave.
503.248.2015
www.ingoodtastestore.com
Mon.-Sat. 10am-6pm; Sun. 11am-6pm

I need to take a little hiatus from the blog this week for personal reasons and just want to let you know that I’ll be back next week. Don’t you worry about me — I’ll be back before you know it.

Eat, drink and be hairy!