Biked Beans: Courier Coffee

I recently met up with Courier Coffee owner Joel Domreis and employee Alex Geddes at their small backyard roastery and talked coffee, and of course drank coffee, for a couple hours. Alex had roasted some Bolivian Cenaproc Cooperative coffee that morning and he brewed us a pot in one of their new Hario vacuum pots. This was my first experience with siphon brewed/vacuum pot brewed coffee, even though I've heard a lot about it, and it was delicious and really fun to watch. The standout for me was that there was no silty residue in the cup and the coffee was hyper full of flavor. I don't think I'd ever own a vacuum pot though. I have a hard enough time not breaking the glass in my French press. These are works of art.

Most of my interviews for the book so far have been about an hour long but the really good ones often seem to spill over. There were a lot of beans to be spilled in this case...

Where 10,000 pounds of Courier Coffee is roasted annually

28 year old Domreis started his bike delivered Courier Coffee three and a half years ago and for a year and a half he ran the show. Now he has one full-time (Alex Geddes) and one part-time (Matt Sperry) employee to roast beans with and peddle around town with. A typical day for these guys starts at 4am and ends after the sun has set and all the coffee for the next day has been roasted. Deliveries are made from as far southeast as Southeast 92nd and Johnson Creek Blvd. to as far north as St. Johns. And even though Courier only has about 30 accounts (coffeeshops, restaurants, bars and offices) they deliver daily to many of them in order to ensure super fresh, super tasty bean. Some of their most valued clients include Half & Half, Little Red Bike Cafe, Sel Gris, Olea, Two Tarts Bakery, Eastmoreland Market & Kitchen and Dove Vivi.

Domreis talked me through their roasting process, showed me their burlap sack stacked coffee storage area and discussed the merits of slow growth in particular to his business. Understandable since every new account adds many miles literally and figuratively to their work week. That's not the only reason Domreis is reticent. Courier has a certain ethic and culture that clients need to jive with. If you don't want to discuss things like first and second crack, or if you want all your coffee ground and delivered a couple times a month Courier doesn't want you.

Joel Domreis of Courier Coffee hopes to open a Courier Coffeeshop one day soon

Map of Portland's coffeeshops and Courier's Hario vacuum pots

You can buy bags of Courier Coffee beans at Half & Half, Little Red Bike Cafe, Eastmoreland Market & Kitchen and Two Tarts. You can also have Courier Coffee delivered to your door step or pick it up at the roastery -- just call ahead first.

Courier Coffee SE 40th and Hawthorne -- call for directions www.couriercoffeeroasters.com Joel Domreis -- 503.545.6444

Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest by Tami Parr

Last weekend I finally got my copy of Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest by Tami Parr of the long-running popular blog Pacific Northwest Cheese Project. Now I have some questions for you:

1. Do you ever have more types of cheese in your refrigerator than can be juggled? 2. Do you wonder where and how said cheese is made? 3. When you hear the name Wallace do you think -- "Cheese, Gromit!" 4. Do you wish that more restaurants would stop serving the ubiquitous berry cobbler and chocolate cake every night of the week and start serving cheese boards for dessert?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions I think you're going to like this book. I'm tossing mine in the back of the car whenever I head out for a road trip because chances are good that one of the 17 Oregon, 31 Washington, 3 Idaho and 20 British Columbia cheesemakers profiled in the book will be en route.

Tami spent much of last year traveling, visiting and interviewing 70-plus Pacific Northwest cheesemakers so each entry is studded with photos of cheeses being mixed, molded and dried; goats, sheep and cows that make the cheese possible; curd vats, cheese in molds and more. She writes about many of our region's most interesting and delicious cheeses and includes farm and creamery visiting hours if you want to stop by for a curd or two.

There's a cheese primer at the end of the book with info. on everything from storing and pairing cheese, to where to buy artisan cheese in the Pacific Northwest, as well as tasty cheese-centric recipes from restaurants such as Park Kitchen and Boat Street Cafe.

Those responsible for this destruction should get a copy of Tami Parr's book

I've already learned a lot from the book. Last night I read that Ancient Heritage Dairy owner Kathy Obringer worked at Mecklenburg Gardens in Cincinnati way back when. I'm from Cincinnati and Mecklenburg's has long been one of my favorite restaurants there. Spaetzle, schnitzel, ham and sauerkraut balls and big steins and glasses of all kinds of amazing German beers on draft. I visit almost every time I'm home. Next time I'm near Scio I'll stop by Ancient Heritage. Or maybe I'll say "hello" at the PSU Portland Farmers Market first... Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest By Tami Parr The Countryman Press, spring 2009 196 pages

Tea: Foxfire Teas, Tea Chai Te and DIY Home Herbal Tea

I think that this year is the first that I'll actually have enough herbs to dry for herbal tea. The old garden adage -- the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps and and the third it leaps -- is ringing true in our yard. It's the beginning of our fourth year in North Portland and plants that never before seemed to take a shine are going off -- namely the blueberries, raspberries, fruit trees and lots and lots of herbs.

I think we'll have enough lemon balm, mint, sage, thyme, valerian and other herbs to keep us sipping plenty of home grown and blended herbal tea for months. I recently read that the best way to dry herbs for tea is to take the entire plant or sections of it, leaves still attached, and tie it upside down so that the oil and flavor gravitates to the leaves.

Tea time with Quinn and Katherine Losselyong owners of Foxfire Teas

I didn't learn this from Quinn and Katherine Losselyong of Portland's Foxfire Teas but I did learn a lot when I met up with them recently at their shop. Here are a few things that they told me while we shared a pot of Golden Yunan tea.

1. They like to use steeped Darjeeling and various green teas as a substitute for broth in risotto. 2. They met on a plane heading to Portland and were engaged three months later. 3. Their business is often referred to as Firefox Teas because people confuse them with the browser. 4. You can find Foxfire Teas in cafes as far away as Raleigh, North Carolina and Santa Barbara. 5. Marco Shaw of the much missed Portland restaurant Fife did some amazing things with their lapsang souchong (a smoked black tea) and duck.

At first sniff Foxfire's smoky lapsang souchong doesn't even smell like tea. Close your eyes, inhale, and you might think you're sitting around a campfire.

Some of the best kombucha I've ever had -- Quinn and Katherine's home fermented pu-erh kombucha

After hanging out at Foxfire I met up with Tami Parr of Pacific Northwest Cheese Project at Tea Chai Te in Northwest. Not great planning on my part -- I think I filled up on my tea intake for the week in one day. Tami's book -- Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest -- is hot off the presses and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. We talked about the book, about her blog and about random things like our favorite Indian restaurant in Vancouver B.C. and why we both want to keep chickens.

Tami had an iced black tea (any of their teas can be iced) and I had a cup of the ginger pu-erh. If you haven't been Tea Chai Te is a really nice space nestled in the second floor of a beautiful old house. When we arrived at 3:30pm it was quiet but by 4:30/5pm it was almost full and there was a long line for steeped goods.

Please don't buy the terra cotta looking large clay teapot that's cut in half on the bottom right of the photo. I'm saving up.

Tea Chai Te does tea right

Foxfire Teas 2505 SE 11th Ave. #105 503.288.6869 www.foxfireteas.com

Tea Chai Te 734 NW 23rd Ave. -- upstairs 503.228.0900 www.teachaite.com

Pacific Northwest Cheese Project www.pnwcheese.typepad.com

Tami Parr's spring 2009 title Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest

Mom Day: Sahagún Chocolate Shop

Elizabeth Montes was a decorative painter of dolls and puppets in NYC before she caravaned across country nearly a decade ago and gave herself up to chocolate. She'd made her own truffles and small chocolates for friends and family for years before she left New York for a new home in Portland with her then boyfriend now husband Rodney Muirhead of Podnah's Pit Barbecue.

In 2001 Montes began handcrafting chocolates out of her apartment kitchen and selling them at the PSU Farmers Market for several years before opening Sahagún Chocolate Shop on Northwest 16th Avenue in 2005.

I got to spend a morning with Montes at her shop last week as she planned and readied for Mother's Day and I'm here to tell you that there are all kinds of amazing things you can do for your mom or any special mom in your life at Sahagún this year.

Have you tried the Luscious Caramels?? They're salty, buttery and dark chocolate sweet all at once. And I mean "all at once" literally -- there's no nibbling or pulling apart with these. You pop the whole thing in your mouth and bite down so that the caramelized sugar, which isn't thickened by corn syrup, washes over every last one of your taste buds in a rush of roasty salty sweet.

There's a reason why this plate is almost empty and it's only 10am

Would she like a single origin Sahagún hot chocolate?

There's always a lot to choose from. Ask about the Sundro

Sahagún's pretty boxes -- fill them up with chocolates, truffles and barks

And just so you know Sahagún does online sales -- you can place your order here.

Sahagún Chocolate Shop 10 NW 16th Ave. 503.274.7065 www.sahagunchocolates.com

Wild and Free: Another Wild Food Adventure with John Kallas, Dandelion Wine and more

In the past few weeks I've done a lot of foraging. First I gathered dandelion petals with my friend and her daughter for this year's batch of dandelion wine. If you want 3 gallons of dandelion wine you need 3 gallons of dandelion petals. That's what we wanted but we settled with one gallon -- which took the better part of an afternoon to collect. I wrote about last year's dandelion wine for Imbibe.

Yes, those scissors are a little big but she insisted. At least it's not a sweat shop.

Another wild food event this season was an informal gathering of all sorts of Portlanders -- connected via food, work, friends -- that I won't share too much about since a story is currently in the works. I will show you a photo of a bit of the resulting food -- 3 jars of delicious collective kraut. In our collective batches of vegetable ferments, amongst MANY ingredients, were backyard bull thistle, dandelion greens and black radish...

There are things in these jars that I'd never heard of until this spring

This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend another one of John Kallas' Wild Food Adventures. Kallas is one of my favorite Portland food people because he often goes where no one else does in search of delicious wild foods growing all around us -- urban, suburban and off the beaten path. This Sunday we went to Oxbow Park out in the Sandy River Gorge not far from Troutdale.

Eat me -- stinging nettles

We were lucky that we didn't get rained or hailed on as we hiked around sampling all sorts of wild spring greens including sheep sorrel, waterleaf, salmonberry stems (the inside of new growth stems tastes sweeter and juicier when peeled than fresh asparagus), miner's lettuce, stinging nettles and much more. Well, we didn't try the nettle but John did. He has a trick for plucking them with his bare hands and eating them on the spot without a sting....

Our fearless leader John Kallas -- stinging nettle in hand

I haven't been foraging for morels yet this spring even though one popped up in our backyard a few days ago! I hear it's a later season for them this year so maybe there's still hope. Happy foraging everyone.

Wild Food Adventures John Kallas www.wildfoodadventures.com 503.775.3828 mail@wildfoodadventures.com ***Most workshops still have openings but they fill up fast***

Home Orchard Society Arboretum

Sometimes rain -- even at the end of a long sopping stretch of days -- is magical. In this case it made for some very ethereal photos of Home Orchard Society Arboretum manager Karen Tillou. Yesterday I took a trip south to Clackamas Community College home of the HOS Arboretum and met with Tillou. We snuck in and out of the tool shed (rain and more rain) for a couple hours talking about fruit trees, shrubs and vines, the history of HOS and why I should use an ale or a cotes de blanc yeast the next time I make hard cider. It was a great day and worth the trek. The HOS Arboretum is always in need of volunteers so if you or someone you know has time to thin, weed, prune or harvest for a few hours in upcoming months the 1.6 acre arboretum is a great place to lend a hand.

Tools of the trade

Home Orchard Society Arboretum Open year round 9am-3pm Tuesdays and Saturdays www.homeorchardsociety.org Contact: Karen Tillou 503.338.8479 Find directions here

Sour beer here: Belmont Station and Biercafe

Although I never stepped inside the original Belmont Station bottle shop I've heard plenty of stories about the legendary tiny location next to the Horse Brass on Southeast Belmont. A friend of a friend used to work there when the bottle list was usually around 450-strong but there was only space for one bottle of each beer to represent on the floor. If you wanted more an employee would disappear for awhile and find what you wanted in the back.

The new location -- just a few blocks north on Southeast Stark -- generally has about 1,200 types of beer available and a lot are available first grab from the beer coolers and aisles of all things ale. In addition to beer Belmont sells hard cider, mead, sake, wine, soda and more. If you like hard cider you can find just about every local variety here.

I met up with owner Carl Singmaster (he owns Belmont Station and Biercafe with Horse Brass owner and beer god Don Younger) last week. After talking to him about his musical past -- he owned seven record shops in the Carolinas for nearly two decades -- and his long seated love of beer my friend showed up and the three of us did what you're supposed to do at Belmont Station's Biercafe -- we drank.

Carl really likes cask-conditioned beer (less harsh, more flavor) so we started with an IPA showdown -- a taste of Alameda Brewhouse's IPA (delicious) and a taste of cask-conditioned Double Mountain IPA (delicious). It was interesting to compare the two and the pluses (longer shelf life...) and minuses (debatably less interesting flavor...) of force-carbonated beer. They were both tasty. Jury's out for me but we weren't exactly comparing apples to apples with two very different, fine IPAs.

The most interesting beer that we tasted without a doubt was the Mouton Rouge -- a sour beer from Cascade Brewery. This was my first ever sour beer so it was quite a shocker. This locally brewed version of a traditional Belgian style sour beer is injected with very particular yeasts to give it a winky full flavor with the lingering aftertaste of in Carl's words Sweet Tarts. It's true.

This is the kind of beer you'll find at Belmont Station proper and the adjoining Biercafe. They've got all the regular hoppy beers that Portlanders love (right now the top seller in shop is Sierra Nevada's Torpedo) in addition to heaps of other interesting quality craft local and international beers that you can't find anywhere else in town.

When one of the 17 kegs blows at the Biercafe it's always replaced with something different

Belmont Station and Biercafe 4500 SE Stark St. 503.232.8538 www.belmont-station.com

Everything is Connected: Portland cheese, bread, pastries and chocolate

Portland isn't so big and once you've anchored yourself in the food community it's hard to buy a loaf of bread without some sort of connection -- oh they're using thatlocal co-op's flour or that's the amazing bread that I used to always wait in line for at the farmers market... Well, the web of connections has been growing to Charlotte's Web proportions lately as I research and write my book which is why I feel ok lumping such a diverse group of people and businesses together in this post.

A couple weeks ago I met with Piper Davis one of the owners of Grand Central Baking. We talked about the history of her family's business, which began in Seattle, while sharing a buttery strawberry raspberry danish. After getting all the details of GC's timeline and current operations I took a tour of the Fremont bakery and snapped some photos...

Grand Central's Easter cookies

Last week I got to meet one of Piper's back-in-the-day employees -- Julie Richardson, now owner of Hillsdale's Baker & Spice Bakery. Julie and Piper are close friends and in many ways they've mirrored each other the past couple years, mostly in terms of writerly pursuits. More on that later, but let's just say that there are a lot of buns in the oven in terms of Portland food books by Portland food folks soon to be published.

Baker and Spice's Katie Buns sheeted and ready to spread with cinnamon and raisins

Julie told me about how she started her first bakery in Ketchum, Idaho at the wee age of 23. After moving to Portland in the late 90s she managed to build up a successful farmers market bakery business. She opened the brick and mortar Baker & Spice Bakery four years ago.

Baker and Spice's bread is baked by Richardson's husband Matt Kappler.

I also recently visited with David Briggs of Xocolatl de David. He's been crafting chocolates for more than three years in Portland and his current commercial kitchen is in the back of his friend's hopping Southeast Portland sandwich shop Meat Cheese Bread. When I visited with David there I got to try his caramelized cacao bean honey brittle, all of the base chocolates, one of his tasty fleur de sel chocolate caramels and a soon to hit the shelf chocolate bar. I met with David in the morning and with one of his friends -- Steve Jones of Steve's Cheese -- in the afternoon. David and Steve worked together at Park Kitchen for six months while David was sous chef and Steve was a server. Now David makes regular deliveries of his chocolates to Steve's shop.

David Briggs has been making his chocolates full time since leaving Park Kitchen a little more than a month ago.

That afternoon Steve and I sat in the back room of Steve's Cheese and tried some tasty Zingerman's poundcake samples while talking cheese. In addition to nearly 200 cheeses in the case at any given time Steve's Cheese also stocks cured meats and all sorts of non-perishable treats such as arbequina olive oil, harissa, sardines and pickled peppers. Oh and he'll let you borrow his Raclette machine as long as you buy at least a quarter wheel of the semi-firm, nicely meltable cheese.

Steve's Cheese case -- always cut and wrapped to order

These are the kinds of wrapped gifts I want from Steve's Cheese reach-in

Anyway the friendship of two premier Portland female bakers and a local cheese vendor and chocolatier has proved yet again that everything (in Portland) is connected, which makes my work all the more enjoyable.

Grand Central Baking Company -- www.grancentralbakery.com Baker & Spice Bakery -- www.bakerandspicebakery.com Xocolatl de David -- www.xocolatldedavid.com Steve's Cheese -- www.stevescheese.biz

Pix Patisserie off the market!

I was very sad when I heard the news late last summer that Cheryl Wakerhauser was selling Pix Patisserie. The original Southeast Pix is home to one of my favorite Portland food events Dim Sum Yum Yum and the North Portland Pix is Portland's answer to French cafe seating. When the weather is decent the wicker chairs near the roll-up garage door face out toward the street and sun and the small tables get topped with wine, espresso, Belgian beer, macarons, ganache covered cakelets, housemade chocolates and more. If it's my table there's most likely a hazelnut and chocolatey Royale, a few different macarons, and a dessert wine or Lambic on it all getting equal attention.

Long live the Pix -- North Portland location

I met up with Cheryl yesterday at the North Portland Pix right after she'd tipped back some raw Chelsea Gems down the street at EaT Oyster Bar. While we talked she sipped on a fleur de sel rimmed margarita and soaked up the sunshine. Everything seemed right with the world -- especially when she told me Pix was off the market. The gist: after meeting with interested parties she doesn't have faith that anyone would be kind enough to her fabulous employees or loving enough and true to her devoted customers.

Lately she's figured out ways to spend more time working and experimenting with ingredients that she's passionate about, which is hard when you manage 40 employees at two rocking dessert-and-beyond houses and host more regular events than just about any other place in town: Annual Bastille Day Block Party, Culinary Trivia Night, Concoct Yo' Own Dessert, Monday Movie Night...

I feel lucky that I moved to Portland in 2002, the year that the original Southeast Pix opened, especially since we rented a house just a hop and skip from it for three years. When we moved to North Portland and bought a house in January 2006 the North Portland Pix had just opened its doors. If I thought that another move might garner yet another Pix I'd consider it. Pix is one of my favorite Portland places which is why I'm so happy that it's sure to shine on. No one can fill Cheryl Wakerhauser's shoes. Long live the Pix!

No, you are not dreaming

Pix Patisserie Southeast 3402 SE Division St. 503.232.4407

Pix Patisserie North 3901 N Williams Ave. 503.282.6539 www.pixpatisserie.com

Homemade Hard Cider Pt. 2

A quick recap: We rented a mill from F.H. Steinbart Co. in Southeast early November and supplemented our meager backyard apple supply with some heritage reds from Woodland, Washington. After a day of rinsing, halving, milling and pressing we filtered the cider, added some champagne yeast and then funneled it into a 3-gallon carboy. We let the carboy sit in the utility room to for a few months and do its thing.

That's where we left off.

Come January we racked off the cider which means we siphoned it into a clean carboy. Well, in our case we siphoned the cider into a food-grade bucket, cleaned the carboy and then siphoned it back in. Before cleaning the carboy we poured the yeasty sediment in the bottom into a stainless bowl and then wondered what to do with it.

According to the great Sandorkraut -- Sandor Ellix Katz author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Micorwaved:

When you rack and bottle wines, you are left with yeasty sediment at the bottom of the fermenting vessel. This sediment is not pretty, so generally it is not bottled or served. But all the deceased yeast is full of B vitamins. If you’ve ever used nutritional yeast, it is essentially the same thing as this.

Wine dregs make a rich and flavorful soup base. Try following a recipe for French onion soup, substituting wine dregs for one-quarter of the liquid. Be sure to boil it for awhile to cook off the alcohol. Inhale the fumes for an intense sensory experience!

Deceased yeast

Over at the food website Culinate I also got some advice from a site member to marinate some fish in the cider lees. I meant to do that but the only thing I did with the lees was add a few tablespoons to some braised greens. Then it started to make the kitchen ripe so I tossed it in the compost. Next time...

Racking gave us a chance to give the cider a taste (the only other time we'd tried it was at press) and it was already pretty good -- fresh, slightly sour, subtly sweet. Much better than we thought it would be considering we didn't use very complex apples. Typically hard cider includes some tannic, sour and not-so-good-to-eat-fresh apples.

So we racked off the cider and set it back in utility room to do its thing. The cider was fairly clear at this point, as opposed to how hazy it was when we first pressed it, and getting more and more golden by the week as tiny particulates continued to sink to the bottom of the carboy.

Come mid-February we added a final jump of sugar, corn sugar to be exact, for natural carbonation. Prior to this the yeast had been feeding solely on natural sugars -- no sugar added. We did this as we bottled -- adding a half teaspoon to each bottle -- while siphoning the cider and then capping the bottles with an old capper I found at an estate sale.

We kept the twenty-some bottles in a corner of the kitchen until a beer and mead brewing friend told us that would kill off the remaining yeast needing to carbonate it. He recommended a warmer spot for the final ferment so we moved the bottles upstairs next to a small wall-mounted heater and waited.

A month later at our first barbecue of semi-spring we cracked open a few bottles of the cider with our friend. It was crisp, light and effervescent, slightly sweet, and the essence of autumn apple. In other words, it was delicious. We were happy that we hadn't botched the mild carbonation by keeping the cider in our cold kitchen for a few days after bottling. In the end we had less than 30 bottles from about 80 pounds of home-pressed apples.

Will we do it again? Yes. This year? Maybe. I'm making dandelion wine for the second time this weekend but hard cider requires a lot more time, energy and equipment. It was worth it but I'm thinking it may be more biennial for us.

Almost ready and waiting

Hard Cider Part One...