Portland Fermentation Festival 2010 Revisited

Another year and another briny, stinky, lovely and amazing Portland Fermentation Festival! Thanks to everyone who came out and thanks to all of you who made it happen -- especially those who generously sampled their fermented food and drink. You're amazing.

Thanks also to awesome coverage in Willamette Week, Laura McCandlish's KBOO Food Show and thanks to all the other publications that helped get the word out! Thank you so much Ecotrust for putting up with us (we're stinky) for yet another year. We couldn't have done it without you.

For now, I'm just going to post some photos from last night. I'll probably follow that up soon enough with even more words, thoughts and photos. (It was an amazing event so it deserves a lot of show and tell.) For now a fermenty feast for your eyes...

Even though we had Mr. President to contend with the crowd was thick.

Peg Butler with her sour pickles and home captured sourdough starter rye bread.

PFF co-organizer extraordinaire George Winborn demo'ing kraut.

PFF co-organizer (also extraordinaire) David Barber and Bonesaw Wilson serving up crunchy delicious Picklopolis pickles.

A lot of people's favorite of the night was Kate Patterson's awesome fermented salmon.

Linda Swanson-Davies' puckery delicious fruit kefir.

orrie and Anna Gordon's fermented goat cheese, goat butter and then some.

Biwa chef-owner Gabe Rosen and sous chef Ed Ross sampling kimchi.

Anne Berblinger's spicy delicious fermented chiles.

Dan MacDonald serving up his sour radishes and whole cabbage kraut. His radishes were kick ass.

A close-up because Dan's ferments were picture perfect.

I guess I just like butts.

The lovely Tressa Yelig of Salt, Fire & Time shared rocking pumpkin yogurt, green tea kombucha and cortido.

Tressa's super yummy cortido.

Heidi Nestler chopping up garlic for kraut.

Krista Arias and Jeanne sampling cortido.

I'm sad that when I was photographing I didn't catch Chris Musser of Lost Arts Kitchen. These were her supplies for homemade fermented chock-full-of-clove ketchup, mayonnaise and more.

This year we even had merch!

Portland Fermentation Festival 2010

Last year's first annual Portland Fermentation Festival in late August at Ecotrust was a screaming success. More than 500 people turned out to sample everything from natto, kefir and potato cheese to hard cider, kimchi and kombucha.

A big draw last year was the Mr. Sandorkraut himself -- special guest Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved. I had interviewed Sandor several months prior for the May 2010 issue of The Sun and it was an honor to have him visit Portland for the inaugural PFF.

Although Sandor won't be at this year's PFF we hope you will. Event details can be found below but all you really need to know if you love fermented food and drink is when and where. We're honored that Ecotrust has agreed to host the funky fest again this year because let me tell you that a room full of fresh ferments is, how do I put it, well, a little ripe. We're very grateful that they're willing to put up with the stink.

So if you don't love the smell of dill and garlic slapped sour pickles, tart and punchy kombucha, sweet and sour fruit kimchi, or mild and tart kefir don't come. There will be more to sample for the rest of us. That's what the event is all about -- sampling ferments, talking with those who made them and skill sharing.

If you didn't get a chance to sign up as a presenter don't worry. You can still bring your ferments to share. You won't have a table and set-up but that's ok. The more the merrier. So, please, come out for the wild, funky, stinky and delicious Portland Fermentation Festival 2010!

Second Annual Portland Fermentation Festival When: Wed., October 20th 6-8pm Where: Ecotrust, 721 NW 9th Ave., #200, Portland, OR What: Sample and learn about all sorts of food and drink ferments Cost: $5 at the door

Webinars on Specialty Foods Business

Even though this isn't local I think a lot of you will appreciate this opportunity organized by University of Vermont's Extension office. Last month a press release landed in my inbox on their extension webinar series on specialty food businesses.

I'm a slacker because I meant to post this before the first in the series but I didn't get around to it. You can still watch that one and all past webinars here.

Here's the dish straight from the source:

Mark your calendars! The eXtension Entrepreneurship webinar series is back for the fourth season. All webinars will air monthly on the second Thursday at 2:00pm (ET); 1:00pm (CT); 12:00pm (MT); 11:00am (PT).

On Thursday, September 9, 2010 we open with a three-month series on specialty food businesses. September’s topic will be Starting Right in Specialty Foods. Join Brian Norder, Director of the Vermont Food Venture Center for an informative session on what it takes to start and grow a specialty food business. Brian has over a decade of experience assisting entrepreneurs in all phases of food-related business development.

On October 14 the webinar will focus on the importance of branding and will feature specialty food business owners Judith Moore of the Charleston Cookie Company and Robin Rhea, Slather Sauce.

The November 11 webinar will conclude this series with a look at Culinary Tourism, an emerging niche that combines agriculture, specialty food and tourism. This presentation will feature a panel of Extension specialists working on Culinary Tourism initiatives.

No pre-registration is required and there is no fee to participate. About 10 minutes prior to the start time simply go the Adobe Connect Pro meeting room. You will be presented with a login screen that has an "Enter as Guest" option. Enter your full name then click "Enter Room" to join the conference. You will be able to hear the audio directly from your computer’s speakers.

University of Vermont Extension www.uvm.edu

Wordstock 2010

This year's sixth annual Wordstock was a blast. There are some Portland events that I do my best to never miss in Portland -- Portland International Film Festival, Portland Fermentation Festival, PDX Adult Soapbox Derby to name a few -- and Wordstock is definitely one.

I heard a lot of grumbling about the grey, rainy weekend this Saturday and Sunday but none of it was from Wordstock folks because we were inside all weekend talking, reading, attending readings, learning about, checking out and buying books. A weekend very well spent.

Highlights for me included tabling with the Hawthorne Books crew, attending two fantastic panels: The Future of Reading and a Karen Karbo and Kim Dower panel on book promotion, seeing old friends from here, here and then some and making new ones.

I was also very honored to be invited to speak on a food and craft panel with Charles Heying moderated by Kelly Clarke -- arts and culture editor for Willamette Week on Saturday.

I was nervous with the stage, lights, microphones but got over it and really enjoyed talking with Charles and Kelly about Portland's awesome and diverse artisan goods culture. I talked a lot about PDX food and drink of course and Charles talked about that and then some. We traded books and I can't wait to read his.

Here are some photos from a full-on Wordstock weekend. Let me know what your experience was if you were there...

Our seats were not on fire but the microphones didn't work at first.

I guess I look very serious when I'm thinking.

Hanging with the Hawthorne Books crew -- Kate Sage and Adam O'Connor Rodriguez.

Hawthorne Books' Rhonda Hughes after her Wordstock panel.

Baby bookworm.

Wordstock www.wordstockfestival.com

Wordstock, Portland Fermentation Festival And More...

I'm back! The past two weeks were absolutely perfect. Sailing the San Juan Islands in late September turned out to be a brilliant idea. We thought that we'd have some weather. We didn't. We thought that we'd have some big learning curves. We survived. We thought we'd come back happy but exhausted. We did.

It turns out that sailing a 19-foot O'Day around the San Juan Islands was the adventure and then some we'd been looking for. I'll post more about the trip soon but for now just know that it was great and we're back. All the merrier because of it.

For now, I want to highlight some upcoming events that I'll be attending that you might want to check out too...

WORDSTOCK Thursday, Oct. 7th through Sunday, Oct. 10th @ Oregon Convention Center and other locations

I took this photo at last year's Wordstock. Drop everything for this year's this weekend.

There are so many things to do and people to see at this year's Wordstock, this Thursday through Sunday. Check out the schedule if you haven't already.

I'll be doing a book event with Charles Heying and the lovely Kelly Clarke of Willamette Week at 1pm Saturday over at the McMenamins stage at the Oregon Convention Center. The rest of the weekend I'll be either tabling with the Hawthorne Books crew or checking out different readings and events.

PORTLAND FERMENTATION FESTIVAL Wednesday, Oct. 20th, 6-8pm @ Ecotrust

Come get stinky with us!

Last year's first annual Portland Fermentation Festival was a huge success and this year's is shaping up to be even stinkier. In a good way. Check out the website for more information and get yourself signed up for this incredible Portland DIY event that brought out more than 500 people last year.

FORTUNE TATTOO GRAND OPENING PARTY Friday, Oct. 22nd 8pm-1am @ Fortune Tattoo

Come eat, drink and be merry with Ms. Mikki and Tyler Adams here!

ATTENTION: My ex-boyfriend, Tyler Adams, no longer co-owns Fortune Tattoo. Visit his North Portland shop -- Grizzly Tattoo -- which opened June, 2011! For more info. visit www.grizzlytattoo.com, 503.265.8146. 

My boyfriend opened Fortune Tattoo with his business partner Ms. Mikki this spring and finally on Friday, Oct. 22nd (after the first night of the Portland Tattoo Expo) they're having their grand opening party with all sorts of great local donated food and drink thanks to Toro Bravo, Bluehour, MacTarnahans Brewing Company, Domaine Serene Winery and many others. There will also be live music thanks to East Side Speed Machine and friends. Come check it out and celebrate!

Dan Akroyd Wants You to Drink Vodka...

His vodka to be exact -- Crystal Head Vodka. And as strange as this might sound, he'll be in the 'Couv today from 3-5pm signing bottles of his strange looking hooch at Stateline Liquor Store.

I've scheduled this blog post because, as you might already know, I'm under sail in the San Juan Islands. I'm thinking that you, however, might just want to go shake hands with Dan Akroyd this afternoon.

I haven't tried the stuff, although samples are on the way. The press release for this vodka was one of the strangest ones I've gotten in awhile. Check part of it out below.

If I was in town I'd be heading to Vancouver this afternoon. I don't think I could resist meeting Akroyd and asking him about his vodka, which according to the press release is, "triple crystal filtered through Herkimer diamonds." It's your supernatural world Mr. Akroyd, I'm just in it.

Here's some more info. straight from Akroyd's PR peeps about his vodka:The Ghostbusters and Blues Brothers star himself, Dan Aykroyd, will be in town on Monday, September 27th to promote his popular vodka, Crystal Head Vodka. He will visit Stateline Liquor Store at 1109 North Jantzen Drive from 3–5pm for a bottle signing.

Aykroyd, known for his work on Saturday Night Live and in films including Trading Places, Ghostbusters and Driving Miss Daisy, has been involved with producing and distributing wine and spirits for seven years. He recently created Crystal Head Vodka as a result of his fascination with the supernatural.

The super-premium vodka is made with water from a deep aquifer in Newfoundland, Canada, blended with selected grains for a creamy and slightly sweet finish, and triple crystal filtered through Herkimer diamonds, which, according to New Age belief systems, embody positive energy and goodwill. Crystal Head Vodka is available wherever fine wine and spirits are sold.

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Feast your eyes on this weirdness...

DIY Galley Cooking On A Small Sailboat

When you read this we'll be en route and setting sail for Lopez Island, our first stop, on this boat above on our San Juan Islands sailing trip. The past several weeks have been a confluence pretty much of two things -- book events and boat readying.

Early this summer my boyfriend and I decided that at the end of summer/beginning of fall we'd finally take our 19-foot, 1970s O'Day sailboat out for a real spin and, of course, take a much needed vacation.

We bought the boat with our neighbors last summer and have been up and down the Columbia where it's been moored ever since. This will be the first big journey -- ten days sailing around the San Juan Islands.

There's been a lot of preparation including getting it out of the water, scrubbing it, decking it out with more down-below storage, purchasing a dinghy, barbecue, lights and then some. We're in the last leg though now since we leave on the first day of autumn -- September 23rd.

To be honest, my boyfriend has done the bulk of the work but my job is important. I'm stocking and setting up the galley. Well, we don't actually have a galley so it's more setting up the makeshift galley.

I looked at some books at Powell's on galley cooking and got some good ideas but didn't feel like any were worth buying. Really, I think the most important thing to galley cooking is planning ahead, just like camp cooking. Learning to work with your small cooking space, stocking up with minimal and long lasting ingredients and some full-flavor tricks up your sleeve are all important. Having a food dehydrator doesn't hurt.

We'll be stopping at a lot of markets and farmers markets (my friend Rachel's mom is the editor of the publication that I just linked to here) during the trip to stock the larder and we'll also be checking out the local cuisine. Here's some of what I've cooked up for the trip...

I turned these Brooks plums from our front yard tree...

Into dehydrated plums.

And I turned these backyard Gravensteins...

Into dehydrated apples.

I made a big batch of spicy beef jerky.

Stocking up...

The Accidental Affineur: Humboldt Fog Cheese

Most people leave cheese aging to the cheesemakers but not our friend Lorna's dad Dave. He was given a free 16 ounce wheel Humboldt Fog cheese from Cypress Grove Chevre in Arcata (it was overly salted and they wouldn't sell it) and after returning home, a few miles away, he promptly put it in his kegarator. He also promptly forgot about it. For a year and a half.

The cheese stayed in its original wrapper in his kegarator for 18 months before he laid eyes and hands on it again. Accidental affineur Dave wasn't so into the now hard-as-a-rock goat cheese but his daughter Lorna and her husband Steve were.

If you haven't tried Humboldt Fog get your hands on some. It's soft ripened goat cheese with a ribbon of ash through the center that's sold when it's soft with fresh chevre in the center and ooey, gooey closer to the surface.

After a year-and-a-half the Humboldt Fog became hard, dry and more salty. Think of an older manchego but with goat milk. Steve and Lorna ate it grated it over food and thinly sliced on its own for a couple weeks before heading up from Arcata to visit us.

Since stopping through Portland and setting off for their year-and-a-half Land Rover journey around North, Central and South America Steve and Lorna left the home-aged cheese with us. Lucky us. Truly.

I don't know how brave you are about food and I don't know how strict you are with expiration dates but we're pretty happy that Dave forgot about the cheese. Many great foods are the result of kitchen mishaps and although I won't go so far as to say this is better than Humboldt Fog as intended I will say it's pretty dang delicious.

The other night we grated it over spicy lamb and bulgar red sauce spaghetti and last weekend we grated it over eggs. This week I'm thinking more omelettes with grated cheese and chives. In other words, we're digging it.

Two years in the making...

Cypress Grove Chevre www.cypressgrovechevre.com 707.825.1100 1330 Q Street Arcata, California

Syncline Winery and the Gorge

My mom and her husband visited Portland from Cincinnati (where I grew up) mid-August and I've been meaning to post about their visit for awhile since a lot of what we did centered around food and drink as it usually does. We had some great meals out at Toro Bravo, Ping and Acadia to name a few and we also had a really good barbecue at home on their last night in town.

The trek we took this time while they visited was out to the Gorge. On our way out in the morning we stocked up on all sorts of great picnic supplies and then we pretty much beelined for Maryhill Museum of Art. I wanted to finally visit what Raymond Carver referred to, in so many words, as the strangest museum he ever went to.

By the time we got there mid-day -- it takes about two hours from Portland -- we were hungry and headed straight to the picnic grounds. It was a great picnic spot next to the sculpture garden and behind the museum with our peacock friend. My favorite foods from the picnic were the spicy paprika loaf from Edelweiss Sausage & Delicatessen on Grand Central baguette and the tiny pickled anchovies from New Seasons Market.

On the way home (the museum was great and I fully agree with Carver) we only had time for one winery stop so we made it Syncline Winery and I'm so happy that we did. We tasted several of their delicious reds and whites and came home with two whites -- their Viognier and Roussanne. I'll be back to Maryhill and to Syncline. Check both out the next time you're in the area.

We tasted the whites and the reds. Tastings are $5, deducted if you buy wine...

Turn here for Syncline Winery in the Gorge...

The tasting room is in the production house with the fermenting tanks and the barrels.

Syncline Winery, if you can't tell already, is beautiful.

Maryhill Museum of Art www.maryhillmuseum.org 509.773.3733 Goldendale, Washington

Syncline Winery www.synclinewine.com 509.365.4361 Lyle, Washington

Salsa Days Are Here Again

This summer has been unique for many reasons -- one being it's September and this weekend I made salsa for the first time this season. I'm usually cooking up all sorts of fresh and spicy salsas and hot sauces from the garden all summer long. I can't exactly make salsa out of zucchini though (the only thing that's truly rocking the garden at the moment) so I had to break down last weekend and buy supplies. Luckily, I had great selection at the Beaverton Farmers Market -- namely Sosa Farms.

I bought from other vendors too because I needed everything for big batches of red and green salsa. I made both back to back and we've been happily eating it all ever since.

I almost always make my salsa the same way. I throw my veg. in a thick pan, set the oven to broil, and put the pan directly under the broiler until everything is nicely blackened. Then I put all of that, including the juices, into the food processor with salt, lime, lots of cilantro and fresh chiles and that's that. This time I added a lot more of the blackened skins and I'll do that again -- added to the smoky flavor.

Next up, need to get my hands on some habaneros and moritas ...

I left some of the charred skin of the onions on for flavor.

Maybe this is why green and red are two of my favorite colors.