Walking down Alberta St, NE I passed Random Coffee House, the red wooden exterior immediately said “home” to me, maybe since I too was clad in red and black.
Picking where to have coffee in Portland can be stressful: So many good choices and you never know if there’s somewhere just a little better a block away. After seeing the scene at Tin Shed, which had shades of 18th St. hipsteresque, I turned back and headed to randomness.
There it was, a shelf full of large freshly baked muffins in the most diverse flavors I’d ever seen:
-Raspberry coconut bran (my choice – yum);
-bacon cornmeal cheddar made with Beeler Bacon and Tillamook cheddar (how local can you get);
-cinnamon rhubarb which my muffin-pusher declared her favorite; a -gluten free lemon poppyseed which I’d go back for if I weren’t having lunch in an hour
-and blueberry for the traditionalist
Serving Stumptown coffee, free wifi, and lots of light this could become a serious hangout if I didn’t have so many other cafes to experience!
Just 5 1/2 hours north of San Francisco and a few hours south of Portland is the Rogue Valley, a growing area for wines and an area full of amazing artisan food makers – including one of the most awarded cheese makers in the U.S. and a chocolatier voted one of America’s top 10.
A Cheesy Day at Rogue Creamery
It’s worth a visit to Rogue Creamery to taste a variety of cheeses that may be hard to find elsewhere. We reveled in the 2010 World Cheese Awards Silver Medal winning Caveman Blue – sublimely creamy, just blue enough – and the very impudent tongue stinging Brutal Blue, a unique blue cheese experience as far as American blues are concerned.
The new-ish Rogue Creamery tasting room is awesome with artisan food from all over as well as local, including a local bread made with Rogue cheddar cheese as well as lots of beers and Gary West beef jerky.
For road trips, the bags of cheese curds – pesto, jalapeno, chipotle – are a perfect finger food.
If you’re summer roadtripping to / from Portland, Central Point is an easy pit stop off I5!
Lillie Belle Farms Chocolate Factory and Shop
It’s a happy coincidence that the companies whose cheese and chocolate combines into the Smokey Blue chocolate truffle share a parking lot.
You can stumble from Rogue Creamery over to Lillie Belle, optionally stopping at the wine tasting room in the back of the lot, cheese company whose Smoky Blue marries with a Lillie Belle chocolate truffle where you can see some of the most creatively flavored and pretty chocolates being made as well ataste and buy.
Many of the berries for fillings are grown in Jeff’s garden nearby. But perhaps more importantly Jeff explained the liquor flavors use only top shelf spirits, at the insistence of one of the chocolate makers. (Don Julio tequila and Maker’s Mark, for example)
Unfortunately we arrived too late (in life) for their absinthe marshmallow smores made with home made anise seed graham crackers – a concoction that needs a repeat performance.
Do cherry cordials remind you of a drugstore? Not these. Check out how fresh bing cherries are soaked and soaked and soaked in a thick mixture of rum infused with vanilla beans. (Warning watching this may be intoxicating.)
I gallantly tasted a freshly dipped cherry cordial: a thick chocolate shell encases the very pure bing cherry and rum filling. For the full story, see how they coat the molds with chocolate, then shake it out to make the shell…let it harden, fill it up, and then cap off the bottom. Each cordial (and any of their wrapped candy) is individually wrapped by hand, rock music blaring in the background all the while. Artisans with attitude!
You’ll find lots of samples – spicy, bacony, nutty. All like nothing you’ve ever had…and I’ve been around the chocolate block.
While most peanut butter filled chocolates are creamy, or maybe have a slight bit of soft crunch like peanut butter brittle (mmmm), Chuck fills these butterfly shaped wonders “with our smooth, creamy homemade peanut praliné (a combination of caramelized peanuts and chocolate).”
Now imagine miniscule pieces of hard caramel, ground up, adding the slighest bit of sugary crunch to your peanut butter confection.
Which led me to David Lebovitz’s “killer” caramelized peanut / almond recipe. It is his go-to recipe and surely will be mine, especially in my experiments with grinding the nuts into butter and pairing with chocolate.
On a side note related to using sea salt, I’ve become addicted to the Maine Sea Salt’s Applewood Smoked Sea Salt, with an aroma that’s as if you’re right there in the smokehouse – nothing subtle about it…just smoky flavor that nearly equals a wood burning fireplace. Note large salt chunks in photo. (Dear Bay Area readers I have some on hand if you want a sample!)
Smoky Salty Sugarless Nuts
If smoked sea salt and nuts if what you’re going for rather than sweetness – I’ve got the ultimate cheap and fast trick. Lazier than lazy: I mix a little of the sea salt in a bowl with water then toss the nuts in it before toasting in a toaster or dry roasting in a pan. Amazing with pecans.
The decadent and messier version would be to toss the nuts with oil before coating with salt. If you do this, the salt’s going to be grainier so saltier than the diluted version.
(Photos will definitely come, along with future experiments.)
As I thought about what to write regarding an amazing Spring party, organized by Happy Girl Kitchen, at the oldest barn in Oakland California…well there’s almost too much to write. Yet I will.
The party was full of good ideas, good people, and amazing food. I had to compost my plate to cut myself off, being full of Happy Girl dry farmed tomato juice bloody marys.
1) Delivering produce from farms to a central pickup
My understanding is it’s not a CSA but more a “you want to buy a crate of organic cucumbers? Pick it up in Oakland.” Saves time, gas, and it’s farm fresh!
2) Giving classes in your craft
Chocolatiers and bakers do it. Happy Girl does it really well – teaching canning and preserving classes from jams to liquors. It’s worth taking a class if only to be at this amazing house and to meet the Happy Girl team. (Seems like a perfect Mother’s Day gift!)
3) Making food using products you previously made from recipes
One woman had made orange conserve which she used in a granola recipe and in an olive oil cake with orange conserve glaze. She’d made the conserve in a Happy Girl class then shared the recipes at the party.
PS: Buckwheat Cheese Straws, with a recipe from 101 Cookbooks, were chewy, flavorful, and dense unlike cheese straws made with white flour. If I’d seen this recipe in “print” I might have passed it by but I made sure to ask where it was from and am delighted to see Heidi Swanson’s original looks exactly like what I experience.
4) Getting drinks donated from local beverage makers
Taylor’s Tonics is a local olde tyme tonic / elixir maker whose array of interesting flavors quenced and delighted. (PS – They are going to make it big!)
5) Inviting people who will swoon over and tell everyone about your party, initiatives, and company.
6) Asking for donations to offset party costs
A big pickle jar requested party donations. Why not? With good music, good people, good food – the jar quickly filled up with people wanting repeat performances.
7) Live music
(I have to upload the video) but a great fiddlin’ trio added even more old time flavor and energy. Live music is easier to arrange than we might think for a garden party.
Were you there? What else was great about this fest?
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Follow my discoveries of artisan food makers and farmers...reporting on tantalizing events and tasty trends.
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