eG Foodblog: Genkinaonna (2011) - Carts, Cakes, and Coffee in and arou

[Genkinaonna]

Hello from the Portland, Oregon 'burbs, my fellow eGulleteers!

I'm super excited to share my week with you!

First a little bio:

I'm a mother of three little people, Aria (5), Mina (3), and Gio (10 months). My husband and I relocated to Portland from outside of Milwaukee, WI, in 2002 after the snow plows knocked over our mailbox one too many times ...I highly recommend a corporate relocation package if you can swing it. Anyways, we had a couple of options, but when we came out to see Portland, we fell in love. It's really a beautiful city, lots of green space, with an amazing food culture. I went to culinary school and got my certificate in Patisserie and Baking in 2004, although before and after culinary school I actually worked at a preschool. I bake quite a bit in my spare time, and I got into the habit of baking birthday treats for the other teachers and staff at the center I worked at. At the end of April, I decided to leave my job at the preschool (by then I was Center Director) to start a home-based baking business. I'm still working through the challenges that starting your own (legitimate) business entails, but in the meantime, I make custom cakes and cupcakes for birthdays and casual get-togethers. I'd love to hear any of your experiences with getting into the food business! It's a little challenging to bake with the offspring underfoot, but I love staying home with them.

I've always loved to cook and bake, my parents were so-so cooks, and I started cooking the family meals at about age 10. I learned most of what I know from a combination of reading cookbooks, experimenting in the kitchen, and watching cooking shows on PBS, and later, Food Network (back when it wasn't all Next Food Network Stars wandering around the country, marveling at giant pizzas) so I'm still developing my "style." I basically started with a clean slate, no major food traditions to uphold, although my Grandma was an amazing baker. I do have some of her recipes as well.

I've got quite a bit planned for this week, but I'm completely open to suggestions if you have things you'd like to see around the city.

Let's get this food party started!

-Heather (Genkinaonna)

Edited May 22, 2011 by Genkinaonna (log)

[heidih]

Thanks for taking the time to show us your food world Heather. That is a pretty full slate you have!

As always it is interesting to see a blogger's kitchen set up and perhaps some of their favorite cooking accessories.

Bake away

[Darienne]

Is that your copy of My Sweet Mexico and have you been making items from the cookbook? And what is your impression of the recipes?

And the origins of your avatar name?

[prasantrin]

I hope a trip to Annie's Donuts is on the list! When I tried them 10+ years ago, I thought they were the best apple fritters I'd ever had! They may be tied with Dimo's in Ann Arbor now, but I'd have to try them again to make sure.

[Genkinaonna]

As for the origins of my avatar name, it's one I use as a screen name a lot...it means (sort of) "happy energetic girl" although I'd say it's less accurate now that I have three kids bouncing around!

[Genkinaonna]

Is Annie's donuts in Portland? Because I'm always down for a new donut experience! I was planning on going to a place right by my house with amazing donuts since I think Voodoo's been overexposed...although it is tasty...

[Genkinaonna]

Heidi- You'll get pics of the kitchen later today...it's amazing how showing your cabinets to the world can light a fire under your butt to get organized!

Darienne-I haven't tried any of the recipes in My Sweet Mexico yet...any recommendations on where to start?

Edited May 22, 2011 by Genkinaonna (log)

[janeer]

I'd love to hear about your grandma's amazing baking and what you think you learned from her/her specialties.

[Genkinaonna]

So our Sunday morning ritual is Dim Sum at Jin Wah. It started when i was pregnant with my third child and had horrible morning sickness. The only things that didn't make me really nauseated were shrimp noodles and rice balls. It became a routine with us and now that Gio's older, he eats it too. The staff know us, and they are super indulgent with the kids, to the point of spoon feeding them fried rice.

Here's one cart:

And another:

We got hargow, soup dumplings, shrimp noodles, shrimp on sugarcane, potstickers,edamame, siumai, and pineapple fried rice.

Aria's a big fan of the rice balls:

And for dessert:

Egg tarts and custard buns. As per usual, we waddled out after totally stuffing ourselves...

Edited May 22, 2011 by Genkinaonna (log)

[prasantrin]

Yelp has Annie's Donut's address as

3449 NE 72nd Ave

Portland, OR 97253

I just remember my cousin and I bought a dozen apple fritters, and we ate 4 of them on the way back to Beaverton. They were very good.

My family members don't bother much with dim sum in PDX anymore. Too spoiled from living in Canada. I will suggest Jin Wah to them. What's a rice ball? Doesn't look familiar. Is it just like onigiri?

[Dejah]

Genkinaonna: A great start to your blog - dim sum!

Will have to check out Jin Wah if we go thru' Portland this summer.

[Genkinaonna]

Prasantrin-I may have to check that donut place out if I'm over that way. Rice balls are what i call the shrimp balls covered in steamed rice, they probably have a chinese name too.

[Genkinaonna]

We just hit a street with some interesting food and a cookbook store...will post pics when I get back home.

[Genkinaonna]

Has anyone here worked with a pork coppa roast before? I got one because it looked tasty, I'm thinking braising, or maybe a ragu? Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Genkinaonna]

So one of the more well known landmarks in P-town (as all the cool kids refer to it) is Powell's City of Books, which is a ginormous bookstore downtown. Powell's also has several smaller stores throughout the city specialising in specific types of books, like technical books, and, my favorite, cookbooks. That store was the one I visited today. I try to only go in this particular store with my husband, since that forces me to show some self restraint...today I found out that taking an antsy 5 year-old and a recalcitrant 3 year-old serves the same function. Reminding them to stop messing with the books lest they be Craigslisted took about fifty percent of my focus. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure my husband didn't put them up to it...anyways, I didn't end up buying anything. Here are some pics of the store:

Various kitchen stuff:

Three big aisles of cookbooks:

The aforementioned non-obedient children touching the books:

All I can say is I'm so glad this store is a pretty long trek from my house, or they would have all my money!

[kayb]

Have ALWAYS wanted to go to Powell's. Now, if I ever get to Portland, I'll know some more places to go! Looking forward to the visit into your world.

[Genkinaonna]

Alrighty, then. Children are in bed, now I can share the rest of my day. After Dim Sum, we went across the street to:

For some deee-licious bubble tea. For those of you not familiar with bubble tea, it's a drink, either tea- or fruit-flavored, with large tapioca pearls, and sometimes agar-based jellies in the bottom. You drink the drink, chew the bubbles, it's like a drink and snack in one! The kids and I love it, my husband thinks it's disgusting. There's no accounting for taste. This particular store has a really large menu. They relocated to this strip mall about 4 years ago, and made their menu a lot more accessible to American tastes. At the prior location, everything was based on a really strong tea, and they had a lot more typically Asian-style desserts, like things with sweet green and red beans, etc. Now the drinks are more fruity, you can get them fruit based with no tea at all, blended, with one of three different kinds of tea, hot, or cold. Lots of options. Here's the interior:

Note my children reminding the person making the tea that they'd both like a PINK straw, thankyouverymuch!

Here's about half of the menu, hot drinks were on the other side:

I opted for the coconut snow bubble tea, which is a creamy, non tea-based coconut flavor. Yum. Although I always feel a little sloshy when I'm done drinking one...

[Genkinaonna]

Generally we go to the Beaverton Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings, since it's huge and right by our house, but we ended up at a birthday party yesterday, so we opted to go to the Hillsdale Farmer's Market today instead. It's much smaller, and we got there late, so there wasn't a ton, but they have a pretty diverse group of vendors and everyone is really nice. Plus there's lots of parking, which is a good thing. It's really cool that all the farmer's markets around take EBT cards, so low-income families have access to great produce as well. The Hillsdale market goes year-round, although it's only every other week during the winter.

Here's a wide view of the market. The Beaverton Market is about 5 aisles of similar length, this one's just two, but there are some of the same vendors, so we saw some familiar faces.

You see a LOT of gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, and other special diet-type baked goods out here. One of the children at the preschool I worked at had a daughter with Celiac disease, and she used to have such a hard time finding things to feed her. It's amazing how much that's improved over the last 5 years or so. I personally don't see the point of vegan baked goods, I'm all about the butter and eggs, but, hey, to each their own, right? Besides, that leaves more napoleons for me! This woman had a whole buncha different specialty baked goods, plus some mixes for semi-DIY baking.

Kookoolan Farms was one of the vendors we don't see at the Beaverton market, they sell poultry, rabbits, and eggs. They also have a bunch of cheesemaking supplies and classes at their store. Unfortunately, said store is about an hour from my house, so I haven't made it out there yet. I got a class schedule, maybe I'll take a cheesemaking class there sometime this summer, if I can convince my dad that he really wants to wrangle my kids all day.

Being a part of the Pacific Northwest, there's no shortage of good coffee. This guy roasts his own beans, and brews cups to order. My husband said the coffee was pretty tasty.

I bought a cannele from this place, just because I like the name "Brownie Farm." What a wonderful farm that would be!

I also bought a tri tip to sous vide later in the week, from these guys:

And that's GRASS fed beef and lamb, you guys! Get your minds out of the gutter!

My last two purchases were some forelle pears, from the lovely ladies at Draper Girls Country Farm, which will be going into some sort of baked good in the next couple of days, and a Kielbasa from Olympic Provisions, which makes much yummy charcuterie, which will be starring in a meal opposite some Modernist Mac and Cheese later in the week.

Our timing was great, it started to pour just as we were getting back in the car.

[Pam R]

The kids and I love it, my husband thinks it's disgusting. There's no accounting for taste.

Your husband obviously has great taste!

A Powell's dedicated to cookbooks? Excellent. Can't wait to see what else you'll be showing us this week!

[Genkinaonna]

I'm posting a little bit out of order, after we went to the farmers market, we headed to Powell's, which I posted earlier. Attached to Powell's is another store I'm inordinately fond of, called Pastaworks.

Doesn't the front just make you want to dive right in and start consuming? Yeah, thought so.

Here's the whole store overview, pardon my lack of photography ability, which you've probably picked up on by now...

And the dry goods aisle:

Lots of interesting grains, lentils, etc...made me want to make some kind of rustic peasanty-type dish. And since our week of 70 degree weather is apparently over, that might work.

Here's about half of the produce. They also had big bags of stinging nettles, which I almost bought, although I have no idea what to do with them. I tend to buy interesting produce and let it languish in the fridge, slowly turning to mush, so I showed some self restraint today. Aren't you proud of me?

I didn't even want to know how much the fiddleheads cost, but they were gorgeous. I then made my way to the meat counter, which had a lovely assortment of local meats, including a whole case of salumie and other charcuterie. Mmmm...meaty! I bought the coppa pork roast I mentioned earlier.

Here's the pastry case, but I didn't buy anything since I plan on baking something myself a little later tonight.

And my favorite, the cheese case. We bought the cheese they were sampling, which was a super creamy, sharp fontina type cheese called Crucolo. I'm thinking that may also play a part in the aforementioned Modernist Mac later in the week. Or maybe I'll just eat it for breakfast!

I also bought some gorgeous foccacia bread, all olive oil-y and delicious. I can never get mine to turn out, so I leave it to the pros.

Pastaworks has another store closer to my house, but it's also by a couple of my favorite restaurants, so I usually get sidetracked and am too full to go in after I eat!

[Genkinaonna]

This just in-I've been informed that I was in error, and my dad was, in fact, an excellent cook. Mom couldn't boil water and fears/loathes seasoning. Just so it's clear. Okay then, back to your regularly scheduled blog.

[Genkinaonna]

On our way to a Korean place we haven't tried before. Will have pics upon return...stand by.

[Snadra]

The kids and I love it, my husband thinks it's disgusting. There's no accounting for taste.

Your husband obviously has great taste!

A Powell's dedicated to cookbooks? Excellent. Can't wait to see what else you'll be showing us this week!

I adore bubble tea, but my husband refers to it as "camel snot tea".

Loving your blog - great market pics!, and I'm now suffering from bookstore jealousy...

Has your change of place has changed your cooking style?

Edited for grammar

Edited May 23, 2011 by Snadra (log)

[Genkinaonna]

I'd say my change of location definitely effected my cooking style, for the better...people are more into food here, and it's impossible not to be inspired by the farmer's market!

Edited May 23, 2011 by Genkinaonna (log)

[Genkinaonna]

So the trip to dinner was a success...we went to Kimsatgot, a korean place specialising in street food. Everything was delicious, and in an area where late night restaurants are few and far between, this one was a real find. We had spicy pork bulgogi:

Udon:

Fried Chicken Wings:

Spicy chicken bulgogi

And Peach Shochu cocktails:

The last of which means I'll be in bed and asleep in 15 min...tomorrow, pics of the kitchen and some baking! Night night all : )