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

[Genkinaonna]

We went to Cup and Saucer Cafe for lunch, and I had a pesto, sundried tomato, and spinach scramble. It was tasty, but not very attractive, so I opted to forgo the picture. Then we went here for dessert:

Ruby Jewel is a local ice cream company that started selling ice cream sandwiches at farmer's markets, which is where we got acquainted with them. Now they're sold in a bunch of the local stores, and you can buy pints of their ice cream at their store on Mississippi. My favorite part of their menu is that you can make custom ice cream sandwiches, you pick your flavor of ice cream and your flavor of cookie. I opted for brown sugar sour cream ice cream and chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Sooo good, even though it was only 50 degrees outside. Here are some of the flavors you can get by the pint:

My other favorite is the honey lavender ice cream sandwich with lemon sugar cookies. It's like summer in frozen treat form!

[prasantrin]

I want to go to the salt store! I don't think that was open the last time I was in Portland (which would have been around 2006 or 2007). Or if it was, I miss everything!

Have you ever been to Sahagun? I love their chocolates. Don't even know if they're still open, though.

PDX also has my absolute favourite farmer's market of the ones I've been to (other than the Naschmarkt in Vienaa). Fantastic produce and great ready-to-eat options, too.

[Genkinaonna]

I just realized I never posted pictures of the cake I made (the polenta and ricotta cake with dried peaches), so here it is:

It was pretty tasty, but I think I'd use a finer grind of cornmeal next time, it was a little crunchy for my taste!

And the coppa roast I brined and SV'd for 24 hours at 160 degrees? Best pork I've ever had. Hands down. I've never had pork so tender, it melted in my mouth. We ate most of it right off the plate I put it on to cool. The little bit that was left went into sandwiches, like this one:

I think it'd also be great with gravy and mashed potatoes, kind of like a pork pot roast. It's definitely going onto my regular rotation.

Off to Clear Creek Distillery! I will post pics on the fly so I don't run up against the end of the blog deadline tonight...

Edited May 28, 2011 by Genkinaonna (log)

[Genkinaonna]

I'm back from my alcohol-related adventures...but before I post pics from today I'll mention one more place I went to yesterday. Right down the street from the Meadow is a place called Mr. Greenbeans, which is a DIY coffee roasting place.

When we went in, we were greeted by the smell of coffee, and the first thing we saw was this:

And a lovely selection of green beans:

They also had cheese making supplies, sourdough starters, and DIY soap making supplies. My husband was coveting the toddy coffee maker that used a giant bucket and 5 lbs of ground coffee at a time but he showed some self restraint and didn't buy it.

[robirdstx]

Thank you for sharing your week with us. I love Portland. I have a sister that lives in the St. John's area and my brother works in the Hood River area. I need to get back to Portland soon, not only to visit with family but to check out some of the places you shared with us. Great blog!

[kayb]

Your blog makes me want to move to Portland just to eat and shop!

[Genkinaonna]

I decided to end the week with a bang and do some wine tasting. Oregon wineries do "open houses" on Memorial Day weekend and the weekend after Thanksgiving, and even the wineries that aren't usually open have special events on those days. There's about 50 wineries within an hour of our house, from little places that only make two or three wines to big production wineries that make 20 different wines. I've been to most of them over the course of the past 5 years or so, and after two or three my palate tends to get pretty exhausted, so we kept it to one winery, one tasting room, and, for a change of pace, we also went to Clear Creek Distillery, which is only open two days out of the year for tours and tastings, although they have a separate tasting room that you can visit year-round.

Clear Creek is where we started, because, hey, everyone needs 94 proof Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir at 11:30 in the morning, right? Right. So here's the space:

It worked out nice that we got there when we did, as we were leaving it started to get really crowded.

One of the people who worked there gave us a really nice tour of the place and explained the procedure for how they make their brandies, whiskies, and eaux de vie, as well as their grappas. It was really interesting, he said that it took 80 lbs of raspberries to make one 350 mL bottle of framboise, and over 40 lbs of pears to make the pear eau de vie. One of their signature items is the Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir, which they make with a neutral spirit, which is distilled on site. The staff of the distillery actually go to the owner's property at the foot of Mt. Hood to pick the new tips off of the Douglas Fir trees that grow there. Those are macerated in the spirit for several months, and then redistilled. After distillation, more of the tips are macerated in the resulting spirit to give it that amazing green color. He said that it's a higher proof (94.7 proof) to preserve the color in the chlorophyll, as adding more water would make it cloudy. The taste was like the essence of Christmas, it tasted like a snowy day in a pine forest...really incredible stuff.

I also tasted the pear eau de vie, which was amazing, although it was really strong, the kind of thing you take a tiny sip of and let peary fumes of deliciousness float through your sinuses. In between that and the Douglas fir, I tasted the brandy, which I wasn't a big fan of by itself, but I think it'd be great in an Old Fashioned, and the Cherry and Cassis Liqueurs, both of which were super amazingly fruity and delicious. I contemplated buying a bottle of the Cassis to have on hand for baking as well as making Kir Royales, but I opted to wait, since it's relatively easy to find in stores here, and because of Oregon Liquor Commission laws, which mean that prices are set and there's no discount for buying on-site. I opted instead to buy a gift (haha like I'm SHARING) box of 50mL bottles of the Kirschwasser, which I use pretty frequently in my baking, the two year-aged apple eau de vie, the brandy, grappa, and the pear eau de vie. They're all the perfect size for baking, and I'm excited to start experimenting with them. Maybe I'll take a trip back to The Meadow and make up some cocktails too!

Here's the whole lineup minus the liqueurs, which I couldn't fit in:

From left to right, pear eau de vie with a pear in the bottle, pear without the fruit in the bottle, 2 year aged apple eau de vie, 8 year aged apple eau de vie, blue plum eau de vie, mirabelle plum eau de vie, kirschwasser, douglas fir eau de vie, brandy, Nebbiolo Grappa, Gewurtztraminer (Marc) Grappa, Sangiovese Grappa, Pinot Gris Grappa, Pinot Noir Grappa, and the Loganberry and Cherry Liqueurs on the end. They were sold out of the Framboise and apparently the whiskey that was released this year sold out in two hours. I also saw a large bucket (presumably of booze-in-process) labelled "blueberry." When I asked about it, he said that it was something that they were working on, but it didn't look like that batch would make it to market. He also said that it took 10 years to get the Douglas Fir where they wanted it before they started bottling. I took pictures of some of the first couple of years' experiments, which they still have:

It was a really interesting place, I'd love to go back again some time.

After Clear Creek, we stopped at August Cellars, where you can taste wines from several different producers, including the wine that August Cellars itself produces, along with (today) Toluca Lane Winery, and Artisanal Wine Cellars. I really liked (and ended up buying) the August Cellars Baco Noir, which is made from a hybrid grape, is pretty low in tannins, very fruity, and super easy to drink. I also got the August Cellars Rose, which is pretty sweet and will (sometime very soon) star in a lovely pink sangria with blueberries, honeydew, and raspberries. Toluca Lane was tasting a Pinot Noir, which I enjoyed, but it was a little heavy on the tannins for me to really love. Artisanal Cellarss had three wines, a Pinot Noir, which was pretty light and fruity, a wonderful peppery dry rose, and a pinot gris, which would go great with seafood. Each wine maker had a separate room to do tastings in, with August Cellars' wines themselves at the front bar. We had a wonderful man guide us through the reds that August produces. That's one of the differences that I've found between tasting in Oregon and tasting in Napa. In Oregon, there's none of the pretension that seems like it goes with wine tasting in Napa. It's just fun, the people are nice, there's usually yummy snackies, and you can go in knowing nothing about wine, and the people there are happy to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with you. Plus it's cheaper to taste here!

Our last stop was Penner Ash, which produces a bunch of different wines, focusing on the Oregon favorite, Pinot Noir. It's a really beautiful location, and I have photographic evidence that it does not, in fact, rain constantly here!

See, blue skies and everything! Granted, it did get cloudy about 10 minutes later, but you take what you can get...

Here's the tasting room:

At that point, we opted to head home so I could make sure I got everything written down by the end of the day...

I've really enjoyed blogging this week and giving you a peek into my culinary world. Next week, I'm going to have salad every night to let my waistline and checkbook recover!

[Genkinaonna]

robirdstx-send me a message when you're in town, we can get together and add to the "Ladies Who Lunch" thread!

kayb-yeah, if I were independently wealthy and had a rabbit's metabolism that's all I'd do!

[blue_dolphin]

Thanks so much for blogging. I'm amazed at the wide variety of wonderful eating (and drinking ) you showed us - in just one week! I've been meaning to plan a trip to Portland and you've given me a great list of places to visit.

Fun, fun!

[Shelby]

Loved every bit of your week! Thank you!

[LindaK]

Thanks for a lovely week of escapism. I especially enjoyed your trip to The Meadows. One of my sisters lives in Portland and gave me some of their finishing salts as a gift some years back. Fantastic stuff. I've always wondered about the store itself--it looks fascinating.

[Genkinaonna]

Thanks everyone! I had so much fun trekking all over the city. It's been a crazy busy week but I'm glad I did it, I discovered some new places that I'll definitely be returning to! It truly makes me appreciate living it such a great city.

[Peter the eater]

Thanks for a great week of left coast adventures. How does the Greenbeans place work? I've tried grinding and brewing my beans immediately after roasting with harsh results.

[Genkinaonna]

Mr. Greenbeans has a variety of roasters for home use, it's kind of a fiddly process from what I understand. The owner recommended starting with a whirly pop popcorn maker although the learning curve is kind of steep, it's a pretty low cost way to buy in. They had countertop roasters for up to $600. I contemplated getting one of the lower-priced ones for my husband for father's day, but then I'd have to let him into my kitchen . I haven't heard anything about the coffee having to rest after you roast it, but I know there's a pretty small window outside of which the coffee will be not too pleasant to drink...

[SobaAddict70]

Wow. Everything looks so good. But I have to tell you that one of my secret (maybe not so secret?) dreams is to have a food truck. We don't really have them here, but i'm fascinated by them.

They're a big business here in NYC.

They're especially popular with the midtown lunch crowd, although sometimes I want to tell people that it's a crime paying $6 for dumplings when you can go to Chinatown and get 5 for less than $2 (as evidenced by the Anita Lo dumpling truck). 2 orders of dumplings + water equals $14.

Edited May 30, 2011 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Captains Table]

The good thing about Pasta Works and the Powells

Cooking and Gardening Store is you walk between the

open door between them!

Have found it best to get a snack at the old Pasta Works

Sandwich Shop prior to buying in the Pasta Works.

The bookstore tends to fuel the buying spree!

The Capt.

[runwestierun]

Thank you, Genk. This was such a good blog. You showed me such an interesting side of PDX. I cannot wait to explore the places you've described. Thank you so much.

[pastameshugana]

One of their signature items is the Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir...The taste was like the essence of Christmas, it tasted like a snowy day in a pine forest...really incredible stuff.

Wow - that sounds amazing - I can imagine some fascinating winter desserts...

Thanks so much for sharing your week - I had a blast!

[Genkinaonna]

Thanks so much everyone! I'd be happy to act as a culinary tour guide if ever anyone comes to pdx...thanks for following along this week!

[Pam R]

Thanks for sharing your week with us, Heather. You have a lovely writing style and it was great fun to follow along with your eating and baking adventure(and you shared food trucks with us too )!