Red, White, and Pork!

Summer is here (finally)! And I feel pressure to celebrate each and every sunny day in a properly worshipful way because summer is the most precious two-month window of time here in the PNW. I now totally understand why it’s not uncommon for families back east to move heaven and earth in order to wipe their schedules clean and go out to a lake for a month. Yep. I totally understand that now.

We’re having a party tomorrow to celebrate a few things: the birth of our great nation, the completion of our kitchen remodel, and pork (pictures, more recipes, and blog posts to follow). We went very traditional with the menu:

• Coleslaw
  (DC is making me a special version without mayo. Woohoo!)
• Cornbread
  (DL is making this; I’m going to skip it due to not being in the mood to make an allergy-free version.)
  
• Barbecued ribs
  (I riff on this recipe by omitting the garlic and using 3/4 c of brandy instead of bourbon; I also add about 2-3 tsp each of salt and ground black pepper at the end.)
  
• Slow-roasted pork with Sally Schneider’s ancho-cocoa-cinnamon rub
• Peach ice cream (made with goat milk)
• Mint juleps

Naturally, rain is forecast for tomorrow.

DL gearing up for the party by practicing with his new smoker.

Listen to Me Blab

Fabulous readers,

I will be doing a reading tonight at the Blackbird Wine Shop in northeast Portland at 7 p.m. as part of the First Wednesday reading series hosted by Oregon Literary Review and the gracious owners of Blackbird. There is also a wine tasting for the very reasonable price of $5. Details here.

Wish me luck!

Eating through a Straw Sucks

I have had the gnarliest bouts of canker sores over the past year. I have no idea what is going on with that, but I can say from experience that canker sores SUCK. And they last forever.

Other things that suck are getting your tonsils removed when you’re no longer a kid, like my friend VK. Already sick of popsicles, I imagine her sucking through a straw something really detestable but good for you, like Cuisinarted broccoli or canned green beans. Mmmmm!

So in the spirit of things that don’t suck, and that you can eat with a straw, I offer this fab Mango Sherbet made with goat milk. I’m fairly certain this could easily be made with canned coconut milk for a vegan version, but I’ll leave that up to you adventurous cook-readers to let me know if you try it.

Goat Milk Mango Sherbet

2 c. goat milk

1 can mango

1 c. powdered sugar

1 T lemon juice

1. Blend the canned mango in a blender or food processor. Strain it through a large-holed sieve (there must be a technical term for this, but I can’t think of it at the moment). If you skip this step, the mango pulp will collect in a most unattractive way on the blending mechanism of your ice cream maker. Trust me on this.
2. Mix the blended mango with the remaining ingredients.
3. Process the mix like ice cream in your ice cream maker.
4. Throw your hands in the air and say, “Yeah, baby! I can eat this with a straw!”

Asian Fruits in Season, Lychees

As regular readers know, I’ve been staying on top of the Asian fruit situation this past spring and summer, sampling jack fruit, rambutan, mangosteen, and now lychees. I can say without hesitation that of all these, lychees are my favorite.

DL, my expert on all things China right now, tells me that in Cantonese lychee is pronounced “lie chee” and in Mandarin “lee zh” or “lee jer”. So we’re going to go with the Cantonese pronunciation here at AFFFG because we can actually make the sound “lie chee” pretty well, whereas “lee zh” is a little more difficult for a Mandarin-dabbler like myself.

So. What is it about lychees that is just soooooo good? Texture? Check. Flavor? Check. Fun factor? Check. Lychees really just satisfy on so many levels. I wonder if all over Asia they just go nuts when lychees are in season, similar to how Pacific Northwesterners seem to exhibit serious cult-like enthusiasm for Oregon strawberries (typical overheard conversations near the end of June go something like this: “Have the strawberries come in yet?” “Have we had enough sun yet for strawberries?” “How do you think the strawberry crop is going to fare with this weather we’ve been having lately?” “Where are you getting your strawberries this year?” “Are you going to make any strawberry jam this year?”) You get my point. Is there a similar lychee craze all over Asia when the lychees come in?

Again let’s turn to Mr. DL, for an exclusive interview:

Me: DL, is there a lychee craze all over Asia during lychee season, like our strawberry craze?

DL: Kinda, yeah. I’d say that at about this time of year on every street corner people are selling them by the cart. And you know there’s a big variance in quality and price. But the season is only about a month long.

The Man: Do they have a lychee festival?

DL: They kind of have a lychee festival, and they do have a lychee theme park. I think it’s an apt comparison…the Hood River strawberries to the lychees. People have been waiting, and now it’s the first of these big tropical fruits to hit the market. Summer is here and now they’re sweet and rich, and it’s only a month long. Then the lychee season wanes and you get longan, but those are not as sweet and fleshy. So after this, there are lesser waves of summer fruit. But I think the lychee really is something that people wait for, and when they’re out, they go crazy.

Companies will buy as gifts for their employees or for special favors, these prepacked boxes of special lychees, specially big or specifically where the seed or the pit is very small, because then you’re getting the most fruit per pound.

Me: Tell me more about the theme park. Do they have lychee cocktails or what?

DL: Uhm, no. Lychee World. You could call it a theme park in the sense that it’s a park and there’s a theme of lychees. But there’s not rollercoaster rides called Lychee Ride or anything. It’s more a resort based on that theme. It’s hard to map it to something in our culture. At the lychee park, you’d go in a hot spring, have your dinner, and walk around the park. Maybe there is some kind of water or log ride. But mostly it’s just like, uhm, Knotts Berry Farm got started marketing some idea of summer, I suppose.

They also have these lychee plantations, mostly on the hillsides around Guang Dong province. There’s all these lychee trees, but as they come into full fruit, the people get very jealous about making sure there’s no poachers, like people just wandering up. The only story I know of people using guns in China was to keep lychee poachers off their property. Pretty much all the hills around Shenzhen are full of lychees. There was a confrontation with this guy with a shotgun trying to keep poachers off his lychee plantation. It’s the only time I heard of anyone using a firearm in China, other than the police. I don’t even know how someone would come into possession of a firearm in China.

There’s a type of lychees that’s famous because it has very small pits. They’re likened to a rice grain, so they’re called nomi, which is sticky sweet rice. It’s like they’re saying this is the type that just have rice in the middle, not a whole huge pit that you have to chew around. So when you get that kind it’s like you’re not wasting anything in the packaging or the “chaff”. The size of the seed in these nomi variety are as big as a grain of rice, literally.

Me: That’s funny because I love the ones with the big seeds.

DL: Why?

Me: I love to suck on them.

DL: I have to say there’s no fruit that I like to eat like I’d eat popcorn, except for lychees. And when I was living in China and they were in season, I ate at least a pound a day of lychees.

Me: They’re addictive.

DL: There was a really hard freeze this year and really heavy rain. So I don’t know if that affected the sweetness or the growing days of the fruit. It must have. So I think maybe this year the season will be a little later.

Me: How much are they?

DL: In China, if you get them off the street, a dollar per pound would be the best ones. But typically they’re about fifty to seventy-five cents a pound. Here in the States, I think they are about $2.50 per pound right now.

Xie xie (thank you), DL. This has been so informative.

Eating My Way through Portland Parkways

Remember that old Go-Go’s song that goes:

This town is our town

This town is so glamorous

Bet you’d live here if you could

And be one of us!

I know that song was probably written about LA and in my mind’s eye I can see Belinda Carlisle belting it out whilst hanging her arm out the window of a vintage convertible under sunny LA skies, but somehow, it still describes how I feel about Portland, a town that is almost the exact opposite of LA: gloomy, wet, and cold a good six months of the year.

Still, this town makes me feel glamorous and lucky. Why? Events like Portland Sunday Parkways. Basically, this past Sunday the city closed down six miles of streets for bikers, walkers, strollers, and pogo stickers to rule the school! My favorite quote from the newspaper after the event was: “Cyclists outnumbered cars at some major intersections by more than 10 to one.” I confess to some good-natured “Walk your car!” razzing of the folks in those things called vehicles.

This was the first year Portland has tried a Parkways event and judging by turnout, I’d say it was a smashing success. There was even bike traffic:

Waiting in line to ascend the overpass ramp.

But mostly Parkways was just an excuse to get together with friends and punctuate a good bike ride with food (at least that’s how I saw it). The first food thing that happened–before we even left the house–was that we were accosted by a Clif Bar guy giving away free Clif Bar samples. He even had gluten-free ones!

And there’s so many things you can do on your bike when you don’t have to worry about cars, like…

…catch up with friends

…enjoy a good cup of coffee

…and butt-watch the opposite sex (my favorite).

But enough about that. The best part of Parkways was my pal’s BBQ post-ride. Here’s my favorite person under five right now pursuing a strawberry at the BBQ:

Hmmm. What do I spy with my little eye? Are those strawberries?

Gotcha, Mr. Strawberry! I’m the boss of you!!!

Mmmm! There’s nothing like an Oregon strawberry! Especially when it’s covered with dirt! Just like my face!

And my pal DL, ever the inventor, came up with this clever rig for the back of his bike:

The bike beer bucket.

Good times!

Life Frazzlement, or, Chocolate Chips for Dinner

Is it really wrong to eat chocolate chips for dinner? So much is going on in my life at the moment, not the least of which is my imminent appointment with the rheumatologist (tomorrow). Put it all together and I guess I’m a little nervously frazzled.

I want to post about eating my way through the Portland Parkways event, but it’s getting late and those chocolate chips didn’t go very far tonight in terms of my energy level, sadly. So. Stay tuned, dear readers.

Reader Recipes, Family Recipes

My last post got me to thinking about sharing recipes. I love when people send me recipes. I even got one in the mail the other day from RCMB, which was very cool.

Making someone else’s recipe is like discussing a favorite novel. You’re like, “Remember at the end of Jane Eyre when…” And then, if you’re me, you realize that you can’t remember the end of Jane Eyre and your best friend has to fill in the details for you. Well, maybe it’s not quite like that. But sorta. It’s like a conversation. About food. Which is your favorite topic.

This reminds me that a few years ago my parents sent me the recipes of both of my grandmothers and many from my own mother. The recipes are mixed up here and there–some in a folder, some in a recipe box, etc.–due to someone’s bad catalogueing that I now find really annoying. I guess we never had a need to know whose was whose. Now I wish I knew if German Cake was Ruth’s and Mexican Corn Bread was Mildred’s. All of the handwriting is so curlicue from the 1950s that it’s hard to tell them apart.

My paternal grandmother, Ruth, whom I never met because she died when my father was very young, was apparently a great cook in the Southern tradition (she was from Alabama). She was known for desserts. I believe her recipes feature more fanciful, Southern-sounding names like “Flapper Pudding” and “Silver Cloud Cake”. Reading them makes me moist in the eyes because it’s like she’s talking to me, conveying some secret Jennings family lore through the food that she made for my dad, his siblings, and my granddad. My dad says that’s where I got my interest in food.

My maternal grandmother, Mildred, was more your pragmatic, gotta-put-something-on-the-table-that’s-edible kind of cook, though she had a reputation for a mean chicken and dumplings and I loved her French toast. She had a large chicken coop and made some of her income from that and selling pigs.

Because I don’t know whose recipe is whose, I have to guess based on other things I know about them. For example, Mildred’s family going way back was from Germany and they migrated through Virginia and Kentucky (I only just learned this in the past ten years when some of her sisters went on a genealogy bender), finally settling in the southern tip of Illinois, where Mildred grew up on a farm circa 1910-1930. So I believe that hers are the recipes more focused on cabbage and potatoes like “Kraut Salad” and “Scalloped Potatoes and Ham”.

Ruth’s family, as previously mentioned, was from Alabama. They migrated at some point to Texas, where she met my granddad, and she and he were very typical Dust Bowl Okies who migrated to California in the 30s. I believe her recipes are mostly desserts and some of my dad’s favorites, like tapioca pudding and a family jewel, Truman Cookies (I will definitely write the story of Truman Cookies some other time). The focus here is on cornbread, beans, and anything you can make with cornmeal and/or beans.

There are also some uniquely California creations, like “Walnut Raisin Pie” and “Walnut Roast”. Both women had landed squarely in California’s walnut country and I imagine they each set to work adapting recipes to match local availability.

Reading their recipes is intimate and educational. I know that my dad grew up on tapioca pudding, fudge, and Truman Cookies, in an era when people went through the trouble of making these things. I remember my mother once telling me that fudge was something they’d make on a Sunday for a family picnic, or some other special occasion, and each person would take a turn stirring the fudge because they didn’t have KitchenAids back then. These are the same desserts we ate growing up (with the exception of tapioca pudding), but still, it’s something special to have the actual recipe on a 3×5 card in a rusty old recipe box.

Here’s a recipe from one of my grandmothers. I have a feeling this came from a newspaper or someone else’s cookbook because the language is very precise and cookbook-ish and without spelling errors. But it’s written in clearly female handwriting on a brown, stained 3×5 card.

Pickled Peaches

3 c sugar

1 c white vinegar

1 c water

4 sticks cinnamon

2 T whole cloves

Select firm, well ripened peaches. Blanch and remove skins. Combine the sugar, vinegar, water, and spices and boil 10 mins. Add peaches and cook until tender. Pack in sterilized jars. Fill jars with boiling syrup (strained). Seal, label, and store in cool, dark place.

Reader Recipes: Falafels, Finally!

Regular readers will remember that I have struggled with falafels. Twice I tried them, and twice they were sucky-little-disaster-balls. They really made me mad! And depressed.

But if there’s one thing I’ll say about my personality, it’s that I’m determined. That can be both good and bad. This past Saturday, it was good. Very good.

Because look what I made!

Those little fried balls are BEAUTIFUL, if I do say so myself!

So, you’re saying to yourself, Wha??? Wha’ happened? How could she finally get it right? Well, I’ll tell you.

I believe the Great Failures were due to the following:

• The original recipe needed some slight modification, in particular, the addition of a binder in the form of oil.
• One must really grind the batter much more than one originally thought.

Here is the recipe, slightly modified. (Original recipe provided by very generous reader, Stefanie, who, I would like to point out, had nothing to do with my failed attempts).

Gluten-free Falafels (they should all be GF, but just to make it very clear)

1 c dried chickpeas, soaked overnight (**Very Important Step!)
2-3 T olive oil
2-3 t salt (to your taste)
1t ground coriander seed
1/2-1 t ground pepper (to your taste)
1/4 t cayenne
1 t whole cumin seed, toasted
1 t baking soda
1/2 c onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced (if garlic is poisonous to you, just omit)
2 T parsley, minced
1 T lemon juice
canola or other high heat oil for frying

Alrighty, then. Let’s get started.

1. So first, you are going to actually use dried chick peas and let them soak overnight.
2. The next day (because you didn’t cheat and try to use canned garbanzos, right? Because that road leads to ruin as I have already clearly demonstrated!), drain and rinse the chick peas.
3. Grind the peas in your food processor. Stefanie used a spice grinder, and it was, alas, this very detail that made me think (finally), hey, a spice grinder would get the peas really fine. Therefore, I should probably grind this mixture up very fine, unlike the first two times I tried this recipe. After you have pulsed several times and you’re getting close to fine, add the 2-3 tbs of olive oil and pulse some more. You’ll note that the mixture is finally starting to hold together now instead of being all crumbly. I’ll include a photo here in an attempt to show fine.
   
4. Transfer the ground peas to a mixing bowl and add in all the other ingredients.
5. Get the oil in your skillet really hot. Use a 1/4 cup measure to pack it with pea mixture to create the little ball effect. Drop balls into the oil so that they have plenty of free range between them and fry til browned on each side.
   
6. Enjoy these little balls of goodness with your favorite yogurt sauce, tahini sauce, or, my favorite with all things fried, catsup.

So there you have it. Finally!

Does the Gluten-free Portland News Ever Stop?

In case you missed it, Willamette Week ran a piece on New Cascadia Traditional GF bakery. You can read it here.

A few sweet years ago, yours truly had to quit writing restaurant reviews due to the celiac diagnosis. At that time, I pitched pieces to editors about GF dining around town and the response? Crickets. Now the local media can’t stop writing about it. Go figure.

Gluten-free Portland News Update, Part 2

So, not sure how many of you have heard, but I’m elated that a new New Seasons market will be going into the old Daily Grind space on SE Hawthorne and 40th. Woohoo! May the parking nightmare of Seven Corners be O-V-E-R! You can read the press release here. Thanks to my tipster, JM, for this news!