Summer Fest 2009.
Sounds like a groovy 60’s, peace-love kind of thing, doesn’t it?
Oh, it’s groovy, alright. Summer Fest is a blogging project masterminded by a group of talented food and garden bloggers with the sole purpose of sharing, so it does have something in common with the free-spirit decade.
I found out about it on Margaret [...]
Entries from July 2009
July 29, 2009
Cranberry Grapefruit Salsa
July 24, 2009
Portland Eats – Beast
That’s Beast, a blood-red doll-house of a restaurant, snuggled between two much larger buildings in northeast Portland.
Getting a reservation at Beast can be murder, as one would expect at a restaurant whose chef just landed a Food & Wine Magazine Best New Chef 2009 award.
Pomeroy took some heat recently in cyberspace from a food writer [...]
July 20, 2009
Portland Eats: Pine State Biscuits
Bursting at the seams with booth after booth of fresh berries, summer vegetables and forest mushrooms, the Portland Farmers Market is an embarrassment of riches straight from local farms.
The market is utopia to locals (and visitors) clamoring for farm-fresh, organic, sustainable produce, meats, cheeses, and of course, North Carolina biscuits.
Wait a minute. Huh? North Carolina [...]
July 17, 2009
How to Roast Chicken
The best roast chickens I’ve ever eaten have a couple of things in common.
a). The chicken was first brined in a salt solution, resulting in a juicy, flavorful bird, and
b.) The chicken was roasted at a high temperature, producing a very crispy skin
A basic salt brine consists of salt (1 cup) and water (1 gallon). [...]
July 16, 2009
Stove Top Grilling with a Pepper Grate
This handy little tool could have been on my top ten list of useful kitchen tools. It gets a regular workout in my kitchen.
From roasting ears of corn to tomatillos to peppers, the pepper grate transforms my stove top to an instant grill (although, it’s not appropriate for grilling meat, or anything that will drip [...]
July 13, 2009
Portland Eats: Le Pigeon
“No reservation?” No, we don’t have a reservation.
“Hmmm, it’ll be about an hour and a half, but there is a cool bar just down the street where you can wait,” the host said. He took our number, promising to call if a table opened up earlier. It didn’t.
Turns out, the chef’s girlfriend is a bartender [...]
July 12, 2009
How to Cook Collard Greens
Meandering through the Portland Farmers Market, I spotted this stack of beautiful collard greens. The bug holes on the right only endeared it to me more. I mean, if the bugs won’t eat it, should I?
Growing up in West Texas, my mother’s garden overflowed with mustard greens, a bitter, curly-leafed green that I wasn’t particularly [...]
July 9, 2009
Pen & Fork wins Food & Travel Blog Award
Most people would say that they love to travel and they love to eat. I count myself lucky to be able to travel and eat and then write about it, sharing my experiences with others. For me, the journey begins with a fork.
Today I learned that my blog was a finalist in the Tripbase Blog [...]
July 7, 2009
Portland Eats – The Farm Cafe
The Farm Cafe wasn’t on my original list of restaurants to visit when we arrived in Portland for a week of non-stop eating.
I’d never heard of it, although I’m not sure why, since I researched the restaurant scene fairly well (obsessively, if you ask my dining partner), and already had more restaurants on my radar [...]
