Seattle Chefs Light Up Montréal

Six of Seattle’s most celebrated chefs zipped across the continent to cook at the 13th annual Lumi?re festival in Montréal, Canada. Editor Peter Szymczak tagged along as the chefs cooked . . . and caroused the city’s dining scene.

By Peter Szymczak

Island Gins

Two Washington craft distillers are seeking inspiration from their island surroundings as they design distinctive new gin recipes. Bainbridge Organic Distillers is using Douglas fir, and San Juan Island Distillery is looking to apples.

By Cole Danehower and Anne Casselman

Northwest Wine Touring 2012

From the arid lands of eastern Washington to the verdant hillsides of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the windswept vineyards of Idaho, the Northwest offers abundant vinous variety for the spring season wine tourist. Here’s a very personal guide to enjoying some of the most interesting Northwest winery tasting rooms.
By Cole Danehower

READ IT ALL:  Get Northwest Palate Magazine now!

Chef Vikram Vij and his wife Meeru realize the value of  farm-fresh eggs. Both come from egg-loving families, and have passed on this love of eggs to their children. They believe that eggs are nutrient-rich, and the talk of cholesterol doesn’t scare them one bit. They believe that one boiled or poached egg is healthy and quite filling, and they love their weekend omelets. However, they eat only eggs from organic, cage-free hens because what the hen eats will be in her eggs, and they want their eggs to be as pure as possible.

From the book Vij’s at Home—Relax, Honey: The Warmth and Ease of Indian Cooking © 2010, by Meeru Dhalwala and Vikram Vij. Published by Douglas and McIntyre an imprint of D&M Publishers Inc. Photographs by John Sherlock. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Washington state grows more than 40% of the total U.S. asparagus crop.

It takes years to establish an asparagus crop, and harvest is extremely labor-intensive. Washington farmers apparently aren’t commitment-phobic: they grow more than 40% of the total U.S. asparagus crop.

Served at Washington Hills Cellars’ Asparagus Dinner in 1999 (part of the valley’s annual Asparagus Festival), this late-spring salad features the honey-lemon-lime-herb dressing that is a signature staple of Erika Cenci at A Touch of Europe B&B in Yakima.

from a recipe in Pure Chocolate, by Fran Bigelow

Fran Bigelow

Renowned Seattle chocolatier Fran Bigelow first began to cook as a young wife, watching Julia Child on TV in her Berkeley home and taking classes in San Francisco from Cordon Bleu-trained chef Josephine Araldo. Her business degree led to accounting jobs, but in 1982 she swapped spreadsheets for pastry sheets and opened her first chocolate shop in a Seattle storefront bakery. Today Fran’s Chocolates has three retail stores, nationwide wholesale distribution and a web site, www.franschocolates.com.

From the March/April 2007 Anniversary edition of Northwest Palate.
Photos: Cameron Nagel

FOOD CARTS | FARMS | EGGS |  COFFEE | BIODYNAMICS | LOCAVORISOM | SEASONAL |  GASTROME

WINE COUNTRY  | PINOT NOIR | BEER | LIQUOR | MIXOLOGY | CRAFT DISTILLING

   CHARCUTERIE |  GLUTEN-FREE | CULINARY TOURISM | RESTAURANTS  | FUTURE

Not to be outshone, Seattle, Vancouver, B.C., and Boise, Idaho, have jumped into the food cart fray, although city leaders to the north and east of Rose City have taken a more conservative approach to their growth by imposing stricter regulations governing how and where food carts may set up shop.

Food carts have spread across the region, showing up everywhere from downtown to neighborhood “pods”—groupings of vendors gathered in clusters on parking lots or anyplace there’s real estate not otherwise commercialized. Carts cater to business people at lunchtime, and they’re also a source for a quick weekday dinner for foodie families, and a late-night, post-club munchies fix for members of Generation Entitlement and night owls of all ages.

Where consensus divides is on the matter of cost. If you think all food carts were created (or, by definition, should be) cheap, the truth is that you can spend just as much at a food cart as you would at a decent diner. … But don’t short change the experience of eating outdoors, the communal experience, or the fact you’re putting dollars directly into the hands of local owner-operators. Not to mention the variety of cuisines on offer at food carts, and its purpose serving as an alternative venue for culinary school grads and chefs who have tired of life behind the restaurant line.

With its diverse appeal and clientele, food carts are here to stay.

Andrae Bopp

Does any other city come even remotely close to what’s going on in Portland? Maybe Austin? 

I think that the Northwest is kind of killing it right now. Seattle, with the new law changes has really seen a boom in new trucks, and there are some over there that are flat out killing it! Where ya at Matt, Marination, Skillet and then some great “sweet trucks”, Molly Moon’s and Street Treats. I also think LA has the food truck thing down. One of my very good friends actually gave me and article on LA Food trucks a couple years ago, and that is what got my head working. We are heading down to LA in May and plan on “chasing trucks” for our anniversary.

How is food cart culture different in NYC versus the Pacific Northwest? 

After being back recently, it seems that NYC is more of a “push cart” atmosphere, where guys are setting up on corners and going for it. Did a lot of sampling, have to admit that the food is good, but I’ll take our NW carts anytime!

How do you see food cart culture moving forward?

I think that it will keep rolling. Literally! I cannot see it slowing down, as long as there are chefs that want to go the anti-establishment route this is going to survive and get stronger. One thing I think we will see is the truck guys, moving to include a brick and mortar in the plan. I think that once you create the demand and have the hype, it is a no-brainer. Skillet and Marination did this in Seattle and we are moving to that here in Walla Walla, hopefully by next week.

Photos:

Andrae Bopp by John Valls

Food Cart by Patrick Barber

Tom lifts the cargo door revealing crates of rainbow chard, purple and white eggplants, green beans, and other seasonal vegetables grown at his farm in Prosser, Washington.

In 2006, Tom and his wife/business partner Jackie Cross bought 20 acres in the lower Yakima Valley, Washington’s prime wine country, about 2½ hours east of Seattle. At the time of the purchase, chefs at their restaurants were already using everything local they could—whole animals, cheeses, and foraged mushrooms, for instance. Prosser Farm allowed them to close the gap from farm to table just that much more.

“Farming is tough business,” says Douglas, “so the idea that we could use every pound of produce we grow was important to us.” Last year his Prosser Farm supplied 50,000 pounds—21,000 pounds of tomatoes alone—to his restaurants.

The fruits and vegetables from Prosser Farm appear on all of the menus at Tom’s restaurants—from the tomatoes in Lola’s Greek salad to the roasted peppers on Serious Pie’s pizza.

“In a funny way, the most important produce, those areas a customer really latches onto, are tomatoes. It’s a crop everyone loves, everyone wants to eat at the peak of season—you know, not the bad tomatoes you find in the market.” This year he’s hoping for a crop closer to 40,000 pounds, so that excess product can be preserved for use during the winter months.

It’s paying dividends at Douglas’ 12 Seattle-area restaurants, and in ways he hadn’t anticipated. “We have staff outings to the farm, so the waiter who waits on customers may have actually picked the tomatoes—weeded, seeded, and served the product. In the past the story they told was the chefs’, now it’s theirs, and it’s cool to see that turned around. We didn’t know the extent of the conversation.”

Portland restaurants today represent “that funky, earthy, homemade, vintage-collection, found-object, patina’d, pickled, mismatched aesthetic, or they can aspire to something more professional,” says the older, wiser, ever dapper restaurateur Bruce Carey (Bluehour, Clarklewis, 23Hoyt, Saucebox, and most recently, Via Tribunali). “I am feeling like now that this Portland-style has reached its apex, and we have to think about what’s next. ‘Artisan’ implies a hand-made quality, but I wish it wasn’t so messy, as it is with so many iterations in the Portland food scene.”

Three things about Portland that make you want to eat/drink here?

1) Even if I was from California (I’m not), or from SW France (I wish I was), I think I would still prefer Pinot Noir to anything else. I grew up in the restaurant business spoiled by this particularly delicious aspect of living here.

2) I moved to Portland because of the high cost of living in San Francisco. I guess the same thing holds true for so many others migrating here from other food capital cities. It’s the people—the talent, not just the climate—that makes this such a great place to eat.

3) Portland casualness, which often is taken too far, is also the thing that makes eating well an everyday occasion. So matter of fact, and so easily taken for granted.

Who is/are the Portland culinarian(s) that you admire/respect the most and why? 

Even though we have evolved separately, my partners from Zefiro: Monique Siu and Chris Israel remain my most trusted friends and advisors in the business. Prior to that, credit must be given to Stephanie Pearl Kimmel who—while I was at University of Oregon, waiting tables at her Excelsior Cafe—demonstrated how integrity, zeal, and good taste applied to a restaurant setting creates a deeply gratifying life that goes beyond the usual rewards of hard work.

What are the three things you’d like to change about Portland’s food scene?

What is coming out of the kitchen is indeed the most important aspect of a restaurant, but too many times a multitude of sins are forgiven, or over-looked when the food gets the full focus. Three things?: 1) More prideful, professional service, 2) better environments (lighting, furniture, sound), and 3) more chef talent applied to ethnic integrity—so we can travel more, without leaving Portland.

How do you think your restaurants have changed Portland?

It’s hard to talk about what’s mine, but I do think while each of the restaurants maintain an individual identity, they might also represent different aspects of an aspiring Portland, a pushing of the envelope, and a reference to how this place is not an island but part of a national scene.

What design style do you most identify with?

Right now it’s all about the “eclectic”—a terrible word that means nothing to me, such as when people describe their menu as eclectic … mmm, I love eclectic food, delicious … That is the fashion for mixing things up, such as modern spare spaces featuring a few vintage pieces to give a curated, personal feel. Also de rigueur is some emphasis on materiality, often in the creative reuse of a found material such as wood salvaged from an old building, or a table top with edges left rough hewn. But now that Starbucks is enlisting that aesthetic exactly, in all their new stores across the country, I fear the trend has jumped the shark. Personally I am in the mood for clean lines again. Enough clutter already!

Drink/cocktail of choice?

…as mentioned above: it’s Pinot Noir with food—always, but, call me 90’s-old-fashioned, I still crave a creative sweet/tart/boozy cocktail that will pique my interest and my palate before dinner. And this is not an intentional plug for Saucebox, btw…

What is the best thing about your work?

Cliché as it may sound, it’s the amazingly talented, gracious, and beautiful people I get to work with. There is a particular style and elegance in true restaurant professionals that is simply part of their character. I think it stems from being most energized by creating life-defining dining experiences for others—every damn night.

What is the worst thing about your work?

The worst thing about this business is how our hard work rarely seems to accumulate benefit. In other words we may give our heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears to making tonight’s customers happy, but all that has little or no effect on the people that are coming in tomorrow night. For them, we start all over again.

Is the dream of the ’90s still alive in Portland?

Our collective inspiration for Zefiro came from our bohemian-style travels of Europe, and from our work and dining experiences in the Bay Area. Most of the resumes I get for the recent several years are people coming from exactly that same experience and background. In that way alone, it might as well be 1990.

Before you look in your wallet, add this up. During the winter months, hens instinctively lay fewer eggs in order to conserve energy and nutrient reserves for their annual molting process. Many commercial facilities circumvent this natural process in order to keep their annual yield of eggs high and their production costs low. Artificial lighting is employed to fool the hen’s physiology into thinking that winter has not yet arrived.

That’s not the case at Persephone Farm in Lebanon, Oregon. The farm’s commitment to seasonal produce means their hens lay according to the natural rhythm of the seasons in order to maintain good health without the stress of heavy laying when they aren’t meant to be doing so. As a result, the cost of a dozen eggs was $7 at a recent Portland Farmers Market.

Chef Vikram Vij and his wife Meeru realize the value of these precious farm-fresh eggs. Try their recipe for Curried Devilled Eggs.

Photographs by John Sherlock

“The most important thing about the small distillery movement around the country is that it is happening. Twenty five years ago, it wasn’t.

“And like a lot of uniquely American innovation epidemics, the craft spirits movement is undisciplined, fast moving, and very mixed in integrity, quality, skill, and sense of direction. Yet, one of the wonderful things about capitalism and Darwin’s principle of natural selection is that the whole thing will take care of itself.

“The skills and knowledge of sommeliers, bartenders, retail trade buyers, and distributors will reject the poorer quality and overpriced products. They will find the people who believe in what they are doing and can be counted on to make top-quality spirits and who act with integrity.

“There are some well-funded heavy-duty new distilleries around the country that are already demonstrating a deft touch with the stills, and impressive marketing savvy. Likewise, there are small, “self-funded” distilleries doing the same. And there are good examples of both big and small who will not make it. The difference is that like music or ballet, talent is required for success. And so is taste.

“It is not an easy business to succeed in, even if you have great products. It’s my observation that one model for small distillers’ success might be how small Oregon wineries have succeeded. The characteristics of both of these artisan-made products—spirits and wines—and the markets they appeal to, are perfect for high-quality distributors with professional sales reps who focus on top-quality products.

“I remember once presenting a somewhat obscure eau de vie I’d made to the buyer for a very good East Coast distributor. He groaned and said, “Well, at least make it expensive.” We did. And that made it worth his while to put in quality effort to sell it to consumers who appreciate the product’s uniqueness.

“So far, there do not seem to be any important impediments to further growth of the small spirits distillers, as long as they know what they are trying to accomplish and make products with integrity and sincerity.

“The industry is young. Stay tuned.”