Summer Squash at Taste the Place!

Michelle was camping at Trillium Lake this past weekend with her boyfriend and two vegans, so it was up to Cara and I to run the Portland Farmer's Market Taste the Place booth ourselves Saturday morning. Which was fine, since mostly all Michelle does when she's there is spill coffee on my shoes and wander off repeatedly to buy lamb sandwiches and threaten to cut off people's tails with a carving knife. Or something like that, my point being that it was much more relaxing knowing she was canoeing around in the shadow of Mt. Hood squawking about the evils of Tofurkey than standing next to me at the Taste the Place prep table with a massive Henckels blade and a menacing grin. I mean...I miss you Sis!! Come home soon!! I hope you saw a bald eagle! I hope you didn't shoot him with a slingshot and a marrididdle* and roast him over your campfire! 

THE POOR BALD EAGLE NEVER SAW MICHELLE'S MARRIDIDDLE COMING.

Today at Taste the Place we were thrilled to feature everyone's favorite bright yellow vegetable: Summer Squash. We got two varieties from the Rick Steffen Farm booth, long cylindrical yellow zucchini and their chubby cousin, patty pan squash. 

  

We admired the squash's sunny flesh before Cara set to work julienneing it for one of the recipe's of the day: Summer Squash Shreds, which is kind of a fun name for a recipe. 

My job was to chop up three herbs to add to our Shreds salad: basil, chives, and the lesser known but delightfully sour-lemony sorrel, which we procured from Bittersweet Farm. 

SUMMER SQUASH SHREDS with Basil, Sorrel, and Chives

Adapted from recipe in "Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini" by Elizabeth Schneider
Serves 4

INGREDIENTS
1 ½ pounds yellow summer squash (or other tender squash)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
¼ cup thin-sliced basil leaves
¼ cup thin-sliced sorrel leaves
1 tbsp thin—sliced chives
Salt and Pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
1. Scrub squashes with vegetable brush. Trim stems if they are unusually long. Using julienne blade of food processor or vegetable cutter, slice squash into very fine strips. (NOTE: Or just invite Cara over because she is a champion julienner-by-hand. She took one look at me trying to julienne the "squashes" and ever so graciously asked if I'd like her to do that part, even though she probably wanted to grab my wobbly knife and rap me upside the head with it, then throw my mutilated squashes shreds to the pigeons.)

2. Toss with salt in a sieve or colander. Set over a bowl, top with a plate, weight lightly, and let stand about an hour, tossing now and then. Squeeze squash dry. Fluff with a fork. Spread on paper towels.(NOTE: We totally skipped this part and everything worked out fine. So I would really suggest that instead of spending that hour watching your squashes shreds drip, you pass on the sieve step and spend that precious hour doing something meaningful, like canoeing around Trillium Lake with your favorite vegans or lobbing badly julienned vegetables at pigeons in the park.)

3. Heat both oils in a wide skillet over high heat. Add squash and toss until tender and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Remove skillet from heat. Add basil, sorrel, and chives. Toss to distribute. Season. (NOTE: I am seriously reeling as I read this, because we didn't even read this part of the recipe Saturday morning. We served the squash raw. Holy Julienne. I am sort of giggling hysterically as I sit in my apartment alone, typing this. I'm so sorry, Elizabeth Schneider! Clearly I need to return to second grade and work on my reading comprehension skills.)

4. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature. (NOTE: Or RAW, if you have poor reading comprehension and the attention span of a pigeon, like me.)

IF YOU visited the booth Saturday you might have noticed that we served a second recipe featuring Summer Squash, along with Other Summer Vegetables, as part of a recipe aptly titled: Quinoa Salad with Summer Veggies. What's that, you say? You didn't see any quinoa salad? Well, of course you didn't! We forgot the quinoa, so we used cous cous instead and told everyone the quinoa was home sick with scarlet fever, which happens to be what Michelle told her boss Friday when she didn't show up to work because she was at Trillium Lake barbecuing bald eagles. Oops, you did not hear that here!

Here is the recipe:

QUINOA SALAD WITH SUMMER VEGGIES
Recipe source: Simply in Season by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert
Serves 4

Preparing Quinoa: Rinse and Drain. Add 2 cups boiling water cover and simmer about 10-15 minutes or until water is absorbed. (NOTE: Obviously, you can use cous cous in place of the quinoa if your quinoa has scarlet fever.)

INGREDIENTS
1 cup uncooked Quinoa (Prepare, fluff lightly with fork and cool.)
¼ cup chopped green onion or onions
2 red or yellow tomatoes, seeded and chopped
½ cup fresh cilantro, parsely, or mint (chopped)
1 cup fresh vegetables, diced
1 cup cooked chickpeas (optional)

DRESSING
2 tbsp lemon or lime juice
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper

DIRECTIONS
1. Mix dressing and pour over salad. Toss gently.

The Taste the Place afternoon shift arrives, and Mary, Elsbeth, and Andrea get to work passing out samples! 

A Chef Sighting on my way out of the Market! Giorgio Executive Chef Peter Schuh intently examines the selection of Unger Farm berries!


*A marrididdle is a homemade clay marble. It is much homelier than a Bennington, and much more unique than a Cats-eye, which is probably the kind of marble you used to play with in first grade, until you had to give away your entire collection to Tommy Riddle as a bribe so he wouldn't tell your teacher that you were the one who ate a whole box of Fruit By the Foot out of the class snack bin. So now you know what a marrididdle is. Gosh, what CAN'T you learn at TableTalkPortland.com?!

-J

Celebrate Sexy Tuesdays and Avoid Anaphylactic Shock This Week At Ecotrust!

With a name like Sexy Tuesdays, how can you not attend Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette's July mixer/fundraiser on the rooftop of the Ecotrust building in the Pearl District this Tuesday?

Sexy Tuesdays are, as Planned Parenthood puts it, "a series of gatherings at cool places for the next generation of Planned Parenthood supporters." By attending this Tuesday, you get to support a great cause, drink beer with fun people, eat fine food from Simpatica Catering and Artemis Foods, and listen to music by Portland's favorite "Bohemian Country Songstress" Amanda Richards (whose debut album, ironically, is entitled "Not Always Sexy", and was recorded in Gresham, which is about the Unsexiest thing I've ever heard, frankly) and everyone walking/driving/streetcar-ing by the Ecotrust building on NW 10th Ave will totally envy you as you hang out up on the Pearl's finest rooftop terrace. Okay, well, it's the finest besides maybe the Wieden + Kennedy rooftop terrace, although theirs was recently invaded by millions of bees, so maybe the Ecotrust rooftop terrace wins from a safety perspective, especially if you are prone to anaphylactic shock.

SO...Great cause + fun people + beer + eats by Simpatica (!) and Artemis Foods + tunes that are described on Amanda Richards's website as "sensuous acoustic to gritty homicidal rockabilly" (WHOA!) + being envied by everyone passing by on NW 10th + avoiding anaphylactic shock = A PHENOMENALLY GOOD TIME TO BE HAD!

Click HERE to buy your tickets now and join us at Sexy Tuesdays...$15 in advance, $20 at the door. All proceeds from this event go to support the programs and services of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette. Plus, enter the raffle to win prizes from The Heathman Hotel, Sea Tramp Tattoo, Elena Hein Jewelry Design, Villa Villa Kula, a Lanette Winerack full of wine, etc...

For more info on Sexy Tuesdays, here is a link to PP's website, and Michelle and myself and Usually Sexy But Not Always Sexy Amanda Richards will see you at Ecotrust on Tuesday night!

-J

Happy Double Bluehour Happy Hour!

A very exciting press release announcing Bluehour's new late night happy hour arrived in our mailbox earlier this week, much to our delight. Because if there's anything better than Bluehour happy hour, it's two Bluehour happy hours. Fortuitously, my friend Matt was visiting from England on business and fancied hitting a few of his favorite Pearl hotspots from back in the day when he and his lervely wife Sian lived here in Portland and we used to be neighbors and pop next door to each other's apartments to borrow a cup of sugar or sparkly or scotch, so we planned a nostalgic gastronomical adventure that included pre-dinner peach serrano martinis at Bay 13, dinner at Fratelli, dessert at Fenouil, and of course, the highlight of the evening: Bluehour Late Night Happy Hour!

We had a little time to kill in between dinner at Fratelli and the 10 pm Bluehour late night happy hour Baccarat crystal starting bell (ok, so nobody really rings a Baccarat crystal bell, but you can pretend for fun), so we had dessert at Fenouil, out on the patio overlooking bustling Jamison Park. 

Matt had the sweet little Beignet a d'Anis, or star anise beignets. When the server arrived with the beignets, I was initially confused to see him set down a plate with nothing on it but a small ramekin of armangac creme anglais, but then I noticed he held in his hand a small paper bag stamped with a fleur-de-lys, which he proceeded to shake like a Polaroid picture, effectively coating the enclosed beignets in a light dusting of cinnamon sugar. The server then turned the bag upside down and let the beignets gently tumble onto the plate, where they lie next to the creme anglais, slightly embarrassed by the pomp and circumstance of it all and undoubtedly wishing they could have arrived in a less ostentatious manner, like in a brown paper cone or unmarked Lincoln town car. Regardless, the beignets were soft and fresh and delicious dipped in the armagnac creme anglaise.

My dessert, the Gateau de Chocolat, a molten peanut butter chocolate cake, comes with a 20-minutes-required-for-preparation warning label, so if you only have 19 minutes for dessert, it's No Gateau For You, Buddy: move on down the road to the lower-maintenance tarte tatin or profiteroles. I for one had a fresh glass of Basil Hayden's bourbon, neat, on the table, so time was on my side. The little chocolate cake arrived accompanied by a quenelle of light, tangy vanilla creme fraiche atop a smattering of salted peanut toffee crumbs. I would have liked the cake to have had a stronger peanut butter presence, but if you think peanut butter should be seen and not heard in a Gateau de Chocolat, so to speak, you'd probably do somersaults over this time-intensive little cake.

After that, it was onward to Bluehour, where Matt, myself, and my positively gorgeous little pink Paolo shoes hung out with Mr. $25 Bluehour Happy Hour Bottle of Prosecco.    

When we ordered, we were told we were the very first people to participate in Bluehour's new late night happy hour! We felt so honored. We rang the homebound Sian, who was hurtling through the English countryside on her way to work at the time of our call, to tell her the good news! Sian was obviously envious, this made apparent by a few of her comments, which I think were something to the effect of: "I bloody well like THAT, you useless tossers are out drinking sparkly at Blue-bloody-hour while I hurtle through the English countryside on my way to work!"  Oh how I miss you, Sharnee T!

Just a note, intrepid Late Night Happy Hour Revelers, make sure you ask for the late night happy hour menu...the squeaky wheel gets the truffle oil on this one, as we noticed that the very well-dressed but Late Night Happy Hour-oblivious sip 'n schmoozing Pearlies next to us got a full-price bar menu. Guess they better sign up for Bluehour's newsletter, hmm?

Below is the Bluehour press release, which has everything you need to know about how to enjoy two happy hours a day at Bluehour. Please memorize, and be sure to order my favorite food item, the phenomenal $4 Butcher's Board. 
*****
Happy BLUEHOUR early. Happy BLUEHOUR late!

Post work, at dusk or into the wee hours, our favorite place to be is on the BLUEHOUR deck sipping a MARTINI or SANGRIA, lingering over plates of KENNY'S FRIES or a crisp CAESAR.

Starting tonight we will now celebrate happy BLUEHOUR twice a day. EARLY and LATE, with offerings from $1 - 7. All of your favorites will be there. Will you?

HAPPY BLUEHOUR 7 days and 7 nights!

EARLY from 4:30 - 6:30 pm, 7 days
LATE from 10:00 pm to close Sunday - Thursday,
and 10:30 pm to close Friday & Saturday.

Happy BLUEHOUR menu

$1. FRIED PICHOLINE OLIVES
$2. KENNY'S FRENCH FRIES
$3. BRUSCHETTA PLATE
$3. CHEESE PLATE
$4. BUTCHER'S BOARD with cured meats, cheese and olives
$5. SPAGHETTI with tomatoes, garlic and basil
$5. PIZZA MARGHERITA with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil
$6. CAESAR SALAD
$6. OYSTER of the day
$7. ARTISAN CHEESE FONDUE

-J

Celebrating Hot Dogs and STRAWBERRY FLOATS

July is National Hot Dog Month! We are always looking for a reason to celebrate here at TableTalkPortland, so we decided to hold a National Hot Dog Month Backyard Picnic, complete with stacks of bratwursts, vats of macaroni salad, a Corn-Off and my personal favorite, STRAWBERRY FLOATS (recipe below). It was simply wienderful. (Sorry.)

As guests arrived, Michelle offered them one of her signature "Le Pamplemousse" (The Grapefruit) cocktails, handcrafted using her new toy, the Metrokane Citrus Power Juicer from Sur La Table. 

Minimalist that she is (cough), Michelle's recipe utilized only three ingredients: the juice of a pamplemousse, a jigger of vodka, and extremely rare and priceless pink diamond dust. Oh wait, that was pomegranate rimming sugar, also from Sur La Table. And actually, anyone can get it by clicking HERE, and it costs a mere $6.95. It even comes in a pretty silver box you can use to store your real diamond dust in. Or your collection of scratch 'n sniff pamplemousse stickers, whatever. 
The crowd screamed for more, and Michelle and Alexis were forced to sacrifice a whole herd of pamplemousses.

We composted their hides, of course. 

We thought it might be a good idea to eat something along with our Le Pamplemousses, so a magnificent traditional picnic spread was conjured up. Plump meaty bratwursts, macaroni salad with plenty of mayonaisse, crispy potato chips that coated our fingers and gullets with salt, slightly blackened corn on the cob fresh off the barbecue, sweet juicy watermelon, these are a few of our favorite things.

In honor of National Hot Dog month, Anella paid her respects at the altar of the Hot Dog.

Guests could eat on the stage, or opt for grass seating.



A few of our guests sniffed at the feast, opting instead for cereal and juice.

We ate, we laughed, we ate some more. After a few Le Pamplemousses, I was inspired to compose "Ode to a Hot Dog," which goes like this:

ODE TO A HOT DOG
by Jen, in honor of National Hot Dog Month

Oh how Jen and Michelle love hot dogs, let me count the ways. We could eat them all our days.
We will roast them on a stick, or use the BBQ so we can eat them quick!
We will eat them on a bun. We will eat them on the run.
We will eat them with condiments, we will eat them on the fence.
We will eat them with some sass. We will eat them in the grass.
We will eat them with Molly the dog, did you know that they are made of hog?

The End

Thank you. I blame the pamplemousse.

And then, the coup de grace of our evening--STRAWBERRY FLOATS. I put this in caps, because I think it's important. The STRAWBERRY FLOAT may be the greatest discovery of my summer. 

All you need is: Hot Lips Strawberry Soda (click to read more info)
Vanilla ice cream (I use Dreyers Vanilla Bean)
Sliced fresh strawberries, preferably from Farmer's Market.

The directions are complicated, so put down your Le Pamplemousse and pay attention.
1. Put some ice cream in a glass. You don't have to use a wine glass, but we did, because we drink everything out of a wine glass, even French Onion soup. 

2. Pour in some Hot Lips Strawberry soda, an ethereal potion which I have heard described as "summer in a bottle." 

3. Top with sliced fresh strawberries.
4. Distribute and bask in the praise.
5. Accidentally drip all over the kitchen floor and call Molly the dog over to clean up.

6. Molly is pleased! 
7. Put the now very sticky Molly in the dishwasher with the 900 Le Pamplemousse and Strawberry Float glasses you have generated.

8. Make seconds. And thirds. Your guests are simply mad about Strawberry Floats!

And that is the story of our wienderful (yeah, I had to use it again, when else will I have this kind of opportunity?) National Hot Dog Month Backyard Picnic and STRAWBERRY FLOAT extravaganza.

Click here to view a YouTube clip of Michelle and I's Corn-Off.

-J

Michelle's Fourth of July That Was Soooo Much Better Than Jen's

So, this weekend the BF and I decided that we would escape the city and venture on a Fourth of July Road Trip down south to Ashland and Jacksonille. The real reason was I wanted to escape from Jen and see Billy Idol, but that is just a small detail!

To go in style, the BF shined the car, I broke out the picnic basket, and headed to Pastaworks to get the makings of the "PERFECT PICNIC." The car was packed up and we headed out!

We enjoyed the drive drown with the wind in our hair and enjoying foot long Pixie Stix.

Oh this will take forever to write! We just did too much: Jacksonville, The Britt Festival, Billy Idol, The Perfect Picnic, Jacksonville Inn, La Fiesta, McMullen House, Morning Glory, Fireworks, Larks, Amuse, The Shakespeare Festival...too much to blog. So I decided that I would create a montage to summarize... Sorry Sis... my 4th was just sooo much better that it would take years to write about and pictures are worth a thousand words! Enjoy!

Fourth of July

Since Michelle was spending the holiday weekend in Ashland on a romantic getaway with her sweetie (Gag!), I was planning to celebrate Fourth of July solo on my fire escape with a sparkler and a Budweiser and then take a 1,776 minute nap after our exhausting past few weeks. But somehow, I found myself downtown Friday night with Beth, Brian, Eric and Gareth. Here are a few highlights.

We tried to go to Clyde Common, but it was closed. Bethie was devastated. 

Fortunately Saucebox was open, so we kicked off the evening with the "Hojito" and the "Green Dragon." Those became our fake names for the evening.  

Onward to the Tugboat Brewing Company on SW Ankeny...where Hojito and I met Daisy, my new favorite drinking buddy. Tugboat, a cozy pub tucked into a tiny alley right off SW Broadway, is half old English library, half ship captains's quarters, and specializes in strong British-style ales. I think Daisy had been tippling a bit.

The boys joined us shortly thereafter, along with Gareth of Wales, who is having his second birthday party later this month at Lucky Lab Brewing Company. Happy Almost Birthday Gareth! Yeah, I know, you wish Dad would quit posing and give you a sip of his Guinness already.

And the good times continued from there, but the above mentioned is, as they say, all the news that's fit to print. Hope your 4th was fabulous!

-J

Clyde Common and the Travel Channel Film Crew!

So Sunday night, the Travel Channel crew informed us, was their night off. They "fancied" a "night on the town," and ambassadors of Portland that we are, we obliged. We decided that Clyde Common was just the place for dinner, with its lively atmosphere, long communal tables, and gastropub-esque dining experience.

Michelle, Reatha, and I had a cocktail and a glass or two of rose and a few very nice English and Irish cheeses at the bar while we waited for everyone else.

Lo and behold! Brother Elias, Executive Chef at Castagna, happened by on his bike! We told him and his girlfriend Anella to come on in, the more the merrier. Clyde Common hostess Jen graciously moved a few things around and upped our reservation.

Everyone gathered around the table, and starters began arriving.



Ben had the fish,

Bob had the lamb,

And Brian (left, Portlandian) and Alistair (right, British) had the cheesy grins. Okay, Alistair's grin wasn't that cheesy, but Brian's is.

When we realized that SUNDAY NIGHT IS HALF PRICE ON SPARKLY NIGHT at Clyde Common, the festivities rose another notch.


And finally, it was dessert and off to bed. Or the Vault, possibly, it's all a little bubbly, er, fuzzy.

TableTalkPortland at the Zoo

"Everyone is wearing Chacos and knee-length shorts," I hissed to Michelle as she blithely maneuvered her Gimpmobile through the Oregon Zoo clutching her ticket to the sold-out Indigo Girls concert in a hot sweaty hand.

"I know," she said with a stealthy smile. "I was going to tell you not to wear those sandals when I picked you up, but I decided it would be funnier this way."

"Can't we just scalp these and go to North 45 and drink beers on the patio?" I pleaded, trying to unstick my darling blue sundress from my back. "It has to be 110 degrees out here. I'm going to pass out."

"Can't you go any faster?" Michelle griped. "We're going to end up sitting in the monkey cages."

"Maybe if I didn't have to carry the picnic basket, this massive picnic blanket and the cooler," I yelled, "I could keep up with you, Hobble! And what did you pack in this basket, gold bars?"

"Hello? I am injured?" she said calmly as we cleared the Steller Cove and Pacific Shores exhibits. "And I packed plates and silverware and wineglasses so we could eat like civilized people."

"What?!" I screamed. "You made me carry full place settings a mile from the car to the concert in Saharan conditions?!"

By the time security had separated us and retrieved Michelle's scooter and picnic basket from the Cats of the Amur Region enclosure, we didn't exactly have to sit in the monkey cages, but our vision of the stage was limited to the top two floodlights and even that was largely obscured by a double-fisted wine-loving fan who swayed hypnotically in a voluminous skirt three sizes larger than our picnic blanket and mouthed the words to EVERY SINGLE SONG the entire concert to her boyfriend, who, after about the fourth song, looked like he might rather be in the Island Pigs of Asia cage.

Fortunately, my woes were forgotten when we unveiled our stunning picnic spread. Fra 'Mani Sopressata and Green Olives with Herbs from City Market, creamy Smoked Gouda from Willamette Valley Cheese Company, a loaf of Pearl Bakery bread, sweet Rainier cherries from Baird Family Farms, fresh market tomatoes and carrots, Scharffen Berger Bittersweet chocolate and Chocolove Cherry and Almond chocolate bars, and a bottle of whatever wine they were selling in the mile-long line at the zoo ($22/bottle, includes plastic cups if your sister didn't make you lug her best crystal stemware all the way through the zoo).


Michelle cooled off with a swig of chilled white wine.

I gratefully kicked off my hateful sandals and did some yoga.

We played "Count the Chacos!"

When it got too dark to even see the lip-synching skirt girl, we amused ourselves by taking aerial photographs of ourselves. Because that is what we do.