From Cuisine Bonne Femme:
Do you see Marsee?
Rumor has it that the long struggling Marsee Bakery with locations on NW 23rd, NE Broadway and a couple other places (do they have many locations left?) is selling out (again). Word on the street is Three Lions is taking over the NW 23rd location, so don’t expect the bagels or croissants to improve anytime soon. Bummer.
Everyone Loves Visiting Portland
After the recent NY Times article 36 Hours in Portland, it seems there has been a slew of bloggers taking up the theme. First the Willamette Week ran a tongue in cheek copy from the perspective of a resident, not tourist (no surprise he drank a lot coffee during the day, drank beer at night, watched a ton of tv, and then slept through half the weekend. Hey that sounds like my weekend!). Now the Bay Area’s public broadcasting affiliate KQED, has blogged on 72-Hours in Portland , and frankly we think they did a much more on the mark job than the NY Times did by reporting on our farmer’s market, NE 28th, and a few other places that we love but out of towners sometimes miss. Honestly, we love stuff like this as it makes us see Portland in a fresh light and we are pretty fascinated with how others experience our little city.
Not enough? Perhaps you missed an article in The London Times entitled “The prolific northwest: Stephen Armstrong charts the ascent of Portland, Oregon, to cutting-edge indie Mecca”, an article talking about Portland’s music scene.
Oh Wow, More Cacao
And speaking of the New York Times: A little solid Vahlrona Chocolate bird told us that Cacao located on SW 13th will soon be featured in the travel section of the paper. Apparently a New York times reporter was in town for a wine conference, stumbled upon Cacao, and fell in love. We say, what took ya so long?
Governor Mac N’ Cheese
Governor Kulongoski gets food stamps, tries living on them for a week, and goes shopping for mostly processed food. This news items is getting picked up all over the world As part experiment on government social programs, part grand statement – Oregon’s liberal little d-democrat Gov is seeing what it is like to live on Oregon’s food stamp allotment for a week which equals roughly $3 dollars a day. The results ain’t pretty. Apparently when he went shopping with a real live single mother of three who is reliant on the stamps, the Governor had to put back his coffee, and couldn’t buy natural peanut butter. He did however manage a couple of cup o’ noodles, and 3 boxes of mac n’ cheese. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Governor’s little experiment, and something about it rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s because a living a week on Food Stamps is kind of a cop-out. I’d like to see him try living on food stamps for a month or longer.
Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute
Extracto the coffee house on NE Killingsworth St. and 30th Ave. has a pretty unavoidable view of the alley behind the Japanese hot spot Yakuza. We’ve seen some produce deliveries, and a certain sexy chef getting in and out of a cute vintage Mercedes. However we saw something not so pretty today. A cook dressed with a white apron hanging out back and gulping down a large 16 oz can of what we couldn’t tell (energy drink? malt liqour?). All fine and dandy what you do on your own work break, buddy, but for god sake don’t throw the empty can in the neighbor’s bushes! I’m certain both the property owner of the yard you threw that can into wouldn’t be pleased, nor would your boss if he found out. Remember, the food police are watching.
News from Food Dude
Sources tell me Wildwood’s Cory Schreiber is leaving when his contract is up in June. Manager/sommilier Randy Goodman is also leaving, possibly as soon as May. Hmm… I smell another restaurant in the works. Not that Corey has been too active in the restaurant lately, but this is going to dissolve any remaining relationship.
Lots of rumors flying around this week. One that peaked my interest is the possibility of a new Pasta Works on North Mississippi, at the retail space on the bottom of the new condominium building slated to go in just South of Monsoon Thai. Stay tuned.
This from a reader:
I learned something the other day.
Most of the bread sold at Wild Oats has been frozen and then thawed before it’s sold on store shelves.
I picked up several loaves the other day from a shelf where they were displayed sitting standing up. The back of every loaf on that rack was ice cold with water dripping off the packages. The bottom of each loaf was hard. The top of the loaf gave easily when pressed.
On another set of shelves they all sat at room temperature and the bread was not firm. I mentioned this to the checkout clerk and said it felt like the bread I have frozen at home and defrosted.
He replied, “Oh, most of our bread is frozen.” Except the locally produced bread, he added.
Restaurant Openings:
Adam Sappington’s Country Cat starts preview dinners tonight. Coincidentally, we’ll be posting an interview with Adam tomorrow.
Whether Leather? Sources tell me Leather Storrs “Rocket” will open April 27th (though some rumors put it as May 4th). Beautiful building, this place is sure to be the talk of the town.
More restaurant gossip; Chef Tommy Habetz of Merriwether is starting a farm to produce produce (that looks so wrong), for the restaurant. From what I hear, seeds have been sown, and Tommy is anxiously awaiting the first crop. Speaking of Tommy, we’ll have an interview with him by Nancy Rommelmann in a week or two… or three. She’s a busy women these days.
Hmm, the Gov is attempting to eat for a week on food stamps… I understand his want to raise consciousness, but I hope he doesn’t believe that existing on a food stamp budget for a week will truly represent what life under the federal poverty guidelines is like. As a person who helps people apply for food stamps, I would suggest to the governor that he and his wife do their shopping, get to the cashier, only to find that their food stamp allotment is at zero due to a computer glitch in the system. Then, with no money and no food, they must go to the DHS office the following day (hours are 8-5, so he’ll have to inturrupt his busy schedule, and if he is a person under the federal poverty line, he is most likely not getting paid for that time off) to meet with his social worker again. He will have to bring identification proving he, his wife, and his children are all American citizens (new law, thanks Mr. Bush) regardless of the fact that he’s lived here his entire life, either with ID’s and birth certificates, or passports. And, of course, a family of four earning $3100 a month before taxes obviously has the $400 for current passports. Why passports? What, Gov, don’t you have ID’s for your underage children?
After all this, once he is back in the system, he’ll need to wait 3-5 days for the money to reappear on his card. 3-5 days with no money and no food. Hope he can take time out of his work day to find food pantries. And then, lucky him, he can spend his $3 a day.
I don’t get why everyone is giving him such a hard time for doing this for a week. Of course he’s not going to have the full experience of someone who really does live on food stamps all the time, but he ISN’T someone who relys on stamps regularly so there is no way he would be able to simulate the experience. I’ve seen this story on tons of national news outlets which can only help to bring the situation to light. I’m not going to give a discourse defending his every action or anything, but how many other governors are doing this? maybe they all should…
Well said, nagrom. At least he’s doing something. Better than nothing. Sure, it’s largely symbolic, but what isn’t. He’s running a state of 3.5 million people, so I’ll cut him some slack if he doesn’t try to keep it up for a year, or even a month.
Good points Nagrom and Pollo…you are both right, poverty awareness is important.
I stand corrected.
Agreed, he won’t get the full experience but not only will he get a small sampling of how it is, but publishing the *one* shopping trip might sink into the brains of others. I feel as though the article in the paper made a good point of stating (the obvious) that he had to buy cheap store brands, individual items (note the three bananas) and small amounts of “necessities” (not a whole pound or more of coffee beans) It made me realize even more that I feel relatively fortunate that I am able to buy organic fruits/veggies and luxury items like good chocolate. And as someone said, at least he is doing something and following through with it. A local DJ followed suit and his peer refused to do it.
i give a hoot regarding my employees actions, i’ll talk with them tomorrow.
thanks, m
CBF- unfortunatly, the story of Marsee is a long and lame one.
less than ten years ago they allowed Tully’s Coffee to buy out their 6 retail locations- as long as Tully’s would continue to feature their products. this fusion of a mediocore bakery and a starbucks-wannabe coffee house was the perfect recipe for disaster. let’s just say: identity crisis.
a couple of years ago Tully’s started closing their stores (4) in Portland. Marsee stepped back in and kept the ne broadway, and se bybee locations. in summary, nothing has changed. the bakey is still boring (except the challah bread), and the coffee’s even worse.