• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

THE VOTING HAS CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who participated! The winner is Dave for:

to err is human
and to forgive is divine
I served red with fish

Honorable mention to Amber:

Wine filled our glasses,
Lingered on your lips, so I
Drank too much of both.

Dave – please email me your contact information so that we can arrange to get the tickets to you.

• 1. Wine filled our glasses,…(29%, 23 Votes)
• 2. Pour, shuck, sip then slurp… (1%, 1 Votes)
• 3. today it rains hard… (1%, 1 Votes)
• 4. Red raspberries pop…(1%, 1 Votes)
• 5. I make chicken soup…(3%, 2 Votes)
• 6. Can’t pronounce this cheese!… (5%, 4 Votes)
• 7. to err is human… (53%, 41 Votes)
• 8. Hug this tree for luck…(7%, 5 Votes)

The judges are all over the place on their favorite haiku this year, so I’m throwing it out to you. If you could take the time to look over the top haiku below and vote in the poll on the right side of the page, I would appreciate it. One vote per person, please! Voting will end on Sunday evening.

The winner will receive two general-admission tickets for the event on Tuesday May 8th (a $170 value). Tickets will be mailed to winner before the event.

“Taste of the Nation Portland will raise critical funds needed to support Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in Oregon and across the nation.” You can read more information about the event at www.portlandtaste.org. If you planning to attend, you might want to read our “Taste of the Nation: a Battle Plan” here.

1. Amber says:
Wine filled our glasses,
Lingered on your lips, so I
Drank too much of both.

2. Tom says:
Pour, shuck, sip then slurp
Bubbles, oysters; what a pair
Life without a care

3. Dave says:
today it rains hard
tomorrow there will be sun
pinot noir comes soon

4. Calabrese says:
Red raspberries pop
Fragrant tartness into lips
Open for their kiss

5. Frieda Lighthouse says:
I make chicken soup
Memories of grandmother
Recalling her smile

6. Amber Says:
Can’t pronounce this cheese!
Cow or sheep? Quick – Google it!
Here comes our waiter!

7. Dave says:
to err is human
and to forgive is divine
I served red with fish

8. Brian Wilbur says:
Hug this tree for luck
Says my son before we rake.
Glorious truffles.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

This contest is now closed! Thanks to everyone who participated! I think this year has some of the best entries ever.

Presenting the 2012 “fooku”, Portland Food and Drink’s annual food haiku contest. Once again I have partnered with Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation at JELD-WEN Field. The winner will receive two general-admission tickets for the event on Tuesday May 8th (a $170 value). Tickets will be mailed to winner before the event.

“Taste of the Nation Portland will raise critical funds needed to support Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in Oregon and across the nation.” You can read more information about the event at www.portlandtaste.org. If you planning to attend, you might want to read our “Taste of the Nation: a Battle Plan” here.

Sharpen your pencils and wax poetic! You can read  some of the winning entries from the past below; they are wonderful!

The rules are pretty simple. Your entry must be in haiku format. The ancient art of haiku requires precision: a five syllable first line; seven syllable second line; and five syllable third line. Many haiku features a last line that works like a friendly elbow in the ribs. We only ask that your entry be about food or wine.

[A syllable is a part of a word capable of being pronounced by a single impulse of the voice.  I’m sure someone can explain this more simply than me, but it’s the way the word rolls off of the tongue. “Cat” is one syllable. “Be-cause” is two. “Syl-la-ble” is three.]

Check out the winning entries from earlier years below for ideas and to get the feel of haiku. Have fun! Please leave your entries in the comment section of this post, one entry per comment. Entries will close on Tuesday April 17th at 9am.

Here are winning haiku from past years:

2011

By Kassie Halpin Robinson:
Fresh, raw, exquisite:
Salmon’s salt, tang, rests on pearls
Wasabi bursts through

By What’s for supper?:
The comfort of food
Shared with family and friends
Saved me this hard year.

By AmandaAngelaMarjorie:
sips bubbly and cooks
sizzling greens in garlic cloves
low spring moon hangs full

2009

By Mark:
Morning coffee brews
Melting butter on warm toast
The furnace kicks in

By Maria W.
Give me some pasta
forkfuls of love and ruin.
The wine’s nearly gone.

By Maria W:
Farmers Market says
“no dogs this year.” May I bring
Spot, my truffle pig?

2008

By MySwanDive:
inhale swirls of cab
palate warmed, bask in the fire
newly lit like me

By Zac Stafford:
He cooked with passion.
The real reason we broke up?
Knives in dishwasher

2007

By CookForHire:
sound of meat browning
feel of knife through vegetable:
a true cook’s reward

By Womby:
at last, no jacket
instead, i grab sunglasses
soon come the favas

By Truth:
airy is the crumb
earthy, this crust of Pearl
heavenly, the smell

2006

By Fathom:
Now forego the fork
Hold close this slice of heaven
Perfect on a crust

By Pam:
Champagne, strawberries
and you, here in my warm bed.
Who cares if it rains?

By Witzend:
How bad could it be?
Real bad. Think Hung Far Low bad.
Ok, fine! YOU choose.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

Here are the results!

Katherine 1 vote
Meimoya 8 votes
Cary 3 votes
Meredith Robertson 30 votes
Amy Houchen 3 votes.

Congratulations Meredith!

Thanks to the good folks who took time to enter our Fall food writing contest, as well as the business who sponsored the awards!

• A $25 gift certificate to Olivers at the Camas hotel in Washington, one of Food & Wine Magazine’s three Best New Suburban Restaurants for 2011.
• A $25 bottle of wine from Portland Oregon Wine.com
• A $25 gift certificate from Las Primas, a Peruvian street food restaurant opening this fall on N. Williams.

Here are the entries in the order received. You will find a voting box in the sidebar of this post on the site.

1. Katherine says:

   September 22, 2011 at 5:31 pm

   Fall will always mean back to school to me, even though now I’m officially out of the academic world. In college, I lived in a tiny duplex (the kitchen counter was about the size of one plate, depth and width).

   With the arrival of my second year of college, so too arrived my first excitement for cooking. I had always loved eating, restaurants, and food, but my Italian Babbo was far too much of a brilliant garlic artist to let me near the kitchen growing up. Yet, college, specifically my boyfriend in college, made me realize I wanted to be good at cooking, for both myself, and him.

   So I managed to rustle up a pork chops and applesauce recipe and head to my tiny kitchen. Oil splattered from the pan as I watched the chops transform from pink to caramel on the edges. I jumped back, scared, but was excited when I discovered how easy it was to make a homemade applesauce. Suddenly, the Granny Smiths I’d attempted to chop, along with cider, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon and raisins was a fragrant, chunky sauce. I was proud, and shocked that I’d spent all those years eating baby food-like Motts.

   That night, my boyfriend and I sat on the carpet around the coffee table, and as he knifed into his chop and took a bite, I held my breath. I prayed it was cooked through-I didn’t have a meat thermometer yet-and if it was cooked, that it was edible. He swallowed, and then I took a bite of my own, and I knew I was in love-not with him, but with the applesauce, and cooking as well.

2. meimoya says:

   September 23, 2011 at 10:59 pm

   My mother, the recipe enthusiast, has a box in her kitchen full of, well, recipes, clipped from Sunset magazine, the local newspaper, and who knows where-all. Conversely, she only has a few cookbooks hanging around, and most of them date back to the 1970s. Outdated though they may be, these cookbooks do have a few absolute gems up their sleeves. I walked into her kitchen this morning and was hit smack dab in the face with the ultimate smell of childhood autumn: German Apple Pancake.

   This recipe occupies a sacred place in our family lore. It’s from The Vegetarian Epicure. Yes, Mom and Dad were once what they call “plainclothes hippies,” vegetarians, gardeners, in touch with the planet and all. Their copy of the cookbook consistently falls open to the German Apple Pancake page. For a decade now the binding has been broken there, and there are little droplets staining the paper, souvenirs from pancakes past. My dad used to make this recipe for weekend breakfast once the good apples started to appear in the stores. No Red Delicious ever got near this recipe! We’s apple snobs in Washington.

   We experimented with all kinds of varieties for the pancake topping…Granny Smith, Fuji, Gala, Jonagold, and in later years, Honeycrisp and Pink Lady. The original recipe suggests Pippens, a varietal that seems to have gone the way of shag carpeting.

   The pancake itself is a light, airy wonder, with no leavening, just equal parts egg, flour, and milk, with a pinch of salt thrown in. It gets baked in the oven in a trusty cast-iron skillet, climbing up the sides of the skillet and emerging a golden pancake bowl that is crisp and airy on the sides and doughy and absorbent on the bottom. This delicacy is subsequently topped with peeled, thinly sliced apples sauteed in butter and brown sugar.

   Stop. Close your eyes. Really, you need to do this. Take a minute and just imagine all those smells…melted butter, eggy pancake, apple, caramelizing brown sugar, a bit of nutmeg…THAT is my smell of autumn.

   My role as a kid was always to help my dad peel the apples. I was in awe of his skill with an apple peeler. (This is how important this recipe is in my family. We don’t have potato peelers in our kitchen; we got apple peelers here.) He was able to create long, curling strips of peel. By the time I was finished peeling one apple, one round little blurb of peel at a time, he’d already powered through the other three.

   He taught me to time it just right, to start sauteing the apples just as I turned down the temperature on the oven so that both apples and pancake would be done at the same time. He taught me to hold back, be a bit patient before starting to eat, so that the juices would have time to soak into the pancake, sweetening it and adding depth to the eggy flavor.

   I learned on my own never to tamper with perfection:
   German Apple Pancake, as I remember it from The Vegetarian Epicure:
   Pancake:
   1 TB butter
   3 large eggs
   3/4 cup flour
   3/4 cup milk
   pinch of salt
   Topping:
   4 apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
   1/4 cup butter
   1/4 cup packed brown sugar
   cinnamon and nutmet
   Method: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Melt the butter in a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, coating the bottom and sides. Mix the eggs, flour, milk, and salt in a bowl and pour into the skillet. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake ten minutes more.
   Sautee the apples in the remaining 1/4 cup of melted butter. When the apples are just soft, add the sugar and spices. Fill one half of the pancake bowl with apples, then fold the other half over on top.
   Wait a few minutes.
   Devour.

3. Cary says:

   September 30, 2011 at 2:32 pm

   Everyone has a favorite pizza. I stand loyal to my favorite pizza joint here in Portland, but my all time favorite hails from Buffalo, New York. Every summer or winter vacation that I visited my dad’s side of the family as a child, I always looked forward to two delicacies: 1) hot wings (never call them “Buffalo wings” in Buffalo, mind you) and 2) “Dino Pacciotti’s Bocce Club” pepperoni pizza – double pepperoni, double sliced. Our family never bothered to order anything other than that from Bocce Pizza because frankly nothing else was really worth it. Their vegetables weren’t of great quality and nothing else could quite measure up to that juicy, thick-sliced pepperoni.

   We usually ordered two extra large pies between about five adults and some kids, which usually left us with about half of one to snack on over the course of the next day. Ordering them double sliced provided for the pleasant illusion that we were eating more pizza. I always volunteered to ride shotgun to the pizza parlor to pick up the order with my Uncle Dave or cousin Dan so I could sneak myself in a piece of pepperoni as soon as possible. I could never be trusted to sit with two piping hot Bocce pizzas sitting on my lap. Opening that box let that dangerously tantalizing scent hotbox the entire car and I could not resist prematurely snagging a piece or two of that wonderful pepperoni.

   My birthday falls on October 9. One year, my family gathered at my dad’s house to celebrate my birthday. My parents divorced when I was 5 years old, but they remain close friends to this day. We still continued to gather all together for celebrations such as birthdays. That particular year, my mom brought me a delicious dark chocolate-raspberry cake that was too rich to enjoy in one sitting. This worked to my advantage as I could enjoy the rest of the cake over subsequent days. To my great delight, as we hurried to find refuge in my dad’s house on that blustery birthday, I found my nostrils filled with that distinct, mouth-watering aroma I had only experienced before from over 2,500 miles across the country! I had joked around before about Bocce Club pizza’s advertised offer to deliver a half-baked pizza anywhere nationwide via UPS, but I never thought that this dream would come true! As I popped that first hot little slice in my mouth, those copious, thick slices of pepperoni fell all over the plate.

   Every time I visit my dad’s house, that Bocce Club pizza box remains victoriously displayed above the mantel, taking me back to the glorious time that I ate my favorite pizza on my birthday.

4. Meredith Robertson says:

   October 1, 2011 at 8:39 am

   Circa 1971, I’m just a little tyke walking home from school in late September. The leaves have changed colors and are starting to fall to the ground and there is a nip in the air. My mother is newly divorced and is struggling to find herself. Find new friends and to find a balance in life and true to her form, she throws her whole self in.

   Armed with a new cook book called Glorious Stew my mother sets out to make a basic brown stew. It’s the first recipe in the book and by golly she is going to master this stew if it’s the last thing she ever does. Several times a week as I walk through the front door I can smell the beef simmering lightly on the stove top and by the time Gilligan’s Island is over the mushrooms have been added and it’s getting close to dinner time. She throw’s in a loaf of crunchy French bread and severs us our stew in the brown ceramic pottery bowls with handles on the side that she got from the Shell gas station with every fill up. I dip my bread in to test the temperature and deeming it satisfactory; I gulp down my soup and run off to watch TV again. I’m sure we never provided the right kind of feedback that she was looking for unless cleaning our plate’s counts.

   In order to get the right kind of feedback, she needed to test it out on friends. But…this is “just” a basic brown stew, time to pull out the big guns and really test her skills. Boeuf Bourguignon, ahhh that very rich French stew. Glorious Stew says, “The name should really be a la Bourguingnonne- in the style of a Burgundy housewife…” now we are getting somewhere. My mother master’s this stew to perfection and I’m in love! But it’s a very short lived love. I only get to enjoy this brown velvety concoction with its sweet round onions and firm mushrooms a couple of times. It’s too expensive for a single mother to make as an everyday meal, so she saves it for a Saturday afternoon in late October to have with close friends and several bottles of red wine.

   By the time November arrives her thoughts’ turn to Thanksgiving and Christmas. She, again true to form throws herself into learning and perfecting something new to wow her friends with. It will be a whole year before I get beef stew again. Jump to 1988, after I graduated from culinary school my mother presented me with my own cookbook of Glorious Stew that she had found in a second hand store. She loving copied her notes from the edges and put them in my book to read. My book is well read and used as is hers. There are stains everywhere and reminders of past meals with close friends. I still find that there is nothing better than a warm bowl of stew in fall with leaves turning red.

5. Amy Houchen says:

   October 3, 2011 at 8:57 pm

   The Scents of September

   When I was a child arriving home during the first week or so of school, I was likely to be greeted by one of two scents.

   One was ripe Bartlett pears. My mother canned dozens of jars of fruit for our family of seven, and early September was time for pears, which were my favorite. When I got old enough, I was pressed into service peeling, halving, and coring. The easiest way to core a pear half is with a round or oval quarter-teaspoon measure: run the edge of the bowl from the stem end just under the core, scoop out the seed cavity, and then scoop once again—more shallowly—to remove the blossom end.

   The other scent was of dill pickles ripening in the crock. I loved that pungent combination of vinegar and dill, even though I never ate any pickles. My mother also made sweet and bread-and-butter pickles, but I didn’t like those, either. I remember the mustard seeds in the bread-and-butter liquid, and I only ate sweet pickles when diced and suitably disguised in tuna and ground meat sandwiches. (This “ground meat” wasn’t hamburger. It was leftover pot roast run through the meat grinder with the medium attachment, and we mixed it with a little diced sweet pickle and mayonnaise or Miracle Whip, just as we did tuna.) It wasn’t until I was an adult that I developed a taste for sweet pickle relish—but only on hot dogs or hamburgers.

   The back door I entered each afternoon led into the pantry. It was there that the pickle crock sat. And after the pickles and pears had been put in jars and processed in the big white-flecked dark blue canning kettle, it was there that they (and all the other canned fruit, and the jams and jellies) waited, on slatted shelves, to disappear through the winter.

   After I left home, I never canned again (although I have been known to freeze vegetables, fruits, and tomato sauce). But some of my happiest moments each year are in September, when I prepare food while the sun slants in through my kitchen’s west windows, just as it did in the kitchen in which I grew up. Proust had his madeleines, but I have a couple of battered aluminum quarter teaspoons that I used for coring pears all those decades ago.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

Over the history of the site, we’ve had several food writing contests. They have been so successful, I’ve lined up some great prizes, and we’ll do it again. The winner will receive:

• A $25 gift certificate to Olivers at the Camas hotel in Washington, one of Food & Wine Magazine’s three Best New Suburban Restaurants for 2011.
• A $25 bottle of wine from Portland Oregon Wine.com
• A $25 gift certificate from Las Primas, a Peruvian street food restaurant opening this fall on N. Williams.

This year the theme is Fall Food Memories. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about Portland, but it must be a food-centric experience. Let’s keep the entries to 500 words or less. Email your stories to me using the Contact button above, or post them here in the comments. If it’s easier, you can log in with your Facebook account.

I will keep the contest open until October. 1st  5th. The final winner will be determined by visitors to this site.

Here are a couple of winners from the past:

2010: “Super Dave”:

In the fall 1997 I had planned on throwing a big party to celebrate the five year remission of my cancer. It was a chance to thank everyone that had been such great friends and provided me support in getting well. The five year point seemed appropriate, but my best laid plans were undone when at my checkup the doctors found the cancer had spread to my lungs.

Instead of a party, I was having surgeries, chemotherapy and readying myself for a bone marrow transplant. Thanksgiving was coming and through an unrelenting stream of begging, I convinced by doctors to let me see my family and fly from the East Coast to Portland. They packed me a cooler full of drugs and I arrived in Portland looking (and feeling) like a ghost. Being somewhat unfamiliar with Portland at the time, I asked my sister to make reservations for us at a “really great restaurant” for Saturday. I really wanted to have my some acknowledgement that I had indeed made it five years.

We arrived at Paley’s Place and once we had filled everyone’s glass with wine (including myself, against strict orders) I stood up and thanked everyone for being there. As I struggled to maintain my composure, I explained that while I had planned on my celebration to be a bit more grandiose circumstances dictated that the party be a bit more modest. Nonetheless, I had made it five years and I was determined to recognize the accomplishment. It was at this point, we all realized that this was likely to be our last time together as a family and the mood became decidedly somber.

And then my 85 year old grandmother stood up. She had started drinking earlier in the day and had a penchant for ill-timed, inappropriate comments. We all looked at each other nervously as she proclaimed, “I propose a toast to David! We hope you live longer than we anticipate!” She then sat down and took a long pull on her glass of wine. The table erupted in laughter. It was what we were all thinking but afraid to say. It was finally a party, a family meal with all our unique craziness. We ate fantastic food, drank really good wine, told stories, and argued over things of little consequence. It remains the best and most memorable meal of my life. The food was wonderful, but sharing it with people who were acknowledging their love for each other made it something special. The meal is now part of family lore. I live in Portland now, and at each five year anniversary from my bone marrow transplant, I have dinner with my family and I toast my grandmother.

2008 “Granny Moon” for this memory:

Breakfast when I was a kid was a weekend event – cold cereal before school didn’t count. And every weekend it was pretty much the same thing. Daddy would get out his cast iron skillet, place it on the gas stove and start frying. Always eggs. Sometimes bacon, occasionally ham – and if it were fishing season there would be fresh caught rainbow trout from his 4 am jaunt on the lake.

But the thing I remember most was his fried potatoes. If I were really lucky he would grate them, then dump them in the hot grease and make them oh so crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. I’ve tried forever to duplicate that. 4 out of 5 times I almost get it. That 5th time is heaven. Makes my arteries harden just to think about it…

Daddy grew older and ended up having a triple bypass. But he never lost his love of fried potatoes. When he reached the age of 88, I moved to Tucson and lived with him and my stepmom. Over the course of 16 months I perfected the fried potato. Not the grated wonder that my dad turned out; but a thin sliced, perfect circle of crispiness. With a soft center that melted in your mouth.

I would get up at 6 am when Daddy came out of his bedroom to get the newspaper, and we would have a cup of coffee together while I peeled a couple of small potatoes. Then I would slice and fry them up – using that same cast iron skillet and a gas stove. When I served them to him in his recliner, he would eat them with his fingers – savoring every bite.

My step mom always said that I was spoiling him. But I like to think that I was feeding his spirit – transferring the love that he gave his baby girl right back to him, by way of a fried potato.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

[The contest is now closed! The judges will take a look and come up with top favorites, which will be listed for you to vote on. Thanks to everyone for the great entries.]

A few years ago, we had a food writing contest. It was so successful, I’ve lined up some great prizes, and we’ll do it again. First prize is an evening class for two people at Robert Reynold’s Chefs Studio. Located in SE Portland, Robert offers French and Italian cooking classes for both professionals and amateurs. I’ll have further details on this as the contest progresses. Second prize is a $25 gift certificate to Gilt Club in downtown Portland.

All you need to do is write about a food memory. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about Portland; perhaps your memory is of an evening on Corfu. There will be prizes for first, second and third place, as voted by our readers. Let’s keep the entries to 500 words or less. Email your stories to me, or post them here in the comments for this post. You can read some of the entries from the last time here.

The winner in 2008 was “Granny Moon” for this memory:

Breakfast when I was a kid was a weekend event – cold cereal before school didn’t count. And every weekend it was pretty much the same thing. Daddy would get out his cast iron skillet, place it on the gas stove and start frying. Always eggs. Sometimes bacon, occasionally ham – and if it were fishing season there would be fresh caught rainbow trout from his 4 am jaunt on the lake.

But the thing I remember most was his fried potatoes. If I were really lucky he would grate them, then dump them in the hot grease and make them oh so crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. I’ve tried forever to duplicate that. 4 out of 5 times I almost get it. That 5th time is heaven. Makes my arteries harden just to think about it…

Daddy grew older and ended up having a triple bypass. But he never lost his love of fried potatoes. When he reached the age of 88, I moved to Tucson and lived with him and my stepmom. Over the course of 16 months I perfected the fried potato. Not the grated wonder that my dad turned out; but a thin sliced, perfect circle of crispiness. With a soft center that melted in your mouth.

I would get up at 6 am when Daddy came out of his bedroom to get the newspaper, and we would have a cup of coffee together while I peeled a couple of small potatoes. Then I would slice and fry them up – using that same cast iron skillet and a gas stove. When I served them to him in his recliner, he would eat them with his fingers – savoring every bite.

My step mom always said that I was spoiling him. But I like to think that I was feeding his spirit – transferring the love that he gave his baby girl right back to him, by way of a fried potato.

Here are a couple of examples from me:

Away from home for the first time, waiting for the beginning of college, I was in Sebastopol California, staying in a cold drafty old barn surrounded by apple orchards. The winter wind was so strong, it would blow bits of hay across the old barn floor, covering me with little pieces of summer-perfumed straw while I slept. On my second night, the wind was so strong one of the trees kept dragging its branches across the old tin roof. Warmed by several hot buttered rums, I stumbled outside and climbed the tree, trying to get to that overloaded branch. It broke with a loud crack, sending me crashing into the wet grass, pelted by apples shaking loose from above. Drenched and drunk, but ever the epicure, I grabbed some of the fruit and ran back inside, where I stripped off my clothes and hung them on old saddle hooks in hope they would dry. Shivering under a blanket, and huddling over my electric kettle for warmth, the idea of rum and apples appealed to me, so I sliced some up and threw them in the pot to simmer. As the water bubbled, I bit into one, and for a moment, everything stopped. It was the height of perfection, a diamond thrown from that gnarled tree, unlike any that had come before. I sat naked under grandmother’s old wool blanket, apple juice running down my face, hot-buttered rum warming my hands, listening to  the sound of the rain and the wind flexing tired timbers back and forth. Everything was right in my life.

—

I can remember my mother packing us in the car to every Thursday to go to the strawberry stand. It was run by a Japanese farmer and his wife on the back side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. We’d pile into the old VW van and wind along the bluffs overlooking the ocean. Just before Marineland, mom would park, and me and my friend Jacques would run down the steep dirt trail to the tide pools. At the time I wanted to be a marine biologist, and would dash from one pond to another, picking up rocks to see what was underneath, and carefully putting them back again. Jacques taught me how to smash open a sea urchin, and we’d eat them raw, sitting on a rock with the salt spray floating over our heads. As the tide came in, we’d race each other to the top of the bluffs where mom would be sitting, patiently reading a book. Twisting along the cliffs, we’d follow the coast where a weathered white strawberry stand stood  surrounded by acres and acres of dark green fields. I’ve never had any berries that tasted as good as the ones we’d eat in that dirt parking lot. When we got home, Dad would serve them simply, with a sprinkle of Kirsh liquor and a dusting of powdered sugar. I still eat them that way.

What memories do you have? Email me here.. Please let me know what name you want used when I post them. I’ll announce the prizes in a couple of days.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

There were some great entries in the Sagebrush Classic Feast beer haiku contest this year. Unfortunately, the judges have to narrow them down to one winner. Thanks to everyone for their entries! I wish I had a prize for all of you.

Here are the judges top entries:

Lisa Richardson:

Sunshine for the tongue
Hops turned into brewed delights
Liquid Oregon

Clinton Springer:

how like a pharaoh
the first must have felt, sipping
grain turned to manna

Clinton Springer:

it’s our mother’s milk:
the gentle hands pull the taps,
and down rains pure ale

Carlos Perez:

Beer transforms my mind
to thoughts of cascading water
Pooling, foaming, cool.

Erin Hatzi:

Malt, hops, yeast, heaven
Bitter never tastes so sweet
Drink of the people

Gabe Finch:

Bottled amber poured
In code, this malt does whisper
Of sunbeams sweet voice

Brian:

The Dissident Shouts
“Free yourself from boring beer”
Prepare to pucker!

Brian:

Miss Spelt, Not Miss Spelled
She, a thirst quenching temptress
Please don’t tell my wife.

Hoss:

Beer me Bartender
The sweet nectar you render
Is hoppy splendor

Clinton Springer:

born at sea, tumbling
through and rising from valley
soil, into your glass

The runner up by one vote: (I wish I had a prize to offer)

Lisa Richardson:

Sunshine for the tongue
Hops turned into brewed delights
Liquid Oregon

The winning entry is by Rachel:

Pour the twilight ale
Breathe in the warm wind of night
Summer has begun

Rachel, please contact me ASAP so I can arrange for your tickets! Have a great time at Sagebrush!

Eighteen chefs from as far as New York, DC and Paris, including local chefs Cory Schreiber, Vitaly Paley, and Scott Newman will participate. You can check out the lineup at Sagebrush.org/chefs. The proceeds for this event benefits Central Oregon children and families. I’m happy to support this good cause. These tickets have a value of $195.00 each!

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

(THIS CONTEST HAS NOW CLOSED. JUDGING IS IN PROGRESS)

It’s time for the 2nd annual Beer Haiku Contest!

“There aren’t many parties like Sagebrush in the entire country, so the opportunity to sample the fare of some of the world’s top chefs in one place is rare.”

- Willamette Week

Eighteen chefs from as far as New York, DC and Paris, including local chefs Cory Schreiber, Vitaly Paley, and Scott Newman will participate. The proceeds for this event benefits Central Oregon children and families. I’m happy to support this good cause. These tickets have a value of $195.00 each!

The first-place winner will receive a pair of tickets to the Deschutes Brewery Sagebrush Classic Feast in Bend Oregon which will be held on July 17th. You can enter now by putting your haiku entries in a comment box below – PLEASE ONE PER COMMENT. The contest will close July 8th.

The entries will be judged by five people associated with this site, and one from Deschutes Brewery.

Remember, to be eligible, the haiku must follow the traditional form – 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. They must make some reference to beer, though not specifically about Deschutes.

The rules are pretty simple. It must be in haiku format. The ancient art of haiku requires precision: a five syllable first line; seven syllable second line; and five syllable third line. The best haiku features a final line that works like a friendly elbow in the ribs. To be eligible, all haiku must make some reference to beer, though not specifically about Deschutes.

Here are the winners from last year:

Runner Ups

By Les:
Happy bubbles spring
Into summer beer joy hops
Fall into the clouds

Humble Pie:
Cheap yellow beer child,
I played Deschutes and ladders
ain’t been the same since

Clinton:
It is at two pints
that he feels himself transformed
from damp clay to god

The winner by one vote was:

Karen:
Willamette hops taste
like summer: green flowers bright
and sharp as sunlight

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. 

Back in July of 2006, I ran a “Food Limerick” contest. It turned out to be one of the most popular contests ever. Thanks to some generous sponsors, I’m going to have a 2010 contest!

A good limerick is not an easy feat. The first two lines come easy enough, but the next aren’t quite so easy. Pay careful attention to the examples below. For that reason, I’ll make it worth your while.

The prizes, you ask? How about a first-prize of a $75.00 gift certificate from Accanto and a  $25.00 gift certificate from Bruce Bauer Bruce Bauer over at Vino Buys in Sellwood? Second prize $25.00 gift certificate to Story Teller Wine Company? Third prize $20 gift certificate to Laughing Planet Cafe? Enough to make it worth while?

This year, the prizes will all be awarded on March 17th; Saint Patrick’s Day!

You’ve all heard limericks at one time or another; I’m sure we all learned the dirty ones when we were ten. Now it is time to put those memories to work.

Here are the rules:

Keep in mind, a limerick has to fit a certain rhythmic meter and rhyme. For example:

A: What is a limerick, Mother?
A: It’s a form of verse, said brother
B: In which lines one and two
B: Rhyme with five when it’s through
A: And three and four always rhyme with each other

Some entries from 2006:

“There’s a hair in my soup!” complained Shirley
to the head waiter, short bald and surly;
“You know, I’m appalled…”
“Ma’am, the whole staff is bald…”
“Yes I know, but the hair’s short and curly!”

You go to a place like Castagna
And order the spinach lasagne
Six pinots later
You flirt with the waiter
And most of it just ends up on ya.

Sweeney ordered a simple crab Louis;
What arrived was an herbed ratatouille.
So he sniffed, turned his head,
Grabbed a lighter, and said,
“Time for waiter flambé, with Drambuie.”

There once was a gourmet of mystery,
Who hid his identity and history
His reviews women read
And swooned in their head
Thinking thoughts that were very non-sisterly

Murmured Wolfgang in tones most appealing
As he poured the food critic’s Darjeeling,
“I’m an Iron Chef, miss…”
He leaned in for a kiss
is equipment now hangs from the ceiling

I said to my girlfriend, “Don’t hurry.”
When she went to Bombay’s for the curry,
but after the fall
and a card from Bengal
I’ll tell you – I’m starting to worry

The rules: All entries must be original. They must be related to food. They must be reasonably clean and in good taste. A panel of judges will narrow down the winning list, the prize will be picked by a vote of readers. Knock yourselves out!

You’ve all heard limericks at one time or another; I’m sure we all learned the dirty ones when we were ten (did they all involve France?). Now it is time to put those memories to work.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

I enjoyed this contest very much. There was a large panel of judges, and many entries got at least one vote. In the end, the top choices were clear.

Runner Ups

By Les:
Happy bubbles spring
Into summer beer joy hops
Fall into the clouds

Humble Pie:
Cheap yellow beer child,
I played Deschutes and ladders
ain’t been the same since

Clinton:
It is at two pints
that he feels himself transformed
from damp clay to god

The winner by one vote is:

Karen:
Willamette hops taste
like summer: green flowers bright
and sharp as sunlight

Karen has won two tickets to the Sagebrush Classic Feast on July 18th in Bend! The proceeds for this event benefits Central Oregon children and families. I’m happy to support this good cause. Tickets are still available, you can read all about the event at sagebrush.org

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.

• PortlandOregonWine.com
• Monteaux Restaurant
• Cork Wineshop
• Ristretto Roasters
• NorthwestFoodandWineGuide.com
• Anne Amie Vineyards
• Storyteller Wine Company
• Tapalaya Restaurant
• Coppia Restaurant
• Boedecker Cellars

The first prize was an easy pick this year. By overwhelming majority, Mark is the winner of two tickets to Taste of the Nation on Monday the 27th:

Morning coffee brews
Melting butter on warm toast
The furnace kicks in

Second place was more difficult. I had to bring in extra judges to break the tie between seven entries to choose a second place (21 total judges). The runner up and winner of a $25.00 gift certificate to Carafe Restaurant is Maria W.

Give me some pasta
forkfuls of love and ruin.
The wine’s nearly gone.

Honorable Mention also goes to Maria W:

Farmers Market says
“no dogs this year.” May I bring
Spot, my truffle pig?

Winners, please contact me asap to arrange for your prizes! Thanks to everyone who submitted entries. Thanks to Taste of the Nation for the first place prize, and Carafe Restaurant for the second place award.

This original post is by Food Dude, and it came from Portland Oregon Food and Drink.