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Sweet Talk: Stretching your dough on desserts

This article first appeared in the fall Chow! guide, in the September 10 issue of Eugene Weekly.

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In the 2000 film Chocolat, Juliette Binoche soothes the pain of the residents of a provincial French town with a single magic potion: chocolate, the movie’s namesake. And while the current worldwide economic recession presents a different set of problems than the 1950s conformity and heavy-handed demagoguery of the film, eating one’s way to happiness still sounds like a tempting quick-fix cure for depression...both the emotional and economic varieties.

With a disheartening 12.5 percent unemployment rate in Lane County, more than three full percentage points higher than the national average, belts are tightening across the Southern Willamette Valley, and extras like sweets seem like a natural place to start trimming the fat. But if the thought of foregoing dessert due to a limited budget makes you want to toss your cookies, some local sugar-slingers are taking steps to ensure their customers can have their cake and eat it, too.

Adam Bernstein, proprietor of eateries Café Maroc and Adam’s Sustainable Table, recently changed the name and menu of the latter from Adam’s Place, a measure to reflect not only sustainability of the environmental sort but a nod toward finances as well. “I think people tend to share more desserts” these days, says Bernstein. 

“We have a chocolate volcano, a shared dessert,” Bernstein says. Ordering a dessert, even a shared one, makes “people feel like they’re getting a bonus,” he explains.

If even half a chocolate volcano is beyond the budget, Amy Brown, manager of the Candy Baron at Fifth Street Public Market, may have the solution. Brown equates the shop’s à la carte shopping experience with a way to save a few coins, asserting that her customers “are appreciative of the fact we carry individual candies, and can buy just a couple of pieces” as a pick-me-up. All the same, Brown says, “We’ve definitely had a [sales] drop at the beginning of the year.”

Continue reading "Sweet Talk at Eugene Weekly.

Pay As You Go

The train station of Raton, New Mexico, seemed little more than a cement slab, simmering in the June heat. In cooler weather, in less dramatic circumstances, I'd probably have enjoyed the history of the mission-style building. The station defied all my expectations of rail travel. The terminal building was locked.  No smartly-dressed porter in a tie greeted me. No one carried a pocket watch.

It was 1997. I was earnest and crying and twenty years old. I said, I can’t believe this is how we end. It’s not, she responded, we’ll see each other again. The capstone project of her senior year in college was to take place among the red rock of the southwest. My crappy summer job was to transpire back home in the humid flora of the southeast. I’d wanted to see her off, so we’d wended our way from school in Chicago to this train platform in Raton, from weeds to wheat to cacti to the simmering slab. I boarded the train with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a whole supermarket rotisserie chicken. I had a change of clothes and a jacket and a couple of books. And I was broke.

I was always broke, of course, but now I was broker than usual, so broke I hadn’t contributed to gas or food on the trip. And now she was not only bidding goodbye to me, but to twenty-five of her dollars that she could not spare, pocket money for the train that more than doubled my pathetic savings. 

My Amtrak route would backtrack me from Raton to Chicago, then send me on home to Greensboro, North Carolina, where my father would meet me. Cacti to wheat to weeds to kudzu. Amtrak would demand payment in Greensboro when I claimed the boxes containing the contents of my dorm room that I had shipped ahead, but that was a problem for Greensboro.

Grease is the Word: Will Dickie Jo's sizzle or be fried?

This article, which originally appeared in the July 1 issue of Eugene Weekly, may have come out a tad more negative than I intended.  I really do appreciate what the Wests are doing, aesthetically.  How can I not love the checkered floor and pre-Elvis blues rock?  In researching this piece, I was surprised to learn that there seem to be no middle-of-the-road opinions on Dickie Jo's; Eugeneans feel passionate about their hamburgers, I guess.  Everyone seems to either adore the place, or detest it.  I don't think I fall into either category, but I will state for the record that I've been back twice since my initial reporting foray.  I do love me some Mucho Gusto carnitas, so, you know, bueno on ya for that one, Wests.

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The new Dickie Jo’s Burgers has a prominent spot on 13th between Pearl and High, and likely the first sign of the diner’s presence detected by many Eugeneans was the new paint job applied to the south wall of the abutting office building. And what a paint job. Snappy and sharp to some, a garish eyesore to others, the commanding, mid-20th-century-styled tile design of alternating red, pink and white visually drowns the compact building like a busy computer wallpaper overpowers a desktop icon. The owners, restaurateur siblings Jim and Phil West, are counting on the business as a sort of hardware upgrade for their family name, as well. 

The “Westraunt Concepts” partnership founded by the brothers may have a cutesy name, but don’t be fooled: These guys are playing for keeps. The company also created local Mexican eateries Mucho Gusto and Fina Taqueria, and Jim, the elder West, is already casting an eye northward, envisioning a day Portland will be home to combo outlets, with a Mucho and a Dickie’s under a single roof. The Wests planned to return to their roots by converting Fina Taqueria’s south Willamette location into a variation on their early 1990s barbecue joint, but those plans have been scrapped to concentrate on burritos and burgers.

Jim West proselytizes a form of dining known as “quick-casual,” a couple of steps above fast food but with a pointed lack of spendy table service. According to West, the lack of niceties translates to more cash in diners’ pockets. That no-frills style extends to the Wests’ day-to-day, as well. “We haven’t created any corporate positions,” Jim says. “I’m the bookkeeper,” while “Phil does all of our design.”

Continue reading "Grease is the Word" at Eugene Weekly.

Drafting a Plan for Expansion

This article originally appeared in the June 25 issue of Eugene Weekly.  If only every reporting gig involved sippin' on likker.  Special thanks to friend-of-the-blog (is there such a role?) Brendan Mahaney, who offered a lovely and savory staging ground for cider tasting.

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When I was about 11, I was chosen from a crowd to help a costumed reenactor operate a wooden cider press at a living history demonstration. Surprised at how little liquid was squeezed from each apple, I learned a lesson about the value of hard work and scarcity of resources. That was the last thought through my little bowl-cut head, in fact, before I tripped over the cider bucket and dumped the fruits of my labor into the grass.

Happily for Mimi Casteel and Nick Gunn, the married couple behind Salem’s Wandering Aengus Ciderworks, cider-making technology has evolved, now allowing the fermenting, bottling, and kegging of the stuff on a massive scale. 

Casteel and Gunn left Portland-based forestry surveying jobs in 2004, tired of the travel involved, and cast an eye toward agriculture. Casteel’s parents own the nearby Bethel Heights Vineyard, and though his wife “really had an itch to get into farming,” Gunn says, there wasn’t enough work to go around at Bethel Heights, and they didn’t want to undermine her parents’ efforts by founding a competing label. So they leased a nearby orchard and went into the hard cider business.

The cider produced by Wandering Aengus isn’t the pulpy, syrupy, kid-friendly concoction enjoyed on chilly autumn evenings. If anything, this hard cider is a bit like champagne: crisp, sweet and a little tart. Perfect for enjoying with cheese, pork or other musky savories.

The proof, says Wandering Aengus marketing director James Kohn, is in the fruit juice. “Most ciders are made of concentrated juice or dessert apples” like the ones found in grocery store produce sections, Kohn explains. Wandering Aengus cider, on the other hand, is made from apple varietals specifically for cider-making, and in fact, the ingredient list printed on the side of a bottle of the Semi-Dry cider amounts to a single item: “Fermented apple juice from certified organic cider apples.”

Continue reading "Drafting a Plan for Expansion" at Eugene Weekly.

Rocking the Casbah

This article appeared in the July 31 issue of Eugene Weekly.  The research for this one was grueling, as it involved phyllo dough, lamb stew, and bourbon.

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Chef Adam Bernstein isn’t shy about why he launched Café Maroc, a Moroccan eatery, this past June. “I’ve worked too hard next door,” at the adjacent, upscale Adam’s Place, Bernstein admits, “and I’m tired. I needed something that was fun and playful.”

Luckily, Bernstein wasn’t too bushed to devise a sustainability game plan for his casual new restaurant. Located on East Broadway where Bernstein’s jazz club, Luna, used to be, Café Maroc buys locally and organically whenever possible. My water glass, Bernstein tells me, is filled with harvested Oregon rainwater; the sprig of mint soaking in my tea hails from Bernstein’s backyard.

Conservation is key in Moroccan cooking, Bernstein explains. “It’s about efficiency in a place where water and fuel mean a lot.”

“Most people probably don’t know that we’ve been the leader in green and sustainable and local for a long time,” at Adam’s Place, observes the third-generation restaurateur. “We’re making decisions that are forward-thinking.” Bernstein carries this idea through to the Maroc design, incorporating tin cans claiming new life as lanterns and microfiber seat covers to simulate leather.

Continue reading "Rocking the Casbah" at Eugene Weekly.

Belly Up

This article appeared in the July 10 issue of Eugene Weekly, and afforded me the opportunity to write the phrase "fusion of barnyard flesh and Northwest fresh."  Tantalizing, no?

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Teetering at the top of a painter’s ladder, Brendan Mahaney was plastering the dining room ceiling of his new restaurant recently. When someone walked through the front door and asked for the owner, Mahaney’s first impulse was to shout for someone else. “Hey, wait,” he thought to himself. “That’s me.”

Even after notable stints as a chef at some of Eugene’s finest eateries, including three years each at Marché and Red Agave — with El Vaquero, Chanterelle and Soriah as résumé line items, for good measure — this is the first time Mahaney (whom EW profiled in Chow! in April) has been able to make that claim. With his new venture, simply called Belly, Mahaney aims to produce “reassuring” and “direct” cuisine that goes for under $20 a plate.

Belly opened last week, on Independence Day, in the 5th Avenue spot formerly occupied by Penelope’s Mediterranean Cuisine. Mahaney’s shorthand ways of describing Belly’s fare are “rustic European” and “old-school farmhouse cooking,” but to expand a bit, the enterprising gourmand encapsulates his approach as “applying classic French and Italian techniques and practices to the food in the Northwest.”

Continue reading "Belly Up" at Eugene Weekly.

Freebies

Okay, over a month with no blog entries is inexcusable.  My sincere apologies to the six people reading this. 

Earlier this week I was on assignment covering a new restaurant opening.  I brought my wife along because I know she digs this particular snack shack.  This wasn’t an “undercover” review sort of situation; the owner knew I was there, and in fact interviewing him was one of my objectives.

We went in knowing that he was likely to comp us our meal, so we decided to live it up with gratis cocktails.  My only twinge of guilt came when I found myself ordering a second beverage (non-alcoholic), since I thought I might want to mention it in the write-up.  My second came when the server got confused and accidentally brought us a bill.  The owner realized it and told us not to pay, but not before he deep-sixed the check, I noticed the total was almost $75.

Pub-lished

My friend Leona Laurie, public relations and social media maven, has been running a few of my recent articles over on her newly-launched Villard Street Pub blog.  My work is in good company, joined as it is by the talents of Katie Campbell, Michael Werner, and Leona herself. 

Money Where the Mouth Is

This article appeared in the March 13 issue of Eugene Weekly.

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I'm standing in Nicholas Walker's sunny Springfield kitchen on a Tuesday morning in February, swirling a stemmed glass containing a cloudy concoction that looks suspiciously like a thick shot of grape juice. The liquid is a crème de cacao chocolate infusion, a planned offering of Wide Mouth Spirits, LLC, the nascent brainchild of Walker and business partner James Stegall. 

Both of the men glance at me expectantly as I raise the glass to my lips, but I'm a bit dubious. I usually go for something a bit more butch — a shot of Maker's Mark, say — and I've never quite trusted dessert liqueurs. But the nectar goes down smooth and sharp and just a little tart, and I quickly ask for another belt. A small one. It's not even lunchtime.

Continue Reading "Money Where the Mouth Is" at Eugene Weekly.