The PSU Downtown Portland Farmers Market

The Market

There are a number of reasons why I love Portland. There are a number of reasons I dislike Portland. But today's writing will stay on the positive "love" Portland side of the equation. Despite the questionable weather, Lori and I decided to break out the bikes and ride to the downtown PSU Farmers Market Saturday morning. One of the things I love about Portland is the Springwater corridor bike path which makes up about 3/4s of our 9.5 mile bike ride into downtown Portland. The rest of the the ride is relatively benign winding through the sleepy Sellwood neighborhood and the Milwaukie city center that has a stop sign at every block. Though misting and cloudy, it was still a beautiful ride along the river watching for eagles, osprey and an occasional deer. I do need to point out that the 1/2 mile trek over the Hawthorne bridge terrifies Lori to the point of considering the "no car traffic" option of the Steele bridge every trip. But not today. Today was a conquer your fears day for Lori complete with a short stop after the return crossing to let your heart stop racing and wonder why the Steele bridge was left unused that day.

Ah, but back to the reason for the ride in the first place. The PSU Market is one of the best I've ever visited. It takes up almost three full blocks in the park blocks in the middle of the PSU campus. The setting is wonderful under a canopy of trees and I gotta say this is a huge market. Every conceivable vendor is available. Bearded mushrooms, chanterelles, or truffles? Check, Every kind of locally available produce? Check. Fresh seafood? Check. Beef, lamb, chicken, yak? Check. Wine makers and many artisan cheese makers? Check. Flowers and bakers and pastry makers....Check, check, check. Bring a large bag when you visit this market. They also offer cooking classes for the little ones and live music. And what is downtown Portland without the random musician playing something that sounded like Jamaican drums or a duet singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in harmony backed by a soft banjo. The patronage is typical downtown Portland. From struggling young creatives who don't mind spending their last 10 bucks on a Latte and a Pine State Biscuit breakfast sandwich, to the sophisticates who have pretty much made their money and now live downtown and enjoy the arts and restaurants of the area. Then there is us, somewhere in the middle of that spectrum enjoying the clamor and commerce surrounding us as we chase material for our next blog and more importantly, our next meal made up of local procured products. Yep. Many of the reasons I love Portland.

So what did we buy today? We found "Unbound Pickling Beatnik Beets" and artisan feta cheese for a fun Quinoa salad recipe I saw in MIX magazine. You have to try these pickled beets. They have pomegranate and chai spices in the brine. A helpful tip from the guy selling the beets was to reuse the brine. It can be reused once within 6 months of being opened. We are going to use roasted beets out of our garden to take advantage of this great brine mixture. Not just a local product but part of it is recyclable. When I saw the first local peaches out of the Maryhill orchards on display, I had to buy one. Wait till you see what I did with the peach. Only thing better that would be better would be to taste it. Finally, Lori bought some wheat pastry flour for a breakfast bar project she has been planning. We will talk about how those come out in a later post.

The Table

Dinner was slow cooked barbecued chicken. I like to cook the lightly seasoned chicken on the high rack using low heat with a drip pan full of water on the lower rack to keep the chicken moist. About two hours and slap on your favorite barbecue sauce for 10 minutes before removing from the grill. I always use a meat thermometer to make sure the chicken is done when cooking with low heat. The chicken was paired with the quinoa pickled beet salad. You can find the recipe on the MIX magazine website or email me. We added some watermelon to the plate that needed to be eaten.

Lastly, the peach. One peach is enough for two people using this recipe. The local peaches are pretty large. I don't think it is my original idea, but I have been doing this for a few years and never used anyone else's recipe. Hear goes.Make sure the peach is ripe and ready to eat. Cut the peach in half and take out the pit. Melt some butter in a dish and add Cinnamon and sugar to taste. Brush the cut face of the peach with the butter solution. Make sure to reserve more of the butter solution for later of make up another batch later. Place the peach face down on the grill. Now timing and heat usually vary with what else you may be grilling. So in this case, since I was low and slow cooking chicken, I put it right over the burner that was going on low for about 45 minutes. You want the face to get grill marks and the lower half of the peach to cook to soft but not mushy, Flip the peach halves over and baste again with the butter, sugar, and Cinnamon mixture filling up the pit indentation. grill another 20 to 30 minutes depending on the heat of the grill. Again, you are trying to get the peaches soft and warm but not mushy. I serve with vanilla bean ice cream

Irvington Farmers Market in the Sullivan's Gulch Neighborhood

Sunday was a beautiful day for a trip to a farmers market. Lori and I were pretty jazzed about heading into the Sullivan's Gulch Neighborhood to visit the Irvington Farmers Market. I actually didn't know about the Sullivan's Gulch Neighborhood or the history before we started researching this FM. That is one of the real unexpected consequences of our summer project. We are learning a lot about this city where we grew up. I guess we never took the time to slow down and enjoy these streets we, so commonly, travelled before. Lori and I both, a long time ago in a galaxy far away, held retail jobs at the Lloyd Center. Let me know if those jeans I sold you a gazillion years ago still fit. My 29 inch waist San Francisco's were retired before I was out of college. Thanks Anhueser Busch. Still, it's no wonder we we were jazzed to go back down memory lane.

The Market

The Irvington Farmers Market is on NE 16th between Weidler and Broadway. There is ample parking between the Lloyd Center lots and the side streets. Max is nearby and, of course, there is always my favorite transpo method, the bike. I just have to mention Lori is becoming a monster on her new bike with two consecutive weekends of 40 mile and close to 40 mile rides under her belt (Lori yawns). That is another story for another blog. This is a small market by comparison to some of the others, but I think it fits the neighborhood well. Some thought has gone into it. I would say that there are fewer prepared food booths than some markets. But we walked past many great cafes and food restaurants on our way to the market. The market had less nursery stock booths than other markets but it seemed to fit the the clientele well. Notably, there was a very good choice of fresh produce vendor booths and a few specialty booths that made this a very worthwhile destination FM and a fun place to visit.

What we bought. We purchased some Merlot Wine Jelly, small potatoes, small squashes and another jar of raspberry jalapeno jelly because we were made an offer we just couldn't refuse. A side note. A lot of the adventure in visiting any FM is talking to the vendors, sometimes dickering a little, and listening to why they are there and why they make and sell their own products. These conversations are sometimes just priceless.

The Table

We try to not go to the market with too much of a preconceived notion of what we want to buy finding the discovery and creativity is more fun that way. Of course, if you know me. I will still try to start planning before we leave but Lori has been great about reminding me of the freedom of not having everything planned out ahead of time. So, on this visit we didn't know we were eating the second half of a Pork Tenderloin, frozen at home, until we came upon the Merlot Jelly. Lori actually remembered the pork in the freezer. That led to the choice of the small potatoes and squashes. The small potatoes and squashes were olive oiled and seasoned (check earlier posts for ideas) grilled on the BBQ along with the Pork. My plan was to thaw then marinade the tenderloin in a basic olive oil, thyme, basil, rosemary, salt and pepper marinade. Grill on the BBQ to 160 internal temp, slice the tenderloin into medallions and add the Merlot jelly to the hot medallions to melt the jelly into a sauce. We added some corn on the cob to make a complete meal. Dessert was ice cream and berries left over from the West Linn market trip. With all these berries and ice cream desserts we will need to keep doing those 40 mile bike rides. I think Lori is planning the bike ride for this weekend.....eeks! See ya.

The West Linn Farmers Market

The Market

The West Linn Farmers Market has a unique feel to it. For one thing it is an evening market running from 5 PM to 8 PM on Wednesdays. The setting is a little different too. The market is nestled into the parking strip along a couple of blocks on Willamette Drive in what Lori and I call the old West Linn. Old in this case is synonymous with quaint, established and in no way run down or shoddy. This is a nice area with many upscale merchants along both sides of the street. One thing we noticed was how the local merchants and the farmers market merchants seem to have really made an effort to compliment one another. The local merchants bring their products out onto the sidewalks and offer "farmer's market" specials in a festive, cooperative way that felt like a true community effort. No where else have we seen the established businesses and farmers market businesses so well integrated.

The farmers market merchants themselves were also unique to the market for the most part. We saw our first Hula Hoop booth complete with a mermaid. There were some small home based canned fruit vendors and a homemade "all natural" doggy biscuit vendor. We purchased some peanut butter flavor doggy biscuits. The maker testified that the biscuits were human tested and really quite tasty. We took his word for it. The market has a different theme each week that can be found on their website to keep things interesting. This week's theme was "Berry Explosion". So, of course, we picked up some fresh obsidian blackberries and raspberries. The growers tell us marrionberries are still a few weeks out. We also bought some pizza bread from Yummy Tummy Oasis. Don't let the pizza word fool you. These people are serious about their organic ingredients. Some of the ingredients listed on the package are; Flax seeds, buckwheat, Irish moss, agave, and live active culture, as well as some more common ingredients like sunflower seeds, olive oil and bell peppers. I gotta tell you this stuff is delicious. No fooling. Side benefit, it's good for you.

The Table

Some of the berries didn't even make it back to the ranch and served as hors d oeuvres during the drive home. For dinner we made black bean hummus, and put it on top of the pizza bread with chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. Quick and easy. Dinner was rounded out with some fresh Alaska salmon from a friend.

Black Bean Hummus recipe

1 each, 15 oz can of black beans and garbanzo beans2 cloves garlic2+ tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cumin
A little water to control consistency
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients (except the water) in a food processor or blender until smooth. Use additional olive oil and the water to get to the consistency you like. Walla! Home made hummus without Tahini. Use as you would any hummus or dip. We like to top with cucumber, tomatoes, feta, and toasted pine nuts.