Crisp mornings, golden leaves and blue skies, mugs of hot cider and spicy chai tea, pumpkin bread and butternut squash — fall is here!
Driving to work through picturesque Highway 20 (between Corvallis and Albany) this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the obvious signs that this wonderful Oregon summer is slowly fading away. Though the skies are still blue and it’s almost 75 today, the days keep getting shorter and fiery red and gold leaves are falling softly on the ground…only to be gently swept away by a slightly chilling west wind. What a perfect time for harvest, Halloween and foliage!
Happy Monday,
We hope you’ve all enjoyed Greg’s “On the road with Oregon Bounty” segments. While his road trip may have ended, Oregon Bounty is certainly not over! In fact, you’ve got about eight weeks to experience first hand what makes Oregon taste so good, and meet the people and places that make it happen. Check our Bounty page for events happening all over the state. Just pick a region and click on “Harvest Festivals” or “Winery Events.”
I also want to share a trip idea from my friend Stephen, who had an amazing time wandering the Dahlia fields with his family in Canby last Saturday.
The fields normally close at the end of September but with the great weather we’ve been experiencing (70’s and sunny skies), they’re open through the end of this week (call 800.410.6540 to confirm). Great excuse for taking the afternoon off! ~ Mo
I learned today that you should never ask an artisan beermaker if a hop is just a hop. If you do, you’ll get a 20-minute dissertation on the complexities of growing conditions, aromas and hand-feel. In a word, they take this stuff as seriously as any winemaker worth his vineyard-designated Pinot noir.
My last stop on this journey took me to the Pelican Pub and Brewery in Pacific City. Located off Highway 101 between Lincoln City and Tillamook, without the requisite saltwater taffy shops and bumper car carnivals, Pacific City is on the verge of being the next cool place on the Coast. The Pelican is the focal point of this growing beach town, from the surfers braving the chilly Pacific waves to the Dory boats that launch each morning to bring in the daily catch.
After a morning learning the ropes of microbrewing with the brewery’s head honcho, I had the pleasure of discovering how beer and those fishermen’s bounty can be a great culinary match. I was skeptical at first. Putting wine and food I understand. But beer and food? Come on, I thought… beer is just beer, right? Lesson number two: never tell an artisan beermaker that beer is just beer.
To prove that, we began with a New England-style clam chowder matched with the Pelican’s India Pale Ale. The contrast was amazing, with the IPA proving to be the perfect foil for the creamy texture of the chowder. Next up was a Tombo (aka Oregon Albacore Tuna) that had been crusted with fresh hops and served over an heirloom tomato broth. For this course, we tried Pelican’s Elemental Ale, a brew made using the same fresh hops that adorned the fish. This time, the effect was an echo of the flavors. It was just like I was in one of those fancy wine dinners where everyone was crawling over each other to identify what was happening on their palate, only without all the hype. I quickly became a wine snob reeducated.
Winemakers and farmers love to talk dirt. They might not spend a lot of time yacking about whether the guy three parcels over is going through a divorce, but they can go on for hours telling you in minute detail the origins of the soil they farm.
In the Willamette Valley, these stories start some 15,000 years ago, and center around a giant lake up in Montana created by climate change at the end of the last Ice Age. Apparently, giant earthen dams holding back the water gave way, causing a series of dirt and debris tsunamis to flood through the Columbia River Gorge before taking a left turn toward Eugene. Known as the Missoula Floods, this geologic activity and the rich soil compositions it created is why the Willamette Valley is such a fertile place to grow grapes, and why you can’t drive but few miles in most parts here without running into a farm stand selling Oregon’s bounty. Yesterday, I enjoyed the results of that prehistoric turmoil.
My destination was the Campbell House Inn, located in Eugene. When we arrived, I met Jeff Parker, executive chef and a man who’s never met an ear of local corn that he couldn’t get really excited about. Jeff and I headed out into the farmlands surrounding Eugene. Once we left the sprawl of mini marts and burger joints, we hit a long stretch on River Road where the Burma Shave-style signs let us know what awaited. We stopped at Thistledown Farms, where we loaded up a basket-full of corn, peppers and herbs before heading back to the Campbell House’s kitchen. There, Jeff showed me a few tricks as we made an autumn salsa of sautéed corn, red bell and yellow banana peppers finished with a little cilantro (something I learned: if you boil corn in the husk, you can remove the silks much easier and save on the dental floss). Our dish wasn’t fancy, but it tasted just like Oregon in the fall. When you have corn that erupts with that much flavor, why get in its way?
Yesterday I learned that mold is a good thing, and I’m not talking about the stuff covering that orange that’s been sitting in the bottom of my refrigerator for weeks. The mold in question is the green-blue running through the bleu cheese being handcrafted at Southern Oregon’s Rogue Creamery.
My mission on this leg of the trip was to try my hand at being a cheesemaker. What I learned is, that while milk and mold are an important ingredient in making great bleu, passion is what really pushes it into the cheese stratosphere.
The guide on my cheese journey was David Gremmels, co-owner and cheesemaker at Rogue Creamery. His is a quintessential Oregon story: four years ago he stopped by the creamery to taste products for a new wine bar he was opening in Ashland. He ended up buying the company.
It was one of those right place/right time encounters. The previous owner, a second generation cheesemaker getting ready to retire, was looking to sell. He had offers on the table, but knew the prospective buyers would eventually end up scavenging the brand, shuttering the plant, and moving production out of state. David threw in an offer, spent a day making cheese, and left with a handshake deal. Within a year, Rogue Creamery was at the top of the bleu cheese heap, winning a string of awards over the world’s top cheesemakers.
As David led me through the process of creating their limited edition Rogue River Bleu (a creamy, earthy bite of heaven), it became clear very quickly why he’s selling more than just cheese out of his small, decades-old creamery. While I went elbow-deep into the curds, helping to turn the soft-yet-firm morsels for yesterday’s batch, David’s exuberance for what would rise out that whey was barely controlled. He adores his cheese. He constantly complimented and called by first name the creamery’s few dozen employees, and not in a the-boss-is-giving-someone-a-tour-of-the-plant-acting-like-he-does-this-all-the-time kind of way, either. I got the feeling that it didn’t matter if David made cheese or sold appliances; he’d love what he did and would be incredibly successful at it.
During Oregon Bounty, you can drop by the creamery, located about 15 minutes north of Ashland in Central Point. You can also learn the magic that chefs can make with these cheeses during special events at the new Harry and David store in Medford. Wineries throughout the Rogue, Umpqua and Applegate regions are having special events each weekend where you can taste Rogue Creamery’s products, local pears and more along with the latest vintages, too. Check out the Southern Oregon section of traveloregon.com/bounty and go to Winery Events or Festivals/Events.
Finally, check out the video diary of my cheesemaking experience, or read about my reflections of visiting the ranch in Southern Oregon where my great, great grandparents settled in the 1800s.
Now, it’s on to the Willamette Valley. See you on the road tomorrow.
Today is a bit of a homecoming for me. I’m in Central Oregon, where I was born and raised. A lot has changed here over the past 45 years. Growing up, we had to drive 20 miles for a special night out, and that was at the region’s one pizza parlor, on the south side of Bend. Today you can eat meals here that rival the best you’d find in Portland’s top restaurants.
The redefining of Central Oregon has come in phases, led by individuals who took risks and defied the odds. John Gray developed Sunriver in a place that seemed at the time to be in the middle of nowhere. Bill Healy took a mountain where you couldn’t go directly from hotel room to lift chair, and turned Bend into a winter destination. Today, Doug Maragas hopes to take a bare patch of land north of Redmond and make Central Oregon a winegrowing region.
Doug knows there are plenty of naysayers. But, there was a chorus of detractors in the late 60s and early 70s who said people like David Lett, Dick Ponzi, Dick Erath and others were nuts for thinking you could grow Pinot noir in the Willamette Valley.
I toured the spot where Doug hopes that vines will one day greet visitors arriving in Central Oregon from the north. He believes he’s found a microclimate that, with some careful tinkering with varietals and farming practices, will produce fine wines. While you’d think that the first ones in line to poo poo his plans would be the long time farming families who’ve tilled this ground for generations, Doug says they’ve talked about following his lead. Wine grapes — just like hay — are a commodity. If they can double the yield on their annual crops, well, money talks. So, they’ve watched the nouveau red barn rising out of the desert — soon to be home to Maragas Winery — with more than just passing interest.
I’m about as far east in Oregon as one can get without tumbling into Hells Canyon. After a stunning drive up the Columbia River and through the Blue Mountains, I landed in Baker City. The food elite of the Willamette Valley would have you believe that I passed the last culinary oasis about 220 miles ago. In their mind, I think the food world ends right around Hood River and picks up again in New York, with a brief stopover in Chicago. Actually, I feel like I’ve traveled closer to the root of what makes food wonderful, rather than farther away from it.
Out here, things like eating local and knowing who makes your food isn’t some chic 15-year old mantra. It’s just what they do here, and have for generations. Your neighbor might be a couple hundred acres away, but there’s a good chance he raised that steak you grilled last night. And in Baker County, there’s a good chance that neighbor is Sexton Ranches.
After my long drive east, I headed out to Haines, a whistle stop northwest of Baker City. That’s where I met Dick and Andi Sexton, a sixth generation ranching family, and learned about their natural and sustainable lamb and beef. For Dick and Andi, tapping into the market of consumers who are willing to pay a premium for knowing where their food came from is the future.
It’s a philosophy they’re also impressing early into their two young children. While other kids more urban might be worrying about the next Play Station release, Jake and Samantha Sexton showed me their real-life version of a video game: two three-month old calves weaned early from their mothers. Jake and Samantha are responsible for remembering when they need to be fed, where they are in the field, and what they’ll do with the money once the cows go to market. That’s a life lesson that endless soccer games will never teach.
After a tour of the Sexton’s 1,200-acre spread, we came back to the house, sat in front of the wood stove, and enjoyed a taste of their bounty: spicy beef chili, ground lamb balls, and roast lamb shoulder. It was just simple, flavorful, natural food, made and served without a lot of pretense by the people who raised it. You can’t get any closer to the source than that.
During Oregon Bounty, a visit to the Sexton’s ranch is just one of many packages available. Check out the Eastern Oregon section of traveloregon.com/bounty and click on Experience Packages. To see a video diary of my experiences today, just click on the video window here.
We hope you’ve all been enjoying Greg’s “On the Road With Oregon Bounty” segments. Greg and Laura (she’s our videographer) are taking a well deserved weekend off. Don’t fret though…they’ll be back on the road next week, bringing you an eclectic hodgepodge of ranchers, bakers, chefs and farmers, cheesemakers, brewmasters and more!
If you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend, there are a host of unique events going on all around the state. Visit our bounty page and use the map find your perfect event.
I’m no stranger to the world of Pinot noir, be it from California, Burgundy, or right here at home. And, I’ll admit it: I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to this grape. Partly out of citizenship, but mostly because I’m hard pressed to find anything I’d rather drink than a well-crafted Oregon Pinot noir. Of those, I’ve limited my sphere of Pinot reality to the Willamette Valley. If it wasn’t grown in that narrow strip between the mountain ranges of the Coast and Cascades, well, it couldn’t really be Pinot noir.
On The Road With Oregon Bounty Lesson Learned #1: get your sorry glass out of town once in a while.
Day Two of my road trip took me to Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge. There, I met Christie Reed, who along with her husband and partners, are pushing the boundaries of Pinot noir a lot farther east than snobs like me thought possible. Their Mt. Hood Winery is one of a growing number of producers that are popping up amid the apple and pear orchards of the Hood River Valley.
The winery is small, almost sub-boutique. But, what they lack in fussiness, they more than make up for in the bottle. I loved their 2003 Pinot noir, with a jammy nose (that’s wine dork for “smell”) and ripe berry finish. Not a steal, but well worth the $22. And their 2005 Pinot gris ($16) was pleasingly subtle, with aromas of melon and lemongrass. As I tasted the Pinot gris, I couldn’t help but hope we’d see an early Dungeness crab season this year. They’d be a perfect match.
If the Mt. Hood and Columbia River Gorge region is on your radar during Oregon Bounty, you couldn’t pick a better time of year to go. The harvest of aforementioned pears and apples is underway, and you can’t drive far without happening upon a roadside farm stand. We must have past a least a dozen, from slick country stores, to the guy selling Galas and Bartletts out of the back of his pickup. This fruit fervor all comes to a head during the annual Hood River Valley Harvest Fest on the weekend of October 20.
For Day One of “On The Road With Oregon Bounty” I visited the Portland Metro region, and spent the morning learning how to make the “Shazam!” (more about that to come). People often say that Portland is like Paris: a great city surrounded by a year-round bounty of products and an army of top chefs. I’m not saying that a walk along the Willamette River rivals a stroll on the Seine, but there are some awfully talented food artists here.
Take Cheryl Wakerhauser. Her Pix Patisserie has quickly launched itself into the forefront of desserts in Portland. My day began with a visit to Cheryl’s North Portland kitchen, where I tried my hand at being a pastry chef (“tried” being the operative word here). For Cheryl (aka “Pix”), becoming a pastry chef was second on her list as a career choice. As a kid, she wanted to be an astronaut. Portland’s collective sweet tooth is thankful she discovered sugar, eggs and flour instead.
Cheryl showed me the fine art of working with chocolate, and I learned how to mold it into the towering “Shazam!”, her signature caramel mousse with salted almonds, chocolate cake, more caramel, and a topping of “magic dust.” I got the hang of it pretty quickly, although I don’t think she’s going to be making me a job offer anytime soon. If you’re pondering a trip to Portland during Oregon Bounty, there’s a package available where you can spend the afternoon honing your own pastry skills with Cheryl. Check out the Portland Metro section of traveloregon.com/bounty and click on Experience Packages.
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