Thanks to everyone who has donated to the Blogtown Flash Food Drive so far by dropping non-perishable food items by our offices at 605 NE 21st, ste 200!

This is what the booty looks like so far:

I would love to double this amount as we head into the weekend. To help that happen, I'm offering a special perk to the first person to drop-off a grocery bag of food today: Not only will you be entered in the drawing for the two awesome cookbooks, and receive a receipt to exchange for a free sake shot at Tanuki, but you'll also receive these very special collectible Fantastic Mr. Fox promotional recipe cards that include a recipe for Turkey Stuffed with Chestnuts and Prunes!

How awesome is that?

Remember that if you can't get in to the Merc today to drop off food, the fine folks at Tanuki [413 NW 21st] have kindly offered to be our after-hours drop-off point. The free sake shot for food donation will remain in play until Saturday night.

It’s been rare lately that I’ve had the experience of feeling truly entranced when watching someone cook. I think it may have something to do with the interminable flash and noise of all those fucking reality cooking shows.

But this morning, when I watched Catherine Schon of Sassafras Catering make pie crust by hand in a video produced by Cooking Up a Story, I felt like a kid watching a magic trick. She turns the dry ingredients into a pie crust with such ease and speed it’s completely mystifying. The difference, of course, between Schon and a magician is that she’s actually telling you how the trick is done while she’s performing it, which makes the whole thing that much more magical.

Pie crust is one of those things where people either say it’s the hardest thing to do, or that it’s really simple. Whichever camp you're in, Schon presents some tips that will likely ease the pie-making process no matter who you are:

Ruling the Thanksgiving table with a well-prepared side-dish. That’s what the holiday is all about. And, sure, “thankfulness.” But everybody is thankful when the slop brought to the feast is delicious.

While putting this week's food feature together, there were a few recipes I was unable to include. The first comes from Chef Robert Reynolds, who learned the dish from Madeleine Kamman. When he described it to me over the phone, I was very intrigued. It’s a tricky, playful, two-part dish that combines potatoes wrapped in chard leaves with sautéed pairs. The pears are nestled together with the wrapped potatoes and cause a bit of surprise when guests mistake the pear for the potato and vice versa.

POTATO PACKETS WITH SAUTEED PEARS

8 swiss chard leaves
Lemon juice
6 tbsp flour
2 onions finely chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 baked potatoes, hot from the oven
Salt, pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
Grated nutmeg
4 ounces fresh goat cheese

2 Bartlett pears, under ripe
flour for dusting
2 tablespoons unsalted butter for sauteing
2 tablespoons honey
pinch of quatre epices (mixture of peppercorn, nutmeg, clove, ginger)
1/3 cup golden raisins

Blanch the leaves quickly. Refresh under cold water and set aside. Add lemon juice to the same water and blanch the chard ribs. Remove and set aside.

Sauté onions in 2 tablespoons butter till soft, then add chard stems. Remove pulp from baked potatoes. Rice potatoes over onions. Add a bit of butter, salt and pepper. Add garlic, nutmeg and finally cheese; mix well. Stuff egg sized lumps of potato into chard leaves, and wrap into a small packet. Dust pears with flour, and sauté in butter till golden. Present potato packets with sautéed pears, finish with quatre epices, honey, and raisins. Serve hot.

It’s day two of the Blogtown Flash Food Drive and we’ve got even more goodies to give you in exchange for you dropping off your non-perishable food items at the Merc offices [605 NE 21st, ste. 200]!

First! Remember that a donation enters you in a drawing to win these two heavy cookbooks:

That’s the brand new Bob’s Red Mill Cookbook and The Silver Spoon: Pasta cookbook.

Second! Thanks to our friends at Tanuki [413 NW 21st], any donation we receive at the office today and tomorrow will get you a receipt good for a free sake shot at the awesome Northwest Portland izakaya. Conversely, if you can’t make it to the Merc offices between 9:30 AM and 4:30 PM, Tanuki will be graciously collecting donations for us until Saturday. Again, a donation of a non-perishable food item will get you a free sake shot!

We all know that you really don’t need these extras—you’d donate out of the goodness of your heart anyway—but surely a little sake and a chance to win cookbooks couldn’t hurt matters any.

C’mon gang! Let’s feed some people!

Last year, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I was able to drive to the Oregon Food Bank distribution center in a car loaded with 365 pounds of food. All thanks to you, Blogtown readers.

Given last year’s success, I figured we should do it again this year. So, starting tomorrow, we will be collecting your non-perishable food items here at the Mercury offices [605 NE 21st Ave., Suite 200] between the hours of 9:30 AM and 4:30 PM. The drive will end next Wednesday, the 25th, at noon.

Let’s see what we can pull together in six days, shall we? I have tons of faith in you.

Via Twitter:

I've got a call in for more details, but I have to tell you this information excites me. Not only will the brick and mortar Los Gorditos be in my 'hood, but I'll also be able to enjoy the sweet burn of a Stacy burrito out of the elements and fresh from the grill. Oh, yesssss.

I expect a vegan stampede when the place opens next month.

The folks behind ¿Por Qué No? believe their Mississippi shop to be lucky. The empirical proof of this may come from the fire that shut the place down on October 14th. Okay, sure, the fire wasn’t lucky. But the fact that it burned through a water pipe, causing the pipe to burst and subdue the flames… Well, that’s definitely lucky.

“It extinguished itself,” manager Emily Anderson told me. “The main damage was in the kitchen, but we were luckily able to salvage most of our art, and tables and chairs.”

There’s that word again: “Luck”

“There’s a certain magic on Mississippi,” Anderson said. “This just kinda went along with that.”

The damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and the owners have taken the opportunity to improve the kitchen equipment and give the place a good scrubbing. The work is almost done.

“We just need to do some painting,” Anderson explained. “The kitchen crew is coming in on Monday to do prep.”

What that means for Mississippi ¿Por Qué No? fans is that the restaurant should be serving again by Tuesday, November 17th. Also, as a reward for your patience and support, the Taqueria will making their “mid-day menu” the all-day menu during the first week of re-opening: 50 cents off tacos, $1.50 off margaritas, and $1 off chips, salsa, and guacamole.

Lucky you.

For 75 years the community of Verboort has been making sauerkraut and sausage, to be sold every year on one magical day in November. It’s like some kind of meat filled version of Brigadoon… From the sausage-scented mists of Forest Grove there appears the Visitation Catholic Church, a stand of Sequoias, Fancy Work, a beer garden. For one day the vision remains, and then is gone, disappeared into the surrounding suburban landscape.

The Verboort Sausage and Sauerkraut Festival kicks off tomorrow morning at 9 AM, the highlight of which is a $15 all-you-can-eat sausage and sauerkraut dinner with all the fixings. From what I’ve heard, the festival has become a yearly tradition for families from across the region. People come from far and wide to line up for sausage sales as early as 3 AM on Saturday morning.

You may not be that committed to Verboortian sausage, but I understand the dinner is an event not to be missed. It's also robustly attended. So, while you’re waiting to get into the dining hall, the community has set up a few pleasant distractions including a beer garden at the Verboort Rod & Gun Club, Bingo, a quilt raffle, and a plant booth.

What more do you need?

Map your way to Visitation Catholic Church at 4285 NW Visitation Road.

The Little Red Bike Café [4823 N. Lombard St.] has been a charming culinary force in North Portland since its opening just over two years ago. Since making their first breakfast sandwiches for a soon to be adoring public, owners Ali and Evan have been maintaining a blog on which they mark the progress of their venture (and their lives) through vibrant photography and jocular posts.

Of note is recent entry “If in Fact,” which includes the description of a few intriguing menu items:

Wasabi & Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs
(trio with cilantro, chives, and fish sauce)

"Spaghetti & Meatballs"
(spaghetti squash gratin topped with spicy harissa tomato sauce and Spanish meatballs)

Autumn Punch
(Buffalo Trace bourbon, apple cider, ginger beer, fresh mint)

Last week sciencenews.org reported this really scary story about how junk food alters the pleasure sensors in rats' brains causing them to act the same as rats addicted to heroin. According to a study by the Scripps Research Institute:

After just five days on the junk food diet, rats showed “profound reductions” in the sensitivity of their brains’ pleasure centers, suggesting that the animals quickly became habituated to the food. As a result, the rats ate more food to get the same amount of pleasure. Just as heroin addicts require more and more of the drug to feel good, rats needed more and more of the junk food. “They lose control,” Kenny says. “This is the hallmark of addiction.”

If that's not gross enough, it continues:

To see how strong the drive to eat junk food was, the researchers exposed the rats to a foot shock when they ate the high-fat food. Rats that had not been constantly exposed to the junk food quickly stopped eating. But the foot shock didn’t faze rats accustomed to the junk food — they continued to eat, even though they knew the shock was coming.

Throw this on the pile of scientific studies that tell us upsetting things we already know but pretend we don't. Now I'm sad. Sad and hungry.

• Just melt this on some tortilla chips and this little guy's ready to chase the dragon.

Hat tip to grist.org

Man, what a bitch of a weather system rolling through, eh? Must be Fall in Portland. Am I right? But you know what they say about Portland weather... "You don't like the weather in Portland? Then go back to wherever the hell it is you came from!"

If you're sticking around, Black Cat Cafe [1203 NE Alberta] would like to give you a free cup of joe untill noon today, and AGAIN tomorrow from 8 AM - Noon. Get on your fixie and fix, little sister.

I’ve never used a real pumpkin as an actual cooking ingredient. Usually when there’s a pumpkin in my house I’m cutting the top off that mother-effer, carving a whimsical face in the shell, and then putting a candle inside to turn it into a lantern of sorts, called a jack-o-lantern. They’re said to ward off evil spirits, but I’m not buying it—my wife still comes home every night! Eh? Can I get a rim-shot? No? Whatever…

So, the other day I’m listening to Terry Gross interview Ruth Reichl on NPR (yep, I just wrote that), and Reichl starts talking about this pumpkin soup recipe in which you scoop out the pumpkin and all that, but instead of carving a funny face into it, you fill it with bread, cream, cheese, and then throw the sucker into the over oven for a good long while. Once it comes out of the oven, you have this soup in a lovely orange edible container! Mind? Blown! [The recipe from “MMMMM: A Fiestiary” here]

During this season of pumpkin bounty, I’m curious to know if there are any Blogtownie home cooks that are using the gorgeous bulbous gourds as an ingredient?

Yeah, I’m sure there are pumpkin pies and pumpkin muffins and such, but I’m looking for recipes like this one from Becky Hogle found at Pumpkin Nook’s Cookbook:

Pumpkin Stew

Ingredients:

1 10 - 12 pound pumpkin
2 lb. Beef stew meat
2 tbs. Oil
1 Bell Pepper
1 Onion
4 Medium potatoes
3 Carrots
2 Cloves of Garlic
2 Sticks of Celery
1 15oz. can of diced tomatoes
2-3 cups Water
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Preparation Directions:

Carve a hole in the top of the pumpkin and remove seeds, and stringy insides [DO NOT CUT A FUNNY FACE INTO THE SHELL!! — PAC]. Set pumpkin aside. In a Dutch oven brown 2 lbs of stew meat in oil. Add in 1 bell pepper (sliced into inch thick slices), 1 onion (sliced), 4 medium potatoes (cubed), 3 carrots(cubed), 2 cloves of garlic(diced), 2 sticks of celery(sliced), 1 - 15 oz can of diced tomatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add 2 - 3 cups of water. Let simmer for 1 hour. Place pumpkin in shallow pan, and place stew inside pumpkin. Brush the outside of the pumpkin with a light coating of oil. Bake pumpkin and stew at 350 for 2 hours, or until pumpkin is tender. Serve wile [sic] hot. Be sure to get chunks of pumpkin in your stew, as they enhance the flavor of the stew.

Sounds quite tasty, actually. But I’m not the only one with pumpkin fever. Matt Davis has his own pumpkin soup recipe on his blog.

So what about you? Feel like sharing?

There's a hip new coffee shop in town. Heart just opened its doors at 2211 E Burnside Street (yep, that's just a few blocks from both Blend and Ruby's, and just next door to the pet store Meat). And because the ecosystem of Portland coffee shops requires that orders of hipness be quantified, let's say that it's classy hip a la Intelligentsia as opposed to cutesy hip or dirty hip (don't worry, I kind of want to stab myself for typing that sentence, too). It's actually a really nice space with big windows and beautiful dark wood floors, and there's a Random Order apple pie under glass just waiting for someone to order a slice. And bring it back to the Mercury office. For me.

I'm drinking a mocha that tastes like a latte but hell, it's day one, and at least the espresso is good. Someone who is not on deadline/trying to think of a new way to say "Jonathan Lethem blurs genre boundaries" could go drink a cup of real coffee and report back in the comments with more details, if they're so inclined. Heart does not yet exist on the internet, but I believe its hours are 7-4.

UPDATE! Hours are 7 am to 4 pm this week, and 6 am-7 pm after that.

UPDATE AGAIN! Website located.

• From a Series of Anti-Soda Posters in NYC

"This study that we did with UCLA showed that regardless of income or ethnicity, adults who drink one or more soda a day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese,"

That’s Dr. Harold Goldstein, from California’s Center for Public Health Advocacy, speaking with NPR’s Kelley Weiss. Right off the bat, the statistic seems pretty startling. But it’s designed to be startling. Goldstein is advocating for a soda tax to help pay for the nation’s healthcare overhaul.

Dan Savage had a bit to say about this awhile back. He supported the tax. Me? I’m not so sure.

A quick search for “soda tax” reveals that this idea has been around for quite awhile. But recently, proponents of using a soda tax to reclaim costs of major healthcare reform have grown even more vocal. The idea follows the same logic of other “sin taxes”: People are enjoying a product that is unhealthy for them. Their poor health is driving up medical costs. Therefore we should tax what they’re enjoying so they’ll enjoy it less and by default, become healthier. Meanwhile, the tax revenue will pay for the increased healthcare cost we already have. The sin here, I guess, is gluttony.

Smokers, you know the drill: Quit smoking, or take it with a nicotine smile.

Let’s get back to that “27 percent” statistic. Yeah, you drink soda and you’re more likely to be obese. But you know what? If you eat Doritos, you’re more likely to be obese. If you eat fried pies, you’re more likely to be obese. If you don’t get up and move your ass every once in awhile, you’re more likely to be obese. If you are poor, you’re more likely to be obese. If your job is going out to eat three to four times a week so you can publish your opinion in the food section of an alt-weekly, you’re more likely to be obese. There are, of course, exceptions.

Hey, you know what really makes people fat? Bacon! That shit is like a fat injection right into your fat ass. But we’re not going to tax bacon, are we?

Am I wrong to feel that a tax on soda seems both desperate and misguided? Am I?

Proponents suggest that the projected revenue from a small soda tax could bring in $150 billion dollars in revenue in a scant 10 years. And although it’s essentially conceding that less soda would be consumed, detractors say that a soda tax will lead to a $22 billion dollar loss in economic output.

When it comes down to it, it might be that my opinion is linked to directly to my own self-preservation. There is no way I’m coming to work if there’s a tax levied on soda. Fact is, the day that Erik Henriksen can’t afford to pay for his Dungeons and Dragons themed Jones Soda to chase down his daily smoothie made of Kit Kat bars and Where the Wild Things Are Berry Wild Slurpee™… Well… On that day the walls will run red with the blood of anyone who gets caught in the path of his blind rage.

But what’s your opinion, Blogtownies? Do tell.

Two of the fun lovinest places in NE North Portland are having anniversaries this month, and that means you get celebrate with them and reap the benefits.

First up is Saraveza [1004 N Killingsworth St.]. This bottle shop, pasty purveyor, and beer hall has been a Midwesterners Northeastern Shangri-La for one full year now. It’s also been embraced whole-heartedly by the beer community, becoming a kind-of sudsy social club for brewers and drinkers alike.

On October 17th the Killingsworth beer-joint will be celebrating a great first year with cake, bratwurst, a Russian River Consecration toast, and server selected taps. It’s a full day event, so make sure you stop in.

Next up, Flavour Spot [2310 N Lombard St. & the corner of Fremont and Mississippi] launches into SPOTfest:09 on October 24th to celebrate their anniversary. The beloved waffle stop has been keeping the denizens of Mississippi fed with all things sweet, hot, and cold for three years now and they are still going strong.

To make sure you know how strong they are, they’ve committed to serving you free waffles (!!!!!!) from 9 am to 3 pm [at the corner of Fremont and Mississippi], followed by a make your own sundae bar, followed by the Ms. Pac-Man tourney finals! All they ask is that you provide a can of food, a new pair of socks, or an unwrapped toy. An easy fee to enter into waffle Nirvana.

If you think you’re bad-ass enough at Ms. Pac-Man to rule the tournament, prelims start at Flavour Spot, October 17th at dark. Hey, maybe after you rock some Ms. Pac-Man you could go to Saraveza and eat some cake!

HEY!!!! I'M FUCKING FAT!!! AND I WANT MY FUCKING CHICKEN!!! Wait… what? NO, I DON'T FUCKING CARE IF THERE ARE CHILDREN ALL AROUND ME!!! I… WANT… MY… FUCKING… CHICKEN!!! 'CAUSE I'M FAT! AND I DON'T HAVE MY CHICKEN YET!!!
CHICKEN!!!!!