Oregon Food and Wine: EZ Orchards

Oh, Oregon.  Why are you only 70 degrees and raining in July?  On the day that we're supposed to be barbecuing ribs and celebrating all the July birthdays in our family*?  Why????

But it's also given me a chance to hole up in MC's (my mother-in-law) house and write about the tremendous couple of days I've already had.  With a glass of wine next to me, of course.  The days have been full of food and wine, and I'm happy as a clam (...or a crab, seeing as I'm a Cancer...).

One of the first places we go when we arrive in Oregon is EZ Orchards, which I mentioned here (you can also "like" them on Facebook).  It's truly a community spot with mostly local produce, as well as local cheeses, homemade baked goods, and supplies for the home.  Every year we visit and I stock up on both EZ Orchards' Marionberry Jam and AJ's Walla Walla Sweet Onion Mustard:

 And every year I pine for one of their gorgeous tablecloths and never buy one:

Their berries are particularly beautiful:

It has also become an unofficial tradition that I make caramelized onions every time I visit MC:

The Walla Walla sweet onions are just so unbelievably sweet and rich - I love pairing them with salty salami (as I did last year) or on a burger with blue cheese (which I did this year).

Oregon - and Salem, in particular - is such a well-hidden secret.  We know that it's one of the best states in the U.S. for beer, but it's also an incredible food mecca.  It's a secret that Oregonians, for the most part, would rather not be revealed for fear that the state would be overrun (by Californians, in particular...).  EZ Orchards is a perfect example of Salem's hidden charm.

Eat, drink, and support local business.

* Bug, my grandmother-in-law, and me, in this case.  It's also my sister-in-law's birthday today - happy birthday, Kellee!!!

Vacation, Part II: Oregon

So the second part of our vacation was a trip to Oregon to visit my in-laws. Again, I found myself wondering why - why - did I ever leave...until Adam reminded me - again - how much I loathe the constant gray. Nevertheless, here are a few of the things we did:

• Mexican and Salvadoran cuisine at Los Dos Hermanos in Keizer. I haven't had a lot of Salvadoran* food, but I do credit myself with knowing good food when I taste it...and this is gooooood. I am a HUGE fan of their pupusas (here is a recipe that I've used to try to imitate them), and we went through two pitchers of their margaritas. Good times, good times. It's a great local family-run joint and, even though I can't imagine you'd ever be there, I can't recommend it highly enough the next time you're in Keizer.

• I drank a ridiculous amount of local wines: Cubanisimo 2006 Pinot Noir (major spice), King Estate Pinot Gris, King Estate 2007 "Next" Pinot Noir (light and fruity, perfect summer red), and Firesteed Pinot Noir. And that was only the local wines...there were others...
  
  
• As usual, we stocked up on all our local produce at EZ Orchards. The photo below is a meal mostly bought from them: local Willamette Valley Cheese Co. cheeses, caramelized local Walla Walla onions, local raspberries and marionberries, Great Harvest bread, and non-local salami bought at Whole Foods. To top it off, this lovely lunch was eaten while fishing along the Santiam River.
  
  
• And no trip to Oregon is complete without a trip to McMenamins. The BEST tater tots, great burgers, and fantastic local beers: I splurged and drank TWO pints of their Wheat beer. I love the atmosphere too - dark wood, jukebox, mismatched tables and chairs. Not to mention that the servers will let you sit forever, if you want. It's about the closest thing we have to pubs in the U.S.
  
  
  
  
• We also went to Great Harvest Bread Co. and bought one of the biggest ice cream sandwiches EVER. Also bought some fresh bread to go with all our meals.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Ram is a microbrewery across the street from my alma mater, and I drank waaaaay too many Long Island Ice Teas there in my youth (they were only $2!!!). I made up for it this time by drinking an excellent microbrew: Big Horn Blonde. You don't need to know that it was a 24 ouncer...see, I can still put 'em away!
  
  
• Last but not least, we scored a tour at the "we don't give tours to the public" Kettle Chips processing plant. I'll be writing an entire post dedicated to the tour, but let me tell you now that it was truly a pinnacle for me. Absolutely fascinating.

The food scene in Oregon is everything it is rumored to be: focus on fresh, local ingredients with a natural, relaxed, laid-back vibe. I ate well, my friends, and it was wonderful.

Eat, drink, and cheers to the West Coast, my homeland.

* So Los Dos Hermanos spells it "Salvadoran" but I keep reading it "Salvadorian" other places. I can't tell definitively which it is.

If not for the seasonal dysfunction disorder issue...

So I got my B.A. in English from Willamette University , a small liberal arts school in Salem, Oregon (that's OR-gun for all you East Coasters...for god's sake, PLEASE stop pronouncing it Or-e-GONE!).  I liked the school but I never really got involved in anything while I was there, which stemmed from the fact that I was too busy playing Aerobie in the quad and I realized I didn't want to be an English major anymore and didn't know what to do about it.  Anyway, I definitely wouldn't call it the best four years of my life.  And Salem was so uncool, doomed to forever be in the shadow of the much hipper Portland.

That's changing, though, and I have to admit I'm missing Oregon big time lately.  I received my Winter 2008 issue of The Scene, which is Willamette's magazine.  And it was all dedicated to food.  Wow.  Where was this coolness when I was at WU?  The dining commons work with 12-15 area farmers that provide local, sustainably grown produce to the students.  Students have planted a garden, and they've worked with Happy Harvest Farm , which delivers locally grown produce to local public schools.  A student, Justin Rothboeck, attempted to go local-only for a year, though I just read that he has reconsidered the project after eating local for 8 months.  I'm really impressed with Bon Appėtit as well, which is a national company that has found ways to introduce local sustainable food on the corporate level.  Willamette even had a "Geography of Food" class!

The Scene also had an interesting article, "Soul Food" by Sarah Evans, where they interviewed four members of the Willamette community - a Methodist minister, a Jewish student, a Medieval history professor, and a Paiute tribal elder - about ways in which food is connected to spiritual and cultural traditions.  There is also a rather frightening and sober article, "Running Dry: How Water is Reshaping, Politics, Profits and People in the 21st Century " by Nadene Steinhoff - it'll make you think about how long that shower you took this morning lasted. 

And I have to own up to some sadness about all this because I wish all of this had been available when I was at Willamette.  Then I realized that it could have been...but I wasn't the same person then and most likely would not have taken advantage of such wonderful opportunities and resources.  That said, I'm thrilled that this is happening now.  It's the right time for it, and it gives me hope to see university campuses getting the next generation involved.  I feel proud of my alma mater, and I feel such a strong connection to its values in ways that I never felt when I was actually attending the school.

What has prompted all this introspection?  All the missing of Oregon?  Well, that would be my amazing mother-in-law, of course.  She sent me a wonderful email today (she sends me lots, actually) about a local Salem business, Organic Fresh Fingers.  They are working with local daycares, preschools, and elementary schools to provide organic meals to the children; they make the list of ingredients available on their website and I was thrilled to see that I recognized everything!  Which should happen much more often than it does in our modern food system!  MC (my MIL) works in career services at WU and met the CEO/owner of Organic Fresh Fingers while they were hiring interns on the WU campus.  What a great experience for an undergrad!

MC also makes me salivate with her tales of all the wonderful things she finds at EZ Orchards , the local farm produce stand in Keizer, Oregon (which is right next to Salem).  We love stopping there when we're visiting Oregon, and I'm fairly certain MC is personally keeping them in business during the recession!  On EZ Orchards' website, it says they'll have lavender plants available starting this month...LAVENDER!  Swoooon!  Especially as NYC got hit with a minor blizzard today...  All of a sudden, Oregon's mild drizzle, stellar wines, unique microbreweries, farm produce, and green hills are looking really nice!  And this discussion has been limited to Salem's loveliness...we haven't even discussed Portland!  And don't even get me started on McMenamins. 

Eat, drink, and be thankful MC gives me a thousand reasons to go back home.