Interesting Stuff Going On in Ann Arbor...

This was brought to my attention by a friend from a past life in Michigan... A food salon! Sometimes, of course, you just want to space out while eating your breakfast, but for those times that you feel like mixing the most important meal of the day with a little thought, exchange of information, perhaps even a spirited debate over the various iterations of the systems that deliver plants and animals from the fields to our intestines, this looks like a good idea. Check it out. I'm sure something like this is happening in Portland...

On Sliding into Ditches, the Estacada Microbrew Scene, Cincinnati Rock Bands and Replated Sandwiches...

Maybe some day I'll get an iPhone, but until then, you'll just have to put up with these blurry shots, this one being of Cinicnnati's Over the Rhine, from my Samsung. Anyway, I hope you had a good Friday the 13th yesterday. Mine was a bit of a mixed bag...

So I took Burke up into the foothills of the Cascades for a hike yesterday at Bagby Hot Springs. We had a very nice hike in, followed by a relaxing 45 minute soak in the tubs with a couple of backpackers and a chilly but uneventful hike out. And I'm driving back toward Portland along highway 46 when I come upon the intersection with Highway 57, and think "I wonder what's up there?" Well, it turns out what was up there was snow... And ditches... I'm sure you can imagine the scenario that unfolded. Fortunately, I didn't hit any trees, and within five minutes I was able to flag down a couple of freelance loggers with a good sized rig and a chain. We got my crippled Volvo back onto flat ground, came to the conclusion that at the very least there was a hole in the radiator, and moved it to a clearing on the other side of the road. I caught a ride with them into Estacada, where I enjoyed a Tomahawk Brown and a couple of Clackamas Cream Ales at the Fearless Brewing Company while waiting for the wrecker. They were off to somewhere else, and wouldn't let me buy them a round, but Brian and Chuck, if by any chance you're reading this, many thanks to you both for helping me out of a jam!

Several hours and a big wad of cash later, the car was at my regular Volvo garage and I was back home, just in time for Laura to come pick me up for the Over the Rhine show at the Doug Fir. Over the Rhine were excellent, by the way, they put on a really good show. If you haven't been following the Cincinnati music scene in recent years, there's a lot of good stuff coming out of that town. Over the Rhine, the Heartless Bastards, the Greenhornes, and of course we all remember the Afghan Whigs...

Unfortunately, our post-show meal upstairs in the Fir's restaurant wasn't as rewarding. This didn't come as much of a surprise to me, as I've never found the Fir's kitchen to be anything more than mediocre at best, but to wit... Laura ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup and I ordered Mac and Cheese (which, by the way, smelled of ammonia). Laura, ever the keen observer, noticed that her sandwich made its way to a nearby table, where it was quickly whisked away once it was determined to be the wrong order, and reappeared at our table suspiciously soon after. When Laura confronted the kitchen runner about the likelihood that she had, in fact, replated the same sandwich which had just been wrongfully delivered to another table (which is, in all probability, a health department violation), she took it away and brought Laura a new sandwich. But she was perfectly comfortable delivering that sandwich to my girlfriend in the first place. Food service workers take note: This sort of thing is NOT acceptable. Now, as if this weren't bad enough, we later heard a comment emanating from the kitchen about the "grilled cheese sandwich bitch." Again, food service workers take note: Comments like this are made all the time - I know, I've been there - but they should NOT be made within earshot of the subject!

While the Doug Fir remains one of my favorite music venues in town, it's not likely that I'll ever eat there again.

Pan Seared Scallops with Pumpkin Risotto and Sage Infused Brown Butter

Man, that's a crap photo... At any rate, I've been getting a lot of second hand produce lately from my girlfriend, who's having some trouble absorbing the bounty of her CSA. Recently sugar pumpkins have been factoring heavily into the mix, and having made my way through several of them last weekend by making a pumpkin pie, I decided to use up the rest and have Laura over for some pumpkin risotto (anybody out there like borscht, by the way? I've got like 37 beets...). No risotto ever suffered from the addition of brown butter, and brown butter, of course, attracts scallops, so I had my work cut out for me. Perhaps you'd care to follow along...

Ingredients

Diver or Sea Scallops, two per person
One sugar pumpkin, about six inches in diameter
Two medium shallots (or one really large one), minced
Three cloves of garlic, minced
One cup of Arborio rice
One stick of butter (8 Tbsp)
Two Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
One cup of dry white wine (Pinot Gris or Chenin Blanc work well)
Four cups of chicken stock, kept warm on a burner
One cup of grated Parmesan, Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano
Two Tbsp of chopped scallions (garlic scapes or chives also work)
One handful of good sized sage leaves
One pinch of fresh grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Method

First, you're going to brown the butter. Place six tablespoons in a fry pan over medium heat:

Once it's melted, turn the heat down to medium low and add the sage leaves. The milk solids in the butter will sink to the bottom of the pan and begin to brown. When they've achieved a medium brown color, remove the sage (reserve it for garnish), transfer the brown butter to a bowl and place it in the fridge. You'll know it's time when you see this:

Next, cut your pumpkin in half, peel it and cut it into about 1/4 inch dice. Steam half of the pumpkin for about 20 min and puree it in a blender or food processor, or with an immersion blender. Reserve the other half.

Place three tablespoons of the brown butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Saute the shallot and reserved pumpkin dice for a few minutes, then add the garlic and the rice:

Continue to saute for five minutes and add the wine and one cup of the chicken stock. Turn heat down to a simmer and continue to cook, stirring frequently and adding stock, a little at a time as the rice absorbs the liquid, until the rice is al dente (about 40 minutes). Be careful not to let the rice get too dry until it's cooked, at which point you can reduce down any excess liquid. Until then, you want to keep it looking more or less like this:

When the rice is almost cooked, add the pumpkin puree, nutmeg, scallions and cheese and start to work on the scallops.

Melt and/or warm the remaining brown butter in a sauce pan over low heat (if you want to get fancy with it, you can whisk in a tablespoon or two of the wine and a little bit of minced shallot, which will get you a sort of sage-infused, browned beurre blanc, but you'll need to multi-task or enlist some help, as this mixture needs to be whisked constantly while you're cooking the scallops). Place the remaining two tablespoons of unbrowned butter and the oil in a fry pan over medium high heat. Yes, you CAN saute with extra virgin olive oil, just don't turn the flame up all the way... When the oil and butter are hot, but not smoking, add the scallops, seasoned on both sides with salt and pepper, to the pan. Saute them for two minutes on each side. Plate them with the risotto, and drizzle the brown butter over the scallops or around the edge of the plate. Garnish with the fried sage and enjoy!

Hot Dog, We Have a Wiener!

Apparently, I'm on a roll or something, as this is the second food-related award I've won in recent weeks. For those not in the know, what you see above is a can of "Drank," a "relaxed lifestyle beverage" marketed by Houston-based Innovative Beverage Group. Ironically, their beverage is anything but innovative, as it's based on "purple drank," aka as "sizzurp," "lean," or "purple jelly," a concoction which came to be in the dirty south hip-hop community. Purple drank is basically a mixture of prescription strength codeine cough syrup and Sprite. Jolly Ranchers are often thrown in as a garnish. Now I should stress, this is not something to be glorified. Purple drank, being based on opiates, is illegal and dangerous. People have actually overdosed and died drinking this stuff. But, American pop culture being what it is, it's become a phenomenon, and somebody was bound to commercialize it. To their credit, IBG's version doesn't contain any codeine, but rather is built around melatonin, rose hips and valerium. And, naturally, high fructose corn syrup...

So how did I come to win a can of this magical elixir, you ask? A few months back, Marjorie Skinner over at the Portland Mercury blogged about Drank (which is not yet distributed in the Pacific Northwest). Somebody at IBG caught wind of it and sent her a couple cans. So Marjorie decided to keep one for herself, and offer up the other can to whoever could write the best rap verse about tha Drank. Which, incredibly, turned out to be me. You can check out my winning entry, along with a link to the runner-ups, here. Mom will no doubt be glad that I took the Bill Cosby approach and avoided using gratuitious F-bombs, and also for my reference to Timmy O'Neill, Boulder's favorite boulderer. Mom has a bit of a crush on Timmy O'Neill...

So I can't yet report on how it actually tastes (or what its effects are), as I haven't opened it yet. I'm waiting for just the right special occasion for that.

Efterklang: The Arcade Fire of Denmark?

It's been said, by critics who've earned my respect, no less... I'm not sure I'd go that far, but they put on a good show, for sure, at the Doug Fir tonight. They're definitely worth a look...

The Proposed Oregon Beer Tax Will Kill Us All!!!

If you live in Oregon, like to drink good beer, and don't want to pay $6 a pint for said beer, you're going to want to listen up...

Chances are you've got your ear close enough to the ground to have already heard about OR HB 2461, which was recently introduced into the Oregon legislature. The bill, as written, would increase the excise tax on beer from $2.60 per barrel to $49.61 per barrel. That's an increase of 1900% and, according to Laurelwood's Mike De Kalb by way of KGW, would likely raise the average price of a pint of microbrew to $6.00. Now, if we had a nationalized single-payer health care system, well-funded schools, healthy labor unions, a reasonably well-regulated financial industry and an economy that wasn't burrowing its way toward the center of the Earth, that might be a fair price for a pint. But as it stands, not one of those scenarios is the case. In addition to placing an undue burden on consumers, this tax increase will have a very adverse effect on craft brewers, especially ironic in a state which has garnered a reputation for its small-scale, artisanal producers and independent local businesses. We are simply going to have to take action to stop this bill, which essentially amounts to a sales tax on beer (and as we all know, sales taxes are inherently regressive and impact most those who are least able to bear them). A couple of things that we all need to do:

The first is to sign this petition. Then, we need to contact our respective state senators and representatives and tell them, in tactful but not uncertain terms, how we feel about this. You can find yours here.

That is all. Happy Wednesday, and Cheers!

The Best Cat Box Set-up Ever!

My friend Jon the Architect had us all over for his innaugural paraskavedekatriaphobia party this evening, and among stimulating conversation, sampling of Greg's magnificent homebrews and other highlights, we got a glimpse of Jon's ingenious ventilated catbox system, which you see above. Many thanks to BikePortland.org's Eleanor Blue, who just happened to be there to snap the photo, for sending it along to me via her iPhone!