Sunday Dinner: Old Salt Marketplace
May 4, 2014
Radishes, radish greens and compound butter.
In a break with tradition, we ventured out of our kitchen this Sunday evening to Old Salt Marketplace on NE 42nd Avenue. Sister restaurant to Grain & Gristle, Old Salt is rustic and neighborhood-friendly, a spot for a casual meal: spring radishes with miso compound butter; tangy beef tartare with thick-cut potato chips and piquant aioli; wood-fired duck egg on toast with chèvre; smoked half-chicken, roasted new potatoes and fiddlehead ferns; lamb, chèvre, sliced sugar snap peas and mint over linguini. Oh, and a couple of biscuits with sweet cream butter to sop up that chicken jus. Welcome, May, and happy Sunday.
Meriwether’s Restaurant on NW Vaughn Street
May 3, 2012
A few of our favorite Meriwether’s pantry board choices.
It’s May!
It’s not Monday!
It only rained three times today!
Each of those is a minor victory, and therefore an excuse to celebrate. That, and we were lucky enough to have a gift card for Meriwethers tucked in a drawer, yearning to be used. So use it we did on a recent Tuesday night.
Meriwether’s is one of the first restaurants James and Zandra took us to before we moved to Portland, and since then it’s been the site of more than a couple of birthday celebrations. Something about this place feels like a special-occasion destination. The historic building once marked the entrance to the 1905 World’s Fair and retains an element of rusticity. Dark wood floors, huge stone fireplaces, log ceiling beams and grand windows add drama to the dining room’s elegant farmhouse feel. It’s the kind of place most people would feel comfortable bringing the parents or grandparents for a celebratory meal: well lit, workable noise level, attentive service.
But, really, it’s the food that keeps us coming back. Meriwether’s, like many Portland restaurants, is a farm-to-fork kind of place, but with a twist: It operates its own farm, Skyline Farm, in Northwest Portland, and the menu changes frequently based on the week’s harvest. On more than one occasion, we’ve threatened to make a meal of the pantry-board section and this one was no different. Choose one, three or five items (better go for five — choosing is difficult) and share the glorious small bites. We had the Oregonzola-stuffed dates; light and crispy fried sweetbreads with a smoky chipotle aioli; crab deviled eggs; cauliflower gratin; and anchovy avocado toast. All were delicious, but of the five, the anchovy avocado toast stood out: avocado spread over toasted bread with two fillets of anchovy layered on top. Salty, creamy, two bites of bliss.
Pizza with prosciutto and greens.
Tempting as it is to order these delicious nibbles all night, we soldier on to the lower half of the menu. A selection of salads is next, followed by pasta and grains, all of which come in small or large sizes, conducive to mixing and matching, depending on your level of curiosity and hunger. Each of us ordered the farmhouse salad with fennel and shaved pecorino cheese: simple, lovely. For entrees, Zandra had a deliciously chewy papardelle with a meaty ragu — gorgeous. The night’s most-unexpected award went to J’s halibut entree served over Asian stir-fried vegetables with a bit of spice. (Stir fry? At Meriwether’s? Sure, why not.) James and I both selected from the bar menu. I had the bacon cheese burger with truffle salt fries. The burger was good, if not memorable. Leftover aioli from the sweetbreads made for tasty fry sauce. James ordered the pizza: a large, oblong flatbread mounded with arugula and prosciutto. With enough greens to satiate a hungry goat, it’s likely the least guilt-inducing pizza on earth, and a tasty one at that.
Chalk it up to being a Tuesday night, or that the service on this particular evening was scattered, leaving us sitting longer than we’d planned, but we skipped dessert. No matter, there will always be the next time we have a reason to celebrate.
Sunday Dinner: Cacio e Pepe
February 5, 2012
Fresh pasta, cheese and fresh ground pepper.
I’ve been sitting with this post for weeks now, unable to find words to adequately describe this beautiful simplicity of this dish. While I have many go-to recipes, my favorite dishes are often those with few ingredients that commingle perfectly. Cacio e pepe is one of those dishes. Fresh pasta, butter and olive oil, generous amounts of black pepper and salty Italian cheeses. Smug in my restraint, I thought: “This will be a beautifully minimalist post that shall represent the serene minimalist nature of the recipe.” How very zen.
But then I began to daydream about how this recipe may have come about. I imagined a slight Roman woman with knotted hands, children grown and in their own homes. She’s attending to the day’s housework in summer’s heat, sweeping, scrubbing, hanging laundry on the balcony to dry in the sun; and she’s cooking the night’s meal in a sweltering kitchen. I imagined that, after a long day of his own work, the tired husband returns home and sits down to his repast. They exchange tired looks and scant words about the day’s high points when he makes the fatal error:
“This needs more pepper.” “It doesn’t need more pepper.” “It does.” “It’s fine the way it is.” “I’d prefer it with more. Mamma makes it with more pep … ”
She snatches up the plate, whisking it back to the kitchen where she begrudgingly grinds a sneeze-inducing amount of pepper into the pasta, muttering: “Your mother (grind, grind, grind)… I’ll show your mother. You want (grind) more (grind) pepper (grind, grind, grind) I’ll give you more (grind, grind, grind) blasted (grind, grind) pepper.”
And thus the spicy, salty, buttery combination was born, a happy accident born out of the weariness of a long day. That’s how I imagine it, anyway.
Cacio e Pepe (Adapted from Bon Appétit)
1 pound fresh egg pasta (like spaghetti)
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper, or more to taste (ahem)
1 cup grated Grana Padano
1/2 cup Pecorino
Bring four quarts of salted water to a boil, and cook the pasta for one to two minutes — it should be slightly underdone. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water.
In a large skillet, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter along with the olive oil. Add the pepper, swirling to incorporate. Add 2/3 cup reserved pasta water and bring to a simmer. Add the pasta and the remaining butter; using tongs coat the pasta with butter and pepper. Reduce heat and add the Grana Padano, mixing with the pasta until melted. Remove from heat and add the Pecorino, working the cheese into the pasta until it melts and the pasta is evenly coated, and al dente, adding more pasta water if it seems dry.
Serve with a medium-bodied Italian red like Langhe Nebbiolo, and toast your beloved and your good fortune at having discovered this dish. And, for the love of god, please don’t bring Mamma into it.
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- Fresh pasta, cheese and fresh ground pepper.
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- A lovely pile of fresh pasta.
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- Butter, olive oil and pepper.
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- Pasta goes in the pan.
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- Adding the pasta water and cheese.
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- Last bit of cheese, toss, melt and eat.
Clarklewis on SE Water
January 14, 2012
Grilled lamb with rapini, farro and sugo.
Friday the 13th.
Among the superstitious, it’s a discouraging black mark on the calendar. Now, I am not without my quirks, but I’m not one for extreme superstition. I do approach the day with some amount of caution, however — just in case. But when my workday ended early, J unexpectedly got the day off and Zandra suggested dinner out, I knew the stars had aligned in our favor. The night’s destination was Clarklewis on industrial SE Water Street.
A few steps lead up from the street into a boisterous, loft-style dining room. Walls and pillars are painted a sleek, dramatic black; the bustling kitchen and a cracking wood-fired oven occupy the large corner facing the entrance. Opposite stands a wall of garage doors that, in warmer months, open onto the street.
The kitchen is all about fresh, local ingredients with French and Italian notes. Divided into starters, salads, fresh pasta, entrees and of course dessert, the daily changing menu is well rounded with three to five options under each header. We started with Quinalt steelhead caviar — briny medium-sized yellow eggs served with potato croquettes — and grilled Monterey Bay calamari with an irresistibly soppable onion broth. If you’re lucky enough to snag the calamari, order extra bread.
We each ordered salads, covering all three on the menu. James and Zandra both had the Oregon Dungeness crab salad, a fresh mix of crab, endive, avocado and citrus. J ordered the baby greens with pomegranates, feta, apples and candied walnuts. Yup, good. But among the salads, my beet terrine was the standout: a beautiful cross-section of layered beets and goat cheese with a drizzle of balsamic. Trying that at home for sure.
Succumbing to the siren’s call, my mates all chose fresh pasta as the main course. Available in two portion sizes, pasta can precede an entree, or be an entree in and of itself. Knowing I likely would be making pasta this weekend, I skipped the noodles, but lucky for me I had bites from each of their plates. James’s rigatoni was a creamy concoction of butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, Oregon black truffle and Parmesan cheese. J had a glorious mound of spaghetti with duck confit, hedgehog mushrooms, egg, creamy bits of roasted garlic and Parmesan. Zandra, in my opinion, had the night’s winner: tagliatelle with lamb ragu and Pecorino Toscano, fragrant with rosemary. My entree: beautifully medium-rare grilled lamb atop farro and a rich lamb sugo (a tomato-y meat sauce) with preserved cherries for a bit of tart-sweetness.
Desserts were chocolate profiteroles for J; bright citrus panna cotta for Zandra; and a cheese board for James and me.
Full and happy, we headed out into the chill toward home, where later I sneaked a forkfull of J’s leftover pasta. One bite led to another, and, well, (sorry, sweetie) I ate the whole thing. Thank goodness he wasn’t too mad. I guess it was just my lucky day.
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- Grilled lamb with rapini, farro and sugo.
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- Quinalt steelhead caviar and potato croquettes.
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- Grilled calamari with onion broth. Sop it. Love it.
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- Rigatoni, butternut squash, truffles, Brussles sprouts and Parmesan.
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- Lamb ragu tagliatelle.
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- Creamy citrus-spiked panna cotta.
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- Three beautiful cheeses.
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- Profiteroles.
Food Memory: Noodles for Breakfast
June 26, 2011
Delicious noodles for breakfast.
I had a pretty typical childhood. I loved swimming in the summer; my friends and I pretended we were “Charlie’s Angels,” packing heat and fighting crime in our Salt Lake City neighborhood; I adored kittens — more than once my sister and I dressed up the family cat in old baby clothes. And I ate Top Ramen regularly for breakfast. OK, maybe not completely typical.
Of course, on the weekends, I enjoyed traditional breakfasts: pancakes, French toast, oatmeal with a little brown sugar. But around the age of 12 and on through high school, my breakfast of choice during the week was ramen.
I must have learned this breakfast behavior from my dad, Levi Mike, who never ate “normal” breakfast food. Instead he would make soups and stews, vats of collard greens, Mexican menudo, the leftovers of which would be his morning sustenance. So my penchant for ramen was not terribly unusual. Every morning, I’d start a saucepan with a finger of water and cut the top of the flavor packet, leaving a graveyard of silver trimmings in the drawer where the scissors lived. In less than three minutes, I had a savory, salty, warming pan of noodle soup. Rather than dirty a bowl, I would eat the soup right out of the cookpot, and to get to the “meat” of the meal faster, I would slurp the liquid with a giant mixing spoon. (J and I still have that spoon and use it often, though it’s been retired as silverware.) Once the broth was out of the way, all that remained were the delicious, slippery, curly noodles. I would savor them lovingly, making them last as long as possible. After one unfortunate morning when my mother asked for “a bite” and ate HALF THE NOODLES on one forkful, I became fiercely protective, guarding my noodles with the ferocity of a junkyard dog.
Though I don’t often eat ramen for breakfast anymore, every once in a while I wake up with a craving. I’ve graduated to bowls, and I now use a regular soup spoon. But don’t ask for a bite, even on your birthday. Call me selfish, but for 20 cents or so you can have your very own bowl of noodles for breakfast, in under three minutes. I’ll start the water for you.
Chile Verde Chronicles 