Portland food collage
Alternate title — I discovered Picasa!
What a neat way for me to show you all some of the highlights from my West Coast vacation.
(This was so much fun to make, I may be forever ruined.)
WARNING: This collection of images caused a friend to reflexively gnaw on an antique desk.
Clockwise in a spiral from top left:
- Sweet onions from the Portland Farmers Market
- Sushi at Bamboo (Ring of Fire, Spicy Scallop and Ume Shiso Roll)
- Tri-color peppers at Limbo
- An enormous cornucopia of fiddleheads!
- Bee pollen. There was a guy selling…no, hawking honey near the Portland Farmers Market entrance. Asked if we wanted to try some bee pollen then proceeds to give us a “Bee Pollen is a Miracle Elixir” spiel. Slightly annoying (and riddled with falsehoods), he redeemed himself by having the tastiest honey in the world. Three words: Meadow Foam Honey. It tastes like toasted marshmallows. Amazing.
- The largest snap peas I have ever seen. Delicious.
- Homemade dessert: Forelle pears poached in red wine and brown sugar served over Ben and Jerry’s Cinnamon Buns ice cream with a cardamom meringue on the side.
- Homemade dinner: tamales stuffed with an asparagus/morel/red pepper/shallot/polenta mixture (recipe to follow)
- Pre-dessert dessert at Belly Timber: Strawberries served with Roquefort mousse and crispbread.
- Entree at Belly Timber - (TBD - the website is down and I took poor notes. Too busy eating!)
- Entree at Belly Timber - Pork belly topped with a poached egg. Mmm.
- Bread course at Belly Timber - crusty bread served with sweet cream butter and flavored salts: chocolate and beet coriander. They tasted exactly like their names. I must learn how they did it.
- Entree at Belly Timber - Seared scallops with red pepper aioli.
- Me, with a handful of polenta, belatedly realizing that in order to pat the polenta into the corn husks we were going to need to coat our hands in olive oil.
- The best risotto of my life. Truffled, with picked radishes and a Parmesan crisp. Belly Timber.
- ROSEMARY cheddar cheese from Rogue Creamery. Oh, it works. Beautifully.
- My very first morel mushroom! (FYI - Always soak morels briefly–about five minutes– in salt water before using. All kinds of crazy stuff floats up. They’re hollow in the middle and bugs like to hide there.)
- A drink at Belly Timber - (TBD…Sorry!)
PS — Yes, Belly Timber is getting a post to itself.
Beet coriander salt? Chocolate salt?? MUST TASTE.
It was pretty amazing. I just read an article or blog post somewhere that explains how they do it - by powdering the flavoring agent. Not sure how to do that with vegetables exactly, but neat.
I can’t decide what’s prettier- the author or the food!!
This has nothing to do with the post. I just wanted to say that I didn’t want to see you anyways. So then…I guess, it’s for the better that you didn’t come. So good! Eryn and I don’t need Leigh visits! It’s not like we sat around the apartment all night being bored and wishing you had come, pffft, it was NOTHING like that! Our dance cards are full! Don’t need you coming around and clogging up the flow of fun and interesting people in our lives…*sniffle*…
And another thing! I don’t appreciate the fact that you have disabled comments on the “I’m In Asheville, Where Should I Eat?” section! Tyrannical blogger!