Immovable Feast

Portland does it different. One of the recent explosions in every major metropolis is the food truck phenomenon. This moveable feast brings creative hand held food to the masses, wherever they might amass. Think of it as a 7-11 hot dog that comes to you, but is freshly made, likely involves organic ingredients, and has a distinctive foodie-est appeal. It’s the taco truck, but not nearly as disgusting.

In LA, food trucks congregate outside new media corporate parks on lunch hour, at cultural events such as museum family days, outside bars at the exact hour you might need something salty and carb-loaded. The trucks are tweeting so you know where they’ve been sighted, which creates exclusivity and hence demand. Korean tacos: For a limited time only!

The way LA does food trucks (and most everything for that matter) is based on transit culture. You’re there at your destination, you’ve parked your car, and here you will hang. Bringing fun food to the music festival, the art fair, the lunch hour  - it works for Angelenos. 


In Portland, however, a huge number of folks are on two wheels. And it rains a lot. So the food truck phenomena here looks a little different.

Food courts have blossomed all around town, in tiny corner lots. The trucks are smaller than the LA version; my friend referred to them as “food carts.” (The size variance says a lot about a lot of things.) The carts circle up like wagons around a center area with tent-covered picnic tables, essential for the riainy pdx cime. Folks stop in to these hot spots for a crepe, a burrito, a shawarma sandwich, on their way to another destination. Or for a quick bite on your way home from work. It’s prefect on a sunny afternoon, a rare gem that I was blessed with on my last visit, when you’re cycling, walking, or in my case, driving by.

Stop and set a while. Enjoy soul food, comfort food, someone's idea of fusion or just have a snack. At heart, the food-cart court fare is similar to what's served up in LA, but the feel of the space is pure PDX.

What’s the sound of your beer?

I celebrated the start of the long 4th of July weekend at the Surly Goat. Walking in the cool of the West Hollywood evening I anticipated the treasures on tap. Always, tap one: Pliny the Elder.*

Annette was dominating Pacman in the back when I arrived at 8. The barstools were occupied and a cluster of folks sat at the outside tables, enjoying the waning light and the pleasant cool. I’d suggested meeting early since I know how crowded the goat can get but the place was relatively quiet.  

We grabbed seats at one of the long wooden tables. After a brief briefing on beers of note I went to the bar to order the first round. Annette counts Sierra Nevada her favorite beer, so I knew I was dealing with an IPA girl. I told her with loving and lavish details about Russian River, and how they’d won first place, again, in the American home Brewer’s Aassociation top 50 best beers.*

I asked the pigtailed bartender for a sip of the Dogfish Festina Peche, fully expecting not to like it. I really don’t care for fruit in my beer, unless I'm toasting matriculation, marriage or new motherhood with Lambic instead of champagne, the latter which gives me a headache even if we’re just in the same room. But I had to try. Tart and fruity, I couldn’t imagine a whole pint of it. But then, as I lingered at the bar thought how the bright, crisp acidity made it a great candidate for a late afternoon out of doors. Say, at a 4th of July beach BBQ.   

For now, it was Pliny for Annette, and a Maharaja for me. I sat a pint and a half on the table and we sat and sipped and chatted. Classic soul and rock were pleasantly distracting: I occassionaly slipped out of the conversation to sing along to little Stevie Wonder affirming that everything is all right.  

And everything was. I realized I was in fact enjoying the king of beers. No pretender to the throne, Maharaja is hoppy, smooth and deep. Beer Advocate throws around descriptors like pine, grapefruit, oranges and caramel. (Annette was right on when she tasted apricot).  And the music just kept getting better as the brew flowed into my blood.  

Stacy joined us around 10. The place was filling up. I overheard a couple beside me at the bar debating the menu. 

“The Maharaja’s amazing” I offered. 

“An Imperial IPA, from Avery,” the young man qualified for his girlfriend, and proceeded to elaborate the characteristics of an IPA and the specific inflection Avery brings to their IPA, as compared to Deschutes, Kern and Helles. I realized the place was full of hipster beer snobs, and though arguably less hip, I felt in good company.   

We ordered another round and my friends updated me on a month's worth of missed You Tube fads and NPR stories.

Then, someone swapped a dance cd into the music mix. Soul classics were now being interrupted by club beats. "Mazatlan!" Stacy croaked. It is West Hollywood, after all, and dance music is unavoidable.   

But all of a sudden the beer didn’t taste the same. I couldn’t hear the subtle, malty caramel whispering over the insistent bass. I should be drinking rum, or tequila. Big frosted glasses, chunks of fruit, umbrellas, and I'm up dancing on the table in a sarong draping the day’s tan lines. All this dark wood and black leather feels too small. The vintage beer ads don’t look right.   

There is a soundtrack for every drink. It’s not that I don’t ever want to dance on the tables in my sand-crusted flip flops with the glare of a purple light grazing off the disco ball to blind my sun-tired eyes. But good beer demands a more vested music. Good beer is serious. It deserves music that’s stood the test of time, aged well, and maintained it’s effervescence. Craft brews are classic. They speak soul, and they have wisdom. It could be the musician in the room with you, singing his heart’s truth, or Jimi, Jerry or Bob Dylan telling you what you know, but you maybe forgot. It could be the verities of Stevie or Aretha, which hardly need words to carry the tenor of how it is. 

You’ve heard it a hundred times, and it’s still exactly right and true. Beer is art, art is truth in beauty. Call it snobbery, but I just want a properly reverent mood in which to enjoy my pint. The maharaja would surely agree.

  

*A friend of mine recently tipped me off to what, in any other industry, might seem a nefarious marketing plan. Russian River requires their distributors to dedicate two taps to their brews. You can't just get the cult fave Pliny. "Keep an eye out" my friend said. Sure enough, Damnation is right next to Pliny this week at the Goat. Well, I guess everybody wins.

**http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/news/show?title=2011-best-beers

What time is your beer?

It was a Sunday night, and I was looking forward to a very busy week (maybe not 'looking forward,' but I knew it was coming). So I made a point of swinging by the grocery store on my way home to stock up on some provisions. There is nothing more heartbreaking than pulling out that clear plastic drawer at the bottom of the fridge on Tuesday morning and not having the rattle of plastic punctuated by the thunderous roll and thunk of a fresh Pink Lady or Taylor Gold landing against the front of the bin.

Fear of a fruit shortage, yes, and I was dying for a beer. A really good beer. It was Sunday. I needed to relax. I remembered that when I was in the wine aisle at Pavilions last month looking for a suitable vintage to sweeten my charoset that a number of respectable bombers were chilling in the beer case: Brother Thelonius, Anderson Valley, Lagunitas. They also usually have a good selection of fruit, so I aimed the car through Boy's Town toward Robertson.

Bunch of spinach, check. Red cabbage, check. Fuji, Pink Lady, Bosc, check, check, check. Those little rye crackers that I love love love, check.

Basket full and one hand free I went towards the warm light of the beer aisle. Last year's remodel of the store included handsome wood accents in the liquor aisles, like a custom home cellar or study. Homey, welcoming, warm despite the chill blast from the open refrigerator cases.

I stood square before the shelves of the dark glass bottles, savoring the bright labels and the artwork. The owl on the Hitachino sake cask coditioned ale smiled at me. A gargoyle winked from a Stone Brewery bottle. A hint of old England swam in my imagination in front of the elaborate fonts of Sam Smith labels.

I passed up the big bottles to see what was in the case of six packs: it was just me in my party tonight, so anything more than 12 ounces would be decadent (and icky the next morning). My eye skipped hurly burly over the dross and registered a few contenders amidst the sixers. Then settled on one.

Ah, Dogfish Head. This is a label I know - those sculpted fins, that off kilter font. And a name I trust.

Because my brother swears by it. My big brother is a beer afficionado. A trip to BevMo, or the local craft brew pub has become a family tradition. Well, at least a sibling tradition.

And, like brother, like sister. We are apparently genetically predisposed to love a good hoppy IPA. Last summer he taught me to appreciate the classics with a bottle of Pliny the Elder savored by the campfire in Yellowstone National Park. Over Memorial Day we spent a really long time (really) in front of the beer case in Whole Foods, and ended up with more than half a dozen bottles: Hop Wallop, a Japanese triple hopped brew from Ise Nagoya, a couple of of Denogginizers (the current favorite) and in celebration of our Scottish ancestry, a bottle of Punk IPA from Fraserburgh, Scotland among them. I've also been deputized to age a tantalizing espresso ale from Peak Organic for our next family gathering at Christmas time.

My brother. He taught me about prog rock growing up, and he waxes rhapsodic about Dogfish Head IPAs.

The shelf at Pavilions held the Palo Santo Marron, a potent beer aged in tanks made of wood from Paraguay, and the 60 minute IPA in six packs. And there was one, lone, slim fourpack of the 120 minute IPA perched on the top shelf. Waiting there. For me. Providence spoken, decision made.

My free hand laden now, I walked to the queues, which had swelled to absurd lengths with the late evening rush. Apparently the rest of West Hollywood is working against fruit shortages (and perhaps beer shortages, too) on a Sunday night.

I picked a lane, any lane, and sat my beer and basket on the linoleum to enjoy the people watching as my queue inched forward. I reviewed the contents of my basket against my mental list and considered buying a copy of O Magazine (still a guilty pleasure. What does it say about me that I consider such a postiive empowering magazine a guilt indulgence?!) I nudged my six pack forwrd with a toe as the line crept. And noticed in my fourpack two different colors of bottle cap. Odd. I slid the green capped bottle up and noticed that it said 60 minute, and the red cap was for 120 minute. Wha?! Someone had pulled a few singles from one pack to another. So I went to swap out and get another full four pack of 120 minute. The old switcheroo.

But there wasn't one. There was a dark shadow on the top shelf like a tooth was missing. I played Tetris with the packs on the top shelf to see if a full four was hiding behind. But no. This was the last one.

Well, now what?

So I stole. I stole. (Are you reading this Pavilion's store manager?!) 10pm on a Sunday night, needy for fruit and suds. I put the two 120 minute IPAs into the 60 minute IPA sick pack and scurried back to the basket holding my place in line. I don't have a problem paying $11 for a fourpack of great beer, but I do have a problem when two of those beers are from a six pack that costs $10. And the other four aren't as full of chock full of hops.

And what I stole wasn't beer, per se. I stole time. I stole 2 hours of India Pale Ale. And what exactly does that mean, I asked myself? (There is a great word problem waiting here, by the way...)

So I hopped (sorry!) on line and researched what exactly those timeframes refer to. Generally an IPA is created by adding batches of hops at intervals, say every five minutes, during the boiling process. The timestamped brews from Dog Fish Head, however, are created by a process of continuous hopping, meaning that hops are constantly added for a particular duration, resulting in a deep hop flavor at the end of the brew, and sans bitterness. The longer the timestamp, the hoppier the brew. Dogfish Head offers a 60 and 90 minute IPA. But they couldn't stop the hops and forged ahead to create the 120 minute IPA.

Frankly, all of them are fantastic: 60, 90, 120. Each has a smooth balanced hoppiness. Each pairs well with a particular dish, or stands strong on it's own.

I also came across this formula for calculating the IBU of a continuously hopped beer on a home-brewers' forum when I was researching exactly what was in my bottle:

It just turned out to be simple Riemann integrals. This is based on Tinseth's approximation.

k := 1.65*0.000125^(SG-1) * AA * 1000 / (4.15*V)

IBU_c = k*h*[ 1 - 1/(0.04*T) * (1-exp(-0.04*T)) ]

"Simple Riemann integrals." Right. Back to my beer.

That Sunday I enjoyed 120 minutes of beer, 60 of which were nicked. Tonight I am enjoying a proper 60 minute IPA, which was the perfect compliment to my absurdly hot thai curry. Though I wonder if, morally and ethically speaking, I am enjoying 30 minute of IPA, since I am indebted in the karmic universe for the other minutes I stole. Perhaps so. But it was worth every second. 

A Brief History of Kopanisti

(For Craig and Daniel)

Everyone knows that Seattle is the hub of Greek cuisine. The balmy climate, the ocean, the arid mediterranean soil baked under a perfect sun.

Anyhow...

I discovered kopanisti on a rare, beautiful sunny day in Seattle. There for business, I got in late, driving into the city through the mystic pale of the gloaming*. While I checked in I asked about nearby eateries. Confronted with a litany of fusion restaurants (a simple bowl of vietnamese bun is my perfect comfort food when I'm on the road) but noticing the lateness of the hour and the mistiness beyond the lobby glass, I inquired into the restaurant nestled into the lobby corner. Mediterranean. A plate of sunshine. I could eat that.

I popped into my room, performed my regular hotel rituals, and then walked down to Lola's with a sheaf of the New York times under my arm.

Sidling up to the hostess I asked if I could order the full menu at the bar, only to discover that I'd crossed the dateline into the late night menu zone. Slightly crestfallen that the tagines I'd spied were not amongst the late night choices I registered my hunger and the warm glow of neon above the bar and grabbed a stool.

Kabob, gyro, a few vegetable things. Lamb burger. Chick pea fries**. A bunch of the descriptors were (sorry!) greek to me, but the tart syllables were compelling: mezedakia, fava cordalia, loukamades.

I contemplated the mini lamb burger and ordered a beer, a local IPA. A series of pita and spread combinations took up a lot of real estate on the menu, but it sounded kind of like chips and guac to me. Then I read:

Kopanisti, pistachio, mavrodaphe. 

Perk?!

I inquired as to what means kopanisti. All I heard was feta and pistachio and then my brain waves scattered. There was kopanisti on the burger. Done.

Kopanisti is traditional Greek cheese made in the Cyclades islands from ewe, cow or goat milk, or a mixture of them. Kopanisti is described as having an intense salty and piquant taste and soft texture and rich flavour which approaches that of Roquefort.

Wow.

And apparently you will not get real kopanisti in America (think of champage versus sparkling wine but imagine that you can't cork it for export and you get the gist). It is often used in cheese pastries and as a snack with wine and ouzo. Where was that beer I ordered?

Kopanisti also commonly refers to a spread made with feta, herbs, olive oil, peppers and variously garnished with different lovely morsels. That is everything I need on a burger.

Mavrodaphne, the name of my future daughter, is a type of sweet grape, and a garnish on this particular version of kopanisti, along with the pistachios. 

A typical recipe for kopanisti goes something like this:

• 1/2 lb. Greek feta cheese
• 3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
• garlic clove, thinly sliced
• mint
• red pepper flakes, plus more as needed
• 6 Italian chopped peperoncini (red peppers), 
   chopped, plus more as needed

Here is the sad part: I had a terrible cold that night, and this gorgeous concotion, a lovely orange red from the peppers and the perfect texture for speading, was wasted on me. I begged a dish of house made chermoula instead to spike up the flavor and clear my sinuses.

But the taste of that word will not leave my tongue. Back at home and sans head cold, the hunt for fantastic kopanisti in Los Angeles begins. Though I don't know if we have the climate for it here....

*Gloaming: Scottish for the late twilight common in summer months in very northern latitudes. A lovely and magical time, when you walk out from dinner at 10.30pm into a lingering bright sky.

**Chick pea fries sounded really compelling but I later realized they were sort of like big square falafel sticks. Yummy, but my socks stayed put.

What are you eating?

I often find myself defending eating some of the stuff I eat. "I can't believe you ate that tarantula in Cambodia," or "I can't believe you ate raw water buffalo liver in Thailand?" I say, "Why? It was a beautiful fresh piece of meat, or bug, or whatever. Someone's grandma made it for me...it's the healthiest thing you could eat." And this person is usually eating a hot dog at a sporting even while accosting me.

~Andrew Zimmern

Who are you eating?

A city dweller all my life, freshness is something I've learned to take on faith, as touted in the produce aisles of my local grocery store. It says right there how farm fresh that stuff really is. Last week, however, my aunt sent me home with a carton of eggs from from her coop, from her own flock of chickens.

Aunt Kathy lives in one of the rare cities outlying Los Angeles that manages to be a city, no really, but that is zoned semi-rural. Her backyard, to my eyes, is a small scale farm. Citrus trees, vegetable plot, herb garden, and two tiers of bee boxes. The whole yard overlooks a tree-filled canyon, and beyond that the western hills. She is about to harvest her first honey, something like fifty pounds!

And her flock has grown from humble beginnings to seven chickens (well, five hens and two chicks to be precise). Their coop recently underwent an expansion, I wouldn't doubt they needed a building permit: it's a veritable palace. 

These were by far the freshest eggs I've ever had. And I didn't have to trust my grocer on that. These are from hens that I know personally, if that's the right word for an avian acquaintance. I've met the ladies that brought these eggs to my table: Aunt Bea, Topaz, Lucy, Grace and Madeline.

In the carton, which is reused so actually might say something about how fresh the eggs are on the top, was a rainbow of pastel colors and pebbly textured shells. Pale celery green, tannish brown, ruddy brown, cream. Which of course got me to wondering, easter festivities aside, what makes colored eggs colored?

As any reputable resource will tell you, you'll know what color your hen will lay by looking at the color of her earlobes. (Earlobes? I haven't seen a chicken's ear, much less her earlobes). Here started my education in the exotic world of chicken breeds.  

The color of the eggs comes from pigment deposited in the shell when it's in the oviduct. Turns out that each breed of chicken reliably produces a particular color of egg. Rather than try to locate their earlobes, I just asked my Aunt Kathy about her parti-colored flock.

Aunt Bea is responsbile for the green eggs, top left in the carton (Seuss step aside), and also for a lovely lunch of egg salad today. She is an Americauna, which produce green, blue, olive or pink eggs (one color per chicken). Aunt Bea's green shells are even richer in color on the inside, which is unique to her breed: the pigmenting process starts earlier on and hence goes all the way through the shell.

Topaz is a Buff Orpington. What a great name, right? She gave me the darker brown eggs, top right for instance. And these are white inside the shell, because the pigmenting process happens differently. My aunt, not to be confused with Aunt Bea the chicken, has another breed who apparently lays chocolate brown eggs when she starts to lay. Mmm, the food analogy to describe, well at least in this context, food, is almost too much to bear.

Lucy, a Red Star, also provided some brown eggs, and Grace gave me the cream egg seen bottom right. She is a Speckled Sussex.

Once shelled, and mixed with anchovy, capers and dijon and slathered on bread, the eggs look like any other egg, regardless of the shell color. Do they taste different? Of course! They're amazingly fresh. And those chickens are LOVED. My cousin collects grubs from the compost to feed them, my nieces pet and hold them, and my aunt is rhapsodic about how beautiful they are, especially Grace, the Speckled Sussex.

I am what I eat, and I had a huge serving of color and a lot of love with lunch. Thanks, ladies. More eggs, please!

What language are you eating?

If you've ordered a beverage that might be referred to as tall, grande or venti lately you've probably stood next to these little snackeroos while you waited for your steaming morning cup.

I preface this comment by saying that one of my comestible particularities is that I don't eat sugar. While this dietary guideline is open to the same kind of gymnastic interpretations as the US Constitution, it generally means I abstain from desserts and refined sugar. It's definitely not a moral thing, and I can't even say it's strictly about health -  a burger, fries and a beer is a square meal in my book. I like to think of it as avoiding sugar where it's not needed. And this brings me to the point.

What is labeled here as "Simply Nuts & Fruit" is simply not that at all. Turn to the label and It is a blend of salted nuts with vegetable oil, and sugar coated dried fruit. Fairly common practices, sure. But when and how does that qualify as simply fruit? Dictionaries explain the word simply with things like merely, just, only; altogether, absolutely; in a plain, unadorned way; in an unambiguous or clear manner. Is this that?

I also asked a barista at another coffee chain if their soymilk was sweetened, and she said "No" while I was reading the words natural cane sweetener on the label. That was a confusing exchange.

Which is all to say it's an odd world we're speaking in. I aim to be present to the joy and wonder of whatever it is I'm eating or drinking. I mean, you really are what you eat, and arguably, you're also how you speak about the experience. I'm just glad that my apple a day provides more sustenance than it does reading material.