“We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown [he or she] left behind.”
Clementine Paddleford
Clementine Paddleford was a prolific food writer in the mid-20th century. She was best known as the food editor for This Week [...]
It was a bubbly night at the Silver Grille Café in Silverton, Oregon on January 30, 2010. Friends, fans and family of Seven Brides Brewing gathered for a much-anticipated six-course dinner created by Chef Jeff Nizlek, who expertly paired each of his courses with a different brew. Carefully chilled kegs of six of the Seven [...]
Joy
Pronunciation: joi
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French joie, from Latin gaudia, plural of gaudium, from gaudēre to rejoice; probably akin to Greek gēthein to rejoice
Date: 13th century
1 a : the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires : delight b : the expression or exhibition [...]
“Nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the oven, and Pillsbury says it best.”
—Poppin’ Fresh, The Pillsbury Doughboy
It’s hard to believe that little song has been around for almost 50 years. Poppin’ Fresh is one of the most enduring and endearing advertising icons of all time, with appeal as big as the Jolly Green Giant.
Many Sunday [...]
Living in the middle of Oregon wine country, I love coming across recipes that use wine and then starting a sometimes lively debate with my partner, Charles, about which of the many bottles of Oregon wine we have in our closet to sacrifice to the recipe. But pears poached in pinot noir do make for a heavenly dessert.
In the Northwest, one of the signs of winter, besides the gathering gray rain-laden clouds, is that persimmons start showing up at the grocery store.
Personally, I think these wonderful fruit are under-appreciated . In Asia they’re considered a delicacy and it’s something that we look forward to in our household every winter.
Persimmons are grown in [...]
When we have dinner parties and cook Thai food for company, our guests usually ask the names of the dishes they’re enjoying. Sometimes things just don’t translate well into English! Sometimes you need a censor at our dinner table. Most of the time you just need a sense of humor. Charles usually will sit there [...]
“Crater Lake: overwhelmingly yet sublimely beautiful. Moody. At times brilliantly blue, ominously somber; at other times buried in a mass of brooding clouds. The lake is magical, enchanting – a remnant of fiery times, a reflector of its adjacent forested slopes, a product of Nature’s grand design.
Few places on earth command overwhelming awe from observers, [...]
Thai Black Sticky Rice Pudding
Our family likes to entertain and one of the parties we like to throw is a Lunar New Year Party. A few years ago we decided to start doing it because in Oregon, January and February are pretty gloomy and wet and everyone’s looking for a pick-me-up after the holidays.
Charles, mom [...]
I first read the phrase “Comfort me with apples” on the book of the same name by food writer and executive editor of Gourmet Magazine Ruth Reichl. Only later did I learn that it is borrowed from the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament of the Bible. “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with [...]
Bicycling through the French countryside, a young Steve McCarthy rode past rows of pear trees with bottles hanging from their branches and was fascinated by them. Now, many years later, McCarthy’s apple and pear trees in the Hood River Valley has almost 10,000 bottles hanging from them, each with an apple or pear slowly growing [...]
