Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Category: Food

  • Bend Farmer’s Market

    Wednesday after work (around five) I met the the family down at Bend’s farmer’s market in Drake Park. Strangely enough, it was the first time I’d been to it, despite living in Bend for, oh, most of my life. I liked it a lot; we ended up buying a bunch of stuff, including giant cookies, three kinds of berries, a bouquet of flowers, cherries, dried apples, and fresh vegetables (including zucchini—I’ve been totally wanting to make zucchini bread for ages, and I’ve got a nice big one now to do so). I was hoping to score some fresh honey, but I didn’t see any (I’d heard honey mentioned on the radio that morning when they were promoting the farmer’s market).

    Next time we go back I think I might also pick up some locally-made cheese, from Juniper Grove Farm in Redmond (no website that I can find). And maybe a baguette.

    What’s funny is Shannon was there too—but we missed her. Next time we’ll need to coordinate better :). Or how about this? Get a blogger/friends/family thing together at the farmer’s market, buy a bunch of food there, and have a picnic dinner in the park.

  • Bite of Bend mini-review

    I don’t get out to many of the local festivals, but we did hit the Bite of Bend last Saturday, so here’s my mini-review. Actually, the one thing I really wanted to see at the Bite of Bend was the Iron Chef competition among six local chefs, and I got to see a bit of that—so this review will probably focus more on that than anything else :).

    They had closed off most of the Old Mill District—the main drag between the parking lots at the movie theater and the smokestack building—and even so, we were able to find parking in the theater lot fairly easily. At the time we got there (around 11:30), most of the upper lot (above the theater) was empty, too. That’s pretty good for an event like this, particularly in Bend.

    Decent selection of food, too, and just okay on the beer. When you see a sign saying, “Beer garden” I guess you expect more than four beers on tap. Although, in addition to the one wine vendor, the Bendistillery was there serving up hard alcohol. Nice!

    Actually, the food selection was more than decent; to me it seemed like a lot and a good variety. There could have been more—Pilot Butte Burgers would have been nice, for instance—but c’est la vie.

    Didn’t pay any real attention to the music. That’s about all I can say about that.

    Ah, but the Iron Chef competition was fun. I actually only got to wander over to it three times (everyone else thought I was weird to get excited about it), but I managed to see the start of the first contest—secret ingredient (tombo tuna) and all—and come back later to watch the matches in action. I don’t know who won any of the match-ups, though. And I don’t think they had to make more than one dish (unlike the TV show, which requires four or five), but it was still a lot of fun to watch. Interestingly, Standard TV and Appliance had set up a big screen HDTV off to the side and had two camera guys filming the competition up close—so you could watch the details on the TV. I was hoping they were recording it all and would broadcast it on the local cable channel, but I haven’t seen anything about that.

    It would have been cool to have someone doing an intelligent (i.e., knowledgeable about food and cooking) running commentary, but I guess not everyone’s as into the Iron Chef thing as I am. Regardless, I hope they do this again. Maybe they could do it at some of the other festivals and not just Bite of Bend…?

    Any other Bendites have reviews they’d like to post here?

  • Bite of Bend

    So who’s going to the Bite of Bend this Saturday? We were thinking of it but likely won’t go if the weather’s rainy like they’re predicting.

    Although I really want to see the first annual Iron Chef Competition they’re having—six local chefs in three one hour matches, just like the TV show. The Source has a good listing of the chefs and judges involved. Sounds cool! We’ll see, we’ll see.

    And someone really should buy up the domain name biteofbend.com and give them a proper site…

  • blogdrama

    There’s a new Bend blog in town: Bend Reality Check, but I don’t know how long it will last. I say this because the tagline is, “Mission: to maintain some sort of reality for those who think they are the most important people in Bend, Oregon” and it appears to have been launched primarily to get back at Shannon and Simone for blogging their bad experience at Kanpai. As such it’s full of snarky comments about the two of them.

    That’s too bad, because this sounds like it could be a good insider’s blog about the restaurants in Bend:

    I am an culinary hermit that lives in the shadows of Bend, Oregon. In a former life I was a culinary mercinary in this town, with 14 years of food slinging under my belt. Titles were bestowed upon me, such as: restaurant manager, production chef, lead saute chef, kitchen manger, etc, but I renouced my titles to walk the earth, like Caine in Kung Fu, only unsheathing my food mojo for special people and occasions.

  • 15-pound burger

    This is crazy; a 15 pound hamburger is being offered free to any two people who can eat the entire thing in one three-hour sitting.

    the “Beer Barrel Belly Buster” weighs in with 10 pounds of meat molded into a 20-inch patty on a specially baked, 17-inch bun.

    The balance of the weight comes from 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, plus copious quantities of mayo, ketchup, relish, mustard, and peppers….

    The 15-pound burger can feed a family of 10, according to Liegey. He has sold two so far to teams of two people, and neither team did much more than put a dent in it.

    Wow. Just wow.

  • $40 a day

    So one of the shows we watch on Food Network is $40 a Day, where Rachael Ray has a budget of “only” 40 dollars and traipses around the city du jour looking for the meal deals. The tourist-y part of the show is interesting, but the fake-suspense-building (will she go over her budget? Will she??) annoys the hell out of me.

    So far I know of three Oregon towns they’ve filmed episodes in: Portland, Salem and Ashland. I think they should do an episode right here in Bend.

    The question is, then, where could you go to get three meals and an afternoon snack or drink with a 40 dollar budget, and still capture the essence of Bend? Without consulting the budget (so I may be off), my own choices would be:

    Other suggestions?

  • Scrapple

    What’s scrapple? According to Wikipedia, it’s

    a cornmeal pudding in which the cornmeal, perhaps with the addition of buckwheat, is simmered with pork scraps and trimmings, then cooled and hardened into a loaf.

    Scrapple is one of those farm foods invented to use those parts of slaughtered food animals which were not suitable to be served on their own, in the same manner as sausages, or Jewish kishkes. Scrapple typically contains the meaty parts of hog heads, hearts, some liver, and other scraps. The proportion and spicing is very much a matter of the region, family, and the cook’s taste.

    Commercial scrapple will often contain these traditional ingredients, with a distinctive flavor to each brand, though homemade recipes often specify more genteel ingredients, and consequently a blander taste.

    Scrapple is typically cut into thin slices, fried until the outsides form a crust, and eaten at breakfast in a similar manner to bacon or sausage. It may be eaten as is, or served with maple syrup, apple butter, ketchup, mustard, and/or butter.

    I just loves me some pork scraps!

  • How it should be done

    I got this really nice comment on my restaurant post last month, where I reviewed Zydeco, Anthony’s and Mercury Diner here in Bend:

    We just wanted to say Thank You! to Jon & Andrew. Thanks for your great reviews of our restaurant. We’re glad to hear you’ve enjoyed your experiences with us and that you’re excited about passing on some input to future guests. We look forward to seeing you at ZYDECO kitchen & cocktails again soon.

    Sincerely,
    Christy & Robert Kabakoff and Steve Helt

    That is one of the reasons why Zydeco is a great restaurant, and it shows that the owners are smart and web-savvy to Google themselves and aren’t afraid to join the conversation. Contrast that to Shannon and Simone‘s poor experience with Kanpai.

    Not hard to figure out why I’ll go back to Zydeco in a heartbeat but won’t bother trying Kanpai.

  • Shannon’s bad dining experience

    Shannon had a bad experience at a new sushi restaurant in town, Kanpai. Now she wants to be the number one result on Google for Kanpai Bend, so I thought I’d oblige and try to help her out. Although at this moment, she’s already the number two result, so it shouldn’t take much.

  • Jake’s Diner is moving

    I heard this on the radio this morning, and then caught this article in the Bend Bulletin: Jake’s Diner is moving to the eastside. The spot? The Royal Thai Cafe building, behind Bedmart and Scrap-a-Doodle… which, if anyone keeps track, seems to be a death knell for restaurants. I can remember Sully’s (Italian) was there, and KC’s (Kasey’s?) BBQ, something else, and the afore-mentioned Royal Thai Cafe.

    Jake’s is a Bend institution, seems like it should get better than that. But you know what’s ironic? I’ve never eaten there.