Paulée

pork belly lardons, fried egg (obviously pastured eggs) on bed of frisee from Paulée

When you start at the top with sophistication, intelligence, talent, hard-working and approachable it can’t help but trickle down through the employees you attract.  This is exactly the case with Executive Chef/Owner Daniel Mondok of Paulée, opening right in the heart of Yamhill Valley’s wine country this weekend.  From the chefs to the wine stewards, waiters, and hosts at the door, everyone is warm, friendly, sophisticated, gracious, and smart. 

Daniel Mondok and Sean Temple have spent the last six months becoming members of this community, getting their hands dirty and their boots mucky visiting many of our local farms in the area, learning our names as well as how we raise our food that might show up on their menus.  This has paid off in building supportive relationships that are evidenced in the compassionately raised and prepared food that is presented at each table.

Dinner last night was spectacular– the gracious and humble and wildly talented chefs greeted us, the wine stewards educated us in a down-to-earth way, and waiters served us with professionalism yet grace and knowledge.  Every staff member is educated in the mission of the restaurant.  They can point out our next door neighbor’s wine, the eggs from down the road, and the meat from the animals over the back fence.  At Paulée, local means a five minute walk away, whenever possible.  Except in the case of the water buffalo farm more like an hour away – I guess there’s room for someone in Dundee to add water buffalo to their herd! 

Every course was artistically presented and full of flavor.  I could spend all morning looking up descriptive adjectives Paulée warrants, yet your best bet is to experience it yourself.

Top is the oh-so-tasty water buffalo carpaccio, lower plate is the blue prawns with carrot, ginger, coriander verjus

Dessert seemed to pretty to eat... but only for a second. Accompanied by Argyle sparkling wine it was the perfect finish.

Fueled By Raw Milk - - Our First Triathlon!

Last winter my daughter Hayden and I signed up for our first sprint triathlon which includes a 500 meter swim, a 12 mile bike ride and a 5k run.

Following our 13 week training plan religiously meant working out 5 and 6 days a week through snow, sleet, hail, rain, and rarely sun.  That meant the rest of the family had to pitch in more to fold laundry and prepare their own meals while we raced off, bikes loaded on the car or swim caps molded to our heads. 

Fueled by raw milk throughout our training, we competed last weekend and look forward to the next one!!What an awesome sense of accomplishment!! Thank you for humoring me, Hayden!!

Corporate Field Trip!

Recently Champoeg Creamery partnered with Guckenheimer Corp. nutritionists to offer a field trip to Nike employees to visit a local and sustainable farm.  What a lovely day we had - the sun shining, the grass growing, the milk and wine flowing!   For most attendees it was their first time experiencing and hearing how animals in their traditional pastured environment can produce much more nutritious food.

Brielle greets us

Max loves little girls!!

Cooper thinks he's missing out by not being bottle fed

More than one brave soul successfully milked the cow!

Store bought eggs on the left contrasted with our eggs from pastured hens on the right -

Working towards the perfect stretch on the mozzarella

Fresh made burrata and basil

Artist Clare Carver's label design - Big Table Farm Wines

Early Edition Sunday Oregonian front cover! 

We are very excited to be on the front cover of today's Oregonian!! It was a stressful decision to open ourselves up to public scrutiny, and I think if you're going to be a small farmer - especially a small raw milk farmer - you have to be educated in your practices and then practice what you believe in. 

A huge thank you to all my friends, customers and all Oregonians who seek out, even though inconvenient, and buy your products from small farmers!  Your commitment to finding local, sustainable food is what makes us able to do what we do.

Here's the article online:

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/04/st_paul_woman_works_hard_to_pr.html

Includes a cool video of me milking!

Kefir - A Cup A Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Here is all you need to make kefir: milk, kefir grains, and a jar to culture it in.

Kefir, a somewhat sour, yeasty, and effervescent lacto-fermented beverage is gaining enormous popularity!  January 2 of this year I began getting daily requests for kefir grains, which I just attributed to a few New Year’s Resolutions… however, those requests have not stopped and the grains are flying out the door!

Kefir originated in the Caucasus Mountains, in the former Soviet Union, and seemed to have been developed by sheer accident.  The villagers of this area consumed the nutritious beverage in large quantities and were renowned for longevity, living long, healthy lives with little to no known disease. An active life span of over one hundred years was common for folks living in the region where kefir was cultured and liberally consumed as part of a staple diet.

Kefir is probably the easiest cultured milk beverage to make at home, easier then yogurt because it cultures right on your countertop – no need to find a warmer place to incubate it.  Whereas yogurt can be cultured from previous batches of yogurt, kefir can only be cultured using kefir grains.  Kefir grains are self perpetuating, increasing in volume with each batch you make, and therefore need to be divided over time.  If you ask around I’m sure you can find a local source – perhaps a friend with some extra to give away.  Kefir grains are not a grain at all – just initially labeled that because of their appearance and granular structure.  They are created through a dynamic association of friendly lactic acid bacteria, vinegar-producing bacteria and healthy yeast strains.

Identical as well as adorable twin sisters Cathy and Connie live nearby and culture about five gallons of raw milk into kefir each week in order to maintain strong immune systems.   As their cultures grow, they keep a steady supply of kefir grains coming my way – and I am able to pass them on to others all week.  Given that they drink more kefir than anyone I know, I asked them a few questions regarding their experience with kefir.

They each drink about 1-2 cups daily of kefir, drinking mostly in the morning but Connie and her husband enjoy a tall glass in the evening, too.  They, like me, find that it can be an acquired taste – they recommend getting used to the flavor gradually, perhaps adding maple syrup, raw honey, frozen juice concentrate or fruit compote to soften the sour flavor at first, and work your way up to being able to drink it plain if you choose.

It gets sourer and healthier the longer you leave it on your countertop – I leave mine about 24 hours, Connie ferments hers about 36 hours and Cathy cultures her about 48 hours.  I guess I’m the wimpy one of the bunch!

Initially, Cathy and Connie started drinking kefir in order to add beneficial probiotics to their diets to strengthen their immune systems, and they also chose kefir because it is the easiest of the cultured dairy products to make - you simply add kefir grains to a jar of milk and place it on your countertop to culture for a day or two.  It’s also a good idea to cover it with a towel to protect it from nutrient damaging light.

Cathy and Connie both credit kefir with preventing illness and for strengthening their immune systems immensely in the past few years.  Cathy used to get every passing bug and it would take weeks for her to recover from them.  As of today she has not been sick in a year, even though her husband has brought home a couple very nasty illnesses. 

Cathy also used to suffer from several food intolerances and breaking out in hives was a common occurrence, but since beginning kefir consumption hives are now a very rare occurrence.  Connie enjoys not having to worry about being exposed to others’ illnesses, confident her strengthened immune system will fight it off and additionally, she is now free of previously annoying digestive problems.  These two ladies are very trim and fit and Connie credits her figure to kefir being such a completely nourishing and satisfying food.

“All diseases begin in the gut.” This is a wonderful phrase coined by Hippocrates more than two thousand years ago and the more we learn, the more we realize just how right he was. If we are doing all we can to have a healthy digestive system our immune system will also be strong.  Fermented dairy products, especially kefir, are some of the best foods for our digestive system.

Simply place one or two of these kefir grains in a quart jar, fill with milk, and place on counter top with lid loosened for 24 hrs. until thickened

NW Women Farmers Visit

Last Saturday, the most perfect spring day of the year so far, we hosted the Northwest Women's Farmer group for a farm tour, cheesemaking demo, wine and cheese tasting, and had a fabulous time meeting some wonderful farmers.  These ladies are smart, strong, well educated, and have followed their passion in life by choosing to work the land to provide the rest of us with the highest quality food you can imagine - food of a quality that can't be bought in stores.

We started off by visiting Max - 2 weeks old

Feeding the growing boy

Cooper, our fearless LGD, protects all the animals from predators.

 My Mr. Handsome entertained us with his chicken stories - - what works, and most importantly, what doesn't work (buying year old chickens on craigslist might equate to 2 or 3 years old and  moulting!

Learning about Intense Rotational Grazing while visiting with "the girls."

Big Table Farm wines from the cellar accompanied the farmstead cheeses - cheddar, mascarpone, feta, mozzarella... yum!!

Stirring the curds

Gorgeous grass-fed milk!

What an awesome group of women!! Thanks, ladies!!

Portland's Own "Community Supported Kitchen"

Salt, Fire and Time 1902 NW 24th Ave. Portland

Somewhere throughout my days, amid milking the cows, making sure my kids are fed and clothed, and running a farm corporation, I am aware of my well-worn copy of Nourishing Traditions beckoning, encouraging, and even pleading to me - pleading me to be an even “better” mom and keeper of these Nourishing Traditions. It’s as if Sally Fallon herself is looking into my windows and wondering why I haven’t rendered that tub of pastured pork fat into tasty lard, or perhaps she’s noticing that although there is some kefir fermenting on the counter top, there’s no ginger ale or sauerkraut or beet kvass culturing, nor are there wild yeasts being captured for homemade bread for my brood. Just as I was feeling hopelessly unsuccessful as a complete nurturer of my family, I discovered help!

Salt, Fire and Time is a wonderful gem of a store in northwest Portland. “Portland’s Traditional Healing Foods Grocery,” is exceptional in its vision by owner Tressa Yellig, in that she fills in the gaps for us busy Weston Price fans - in many cases, parents seeking to raise our families on a traditional foods diet, which by nature, is not convenient. A “Community Supported Kitchen,” (CSK) SFT is only the fourth of its kind in the country.

Kidney stew and a variety of kombucha flavors - plus much more!

An incredibly valuable resource in our community, SFT sells those items that all of us should be making at home but with spouses, children, jobs, and blogs to research, we may find we aren’t able to quite fit everything in. At Salt, Fire and Time you can walk in and purchase bone broths, organ meat stews, cultured vegetables, granola from soaked grains and nuts, pork lard, cultured mayonnaise, beet kvass, kombucha, and many more items to fill your larder with the delicious, nutrient dense foods traditionally prepared within a family.

Another of Tressa’s goals in opening SFT is to restore the food culture heritage “that understood the synergy between our food communities and our world.” The public can also take a variety of cooking classes teaching you traditional cooking techniques, including various cheesemaking classes I am offering monthly on Saturdays.

A volunteer baking the "hand pies."

What is a “Community Supported Kitchen?”

“It is a sustainable model for community-scale food preparation and processing that honors culinary traditions and provides nutrient-dense foods. It is a place for community and community empowerment and nourishment. Through seasonal feasts, classes and volunteer opportunities, a CSK seeks to improve the transparency of food from farm to table. Our mission is to restore food integrity and traditional preparations to our regional food economy. We are committed to sourcing locally, planning seasonally, minimizing waste and working respectfully in direct relationship with our community of farmers, customers and fellow artisans.”

Weston Price babies grow up to shop at SFT!

So next time you want to learn to preserve your own raw milk through cheesemaking, or perhaps you’ve run out of lard or need a boost with some freshly brewed kombucha, consider visiting Salt, Fire and Time. Or better yet, get involved – in the kitchen as a volunteer, at a community feast, or attend one of the various classes!