Tag: PDX

My Caffeinated Office: Working from Coffee Shops in Portland

February 23, 2015February 11, 2017

As someone who works 99% of the time on her laptop, and can therefore work from anywhere with internet, it’s important to still get out of the house and interact with other humans. It sounds silly, but I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who work from home and feel the same way. Yes, maybe I get to stay in my pajamas all day, but there are also times that I don’t speak to another person until Jonah gets home at 5:15 p.m. Not great.

So I’ve always made a point of finding coffee shops in Portland that are good for working. The requirements are (fairly) simple: good internet connection, ample seating, plenty of outlets, preferably not too much noise, but also good taste in music (for those rare moments when my ears aren’t full of podcasts). There’s this handy website, Workfrom, that can help me find those spots. While good beverages are a plus, I also love places where I can grab a treat to snack on. Here are some of my favorites:

1) Case Study Coffee on Alberta

Case Study Coffee on Alberta, Portland, OR | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler — Photo from Google+

With this new location, Case Study finally came to my ‘hood. While I first fell in love with their fleur de sel caramel latte, they have lots of other tasty house made syrups and things for you to expand your coffee horizons. Past the beverages, they’ve got the fastest coffee shop internet I’ve experienced, not to mention incredibly nice staff and fantastic music choices (lots of Paul Simon, Elton John, and indie rock). In this new space, they’ve got a loft with plenty of seating, and I love the long communal table.

2) Tea Bar

Tea Bar, Portland, OR | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler — Kombucha and a Matcha Shake on a recent sunny day

This is quite possibly the most Kinfolk-esque establishment I have ever been to. A beautiful, open space on NE Killingsworth with a curated tea selection and blank white walls, big windows, and everything displayed just so. Tea Bar has some delicious tea lattes, like a Matcha Latte and a London Fog, as well as some other beautiful teas, which owner Erica Swanson is happy to tell you about. There are tables along the east wall, which also has a few outlets, but you’ve got to stake your claim. The communal table in the back is awfully appealing, but alas, there are no outlets there. It’s also important to note that between the blank walls and the concrete floor, it can get a little echoey and loud. You can read more about Tea Bar over on some friends’ blogs: Bakery Bingo and Martha Chartreuse.

3) The Sugar Cube

The Sugar Cube, Portland Or | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler — Photo Courtesty of the Portland Mercury

I’ve written about The Sugar Cube before, but it bears repeating: this place is great. While there are only 4 tables plus some counter seating, and the outlets are few and sometimes require crawling on the floor to plug in, I come here All. The. Time. Why? It feels like you’re sitting in a friend’s kitchen while they make you cookies. Except that friend is super talented baker Kir Jensen. I love the music (you’ll often hear Sharon Jones or old Motown favorites), the big windows offer plenty of natural light, and for some reason, the sound of mixers and kitchen timers in the back is so comforting to me. Oh, and you can get some of the most delicious treats in town. My favorite is the toast plate with house made lemon curd (available only before 1pm).

4) Bushel and Peck Bake Shop

Bushel and Peck Bakeshop, Portland, OR | Serious Crust by Annie Fassler — Tasty pastries and cute mugs at Bushel and Peck

This is my favorite neighborhood spot. The perfect distance for hopping on my bike, or taking a stroll if it’s sunny. There aren’t a ton of outlets (they’re all nestled in one corner near a two person table) or tables (3 plus a long communal table along the window) but gosh do I love it. The people working are always so kind and genuine, it has a nice little buzz, and there’s a nice energy in the air. The staff makes a delicious latte, and the internet works just fine. If you’re hungry, I highly recommend the biscuit (perfectly flaky and specked with black pepper) with whatever jam they’ve whipped up, or if you want something sweeter, the double chocolate orange cookie is chewy and perfect.

Runners up: Arbor Lodge, Coffee Division, Coava Coffee on Hawthorne, Tea Chai Te in Sellwood, Breken Café, Heart Coffee downtown, Townshend’s Tea on Alberta

I am always looking for new spots to try, so let me know in the comments if you have a favorite in town!

Restaurant Review: Cafe Castagna

January 26, 2015February 11, 2017

Ok, so it’s been over a month since you’ve heard from me. I could apologize, but let’s get real: holidays are busy, I’m working 3 jobs (one of them is new and a little nerdy and I’m really excited about it), and life is…well, busy. I think something I’m realizing as I start to settle into adulthood that busy is just a constant state of being – you can use it as an excuse, I guess, but really, everyone is experiencing it all the time. Even Jonah’s grandma emailed him this week saying she didn’t have time to respond to his email at the moment – she was too busy. What that tells me is that it doesn’t stop, even when you’re a grandma.

But last week I got the perfect opportunity to slow down for an evening. After slowing down a little on blogging and blogger events, I got the chance to dine at a restaurant I’ve been aching to try since they launched a completely new, Middle Eastern-inspired menu: Cafe Castagna. An invitation from Watershed Communications led me to an evening with blogger friends new and old (Erin from Bakery Bingo, Michelle from Hummingbird High, and Beth from Talk Eat Drink Portland) for a beautiful family style meal.

Last summer, Cafe Castagna revamped their menu, with Chef Wesley Johnson at the helm. Johnson has previously cooked at Philadelphia based Zahav, as well as Portland’s Levant, and has spent time in Israel. His knowledge of Middle Eastern flavors was powerful, as he showcased ingredients that are quickly becoming more common in American kitchens, like za’atar, harissa, and labneh. Recently, they’ve added a family style component to the menu as well: for either $30 or $40 per person in the party, the kitchen will determine your culinary fate.

After deciding on beverages (I started with the Sketches of Spain cocktail, and the table shared a bottle of Arneis from the Piedmont region) and a visit from Chef Johnson to tell our table about his background and the dishes we’d be eating, we settled in to enjoy the journey.

Onto the main courses (and the sides that came with): Plump and perfectly al dente agnolotti filled with a celery root and parmesan purée, accompanied by black trumpet mushrooms and aleppo pepper flakes. A zingy citrus salad with grapefruit, meyer lemon, and orange slices doused in a ginger syrup, sprinkled with charred garlic and basil. Carrots cooked my favorite way: within an inch of their life, caramelized to perfection, topped with zhoug (a spice paste) and feta.

While our table was completely covered in plates TWICE, I want to focus on my favorite dishes from the evening. The starters were all spectacular, but I had three favorites: fried panissa with harissa and aioli, flatbread with various spreads, and the pickles. Panissa is a chickpea dough that is often fried – at our meal it came in the shape of some very large french fries, with some harissa and some aioli for dipping. It was creamy and luscious and perfectly crispy on the outside. The flatbread was seasoned with za’atar and came with three rich dips: a rich chicken liver mousse, a smooth labneh swirled with harissa for a bit of punch, and a Turkish hummus. When eating rich foods like these, I love having some tart pickles to clean the palate and offer a bit of brightness.

But there’s more: Rabbit, both fried like chicken and forcemeat, served on a bed of fluffy, crunchy traditional wedding rice that was flecked with pistachios and golden raisins. A buttery lamb neck, meat falling off the bone, with stewed chickpeas and carrots. A beautiful whole trout draped in swathes of tabbouleh, tahini sauce, and plummy pomegranate arils.

After realizing that, while my eyes were still feasting, my stomach could not take another bite, we were offered a brief pause before a perfect end to the meal: a profiterole filled with halvah ice cream, garnished with candied walnuts, honey, and more aleppo pepper flakes. It was light, smooth, crunchy, and cold – a refreshing end to an adventurous, unique meal.

I highly recommend making your way over to Cafe Castagna to enjoy Chef Johnson’s new menu, the even newer family style meal, and the $45 wine list. Your tastebuds will thank you!

Pistachio Rosewater Tea Cakes

December 15, 2014February 11, 2017

During the holiday season, all I want to do is make cookies. All of the cookie recipes I’ve been eyeing throughout the year, this seems like the time to make them. I want chocolate cookies, I want mint crinkles, I want pecan shortbreads, I want soft sugar cookies decorated with frosting designs, I want ginger snaps. Maybe this is why I always add a layer this time of year? Maybe.

I recently bought a bottle of rosewater (mostly because there’s this dish in Jerusalem (the cookbook)- swordfish with harissa and rose – that I had once and I’ve been wanting to make it again), and it had been sitting on my pantry shelf, looking pretty but also lonely. And then I came across this recipe for “Pistachio Rosewater Snowball Cookies” in the latest issue of Kinfolk Magazine. They sounded like a beautiful twist on what some people call Mexican wedding cookies or Russian Tea Cakes or any other number of cookies: nutty with pistachio, and aromatic and floral from the cardamom and rose.

After making the recipe from Kinfolk, I made a few small changes to the recipe, and I wanted to share them with you. I thought the original was a little heavy on the rosewater, and a little light on the cardamom (though my roommates and Jonah really enjoyed them as they were). They’re buttery and crumbly. They’re sweet but with a unique flavor with them. And they smell beautiful.

Pistachio Rosewater Tea Cakes

Note: I found rosewater with the cocktail mixers at my local grocery store. It might also be in with the extracts in the baking aisle. If not, you can find it online.

Second note: Before you invest in making this recipe, you should definitely read through this recipe, and know that 1) pistachios are pricey, especially if you buy them already shelled and 2) there is a lot of kind of annoying pistachio prep. You’ve been warned.

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted, shelled pistachios
2 cups plus 2 Tbl all purpose flour
3/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups powdered sugar, divided
1 cup (2 sticks) butter unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 tsp rosewater

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment, or butter them.

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil, and blanch the pistachios for 1 minute. Drain them, and place them on a clean dish towel. Fold the dish towel over the pistachios and rub off the skins. (There may be some stubborn ones that you need to peel off.) Spread them in a small baking dish and roast them in the oven until they’re just dry, about 8 minutes. Set them aside and allow them to cool. When they are cool, pulse in a food processor or blender until they’re finely ground, but definitely not a paste. Transfer them to a small mixing bowl and whisk together with the flour, cardamom, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together 1 cup of the powdered sugar and the butter until pale and fluffy. Add the rosewater, and mix it in. With the mixer on low, add in the pistachio flour mixture and mix just until a dough forms, scarping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Roll the dough into 1-1.5 inch balls. Arrange at least 1 inch apart on the pan, and bake until they’re just golden on the bottom, ~20 minutes (mine took a little less). While the cookies are baking, pour the remaining cup of powdered sugar into a wide bowl. Remove the cookies from the oven, allow them to cool from a minute or two, and when they’re cool enough to handle, roll them in the powdered sugar. Allow to cool the rest of the way on a wire race.

Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding

November 19, 2014February 11, 2017

Almost a year ago, there was a piece in the New York Times. I’m not sure where I found it – most likely someone posted it on Facebook – but it struck a chord. It’s called “When a Food Writer Can’t Taste,” by Marlena Spieler, a James Beard Award winning food writer. In the article, she writes about how a car accident, in which she broke both arms and sustained a concussion, completely demolished her ability to taste and smell.

Now, that sounds horrible no matter who you are. But when a food writer loses the senses that bring her the most joy and allow her to work, it’s devastating. Her descriptions of tasting what had once been some of her favorite foods are heartbreaking: “Cinnamon drops, a childhood favorite, were bitter, horrible.” “Bananas tasted like parsnips and smelled like nail polish remover.” “Gently sautéed mushrooms seemed like scorched bits of sponge.” Luckily, the nerves were only damaged, not severed, meaning that she would, in time, recover. She created her own rehabilitation plan, eating and tasting a huge range of foods, forcing herself to taste things like chocolate over and over again, starting with milk chocolate and slowly upping the cocoa content. Things she hadn’t particularly loved before – fish, especially – became a daily craving.

In the end, she recovered most of the way, and though her senses still occasionally go haywire, she can enjoy food to an incredible extent. But I’d like to focus on a specific part of this story: about halfway through the article, she tells us how, though she used to “lack a sweet tooth,” her sweet tooth now couldn’t be ignored. She lists a few things she baked, and they all sound delicious, but one jumped out at me: miso sticky toffee pudding.

When I studied abroad in London, I became a fan of sticky toffee pudding. It’s not pudding like we think of in the states. It’s a cake that is sweet but not too sweet, drenched in a warm toffee sauce that seeps into the cake, resulting in a moist, warm, absolutely fantastic dessert. Now I have looked for a recipe for Spieler’s mystical dish, and I am not the only one. The day after the article was published, someone tweeted at Spieler asking for the recipe. There’s a Chowhound thread asking if the recipe can be found anywhere (yes, I commented). But I couldn’t find it, and it seems, neither could anyone else. There are recipes for miso toffee, and for sticky toffee pudding with miso ice cream, but not this exact dessert. So, after talking with my baker friend Caitlyn, we decided to make one ourselves.

We decided to adapt David Lebovitz’s sticky toffee pudding recipe, and really, there were only a couple simple changes to be made. (In retrospect, I should’ve used Spieler’s sticky toffee pudding recipe, but I never happened upon it until I was sitting down to write this.) The resulting dessert is sweet, salty, caramelized, strong, and unique. Its flavors are perhaps a bit confusing at first, but I think the way they swirl around your tongue, combining to create a balance of sweet and savory is a fun adventure.

Miso Sticky Toffee Pudding

Note: I have made this recipe now with both red and white miso paste. While I personally liked the white miso better, Caitlyn, Jonah, and Caitlyn’s boyfriend Dylan liked the red. On one hand, I think the deeper, more caramelized flavor of the red miso was nice, and on the other, the white provided a little more brightness, while bringing the same level of saltiness. Both are good, so it’s up to you which you use.

Ingredients

Toffee Sauce

2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup muscovado sugar (if you don’t have that, demerera or dark brown sugar will do)
2 1/2 Tbl molasses (we used Blackstrap)
2-3 tsp miso paste (start with two teaspoons, and add up to another teaspoon to taste)
1-2 Tbl toasted sesame seeds

Pudding

6 ounces pitted dates, snipped into small pieces
1 cup water
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup candied ginger, chopped
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt, preferably fine
4 Tbl unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
toasted sesame seeds, to serve

Instructions

Toffee Sauce

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, and butter an 8 1/2 inch porcelain soufflé dish, or something of a similar size.

In a medium sized saucepan, bring the cream, muscovado sugar (or other dark brown sugar), molasses, and miso to a boil, stirring often to melt the sugar, and keeping a close eye to make sure it doesn’t burn. Lower the heat and let simmer for about five minutes, stirring constantly, until the sauce has thickened and coats the spoon. Try your best to break up any chunks of miso. Pour roughly half the sauce into your buttered baking dish, sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds over the toffee sauce, and place the dish in the freezer. Set the pan with the rest of the sauce aside for serving.

Pudding

In another medium saucepan, bring the dates and water to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, remove from the heat and stir in the baking soda and ginger. Set aside, but keep slightly warm – leaving it on low heat isn’t a terrible idea.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large mixing bowl (you can use an electric mixer), cream together the butter and granulated sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla, stirring to combine. Add half of the flour mixture, then the date mixture, and then add the rest of the flour mixture, stirring between each addition. Be careful not to over-mix the batter.

Remove the baking dish from the freezer and pour the batter in over the toffee and sesame seeds. Bake for 50 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test. Allow it to cool slightly before serving. To serve, warm the toffee sauce, spoon portions of the pudding onto plates or bowls, and top with the warm toffee sauce and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream will make a nice topping. I’ve also topped mine with some homemade anise-cardamom ice cream (based on the anise ice cream from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop).

According to Lebovitz, if you’re making the pudding in advance of serving, bake it without the toffee in the bottom of the dish. Close to serving time, poke the cake about 15 times with a chopstick or skewer, and distribute half the toffee sauce over the top. Cover with foil, warm in a 300 degree oven for about 30 minutes, and then follow the serving instructions above.