Cabbage Patch Meals

Unlike cabbage patch dolls of the ’80s, cabbage the food is a hot ticket for winter dinner.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 21, 2012 at 10:50AM 1 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Martha Stewart

Cabbage is super – healthy, versatile and easy to cook. Martha Stewart likes to slice and roast hers in a drizzle of olive oil and caraway or fennel seeds for about 40-45 minutes at 400 degrees F.

Cabbage is known as a staple food of winter, food of the peasants, humbly and reliably prepared throughout the world and throughout the ages. But really, it is so much more. Not only has it outlived its namesake weird looking stuffed dolls of the ‘80s, but now it’s being discovered as a superfood for the 21st century.

Something so inexpensive and ubiquitous is a fine discovery. It’s even finer when you realize there are so many ways in which it’s unusually good for you. Despite its typically pale color, it’s packed with an alphabet of vitamins (K, A and C in particular) plus calcium, fiber, folate and Omega-3. And it’s well documented by now for having significant cancer-fighting properties.

We visited cabbage back in the late summer, via the usual route of chopped salads and slaws, but a winter trip is worth the time. First up is the kimchi option – similar to slaw in that it uses raw cabbage, but fermented so it lasts even longer. Cabbage also makes a great hot dish. While it’s crunchy and sharp tasting when raw in a salad, given time in a sauté, stew, or braise, it softens into silky sweetness and blends well with most vegetables. And cabbage leaves are a classic wrapper (healthier than a tortilla), the large leaves enveloping whatever stuffing you whip up.

The different varieties are suited to slightly different uses. Savoy cabbage is the distinctive, fancy curly kind; it cooks more quickly than the other varieties – it doesn’t need the hour long stew treatment that green or red cabbage does – and its leaves stand up well as wraps. Napa and Chinese cabbages are crisp and milder tasting, oft-used for kimchi.

Red cabbage will lose much of its color when cooked, unless you add a bit of acid (such as vinegar) to the mixture. It will also color whatever else you cook with it, so sometimes green cabbage is a better choice because it provides a more neutral backdrop to other ingredients.

In the spirit of the many Eastern European cultures that rely on cabbage to get them through the winter, here’s a recipe for cabbage stuffed with spiced beef, from The 10 Things You Need to Eat by Dave Lieberman and Anahad O’Connor.

Beef- and Rice-Stuffed Savoy Cabbage

1 large head of savoy cabbage
2 pounds ground beef
2 eggs
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
Few dashes of cayenne
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ cups cooked white rice
One 6-ounce can tomato paste
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 cups beef or chicken stock

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a simmer. Core the cabbage from the bottom, leaving the head intact. Drop the head of cabbage into the water and use tongs to remove about 14 of the largest leaves of the cabbage as they pull away from the head of cabbage and become tender. Set them aside on a large plate to cool, transfer the pared-down head of cabbage to a cutting board, finely chop it once it has cooled sufficiently to handle, and reserve.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the beef, eggs, garlic, paprika, cayenne thyme, cloves, salt, pepper, and rice and stir until all the ingredients are well incorporated. Place about ¼ cup of the meat mixture in the center of each of the whole tender cabbage leaves and wrap up snugly by folding in the sides, folding up the bottom, and tucking under the top. Place the stuffed cabbage leaves in a 9 × 13-inch Pyrex baking dish.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the tomato paste, ketchup, stock, and reserved finely chopped cabbage. Pour over the top of the stuffed cabbage leaves. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.

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Fix-It at the Fair

Get your fix of freebies and better-living tips at the Fix-It Fair Saturday February 25.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 20, 2012 at 05:00PM 1 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Growing Gardens

The Fix-It Fair is a chance to score free advice and home products and make connections with community groups like Growing Gardens, who help kids, families and schools plant edible gardens.

It’s not too late to catch the last of the season’s city-sponsored Fix-It Fairs. At these free annual neighborhood events (this is its 25th year), city and community resources come together to give advice, freebies and workshops on healthy home living.

February 25, 2012, head over to Jefferson High School in North Portland to meet and ask questions of people who have expertise in all sorts of home-related topics that most of us don’t have time to delve into. They’ll be there to share, at exhibits all day (8.30 am-2 pm) and at hourly workshops.

The fair takes a seriously holistic view of home life, addressing important aspects of a having a happy home from how to clean (“Green Cleaning Solutions”) to how to help your teen (“Healthier Relationships For Your Teen”). Those are just two of the workshops. Check the schedule online.

Other workshop topics include “Know Your Neighborhood: the Basics of Disaster Preparedness” (presumably they’re not referring to when our children are teens?) and “Aging in Place,” which will help us anticipate retrofits and other needs we’ll have as we grow old in our historic Portland four-squares, bungalows, ranchers and houses in the hills.

Yard care, composting, recycling and tree planting are also on the agenda. You’ll be able to talk to staff from city agencies and bureaus that make the policies that affect our lives at home and around town every day. They’ll share info on biking in winter, saving on water and energy bills, building an eco-roof overhead or naturescaping in the yard.

A slew of community organizations will be there, too. For instance, the Oregon Construction Contractors Board will teach the basics of hiring a contractor, and the National College of Natural Medicine will talk about family health and “food as medicine.”

Fix-It Fair
8:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Jefferson High School
5210 N Kerby Ave
Portland, OR

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Eats (From) Leaves (That) Bend

Plate up dinner on beautiful bendable leaf-like dishes from Nao Tamura.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 19, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Nao Tamura

Nao Tamura’s “Seasons” serving plates are lovely as artichoke leaves. Made of food-safe silicone, they’ll bend, but won’t break.

It’s become common to see silicone in the kitchen – the heat resistant rubbery material is a go-to for bakeware, cooking utensils, and even collapsible measuring cups. But silicone that leaves the kitchen and shows off on the dining table? That’s a new one.

Nao Tamura is the designer of such lovely leaf-like serving and dining plates. She is a hybrid Tokyo/New York City artist and industrial design innovator who showed the Seasons line of silicone plates at Design Miami and Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2010. Portland creative guru John Jay says, “Nao is one of the most inspiring young designers in both Japan and America today.”

Today the Seasons platters and dishes are available online through the Museum of Modern Art shop and Unica Home. Plates come in small and medium sizes in sets of four, or in a single platter size. Each plate is slightly different in color and shape, like the leaves of an artichoke are as you peel away its layers.

Like most leaves, Tamura’s leaf plates are multifunctional, pliant and beautiful. Unlike most leaves, these can be rolled up for storage, washed in the dishwasher, and safely heated in the oven. And though silicone is manmade, and thus not as natural as a leaf from a tree, it is a compound of the natural element found in sand and rock (28% of the earth’s crust) with oxygen. It’s considered safe for serving, heating and cooling – a far cry from an old fashioned plastic.

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Wonder Walls

Why paint when you can paper instead?

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 18, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Juju Papers

Juju Papers wallpaper brings whimsical leaves of the Northwest forest inside all year.

Time was when wallpaper was a common way to cover a wall; along with providing color and pattern, it camouflaged the imperfections of the plaster the wall was made of. That time, however, was a long time ago. With sheetrock came a preference for paint. Styles and habits wax and wane, though; could it be time for a resurgence of wallpaper power?

Two local companies are making a run of it, by making small runs of handcrafted wallpapers. The downtown West End neighborhood shop Woonwinkel carries the craftwork of both Makelike and Juju Papers. The wallpapers offered by the small, carefully curating shop capture the 2012 Portland zeitgeist: artisanal yet ready-made, at once ornate and simple. And with a clear focus on foliage.

Makelike is a small design studio of artist/creatives who have toiled at graphic arts, branding and advertising for many years in the service of cool corporate clients. The multi-media experts now produce housewares as well, with a line of tea towels accompanying their several hand-screenprinted wallpaper designs.

The designs defy categorization. Fungi and fir trees figure prominently. Colors contrast boldly, and often include metallic gold. The patterns and palettes of the two lines, Cactus and Forest, would hold up to an eclectic range of furniture styles and definitely create an accent wall worthy of notice.

Wallpapers from another Portland company, Juju Papers, are the product of Avery Thatcher and her whimsical, light hand. Her patterns have a sketchlike, homespun quality. Simple leaves falling neatly in A view of the woods are almost childlike, while what look like elaborately interlocking dandelion and chicory leaves in Salad Days create a lightly ornate black lined pattern on a white field.

Should you decide it’s time to refresh your walls via some rolls of paper, here’s an excellent article to help you avoid common DIY mistakes.

Woonwinkel

935 SW Washington
Portland, OR 97205

503-334-2088


Tues-Sat 11-6

Sun 12-5

(closed Monday)

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A Colorful Carpet Language

Company C makes soft and cushy rugs filled with color and character.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 14, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Photo: Kristin Belz

Texture, color and pattern compete beautifully in carpets by Company C.

The carpets created by the New Hampshire company with the plain Jane name, Company C, are anything but plain. Nearly every one of the hooked or tufted wool carpets in the extensive line packs a punch of knock-out color, texture, and flair. Whether they’re florals, geometrics, stripes or border patterns, these rugs don’t hold back.

Nor should they. The flowers in the floral designs (like the Giverny) are bold and big, never delicate or droopy – they’re happy flowers, even in dark or muted colors. The stripes of the Jubilee Periwinkle rug are bright, wobbly and loose, with different knots creating contrasting textures. Other patterns are quiltlike patches of contrasting prints, chock-a-blocked together.

Many of the patterns are inspired by popular 20th century artistic styles like the Art Nouveau or Art Deco. And yet they’re amped up, exaggerated just a bit in scale or color palette. The effect is powerful, but not chaotic or overwhelming, and complements many different design sensibilities.

The Company C line of rugs has a pattern-centric fabric like quality in general, so it makes sense that we find a good selection of its rugs at the eastside fabric store The Whole 9 Yards. While that store is well-known for covering all the beautiful fabrics you might need for upholstery and drapery, the rugs provide appropriate accompaniment for your floors.

You’re probably not about to make your own carpet, but since the prices are not prohibitive, you don’t need to. Hooked rugs start at about $90 for a 3’ x 5’ (6’ x 9’ about $900), tufted usually about three times that (and up). They are handmade, durable wool, most made in China, and many Goodweave-certified. You may never want to wear socks again.

The Whole 9 Yards
1820 E. Burnside St.
Portland OR 97214
503.223.288
M-F 10am-6pm
Sat. 10-5

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Magic Mustard

Making your own is not hard, though it is a seedy endeavor.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 13, 2012 at 03:00PM 1 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of injennieskitchen.com

Mustard is a wiz to make if you have that modern appliance, the food processor.

With local restaurants regularly crafting their own ketchups and hot sauces, the condiment craze is clearly upon us. Mustards must be next, right? Mustard mania means specialty mustard tailor-made to your taste. Hot or not, yellow or brown, smooth or chunky with seeds. You make the calls when you make the mustard.

Of course, jars of gourmet, store-bought mustard are delights, always fun to try. So many varieties from so many countries. But how many jars of mustard can you really have cluttering your fridge? Making your own mustard, you concoct just the amount you want, and tinker over time with the liquids and spices you add to later batches.

To start with the simplest variety of homemade mustard, seeds (or even just mustard powder) and water are all you need to start. The powder and cold water will make a very hot mustard paste, like a Chinese mustard. Using seeds, the recipe is still easy if you first soak the seeds at least 24 hours (in cold water or vinegar) and if you have a food processor. (Mortar and pestle? Not so easy.)

Use brown or yellow seeds – or both. Or black, if you can find them; they’re not easy to come by, though supposedly they grow wild in California. Yellow seeds (also called white) are a bit milder than the brown, and more commonly American than the brown seeds most often found in European mustards (Grey Poupon, anyone?).

Grind the soaked (and thus softened) seeds in the food processor and then move on to experimenting with tasty additions. Beyond the basic mix, the variations are endless. Add other liquids besides water – beer, hard cider, wine or vinegar. Mix in honey or brown sugar, herbs or nuts, though with fresh, non-fermented items, the mustard will not last quite as far into forever as it would otherwise.

If you want smooth mustard, you’ll have to take the time and effort to push the mixture through a fine sieve, leaving the seed husks behind. (I’m too seedy to worry about that step.)

There is clearly no single right way to make mustard, but you could consult the The Mustard Book written by mustard mavens Rosamund Man and Robin Weir. This is one of their recipes, as adapted by Noelle Carter.

Roman Mustard
Total time: 15 minutes, plus 1½ to 2 days soaking time for the mustard seeds

About ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon (5 ounces) brown mustard seed
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
3/4 cup unsweetened red grape juice
1 1/2 teaspoons very coarse salt, such as Maldon
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, finely ground
1/4 cup (1 ounce) flaked almonds
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (1½ ounces) untoasted pine nuts

1. Soak the mustard seeds: Place the mustard seeds in a medium glass or ceramic bowl along with the vinegar and grape juice. Mix in the salt and cumin seeds. Set aside, covered (but not sealed airtight), for 36 to 48 hours.

2. Place the mixture in a food processor and process for 1 to 2 minutes until the seeds are coarsely ground. Add the almonds and pine nuts and pulse a few times just until the nuts are completely broken up, careful not to over-process. This makes about 2½ cups mustard.

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Window Warmers

An extra layer helps insulate old windows – but it doesn’t have to look like a blanket.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 12, 2012 at 02:00PM 1 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Indow Window

The edges of an Indow Window are made of compressed tubing (patent pending), so the insulating acrylic sheet snaps easily into single-paned windows. The acrylic layer cuts down on energy loss without cutting out the visual charm of old wooden windows.

Much of the charm and beauty of an old house comes from its original windows; they are key to the home’s character, whether it’s a craftsman style bungalow or a mid-century ranch. But we often pay a high price for keeping these old windows, in energy and dollars: on average, about 30% of the energy a house loses is through its windows.

And that’s not a small loss, because 30% of all the energy we as a society use is consumed by our buildings. That’s right: not our cars, but our buildings. After all, even if we drive a gas guzzler on a long daily commute, it’s probably less time than we spend sheltered inside a warm, lighted building.

So, just by living in a house with old, uninsulated windows (as I admittedly do), it’s like I’m still driving a big old 1970s station wagon to work instead of pedaling away on my uber-green cargo bike. Ooops. Not good.

So what to do? Replacing old windows with new, energy-efficient double-paned windows is an answer, but also comes with a high price. New wooden windows tend to be spendy. A typical vinyl window tends to cost less in dollars but more in terms of visual appeal. With each, there’s also the “embodied energy” wasted in ripping out old materials and putting in newly made replacements.

Indow Windows, however, has come up with another alternative. The young North Portland company makes a custom-sized acrylic window insert that fits tightly, and nearly invisibly, over your single-paned energy hog. Sam Pardue is the green-minded, inventive entrepreneur who evidently was frustrated at the options for insulating the charming old windows of his 1906 Portland home. Expensive and/or ugly were what he saw on the market. But he says that one day he was looking at the open door of his refrigerator. (Perhaps he was searching for a snack? He didn’t specify.) The light bulb went off, not in the fridge but in his head: a springy rubbery gasket could seal the edge of a window like the door of a fridge seals its cold interior from the room temperature.

Indow Windows have been on the market for a bit more than a year now, but are already winning awards from sustainable and energy-related institutions. The latest accolade came just this week: a February 13 announcement that they’re finalists in the Edison Awards for innovative products and services. Pardue and company have put in nearly 2000 of the window inserts in the Portland metro area, with Neil Kelly being the major installer.

The Indow Window adds a second, continuous layer over a house’s single-paned window. The acrylic layer is sealed nearly invisibly at the edges of the window frame and creates an air pocket that keeps cold and hot air away from each other. The air pocket dramatically reduces the condensation that usually occurs on such old windows, and thus also lessens the chances of moisture seeping into and rotting away the wood frames.

Another benefit, depending on how much you enjoy the noises of your neighborhood, is that the Indow Window lowers the decibels you’ll hear from cruising hot rods or clanking, beeping recycling trucks. Its a win-win window situation, you might say.

Prices run about $20-$25 per square foot of window (depending on the grade of acrylic used). The cost for a typical 3′ × 4′ window totals about $240, including on-site laser measuring of your window before fabrication of the insert, and initial installation. Since all inserts are custom-made, skewed and crooked windows will be as tightly sealed as any.

Indow Windows
503.284.2260
2267 N Interstate Avenue
Portland OR 97227

For more information call authorized dealer Neil Kelly (phone 503.288.7461).

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The Print-it-then-Sit-in-it-Chair

Refrigerator interiors have a second life as furniture, thanks to a Dutch robot extruding one endless line of plastic.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 11, 2012 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Dirk Vander Kooij

Not your grandfather’s rocker, this one is made by Dirk Vander Kooij from an “endless” strand of recycled plastic extruded from the arm of a repurposed robot. It comes in bright colors too.

Somewhere in a country far far away (Holland, actually), in a time not so very long ago (2010), a young design student made a robot which made a chair which was made of melted recycled refrigerator interiors. No, this is not the plot of a children’s book; this is a true story.

The student was Dirk Vander Kooij, and now he is the maker – with the help of his repurposed industrial robot pal – of the Endless Chair furniture line at his company in Eindhoven, Holland.

The concept boggles the mind, and yet it is reality, not concept. Vander Kooij started his furniture production company last year. He sells the “Flow” and “Endless” lines of chairs in dining, rocking, and even children’s versions, at his online shop and at retail locations in Holland.

As a design student, Vander Kooij had graduated from Wood and Furniture College in Amsterdam when he decided to pursue further study at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. There he got interested in plastics (perhaps he’d watched The Graduate?) and was inspired by the “old” 3D printers he’d seen.

3D printers themselves take some twisting to get one’s mind around. To those of us who grew up with ancient technologies like telephones that plugged into a wall, 8-track or cassette tape recorders, Xerox machines or even typewriters and carbon paper… well, “printing” implies something flat. But 3D printers are becoming more and more available to “print” objects.

ADX, the open-to-the-public fabrication studio in Southeast Portland, has a 3D printer (along with a lot of other interesting machines for making things, like a laser cutter and a CNC router). Like any old school computer printer, a “head” moves over a surface and “prints” a computer-directed image.
But with 3D printers, the surface is not flat – or rather, it starts flat and the printer head moves not just horizontally but vertically. It “prints” what is not just a two dimensional image but a three dimensional object. Instead of ink that dries flat, the material being shot out of the printer head is a plastic that creates a volume.

Vander Kooij’s new robot-driven fabrication method is an additive process. In a sense it’s the opposite of the traditional way of making a plastic chair, whereby you’d first create a mold into which to pour the plastic, then pull away the mold to reveal the chair. The “printer” process allows every chair to become a different prototype. Rather than having to make a new mold, the designer simply tweaks the computer program the robot follows in making the next chair.

Vander Kooij’s website includes a great two-minute video showing the industrial robot he programmed to make the Endless chairs. It’s worth watching to get your head around 3D printing, and to marvel at how quickly the chair gets “drawn” into real, sit-able shape.

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Text and the Art of Decorating

Keeping Calm and Carrying On – and other written messages.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 07, 2012 at 10:50AM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of LoveSugar

LoveSugar Design’s giclee print would be a perfect Valentine’s Day present to a loved one – or a morale booster for yourself on a grey day.

Time was when words were spoken aloud or written in letters or books; they weren’t art on a wall. When did text become visual art? I’ll save my theories for another day (are Egyptian hieroglyphs “art”?). But I will suggest that a graphic art poster would be a timely, non-chocolate gift to anyone you truly love on February 14.

Love Sugar Design, a husband and wife graphics team from Miami, make a simple and sweet text poster proclaiming “you’re my favorite work of art.” It’s a giclee print, pink and red text on white archival 100% cotton heavyweight paper. But of course, you really have to see it to love it: the “O” in “favorite” is replaced by a red heart; it just works, visually and sentimentally.

Good text-based posters work as meaningful visual accents to a home or office as both graphic art and a subtle (or not so) message to the viewer. Think of them as large, attractive Post-It notes reminding you of something important. The popular Keep Calm and Carry On poster is a now classic example.

That poster was a 1939 creation of bureaucrats at the Ministry of Information in wartime Britain. Despite its popularity now, the “Keep Calm” poster never got publicly released; it was the third of a series of three propaganda posters produced to bolster the morale of Brits. The first two were ubiquitous in public places all over Britain in 1939, reading “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom Is In Peril.” But the Keep Calm message was held in storage in the event of a German invasion of Britain, which, thankfully, never came.

A used book selling couple in North England discovered an original of one of the Keep Calm posters in a box of books they’d bought at auction in 2000. The Barter Books folks liked it – proprietor Stuart Manley thought “It had a really nice feeling about it.” He and Mary displayed it in their shop and immediately started getting inquiries from shoppers about where to buy it. Thus began, quite by accident, their launch of the image into the public consciousness. The Keep Calm phrase and image, sometimes known as KCACO, is also in the public domain, though that is being disputed by an entrepreneur trying to trademark its use on certain products.

In 21st century western cultures, the message resonates on many levels. Not quite as sweet as “You’re my favorite work of art,” but a timeless sentiment nonetheless, for Valentine’s and all days.

Appropriately, the giclee printing method of Love Sugar’s “You’re my favorite” poster (YMFWOA?) should stand the test of time as well. Giclee printing is archival, museum quality ink-jet digital printing begun in the early 1990s. A single print can economically be made on demand, unlike the old-fashioned four color offset lithography method. Printer Jack Duganne at Nash Editions pioneered the process. He also coined the name giclee (from the French word “gicler” meaning to spurt, squirt or spray) as a nicer-sounding way to convey what the ink-jet computer printer was doing. Perhaps Love Sugar Design will make a version of its YMFWOA poster en Francais…

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Pomegranates, Winter’s Red Jewels

Valentine’s Day is the time for a taste of the tail end of Pomegranate season.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 06, 2012 at 05:00PM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of J.Lovkin/Bon Appetit

Pomegranate seeds pop color and tang into a quinoa and sauteed fennel salad.

Pomegranates are one of those winter fruits that, like citrus, provides juicy, bright-colored and -flavored contrast to the hearty, comforting root vegetables we depend on this time of year. Not that there is anything the slightest bit wrong with turnips, yams, parsnips and potatoes, but their starchy, soft texture and earthy colors lack a certain je ne sais quoi. Or rather, I do know what they lack: juice and color. Pomegranates don’t look like they’d provide that, but they do. You just have to search.

Inside a tough-skinned red pomegranate are the seeds – corn kernel-sized rubies that first pop the eyes and then the tastebuds. They’re a great Valentine’s Day treat, the brilliant red of their seeds Hallmark-ready for the holiday of love. And since it takes a bit of work to get to the seeds, you probably see them about as often as you see cupid waiting at the MAX station with his bow and arrow.

But like love, the seeds of pomegranates are worth the wait. Cracking open the hard shell of the fruit reveals the seeds (proper name: arils). However, no matter what you call them, the seeds are famously covered with inedible pithy pulp that can be messy and hard to remove. Best to open the fruit in a bowl of water, thus avoiding the mess and allowing the water to bathe the seeds clean; the pulp will rise, the seeds will sink.

Middle eastern cuisines often use pomegranate syrup as an accompaniment to lamb or chicken. The syrup, found in middle eastern specialty grocery stores, is also great as a splash of brilliant crimson on vanilla ice cream. But the seeds themselves are always a hit as a sprinkled-on addition to many a green or grain salad. Here’s one to try.

Pomegranate quinoa and fennel salad

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium fennel bulbs (2 1/2 pounds), cut lengthwise into 1/4"-thick slices
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 lemon
1 serrano chile, seeded, chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds (from 1/2 small pomegranate)

Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add fennel; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until fennel is just tender and lightly golden, 10–12 minutes. Stir in lemon juice, cumin, and sugar; cook for 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Meanwhile, bring quinoa and 3 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until quinoa is cooked, about 10 minutes. Drain; return to pan. Cover; let sit for 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork; transfer to a large bowl.

Using a small sharp knife, cut all peel and white pith from lemon. Cut between membranes to release segments; discard membranes and roughly chop. Add lemon with any juices and remaining 1 Tbsp. oil to quinoa; stir. Add fennel mixture, chile, and herbs. Toss gently to incorporate. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer salad to a platter; sprinkle with pomegranate seeds.

Recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi in Bon Appetit magazine.

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Realistic Remodeling Dreams

The spring Portland Home and Garden Show, February 22-26, promises do-able designs for inspiration.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 06, 2012 at 01:00PM 1 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of Young House Love

Young House Love bloggers Sherry and John Petersik of Richmond, VA will be at the Portland Home and Garden Show sharing DIY stories. Here’s their toddler daughter Clara’s room.

Usually, home design exhibitions featuring row upon row of vendors hanging out their shingles in a giant expo or convention center are not the ultimate in avant garde or high design. They are, however, quite reliable as snapshots of the trends and buzzwords of what’s going on now in the home construction and remodeling business.

Judging by preview info on this year’s Portland Home and Garden Show, dreamy is out, realism is in. The show, held at – you guessed it – the Expo Center Wednesday February 22-Friday February 26, 2012, highlights building, environmental and planning trends broadly categorized as “smart” and “green.” That is, solar panels, recycled countertops, sustainable materials (bamboo, anyone?), “high-performance” building envelopes, smaller space living and Universal design, a.k.a. “aging in place.”

Perhaps these features are signs that the typical homeowner is adapting to the realities of today’s economic and real estate markets, adopting an attitude of doing the best we can with the places and spaces we have rather than selling and moving on every few years. Whatever the reasons, it’s good to see a trend toward responsible building, long-term perspective and understanding of environmental effects of construction.

One such example is the “Smart Home Remodel” to be built on site by Robert Knowles Construction and designer Jennifer Myers. They plan to construct the model house in the Expo Center in 52 hours. It’ll be a compendium of smart green features such as those mentioned above.

The so-called “Devolution: Changing the Way You Live” showcase house promises to be an example of “how comfort, efficiency, ergonomics, economy, and sustainability can all come together,” according to creator Barb Friedman of Oswego Design and Remodeling. She goes on to describe her design as “a place to gather with family and friends where you can feel connected to the outdoors, be able to grow some vegetables, herbs, and perhaps even a few fresh eggs with your own chicken coop.”

Others featured at the Expo Center show are two stars of the blogging world, the Young House Love":http://www.younghouselove.com/ website’s 29-year-old home-remodeling diarists, John and Sherry Petersik. Their blog documents what they’re doing to their suburban Richmond, VA home in highly informative yet amusing detail.

And lastly, the Salem-based ideabox company will have one of its pre-fab modular houses on display, fully furnished floor to ceiling with Ikea-everything. If that’s not realistic and do-able, I don’t know what is – ideabox evidently ships the “Activ-Ikea” model fully assembled. They don’t mention the price, but presumably you can put it on your charge card!

65th Annual
 Portland
Home & Garden Show®

February 22-26, 2012

Show Hours
 – Wednesday: 11am – 8pm;
 Thursday: 11am – 8pm; 
Friday: 11am – 8pm; 
Saturday: 10am – 8pm; 
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A Tree Story

Portland’s many “Friends of Trees” have planted 430,000 trees and native plants since 1989.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Feb 05, 2012 at 01:00PM 2 Comments

Photo: Courtesy of FOT-Chijo Takeda

Good trees make good neighbors in Portland. Thanks in part to Friends of Trees, Stumptown isn’t a very apt nickname for our city anymore.

The story of trees in Portland has certainly improved since the town was nicknamed “Stumptown” in the 19th century. Now, Portlanders plant trees more often than cut them down. (In fact, if you want to remove a tree from public-regulated property such as the grass strip between your sidewalk and curb, you have to get an inspection and pay for a permit from the city.)

But the trend these days is planting, not chopping down, trees in Portland. The numbers from this past weekend alone are impressive: 170 people got together in the Piedmont and Woodlawn neighborhoods of North Portland and planted 240 young trees. It was an uncharacteristically sunny February day, but that wasn’t all that made the Saturday fun.

Friends of Trees’ planting events are organized by micro-neighborhoods, so that teams of five or so people plant their own and their neighbors trees. It’s a great chance to meet people who live down the block or around the corner – nearby, but too far away to get to know in the typical comings and goings of city life.

The work these Portlanders did the other morning was just the latest chapter of a tree story started by Richard Seidman in 1989, when he decided to begin a community-based tree-planting non-profit. He wanted to bring neighbors together in a productive, fun way that had long-lasting, meaningful effects both quantifiable (trees planted, environmental benefits) and not (beauty, friendships, awareness and appreciation of nature).

It’s been 23 years since he got the idea for Friends of Trees (inspired by a similar program in Los Angeles), and Seidman has long since moved on to other projects and activities. But, as he hoped it would, the organization and its trees live on. Friends of Trees has planted some 430,000 trees and native plants in the Portland metro area since it started.

In fact, they boast a 97% success rate of trees planted, though in full disclosure I’ll admit that my own personal success rate with trees planted through Friends of Trees is an embarrassing 50%, if that. I signed up about ten years ago and planted two Japanese Snowbells in the sliver of a grass strip in front of my house. One tree died within a year or so. Perhaps “user error” had something to do with its demise; the short-lived tree was just a bit too far for my watering hose to easily reach.

This past weekend I tried again with the help of Friends of Trees. I am hoping the Prairiefire Crabapple of 2012 will get more love and water than the Snowbell ever did, now that I am older and wiser. Plus, the Prairiefire is said to be less water-needy than the thirsty Snowbell.

Looking at my surviving Snowbell, though, Friends of Trees team leader Susie Peterson sadly informed me that actually even it should be put out of its misery. She diplomatically mentioned that the quality of the trees FOT plants these days is better than it was in past years, implying that it wasn’t all my fault. And of course, street trees do get a lot of wear and tear, especially in some neighborhoods. On a narrow grass strip like mine – 2 ½ feet wide – a tree gets battered daily by car doors and more. But water goes a long way.

I felt a bit sad hearing that even the one tree I thought I’d “successfully” planted ten years ago was actually a failure, but then I realized that’s not really the full story. For ten years, that tree filtered the rain water and reduced stormwater runoff, even if it wasn’t growing as quickly as it should have had I been a better caretaker. And I enjoyed watching it blossom and grow, even if I was a bit underwhelmed by its progress and production.

I’ve learned some things in the past ten years, and the City has as well. The City’s Bureau of Environmental Services is in the midst of a three year “Plant it Portland!” campaign with Friends of Trees to plant some 16,000 trees in residential neighborhoods. They got about 3,700 in the ground last year, and will have planted another approximately 4,500 by the end of this year’s planting season.

And yet, those impressive numbers are just a part of what Friends of Trees achieves on its own, with the help of so many volunteers. During the 2010-11 planting season, they planted more than 24,000 trees and native plants, a 71 percent increase over the number planted during the previous season.

There are 11 more Plant It Portland! Saturday plantings this “spring” season, and possibly another will be added in March. Even if you can’t plant a tree in your own grass strip or yard, you can send someone else a “gift tree.” A special card goes out to the “recipient,” and for the month of February – in honor of Valentine’s Day – the usual $35 is discounted 25%.

It’s a great deal for all lovers and Friends of Trees. And a side benefit is that tree planting reminds us that spring is indeed coming soon.

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