the KITCHEN
at Honeyman Creek Farm
a cooking school
54986 Leberg Road
Warren, OR 97053
503.543.5610

Chef's Corner
Chef Robert's
Food Blog

This Month:
Sunday Dinner at The Farm
Coming Attractions
Cooking Classes
Wine Notes
James John Café
The Gospel of Grits
Book Report
From Garden to Table
Recipe of the Month

Celebrating Our Southern Food Traditions

Culinary traditions of the American South are as rich as they are varied. An amalgam of regional styles and variations on similar themes, these traditional cooking styles represent several of the oldest, most established regional cuisines in the nation. This region called the South has little unity whether in terms of geography, historical development, linguistic or cultural traditions. Yet, people from the area are Southerners first with a universal love of family, fellowship and good food. Celebrate and share with us the food traditions of our Southern heritage at Honeyman Creek Farm through our hands on cooking classes and Sunday Dinners.

Where is Honeyman Creek Farm?
Honeyman Creek Farm is located in Warren, Oregon, an easy 25 to 30 minute drive north of Portland along US 30 between Scappoose and St. Helens. It’s not at the end of the earth as some people might think and the beautiful drive into the country is well worth the trip.

Sunday Dinner at the Farm
Sunday Dinner in the South is traditionally a large and ritualistic affair. Join us on the first Sunday of each month for a home cooked traditional Southern family style Sunday Dinner based on local and seasonal ingredients. Loosen your belt and y’all come!

Reservations are required and space is limited. Don’t wait too long as the dinners fill up mighty fast. No hard libations are included, but you are welcome to bring your own. Contact us for more information.
View upcoming events

Coming Attractions

Summer Cooking Classes at In Good Taste, Portland, OR
We are bringing the farm to the city with three hands-on cooking classes to be held at In Good Taste in Portland this summer: Creole Feast, Creole Classics from Louisiana (July 25th, 6 pm), South by Southwest, A Journey to Tex-Mex Country (August 28th, 6 pm), and Soul of the South, African American Foodways (September 14th, 2 pm). More information about classes can be found at www.ingoodtastestore.com. From our garden to your table - Y’all come!

June Cooking Classes at the Farm:

Low Country Cooking – From Charleston to Savannah
The Carolina Low Country is home to one of this country’s richest culinary traditions reflected in its origin of English planters, French Huguenots, Gullah and flavors from the West Indies.
Date: Saturday, June 14th at 12 noon | Fee: $100 | View Menu & Details

Tidewater Cuisine – Virginia and North Carolina Traditions
Food traditions of the coastal plains and piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia hail from the time of planters and plantations. Strong English and Southern overtones, the French influences of Monticello and the delft hands of Africans is still evident in the elegant tables of the Tidewater.
Date: Saturday, June 28th at 12 noon | Fee: $100 | View Menu & Details

Wine Notes from Megan

2007 Pacific Rim Sweet Riesling ($11)
This winery focuses so much on the Riesling grape, that their website is www.rieslingrules.com. The Columbia Valley, Washington grapes that are chosen for the Sweet Riesling are picked riper than the grapes for their dry Riesling. A small amount of yeast is used to encourage the fermentation to stick - or keep it from becoming completely dry. Pacific Rim leaves a good amount of carbon dioxide in the wine to create a lively feeling to the wine - although it's not spritzy. The resulting wine is moderately sweet and refreshingly low in alcohol - less than 9% - with flavors of pineapple and peach. This wine brings perfect balance to all fiery fare - especially Thai, Szechwan and Caribbean cuisine...or simply enjoy as an aperitif. With the right food pairing, even those that swear they don't like "sweet" white wine will be asking for another glass.

Megan Markel is co-owner of Vino 100, a charming wine shop boasting 100 great wines for $25 or less. Vino 100 is located at 2092 NW Stucki Ave., Hillsboro, Oregon. For more information visit www.vino100portland.com or call 503.466.1606

James John Café
Situated on Lombard Street in downtown St. Johns, this European style café/bar opened in December of 2006 serving Stumptown coffee and fresh, house-made pastries. Suzanne Bozarth and partner Ken Yates began serving lunch in the summer of ’07 with the goal of using as many local and organic products as possible. The James John Café now serves Sunday night dinners generally consisting of four to five courses for a cost of around $30.00 per person. A limited selection of wine and cocktails are also offered at an additional price.

Soon to open for evening service on Fridays and Saturdays, Suzanne and Ken hope to offer folks a nice place for a light meal and libation on a weekend night. Ultimately, they plan to offer full dinner service several nights a week.

Suzanne and Ken have enlisted the help of Ben Bettinger as chef/consultant to help get their evenings rolling. Formerly chef de Cuisine at Paley’s Place restaurant, Ben has been invaluable in expanding Suzanne’s already considerable food knowledge. They hope to have Ben’s expertise until his new joint project, Beaker and Flask, with bartender Kevin Ludwig opens.

For information and dinner schedules contact the James John Café at 503.285.4930

Gospel of Grits
Outside of the South, hominy grits are a much maligned dish. Mention the word to the uninitiated and folks will wrinkle up their nose spouting numerous platitudes of distaste. Mention polenta and you get a completely different reaction. There’s not much difference between the two, but as Willy Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name . . .”

For more than four hundred years, families have been enjoying this delicious food. Touted as the first truly American food, hominy grits date back as far as 1607 when the first colonist came ashore at Jamestown, VA. Native Americans offered them steaming bowls of “rockahominie” – softened maize seasoned with animal fat and salt. A passion for grits was born providing a staple food that has been a blessing during many a bleak time in American history.

In the American South, sometimes called the "Grits Belt," hominy grits are simply called grits. In South Carolina grits are called hominy and in some parts of the South it is referred to as "little hominy" to distinguish it from “big hominy”, the whole hominy kernel.

Like polenta, grits are made from corn. Polenta is slow cooked corn meal mush (does this sound glamorous now?) typically made with coarsely ground yellow corn meal (corn grits). Traditional hominy grits are made by first soaking dried field corn in an alkali solution made with wood ashes (lye) or baking soda. During the process the bran comes off and the kernels swell up. This hominy is then washed many times, dried and then ground into grits – coarse, medium or fine.

This same process is used to make Masa Harina for making tortillas employing Cal-lime (calcium carbonate) as the alkali in Mexico and the American Southwest. Known as "nixtamalization," this process actually renders the corn more nutritious by liberating the B-vitamin niacin.

Only long cooked, stone ground grits are worthy eating. I have mine shipped in from Lakeside Mills in Spindale, NC. This mill has been serving the finest flour and corn meal products in the Carolinas since 1736. I prefer their Yelton’s Best Country Style Grits.

When most folks think of grits they think of grits boiled in water, but many a Southern cook will boil up their grits in buttermilk, cream or chicken broth. Grits must be salted when cooking them, not after. No amount of salt will render them edible when added dipso facto. The texture should be smooth and creamy, neither too thick nor thin and watery. Unsalted, thin, watery grits are just downright sleazy. Most of all they must come to the table steaming hot. No one in their right mind would serve them cold or lukewarm. That’s tantamount to pure heresy.

Normally associated as a breakfast dish, grits can turn up at any meal. They’re good with just about anything you serve them with – fried fish, shrimp and gravy, smothered pork chops, country ham, bacon, scrambled eggs. Leftover grits are often molded, cut in thick slices, dipped in egg and corn meal and fried in bacon drippings. Grits can be baked with cheese, made into a soufflé, spoon bread, light bread, muffins, waffles or pancakes (a favorite of George Washington’s mama). My favorite is still boiled grits topped with a good dollop of butter and a generous dose of freshly ground black pepper. Of course grits with red-eye gravy, country ham and hot buttermilk biscuits is nothing to be sneered at. It’s enough to make a grown man cry because you really want to eat more than you can hold.

Honey, I love me some grits. However you fix them, hominy grits can be astonishingly good once you’ve discovered a taste for them. And that’s the gospel truth!

(Stone ground grits can be ordered from Lakeside Mills at www.lakesidemills.com)

Stir the Pot, The History of Cajun Cuisine by Marcelle Bienvenu, Carl A. Brasseaux, and Ryan A. Brasseaux
(Hippocrene Books, Inc.; Copyright © 2005 by Marcelle Bienvenu, Carl A. Brasseaux, Ryan A. Brasseaux; ISBN 0-7818-1120-1)

Despite its growing popularity, Cajun cuisine is rarely done with any affinity outside of its regional realm. Numerous times I have been queried as to the difference between Cajun and Creole cooking. Stir the Pot presents a definitive description of Cajun cuisine, exploring its origins and evolution to its explosion of popularity onto the American dining scene. Written by Louisiana natives who grew up imbedded in Cajun culture, Stir the Pot delves deep into local customs, celebrations and social aspects that molded one of America’s most precious regional cuisines. Not only does it offer the personal experiences and memoirs of its authors, this book also includes a lagniappe of traditional Cajun recipes. Va pour ça!

From Garden to Table – The Rite of Spring

Life has once again returned to our little farm after the long, dreary doldrums of winter. A welcome sight of lush green dappled with all the vibrant colors of the rainbow resembles a Renoir masterpiece. The orchard, awash in pink and white, hums with the chorus of bees, clear and loud as a Baptist choir. Spring has finally arrived – overture to the well orchestrated symphony of soil and season, the rhythms of the plate. The rhythms beginning slowly at first, lento then adagio, crescendo to faster and faster tempo.

Like Rip Van Winkle awakening from a long slumber, asparagus pokes its head from its winter cover becoming the first to grace our table – sweet and tender. Never has asparagus tasted so exquisite. Spring onions follow suit, trailed by buttery lettuces and spinach, spicy arugula and French breakfast radishes, a plethora of savory herbs, escarole, endive and other sallet messes. Young Tokyo Cross turnips, baby Detroit Dark Red beets, Southern Giant Curled Mustard, Sorrento broccoli raab, Green Arrow sweet peas and Little Finger carrots will soon join the chorus.

Waiting to join in measure are Red Acre and Early Jersey Wakefield cabbages. Calabrese broccoli, Violetto and Green Globe artichokes follow in harmony. New Yukon Gold Potatoes and the aromatic, succulent Hood strawberries complete the first movement.

Voce dolce; diminuendo; our overture decrescendos into the Entr’acte. Planting for the summer season begins. The rhythms continue – season by season.

Our symphony of soil and season are indeed the rhythm of the plate; our overture indeed the rite of spring.

Recipe of the Month:

Strawberry Cobbler
The season for local strawberries is upon us conjuring up visions of pies, shortcakes and other such things. Of all strawberry desserts, a warm strawberry cobbler is by far my favorite, especially when the succulent, juicy ripe berries are plucked from the garden then rushed into the kitchen to be transformed into a delectable treat.

I can think of few more vivid memories than the smell of hot, sweet strawberries mingling with fresh butter wafting through my Granny’s kitchen. Topped with a flaky, biscuit-like crust, this cobbler makes a toothsome dessert topped with sweet cream or home made vanilla ice cream. View Complete Recipe

More Information
For more information on Honeyman Creek Farm, cooking classes, farm dinners, recipes or to read Chef Robert’s blog on food and gardening visit www.honeymancreekfarm.com. Feel free to contact us at info@honeymancreekfarm.com or 503.543.5610.

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