Children Revolt Over Organic Dinner, Seek Out New Caregivers

January 6, 2016

Portland, Oregon— After extensive crying and whining over a dinner of roast beast, broccoli with garlic-tahini sauce, sautéed leeks and mushrooms, and mashed potatoes, two young boys set out to find a loving “chicken-fingers-only” family. The boys, six and four, say they will settle for “cheeseburgers-only.”

“Could I be more cliché?” upper-middle-class mom Evelyn Shoop said. “I’m a white mom with a Master’s and I have an organic food delivery service. But you know what? I don’t care! I’m not stopping. I love Organics to You.”

Relatives confirm that this exhausted parent cooks mostly organic vegetables and meats. “She also eats gluten-free, which is just a bunch of baloney. No one ever had a problem with gluten when I was growing up. Barak Obama is the worst president in our history,” said an honored citizen who asked not to be named for this article.

“She thinks sugar makes us sick,” said Shoop’s six-year-old son. “We’re not even supposed to ask about treats. We do anyway and she gives in. But not enough. When we want treats we want them now.”

“Eeeeeeeeeehhwheeeeeeeeigh,” said Shoop’s four-year-old. His whine was unintelligible, but his emotion was clear.

Initially the boys attempted to rent a tiny-house nearby, but with no income, it proved difficult. “We didn’t want it anyway,” the older boy said. “We want someone else to cook.”

They are confident a “chicken-fingers-and-fries” family exists and will take them in. “It’s just time for us to go,” the six-year-old said. “She’s making us do more chores and she keeps saying ‘it’s hard work to be in a family’ and ‘you get what you get and you don’t have a fit.’”

Meet Our Northwest Farmers: Lonely Lane Farms

 

About a year ago we started to get all of our meat from Lonely Lane Farms out of Mt. Angel, Oregon. It sounds like maybe we’re rich or crazy crunchy. Not so. It’s just that we live in Oregon, and it was easy.

Lonely Lane Farms is an eco-friendly family farm that can be found at the Beaverton Farmers Market (also in grocery stores in the Corvallis and Eugene areas, and restaurants in the Portland area).

When I approached owner Mike Kloft at the farmers market, he was happy to answer questions about pig living conditions and relative animal happiness levels. That’s right, Portlandia is real, people.

Mike and his wife Patty even said the gremlins and I could come down to the farm during the market offseason to stock up if our winter freezer ran low.

It’s pretty easy to run out of bacon and sausage, as you probably know–especially  with the promise of a trip to the farm–so in late January we headed off to Lonely Lane, and we fell more in love than we were before.

This is a small family farm with big ambitions. They started processing all meat on-site for better quality control, and they also grow all their own feed. Soon they’ll start packing meat for other local farms.

Lonely Lane’s pigs and cows are raised with no hormones, no antibiotics, and no animal by-products, which was key for ust.

I’ve come across one-too-many mainstream articles about the deplorable conditions and chemicals in much of American meat raising and processing.

And buying a pound of ground beef that was a product of Uruguay and New Zealand and Australia makes me feel weird. I’m a patriot. My beef should be American. Or at least not so fast and loose with its passport, right?

I never thought we’d be able to get all of our meat from a local farm, but I wanted to see if it was possible.

So we made some trade-offs. We switched to lower cost cuts and preparations of meat—pork butt to roast in the slow cooker, sausage, ground beef, and bacon (of course!). Maybe once or twice a year we will get some flank steak or a tenderloin. We also do more meatless nights, which works well with the fact that I kept getting beaten over the head by articles that said, “Eat more vegetables!”

We are planning to go back to Lonely Lane in the summer to see the cows grazing (they were under cover when we went due to the time of year). In the meantime, you can find them at the Beaverton Farmers Market, which just started back up with its winter market!

Here are a couple more pictures from the farm. (And by the way, it’s worth it to head to Mt. Angel–just southeast of Woodburn in the Willamette Valley–for a day trip. It’s a picturesque small town that also boasts a Benedictine abbey and a couple of cute, family-friendly restaurants.)

The lonely lane itself….

Mike and Patty with baby John (this kid has a lot of real tractors, which was a point of jealousy for K-Pants). Also, he’s adorable.

Our furry bovine friends.

Blue Star Donuts Knocks Voodoo Doughnuts Off the Pedestal

Voodoo Doughnut in Portland has been all over the Food Network and all kinds of lists of the best eats in America.

But it’s just not all that.

Voodoo’s bacon-maple bar is delicious, and I will never turn one away should it arrive on my passenger seat after a night of dancing.

But I’m not psyched by Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops on a doughnut. And Voodoo’s super-saccharine icings taste more like medicine flavors than real food.

Make way for local craft doughnut shop Blue Star Donuts.

Blue Star has everything an obsessive foodie wants in a donut:

1. Dozens of all-natural ingredients you can see (vanilla beans, nut pieces, coconut shreds…).
2. Pastry chefs who hand-make your doughnuts (while you stand to the side nonchalantly pretending you are totally friends).
3. A classic buttermilk cake doughnut that is so dense and delicious it may have just come from the apple-cider doughnut people at your favorite farmers market.
4. Flavor combos that make you feel smart: basil blueberry, coffee & coconut cheesecake, Meyer lemon and key lime curd… you get the idea.

I’m sure the coffee is kickin’, too, but I stick to tea, which–of course–is locally made about a mile away by Steven Smith Teamaker. And Steven Smith tea is divine.

Plus, what foodie doesn’t love some coy signage?

So what are you waiting for? The line at Blue Star (SW Washington & 13th) is totally manageable, and there’s probably even a lovely seat at the bright and airy bar waiting for you.

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