Come on over to Feast

We've moved so come on over to our new blog Feast

Feast is the new Speakeasy

Rebranding. A few weeks ago Peter and I were talking about the blog and we came to the agreement that Speakeasy just wasn’t quite the right name for what we were doing. After six months of posting it became clear that we wanted to share with everyone the food we like to cook, the special meals we create for our friends and places we love to dine. So we started thinking about how we could focus the blogs identity to reflect that. After a bottle of wine and some very entertaining brain storming we settled in on a new name for our blog. Feast, a Portland Food Chronicle.

I don’t think its going to be practicle to manually transfer all of our old post over to Feast so we’re just going to leave them over at speakeasy. If there is a savvy blogger out there that knows how to transfer all of our old content please let me know.

So we’re making a clean break. From here on out we’ll see you at Feastpdx.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday to ME!

Typically, when it's someone's birthday in our clan, we make an elaborate meal at home.  Not only is it A LOT cheaper, we can fit a crowd and I have to say the food is better.  Thinking about my big 3-0, I decided it was time to have a big meal out.

We went to Beast, the new restaurant by the venerable Naomi Pomeroy, whom I used to work for at Ripe.  I just have to say the magic is back, because I had quite possibly one of the best meals of my life.  Here is the menu highlighting the 7 scrumptious courses they turned out for us:

Suffice it to say, Beast moves to the top of the rotation!

Bacon Pasta

This is a standard dish in my family.  The smell of bacon, onions and garlic always takes me back to my mom making this sauce.  It's so easy it's ridiculous.  This sauce can easily be made with pantry items as a last-minute dinner.  I never knew it, but this pasta dish is a traditional Italian preparation, called Al'Amatriciana.  It goes on any pasta, but we realized up at the cabin the other weekend that rigatoni goes very well with the sauce, as it fills the shaped pasta.

1 lb. bacon, chopped

1 large red or yellow onion, small dice

4 cloves garlic, minced

pinch crushed red pepper

1 tsp. dried oregano

2 14.5 oz. cans stewed tomatoes

1 14.5 oz. can tomato sauce

1 tsp. sugar

salt and pepper

1 lb. dried pasta

parmesan

fresh basil

Bring a large pot of water to boil for pasta and add 1/4c. kosher salt.

Saute bacon in a large skillet on medium-low heat until it is almost browned.  Add onions and saute until bacon finishes browning and onions are translucent.  Add garlic and saute 1 minute more.

Add crushed red pepper and oregano and stir in.  Add stewed tomatoes and sauce.  Using a flat wooden spatula, break up stewed tomatoes into smaller pieces.  Simmer sauce until thickened, 10-15 minutes.  Add sugar, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook until before al dente, 2 minutes before package directions.  Remove to simmering sauce and finish cooking, tossing sauce well into pasta.  Top with torn basil and parmesan, make some crusty garlic bread and enjoy!

Broder

For the most part I love sharing all of my little food finds with everyone, but sometime I think twice about sharing when I find a great brunch place. Not waiting in line is key for me when it comes to brunch. I can become insanely grumpy while waiting for breakfast. A couple of weeks ago I heard about Broder. I went to check it out early on a Saturday morning. I was so impressed I went back the next day with Nick and Peter.

Broder is a Swedish restaurant. I have to admit given my personal experience of living in Sweden I didn’t have very high expectations for the food. I anticipated hearty and bland, but was wildly surprised. I was really excited to discover that Broders front staff was headed up by one of my favorite locals Mohawk Joe. He always brings a bright chipper attitude to a place and knew things were going to be just fine. Two highlights: house cured Grav Lax, and the best Swedish Meatballs I’ve ever had. Ever…

I was excited to find a great menu with several classic Scandinavian dishes and also some other breakfast dishes unique to Broder.

It’s definitely worth checking, but don’t go early cause that’s when I go and I don’t like crowds.
Broder
Phone: (503) 736-3333
Address: 2508 SE Clinton St., Portland, OR. 97255 Google Map
Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-2pm, Sat-Sun 9am-2pm

Here’s an actual review of Broder.

I hadn’t planned on getting into all of that. What I really wanted to talk about was Aebleskivor. After brunch the other day I was thinking about when my mom used to make Aebleskivor. It had probably been twenty years since I’d had them. I raided my parents house and came home with my mom’s old Aebleskivor pan. Since we were heading up to the mountain I thought it would be fun to give them a shot.