Food and Faith (and Wine!)

This is my friend, Pastor Tim Christensen, who was with us for a few days last week. It was an awesome time because in a few short days we got to do a lot of cooking together. In this photo Tim is laying out the peach halves that we drizzled with honey and placed on the BBQ grill for dessert! We finished them off with a touch of well aged balsamic vinegar. Heaven on earth--to be cooking with Tim, and enjoying such amazing local produce, and then sharing it all with good friends. When you add in a couple of beautiful, well-made local wines that just seals the deal.
This is all a part of a small group ministry in our church. The basic premise was to go to the local farmer's market each Thursday and purchase locally grown food, and then take it home and make a meal out of it. Then the group shows up and we eat and drink, and talk about different food issues from a faith perspective. As Tim and I were walking home from the market last week I looked down at my little red wagon filled with beautiful, locally grown food and wine, looked up and Tim and said, "You want me to blow your mind? This is all church." When you think of church do you think of awesome food, good wine and fun fellowship around meals? Well, why not? If you read the Gospel of Mark, that seems to be about all Jesus ever does.
Jeff Peterson and Efrain Arredondo are leading the class and doing the cooking with me. Tim was filling in for Jeff last week. Jeff was in Guatemala doing a research project with Habitat for Humanity. Here's a list of some of the selected readings we are doing for the class:
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry
Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating by Mark Bittman
Animal, Mineral, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
Food and Faith: Justice Joy and Daily Bread by Michael Schut
and The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason.
It has led to some very lively discussions about food and how we eat, and what we eat, and how that all ties into our lives of faith. For me it started with Bitman's book where he lays out some simple ideas for eating better and helping the planet. I had never considered that the way I eat adds a great deal to my carbon footprint. I also like that Bittman is laid back about it all. He's changing the way he eats, but he's not becoming a total vegetarian.
The process of shopping and cooking for the class has been a joy. The readings have stretched me and gotten me to look at food in a new and more complex way. I'm so thankful that I serve a church that cares enough about these issues to study them in some depth.
We're all at different stages of our journeys with faith and food. Efrain has made amazing strides to get the majority of his foods locally. He also cans his own food and does a lot of dehydrating to make it through the long winter months. Jeff has started his own CSA and you can read his blog about the experience at http://barnowlfarms.blogspot.com/ Eating well for yourself, and for the environment is a complex issue. It's great to have a group of well-informed, intelligent people to help me through the process. It's also fun to read Bittman and just say "To heck with it . . . I'm having a cheeseburger!"

Test Run at Maysara with Pastor Tim

Last night we did a test run of our pizza dinner fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity out at Maysara winery. It didn't go very well. I knew we could be headed for trouble when I saw the look of Moe Momtazi's face as I explained my ideas. Moe, the owner of Maysara and the creator of the fire oven, just couldn't see how it would work to cook a pizza in his wood fired oven. It didn't, which was good to know BEFORE we had to cook for a hundred people.
(Photos in this blog were provided by Pastor Tim Christensen, presently of Great Falls Montana.)

Our first challenge was the size of the oven--it's huge, so it takes a long time to heat up. We never did get it to warm up enough to cook the pizzas. Secondly, the oven is set up to be a smoker. The design is brilliant, but not really made for pizza (which is exactly what Moe was trying to tell me!)

But we figured out a solution, and it should go well for the fundraiser on August 1st. Really, you can show up, the food will be great, we've got it all figured out now, and besides, the wines will be spectacular no matter what. The Momtazi's are such hospitable people, and I'm so thankful that they are willing to host this event.

I just love Tahmiene, Moe's daughter and the winemaker for Maysara. She's so intelligent and knows so much about wine. I learn more every time I'm around her. She also has a wickedly dry sense of humor. She wasn't feeling too well last night because of a packed travel schedule. She's been traveling around the US to promote their wines, and to attend a family wedding. Roseena, One of Tahmiene's wines, was recently honored as one of the best wines in the world. The competition was for wineries that produce wine in environmentally sustainable ways.

My friend, Pastor Tim Christensen, from our old stomping grounds in Montana was with us for the pizza test. I love to cook with Tim, and it's one of the things I really miss about not having him close by (so if you know of any Lutheran Churches in western Oregon looking for a pastor, contact Tim Christensen and Sandy Van Zyl right away.) Also aiding me in the cooking department were Jeanne and Pete Rahier. It takes a lot of organizational skills (that I don't have) to cook for a large group of people, so I'm always really thankful to have organized folks like Pete, Jeanne and Pastor Tim) around.


I often times say that drinking good wine is a lot like heaven. Well, last night was a great example of that. After a really hot day the cool breezes through the Van Duzer corridor were a welcomed relief. The Maysara vinyards are so beautiful. Gently flowing grapevines winding uphill to the last touches of sunlight of the day. It's just a beautiful place. I told Tahmiene that I only had one complaint about her Pinot Noir. Every time I open one it disappears with alarming speed. She said she'd work on it. (Maybe a bigger bottle?) What a beautiful night with friends and great wine.

Faith, Food and a Little Red Wagon

Each Thursday night I'm helping to lead a small group around the issues of food and faith. For the class, we go over to the local Farmer's Market and purchase all local ingredients, and then bring them over to our house where we cook them. As we are enjoying these locally produced foods (and wines) we also discuss some readings around the issues of food that are very challenging. If you haven't read Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" you might want to pick it up. (Then again, you might want to blissfully enjoy your supermarket processed food products and skip the book altogether.)
The way we grow food in the United States doesn't seem sustainable to me. It is bad for the environment, bad for the animals that are raised in industrial cesspools, and bad for us to eat. But what are the other options? Here's what we're trying to do.
I shop two or three times a week at a local food store. We are so blessed to have Harvest Fresh just a four block walk from our house. This little market features organically and locally grown foods as much as possible. I can walk there, but the groceries get heavy--especially if you purchase liquids such as milk (or stop at Wednesday Wines and fill up your Storvino for the week as I did in this photo.) I thought about getting one of those carts like the homeless ladies use, you know the ones--wire boxes with a handle and two wheels on one side? Then a red wagon appeared at our house. I do not know where it came from. The other day our friends Rick and Sally asked me if that was their wagon, and I couldn't honestly tell them. (Turns out it wasn't.) It's so nice to be able to grab enough groceries for a few days and not have to get in a car to do so. Robin and I only own one car, so it's really nice to be able to go grocery shopping on foot.
You can go overboard on the whole shopping locally thing, I think. In her book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" Barbara Kingsolver attempts to go for an entire year without purchasing any outside food. Luckily she's smart enough to realize that there have to be some exceptions. The most obvious one to me would be coffee. I could easily drink nothing but locally produced wines for a year--if cost were no option. At one point in the book Kingsolver actually considers refusing to eat foods not produced locally, much as a vegetarian does not eat meat. That is the point at which I put the book down and had some pointed words with the author to get over herself (this was me talking to a book, but you get the idea.)
So, I try to purchase locally grown foods to the greatest extent possible, but I don't get manic about it. The "Food and Faith" class has been really fun because it's helped me to focus even more on locally grown foods. It is so cool to buy fresh produce and raw ingredients from the farms that grew them and then serve them in a meal a few hours later. The conversations are also excellent as we struggle together to eat foods that are better for us, better for the animals that are grown to feeds us, and better for this fragile island planet we call home.
Robin and I have also stumbled onto a really fun, frugal night out on the town. We go over to harvest fresh and grab a sandwich (their turkey with cream cheese and cranberry is my favorite.) Then we walk across the street to Wednesday Wines and purchase a glass of wine to have with our little lunch. It's a meal out with wine for under $20. If you really want to be frugal here's a little tip just for reading my blog. Purchase a bottle of wine, have Kathy open it for you (for free) and pour you a couple of glasses. The bottle probably costs around $10 and w sell a glass of it for $5, so you get two or three glasses for free. It's a beautiful way to spend a sunny day in this very beautiful part of God's creation.

Prohibition Lives in Los Angeles

Robin and I just returned from a quick trip to Southern California. The idea was to follow the route of our honeymoon 30 years later. A few differences this time around--we were able to stay in motels instead of in a tent, and we tasted (and purchased) a lot more wine.

The extremes of the state were very interesting to me. Our first stop was in the little town of Hopland. We swung into the tasting room for Graziano Family of Wines. Bob Meadows, the tasting room manager was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable. I almost felt as though I knew the Graziano family after we visited with Bob.

A poster on the wall proclaims, "It's really too bad that Puritans got here before Italians." I couldn't agree more. This beautiful Italian family was forced to become outlaws when the ill-guided puritans of the 20th century were able to pass prohibition. Proud, law abiding, farmers who's gift of making beautiful wine was now against the law. We've done less intelligent things as a country, but I can't name any right off the top of my head. Luckily the family was able to survive and are now making thick, dense beautiful red wines from vines some of which are more than 75 years old. If you stop in get some "Primo Roso Red" for $11. It's a great wine for weekday meals. It's a blend of Zinfandel, San Geovesi and Nebbiolo. The wine maker, Gregory, must be a classic over-achiever, making wines under four different labels by my count.

When it comes to prohibition, here is a very strange tidbit for you to consider--it's still illegal to make wine in Los Angeles County. No, I'm not kidding. The powers that be never got around to repealing the prohibition laws against making wine, so you still can not legally do so. Denise Skogstrom who with her husband, Tim, owns and operates the Cornell Winery and Tasting Room filled me in on some of the struggles of trying to make and sell wine there. they have been battling for two years to open a tasting room. Their funky, bohemian looking shop is pictured above. They were busy that day, so I just asked Denise what was the best value wine in their shop that represented the terroir of the area. She led me straight to Malibu Valley Vineyards and suggested the Meritage which is a classic blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. At $15 a bottle it's a tremendous value and is no doubt sold out by this point. The kicker is that the grapes are grown in the area, but at harvest have to be transported across the county lines to be produced and bottled. (Can't Los Angeles do any better than that?) If you live in the area, call your local politician and let your voice be heard. Make it legal to make wine in Los Angeles County today. I'll join you on the picket lines (in spirit if not in body.)

And speaking of out of body experiences, try driving down the Malibu Coast to the tasting room for Rosenthal Vineyard. It looks like an old hamburger shack right on the highway in Malibu. The wine tasters match the location. On average they have 3% body fat and are all well tanned and beautiful. All three of the young women behind the bar looked like movie stars, and one was sharing stories about her most recent video shoot. To an Oregonian the experience made me feel as though I was on a different planet, not just in a different part of the Pacific Coast.

My favorite sales person on the whole trip was Jessica Lauren Richmond, or "Dallas" as her friends know her. Dallas works at the Malibu Family Wines. The winding, steep hillside drive is worth the trip. Dallas who has a degree in theater and works promoting a band called "The Peculiar Pretzelmen" was a joy to visit with. She was knowledgeable about the wines, and handled several groups of tasters with grace and aplomb. The tasting bar is one of the most unique I've ever experienced. Maybe it just seemed exotic because it was outdoors--you just wouldn't do that in Western Oregon! It's a Kontiki type of set up with a lean to roof jutting out from a small pouring area.

There are picnic tables and huge umbrellas spread over an attractive, comfortable lawn just beyond the tasting area. Every weekend they have live concerts on Friday and Saturday nights. The cost of admission is the purchase of at least one bottle of wine, and that should be very easy. They have two different tastings and of the bunch I liked their '02 Semler Estate Cabernet the best. It's a big, hot weather red wine with a nice balance of tannins, fruit and acid with complex flavor components that seem to build on top of one another in your mouth. We got a case. I wish Jessica, aka "Dallas" all the best, and thank her for her hospitality, and I hope when she visits the Pacific Northwest again to promote The Peculiar Pretzelmen she'll give us a call, so we can do the same. And, please, anyone, let's repeal prohibition in Los Angeles.