COOKBOOK CELEBRATES STATE'S BOUNTY
101 recipes draw on locally sourced foods, products
Hood River Lavender Farms. Rogue Creamery. Cowhorn Winery. You may not be familiar with all of these Oregon purveyors — although Rogue's divine blue cheese pops up on plenty of Bay Area cheese boards. But Oregon cookbook author Karista Bennett loves them.
In her recent cookbook, “The Oregon Farm Table Cookbook: 101 Homegrown Recipes from the Pacific Wonderland” (Countryman, $24.95), the classically trained chef and food writer introduces readers to these and other standout purveyors who make the Beaver State a gastronomic treasure. And she provides 101 tantalizing recipes inspired by their precious products.
You'll learn about chef Maylin Chavez of the Olympia Oyster Bar pop-up in Portland, who makes craveable dressed Chelsea oysters with pomegranate, ginger and pickled serrano. And Jennifer Macone of Lebanon's The Mushroomery farm, where Bennett sources the oyster and lion's mane mushrooms to create her creamy mushroom soup.
Among the profiles and portraits of makers, cows and flowers, you'll find a wide variety of straightforward recipes for everything from lavender-studded breakfast biscuits to summer-centric gazpacho.
Farmers market blueberries star in a cookout entree, grilled flank steak with sauteed bluberries, shallots and blue cheese, shared at right. Bennett sautes the fresh blueberries with shallots and garlic then sprinkles the savory mixture over grilled flank steak and garnishes the dish with blue cheese from Central Point's Rogue Creamery and Dairy. Here's just a taste.