Catherine M. Allchin - Food

Catherine M. Allchin

Freelance writer based in Seattle. Food, Travel, Science

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Food Gives us Meaningful Connections

8/13/2019

The Seattle Times - AFTER 20 YEARS of writing for Taste, I’ve decided to pursue other interests. This will be my last column for Pacific NW magazine. As a freelancer, I had the opportunity to write about whatever struck my fancy (within reason), as long as my editor approved. Over the years, my interests changed: from kitchen gadgets and grills in the early days, to negronis and tinctures in a craft-cocktail phase. Recently, my work shifted toward farming and sustainability.

As I think about the various topics I’ve addressed, I wonder whether a focus or theme threaded together the work. We focus on Northwest ingredients, chefs, growers and producers, so geography is an obvious theme. So much cool work is happening right in our backyard: a renaissance of local grains and distilleries, creative cooking, innovative shellfish restoration, sustainable farming, seed saving, plant breeding, research on climate change. I have loved learning about these subjects and the people behind them.

When it comes right down to it, people are the stories. I’m grateful that this job allowed me to meet amazing chefs, farmers, restaurateurs, mixologists, bakers and more who generously have shared their time, passions and recipes.

It’s one thing to eat a loaf of bread, but you will remember it far more if the baker shows you how to make it. When you see and smell and maybe even knead the yeasty dough. When, over the heat from the oven, you hear the baker’s knowledge and love of that particular bread. It’s much more than a loaf of bread; it is a human connection. It is a story.

The Pie's the Limit

6/11/2019

The Seattle Times - “I’VE ALWAYS LOVED to bake,” says Hannah Jacobsen of Pie Bird Bakeshop. “It’s definitely my love language. My way to show people I care for them.”

Luckily for Seattle, Jacobsen moved back home in 2018 after learning how to make fantastic pies at the highly regarded Petee’s Pie Company in New York City. As a baker at Petee’s, she learned the importance of high-quality ingredients. “You can’t have a good pie without good ingredients,” she says. Especially good butter. Petee’s uses grass-fed butter, and Jacobsen relied on it, too, until her local brand was discontinued. Now she uses a European-style butter from Wisconsin with 83% fat instead of the 80% fat typical of most domestic butters.

At Petee’s, she also learned how to make pies in quantity without skimping on ingredients. That means local organic fruit and organic cane sugar. “I learned from the best of the best,” she says. She’s happy to be back in the Northwest with fabulous ingredients.

Nearly all of her produce comes from local farms: berries, rhubarb, peaches, apples, pumpkin, honey. Her pies showcase the best of the season. Her marionberry pie tastes tart and jammy, not overly sweet or syrup-like. “I want it to be all about the fruit,” she says.

No Run-of-the-Mill Flour

5/7/2019

The Seattle Times - “IT’S TOAST THURSDAY,” says Kevin Morse, as he slices a loaf of naturally leavened bread that he made. Wearing a plaid shirt and baseball cap, he puts slices in the toaster.

The crust crunches nicely, and the latte-colored bread is chewy. Specks of grain are visible — Gazelle rye and two hard red spring wheats, Yecora Rojo and Expresso. Wonder Bread this certainly is not.

In industrial Burlington, next to a wholesale lumber mill and a fiberglass supplier, sits unassuming Cairnspring Mills. The brown building is rather generic — there’s not even a sign out front. But what happens inside has caught the attention of some of the top bakers in the country.

Inside is a revolution in flour milling. Using high-quality grain from sustainable farms in the Northwest, Cairnspring makes fresh European-style flours with amazing taste and baking performance.

Morse explains why Cairnspring flour is better than mass-produced — or commodity — flour. “Our grain is minimally processed. Just two grinds and two sifts.” That way, the nutritious, flavor-packed bran and germ stay in the flour. (The tasteless white industrial stuff is stripped of bran and germ.)

Grains of a Bigger Truth

3/12/2019

The Seattle Times - WHY WOULD Niels Brisbane, a former sous chef at Canlis, Seattle’s grande dame of fine dining, decide to commute 60 miles north to the Skagit Valley?

I drove to The Bread Lab/Canlis Research Kitchen in Burlington to sit down with Brisbane, culinary director. Despite its seven ovens, The Bread Lab is a bit chilly and dark on this morning — and surprisingly still. “It’s a pretty big space for a few people,” says Brisbane, referring to the staff of five, plus three graduate students. The quiet is totally different from a busy restaurant kitchen.

Brisbane, 28, wears a gray apron and jeans, holding a Washington State University coffee cup. He says he shares the Canlis family’s commitment not only to serving outstanding and innovative food, but also to making the world a better place. “There’s a bigger mission,” he says. “I didn’t want to spend my career feeding the elite.”

A Washington native, Brisbane had heard about the groundbreaking work of Stephen Jones at The Washington State University Bread Lab, which started in 2011. Researchers there test 10,000 varieties of wheat, barley, buckwheat and other grains to develop new varieties that taste great, are nutritious and grow well in our climate.

Against the Grain

2/28/2019

SilverKris Magazine - IT'S A GREY Seattle morning, and sheets of rain beat down on a yellow building in the city’s Ravenna neighbourhood. Just a few miles north of the Amazon headquarters, this quiet residential area houses three restaurants owned by acclaimed chef Edouardo Jordan, including Lucinda Grain Bar, which opened last December.

I duck in from the rain and enter the tiny space that has just two dozen seats – it feels intimate and familiar, like someone’s home early in the morning. Wainscoting and cabinetry are painted dark blue, and glass bottles and jars line the walls, filled with dried beans and grains. But despite its diminutive size, one can expect great things to happen here, because Jordan runs the show.

Jordan, dressed in jeans, clogs and a black JuneBaby sweatshirt, welcomes me with his characteristic broad smile. JuneBaby, his outrageously popular Southern American restaurant next door, earned a prestigious James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant last year, among countless other accolades, making it difficult to score a table. Facing a rain-streaked window, he explains the concept behind Lucinda and how it differs from his other two restaurants – JuneBaby and the Italian-inspired Salare. When the space next door to JuneBaby became available, he leapt at the chance to consolidate the functions of the three eateries. “We also thought, since we use ancient grains at the other restaurants, let’s do more of that,” Jordan reveals.

A Bounty of Simplicity

2/5/2019

The Seattle Times - EARLY EVERY MORNING, when the farm is quiet, Haidee Hart starts the fire in the wood stove. The barn kitchen glows with light and warmth, even though it’s dark outside. She makes breakfast for guests, and soon the farm begins to buzz with activity. Hart talks with farmers about what the garden offers that day and then plans lunch and dinner.

Hart is the chef at Stowel Lake Farm, an organic farm and retreat center on Salt Spring Island, B.C. She and her husband, Josh, have raised their four children on the farm, living and working alongside two other families for many years.

It is a special place where young and old live and work together to care for the land and each other.

This vision — of free-range children and sustainable farming in an intentional, intergenerational community — came from Lisa Lloyd, a B.C. native who bought the 115-acre property 40 years ago. After decades of hard work by many, the family-owned farm, retreat center and farmstand are thriving.

'In a Good Place'

1/8/2019

The Seattle Times - “WOULD YOU LIKE coffee? Water? Are you hungry?” Chef John Sundstrom, wearing a characteristic blue apron, opened the door of his Capitol Hill restaurant, Lark. A warm welcome is typical at Lark, which Sundstrom and his partners Kelly Ronan and J.M. Enos (also his wife) own and operate together. On the restaurant’s 15th anniversary, the chef reflected on his culinary journey and the evolution of Northwest cuisine.

Think back to 2003. Seattle hadn’t embraced the small-plates concept yet. We were comfortable with the traditional categories of appetizers and entrees. Menus didn’t list the specific farms that vegetables came from. Pan-Asian was exciting.

Today, thoughtfully sourced, farm-fresh, shareable food defines Northwest cuisine. And Sundstrom was one of the chefs responsible for that transformation.

When Sundstrom was at Dahlia Lounge and Earth & Ocean in the W Hotel, he developed a network of farmers and foragers. “I’d go to farmers markets and look for a new farmer or a cheese maker, looking to supply great food to the restaurant,” he says.

After eight years at the W, Sundstrom was ready to spread his wings. “I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny.”

Traditional Alsatian Stew

12/11/2018

The Seattle Times - “THIS DISH SCREAMS wintertime to me,” says Thomas Griese, who until recently was the executive chef at the French restaurant RN74 in Seattle. “This is an elevated French version of a pot roast or pot-au-feu.”

Baeckeoffe (baker’s oven) is a traditional stew from the Alsace region. Traditionally made with leftovers or lesser cuts of meats such as pigs’ trotters, the dish today has many variations. Typically, a trio of meats is used: pork, lamb and beef.

In Alsace, people would pour a bottle of wine over the meat and let it marinate for a day or two. Then the stew was slow-cooked, often all day, to be enjoyed when the work was done.

In Portland, Ore., a French Restaurant Serves the Classics

11/1/2018

The New York Times - WITH SEVERAL FRENCH restaurants and legends like the chef Gabriel Rucker already in residence in Portland, Ore., the city might not have expected the arrival of a newcomer, Bistro Agnes.

But Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton, the couple who won a James Beard award for their Argentine-inspired restaurant Ox, believed that Portland had lacked French classics for a few years. They wanted to create, in their former SuperBite space downtown, a Parisian-style bistro with dishes like coq au vin, escargot and sole meunière. No modern riffs here: The menu is old-school.

The Dentons — spouses, co-chefs and business partners — met when they were both cooking at Terra Restaurant in Napa Valley. On their days off, they liked to go to places like Bistro Jeanty for leisurely lunches. “It’s the food we fell in love over,” Ms. Denton said. “We have a passion for traditional French food. Portland was missing that.”

Sewing the Seeds of Hope

8/7/2018

The Seattle Times - THIS SUMMER, Cara Loriz can be found in the fertile fields south of Port Townsend among organic carrot, spinach, pepper and corn plants, with bees and butterflies buzzing in colorful dahlias, poppies and zinnias. As executive director of the nonprofit Organic Seed Alliance, Loriz oversees this bountiful research farm at Finnriver Farm & Cidery, where new vegetable varieties are tested and bred.

Organic Seed Alliance, the leading seed institution in the nation, is committed to meeting farmers’ seed needs through research, education and advocacy.

Before the industrialization of agriculture, Loriz explains, farmers were more self-sufficient, selecting and saving their best seeds for the following year. While industrialization brought efficiencies in food production, two downsides were a decrease in the diversity of foods and a loss of adaptation to regional climates. Uniformity was king. Today, most seed is supplied by a handful of large corporations, Loriz says, and most of that seed might not do well in organic gardens and farms.

OSA works to increase access to organic and savable seed. “It is part of our common cultural heritage,” Loriz says. To put seed back in the hands of farmers, OSA teaches farmers and gardeners across the country how to select and save seed. A free guide can be downloaded on the OSA website.

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