Chef's Page

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2013 Annual Heirloom Tomato Plant Sale

 

 

Amy’s Apricot: (Indeterminate) Sweet robust flavor, apricot-colored cherry tomatoes. Yields huge amounts of ¾ tomatoes.

Ananas Noir: Shades of green, orange & yellow with red streaks. Yields heavy crop of 1 to 1 1/2pound tomatoes. lip-smacking flavor that starts sweet and ends with a tang.

Black Sea Man: Potato leaf determinate small plant that is great for containers and small spaces. A rich mahogany color with olive shoulders when mature. Medium to large fruits.  The intense, creamy flavor tastes fantastic.

Black Trifele:  Highly prized and expensive in Russia.  Short plant and is suited to cooler climate, planters, & small spaces.  Wonderful rich & complex flavor.

Blondkopfchen: (Indeterminate) Excellent sweet 1 inch yellow cherry tomato-type fruit. Huge yields! Very hardy & crack resistant. 

Cherry Falls:  Juicy, bright red, size of a large cherry.  Works best in a basket, tall container or window box.

Georgia Streak: A popular heirloom  from Georgia that produces an abundance of bi-colored 1 to 2 pound golden fruit with bright red stripes inside and out.

Green Zebra: Beautiful chartreuse with deep lime-green stripes.  Flesh is bright green and very rich tasting, sweet with a sharp bite to it. 

Kellogg’s Breakfast: Big 1 to 2 pound bright orange beefsteak tomato bursting with juice and fantastic sweet tangy flavor.  A great looking tomato!

Moonglow: Heavy yields of brilliant & beautiful 6 to 8oz. perfect orange globes. Considered by many tomato lovers to have the best flavor and texture of yellow tomatoes.

Mortgage Lifter: Developed in 1930 by cross breeding four of the largest tomato varieties. The creator was able to pay off his mortgage in six years by selling tomato plants. The large beefsteak pink-red fruit ranges from one to three pounds.

Nebraska Wedding: Orange skin and flesh. Juicy with a well-balanced acid-sweet flavor and can weigh up to a pound. Nebraska brides were given these seeds on their wedding day. 

Northern Lights:      4-inch, round beefsteak , yellow-orange with red blush on bottom and red center. Wonderful intense flavor

Paul Robeson: "Black" beefsteak tomato.  Dusky, dark-red, with dark-green shoulders, and red flesh in its center. Luscious, earthy exotic flavors.

Powers Yellow Roma: Football shaped paste tomato is great for sauté because it stays firm with great texture when heated. Makes a great  tomato sauce but is also great eaten raw.

Persimmon:  One of our best tasting and best looking tomatoes. 12oz. to one pound, meaty, creamy and golden orange.  They have an absolutely exquisite flavor.

Tigerella: Red & Orange striped.  Small to medium size. early ripening smaller plant. Produces high yield.  Rich, Sweet & Tangy.

SanMarzano: Long, cylindrical fruit are filled with thick, dry flesh and few seeds. This heavy producing variety is a standard for many Italian farmers and chefs

White Currant:  (Indeterminate) One of the most unique and sweetest tasting variety.  ½ inch in size.  Great producer, fruits in heavy clusters

White Tomesol: Cream colored. Beautiful medium to large size. Amazing, bursting with fragrance and natural goodness. Sweet, rich taste. Looks great with other tomato colors. My favorite slicing tomato.

 

Planting Tomatoes: How to Help Your Crop Succeed When You Set Seedlings Out in the Garden

Planting tomatoes successfully in the garden takes just 4 easy steps: timing, spacing, digging, and planting.

Time It

Date. Check your local extension or a region map for recommended planting dates. Tomatoes do best when planted about 10-14 days after the last frost date.
Temperatures. Make sure it’s consistently warm both day and night. (Tomatoes don’t like to be cold.)
Weather. The perfect planting day is cloudy or overcast. If you must plant when it’s sunny, do it early or later in the day so that seedlings aren’t as stressed by the strong light.

Space It

Plan carefully for enough space between each plant and enough space between rows.

Plants. Place tomato plants 24”-30” apart.

Indeterminates need more space than determinates since they continue to grow until frost.

Rows. Allow 5 or 6 feet between rows to allow room for plants and room for you to move to weed, water, fertilize, and pick.

Dig It

There are two best ways to make new homes for your tomatoes.
Hole. Dig a hole twice as big as the plant's root ball. Use one hole for every tomato plant.
Trench. Dig a trench 6 inches deep the length of your planting area. This is the best planting method for leggy plants (buried stems will develop additional roots), gardens in cold areas (soil will keep plants warm), or when you want your plants to get a head start on the season.

Plant It

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4/20/13

Every year we in the Northwest are blessed with what is considered by salmon lovers to be the best fish in the world.  That is Columbia River spring run Chinook salmon. 

While all wild Chinook Salmon are excellent at this time of year not all of the fish are going to be near the same quality. This time of year you can get Chinook from several locations including, hatchery fish, ocean troll caught, Puget Sound, Canada and Alaska.  Some of these fish will only have a very short journey so they don’t have to develop the same fat stores.  Birthplace makes all the difference.  The longer the journey the better the fish.

Columbia River salmon starts upstream in early spring and swims hundreds of miles to its birth place in Idaho to spawn in fall.  This sub species of Chinook has had to develop the strength and fat stores to be able to survive one of the longest journeys for salmon from generation to generation, and fat is flavor!!!  This is the same story for Copper River Chinook and why there are both regarded so highly around the world. 

So the Oregon Fish and Game can gauge the return rate of this sub-species and determine if they will allow any fisheries to open, they perform a “test fishery”.  They have a gill netter set a net for two hours with the nets pulled every 45 minutes where other gill net salmon can be in the net for over 12 hours.  This fish is handled by far better than any other gill net salmon, which has an incredible impact on the quality of the fish.   

This is where we come in; 

We were able to score one of these genuine Idaho bound “Springers”, courtesy of Oregon Fish and Game.
So for you Chinook salmon lovers who wish to try the best of the best we will be proud to feature a very limited number of servings tonight for dinner. 
This will not be offered to everyone on the menu tonight - you have to be a Seasons "Insider" to even know about it.  If you are interested please call us as soon as possible to reserve your special dinner.  Of course the best is expensive (for me at least) at $29.95.  

We are guaranteed to sell out tonight, so please call early! 503-244-6400

Best Fishes,
Intergalactic Soup Jedi

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The Soup Jedi's Secret Spice Blends Info & Recipes

There are four spice blends that are a key component to my kitchen's success and now I'm sharing them with you. Between these spice blends the possibilities are endless with what you can create in your kitchen even for a beginner.  When I cook at home I use these spices almost exclusively, all I ever need are some fresh herbs from the garden. I would like to share some of the ways that I use the spices and maybe a secret recipe or two.  Keep checking back as I will be adding more to this page or like us on facebook to get a notification when the web page is updated. 

Cajun Spice When you want to add some southern flavor just sprinkle a little on your: Burgers Steaks Chicken Pork Shrimp Potato Chips   Great for: Blackened Fish Red Beans & Rice Jambalaya Add 2 - 3 Tablespoons to a cup of flour to create a red seasoning flour.  This can be used for dredging when deep frying. Try it with Oysters, Calamari, or chicken fingers My favorite Snack is popcorn sprinkled with Cajun Spice	Honey Ginger Lime Rub This is a wonderful complement to Seafood especially when combined with tropical fruits or bold flavors such as curry. Great For: Salmon Ahi Tuna Shrimp	Mediterranean Spice This was the first spice blend I developed back in my catering days.  It makes a fantastic & easy rub for oven roasted chicken!  Great for: Swordfish Mahi Pork Chicken Salad Turkey Veggies Rice	Mexican Spice This spice is perfect for your South of the border preparations: Add to beef, chicken, or pork when making your meat for: Tacos Burritos Flautas Tostada's Taco Salad Enchiladas Fajitas Great for: Fish Tacos Shrimp Tacos Baked Chicken Grilled Pork Loin Flat Iron Steak

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The Razor Clam Story

 

Razor Clams live in the ocean surf and can only be dug at low tide, called a "minus tide".  Low tides happen only during a full moon and a new moon.  High and low tides occur twice a day with about 6 hours and 13 minutes between high and low tides.  If a low tide happens during bad weather people don't dig because the clams dig deeper in the sand making them more difficult to catch, so the diggers can't run away from the waves fast enough to stay out of danger. 

Our Razor Clams are mostly from the Quinalt Native American Reservation in Washington, with some coming from Alaska during Spring.  Why don't we offer Oregon Razor clams? We wish we could, but Oregon beaches have not gone through the certification process of the federal government so that they can be sold outside the state.  The certification process costs millions of dollars even though the certification doesn't require the state to do any more testing than they already do. Our seafood company provides seafood both within the state and outside of the state so they are not permitted to carry a product that can only be sold within the state. We have contacted the Oregon suppliers directly but haven't been able to convince them to deliver directly. 

If you would like us to contact you by e-mail when we do have razor clams click here to join our Insider Club and enter "Razor Clams" as a requested dish. You may also choose to receive other notifications as well.  We will never share your e-mail address, because we hate spam too.

 

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Below is an episode of the TV show "The Joy of Fishing" which airs Sunday morning at 9:30am on Root Sports.  A while back they came by and filmed a segment where I show the secret to how we fillet our fish, so that each piece is uniform in size and shape.  This allows the fish to cook evenly throughout the fillet and also is more visually appealing then a square cut fillet. The Seasons and Regions segment begins at the 12:30 minute mark.