The Old Fig Tree in the Yard

The leaves are turning here in California—what leaves that actually do turn colors. Things stay green around here for the most part—cypress, eucalyptus, oaks. But there are a few trees that turn flaming colors, reminding us that the seasons are indeed changing.

There is a maple tree in my mother’s backyard that does this job for me. It is huge, the canopy of leaves is level with the upstairs kitchen windows. I can sit in “my” seat at the table and look at the cascade of leaves—red orange in the autumn; bare in the winter; unfurling pale green to greet the spring. I love this tree.

I went to visit my mother the other day and decided to take some photos of this tree. Seattle has set serious claim on my heart and, if I am to move there, this might be the last autumn I get to see this glorious tree in full flaming foliage. I walked down the steps and towards the back of the house, my camera in hand.

But before I could get to the maple tree, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of figs.



There are two fig trees in the backyard, part of the original landscaping from the house we think. One of the trees has struggled more than the other, but neither of them are great fig producers. My mother sometimes says that the good tree usually only has five figs a year, and the birds get four of them. Not this year. This year the tree is loaded with figs.



It was raining gently that day and the figs looked gorgeous, dappled with drops of water that sparkled and shone.



The figs aren’t terribly ripe yet, that is true. Those that are purple are still too firm to be picked. Some of the green ones are funny looking though. I couldn't help but feel warmly towards this odd little puckered face.



There are a few sad ones that died on the branch. Fig suicide, apparently.



Some have already fallen prey to the birds.



And some of the purple ones have split open from the rain, revealing a glimpse of their innards. I find this a rather ominous image—a flesh-eating creature of some sort.



I spent a good half an hour photographing that fig tree—that tree that has been standing in the backyard for all of the twenty years that my mother has lived in this house (twenty years? How did that happen so quickly?). In all those years I’ve never once slowed down to really notice the tree, really appreciate it. This is one of the lovely things that food blogging and the accompanying obsessive photo habit have brought into my life. I notice the small things, take time to photograph them. I indulge in the seasons, slow down to appreciate them a bit—or perhaps it’s that I am just so tired after all the work of the festival that I don’t have the energy to do anything but go slow. Whatever it is, it’s working. I appreciated that fig tree more in those thirty minutes than I have in my entire life.

I realized how much I like the thick, geometric leaves of the fig tree, especially now that they have begun to turn shades of yellow.



I like to look at them from inside the thicket of the fig tree, each leaf silhouetted dark against the grey sky, looking like some mod fabric pattern.



And I love the raindrops on the darker color of the fruit, sparkling like jewels.



I picked a few—only the ones that were fully soft. For the rest we’ll have to wait, and hope the birds don’t get them before we do.



But to tell you the truth, I’ve never liked figs all that much. Oh sure, I eat a few each year, here or there, but I’ve never much minded whether of not those old trees produced fruit. I never much fancied them

That was before I discovered broiled figs with cheese. Yep, you heard me.

If you slice your figs open and smear on a bit of cheese—this is soft, chevre-style goat cheese, but I prefer cambozola—and put them under the broiler for a few minutes, they become something rather amazing. The creaminess of the cheese contrasts with the seedy texture of the figs, their inherent tiny crunchiness. I love how the blue cheese flavor of the cambozola plays against the sweet flesh of the fig, warm from the oven. It’s an awfully good thing.



But I will tell you that you should watch your figs carefully. If your best friend, who just happens to be in town on business after two long years away, chances to call, to adjust the plans you have for getting together that afternoon, don’t forget your figs under the broiler. If, in your excitement, you leave the room, you may end up overcooking the poor figs, they might end up slightly charred. No matter, you can still eat them with a drizzle of Manuka honey. The wildflower flavor will go nicely with the slightly overcooked figs, but really, you should be more observant.



Par for the course, this week. Did I not tell you I’m burnt? My figs are too. I’m going back to bed.

Burnt

The strangest thing has been happening since I’ve been back in my house in San Francisco. A couple of times a week, the smell of burnt toast wafts through the open window and into the room where I am working. This has never happened before, in all the years I’ve been living here.

The smell is so strong that it makes me look out the window, worried that I might see smoke escaping from nearby house. But the smell isn’t of burning wood or paper, it’s clearly the smell of charred and blackened toast. I know the flat below me has a kitchen located on the other side of the house, so I can’t believe it’s from there. Perhaps a next door neighbor, or a house on the other side of our back yard? I'm not sure where it comes from but one thing is certain—that toast I am smelling is very, very burnt.

I know just how it feels. I’m pretty burnt these days too.

In Seattle, earlier this year, I attended a book signing by Cecile Andrews for her new book, Slow Is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure And Joie De Vivre. She talked about how, in our increasingly stressed-out culture, the words we use to describe our lives have become violent—"I’m slammed this week…fried…burnt."

Well I really am burnt, to a crisp. As burnt as the mysterious toast I smell each week through my open window.



I never fully explained why I was leaving Seattle, what was calling me back to San Francisco, but it was the literary festival I help produce each year. Last year I wrote about how much it means to me, how hard I’ve worked to help grow the festival, and I also said I was stepping back and would not be involved any longer.

Famous last words.

I did try to step back. I said I’d take an advisory position, overseeing three volunteers doing the job I had done last year. It was a good idea, but volunteers often prove irresponsible (this is something I do not understand, I am a volunteer myself and would never sign up for something I could not see through). Sometimes volunteers disappear completely, leaving you in the lurch. Mid-July I found myself in just such a postion—with an event that was in danger of not happening at all. When you’ve spent three years of your own blood, sweat, and tears (perhaps not blood, but definitely sweat and tears) building something you care about, you’re not okay with standing by and watching it fall apart. I cancelled a vacation (I miss you, Cortes), cleared the decks, and jumped into the fray.

It’s been a long three months.

I don’t even want to tell you about the number of emails sent, the fires put out, the many nights of little sleep. I’ve begun to love being in the car— at least for those few minutes I don't have to look at email (this week I am changing the email program I use so that I never have to look at my current inbox ever again). But then, as I drove, I'd begin to think about the bigger picture and want to keel over in panic and fear. If you happened to be driving down Guerreo Street in San Francisco last Tuesday, you might have seen me pulled over on the side of the road, hunched over the steering wheel, sobbing. In times of crisis, shame doesn't even come into the picture.

You know it’s bad when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store and you begin to look longingly at the hard liquor section. What if I took up drinking—maybe I could make this all go away? But I know myself well enough to know that drinking mostly just makes me feel ill.

As for food during this time—not much to speak of. I’ve rediscovered the joy of cereal, a big box of Cinnamon Puffins that I often pour into a ziplock bag to take with me when it somehow becomes afternoon without me managing to eat anything. There have been bags of walnuts and almonds, eaten in the car as I dash from this place to that. The slower, smaller, more deliberate life I’ve been building in Seattle got shot to pieces this past month. Time for adequate amounts of sleep, time for exercise, quality time with my friends around a large and generous table—ha! I was lucky if I got six hours of sleep a night and managed a shower.

In times like this it’s easy to turn to the freezer—to tamales and veggie burgers and other things I can stick in a microwave and have done quickly. But I don’t have those things in my freezer these days, I’ve stopped buying them. What does a mostly from scratch cook do when she doesn’t have time to cook from scratch?

Well, she eats some takeout, it is true. There are a few restaurant meals with friends, when they can be squeezed in. She eats a lot of sandwiches (the great joy of being back in San Francisco is access to Della Fattoria bread again), and stir-fried bok choy or roasted sweet potatoes when she needs something that feels healthy. There’s been more pasta than normal—with pesto I made last September and left behind in the freezer here in San Francisco. There's been bowls of plain grains—spelt, buckwheat, brown rice—and a few surprisingly good recipes made up on the fly that I’ll share over the next few weeks. But it’s been mostly preparing food, not truly cooking. I can't remember the last time I chopped an onion and I miss it.

And my poor little blog. Last year I abandoned my blog entirely when the festival picked up speed. I wrote one post the entire month of September, and I promised this year that wouldn't happen. But it's been slim pickins around here—what posts I have put up have been written somewhere between midnight and two in the morning. The next day my dear mother sends me an email with a list of typos I have been too tired to catch (thanks, mom). It's taken me more than a month to get up those posts about Oregon, a three-day trip that took place in early September.

Now is recovery. The festival is over, my event was a big success. We broke my own attendance goal of 5,000 people and even got a press mention in GalleyCat. It was, as always, a magical night where the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District were flooded with people out to see authors and celebrate literature in action. More than once, as I rushed from one venue to another, I heard people saying that it felt like Halloween trick-or-treating for grownups. I’m proud of what I have built—an event that is loved by my literary community and my city—but I am also exhausted.

Yesterday I drove to Marin County, to return some of the rental equipment we had used for the event. Afterwards I wandered around a grocery store, hungry but too tired to make any decision about what I wanted to eat. I left with an odd assortment of items, things I never buy but that sounded good in the moment: dried white peaches, vanilla yogurt, fresh ravioli filled with artichokes, seeded crackers. It’s the sort of food you might eat after a long illness, things that feel easy on the system.

I also found myself in a housewares store, again wandering aimlessly. I fell in love with a red cup decorated with fruit—oranges, pears, cherries. When I found the lemon version I knew I had to buy one for myself. It’s huge and will hold far more tea than most people want to consume in a single sitting, but I love the way it feels in my hand. I had a big teacup when I lived in Japan, but it was packed in the one box I shipped home that arrived on my doorstep plundered, half of its contents missing; my cozy teacup had disappeared.



I bought some tea at the store as well—white tea, which I normally do not drink. Again it seemed basic, restorative. I’ve decided that the antidote to feeling burnt is tea...and sleep...and probably soup too, but only when I get the energy to be able to make some. I’ve been frustrated that my life got overwhelmingly busy right around harvest time, I’ve been regretting all the jam and chutney and pickles I didn’t have time to make this year. Hopefully I can do a little bit of late season preserving—and plan better for next year.



That’s what is on the docket for the next few weeks—lots of rest, tea in my new happy red tea cup, and gradually catching up on writing and email (I am so sorry if you’ve sent me anything recently—I promise I’ll get back to you soon). I’m slowly putting my life back together again. The ringer on the phone is turned off, I am refusing to leave the house before noon. I have work to do, unfortunately; clients want my time and attention after being neglected for three months (I received an email from a client the morning after the event with the subject line: "My turn?"). But it’s nothing I can’t do from a laptop, curled up under a blanket, still in slippers and house-clothes at 2pm. At least that's my plan.

It’s raining in San Francisco today and finally feels like fall. Time to slow down and go inward. I like the fall, and I love the rain; it makes me feel like I’m in Seattle. It's a good time to settle down with a cup of tea and a box full of the jigsaw pieces of life wanting to be sorted out and put into their rightful place, wherever that may be.

I hope that wherever this fall finds you, you're cozy and comfortable.

Gluten-free Girl

Have I told you that I hate peanut butter?

It's true. When folks offer me things with peanut butter I always decline. People in America find this rather odd—‘round these parts eating peanut butter and jelly is practically a patriotic act. They often lift an eyebrow. What do you mean you hate peanut butter? Is that even possible?

“Overdose as a young child,” I tell them. This usually gets me off the hook. I smile, they laugh, and we move on to other topics.

What I don’t tell them is that when I was young I had chronic earaches each winter. They were so bad we’d often end up in the emergency room, me wailing in pain and my exasperated mother pointing out the other kids in the waiting room who had actual wounds—blood and all—and yet managed to sit quietly and not make a fuss. I had operations on my ears as well, more than one, but nothing seemed to work. At one point a doctor decided I must be allergic to milk and told my mother to take me off all dairy products.

This meant no cheese for cheese sandwiches, and with no meat because we were vegetarians I ate peanut butter nearly every day: peanut butter and jelly; peanut butter and banana; peanut butter and honey. I eventually grew out of the earaches, but the legacy remains: if you offer me peanut butter, I will turn it down.

(unless there is chocolate involved—then it’s a whole new game and all bets are off).

Why am I telling you this? Because I started thinking about this story as I was reading my friend Shauna’s new book—Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back. I am sure many of you have read Shauna’s website and followed her essays and stories about how she was diagnosed with celiac disease, after years of ill health, and was told to cut out all gluten from her life.

(for the record, gluten is the elastic protein in wheat, rye, barley, triticale, kamut, and spelt—but it can hide in a million other places, like lowfat yogurt, a bag of nuts, or pre-grated cheese).

Many people might think of such a thing as a loss—a grievous loss at that—but not Shauna. If you ask her she will tell you that by cutting gluten out of her diet she has gained—a new life, new energy and vitality, a new career as a writer, and a new and sustaining love. If you’ve read her site you’ll know she finds joy and beauty in many places (even episodes of South Park) and that she relishes both good food and life itself. Her joy and exuberance is a tribute to who she is as a person—and it is these emotions that color both her blog and this new beautiful book that landed on my doorstep this week (and let me tell you, opening a package that holds the book written by a dear friend is a lovely and surreal experience indeed).

As I paged through the book I found stories I could relate to. As some of you know, I too have struggled with ill health and food restrictions. At different times I’ve cut out dairy, gluten, sugar, and eggs from my diet. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s something more and more people are grappling with. I am always amazed to see how many people find this website due to a post I put up earlier this year about allergy-free brownies. The writing group I'm in has five members, and at one point three of us were gluten-free (this is where I discovered the Tinkyada brown rice pasta that I like better than wheat pasta). Food sensitivities are a much bigger issue than most of us realize.

Shauna isn’t here right now as I type these words, but if she were I’m sure she would tell me that this is a good thing. She would say that too many people are walking around feeling crappy and not knowing why (maybe even you). She would say that discovering what is making you ill and how to avoid it opens a whole new world—one that is filled with energy and health and delicious food that will entrance you and intoxicate you and won’t make you sick.

Then she’d tell me that I didn’t have to eat peanut butter every day, just because I couldn’t eat cheese. I could have eaten buttery avocado, oven dried tomatoes sprinkled with flaky Maldon salt, or cucumber with hummus made of white beans and Meyer lemon and fresh herbs. She’d tell me there were options—a whole world out there full of them—and then she’d point me in the direction of some amazing recipes and stores that carry vinegars and oils and spices better than any I have ever tasted, and she’d crack some jokes and make it all so fun that soon I’d be swooning with these new flavors and would have forgotten all about that boring old cheese sandwich I didn’t even like that much to begin with.

At its heart, this is what Shauna’s book is about. It’s a story about how, when one door was closed, she simply walked out another door and found an entire world out there she never knew existed and might not have discovered otherwise. A world full of exotic and exciting food—chicken thighs braised in pomegranate molasses, salmon with blackberry sauce, moist and rich chocolate banana bread (yes, there are recipes included!).

When Shauna asked me to participate in her online book tour today, I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about.

I could tell you about my own experiences of eating with food restrictions—that it can be hard, heartbreakingly so sometimes, and then one day you go on a camping trip with your sweetie and find that this person you love with all your heart has spent two days figuring out how to make gluten-free chocolate chip cookies for you and you feel like the skies have parted and angels might just be singing because not only are the cookies good (yes, gluten-free baking can be good) you also feel so cared for and loved that it makes you want to cry in the very best way possible (true story; I owe A, big time).

I could talk about writing—about how Shauna’s writing is breathlessly beautiful and how she is one of a small handful of writers online whose work has encouraged me to take some writing risks of my own. How I fall in love with passages such as this one:

I raise the berry toward my mouth. Aching beauty. Dark sweetness. A bit of tartness. The entire summer of freedom and loving and laughter and long nights concentrated into one taste. One glorious taste—blackberry.

But in the end I decided that what I really want to say is that this book is the story of one woman learning to live life fully and joyously, and in that sense it is a story for everyone. This evening I had dinner with a friend and our conversation reminded me that we are all trying to grow into our own lives (whether they contain gluten or not) and become who we are meant to be. Shauna’s story of growing into her gluten-free life inspires me to grow into mine a little more fully, to relish it a little more deeply, and to see my own challenges for the opportunities they very well might be—opportunities to learn, to grow, to love.

And did I mention the chocolate banana bread?
Seriously yummy chocolate banana bread.

In honor of Shauna’s book, and in solidarity with gluten-free eaters everywhere, I’ve gone through my archives and labeled all my old posts that contain gluten-free recipes (just promise not to laugh at the awful photos on some of those early posts). If you click the label link at the bottom of this entry that says gluten-free, you’ll get a series of recipes to spark your imagination—including that gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sugar-free dessert that actually tastes good. I call it dessert for everyone—because everyone deserves to have a sweet life. Don’t you think?

For more about Shauna’s book and her experience of growing into a gluten-free life, please visit her blog.

I Brake for Salt Water Taffy: Late Summer on the Oregon Coast

It was barely a few miles after I had hit the Oregon coast that I saw the sign for salt water taffy and had to immediately pull over.

I don’t know about you, but to me salt water taffy is a symbol of summer on the coast. This isn’t something from my childhood—we weren’t allowed that sort of candy when I was a kid. When I moved back to San Francisco as an adult, after nearly ten years away, I started taking weekend adventures up the Sonoma coast. In the small town of Bodega Bay, about an hour north of San Francisco, I discovered a little roadside shop painted in stripes of pink and white like a candy cane. They sold salt water taffy. From that point on, whether I was off camping with friends or on a romantic weekend à deux, I always insisted we stop for saltwater taffy. I’m not so much a creature of habit, but I do like my rituals.

And that is why, when I saw the red and white sign for Read’s Homemade Candies shortly after I hit the coast at Lincoln City—the one advertising saltwater taffy—I had to pull in and investigate. It was late summer on the coast and a few pieces of salt water taffy would make it perfect. The fact that the shop was painted like a candy cane—not so different from my favorite Bodega taffy store—made it even better.



What I found was a little candy magic-land, a shop that might feel like the happiest place on earth if you were a kid. Even though I’m no longer a kid, it felt pretty magical.



Read’s Homemade Candies was established in the early 1950s. It’s a family run business and they make all their taffy themselves, here on the premises. There’s a kitchen area where you can watch through glass as they stretch and wrap the taffy, using this big machine.



And if you peek behind the counter, you’ll see barrels and barrels of candy—enough to fuel the summer beach days of hundreds of kids.



When I asked the kindly woman behind the counter about the shop, she told me the building was one of the oldest in town and had once been a brothel—the rooms upstairs still have numbers on the doors she said.



The taffy itself was soft—perhaps the softest I’ve ever tasted. Is this because I’ve never had saltwater taffy that was this fresh? For the record, my favorites were hot cinnamon, licorice, molasses (surprising but good), chocolate mint, and root beer. When it comes to taffy—here or elsewhere—I think banana is just wrong.



With some sweet treats for the road, all that was left was to enjoy the beauty of the Oregon coast as it unfolded before my eyes.

Wide open beaches with crashing waves.



A small white lighthouse set on a rocky point, with the endless ocean beyond.



There were beaches and coves I wanted to explore (especially this one, with a campground tucked away behind it that I have promised myself I will return to).



And hillsides and cliffs where the trees and foliage had been forcefully trained by the fierce winds off the ocean to lay flat, to exhibit as little resistance to the elements as possible.



It was all gorgeously beautiful, tinged only with the regret that I did not have more time to stop, to immerse myself in this place, these small towns set in such stunning landscape. Since I was already dreading the pileup of emails and tasks waiting for me at the other end of the trip, it was temping to linger, to stay here on the Oregon coast indefinitely—though I’d have to make the trek back to Lincoln City for more taffy, that is for sure.

As day gave way to dusk I did stop, at least for a little while, at a beach so striking that each time I drive this route I am forced to pull over. I simply cannot pass this beach without stopping, to look and wonder, to take photos, to breathe the air off the ocean that smells ancient and new all at the same time.



There were beautiful shells.



And shorebirds in the surf.



And, as I walked towards the water, the wind was so strong it blew a constant stream of loose sand over the dunes that created an eerie looking effect, like fog or mist. Ghostly.



It left carved out sand formations in its wake.



I saw the sunset captured on the shore, reflected back in the moisture left by a wave.



And stuck my feet in the cold Pacific waters—so cold that it was almost painful to let the waves wash over them. All that frolicking in warm Seattle lakes this summer has spoiled me, made me forget about just how cold a real ocean is.



Sandblasted and chilled—but oh so happy—I scurried back to the car, turned on the heat, and put the music on low. And as the sun slipped into the ocean and darkness fell, I passed over the border and back into California. Home again, after six months away.

Spruce Ale at the Siletz Brewery

I walked into the Siletz Roadhouse, two years after my first visit and about two hours after lunch. It looked the same as I remember—wood paneling, tables, chairs, a bar, and a pool table on the far side of it. For those of you who might have become accustomed to the sort of microbrewery that really is more of a cushy restaurant—and, oh yeah, they have some good beers on the menu—well, the Siletz Roadhouse is more of a bar that—oh yeah—serves food as well.



But the Siletz Roadhouse also feels a little bit like a community center—there’s a huge room off to the right—and while I’ve never seen it and I don’t know if it actually happens—I like to believe that there are events where the people of Siletz crowd in and fill the place up. With a town population of 1,121, I figure a significant percentage of local residents might be able to squeeze in. I’ve only ever been here in the afternoons, when there are only a few people hanging around and the place feels nice and sleepy.

While I could have sat at one of the tables, everyone who was there already had taken seats at the bar and so I pulled up a barstool as well. I’d like to say I did it because I didn’t want to stick out as a non-local, but I’m pretty sure everyone there knew that already. The guys at the bar were talking fishing, mostly, some car talk as well as perused the beer menu. Not that I needed to, I already knew exactly what I wanted—a pint of Spruce Ale.

It had been a bottle of Spruce Ale that had caught my eye in a store in Ashland and caused me to buy that first pint of Siletz. Spruce Ale? I had never heard of such a thing, and the bottle was nicely designed, but when I first tasted it, and got a hit of the evergreen notes blended in with the malty flavor of the beer—making everything brighter, a little bolder—well, I was immediately hooked. Now I’ve said it before, I’m not the biggest beer fan and thus not really a connoisseur, but this was a beer I could get behind. And I did—ordering a nice pint.

Lest you think I am the only one liking this Spruce Ale, I'll mention that it won a gold medal from the North American Brewers' Association, and a silver medal in the World Beer Championships.

I also took a look at the food menu, for the Roadhouse does indeed serve food. There were no less that ten different kinds of burgers—culminating in the granddaddy of them all, the Roadhouse Speed Bump, a full pound of beef, shaped into three patties of 1/3 lb. each, and topped with two onion rings on top. Granted I’m a wimp when it comes to eating large amounts of meat, but I think that Speed Bump might just burst my tires.

I settled, instead, on the patty melt—a burger covered in melted cheese and grilled onions and served on rye toast. The best thing about lunch at the Roadhouse is that it comes with their homemade potato chips, which might look burnt to the casual observer but let me tell you there are light and crispy bits of potato bliss. And if you lift up the top slice of rye bread on your burger, and put some of the chips inside, things get even better yet. Imagine, if you will, oozy melted cheese, a slew of grilled onions, and the salty crunch of potato chips—mmmm.

You should also try to imagine, if you will, me seated at the bar of the Roadhouse—next to half a dozen local guys talking fishing. My burger arrives and sits before me on its red and white checked paper, looking like a happy picnic, and this presents a problem. You see, it is rather dark in the bar area. The tables by the windows are flooded with light, but the bar is dark. The bar is dark and I need to take a picture—a picture of my burger. Do I grab my burger and my camera and traipse casually on over to the table by the window with the good lighting—not bothering to glance at the local guys who must be wondering what on earth the crazy girl is doing photographing her food.

Yes, my friends. Yes, I do.

And the local guys were complete gentlemen. They didn’t start laughing and talking about what a nut-job I was until after I left town. At that point, they must have had a field day.



The other difference between one of those citified microbreweries and someplace like Siletz, is that in Siletz, they guy sitting next to you at the bar might just end up being one of the brewmasters. And when I asked if I could get a peek into the brewery he said of course, and he left his drink (not beer, I’ll have you know) and his perch at the bar and walked me next door to the brewery.

I remember meeting Randy Kenyon, one of the Siletz brewmasters, the last time I passed through Siletz. I thought it was him at the bar when I saw him, but I wasn’t sure. When I told him this he said he thought he remembered me—which either means he has a very good memory, or there aren’t an awful lot of visitors passing through Siletz these days, or maybe he was just being polite.

Like last time I was here, Randy was nice enough to show me around the brewery—a not terribly large hangar sort of a building filled with tall metal tanks, boxes of bottles, and a loft filled with bags of grain—the ingredients for making all the Siletz brews.



As with before, Randy answered my novice questions and our chat turned into a basic lesson how beer is made (any inaccuracies in the retelling are mine, not his). He showed me how the grains are put in a large container called the mashtun (and when I say large, I’d guess several hundred gallons large). Water is added and the mixture is crushed—this is where the starch breaks down into sugar. The mash is eventually drained through the false bottom of the mashtun. Some of the grains lingered behind that day. The spent grain goes to a local farmer who feeds it to his livestock.



The mixture at this point is called wort (at least I think it is—have I mentioned the large beer I had at lunch? Any mistakes here are definitely mine). This is then boiled, which concentrates the sugars and it is this stage where the hops are added to give the beer its flavor. The mixture is then chilled and moves into the fermenting container, where oxygen and yeast is added. The beer stays here for a period of time—which differs depending on whether it is a lager or an ale. The yeast feeds off the sugars and releases alcohol and carbon dioxide, this is how your beer becomes boozy.



The next stage is where the beer conditions—the yeast absorbs, the beer smoothes, and is eventually bottled by this machine, which can fill 45 cases in an hour. And that, my friend, is more or less how beer is made (any inaccuracies the fault of the large Spruce Ale I had consumed at lunch—did I mention I don’t drink much?).



But what about the Spruce Ale I like so much? How do they get it to taste so lovely and wintery? Spruce tips, my friends, hand picked from Oregon spruce trees during a brief two to three week period in the spring. The idea came from a brewing book that Randy had, and the beer was a seasonal offering until they realized they could freeze the spruce tips without ill effect. They now have a cooler filled with spruce tips to last the whole year long. But they have to keep them in a dedicated cooler because these spruce tips are fragrant things. One time they stored them in the kitchen freezer at the Roadhouse and the cook got made at them because it made all the meat taste like Christmas.



And what of this brewery, tucked away off the main road in western Oregon? It’s a small operation—700 barrels a year (and if you’re a neophyte, as I am, let’s just say that a barrel is 31 gallons). They started out not even bottling the beer—keg sales only. This wasn’t the worst thing, as they sold to the college students in Corvalis (location of Oregon State University) in the winter, and beach-bound partiers on the Oregon coast in the summer. These days they sell the bottled beer throughout the state.

When I ask Randy if there are plans for expansion—say, to one of the two states I seem to be living in these days, both of which border Oregon—he remains noncommittal. It’s expensive to expand, he explains. And then he tells me an interesting story.

Seems that uncertainty is afoot in the beer world at the moment. There’s been a drought in Europe that has impacted the grain harvest, producing lower yields than normal. And with a favorable exchange rate for the Euro, European breweries have been buying up US grain, causing a spike in prices. Randy told me that some grains they use for brewing have increased from $2.50/lb to $8/lb. And, of course, the bigger breweries are grabbing all they can.

It may be the case that you notice a change in flavor profile on some of your favorite craft beers over the next year, as the specific type of grains they use may not be available—or might be too expensive due to high demand and limited supply. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal confirmed this, expect craft beer prices to jump by up to a dollar a six-pack.

Guess it’s good I don’t really love beer. Hopefully by the next time I have a chance to take the winding backroads to Siletz, the grain crisis will have passed. Until then, I don’t mind taking a general pass on beer. After all, my favorite beer is available only in Oregon.

But at least I know where to come back to, whenever I want more.

The Road to Siletz

I may not win any fans with this confession, but I don’t really like beer that much.

There, I’ve said it.

It’s not that I can’t appreciate a good beer. I consider a smoky pint of Guinness in the afternoon to be essential part of cycling through Ireland; when I lived in Austria I loved a nice weissbier with a slice of lemon in a outdoor biergärten; I certainly had my share of Sapporo, Asahi, and Kirin in Japan (not always by choice); and beer with wedge of lime in Mexico is part of the ritual. But at the same time, I don’t love beer. I can do it—can even enjoy it on occasion—but beer just isn’t my thing.

Except when I’m in Oregon.

You see, even though I’m not a huge beer drinker I have a favorite beer—and it’s available only in Oregon.

How did I discover this beer—you might ask—especially when I’m not given to drinking beer? I blame it on the Boots boys.

The Boots Boys are my friends, the guys behind the adventure travel site BootsnAll.com. They're quite a little travel empire these days, but I met them not long after they first started up. I was working for a travel book publishing company and my friend and coworker Jen stumbled on this new travel website and befriended the guys behind it. They were cool guys, the sort you’d want to have staying at the same guesthouse when you were traveling—you’d spend the days adventuring together, and the evenings drinking beers and talking late into the night.

Yes, the Boots boys drink beer—they even make make their own homebrew from time to time, at least they used to. They called it Boot Brew. I didn’t know them that well back in the beginning, but I liked them immensely. And that winter, when I was driving north to the island for Christmas, I planned to stop and see them in Eugene. I would be passing through small towns with good microbreweries along my way, and I decided that there couldn’t be a better host gift for guys who like beer than a sampling of the artisanal beer available in Northern California and Southern Oregon (I also brought an industrial size, five-pound bag of pretzels—you need something like pretzels with beer).

And that is how I came to show up in Eugene one day, with coolers filled with beer—Marin Brewing Company, Lagunitas, Mendocino, Lost Coast, and an Oregon brewery I had never heard of named Siletz. I think the sheer joy the boys expressed at my arrival was more about the cargo than the driver. To this day, years later now, they still talk about it whenever I see them.

What followed was a very fun but messy night, my friends. I have a photo that shows the four of us standing on the porch the next morning (after wonderfully greasy and salty burgers at McMenamins), learning on each other just to stay upright [I couldn’t find the photo to post—honest; it’s not at all because we each look like death warmed over]. I don’t remember all the details of that evening, but I do remember that I quite liked that Siletz beer.

Siletz beer is available only in Oregon. You can buy it at stores in Portland, Eugene, and Ashland, but if you happen to be driving down the coast, you can have the extra pleasure of stopping at the Siletz Brewery, located in the small town of Siletz (population: 1,121).

I’ve been to Siletz twice now, so I can tell you that the best way—the most atmospheric route—is to turn off the Oregon Coast Highway at Kernville and take the back road, otherwise known as Route 229. This road twists and turns along the blue-green Siletz River, glinting in the sunshine.



It passes houses built on stilts, to save them from winter flooding, and runs in and out of patches of dappled sunlight filtering through whispery leaves of green, and alongside banks of blackberries. If you keep the windows rolled down—which, of course, you should—you can smell the berries, sweet and fragrant in the midday heat.

You’ll pass fields of cattle, the sky filled with smoke from autumn burnings.



You’ll go over bridges, criss-crossing the river.



With views of blue, green, and gold; water so clear you can see the rocks on the riverbed.



And if you stop to pick blackberries—which you should, you really, really should—you’ll discover that they very well might be the largest and sweetest blackberries that you have every tasted.



And you’ll decide, somewhere along the way between Kernville and Siletz, that this may be the most perfect place to be on a late September day, as summer slides in to Autumn. Then, and only then, when you’ve settled into the landscape, become one with the countryside, will you arrive in the small town of Siletz.

And if you get there a little after lunchtime, say around 1:30 or 2pm, you might just see a man walk out of the Siletz Roadhouse, get on a small tractor, and drive off down the street (you’ll then discover that there is wireless in downtown Siletz, and the juxtaposition of these two things will make you smile and shake your head a little as you download your email).

Then you'll get out of your car, stretch your legs a bit, and go in search of that beer you remember liking so much, all those years ago.

Stayed tuned for more from Siletz...