Slow Food Waltz

FOOD ROADIE, Road Foodie
On the Road to Portland, Oregon
Last week Toni, Carolyn and I hit the road and drove to Oregon. Along the way we met up with long-lost relatives, the Fish Pimp and a fungus monger; lost our car bumper, changed our hair color, slept in a treehouse-like cabin

but managed to keep our wallets and sanity. We schlepped around Oregon sampling chocolates
eating mushrooms, chasing waterfalls, arguing about who's turn it was to drive, ogling local men (i.e.: Surf Gods at Pacific City),finding the best local food to make a dinner (crepes with Hebe Eggs, Blue Heron brie cheese and Oregon huckleberry jam), took turns swooning and spinning at the Aztec salsa club

Eating on the Road
Eddyville, Oregon Mushrooms

On our way to the Oregon coast we stopped at Rain Forest Mushrooms on the south side of the road not far past Burnt Woods, Oregon between Philomath and Newport. You know you've arrived when you see this sign beside the highway.

We met mushroom maker and monger, Bob Rudel, who loves to talk-you-up about mushrooms. He's a former physicist who worked for NASA and got tired of being in a lab so thought he'd make a go at mushroom-making. There are plenty of mushrooms growing in the woods near Eddyville, but Bob Rudel chooses to make his own, starting with mold in a petri dish then growing it on sterilized redwood sawdust: what Rudell calls, "sterilized cloned tissue work." Rudel began experimenting on making mushrooms when he was 10.



What does he love about making mushrooms? Well besides his love for eating them, Rudel says he likes the challenge.

"It's definitely a cerebral challenge all the time," he said. "There are a lot of unknowns; It requires hard work and the ability to make all these gizmos." Check out my video footage where Rudel tries to teach us the science of mushroom growing by comparing the process to sex, then telling us his nickname for mushrooms: "fungal erections." After he coined this term, I snapped on my video camera to see if I could capture his explanation.

What Do Mushrooms have in common with Sex? Bob Rudel tells all! We stopped at a pretty little town with daffodil fields called Hebe enroute to Tillamook and bought some eggs.

We made crepes with eggs and filled them with Rudel's fresh mushrooms and brie cheese from Tillamook's OTHER cheese place, Blue Heron cheese. We made crepes filled with Oregon huckleberry jam, Eddyville mushrooms,

Carolyn, Jenie and Toni on the Oregon Coast


Carolyn had three different hair colors on this trip. Which do you like best?

Natural Color, Post-Henna or final color: dark burgandy auburn.











We did have fun: except for that little fender bender in Kimberly, Idaho (see last post) and the other exception of course is that peach, pear hair pie compliments of the Red Neck Cafe (shouldn't the name have tipped me off?) The first night we spend at a hotel in the Dalles playing Mormon girl poker with a handful of hilarious wildlife biologists. (One of them proposed to Carolyn and tried to woo her with his fishing stories: he's known as FishPimp all over youtube for his exploits landing steelhead in various bizarre ways like reeling one in with a pink Barbie Doll fishing rod. The first day we ran around 23rd ave in Portland where I rediscovered a fun chocolate shop

and bought great chocolates like one made with two dark chocolate covered humps of carmelized hazelnuts and a chocolate ganache filling with crunchy hazelnut praline. LOVE IT! We also ate at a Japanese place called Mio Sushi. I had baked green mussels. These don't look as yummy as they tasted, but they were made with spicy mayo, sweet eel sauce and covered with fish eggs. YUM.