Missing my CSA

My husband and I trekked along the Oregon Coast last week for our summer vacation/annual road trip, camping and exploring. While it was a great trip, we missed our CSA and fresh veggies immensely. A campfire provides a great source for grilling vegetables, but we aren’t exactly gourmet campers and tend to stick to the basics, meaning fresh produce became a treat. To compensate for our lack of local produce, Will and I decided to try other local offerings – a key to any successful trip – and explored several of Oregon’s renowned breweries and wineries.

According to the Oregon Brewers Guild, there are currently 63 brewing companies operating 88 brewing facilities in Oregon; 30 within Portland city limits, which is more than any other city in the world. If you’re a fan of craft beer, as my husband and I are, then exploring Oregon’s breweries is a must for any trip to the state. And when campfire cooking got old or we found ourselves anywhere near a brewery, it was more than likely that we could be found belly up to a bar, sampling ales and stouts while trying to determine which brewery’s food lived up to its beer pairings. Unfortunately for us, breweries were few and far between along the coast, though we did visit the mother ship of our local brewpub, Rogue, in Newport. For Will and I, seeing master brewer John Maier at work was much like a celebrity sighting – we spend so much time and money at Rogue’s Issaquah Brewhouse and the beers bring us such joy that our trip to Rogue was definitely a trip highlight.

Exploring Oregon’s wineries was also a unique experience and we stopped several times throughout our trip to sample different varietals. Though we visited just a handful of the state’s nearly 400 wineries, we did sample several Pinot Noirs, the grape that put Oregon wines on the map. I’m a big fan of Erath wines and a trip to their tasting room in Dundee was a must for me. We made it out of the tasting room with a scant four bottles - and only 10 total for the trip; I was impressed by my own discipline as I could have easily purchased several cases along the way.

During our trip, we discovered that we’ve become almost addicted to our weekly bounty from Jubilee Farm, and to make up for our lack of veggies, we made exploring other local offerings a big part of our trip . I might eventually run out of fresh ideas for squash (and will look to my fellow KD ladies for help), tire of tomatoes (if such a thing is possible!) and no longer clamor for cabbage (though there's so much you can do with cabbage), but until then, I’ll eagerly await my next share and look forward to getting creative with the freshest, local ingredients. And when the fresh bounty runs out, there’s always Washington breweries and wineries to explore!