The holidays are past…more reason to celebrate with bubbly!

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jan 30, 2012

This weekend a good friend threw an indoor “tag sale” (read: yard sale) at Treveri Cellars on 2nd Street. If you haven’t been there, Treveri is a relatively new winery in Yakima that makes some tasty sparkling wines (I’d call them “champagnes,” but France would object). In addition to pouring each of its varieties, Treveri’s tasting room also offers up special concoctions – call them grown-up smoothies.  After purchasing my third set of white dishes from my friend, I plopped down at one of their comfy tables and chatted with another pal over a Framboise Sherbet (shown above). What a great Sunday!

Treveri has a few other special drinks too – I saw someone sipping Treveri’s version of a Mojito, with the mint leaves muddled into a champagne glass instead of a pounder. So much classier.  And delicious!

Treveri Cellars

225 S. Second Ave.

Yakima • 509-248-0200

trevericellars.com

Read More

A little picnic in the office

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jan 9, 2012

If you read the latest edition of Yakima magazine’s “Fresh Sheet” feature, you heard about our coworker, George May, who brings in his homemade goodies from time to time (you also heard about Joy Garden’s lovely bulgogi). As if on cue, George brought in one of his “little picnics” on Friday, complete with chopsticks and tiny soy sauce, for me to nibble on while working away on spreadsheets and such. He made chicken and pork bulgogi, white rice and spicy kimchi, which he told me to wrap up in a seaweed paper, kind of like a taco. I did. It was delicious.

Here’s George’s basic recipe for bulgogi:

Bulgogi

“You can vary the amounts to suit your taste,” George advises. “The most important thing is to mix the soy sauce and oil, and then add your sweetener until the marinade is a little sweet to the taste. It should taste good before you proceed. You can use whatever sweetener you want. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Low sodium soy sauce is good to use if you want it less salty.”

This makes enough marinade for about a pound of meat of choice.

4 oz soy sauce
1 oz sesame oil
2-3 packs of equal or 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
2-3 green onions, chopped
1 tsp sesame seeds
1/4 tsp fresh ginger, crushed and chopped (optional)

Mix soy sauce and oil. Add sweetener until marinade is a little sweet to the taste. Add rest and mix. Add a little water, a tablespoon or two to dilute the mixture. Marinate meat for at least 20 minutes if sliced thin. If the pieces are bigger, you can marinate for up to three days. This is good for drumsticks, thighs and country style pork ribs. Even if the meat is thin, you can marinate up to three days as well.

Read More

Slow Cooker Super Bowl

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jan 5, 2012

After the culinary whirlwind of the holidays, who wants to spend more time in the kitchen during these cold beginning months of the new year? We don’t. Alas, the Super Bowl does manage to roll around every year, and many of us are again searching for a way to feed a crowd of people — who are glued to the flat screen.
But what if it was easier?
With that goal in mind, we searched for recipes — appetizer, main dish and dessert — that are delicious and can be made in a slow cooker (OK, and one fondue pot). You know, the kind of recipes that go hand-in-hand with some of our terrific local and regional microbrews.
We came up with the following menu — one that’s sure to please any football fanatic on Feb. 5. Keep in mind that the ingredients and directions are more like guidelines … slow cooker recipes just beg to be altered according to your tastes.

Appetizers
Spicy artichoke dip
Ingredients:
• 1 8 oz. package cream cheese
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup grated parmesan
• 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained
•  1 jalapeno, diced

Add all ingredients to slow cooker. Set slow cooker on low until melted. Stir.

Easy cheesy fondue
Ingredients:
• 1 ½ cups milk
• ½ cup beer
• 8 oz. package cream cheese
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Combine ingredients in saucepan and melt over medium heat on a stovetop. Once melted, transfer to a fondue pot.

Main Dish
Jalapeno Pork Roast
Reader Vicki Hannon Baker contributed this recipe. She reported on Yakima magazine’s Facebook page that the recipe is quite easy, taking five minutes to throw in the slow cooker. (And we concur.)

Ingredients:
• 1 pork roast (size can vary — there is a lot of sauce)
• 2 28 oz. cans of green enchilada sauce
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• toppings

Combine ingredients in a slow cooker. Set slow cooker on low. Cook overnight or all day (8 hours). Put on flour tortillas with queso fresco or cheddar cheese, sour cream and onions or other desired toppings.

Dessert
Slow Cooker Blueberry Cobbler
This dessert is adapted from Schwan’s and was given to us courtesy of our favorite local food blogger, Savannah Tranchell, who writes Appetite for the Yakima Herald-Republic. A dessert in a slow cooker — who would have thought?
Ingredients
• 1 cup flour
• 1 and 1/4 cup sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoons lemon juice, divided
• 1 bag frozen blueberries

Directions
Stir together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, spices, sour cream, water, eggs and 1 teaspoon lemon juice into a 4-quart slow cooker. Mix well.

Combine berries with remaining sugar and lemon juice. Pour berry mixture into center of batter. Cover and cook on high for two hours.

Thanks to the following for their help on this feature: Lisa Dyr and Kristie Patrick for their vintage crock pots; Gabby Hauff for her fondue pot; Nicole and Ryan Cowden for use of their house and Nicole’s styling skills; Wes Shockley and Dirk Bernd for being our “models.”

Read More

“Not all those who wander are lost.” – JRR Tokien

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jan 5, 2012

In August of 2000, I surrendered to a growing need to get out and see the world when I quit my job and spent two years bouncing back and forth between the U.S. and Europe. I taught a little and I traveled a lot. I found living out of a suitcase to be pretty liberating — no rent to pay, no dog to feed (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and certainly no routine. The traveling community is easy to find, so I made a lot of fast friends along the way. It’s a time I’ll never get to relive and I will never regret.
Of course, at that point in my life, I didn’t have a husband, a preschooler or a grown-up career, so traveling was easy.  But I know — and admire — a lot of local folks who travel no matter the challenges or baggage or number of kids in tow.
Jill’s favorite travel memory is of a family trip to Maui when she was 21. She found paradise (and romance) and tried — in vain — to convince her parents that she wasn’t flying back home. She dreams of going to Italy and has watched Under the Tuscan Sun at least 500 times.  She, too, would travel anywhere and everywhere if she could.
This edition of Yakima magazine is about travel — and travelers. In these cold early months of the year, sandy beaches and a hot sun are probably lurking in our dreams, and on the “go-to” lists of some lucky locals. On the following pages, you’ll find stories on travel of all kinds: a local hop industry executive who travels to exotic locales like Singapore and Malaysia on a regular basis; a group of local pilots who built their own airpark to indulge a shared love of flying, and a look at Oregon’s McMenamins resort that might help readers decide what destination is on their own “go-to” lists.
If you can’t satiate your travel appetite, maybe reading this magazine will help you along until spring. In addition to travel, we’re also calling it our “cozy” edition: Don’t miss our resident “Style Freak,” Pam Edwards, as she describes how she pampers her frequent guests from out-of-town. There’s a story on local alpaca farms, and we also visit local artist Nancy Gabriel, who creates gorgeous wool rugs that are amazing works of art.
As always, we have more pictures and content on our website, yakimamagazine.com, and don’t miss our blog, The Notepad — it’s full of fun Yakima tidbits to get you through the rest of winter. We love to hear from you, so keep your emails and letters coming! Just send them to jstgeorge@yakimaherald.com or rbeckett@yakimaherald.com.
So until March, bon voyage Yakima … even if you’re traveling in your armchair.

-Robin & Jill

Read More

Fresh Sheet: Joy Garden

by Robin Salts Beckett on Jan 5, 2012

One of my co-workers, George May, is a good cook and leaves samples of his culinary handiwork on my — and others’ — desk from time to time. This makes him one of my favorite colleagues (that and the fact that he’s a fellow Star Trek fan). He’s Korean American, and these delicious little morsels are Korean too. He always delivers his “samples” with tiny bottles of soy sauce and chopsticks. I give a girly clap of my hands when I round the corner to my desk and see a miniature picnic.
So when I heard about Joy Garden, a new Korean restaurant on 56th Avenue and Tieton Drive, I asked George his opinion, trusting his ability to judge authentic Korean fare. With his thumbs up, my friend Brynn and I gave it a whirl ourselves.

While the interior is no-frills, it’s clean and pleasant, and the service is friendly. The restaurant offers Korean barbecue, but unfortunately they can’t actually cook the dishes at patrons’ tables. The menu also includes stews, noodle dishes and even American-style kids’ dishes (chicken strips and fish and chips). I chose the beef bulgogi and Brynn tried the pork bulgogi.  We split a side of kimchi.
Bulgogi is a typical Korean dish using thinly sliced beef in a marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, sugar, garlic and sesame seeds that is grilled or barbecued. Kimchi is a spicy vegetable dish (usually made with napa cabbage, but one can use other vegetables or roots). If you’ve ever had a bad experience with kimchi, don’t let it deter you from trying it again. Although kimchi is traditionally fermented, I’ve tasted plenty of varieties (thanks, George), and each one is delicious. I think of it like a spicy cole slaw, although there are many that aren’t spicy.
Brynn and I enjoyed our meals, “mmm-ing” our way through them, and they were delivered to our table quickly. Each steamy-hot dish was a tumble of sweet and savory flavors, punched up with the kick of the cold, crisp kimchi on the side. Although the kimchi was spicy, as Brynn noted, “There are no sweat beads on my forehead.” The warm sautéed vegetables and white rice were nice complements to tender and flavorful beef. Since they were from the lunch menu, our meals were fairly inexpensive, too, with each of our entrees coming in at a mere $7.50. All in all, it’s heartily recommended.

5605 Tieton Drive, Yakima
509-965-9544

If you’re interested in Korean cooking, George recommends the public television series “Kimchi Chronicles,” available at kimchichronicles.tv.

Read More