It all started at a winter stock-up market in February, 2011.Instant love.
Not just for the gorgeous produce, the dedicated farmers, or the promise of spring ahead, it was instant love for the entire community of Montavilla. Love that still drives Sweet Chaos’ founders and neighborhood residents Susan and Stephanie to make some of the most decadent and innovative brownies in all of Portland.
But it’s not just the brownie market they’re after.
Sweet Chaos specializes in gourmet brownies and exotically flavored cookies that range from the more traditional- deep chocolate brownie with chocolate and butterscotch chips anyone?- to the absolutely unique- blueberry goat cheese with lemon, Asian five spice with wasabi ganache, even brownies featuring Montavilla’s own Fat Dog Mustard.
With backgrounds in politics and insurance, Susan and Stephanie were ready for the challenges of running their own small business. And while making sure Sweet Chaos’ name gets out to the public can be difficult, the rewards make it all worth it, noting the frequent “mind-blown” look they get from customers’ faces after biting into one of their treats.
Staying inspired is part of the game at Sweet Chaos, so Susan and Stephanie pay close attention to their surroundings for new ideas and creative combinations. They look for colors and textures in everyday objects, and remember places they have been or foods they love for new inspiration. They even have an extensive menu of adult, “drunken” varieties for a boozier brownie.
While Sweet Chaos may not yet have an official store front in the Portland area, you can find their delicious, sweet treats at the Montavilla Farmers Market every Sunday or at Tabor Market on Saturdays. Sweet Chaos also delivers to the Portland Metro area and will ship treats almost anywhere.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from giving in to your sweet-tooth cravings with Sweet Chaos, it’s this: Susan and Stephanie really do make chaos sweet, especially when covered in chocolate, toffee, and butterscotch.
-Nicolette Smith
After a simple cooking demo, a self-proclaimed “English major from Ohio” fell madly in love with the Montavilla Farmers Market.
And we’re all better for it.
Tressa Yellig, the brains and inspiration behind Montavilla’s Salt, Fire & Time believes in creating good food; food that is made with patience, love, and wisdom passed down from generations before us. For Tressa, this wisdom came in the form of a German grandmother who showed her love through translucent strudels and slow-cooked, homemade food.
Having a small business isn’t easy, and when asked what her biggest challenges are and what keeps her going, Tressa brings it all back to the community and the healing power of natural foods, “The business works as a prepared foods grocery and a traditional foods cooking school and it’s always struggling with getting the word out to create greater transparency and access to these healing foods. Building community, empowering people to trust their “gut” in the kitchen and offering them, sometimes for the first time, a positive experience of the food they eat is what drives me and reminds me that this is the future of food. I teach people how to restore their relationship to the food world they are already a part of.”
While Salt, Fire & Time is a one-woman show, Tressa feels happy and supported from a strong group of food-loving volunteers. Not only does Tressa create delicious, small-batch foods, she also is responsible for bringing the first Community Supported Kitchen (CSK) to the Portland area located on NW 24th ave.
Every Sunday, you can find Tressa and her grocery of traditional, healing foods at the Montavilla Farmers Market. Drop by for fermented, old world cuisine, cultured dairy, lacto fermented sodas, kombucha, granola, and “full fat everything”. And if you miss her on Sunday, stop by her shop or visit her website for the most up to date information on classes, events, and small-batch, culinary magic.
Nicolette Smith
For Deck Family Farm, the key to a successful product is the time, energy, and respect that’s put into the details.
Located in Junction City, Oregon, Deck Family Farm raises happy and healthy cows, goats, heritage pork, lamb, and poultry in lush, certified organic pastures. For a customer, this means that all products purchased from Deck will be free from synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics, creating a finished product that is not only healthier for the animal, but as Deck believes, is healthier for you too.
This consciousness of animal welfare is nothing new to the local food movement in Portland, but it can be difficult to maintain without extensive knowledge, inspiration, and lots and lots of helping hands.
Deck Family Farm first started with Montavilla Farmers Market after a recommendation from their market representative, Sabina. Since then, Deck has helped the neighborhood of Montavilla enjoy some of the most well cared for and pasture raised meat available.
Staying educated is part of the responsibility of running an organic farm, and Deck knows what it means to be well-read. If you still have room on your summer reading list, check out these inspirational recommendations from Deck Family Farm:
Michael Pollen- The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food
Barbara Kingsolver- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Shannon Hayes- Radical Homemakers.
Ron Schmid- The Untold Story of Milk
-Nicolette Smith
According to Sarah Cogan, the farm manager of Portland’s sweetheart urban farm, Zenger Farm, there are two major challenges for Zenger these days, “Weeeeeeeeeeeds! And also geeeeeeeeeeese!”.
For those of us whose challenges look more like returning important phone calls, and getting to work on time, Sarah’s answer may need a little more context to make sense.
Zenger Farm operates on city-owned land, adjacent to a 10-acre protected wetland in southeast Portland. Being close to protected wetland has its benefits, like water storage and wildlife habitat, but it also has its downsides, “it can be a tense relationship between farm and wetland, when flocks of Canadian Geese help themselves to the buffet of tasty items on the hillside,” Sarah clarifies.
Zenger’s location is not only important for the geese, but also for the neighborhoods of Montavilla, Lents, and Powellhurst-Gilbert. Zenger believes in staying close to home when selling their delicious, community-grown produce, so Montavilla was a natural fit, “we are dedicated to keeping our food as close to the farm as possible. So, located only 4 miles from the farm, the Montavilla Market was the obvious next market for us,” says Sarah.
Walk up to the Zenger vendor stall at the Montavilla market on Sunday, and you’ll see more than just freshly harvested produce. You’ll see the work of dozens of community members and volunteers who treat Zenger Farm as their own. With multiple opportunities to get involved, Zenger Farm truly makes an effort to bring food and farm education to the Portland masses.
If you’ve always been curious about seeing where your food comes from, or want to get involved in the farm to fork movement, Zenger’s doors are wide open. Every Friday from 2-5pm, Zenger Farm opens their large, southeast Portland space to the community. There is a volunteer work party from 2-4, a Farm Tour from 4-5, or you can take a self-guided tour anytime during those hours. The most important thing? Come ready to learn.
Zenger loves introducing new produce to kids and adults alike, and offers plenty of opportunities to learn what to do with that bizarre looking brassica you just picked up at market. And in the end, that’s what makes it all worth it; happy people getting involved with their food at the farm.
Geese and weeds included.
-Nicolette Smith
Lisa Barba is one happy girl.
Not only is she the talent and creativity behind Thai Mama, a Montavilla Farmers Market favorite, she is also living proof that working hard and following your heart go hand in hand.
Lisa’s delicious, locally-sourced, Thai cuisine arrived at Montavilla Farmers Market in 2010 after an encouraging recommendation from a friendly vendor. Every Sunday, Lisa dishes out authentic Thai dishes that blend the distinct flavors of Thai spices, and Portland’s cravings for fresh, local, and sustainable meats and produce. But according to Lisa, she couldn’t do it alone.
The inspiration for Thai Mama’s tasty creations comes from her mom, the original Thai Mama herself, and namesake to the flourishing, homegrown business. Lisa’s mom has been cooking simple, authentic Thai cuisine from scratch since she was a little girl in her native Thailand. Lisa says she couldn’t have the business without her, and gets all of her inspiration from the old school methods and flavors learned from her mom. “Her techniques don’t require a lot of fancy cookware or fast paced mixers, fillers, or substitutes. All of her recipes start from scratch and are made with a lot of time and patience, which is a virtue I have not quite mastered yet.”
Time and patience aside, Lisa seems to have mastered everything else, from fresh, homemade salad rolls with Thai basil and tofu, Pad Thai made with fresh tamarind sauce, and perfectly spiced, seasonal curries loaded with sustainable meats, tofu, and vegetables. Lisa also makes handcrafted wontons, golden egg rolls with sticky sauce, and a Thai salad with specially made peanut sauce good enough to make even the most unadventurous eater gleefully ask for more.
If you want to experience Lisa’s famously delicious Thai cuisine for yourself, you’d better arrive early. As soon as the opening bell rings for business, Thai Mama’s food cart is in full swing. And just in case you can’t make it to Sunday’s Montavilla Farmers Market, Thai Mama can be found at other markets and catering events in the Portland Metro area, so you can get your Thai fix all week long.
This busy schedule keeps Lisa on her toes, but in the end, she says it’s worth it, “l am proud of our quality of products and I am confident that it shows in our dedication and love of what we do for our customers. I believe our patrons are happy to buy food knowing that we make it and source our ingredients as local and sustainable as possible. When we see repeat customers again and again each week, that let’s us know that we are doing things right.”
Right as rain. And here in Portland, that says it all.
Nicolette Smith
Sometimes life is full of sweet surprises.
Remember those beautiful mosaics you made when you were a kid? The art project where you took as much elbow macaroni and dried beans as you could get your finger-paint stained hands on, smothered them in glue, and made a portrait of the family cat? Remember that?
It was great. Really.
But there’s more you can do with beans these days, and The Better Bean Company is ready to prove that delicious, spiced beans don’t come from a can, and don’t need to be relegated to the art table, despite your great work of kid-art.
The Better Bean Company specializes in gourmet, freshly prepared beans as an alternative to the mushy, canned beans we see on grocery store shelves. With products like spiced, Refried Black Beans, Refried Red Beans, and Caribbean Style Beans, The Better Bean Company is on the fast track to affirm that their beans are anything but boring. And they’re doing it with local flavor too.
The Better Bean Company’s black beans come from Oregon’s Snake River Valley, and red beans from Idaho’s Magic Valley. Once cooked, the beans are then sautéed with spices and safflower oil from Central Oregon.
So go ahead and rejoice locavores, The Better Bean Company is proving that locally sourced food is not only good for you, it tastes better too. And while that may not be a surprise for some, it still tastes just as sweet.
-Nicolette Smith