The best trend ever

Mt cousin Hannah Wallace is a food and travel journalist, who occasionally flags items for me. Here's her latest, a blog post by Scott Gold, which describes an item that must be seen to be be believed (He has a picture):

I recently took a long vacation with my family to Portland, Oregon, foremost to celebrate my brother’s college graduation, but perhaps more importantly — we being a family of New Orleanians — to do as much Pacific Northwest eating as we could manage. ...At the diminutive, elegant Le Pigeon, listed nonchalantly among the other appetizers, was this:

Foie gras jelly donut, $16

No way…could it really be? I spoke the words aloud, just to make sure something in my cranium wasn’t all tangled up like an Oliver Sacks patient, causing me to see things that weren’t actually there. ”Foie. Gras. Jelly. Donut,” I said. And then, “Holy shit.” Now, I normally try not to swear in front of my parents, but some things just have to be said. I needed to order it - the decision was made as soon as I saw the words. I wasn’t really even in the mood for it, but when confronted with something so outrageous, all will power is lost. It’s as though the menu had performed the Jedi mind-trick on me: “You will have the foie gras jelly donut.” ”I will have the foie gras jelly donut.” When the server came to take our orders, I pointed at the menu and asked, simply, “Seriously?” ”Oh, yes,” he said. Oh well, I thought. I guess we’re going to do this.

When my appetizer arrived, it was both exactly and absolutely nothing like I’d expected. The fatty liver wasn’t incorporated into the donut — it wasn’t a foie-filled pastry — nor was it some sort of mousse cleverly disguised as chocolate frosting. There was no subtlety about the dish at all, which made it that much more brazen. It was, quite literally, a house made jelly donut topped with a generous lobe of seared foie gras, with yet another lobe of foie on the side. It was fried fat topped with seared fat, plain as can be. ... When I’ve told people about this, once their incredulity subsides, they always ask, “Did you like it?” Well, yes, of course I liked it. Animal fat — particularly of the engorged liver variety — has a way of injecting itself directly into the pleasure centers of your brain, not unlike a marvelous drug. Which is pretty much the reaction I had after consuming the thing, an intense wave of pleasure followed not long thereafter by a sudden crash, and feelings of embarrassment and guilt. As I sat there, dazed and sweating, I felt hung-over, bordering on ashamed. ”Dear Lord,” I whispered, “what have I done to myself? I still have an entree coming! Will I survive?”

Which is not to say that it wasn’t a uniquely wonderful experience. Le Pigeon’s executive chef, Gabriel Rucker — a 2007 Food and Wine Best New Chef — clearly knew what he was doing. He’s become part of a new breed of cook, the kind that brashly gives the middle finger salute to all conventional wisdom regarding food, health and nutrition. ... This trend is obviously a backlash, a thumbing of collective noses against years of picky eaters, sauce-on-siders, vegans and other dietary malcontents so frequently bemoaned by fine-dining chefs, as well as a celebration of that delightful category of ingredients that will likely send you — both literally and figuratively — to heaven. Moderation and good common dietary sense have no place here. Foie gras jelly donuts, on the other hand…

To tell you the truth, I welcome this change.

Me too. Fight the power!

Comments

[Stephen Green]

When I saw the link promising "best trend ever," I thought maybe micro-miniskirts were making a comeback.

But this will do.

[DensityDuck]

This idea reminds me of those people who say "hey, I have friends who are into alternative sexuality, and I have friends who are into yarn handcrafts, it would be SOOOO MUCH FUN if all of my friends got together and we had a big party! I'm sure they'll all like each other--after all, they're all my friends, right?"

[DWPittelli]

What sort of jelly?

I would think perhaps a raspberry jam, somewhat more tart than usual, would be ideal.

[Bill]

@Stephen Green: It's a shame. You could have followed up with a gallery post celebrating the "best bend ever."

[EvilDave]

The Three R's of Portland
or
Why Portland Sucks

"Latte Town" was coined a few years back and is the most appropriate term for the City of Portland that I have ever heard. A Latte town consists of mostly white, educated baby boomers and young single people. The inhabitants of the town are usually newcomers who have priced out all the original inhabitants. These towns are usually expensive, pretentious, abound in natural fibers and are laid back on the surface. Latte towns like Portland pride themselves on their most cherished concepts of diversity and inclusiveness. Most Portlanders accept this myth as Gospel but upon close examination Portland's dirty little secret is revealed. Portland is an overwhelmingly white, non-ethnic city. It is as vanilla as it gets so it makes one wonder what all the celebrating of diversity is all about. Drive through any neighborhood surrounding the downtown area and the impression that you get is that Portland is nothing more than a series of elitist ghettos compromised of rich white homosexuals, rich white yuppies, rich white hippies, rich white trust funders, and rich white kids from the suburbs pretending to be street people. Where's the diversity? Well it doesn't exist but the average Portlander likes the concept and in their eyes the different shades of rich whites all constituent diversity. In a series of articles I will attempt to breakdown and explain these subtle distinctions between the various factions of lily white, latte people that make Portland what it is.

The Artist-Intellectual
The visitor or newcomer to Portland is bound to be struck by the sheer numbers that belong to this group. They seem to be everywhere and are in fact everywhere. They are the reason that all the coffee shops have tables and chairs. The artist-intellectual fancies himself as a poet, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, etc. You get the drift. They spend most of their days idling around the coffee establishments that one finds every 10 feet. They are usually equipped with a notebook that they use for their poems, journals or their artwork. No one ever gets to see the contents of these notebooks. More often than not they have a beaten and weathered paper back copy of some book authored by Kafka or William S. Boroughs. They love to discuss their favorite subject, themselves. Given the opportunity they will prattle on for hours about their poems, art work or the film they are making. You never get to actually see any of their work but you do get to hear about it. Their lives are like one never ending semester in grad school. Initially I believed these losers but then got to thinking. What would an aspiring actor, artist, musician, filmmaker being doing in Portland Oregon, a latte town? Why wouldn't they be in NYC or LA? Because they're phonies, that's why. Here's how it works with these clowns. They flunk out of college in New Jersey so their parents send them to Reed College in Portland in hopes that they will get their act together. They drop out of Reed but stay in Portland while still on Daddy's tab or some trust find. One Saturday Josh or Seth drifts down to one of the hundreds of hippie craft markets downtown. Some hippie is selling didgeridoos that he made I between bong reps. Josh buy one and takes it home where he proceeds to get baked after which he blows a few sour notes into the didgeridoo. The next day he's a musician. Not really but that's what he's telling everyone at the coffee house and pretending is good enough for a Portland artist-intellectual, in fact it's everything. In three months he will switch his designation from musician to filmmaker and then onto to something else 3 months later. As long as it sounds cool he will keep this charade up and no one in his circles will call him on it because they are doing the same thing.

The Activist
This group is usually comprised of people that used to be part of the artist-intellectual group in Portland. They have gotten a little older and may have finally, after 12 years, obtained a liberal arts degree from Portland State or Reed College. They may still run in artist-intellectual circles but have latched onto some "cause" at this time of their life. An activist always lives off some sort of trust fund or inheritance. When you ask an activist what he does for a living he will actually say he is an "activist" with a straight face. I used to look in the want ads and at the state employment office but never once did I see an advertised job entitled "activist". The activist usually lives in some semi communal house with other activist and artist-intellectuals, the kind of place where people sleep on mattresses on the floor and where the walls are covered with hippie tapestries. Oh yeah there are always like 15 cats roaming around the house and it stinks of cat piss, body odor and patchouli. The activist is still a bum at heart but feels the need to pretend that he is productive and feels extremely self conscious about living off some one else's money but not enough to actually get a job. So the activist associates himself with the following types of groups: art councils, school-to-work collaboratives, environmental groups, preservation groups, community-supported agriculture, antidevelopment groups, and other ad hoc activist groups. Affiliation with these groups will change every 6 months or so. It all sounds cool and actually creates the impression that they work.

The Crone
The Crone is a middle-aged woman that lives alone with her two cats. She is extremely bitter and unpleasant to be around. Crones usually populate the SE and NW sides of Portland. Often you can see that the Crone was quite attractive in her day. You can easily envision her twirling around dressed like Stevie Nicks at some Grateful Dead show back in 1978 Nature and time have not been good to her. She's always had a bad attitude but at least in her younger days she had perky breast and booty to match. Nice T&A can go a long way for making up for a crappy attitude but now she's only left with the bad attitude and the Stevie Nicks get up. The Crone is usually involved in several crackpot wymn's organizations that promote some sort of radical and unrealistic form of feminism. They usually have names like the United Front of Sisterhood or Radical Wymin For The Extermination Of The Male Species. Crones usually have jobs in local government or at State Universities, places where their inability to get along with anyone has no bearing on keeping their jobs. I worked with a Crone at City Hall. She filed a sexual harassment charge against me because she was eavesdropping on a phone conversation I was having and I said the word "chick". She filed another sexual grievance against a guy because he displayed a family picture on his desk of his wife and four kids at the beach. His wife was wearing a bathing suit, one piece, and this sexually offended the Crone who viewed this as objectifying women. The Crone wishes she were a lesbian because she hates men so much. She's tried to convert but it never took. Now her only objective in life is to feed her cats, read Tarot cards and make every one else's life a living hell.

The New Age Spiritualist
This could very easily be the official religious doctrine of Portland. All Portlanders fall into one of two groups when it comes to God. They are either atheists or they are new age spiritualists. You can hear them espousing their creed everywhere, "I'm spiritual but not religious", as if this automatically put them on the moral high ground. This belief system can best be described as spirituality without obligation. The new age spiritualist lives in a moral temperate zone where he picks and chooses tenants from all faiths that suit his lifestyle of the moment. Anything self sacrificing or too stringent is discarded and deemed "dogmatic" or "too religious". This way he can have the best of both worlds. In reality he gets little more than a set of watered down moral concepts that do nothing more than validate the liberal sensibilities that may be in fashion at the moment. For example, the New Age Spiritualist eschews judgmetalism. Particularly judgementalism that conflicts with their desires but he will embrace judgementalism when it comes to condemning cigarette smoking or individuals that don't have the right perception on the three R's which are racial sensitivity, recycling and reproductive rights. The new age spiritualist's home will be adorned with religious objects of oppressed people. Amazonian figures, Native American totems, Egyptian deities, animistic shells, or Shinto statuettes abound. The rules is that it's OK to display religious articles as long as you have no real association or knowledge of the said religion. A Crucifix would be seen as something a little too extreme.

The Dude
This is without a doubt the most ubiquitous character roaming the streets of Portland or any other Latte town for that matter. The Dude is usually a young white male that has great enthusiasm for games that are usually associated with extreme sports and the X-Games. He is called a Dude because this is the most commonly used word in his vocabulary. You've heard them before. They are the kind of guys that refer to everyone as 'dude' and use 'dude' as a noun adjective and a verb. When they say 'dude' they put a lot of emphasis on the "u". They say 'duuude' instead of 'dude'. Their aspiration is for life to resemble an extended hobby. Work is playful and play is something they pursue with earnest. Most don't work but if they must you can find them working at places that sell skateboards, snowboards and other thing that are of supreme importance to the Dude. Dudes are usually extremely stupid and have flunked out of all the worst community colleges so they rarely associate with the activist or artist-intellectual unless of course there is some sort of sharing of drugs thing going on. The Dude is held in high esteem in Portland because he is seen as someone who is bucking the system. He will quit a job in a heartbeat if the swells on the Columbia are optimal for shredding. He lives for the moment, the perfect wave and the perfect buzz. Priorities and responsibilities are no more than an after thought for these Portland cowboys.

Hippies
These dirty repugnant characters are the status quo in Portland. They seem to run across three generations and are composed of people who came from privileged backgrounds because no one from the real world could possibly embrace the fairytale concepts that the hippies hold dear. The hippies day is a full day consisting of sleeping till noon, smoking pot, protesting progress and reason, playing hackey sack and seeing how long they can go without bathing before they become infested with ticks. The hippie's biggest fears are work and responsibility so they go to great lengths to paint the "system" as thoroughly corrupt in order to avoid growing up. In their eyes any participation in the "system" is "selling out". This allows the hippy to live a lay about life without any moral quandary. Hippies without trust funds and generous parents must do some sort of work in order to buy pot and overpriced organic hippy food. This is why Portland has so many "markets". These are closed markets in the classic Marxist tradition. The hippies sell their hippy crap to tourist and yuppies with more money than sense. Here you can buy beeswax candles, dream catchers, and soap dishes made out of bird feathers. Bring plenty of money cause this shit ain't cheap. All major credit cards accepted. Hippies are easy to spot in Portland. Just envision the crowd at the original Woodstock in 1969. That's exactly what you will see with the Portland hippy. They will usually go by names like Sunshine, Rain, Heather, Noah, Seth or Jeremiah although the varieties are endless. Some hippies are hard to spot. They are usually 40 and over and have compromised themselves with jobs. Make no mistake about it, they are still hippies and when 5:00 pm rolls around they ditch the suit in favor of Birkenstocks and hemp clothing. These are the ones that make sure that the hippy ethos is forcefully inserted in all spheres of Portland's civic, cultural and business affairs. They are the ones that ensure that Portland remains soft on crime and educational standards and hard on increased taxation, subsidies and cumbersome business regulations.

The Psycho-Feminist
This is usually a young woman in her 20's or 30's. She has attended college and has received some feminist indoctrination in how awful the male species is. The problem is that the Psycho-Feminist still prefers men sexually. Some how she must balance her desire for empowerment with her more natural desire to find a mate. The Psycho-Feminist is truly as confused individual. She really has no idea how to reconcile her place in the world. She cannot balance her professional aspirations with her private life and is in constant turmoil over making any sacrifice between marriage, family and career. If you have had the misfortune to have dated or married such a woman I feel for you. Once you get out of that relationship, and you must get out, you will need years of therapy before you are right again. The Psycho-Feminist will subject you to years of emotional abuse over her gender turmoil. She's not man but doesn't know what it means to be woman. One minute she will want flowers and doors held open for her the next minute she will be cursing you out like a drunken sailor for some perceived slight. This breed more often than not ends up joining the ranks of the Crones. You can usually find the Psycho-Feminist at Powell's Bookstore completely immersed in some feminist manifesto like "Our Bodies Ourselves". Guys do yourselves a favor and find a nice foreign-born girl.

The Sensitive Male
Nature abhors nothing more than the sensitive male yet he proliferates in Portland. You will often be out at the Saturday Market and say to yourself, "Another lesbian couple!?" Upon closer examination you noticed that the more feminine looking partner is not a lesbian but is fact a man, the sensitive male. This is a guy that is really in touch with his feelings and it is not below him to gently weep after reading a poem or a love story. He usually "is not really into sports". He prefers careers in the "healing fields" like massage therapy, teaching yoga or some sort of new age mumbo-jumbo therapy. He is devoid of any passion or a sense of humor. Regular guys horrify him. He is disdainful of them and feels that his sensitive approach to life is superior. A psycho-feminist usually scoops him up and she controls every aspect his life. Eventually he decides, after years of dream remission therapy, that he is a homosexual and he leaves her. The sensitive male likes to read Iron John Bly and participates in events allied with the Men's Movement. He can usually be found pounding on a drum in the woods with other sensitive males. He is best personified by the hippie school teacher Mr. Van Dreesen on the Beavis and Butthead cartoons. Wymn in Portland prefer that all men go down the road of sensitive male and throngs of counselors in the mental health and educational professions have made it their business to castrate young men by turning them into these cream puff, pussies knows as the sensitive male.

[Mark Buehner]

Ehh. You'd think the secret to haute is to stuff foie gras and truffles into everything. A jelly donut has a certain level of perfection to it. I don't need a veal demi-glas and a bed of thai yellow curry to 'improve' it.

[Fat Man]

Portland land use: the third city:

Portland is between Seattle and San Francisco Bay. The 21st century has been invented in those two areas. What has Portland done?

Reminds me of Graham Greene’s The Third Man and Harry Lime’s great line:

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed … but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?

The cuckoo clock.

So long, Holly.

[Fat Man]

URL:

http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2006/03/portland_land_u.html

[CJG]

EvilDave:

Someone writes a post on a foie gras jelly donut and your respond with THAT? I guess the Portland location was the hook for you, eh? Yeesh....

[Elisse Goldstein-Clark]

The Very idea of a foie gras jelly donut sounded nauseating when I saw it on Twitter, but you make it sound like the best thing since sliced bread! :-) Now I truly want to try it! I, too, am Loving the decadent foodie "backlash" against the goody-good dietary malcontents. And as I write this, I'm having a cigarette w/my glass of whisky. Cheers!

[Neil]

@Mark Buehner:

You've got it backwards. The foie gras isn't there to improve the donut. The donut is there to improve the foie gras. The foie gras is there because, well, it's tasty animal fat.

[john stein]

Brian Griffin would be very happy in Portland.

[Peg C.]

EvilDave, that was so OT but so true it hurts. It's a keeper! ROTFL.

As for as the foie gras jelly donut, I hereby relinquish my allotment of this delicacy during this lifetime to those of you who can appreciate it. Please transfer to me all your future healthcare usage as you'll be dead and I'll be needing it... ;-)

[Joshua]

As John F. Kennedy might have said, "Ich bin ein foie gras Berliner."

[Daniel in Brookline]

Speaking of culinary incongruities...

I visited northern Italy with my family three summers ago; with three young children along, it was inevitable that we'd eat a lot of Italian pizza. And I was intrigued to see, in practically every restaurant that served pizza, something called "American Pizza". (In some places it was called Pizza Fonzie".)

I finally had to try it. It turned out to be an ordinary cheese pizza... with French fries as a topping. And yes, it tasted about how you'd expect it to taste.

Sorry for the digression, folks; back to the foie gras.

cheerfully yours,
Daniel in Brookline

[jg]

EvilDave:
Who are you?
I think I luv u

[Michael Bissell]

I recently went to a Japanese/Peruvian restaurant in New York City and had a very Le Pigeon kind of an appetizer: Duck Comfit Gyoza topped with Fois Gras...

I'm going to have to start fattening up some ducks in the back yard to get a proper supply of duck AND fois gras going..

[HeatherRadish]

I'm surprised foie gras is still legal in such a smug "concerned" city as Portland. The poor wittle birdies...the cruelty...wah sniff wah...

(Heh, for all the endless eco-proseltyzing I experienced on my visit there last winter, I was impressed by how FILTHY it was in the "good" parts of town in terms of litter--and I live in Milwaukee and used to work in the ghetto there, so I'm not easily impressed by people throwing their garbage in the street. Since the latte cup is biodegradable and ink-free, you can throw it anywhere, right?)