Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting at Feast 2014

Do you not have tickets to the Saturday Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting at Pioneer Courthouse Square from 12-5? It’s not too late to buy your all inclusive tickets, for which benefits important charities like Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and Share Our Strength.

The Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting at Feast 2014 is a great value in that so many amazing local vendors are all gathered in one place, ALL are offering samples so you can try everything and know what you are buying!

Why you should go, in pictures, is because you can eat/drink all this and more while doing good, based on what I saw today visiting on the Friday version of this event:

Don’t miss grabbing a tote bag from Whole Foods at the top by the umbrella man statue! That is also where you should stop by to browse the wine pavilion and see who is manning the Willamette Valley Visitors Association Chef Station. On Friday it was the Les Caves Bier & Kitchen offering a Lamb BLT with Anderon Valley Lamb Belly, Taylor Farms Spring Mix, Denison Farms Tomatoes and Block 15 Bakery’s Ridgeback Red Ale Bread (beer bread!). While you are up there, have a few sips of wine to help wash down the food. I tried the Hawks View Syrah, or any of the Elizabeth Chambers.

Back to the Main Tent! In Main Tent 3, I discovered Sahale Snacks are addictive, just try it, and they were generously offering some of their bags for you to bring back home to get your family addicted too.

Eliot’s Adult Nut Butters were a revelation to me, don’t miss out on being able to try the flight of peanut butters.

If you look towards the end facing the stage of Main Tent 2, you should hurry before they run out to grab wooden food and wine glass holder trays. Those trays that hold food samples and a wine glass were such a godsend, thank you Rewards Network!

The trays are also next to one of the healthiest bites at the Grand Tasting, fresh spring rolls from Bambuza and healthy snacks from Nature’s Path Organic.

As always, the chef demos on the Kitchenaid Stage are fun – I watched charming Jenn Louis advocating not fearing the raw and demonstrating 3 kinds of tartare

Afterwards, climb up those steps towards the Whole Foods Market tent and Bon Appetit tents and have some Cacao and iced cold brewed Stumptown to refuel before heading back for wine and more exploration in the Main Tent 2 and Main Tent 1. Don’t forget to gaze at the adorable goofiness of Hugh Acheson. Salt and Straw is also up there by Cacao, but I think you should save Salt and Straw to be your last bite before you leave Pioneer Courthouse Square. Cacao was serving one of the best tastes of the day, their drinking chocolate over Salt and Straw olive oil ice cream I think with Cocanu Candied Cacao Nibs Craque. Crack indeed.

You should also know there are two photo booths- one on each side of the big tent. I liked the Travel Oregon one as they printed out the photos or you can email or text them to yourself. The one by Portland Monthly though does have giant food items to pretend to eat!

The Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission is presenting multiple unique ways to have berries. Burgerville, besides their refreshing beverage and salad, also has coupons there to get a free milkshake so don’t forget to grab one.

The cupcakes at the Travel Oregon side in Main Tent 1 are Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes with Ninkasi Vanilla Otis and Jameson cupcake with Irish cream frosting. At that same table I admired the Wheatberry “fried rice” with grilled ribeye and broccolini in a baby takeout container (featuring Hill’s Meat, Joe Daughterty foraged mushrooms and Barhyte Specialty Foods, all prepared by Wildhouse Casino on behalf of Travel Oregon).

Back towards the far end of Main Tent 2 is a pop-up for USA Pears that has seatings every 15 minutes in order to try 3 different uses of pears from a guest chef. Also next to this is the booth for Dave’s Killer Bread, who is also featuring a new recipe on Dave’s Killer Bread (naturally) for you to try. On Friday, the recipe was from Jenn Louis of Lincoln.

It’s not too late to buy your tickets, and it is 21+ over only, but all inclusive and is 5 hours that is extremely worthwhile and for an important cause.

UPDATE: SATURDAY PHOTOS

On Saturday, the new Dave’s Killer Bread featured Recipe was from BJ Smith of Smokehouse 21.

I can just eat spoonfuls of Red Duck ketchup, and you can try probably the first world pumpkin ketchup!

I stopped by the USA Pears booth where Ethan Stowell from Seattle and his amazing Ethan Stowell restaurants (including Staple & Fancy and another half dozen others) was presenting

• Sparkling Pear Cocktail with Poached Bosc Pear garnish
• Anjou Pear salad with frisee, walnuts, and champagne vinaigrette
• Foie gras mousse with Bosc Pear mostarda
• BBQ smoked pork cheek slider with Bosc Pear bbq sauce and Comice Pear slaw

That foie gras mousse was my favorite bite for my second visit!

Second place goes to Batch PDX chocolates, can you tell? They are right next to the Valrhona booth, which is next to the tasty Red Wagon Creamery booth.

At the Travel Oregon area in the Main Tent 1, Timberline Lodge was offering goose galantine with yogurt olive oil snow, chanterelles, cherries and oats. Meanwhile, a new take on blackberry appeared by Pazzo Ristorante with black raspberry leather, edible chrysanthemum and raw matsutake salad. Blackbird had a smokey beef carpaccio on brioche wafer with blue cheese mousse, huckleberries, and arugula. Getting fancy in here!
 

Disclosure: I was granted a Blogger Pass for Feast Portland 2014 for blog post and social media coverage but I am not otherwise being compensated. Even before I was given the Blogger Pass I already had tickets for some Feast events – so it just means I will have more to recap for you now! The listings above are ones I am just gathering in one place for convenience for both you and me!