I’ve attended many Meadowlark Portland dinners with chef duo Jen and Emily – from For the April 22, 2018 spring Meadlowlark No #30 dinner, the inspiration for Chefs Jen Datka and Emily Park came from the idea of handcrafted and locally made casatiello, a traditional bread studded with cheese and cured meat, and a dessert of . As has been true since last year, all the dinners of this pop up supper club for social justice always benefit a cause. This dinner was no different – all proceeds benefited OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon.
I’ve enjoyed many dinners with them before which I have recapped on this blog previously – from a Seollal Koraen New Year Dinner to Apericena Springtime Sicilian Cocktail Party to their a Breaking Bread party with Nostrana. For this dinner, it was my first time learning about OPAL and their work
Starters
As the various guests trickled in and were shown to their seats at the various dinner tables, each party was given a starter plate of Piccolo Fritto Misto with lovage aioli that included fried oyster as well both fried and raw vegetables.
First Course
For this dinner one of the highlights was the giant loaves of housemade Casatiello, a traditional bread studded with cheese and cured meat – specifically here in Meadowlark’s version, pancetta, cacio di roma, and green garlic. I think I had 3 helpings of this!
We enjoyed this bread with a light, perfect encapsulation of springtime dish of Nettle Tortellini en Brodo with spring vegetables and mint oil
Dessert
Dessert was an unique dish I had never heard of, and which had similarly intrigued Chefs Emily and Jen in trying to figure out how does this weird sounding combination work, and how to make it work using local seasonal ingredients here. Here is their final version: Spring Wheat Pastiera with rhubarb compote and pistachios. It’s a traditional Italian cake with ricotta and wheatberries!
This whole dinner was fantastic, but really all their dinners always are. You can really taste the freshness because of how the ingredients are acquired at the peak of their seasonality from local farms in the area and not mussed around too much so their natural flavors really shine, but are respectfully and expertly coaxed by Chefs Jen and Emily.
And just because, here is that housemade casatiello, with pancetta, cacio di roma, and green garlic one more time.
They are doing this dinners once a quarter, so make sure you follow their newsletter and social media. They have been working with Feastly PDX (referral link with $10 credit) for their tickets and venue, and if you haven’t tried Feastly before, sign up! It’s a great way to be informed of some great pop up restaurants in one place without having to follow lots of individual accounts and track them, and Feastly operates in several cities.
Which of these dishes sounds like it’s something you want to try?
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