KA-POW! Bar

KA-POW! Bar

Sahagún, $6

Coffee and cacao have so much in common--they're both the pungent, oily seeds of exotic plants, both luxuries that have become part of our everyday lives. The quality of either finished product is the result of a long chain of variables such as varietal, roast, and terroir. And of course they're great tastes that taste great together: we melt chocolate into coffee drinks and smother coffee beans in chocolate.

Now Portland confectioner Elizabeth Montes has taken the coffee-chocolate parallel one delicious step further with KA-POW!, a bar that's not merely flavored with coffee, but actually made from it. The only ingredients are cocoa butter, coffee, and sugar. The cocoa butter binds the whole thing together, giving KA-POW! the "physicality of chocolate" and amplifying the heady scent and robust flavor of the coffee. Sugar is added to the mix at just the right moment, seeding the creamy matrix with contrastingly crunchy crystals.

Each bar features a single-origin coffee from Portland area small-batch roasters such as Water Avenue Coffee, Extracto, Ristretto, and Stumptown. A KA-POW! bar made from Extracto's Sumatra Permati has all the tangy gaminess of a strong shot--but in a more portable format.

Speaking of portable, check out other travel-appropriate treats at WanderFood Wednesday.

Sweet Masterpiece

Bleu Cheese Truffle

Sweet Masterpiece, $2.50

Like the miso paste in matsukaze cake, aged blue cheese is a robustly umami foodstuff--rich, satisfying, and almost meaty. Although it is capable of adding a savory baseline to sweet treats, it is much more apt to drown out any softer flavors that try to share its stage.

Portland chocolatier Crystal Pyatt achieves a rare balance with her bleu cheese truffle, producing a tiny treat that bursts with complementary flavors. She blends three types of cheese into a silky, butter-soft dark chocolate ganache, covers each ball in a thin shell of dark chocolate, and tops it off with a few flakes of toasted nuts.

The bleu cheese truffle's only weakness is a short shelf life, thanks to the inherently moldy cheese. For the time being, it is only available at Sweet Masterpiece in Portland's Pearl District. This choco-centric cafe and winebar also features desserts, drinking chocolate, wine tastings, and live jazz.

Sweet Masterpiece

922 NW Davis St

Portland, OR

503/221-0055 ‎

Nuvrei Pastries

Monkey Bread,

Nuvrei Pastries, $2.50

From a subterranean kitchen in Portland's Pearl District, Nurvei Pastries produces a variety of traditional and contemporary French treats. Nurvei mostly sells wholesale to area restaurants and coffee shops, but the bakery itself keeps a small case stocked with fresh treats for passersby. Although a perky pink sandwich board on the street that welcomes you in, the experience itself is a tiny bit intimidating; the bustling bakery is tucked away inside and downstairs, and you'll be waited on by a baker in full kitchen whites who, though gracious, certainly has more urgent things to tend to (I won't even answer the phone if I have a sheet of cookies in the oven--much less 100 hand-folded croissants!). Happily, work is underway on a ground floor cafe, and you'll still be able to watch the bakers toil through basement windows set into the sidewalk outside.

Since I was there on a windy day I opted against one of Nurvei's handsome croissants, imagining it shattering at the first gust and dusting me with golden, buttery shrapnel. Monkey bread was a perfect choice for a wandering snack: a loose jumble of diced apple and cubes of butter-rich croissant dough, spiced with a generous amount of cinnamon.

Nuvrei

404 NW 10th Avenue

Portland, OR

503/546-3032‎
Check out Wanderfood Wednesday for more on-the-go foods...

Zorba's Chocolates

Raw Chocolate Confections
Zorba's Raw Chocolate, $29/12 pieces

My parents recently and temporarily relocated to Ashland, Oregon, a small town just north of the California border. Ashland is home to Southern Oregon University, Mt. Ashland, the world-famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival, lots of galleries, some great restaurants, a few notable nudists, and enough Tibetan prayer flags to swaddle Mt. Everest. It's an artsy, foodsy, outdoorsy, high-brow hippy haven, the kind of place you could call "granola"--if by "granola" you mean hand-harvested heirloom grains frosted with honeysuckle nectar and trampled flat by yearling llamas under the light of a new moon.

In short, it's a place I enjoy visiting, not least for the unusual experience of feeling comparatively conservative.

At a gorgeous flower shop on the main drag I discovered a display of fine chocolate and one unfamiliar brand. Zorba's Raw Chocolate confections were set out under old-fashioned glass domes; at first sight they reminded me of gems or rare orchids, and after a little research I learned just how apt that impression was.

Zorba's confections are "Raw, Dark, and Divinely created," made in Ashland using single origin Ecuadorian cacao grown by a co-operative of small farms. While cacao in its natural state contains a wealth of nutrients and antioxidants, many of these break down at the high temperatures associated with conventional chocolate manufacturing. By contrast, "raw" chocolate is never allowed over 118 degrees, thus conserving more of the cacao's natural health benefits. According to Zorba's literature, "Cacao in its raw, unroasted form, contains more antioxidants/gram than any other fruit or vegetable on earth," and raw chocolate contains upwards of 300% more free-radical-fighting antioxidants than even best conventional dark chocolate.

Zorba's confections start with organic raw cacao powder and raw cacao butter. To that they add coconut oil as an emulsifier, and a range of flavorings from sources near and far. In lieu of refined sugar, Zorba uses sweeteners such as raw honey, maple syrup, stevia, dates, aromatic oils, Jerusalem artichoke syrup, and maca and lucuma (respectively, a naturally sweet Andean root vegetable and fruit). More assertive flavors come from ginger, matcha, cayenne, mesquite, Himalayan sea salt, and coffee (locally roasted, fair trade, and shade grown).

Pictured above, Zorba's truffle range (left-right, top-bottom): ginseng and cardamom, cayenne/coconut, pure dark, maca-roon, vanilla "karamel", bing cherry, espresso, rose "karamel", and ginger and green tea. I found the texture of the ganache a little dry and crumbly, but in a way that was rustic or hearty rather than off-putting. The standout for me was the rose "karamel", a sweet and creamy concoction made from medjool dates, essential oil, and salt; nothing like a caramel, nothing like a rose cream, but totally delicious.

And the health benefits? While I can't say whether or not Zorba's confections added moments to my life, I can attest that they made me feel better in the short term. I was so intrigued by them that I broke my own two-truffle rule, sampling my way through one after another in quick succession. When I realized just how much I'd eaten I began to dread the impending rush/crash, but it never came. Instead, I just felt good--well-fed, satisfied, and content. Much as I love chocolate, that's not how too much of a good thing usually makes me feel.

Crazy Dave's Ginger Brew

Ginger Brew
Crazy Dave's Organic Sodaworks, $3

What is it about the water in Bend that makes people want to ferment it?  In addition to Bend Brewing and the Deschutes Brewery, Bend is also home to the non-alcoholic delights of Crazy Dave's Organic Sodaworks: "We make the best Ginger Brew on Planet Earth (which is the only known planet in our solar system to grow ginger)". Unlike most sodas, Crazy Dave's deliciously sweet-spicy Ginger Brew has an abbreviated list of ingredients:  ginger, evaporated cane juice, and lemon juice.  It's available in cafes and shops in Redmond, Eugene, and Bend ("Be sure to pound your fist on the counter as you demand a taste of the "World's Finest Ginger Brew!"), as well as at selected markets and tasting events in Portland and Sisters (at least according to the 2009 market schedule posted on Crazy Dave's website).

Sparrow Bakery

The Sparrow Bakery

Bend's historic ironworks district now houses an eclectic assortment of post-industrial businesses, including an experimental theater, a pottery center, and one of the best bakeries I've ever come across. The Sparrow Bakery nestles inside an appealingly weathered brick cube; there's a small area given over to indoor seating but most of the space is devoted to producing and displaying magnificent baked goods.

One of the house specialties is the Ocean Roll (bottom center, $3.25), a swirl of hand-folded croissant dough laced with cardamon and brown sugar. The texture was absolutely perfect--the crisp, flaky outside giving way to layer upon layer of tender pastry flesh as I unrolled it. It tasted of fresh butter and exotic spices, with occasional hits of caramel wherever the melted brown sugar had pooled in the pastry's nooks and crannies.

The Sparrow also serves Stumptown coffee, salads, and a roster of creative sandwiches (they call them "sandoh").

The Sparrow Bakery
50 SE Scott Street
Bend, OR
541/330-6321

Camp Fire Candy

Camp Fire Candy

At the Bend (Oregon) Historical Society there is currently a temporary display commemorating the 100th anniversary of the youth organization now known as Camp Fire USA. Among the artifacts are boxes (presumably empty) of fundraising sweets including Camp Fire Mints and confections by Almond Roca and Russell Stover.

As a survivor of numerous Girl Scout cookie campaigns, I was interested to learn that Camp Fire kids went through much the same rite of passage:

"Almost everyone involved with Camp Fire as a child can remember standing on a front porch with the weight of a cardboard case full of Camp Fire Mints digging into their fingers as they reached to ring the doorbell.

"Youth members have been selling candy since the organization's early days. The unrestricted revenue is used to fund outstanding Camp Fire programs, and clubs and individuals earn incentives including free camp.

"Today, sales are to friends, relatives, and to retail sites."

Powell's Sweet Shoppe

Powell's Sweet Shoppe

Stepping from the bright, tidy streets of downtown Bend into Powell's Sweet Shoppe is like entering a murky Jungian cave of repressed desires. As your eyes adjust, memories begin to materialize from the gloom--Zots and Skittles and Pop Rocks and Lik-m-Stix and gummies in a dozen revolting shapes. Powell's is both archive and warehouse, stuffed to the rafters with half-remembered names and half-forgotten flavors.

The original Powell's opened in 2003 in Windsor, CA, in the town's faux Victorian downtown. Powell's is modeled on what the company describes as "an old-time, old-fashioned, old-world candy store taken from America's imagination." It proved to be a compelling form of treat-based time travel; the first franchise opened in 2006, and there are currently 17 branches in California and Oregon. The Bend store opened in 2008.















One of the things that I find endlessly fascinating about candy and other sweets is their disarming ability to connect certified grown-ups to a time when both treats and threats were more intense. Powell's seems to share this view, at least in part: "On the surface we sell ice cream and sweets, but you don't have to stand in the Shoppe too long before you realize that what we really offer are memories...And that is precisely our goal. We want to walk our customers down memory lane and remind them of good things and good times."

Of course, childhood memories are rarely as unambiguously sunny as marketers might like to believe. For me every step into Powell's triggered new and complicated memories: there were the mints my late grandfather favored, the drops I remember from a kind neighbor's candy dish, the novelty gum I saved my allowance to buy but always found disappointing, the candy the rich families used to give out on Halloween. As sweets-centric as I am, Powell's was more like a fever dream than a saunter down memory lane.

Powell's Sweet Shoppe
818 NW Wall Street
Bend, OR
541/617-9866