Chow: Eating Out

Now THAT YOU'VE READ the preceding story about dirty meat. . . let's go straight into planning dinner. Some of my favorite cooks have agreed to sacrifice their secret recipes here. Make one, or make them all, and have a best-of-Portland dinner party. If you're in town eating at any of the following places, chances are I'm at the next table.

THE ALIBI.

With sculpted hula dancers under black light, woven palm fronds and coconuts, this is Portland's answer to Gilligan's Island. Gilligan's Island. Portland's only tiki bar, the Alibi is at 4024 N Interstate Avenue. Phone: 503-287-5335. It's the summertime home of "Exotiki," the annual festival of bad tropical music, featuring twenty-four-hour pagan voodoo weddings. Wintertime, it's the stomping grounds for the Santa Rampage karaoke singers. Portland's only tiki bar, the Alibi is at 4024 N Interstate Avenue. Phone: 503-287-5335. It's the summertime home of "Exotiki," the annual festival of bad tropical music, featuring twenty-four-hour pagan voodoo weddings. Wintertime, it's the stomping grounds for the Santa Rampage karaoke singers.

DELTA CAFE.

According to cafe owner Anastasia Corya, these fritters make a great appetizer. According to cook and filmmaker Ryan Rothermel-whose films include Ampersand Ampersand and and Lover or Liver Lover or Liver-you might add two diced jalapeno peppers to the dip. These recipes are for restaurant quant.i.ties, so throw a party or do the math to cut them down. Better yet, go to the Delta Cafe at 4607 SE Woodstock Boulevard. There isn't a disappointment on the whole menu. Phone: 503-771-3101.

FRITTERS.

12 cups white flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons salt 12 eggs 5 cups milk pound b.u.t.ter, melted 4 cups com kernels, raw 4 cups cooked black-eyed peas (see recipe below)

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Heat an inch of vegetable oil in a frying pan and cook the fritters until golden brown.

FRITTER DIP.

5 pounds cooked black-eyed peas (8 cups) 1 27-ounce can diced green chiles 1 pound jack cheese (4 cups), grated pound b.u.t.ter, melted

Mix all the ingredients together. Put one-third in a food processor and blend it into a paste. Mix the paste back into the remaining two-thirds. Heat in a double boiler until the cheese is melted and smooth.

BLACK-EYED PEAS.

10 pounds dry black-eyed peas 1 bunch celery, chopped 2 yellow onions, chopped 4 carrots, sliced 4 tablespoons salt 2 tablespoons black pepper 2 bay leaves pound whole garlic cloves (about 1 cup), peeled

Put all ingredients in a stockpot and boil 45 minutes or until tender. Add water if needed.

FULLER'S RESTAURANT.

Come have breakfast or lunch with the locals, but don't leave without a loaf of Fuller s incredible fresh-baked bread. It's at 136 NW Ninth Avenue. Phone: 503-222-5608.

LE HAPPY.

Owner John Brodie also manages the band Pink Martini, a popular band here in the States but cult heroes in France. "When I've traveled with Pink Martini in the U.S. and France," John says, "we always seemed to find a good creperie. So I decided to open one here. So now when the French visit us, we can take them to an authentic creperie in Portland, Oregon." Wherever you are, check out the website www.lehappy.com. The restaurant is at 1011 NW Sixteenth Avenue. Phone: 503-226-1258.

LE HAPPY'S FAUX VEGAN CREPES.

Traditionally, crepes are served folded over in a half circle, or with the sides of the round crepe folded in to make a perfect square. To make at home, we've adapted this recipe to serve smaller rolled crepes.

Makes 8 crepes, 4 servings

BUCKWHEAT CREPE BATTER.

cup all-purpose flour cup buckwheat flour 1 cup whole milk 2 eggs cup water teaspoon salt Pepper to taste 2 teaspoons b.u.t.ter, melted Vegetable oil for frying

MUSHROOM RAGOUT.

1 pound mushrooms (about 6 cups), chopped 2 tablespoons b.u.t.ter 1 teaspoons porcini powder (see note) cup dry sherry Salt and pepper to taste 1 cup heavy cream 8 tablespoons Gruyere cheese (or Swiss), grated 2 cups fresh spinach, chopped 4 ounces mild goat cheese ('A cup) 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped teaspoon fresh thyme, minced 4 tablespoons cremefraiche (see note)

TO MAKE CREPES: Whisk together the white and buckwheat flour. Add the milk and eggs and stir to combine. Add the water, salt, pepper, and melted b.u.t.ter and stir until smooth. The batter should be the consistency of heavy cream.

Heat an 8-inch nonstick crepe pan (or omelet pan) over medium-high heat and brush lightly with vegetable oil. Pour cup batter into the hot pan and quickly tip and swirl to evenly coat the pan. Cook, over medium-high heat, until the bottom is golden brown. Flip and cook second side briefly. Remove to a warm plate. Repeat with remaining batter. Hold crepes in a warm oven until needed.

TO MAKE MUSHROOM RAGOUT: Saute the mush-rooms in the b.u.t.ter over medium-high heat until the mushrooms are tender and beginning to give up some of their liquid. Stir in the porcini powder and dry sherry and cook over high heat until the sherry is almost completely evaporated. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the cream. Cook over high heat until the cream is reduced and the sauce is thick. Taste and season again with salt and pepper if necessary. Keep warm until ready to fill crepes.

TO a.s.sEMBLE CREPES: Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place a warm crepe on a plate and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon Gruyere. Top with cup chopped spinach and one-eighth of the mushroom ragout. Crumble 1 tablespoon goat cheese over the mushrooms, and sprinkle with a mixture of parsley and thyme. Roll the crepe around the filling and arrange seamside down on a baking dish. Fill and roll remaining crepes and place in baking pan. Cover and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until crepes are heated through. Drizzle with creme fraiche and serve hot.

Note: Dried porcini mushrooms are available at specialty markets. To make porcini powder, pulverize dried mushrooms in a spice grinder or blender. Dried porcini mushrooms are available at specialty markets. To make porcini powder, pulverize dried mushrooms in a spice grinder or blender.

Creme fraiche is two parts heavy cream to one part b.u.t.termilk (blend, let stand overnight until thick, then refrigerate).

WESTERN CULINARY INSt.i.tUTE.

Portland's old guard of rich cheapskates don't want you to know this little secret of theirs. The waiters and chefs at the inst.i.tute have not just their jobs and wages riding on your satisfaction, but their grades and future as well. The dining room is sw.a.n.k and intimate, and the service is very snappy with no more than two tables per server. Fat's no issue-it's real b.u.t.ter and cream-and the food's terrific. All this and free parking. It's no wonder folks flock down from the West Hills for fine dining at a fast-food price.

The dining room is at 1316 SW Thirteenth Avenue. Phone: 503-294-9770. Lunch is served 11:30-1:00, five courses for $9.95. Dinner is served 6:00-8:00, six courses for $19.95. Thursday is buffet night, offering at least thirty-five items. Very important: Very important: Reservations are recommended at least a week in advance. Reservations are recommended at least a week in advance.

WILD ABANDON.

The building is a former link in the chain of Ginger's s.e.xy Saunas-several ma.s.sage parlor "jack shacks" that used to dot Portland in the 1970s. You can't get a handjob here, but you can get a great dinner, and breakfast on the weekend. Say h.e.l.lo to the owner, Michael c.o.x, and look for the actress Linda Blair, a vegan regular. The restaurant is at 2411 SE Belmont Street. Phone: 503-232-4458. The menu changes, but I always look for these:

DEAN BLAIR'S LEMON-LAVENDER SCONES.

1 cups flour tablespoon baking powder teaspoon baking soda cup brown sugar teaspoon salt pound cold unsalted b.u.t.ter, cubed 1 tablespoon lavender flowers Zest from one lemon cup b.u.t.termilk 1 small egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Add the cubed b.u.t.ter, lavender, and lemon zest. In a separate bowl combine the b.u.t.termilk, egg, and vanilla and whip with a fork. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the b.u.t.termilk mixture. Combine with a rubber spatula until just moistened. Transfer to a cookie sheet and form the dough into a wheel roughly 9 inches in diameter and inch thick. Score it into eight pie slices and top with brown sugar. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes.

(a postcard from 1986)

Somewhere a man's hollering about devils and demons. From some other hospital room he's bellowing and screaming about how the n.i.g.g.e.rs and f.a.gs are out to get him. You can hear him all over the third floor when he screams, "Get away from me, you c.u.n.t!" And his shouting just goes on and on.

This is Emanuel Hospital, the big medical complex at the east end of the Fremont Bridge. I'm here as a volunteer for a charity hospice. My job is to take people places, mostly relatives of dying people. Mostly, I drive visiting mothers from their motel to the hospital. After their son or daughter is dead, I might drive them to the airport for their flight home.

Today we're waiting for a man to die of AIDS while his mother sits beside his bed, holding his hand and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," again and again. It was his favorite song when he was a boy, she says. Now he's just bones and body hair, curled on his side under a thin knit blanket. A pump injects him with morphine every few seconds. His face has the slack look, yellow and dried, that means this is our last trip to the hospital.

The Mom is from Minnesota-I think. Maybe Montana. It's been my experience that n.o.body dies like in the movies. No matter how sick they look, they're waiting for you to leave. Around midnight, when I finally take his mom back to her Travelodge on E Burnside Street, when he's alt alone, then her son will die.

For now she sings "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," over and over until it doesn't make any sense. Until the words turn into a mantra. A bird's song. Just sounds without meaning. I look at my watch.

It's then the yelling starts. The rant about spies and n.i.g.g.e.rs and f.a.gs and c.u.n.ts. It's a man's voice, huge and hoa.r.s.e, shouting from some room nearby.

A nurse comes into the room to explain. The shouting man has taken a drug overdose, they really can't sedate him because they have no idea what drugs he's already taken. The nurse says the man's in restraints, down the hall, but we're all going to have to tolerate his shouting until he wears himself out.

Still, the man's shouting about gooks and kikes.

With each shout the dying son jerks a little, winces, and his mother stops singing. After a little while, a few automatic injections of morphine, the man's still shouting about demons and devils, and the Mom picks up her purse. She gets to her feet.

She goes to the door, and I follow.

She's giving up, I figure, heading back to the motel. To the airport. To Minnesota.

As we're going down the hospital hallway, the yelling gets louder, closer, until we're right outside the man's room. The door's half open, and inside is a curtain pulled shut around a hospital bed. The Mom goes in. She goes through the slit in the curtain.

The man's shouting, calling her a c.u.n.t. Telling her to get out.

I go to look, and the man's naked in bed, his hands and ankles buckled to the chrome bed rails with leather straps. He's huge, filling the whole mattress, and wrestles against the leather straps until every muscle pops up, huge with blood and veins, smooth with tattoos of snakes and women in bright red and blue. His face flush, he yells for the "f.u.c.king" nurse. She should "f.u.c.king get in here." His hands and ankles strapped down, he twists and fights. The way a fish arches and flops on hot sand. The inside of each arm is poked with IV needles. The skin scabbed from old injections.

The Mom sets her purse on the edge of his mattress. She says, "What pretty tattoos."

I remember that because it's the only thing she said. Then she takes a tissue out of her purse, an old, crumpled tissue.

You can't tell anyone about a naked man without getting to his p.e.n.i.s and b.a.l.l.s. They're the only part of him not fighting. And not covered with tattoos. His genitals are just red, wadded flesh in the nest of his black pubic hair.

At this point, I've been volunteering around hospitals since I was fourteen. Where I grew up, you had to perform several hundred hours of volunteer work to be confirmed in the Catholic Church. About the only place to do this was Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. Fourteen years old and I was cleaning delivery rooms. No rubber gloves, and I'm tossing out afterbirths. Washing coagulated blood out of stainless steel pans, I loved it. My other job in the hospital was dusting shelves in the pharmacy. A few years down the road and this would've been my dream job-me alone with this smorgasbord of painkillers-but for now, it was beyond boring.

Me, I thought I'd seen everything.

Here and now, the Mom uses the tissue from her purse to lift the man's limp p.e.n.i.s. It's about the size of a boneless thumb. She lifts it straight up and lets it flop back down. The man's b.a.l.l.s are cupped between his hairy thighs. He squirms to get away from her, but he can't.

Both of us standing inside the closed curtain, I don't stop her. My job is just to drive her around. And wait. I look at my watch, again.

The man's red-faced and shouting about the f.u.c.king devils. The demons are touching him. He's screaming for help.

The Mom, her hand puts the tissue back into her purse. And when her hand comes out, it's holding a baby pin.

The man's screaming. He's screaming, "f.u.c.k. c.u.n.t. n.i.g.g.e.r. f.a.g."