If you build it...

Today officially began the building of our base of operations for The Works. We were pleased to spend the afternoon in the workshop with Brother Giles. With TBA a little over a month away, time is of the essence. However, we can think of no better foreman for the job than BG. We look forward to spending the upcoming weeks in his presence learning, laughing, collaborating and just enjoying the process. We'll keep you posted on our progress. Stay tuned...

aperitivo happy hour

Ladies and Gentlemen

We're pleased to announce our involvement in this year's Portland Institute for Contemporary Art Time-Based Art Festival. TBA will run for ten days from September 9-19. The festival is eight years old this year and we're honored to be a part of this revered annual event. TBA's ad hoc base of operations and late-night gathering spot, The Works, is going to be located at Washington High School in SE Portland for the second year in a row. We've worked alongside festival organizers to put together an exciting program of food-based events throughout the festival's ten day run.

First to mention is the nightly taco stand that we'll be running at The Works. The stand will be open every night from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. We'll be serving meaty/veggie tacos and grilled Mexican style corn on the cob. Brother Giles Neale has designed and is building a dream beach-style palapa to house the operation. Pork belly tacos anyone?

Secondly, we'll be teaming up with the mighty Distillery Row to bring our Aperitivo happy hour uptown to The Works on Tuesday September 14 at 9:00 p.m. The Distillery Row Collective will be mixing up an impressive array of libations featuring locally distilled spirits and we'll be making myriad tapas-style snacks priced between $1-$4 to accompany the cocktails.

Next up, we'll be hosting a late-night Bloody Mary breakfast at The Works the last full night of festivities, Saturday September 18. The party will kick off around 11:00pm and the bar will be mixing up a bunch of inspired takes on this venerable breakfast staple, featuring our house-made pickles. In addition, we'll be selling breakfast sandwiches complete with our house-made Vietnamese sausage and the ridiculously delicious bread of Little T Bakery.

That brings us to the final act. We're overjoyed to be handling the festival's closing night dinner this year. On Sunday September 19, we'll be setting up tables underneath the two rows of towering trees in front of Washington High School for an extra special TBA edition of our monthly Market Dinner series. The three course dinner will be served family style and will feature wine from our dear friends at Cameron Winery in Dundee, Oregon. Dinner will begin around 6:30 p.m. We're currently visiting markets and talking to farmers to put together a menu that will best highlight the local seasonal organic produce available in mid to late September. Stay tuned for the menu and event updates. The dinner is priced at $45 per person with wine (gratuity not included). Please note that reservations are required for the closing night dinner. PICA is handling all ticketing for this event. Seats can be reserved in person at the TBA box office - the handsome shipping container in front of Washington High School - or online at www.pica.org.

We trust the rest of your summer will be splendid and hope you'll join us for at least one of these events in September. It's always nice to see you.

cheers,

Pork n Beans

Just a couple of shots from the run up to yesterday's Aperitivo happy hour. Those handsome slabs are pork bellies. After an overnight cure in salt/sugar, we braised them in a smoked pork broth and then crisped them with some nicely ripened peaches. Smokey, salty, sweet and delicious. They came out pretty darn good. Also those little legumes swimming in oil are ceci beans. We cooked them up with a bit of hibiscus and garlic and served them with a spicy harisa and some house cured salt cod. Pretty good as well. Stop on by our happy hour next week. It's always nice to see you

cheers

Join Us For Dinner In August

Tacos and Raspados

Photo by Jarkko Cain

Photo by Jarkko Cain

Photo by Jarkko Cain

photo by Patrick Leonard

Photo by Patrick Leonard

photo by Patrick Leonard

We're hard at play enjoying the great weather and long days. A few weeks back Holocene hosted our beloved PICA's 15th birthday party. The shots above are from the ad hoc taco and raspado stand that we opened for the night out in front of the space. I can't imagine how it could have been any more of an enjoyable evening. The sweltering afternoon heat made the cool raspados an instant hit. And those smoked pork tacos had even vegetarians a little weak in the knees We were sincerely overjoyed as friends, family and strangers strolled up to sample our humble take on a Mexican street party.

Thanks for coming out.

Salud!