Report From The Road - Portland

Yesterday was a great day. The sun actually re-emerged from behind the clouds and illuminated the 256 shades of rain-wrought green so prevalent in the Pacific Northwest. The demos and meetings that we conducted yesterday went very well. We really love New Seasons Market. We were fortunate to get to see our friend Eric Rose at New Seasons yesterday. Eric has been a real proponent of our product in Portland and we can't articulate how much we appreciate his support, attitude, and world-view.

We were also fortunate enough to be able to enjoy lunch at Provvista (our most excellent distributor here in the Northwest) yesterday. We caught the tail end of a seminar on Stilton (an amazing cheese that is like a blue cheddar) and enjoyed lunch with the Provvista crew. They are an exceptional group and their passion for food is both infections and encouraging. The quality of their staff and the products thay represent is second to none. It is an honor to have Provvista represent our products.

Thanks to everyone at Provvista especially Tim, Ben, Alex, and Randy Montgomery.

One of the most impressive things about the Portland food scene is how humble, friendly, receptive, and generally cool all of the food people are up here. Despite the fact that Portland has long had a number of great restaurants, the Portland food scene has only recently emerged as a force with which to be reckoned. Despite all of the recent attention and acclaim, the city's top chefs are a very friendly and humble group dedicated to supporting local, artisinal producers. We want to thank the Portland chefs who have supported us in the past. We would also like to congratulate Vitaly Paley on his recent Beard award for Best Chef Northwest (the other three nominees were all from Seattle).

We also had a great meal last night on the Southeast side at "Three Doors Down." We were in excellent company, dining with Matt and Diana Schindler (friends of Dan's with whom Dan is staying) and the food was great as were the drinks and the service.