I had the pleasure of attending the very festive and fun food event in Portland last weekend, Feast Portland: Celebration of Oregon Bounty. It was an absolute food lovers delight and was sponsored by Bon Appetit.

The session I attended was outdoors and was all about sampling delicious food and wine from artisans and companies from all around Oregon. There were also cooking demonstrations on a stage with all working appliances from Kitchen Aid, not like in my kitchen where the dishwasher is on it’s last leg – again!

My goal at Feast Portland was to stalk Mark Bittman but I never even saw him. Next year…

Always the best part of attending food related events is getting to see my blog friends – IRL – in real life. On Friday, I met up with Sandy Coughlin of Reluctant Entertainer and Carrie Minns of La Pomme de Portland.

The next day, which was thankfully about 15 degrees warmer outside and sunny, I met up with Sandy again and we were joined by Erina Rhodes Malarkey of Shut Up & Cook.

My family loved Feast, too – not because they came with me but because when I got home on Saturday, I brought the “Tillaphone” with me. You’re probably wondering what is a “Tillaphone?”

The “Tillaphone” is (well, it was, it’s gone now) a cellphone given out by Tillamook Cheese at Feast. The deal was that you could use the phone to call them and order a grilled cheese sandwich and they would deliver it to you. Free. You had to call between 11PM and 2AM, that night only. My kids thought this was the best thing ever!

So, we stayed up late watching a movie (Apollo 13, from the library) and I called promptly at 11PM (I set the timer on my stove, in case I fell asleep as I’ve been known to do during a movie) and the sandwiches arrived at 11:45PM. And then we watched Saturday Night Live with our teens because they had never seen it. (I couldn’t remember the last time I had watched it either!) It felt like New Year’s Eve and was so fun.

The sandwiches (plural, they brought us 4 and we devoured them!) tasted so good and were so cheesy and hot when they arrived. My husband and I added tomato slices from our garden to the sandwiches, to try and counteract eating so much cheese at midnight! Then we spent the week talking about how we should have split the sandwich and shared one instead of each of us eating the whole thing. Yes, I long for the metabolism of a teenager!

Tillamook Cheese was donating all of the cell phones to a women’s shelter, which impressed me that they had thought about how to recycle the phones. We also received a goodie bag for the next day with granola and yogurt.

Our delivery girl was sweet and let me snap her picture, right there in our kitchen.

My kids wish we could have kept the phone and how they miss their “Tillaphone” – and, yes, they’d like more sandwiches, please! Bring them after school or after soccer practice or just whenever. They kept saying, “Pound (#) Comfort Call” which is the hash tag on Twitter that Tillamook wanted recipients of the grilled cheese sandwiches to use. You can see the Tweet here.

If you still want to read more about Feast Portland, you’ll find lots of photographs from the event on OregonLive and Bon Appeit has some great articles about it, too.

Weekly Meal Plan

This meal plan is from Monday, September 17, 2012 to Sunday, September 23, 2012.

Monday: fish tacos with cole slaw (leftover)

Tuesday: pinto bean and cheese burritos with fresh salsa (we have so many tomatoes right now!) and sour cream chipotle sauce

Wednesday: pinto beans and brown rice bowl with fresh salsa and sour cream chipotle sauce (leftover)

Thursday: oven roasted chicken breasts (from freezer – we roasted these and then froze half for later use) quinoa and green salad

Friday: dumplings (freezer – we made these this past summer) and oven roasted broccoli

Saturday: whole wheat pasta with marinara (made from our freshly roasted tomatoes) and green salad

Sunday: pizza! homemade whole wheat pizza dough with a red sauce (made from those same roasted tomatoes) onions, artichokes, and cheese

My daughter made dinner on Saturday night. My son was supposed to make dinner on Sunday but claimed he was too sick. He did have a cold but I think he was too tired from staying up late the before. He’s on the schedule to make dinner tonight and tomorrow night for his make-up!

What’s for dinner at your house?

Take the night off and Let Your Kids Cook Dinner
More meal plan ideas are here
Sour cream chipotle sauce that is an excellent dip, too!
Just say no to baby carrots!
Go Gingham food philosophy – yes, there is one
New to cooking at home? Fear not!