Food & Drink

I love Thanksgiving.
How odd, you may think, for a vegetarian to love a holiday that encourages the mass slaughtering of millions of innocent turkeys. Well, I'm sorry, but I hate turkeys. On the other hand, I'm also not evil, so I don't want them to die.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday primarily because I'm partial to any day of the year on which you may consume as much food as humanly possible without having to face any judgment. (Not surprisingly, the Super Bowl is my second favorite holiday.)
It may also be the last remaining holiday that doesn't require you to buy stuff (aside from delicious food) in order to celebrate. You don't need presents, or costumes, or chocolates, or fireworks or anything else to celebrate like a real 'merican.
I think another reason that I love Thanksgiving is that it is also my dad's favorite holiday. So it was much to his chagrin when I announced my intentions never to dine on another winged friend for the rest of my days. There was wailing, there was gnashing of teeth and there most certainly was the reoccurring nightmare of Tofurky.

“I think I could do that.”
These are the words that began an otherwise normal 30-year-old man's trip down a road that ended with him attempting to eat a 6-pound burger. Actually, “6-pound burger” doesn't begin to describe something that contains six beef patties, six slices of bacon, 10 ounces of Black Forest ham, three fried eggs, six slices of cheese, grilled onions, tomatoes and lettuce. You could call it a sandwich, if you think sandwiches should be more than two feet tall, use grilled cheese sandwiches in place of buns and be named the Triple Bypass Challenge.
That's right, this item on the Sidelines Sports Bar and Grill menu is not a burger. It's a challenge and if you can eat it, along with a pound of french fries, in under an hour it's free. You're also rewarded with a T-shirt and a spot on the bar's Wall of Fame.
“No one could eat that,” I replied, but he persisted as we sat in a crowded Sidelines on a Sunday afternoon, he cheering on his beloved Denver Broncos and I providing a steady stream of smartass Tim Tebow jokes. But he didn't let it go… not that afternoon and not for the weeks that followed. He said he could pull this off and I started to believe him.

“This is like Thanksgiving!” was an apt and echoed declaration at last Saturday's sold-out Root Down Community Supper, a nearly four-hour, family style feast with the air of a holiday celebration rooted in the primal carnivorous lore of a country pig roast.
Diners gathered elbow to elbow around three long white tables that filled Primal Cuts' usually sparse showroom for the first in what will be a quarterly community supper built around seasonal local food. Along with Central Oregon Locavore, the organizers have revamped the Meet Your Farmer Dinners previously held at Common Table.
The festivities began at 6:30 p.m. with guests filing in the front door and adjusting from the bitter cold outside to the warm dim interior, removing winter layers and milling about. Wine was available for purchase, but many brought their own drinks from kombucha to growlers of Boneyard Beer which soon filled the tables that were adorned simply with tealight candles set in small carved out pumpkins.

Since moving to Bend, I've noticed some things about well-established, long-standing eateries around town. Many reject social media and the internet, bypassing a website for word-of-mouth reviews and print advertising. I've also found that restaurants in Bend serve specific niche markets including the business lunch crowd, the hungry student crowd and the stay-at-home mom crowd. I often find myself in the thick of it: lunching amongst Bend's tie-wearing elite and hitting happy hour among value-seeking students later that day. Each niche group would probably argue that they go to the best restaurants, but “best” is subject to personal opinion.
For some, the best restaurant might be the one that serves the most food for the least amount of cash. For others, it's the one with the most organic options, while the status seekers believe the best restaurant is that one that drizzles truffle oil on everything. I'm regularly surprised by the many options for the best food in town. Having heard that Los Jalapenos serves some of the best Mexican food, I visited it on a Saturday afternoon.

From a common seed of discontent and passion, Bend will be home this weekend to both the Occupy Bend rally, a local outpost for the expanding national Occupy Wall Street movement, and the second-annual Real Food and Resistance Conference (RFRC) organized by Bend native, Casey Corcoran. While both events grapple with the fallout of economic problems and disenfranchisement, the RFRC is anchored in food.
Through a two-day series of lectures, films and open community discussions at the PoetHouse in downtown Bend, the RFRC is trying to work outside of the framework of preconceived political dogma and demands and the comforts of sugar-coated “buy local” campaigns to look at food as a means of re-localization and empowerment.
“Our focus is food,” explained Corcoran, “because food is fundamental to everyone's daily life and it's intimately connected to all the other crises we are facing, it's the real crux.”