I have interviewed hundreds of brewers, dozens of whom told me that they got their start when someone bought them a Mr. Beer homebrew kit. I've interviewed scores of doughnut bakers, yet Erick and Kate Capellino, the husband-and-wife team behind the new Bend Yay, are the first to tell me they got their start "when one of our best friends gifted us a couple boxes of the Café du Monde mix."
The Capellinos first learned about beignets from the 2014 film, "Chef," in which Jon Favreau's character takes his son to Café du Monde in New Orleans on a cross-country foodie foray. In short, any trip to The Big Easy mandates a visit to the famous café for its famed beignets. A beignet, in case you're not in the glutenous, gluttonous know, is what they used to call French Market doughnuts. They're not terribly complex: start with rolling pâte à choux (pastry dough) over a large baking sheet, cut it into squares, fry 'em up so they look and feel like miniature pillows, then blanket them in enough powdered sugar to look like the peak of Bachelor in February. (Well, that's the Café du Monde way; its largest competitor, Morning Call, serves its beignets nude with shakers of powdered and granulated sugar at each table. And not to throw Monkless Brasserie under the bus, but the beignets served there are gourmet doughnut holes.)
New Orleans is, of course, a melting pot (or a gumbo pot) of cultures, but its Acadian influence remains strong thanks to having been under French rule for most of the 18th Century. Laisses les bons temps rouler.
So, after the Capellinos moved from Portland to Bend in 2020, and after they fell in love with beignets, "We were sitting around the table with friends talking about food that Bend was missing," said Erick Capellino. "There aren't a ton of sweets here and nothing quite like a beignet. We started thinking about names for the business when Kate yelled out, 'BEND-YAY, get it?' We kept saying Bend-Yay over and over that night."
Now, I happen to have just traveled to NOLA for the primary purpose of attending Beignet Fest. Imagine a food festival in an area the size of Hayden Homes Amphitheater. Now imagine a sell-out crowd. Yeah, there was live music (because it's New Orleans!) but the headliners, the beignets, really are that popular. While they're mostly adorned only with powdered sugar, being the best food town in America and possibly the world, you can sometimes find them with, say, chocolate dipping sauce, or praline sauce or served savory with crawfish étouffée or shrimp rémoulade. My favorite savory one at Beignet Fest was stuffed with Caribbean jerk chicken and my favorite sweet one was topped with warm pear compote, melted brie and fresh thyme.
But the Capellinos don't want to simply make Louisiana-style beignets. They dreamt up Oregon-style beignets.
Explained Capellino, "With any type of fusion you really want to tie two things together to make something new, fun and tasty. Our beignets are true to NOLA at the core. But Oregon is where we call home and are raising our family. Oregon has so many great flavors to provide and we wanted to incorporate that into our menu." Thus far, flavors include Juniper, desert sage, hazelnut and marionberry. The first two are made with those high desert herbs blended into powdered sugar, while the other pair are made into syrups for drizzling. IMHO, I think Juniper works best, but truly enjoy them all. "We wanted people that have been to NOLA and had beignets there feel that nostalgia, but also taste a little bit of Oregon too... We tell customers they are NOLA-inspired with an Oregon twist."
Bend Yay has popped up at farmers markets and special events. "Our goal is to have a permanent home with a food truck," said Capellino. "We have had so much fun doing these events so we plan on continuing them even when we find a permanent spot."
As for what else Bend Yay has up its sleeve, Capellino notes, "We have two new powdered sugar flavors that we will be rolling out at our next event, Redmond Holiday Village Market, in November. They are very Oregon-inspired and we hope they are a big hit."
As for me, I just hope that doesn't mean Coho (salmon) sugar and I do hope it means cohumulone (hop) sugar.
