Monthly Archives: January 2011

Making Monastery Mustard in the kitchen - Benedictine Sisters in Mt. Angel, Oregon; photo by Jan Jackson

MT. ANGEL, Ore. – The parable of the mustard seed is still alive and well and the proof shows up on a weekday mornings when the Benedictine sisters of Mt. Angel make and bottle their Monastery Mustard. What started out as a hobby and a simple fundraiser for Sister Terry Hall, is today is an Oregon product with nationwide sales.

The process starts in the monastery kitchen at 4:30 am, proceeds to the dining room where a crew of a dozen or so sisters bottle, label and box it and from there it goes to their shipping department. The fruits of their labor help fund a year-round 11-family shelter.

The recipe

“We started in 1988, with a recipe that came from a husband and wife team that volunteered for six months in our shelter,” Sister Terry said. “It was her mothers recipe but she gave it to us because she thought it would make a good fundraiser. I made a few batches and it sold well in one of the Oktoberfest booths and at one of our auctions. Then I started experimenting with the recipe and now it’s a full-time job.

Early morning shows Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel bottling their award winning mustard; photo by Jan Jackson

“First I added garlic and everyone seemed to like that so then I tried honey mustard. When we had a little honey mustard and garlic mustard left over and I combined them and that turned out to be a good seller too.  We now have 14  flavors, two of which are seasonal. In July and August we have blueberry, and in November and December we make an Orange Cranberry.”

Sister Terry

Sister Terry, who starts her mustard making days in the kitchen 30-minutes before the others, is definitely the leader in the mustard making business.

“I like straight flavors,” Sister Terry said. “I don’t add other spices like a lot of people do. We cook a pot of basic recipe and then add specific flavor ingredients to it afterwards. The only batch I ever lost in the 20-some years was one I tried cooking all the

Sr. Terry Hall, OSB Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel, Oregon; photo by Jan Jackson

ingredients together in a huge steamer pot. I had six batches in it and then discovered I couldn’t control the temperature so I lost it all. I never did that again.

Business 101

Before the Sisters hit the market with their product, they enrolled in Business 101 at the Food Innovation Center in Portland.

There they learned to work out the nutrition value tables and designs on the labels, the testing, shelf life and how to pull together supplies needed for the quantities they planned  make.

“We cooked in their kitchen and they helped us experiment with the best ways to do things,” Sister Terry said. “We first hit the market seriously with our product in July 2005 and June 12, 2007 went LLC. Our first December sales were out of sight and they continued to be.

The sisters supply a lot of mustard for Oktoberfest and the new Glockenspiel Restaurant in Mt Angel. They also sell through a number of stores throughout Oregon, the United States and on the Internet.

“We do our own packing and shipping out of one of our two-car garages here,” Sister Terry said. “The good thing is that I will be getting an assistant and I’m looking forward to that.

“I got my love of experimenting with food from my grandmother, but when people ask me the success of our Monastery Mustard, I tell them we believe it is the prayer, the mustard seeds and just the right kind of vinegar.”

For more information

To find out more, contact Sr. Terry Hall, OSB, Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel, 840 S. Main street, Mt. Angel, OR 97362: phone 503-949-6321 or toll-free 1-866-847-0885: email sisterterry@monasterymustard.com or visitwww.monasterymustard.com.

A recipe using Monastery Mustard

Recipe using Glorious Garlic: 2 cups chopped chicken, 1/2 cup finely chopped celery, 4 cups chopped hard boiled eggs, 4 chopped green onions  1/2 cup (or desired texture) mayonaise and 2 tablespoons Glorious Garlic Monastery Mustard.

Jan Jackson ©2011 - See Jan Jackson’s Bio

Woodburn, Ore. – Barb Iverson, the fifth of six children born to Willamette Valley farmers, parlayed her cut flower stand into what this year will be the 26^th annual month-long Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm Fest. Between March 25 and May 1, 2011, the festival will draw more than 150,000 visitors from all over the world.

The beginning

“The idea that led to the festival came in 1985 during lunch with  a couple of friends,” Iverson said. “I came home and with the help of my family, fashioned a poly tarp and some pieces of PVC pipe into a couple of green houses, brought in some crates and wheelbarrows of cut flowers, put up some signs along the road and people stopped and bought flowers. After that it just kept getting bigger and this year is no exception.”

Mt. Hood gives a finishing touch to a field of tulips at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm during the annual tulip festival; photo by Barb Iverson

The Iverson family grows and harvests grass seed, wheat, sweet corn and green beans plus 60 acres of tulips and daffodils. During the festival, weekday visitors may enjoy a variety of activities in addition to strolling the fields, buying cut flowers and ordering bulbs for fall planting. On the weekends (there will be six this year), everything is kicked up a notch with food, wine and a long list of family activities.

Iverson’s office, where she also manages the finances for all of the Iverson farm operations, overlooks the tulip fields where the festival takes place.

A love of agriculture

Iverson – herself a volunteer fire fighter and EMT for her local fire department, is a board member of the Oregon Farm Bureau and the Monitor Co-op  and an executive committee member for the Oregon Association of Nurseries – has created fundraising opportunities at the Tulip Fest for local Cub Scouts, students from Woodburn and Gervais High Schools and local Kiwanis and Rotary clubs.

Making memories

“I come from parents who believe serving their community is the right thing to do

Barb Iverson, parlayed a cut flower stand into an annual month-long Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm Fest held in Woodburn Oregon March 25 - May 1; photo by Jan Jackson

and that is what this family does,” Iverson said of her volunteer commitments. “However, I do enjoy the challenges inherent in agriculture, the innovation necessary, the step-up and move into that next phase and I get a great deal of satisfaction from the feedback we get from families who tell us about the  wonderful memories they have made by coming back to the tulip fields year after year.“

Though now retired, Lou Jane Cornwell, one of the two friends that inspired Iverson over lunch, never misses a trip to the festival.

“Oh, you bet I go out to the festival,” Cornwell said. “I wouldn’t miss it. I love tulips and buy fresh bulbs every year and I love to shop in the gift shop. I don’t remember Marge and I being that inspiring but, if we were, I’m glad because it has been a wonderful thing.”

For more information on the festival, maps to the farm or other questions, call the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm at 503-634-2243, or 1-800-711-2006 or visit www.woodenshoe.com.

Jan Jackson ©2011 – See Jan Jackson Bio

A Douglas fir David Douglas planted at Scone Palace in Scotland; photo by Jan Jackson

… Western Oregon is full of Douglas fir trees and since David Douglas named them, I think of him every time I see one.  That’s why  I just read another book on him  called The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Pacific Northwest, by Jack Nisbet (Sasquatch Books 2009, and now in paperback).

In the other books I’ve read on David Douglas, I learned that in 1823, after Scotland came up with fences to keep sheep and cattle off the castle grounds, the horticulture society sent him to America to gather seeds so they could finally make those grounds beautiful. This time I learned more about his time and his place in the history of the Pacific Northwest. I didn’t realize for instance, that he was here only 20 years after Lewis and Clark came through doing their thing.

Though Nisbet is far too timid in qualifying everything he says with phrases s like “he could have, should have, would have, may have, possibly had etc.,” he still wrote a book that gives both the novice and the naturalist a great feel for the history of the Pacific Northwest.

It was a good book for me to read while sitting on my hot rock on a cold day in January. I liked it.

Luv,

Sissy

Developed from an overgrown marshland meadow with a creek running through it into a showcase for more than 300 varieties of rhododendrons, azaleas, primroses and hardy perennials, the  Connie Hansen Garden is the product of a 20-year dawn-to-dusk effort  by  late botanist and avid natural collector Connie Hansen.  There are blooms for every season in this lush hideaway located at 1931 NW 33rd Street on the north end of Lincoln City. The one-acre garden, which accepts donations, is free and open to the public year-round. To learn more, visit http://www.conniehansengarden.com/

One of three skateboard Cradles in the world is in Lincoln City, Oregon; photo by Tom Miller

… Kirtsis Park (8,000 square-foot outdoor facility), is home of one one of the gnarliest skate parks in the United States. It has more than 100 lines to challenge boarders of all skill levels. A short distance away in another 8600 square-foot facility (of which 5600 are under cover), is one of three Cradles in the world that allows the boarder to skate upside down.  For more information, visit www.oregoncoast.org.