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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2011)
eatout • OREGON S LGBTO NEWSMAGAZINE APRIL 15. 2011 In a city full of bacon-loving former, vegans, queer Portlander Berlin Reed is giving more than lip service to the idea that eating meat can be ethical, too. His labor of love, The Ethical Butcher, serves as an umbrella for a multitude of meaty projects aimed at revolutionizing the way animals end up on menus. W hat started as an odd job behind the butcher counter of a small New York grocer—odd given that Reed was expect ing to work with cheese, and also because he didn’t even eat meat at the time—has turned into a passion that allows Reed to incorporate his. food politics into his re newed respect for meat eating. “Being a vegetarian for most of my Drawing inspiration from “favorite conscious life meant that I came to cocktails, dominant spices in certain re butchery with a very different background gional cuisines and crackpot flavor com than most butchers,” Reed, 28, explains. bos,” Reed has compiled a little black “I’d say the way my veg days show up is book of more than 80 bacon varieties. that I am always interested in talking There are the “fruity and floral,” such as [about] politicizing my food, a very veg Tea and Cake (candied spiced orange and person thing to do.” lemon preserves and jasmine and chamo Hailing from San Francisco, Reed had mile teas); the “spiked and spicy,” includ been a vegetarian for 14 years when he ing I’ll Love You Until My Veins Explode started working as a butcher in 2008. (guajillo, pasilla, ancho, habaneTo and W hile his abstention from meat began as Scotch bonnet chiles, cherry preserves an act of preteen rebellion, it persisted and espresso); and the “deep, dense and because of a sense of compassion for the dark,” with such indulgent varieties as way animals suffer in factory farms. When Box of Chocolates (raw cocoa nibs, dark he realized it was possible to ensure that chocolate and amaretto with a coconut- meat came from animals that lived and almond crust). died well, Reed figured it was safe to step “I play with bacon because it’s fun. I get off the wagon. to take this common yet beloved food, spin After biting off a baptismal hunk of it around and do crazy new things with it rib-eye on the job, Reed was converted, and then bring it back to blow minds and eventually setting out to share The Bacon palates and guess what? It’s still just ba Gospel with communities across the con,” Reed says. “That’s the fun, stretching country. In each city, he found local heri the limits of this very traditional and es tage breed pork and combined it with a sentially unchangeable food. Each of my rich assortment of other local flavors, al now 80-plus flavors taste unlike any bacon lowing him to highlight hometown pur you’ve ever tasted, yet each one tastes just veyors of produce, spirits and coffee. like bacon should.” J9>: Mississippi Rising Bleeding Heart Butcher Berlin Reed brings a vegetarian sensibility to meat eating 19 b y e r in r o o k Q Center gets fresh for inaugural farmers market £ <s> Bacon for it: Berlin Reed in an ethical butchering demonstration In addition to creating specialty cured meats, Reed organizes whole animal din ners, helps run The Butcher’s Guild and writes about ethical butchery. He even has a book in the works, part memoir of his transition from vegetarian to butcher and part how-to-eat-meat guide, and he’s currently working on a film project. “M y drive right now is in working for this movement for a sustainable meat sys tem,” Reed explains. “M y work, my events and writing, these are my contributions to the movement and to my community. Putting on events like Primal Cuts at the Ace back in November, where over 100 queer artists and DJs were mixing it up with food bloggers and farmers over a ta ble brimming with insanely decadent lo cal meaty goodness and a wall of photos of animals from many of the farms I’ve visited—that is what my work is about." BY RYAN J. PRADO » © To learn more about The Ethical Butcher, visit theethicalbutcher.com, and read the fu ll interview with Berlin Reed at justout.com. It’s no secret that Portland loves it some farmers markets. Regardless of which quad rant of the metro area you reside in, fresh produce, artisan crafts and organic wares of all shapes and stripes are within but an arm’s reach. Ali W illiams, Q_ Center’s new special events and projects intern, knew this too, which is why one of her first undertakings at PDX’s much loved LGBTQJiome base was to organize Market Beginning Saturday, May 7, Market Q_will offer up fresh fruits, vegetables and other goods like cupcakes, pies, vegan cheese, crafts and cof fee from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the center’s parking lot (4115 N. Mississippi Ave.).The market runs every Saturday through September 3, save for during the Mississippi Street Fair on July 9, when the center’s parking lot will be in use. The closest farmers market to the Missis sippi District’s bustling milieu is the Interstate Farmers Market, located at 3500 N. Interstate .Ave. next to Overlook Park, operating Wednesday evenings from 3 to 7 p.m. W il liams decided that starting up a weekly farm ers market in the heart of the pedestrian-heavy business sector of Mississippi Avenue—and on a regular weekend morning—would be a twofold beneficial operation. “I really wanted to be more active within the community that we exist in,” says Williams. “A lot of people use the center, but I wanted to expand that and have a way for not just visibil ity within the LGBTQcommunity, but also to partner up with all citizens that come— tourists, and people from all surrounding neighbor hoods. I thought it would be a really good way to bring the community together.” Williams says the vendor lineup is likely to change from week to week, providing oppor- i------------------------------------------------------------------------- i toastpdx.com 503774-1020 Dine w ith Family e n jo y o u r Happy Hour w eek d ays 2 - 6 p.m . 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