7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2017
Bissinger: ‘I
feel there is a
great story to be
told in Astoria’
Continued from Page 1A
Washington. It was early in
the year.
“I remember there was
no sun,” Bissinger said. “It
wasn’t pouring rain, it was
just sort of spitting rain. And it
was the kind of place that just
seemed really, really cold.”
As they moved toward
the roiling Pacific Ocean, he
asked Smith, “‘How many
nice days do you get out
here?’ And Lisa said, ‘What,
are you kidding? This is a nice
day!’”
After a walk along the
beach, which they had all to
themselves, they drove to
Astoria, he said. It was the
first time he had ever been in
Oregon, and crossed the Asto-
ria Bridge.
“I’m not saying this to
please any of you,” he told
the audience. “For my money,
it is the greatest bridge in
America.”
When he drives on it,
he feels like he’s on top of
the Columbia River, gliding
across it, before taking the
high arc that reveals the hills
of Astoria. “I did feel like I
was entering another world. I
really did. I had never seen a
place like this.”
His heartbeat quickened.
He was mesmerized. The
town had become a new-
found source of excitement
and intrigue: “The Columbia,
the hills, the ocean, all of it
— the lore, the legacy, Lewis
and Clark, the Graveyard of
the Pacific.”
“You could tell right then
and there — and I felt it —
it was embedded with some-
thing magnificent, something
that was singular, something
that I think is the most valu-
able quality of all if we can
do it,” he said: “It was utterly
authentic. Totally authentic.”
As they drove through and
drank in the sights of the his-
toric community, they also
noticed: “All the men had
very long beards, and even
though it was raining really
hard at this point, no one
carried an umbrella, no one
wore a raincoat, no one had
any hats on,” he said, “as if it
wasn’t raining at all — like,
‘What’s your problem?’”
‘The right hook’
He and Lisa didn’t stay
long. And, for all Bissinger
knew, he would never be
back. “But the great thing
about life is that you just
never know,” he said.
Eventually, they pur-
chased a tiny getaway cottage
in Seaview and, later, a house
in Long Beach after selling
their home in Philadelphia.
Astoria, he learned, had
seen better days. The famous
waterfront canneries had shut
down. The city was no longer
as alive with fishing and ship-
ping and logging.
But now, when he crosses
the Astoria Bridge and
catches the hills of the city,
he sees “a town that has com-
pletely transformed, that
has completely rejuvenated,
that has put on a new coat of
clothing but has not lost its
authenticity.”
He credits this to people
in the community who are
committed to upholding the
town’s integrity, that have
made it both an arts showcase
and a place for artists to live
and thrive.
The town does have prob-
lems, many of them upshots
of success, he pointed out —
a lack of housing that Asto-
ria’s workers can afford, for
example.
“As a place grows and
prospers, as Astoria has done,
so do prices, often to the det-
riment of those who truly live
here.”
He offered a warning:
“And so, Astoria, as it grows,
you cannot sell your soul out
to the vacationers, ’cause I’ve
seen that happen, and that can
be devastating.”
His journalist’s eyes, sea-
soned with more than 40
years of a consciously bear-
ing witness, remain trained on
Astoria’s unfolding narrative.
“I continue to do in Asto-
ria — I continue to do in
the Northwest — what I’ve
done all my life as a writer: I
observe it. I get excited by it. I
do feel that kind of wonderful
and profound stimulation,” he
said. “And I do wonder at the
stories that are here to be told.
I feel there is a great story to
be told in Astoria, if you can
find the right hook.”
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Jennifer and Micha Cameron-Lattek took over Street 14 Cafe in downtown Astoria, expanding into a seasonal weekend
dinner service in 2015. Street 14 will expand its lunch menu and try to hold prix fixe dinners at least once a month.
Cafe: Chef and his wife are launching a
prepped ‘meal kit’ delivery service in May
Continued from Page 1A
“Me and my wife are going
to be starting a meal kit, kind of
like Blue Apron mixed with”
community-supported agricul-
ture, Catalano said of his and
Sarah Cobb’s new venture..
Alimento — Italian for sus-
tenance — will deliver prepped
kits of about three meals a week
for two to four people. Catalano
said the couple plans to launch
the service in May, shortly after
he leaves Street 14.
“They will be recipes that
will be similar to what I was
making at Street 14,” but with
a simpler preparation, Catalano
said. “I hope to also include
a lot of the food preparation
directions I’ve become known
for.”
Dinner nights
Catalano said he was already
a regular at Street 14 when he
and the Cameron-Latteks con-
nected in late 2014 and hatched
the dinner service they started
in October 2015.
“With our expansion, and
having put in a full kitchen, we
felt like it was something we
wanted to try out,” said Jennifer
Cameron-Lattek.
Catalano said he was work-
ing part time at a few differ-
ent places to get the lay of the
Dwight Caswell/For The Daily
Astorian
Chef Andrew Catalano head-
ed Street 14 Cafe’s weekend
dinner service, which the
cafe started in late 2015 and
ended last weekend.
local culinary scene. The Cam-
eron-Latteks gave him relative
carte blanche to assess what
local foods were available by
each Wednesday, before creat-
ing a dinner menu for the com-
ing weekend.
For Catalano, who started
cooking commercially 15
years ago while working
on organic farms in Italy, it
was a perfect fit. “That’s the
only way I really know how
to cook, is to see what we
have access to at a given
moment, what’s beautiful and
fresh, and go from there,” he
said.
After cutting his teeth in
Italy and at fine-dining restau-
rants in New York before mov-
ing to Oregon, Catalano quickly
built a reputation for expertly
executing locally sourced
dishes. In 2016, he won Coast
Weekend Readers’ Choice Chef
of the Year.
Jennifer Cameron-Lattek
said the dinners had a dedicated
following of return custom-
ers, albeit a smaller one. “We
just weren’t able to reach the
amount of people we needed to
keep it going,” she said.
The future
She said Street 14 will
expand its lunch menu and try
to hold prix fixe dinners — sev-
eral courses at a fixed price —
at least once a month, along
with guest chef nights.
“I’m excited for Andy’s new
adventure,” she said. “I’m really
glad that there’s still going to be
an outlet for the producers we
worked with.”
Catalano said he and Cobb
have long wanted to start a
restaurant in the same vein of
Street 14, which provided him
a test run.
“I hope that I’ve kind of
given consumers another option
for how to eat out, and for what
a restaurant should be,” he said.
“I think it should be something
that celebrates the place. I think
every plate of food you eat
should have a sense of place.”
Farewell: ‘He got along with everybody’
Continued from Page 1A
“What mischief was behind
his smile?” his friend Jimmy
Beckwith asked in a series of
rhetorical questions. “Did the
twinkle in his eyes hold the
same magic in your heart as
it did in mine? Was his world
always full of friends who
brought a smile to his face?
Who will honor his memory?”
“We will!” someone yelled
as the audience applauded.
The fact that the memorial
was held on April Fools’ Day
was not lost on those who knew
Boudreau, who was known in
part for his sarcastic sense of
humor.
“He would have loved that,”
Starr Boudreau said.
Boudreau had four sib-
1
lar customer since its
lings, including three
opening 26 years ago.
brothers who died pre-
“He was totally
viously. His sister,
a part of this place,”
Jeanne Tucker, recalls
Todd said.
nights during their
A memorial of his
childhood when her
drum sticks, hard hat
brother would crawl
and harmonica will
into bed with her and
Ronald
adorn the bar’s east
read a story.
Boudreau
wall. It will hang near
“He was always
my pet. He would follow me to a similar one for his brother,
school if he could,” Tucker said. Roger.
Todd also will likely carve
“He was good for everybody.
He got along with everybody.” his name into a bench behind
Boudreau worked at a num- the bar where Boudreau would
ber of canneries in the area. In sleep when he didn’t want
his free time, he enjoyed play- to make the trip home on a
given night. Soon after reveal-
ing music and riding his bike.
Mary Todd, the bar’s owner, ing her plans for the bench, she
was friends with Boudreau lamented the circumstances
since high school. His last stop surrounding her friend’s death.
“I wish he slept on my
at the bar was two weeks before
his death, but he was a regu- bench that night,” she said.
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