12 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
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Soup’s on!
Alimento Astoria delivers
unique soups to your doorstep
By RYAN HUME
FOR COAST WEEKEND
W
hen the weather turns sour,
a hot bowl of soup can be
nourishing, reinvigorating —
heart-warming even. It’s just
what is needed to get through the soggier
months on the North Coast. Now imag-
ine finding that elixir, scratch-made yet
refined, sitting on the porch every Mon-
day evening with a freshly baked chunk
of bread to mop it up.
Thanks to Alimento Astoria, this can
be a reality. For $16 a week, a quart of
expertly crafted seasonal soup and a hefty
wedge of bread could land at the front
door in a returnable Mason jar or other
reusable vessel.
So how did this happen? The idea for
this local soup delivery service was born
of bread. No stranger to fermentation and
preservation, chef Andrew Catalano has
long been fascinated with baking bread.
“I stopped a few years ago when
we had a child,” Catalano said. “I just
recently got back into it in the fall, and
was baking so much bread, I had no outlet
for it. And I thought, soup and bread? Per-
fect. Let’s give it a try.”
Catalano wants to reclaim bread’s
place at the table.
“Part of my motivation for doing
something with bread was the bad rap it
has gotten over the last few years,” Cat-
alano said, referencing gluten’s notori-
ous cultural status. “I eat whole grains
every day. The thing about these breads is
I source my wheat from Northwest farms.
It’s all organic, from ancient strains of
wheat. Wheat today is very different than
it was a thousand years ago. There’s no
commercial yeast. Everything is fully fer-
mented so it’s much more digestible. It’s
just a completely different animal than the
bread you would buy at the supermarket.”
Catalano gained a well-deserved rep-
utation for his knowledgeable, locally
sourced cuisine a few years back when
he ran the kitchen at Street 14 Café’s
much-missed dinner service. Since then,
he launched Alimento Astoria, a care-
fully curated, sustainable meal-kit ser-
Bread and borscht from Alimento Astoria.
Photos by Ryan Hume
Alimento chef Andrew Catalano delivers soup and bread to Holly Owen.
vice that offers the raw ingredients for
three dinners for two adults every Friday.
Think Blue Apron by farms within walk-
ing distance.
Catalano is also deeply involved with
the North Coast Food Web, where he pre-
pares Alimento’s weekly meal kits in their
professional kitchen and often hosts much
sought-after dinners on special occasions
with limited seating. Following a sold-out
dinner event at Street 14 on Friday, Jan.
25, Catalano will again man the range for
a benefit for the Food Web on Saturday,
Feb. 23. At $150 a head, this fundraiser
will boast four courses, plus an amuse-
bouche and wine pairings to boot. Tickets
are on sale.
‘Start the week off’
As of this writing, soup service is now
10 weeks strong and Catalano is hoping to
extend it at least throughout the winter.
This could not be better news for Holly
Owen, a frequent subscriber to Alimento
Astoria’s $84 weekly meal kit ($14 a
portion).
“Is there any better way to start the
week off than with soup at your door?”
Owen said.
Much like his entrees, Catalano infuses
deep flavors into his soups from simple,
wholesome ingredients — all of which
are locally sourced and often arise from
Catalano’s vast pantry of fermentations
and pickles. Recent offerings include a
thin polenta with pickled garlic scapes, a
Moroccan chicken stew with preserved
lemons and an heirloom bean soup with
kale, roasted onions and pickled peppers,
one of Owen’s favorites.
Taste test
Coast Weekend recently tested one of
Catalano’s soup kits to see if could main-
tain the hype. Fortunately, it did in spades.
Catalano comes to recipes by way
of the ingredients, and on this particu-
lar week, beets from Glory B Farm in
Grays River, Wash., inspired a borscht.
This bright purple Eastern European soup
was finished with cabbage from Spring
Up Farm in Knappa, shallots from over
in Lewis and Clark territory and parsnips
and turnips from Catalano’s own garden.
The inclusion of both roasted and pickled
beets, as well as fresh cabbage and home-
made fermented sauerkraut, gave this
simple, peasant-approved combination of
five vegetables much more depth of fla-
vor than should seem possible. Every last
drop was infused with a swirl of sweet
and sour goodness.
This was only heightened by pair-
ing the soup with a fermented oat por-
ridge sourdough bread. Chewy, tangy,
with a crisp, crackable crust — perfect
for lapping up the last drizzle of brightly
hued broth. This loaf was the result of a
36-hour fermentation beginning with Cat-
alano’s own sourdough start.
And really, if soup is not on the menu,
that’s no reason to avoid Catalano’s
incredible breads. He sells a few whole
loaves every Thursday at the North Coast
Food Web, but you’ll have to pounce as
these sell out quick.
Owen is hoping that Catalano
will start selling his pizza dough
commercially.
“I’m the idea person,” she said. “It’s
the best job because I don’t have to do
anything.”
“I’ll get around to it someday,” Cata-
lano replied. CW