Salt Fire and Time—Portland Welcomes First Community Supported Kitchen

Tressa Yellig really is the picture of health. Despite the fact that we met in her un-air conditioned kitchen during one of the worst heat waves in Portland history, she was animated and full of energy as she told me about her Community Supported Kitchen (CSK), called Salt Fire and Time. A CSK is basically an open kitchen; you can either get involved by volunteering or taking classes, or by just purchasing the food made by the chefs and volunteers. The basis of a CSK is to take the produce and meat that is grown locally, and use it to create meals for participants or consumers. With Tressa Yellig at the helm, this is taken a step further with her nutritional and historical expertise. With just a few volunteers to help, the two month old business already boasts weekly classes, a loyal following of customers, and public "feasts" that sell out quickly, every time.

Yellig received her culinary training at the Natural Gourmet Institute, a health supportive cooking school in New York focusing on vegan, macrobiotic, and ayurvedic diets. While she sees the value in these types of restrictions as treatments to allergies and illnesses, Yellig's focus at Salt Fire and Time is on traditional diets, laden with organ meats, fats, and other foods that have been shunned in recent years. The traditional techniques she incorporates, she says, not only preserve nutrients often lost in other cooking methods but actually increase nutrient density and absorption of those nutrients. processes such as culturing, fermenting, salt-soaking, slow dehydrating, plus the use of healthy traditional virgin fats (coconut, red palm, macadamia, olive, tallow), and organ meats are incorporated into her recipes.

"There is a huge mythology built around certain foods," Yellig laments. "Coconut oil, for instance, has been slammed as one of the worst oils, but it actually helps break down fat, promotes brain function, eases digestive issues. It's when you alter these foods that have been part of the human diet since the beginning of time that problems arise." She points to the early 20th century dentist-turned-researcher Weston Price who was disturbed by the decay and bone malformities he saw in young patients who often also suffered from allergies, anemia, asthma, poor vision, lack of coordination, fatigue and behavioral problems. He went on to discover that children around the world, not exposed to the Western diet—rich in processed food—did not have these same issues.

Yellig says she wants to debunk the myths surrounding saturated fats, which, she says, help in everything from weight control to controlling the symptoms of arthritis and autism.

After culinary school, Yellig moved out to Berkeley, California to apprentice at Three Stone Hearth, a CSK run by several people who had also been trained at the Natural Gourmet Institute. The day she arrived they were hosting a Full Moon Feast, where the community comes in to share in a meal of nutrient dense, sustainably grown food. She was hooked.

"People from all sorts of backgrounds, coming together, eating family style," she shakes her head. "It was the happiest I'd ever been working in food." The only problem was her salary. She worked in restaurants to make up the difference, but it just wasn't enough to make ends meet. She left Three Stone Hearth, traveling up the coast learning more about her craft. She had an opportunity to work as a chef in Mendocino, working with farmers and ranchers to create culinary art out of locally and sustainably grown produce and organically fed and humanely treated animals. All the while, she began to craft her vision for her own CSK. A job interview landed her in Portland where, on the last night of her trip before returning to California, she found the Portland Food and Drink blog. In it, someone had posted a story about a CSK due to open in the area soon. She contacted the writer only to find out that she was just hoping to start a CSK, but hadn't done much yet to make it a reality. It was good enough for Yellig. Soon, there were three more women interested in the project as well. Together, they began to formulate their plan for creating their CSK, to be called Salt Fire and Time. The plan was to introduce themselves to the community by participating in "Soup and Cinema," at the Northstar Ballroom, where their nutrient-dense soup would be pared with movies with food and farm-related topics. By the time this happened, however, Salt Fire and Time had become a one-woman operation. Yellig's three partners, each for their own personal reasons, decided that they would have to bow out of the project.

"I was bullheaded enough to start this thing on my own," Yellig admits, adding that it was a scary undertaking nonetheless. "Soup and Cinema" drew a lot of interest, however, and since opening the kitchen in June, Yellig has had a fair amount of volunteers, who work in exchange either for a portion of the food, for the learning experience, and often for both. Volunteers need only a food handler's card; with her traditional diet-based menus, the recipes are not difficult even for novices. In a perfect world, Yellig confesses, she would have some business partners.

"Then we could run production seven days a week, have Feasts once a week, and serve a couple hundred families—this single kitchen would support that," she says. After that, another kitchen would be in order. But Yellig says that she will be cautious in growing the business. She says a big part of the satisfaction she derives from the CSK is the face time she gets to spend with the farmers who grow the produce and meat she uses.

"I want to grow smartly," she says, "so I can always maintain that connection." She also looks forward to the day when she might take a day off now and again; confident that the kitchen will be well staffed enough to continue in her absence.

But that is getting ahead of herself. Right now, she is really pleased with the response she's received from the community. She says so far those involved have run the gamut—social activists and single moms, older folks, younger folks, naturopaths and business people—the common denominator being that they all seek high-quality food that makes you feel good.

"The food does the marketing for me," Yellig says with a laugh. "People walk away from a Feast feeling great as opposed to feeling like crap. They are intrigued; they want to make food like that at home. Our food is simple, seasonal. There are so many nuances—a loose consistency, but consistently good and delicious. People can take the recipes and give them their own flair at home."

Yellig is a natural-born teacher; it is obvious her passion really lies in the ability to share her knowledge of food and nutrition with those who cross her path.

"I hope to restore people's confidence in their cooking abilities, and their willingness to experiment," she says of her cooking and nutrition classes. "I strive for it to feel like a community event, a social gathering, but beyond that I want to educate on the healing powers of a traditional diet—based on what is available locally. It is about preparing our bodies to face the world, to deal with trauma, as well as a chance to share an interconnected experience. The farmer, the butcher, the cook—we can all support each other."

While we chat, she buzzes around the sweltering kitchen, returning to the table with different treats for me to sample. My favorite is a coconut truffle—a simple concoction of coco butter, orange syrup, and a sprinkling of crushed coriander on top. If this is healthy eating, then I am on board. She explains that the beet kvass she pours for me is a blood cleanser, the "lacto-bev" that tastes like a delicious, fizzy ginger-infused lemonade is a "sneaky way" to get some probiotics into my body. She rattles off the names of a dozen farmers—mostly local—who provide her with sustainably grown ingredients from which to create her menus, which she changes weekly. Despite tight margins, she vows never to skimp on ingredients.

I walk out into the hot sun feeling suddenly refreshed. I wonder if it was the truffle, the kvass, or perhaps my mood was made vigorous simply by being with someone with such obvious passion. Tressa Yellig, with her enthusiasm, nutritional knowledge, and cooking prowess, is sure to make Salt Fire and Time the place Portlanders turn to when they're ready to take a more active role in their own health and well-being.

For more information on Salt Fire and Time and upcoming classes, events and volunteer opportunities, please visit the web site.

View the slideshow for more Salt Fire and Time images or visit our Flickr gallery.