What should we do with the “extra day” this year? We are thinking about combining the old English, Irish and Scottish traditions for the day with Dogpatch’s own Sadie Hawkins Day, which Al Capp made into a November event so that it could be celebrated annually.

What do you think girls? Is this a day that you could muster the gumption to ask your man out? We are willing to buy dinner for any couple if the woman makes a legitimate marriage proposal at the Table that night and the man accepts. What do you think? Will there be any takers?

Here’s a little history for you:

St. Bridget’s Complaint

It is believed this tradition was started in 5th century Ireland when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait for so long for a man to propose. According to legend, St. Patrick said the yearning females could propose on this one day in February during the leap year.

February 29th in English Law

According to English law, February 29th was ignored and had no legal status. Folks assumed that traditions would also have no status on that day. It was also reasoned that since the leap year day existed to fix a problem in the calendar, it could also be used to fix an old and unjust custom that only let men propose marriage.

The first documentation of this practice dates back to 1288, when Scotland supposedly passed a law that allowed women to propose marriage to the man of their choice in that year. Tradition states they also made it law that any man who declined a proposal in a leap year must pay a fine. The fine could range from a kiss to payment for a silk dress or a pair of gloves.

According to lil-abner.com: Sadie Hawkins Day, an American folk event, made its debut in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner strip November 15, 1937. Sadie Hawkins was “the homeliest gal in the hills” who grew tired of waiting for the fellows to come a courtin’. Her father, Hekzebiah Hawkins, a prominent resident of Dogpatch, was even more worried about Sadie living at home for the rest of his life, so he decreed the first annual Sadie Hawkins Day, a foot race in which the unmarried gals pursued the town’s bachelors, with matrimony the consequence. By the late 1930′s the event had swept the nation and had a life of its own. Life magazine reported over 200 colleges holding Sadie Hawkins Day events in 1939, only two years after its inception. It became a woman empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, long before the modern feminist movement gained prominence. The basis of Sadie Hawkins Day is that women and girls take the initiative in inviting the man or boy of their choice out on a date, typically to a dance attended by other bachelors and their aggressive dates. When Al Capp created the event, it was not his intention to have the event occur annually on a specific date because it inhibited his freewheeling plotting. However, due to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters Capp received, the event became an annual event in the strip during the month of November, lasting four decades.

We are now offering Mid-Week Wine Flights Tuesday through Thursday all day. You may select 3 of 4 wines to taste for $14. It’s a fun way to try some new wines!

This month’s theme is “Local Vines” and includes a Bergstrom Riesling, an Elk Cove Pinot Noir, a Cana’s Feast red blend, and a Seven Hills Syrah. These are all from the Willamette, Columbia, or Walla Walla Valley, giving you a chance to sample something from each region.

We hope you’ll join us for this fun, ongoing event!

Here you can read the bulk of the review, but more details can be found here on Willamette Week’s site.

Janet O’Connor and David Bowles jokingly refer to their Northwest bistro and wine bar as a “gem in the culinary desert of Washington County.” They’re right. If Bethany’s Table were jammed in along one of the eastside’s restaurant rows, its simple, tasty cuisine would get lost in the shuffle. But since it’s hidden in an upscale strip mall in the land of Walgreens and Subway in Bethany, it’s an absolute oasis of fresh ingredients and deft cooking for westsiders who don’t want to motor across town for a crisp-skinned roast chicken (recently served with a sticky molasses bourbon sauce and peaches) or a juicy no-fuss burger with tasty potato wedges. Most everything here is better than you expect it to be, from the mess of creamy beans and tomato jam under the tender pork shoulder to a rustic, slurp-worthy tomato soup. Pastry chef Amelia Lane makes the best flowerless chocolate cake in Portland, its suburbs and maybe the world.

Wow! There are so many excellent eateries in this town, and we are so honored to be on this list. Thanks to Willamette Week!

Fall has arrived! Season changes are busy times for the kitchen, and even though Janet loves hot weather, she admits that fall is one of her favorite “food times.”Produce deliveries are looking less like strawberries and more like butternut squash, wild huckelberries, and chanterelles.

The butternut squash pannini is back!

Comfort foods are back! The panini grill has come down off its lonely shelf, and as requested by customers, our butternut squash panini has returned to the specials board. No one can get enough of Janet’s warm beet salad, served with creamy chevre over swiss chard. Our dessert menu has shifted towards tummy-warming bread pudding and Oregon berry crumble, which pair well with the tasty hot drinks we’ve added to our cocktail list.

It’s a beautiful time of year, and no place is more cozy than our dining room!

Photo courtesy of L.A. Times

It’s ancient, oddly-shaped, and vibrant. It’s shockingly tannic- biting into one immediately sucks all the moisture from your mouth. Quince is widely believed to be more ancient than the apple, and many have speculated that Eve’s forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was not an apple, but a quince. In Greek mythology as well, Aphrodite’s “golden apple” is thought to be a quince, crowning it the “fruit of love.”

Most commonly, quince is used in marmalades or jellies. It contains a lot of natural pectin, which encourages a jam-like consistency, plus the addition of sugar brings out the flavor while mediating its raw astringency. We have had a big bowl of quince out on the big table all week, allowing their lush yellow color and knobby shape to be on full display. This week, we’ll probably cook them into a jam to serve as an accomaniment to our cheese plate. Janet has been collecting other suggestions, as well, so feel free to share them!

Billy teaches his son, Wyatt, appreciation of the outdoors. The most recent addition to our kitchen staff, Billy Dachtler, grew up in San Diego. As goes for anyone who grows up in San Diego and is physically able, he spent most of his years surfing, as well as snowboarding, golfing, hiking, fishing, and generally being outdoors. Eventually he began to seek a career, and found himself in the magnetic pull of fine dining restaurants. When I asked Billy why he got into cooking, he smiled inwardly and responded, “I always liked eating!” The love of good food helped fuel his success in culinary school and in his many restaurant endeavors in Southern California. He credits well-renowned chefs such as Gavin Kaysen and Michael Mina for teaching him the kind of dedication, discipline, and skill that have made him an excellent asset to Janet’s kitchen staff. When he’s not cooking, he is usually spending time with his son Wyatt, who was born last November, or exploring other Portland eateries. He has a particular fondness for Japanese food. True to his roots, Billy is a devoted fan of the Chargers and the Padres. Don’t worry: working at Bethany’s Table (and being a reasonable person) have led him to become a Ducks fan as well.

Don’t be fooled by the stoic facial expression… John loves the outdoors. John Bowles’ role at Bethany’s Table is a big one. As David’s oldest son, John has been involved with the business since its inception. Now he is our star Pantry Chef. When he isn’t creating masterpiece salads or artfully plating desserts, he is taking classes at PCC, skiing, biking, climbing, and coming up with very clever puns. His favorite foods include Vietnamese dishes, salads of all types, and pancakes. He loves to read. No matter how a conversation with John begins, it always seems to end in a literary reference. His favorite books include the Art of Racing in the Rain, the Fountainhead, and Love in a time of Cholera. Nothing drives him crazier than authors who write long, 8-volume series and then die before finishing them.

Kyle Wilson is our Sous-chef and Resident Alien. He grew up in New Zealand, moving to the United States at the age of ten. Kyle’s interest in food sprouted from a pure, childhood love of sweets. “My grandma always had sweets, but when I was home, my mom wouldn’t make them as much.” Kyle found a way around that by sneaking ingredients like sugar, cocoa powder, flour, and butter into the backyard, where he would mix them together. “Then I would run inside, microwave them, and get back outside to eat my creation before mom noticed.” Fortunately, Kyle graduated from microwaved cocoa powder and became an incredibly talented chef. Kyle has been around from the very beginning, keeping everyone in line and motivated. His favorite foods are Chinese food and the breakfast BLT from Petite Provence. He can also double-dutch jump rope. Alone.

Allea hiking in Eastern Oregon. Allea Martin’s food career really began last fall when, after finishing her Political Science degree from U of O (go Ducks!), she skipped out to Tuscany to work on a farm for a few months. She spent every afternoon working alongside the farm’s cook, who had been born on the farm more than 60 years before. What she loves most about cooking is that there is always something new to learn. When she’s not at Bethany’s table, she write the blog Table Lessons, camping, hiking, snowboarding, reading, and cheering for the Ducks. Her favorite foods are crab, raspberries, and cheese.

The driving force of the kitchen is our chef-owner, Janet O’Connor, whose full bio is here. Though Janet was born in Chicago, the truly character-building years of her life were spent in central Oregon where her family “Little House on the Prarie’d It”, meaning they bought 35 acres of wild property and built a house on it. Her belief in Real Food comes mostly from her father, an avid fisherman, mushroom forager, and hobby cook. Janet worked in restaurants her whole life. After graduating high school, Janet lived in Switzerland for a year, speaking French and eating delectable cheeses and baked goods. She moved to Portland in her early twenties to attend Le Cordon Bleu, and has since worked at a number of Portland locales including Ringside, Atwaters, Zell’s, the Heathman, and Meriwethers. As our Head Chef, she co-owns Bethany’s Table with David, whom she met while waiting tables at Zell’s, where he was a regular customer. When I ask the couple how they met, they reminisce longingly, unable to stop smiling at each other. Many of our regular customers have witnessed this same loving gaze exchanged in the midst of a busy dinner service. It’s part of what makes Bethany’s Table so special: the foundation of the restaurant is as much David and Janet’s love for one another as their passion for delivering excellent culinary experiences.

This recent Ahi special happened to be without gluten or dairy.

During that time, I became intimately aware of the difficulties that come with food allergies, sensitivities, and eating out. I began to avoid eating out altogether, feeling that no one understood my situation and that restaurant menus had little to offer me.

Janet gets it. Just yesterday a customer came in to ask what menu items lacked dairy products. Janet explained, “I make everything from scratch, so that I can always tell customers exactly what is or isn’t in each dish.”

These days, it seems that everyone has some kind of food allergy, intolerance, or specified diet to follow. Vegetarian and vegan diets are becoming ever-popular, further encouraged by the Meatless Monday campaign, Oprah’s vegan for a week promotion, and Mark Zuckerberg’s “eat only what he kills himself” diet. Even without the extremes, the fact is, many people are either making choices towards alternative health, or being forced to make serious lifestyle adjustments as they discover food allergies or sensitivities. One that we discuss often in the kitchen is gluten intolerance, which as anyone with eyes has noticed, is on the rise.

Angeline’s Bakery in Sisters supplies our delicious gluten-free bread. As the chef, Janet works carefully to ensure that our menu can meet a lot of these alternative needs. Of course, we can’t cater to every special diet out there, but a little effort goes a long way. Janet”s understanding and creativity mean that customers can always find vegetarian and gluten-free options on both our lunch and dinner menus. We also feature vegan soups on the regular, and I swear, they are just as amazing as Janet’s non-vegan soups. Some, like the curried cauliflower, might even win out in a contest against its conventional soup competitors. Our flexibility in catering events means that we can create party menus with plenty of special options for those with gluten, dairy, or meat-free diets.

David likes to say that you can’t make lemonade without lemons. In this case, Janet uses what could be “obstacles” of special diet requests and uses them to add a little more creative depth to the menu. The results benefit everyone.

As our loyal customers know, Janet is always searching for ways to improve her menu. Whether it’s scouring local farmers markets for unusual ingredients, or trying again and again to develop the perfect recipe, she is all about keeping it new and exciting.

In August we’ve made a few small changes to keep in line with this philosophy. First of all, we have eliminated any store-bought dressings from our restaurant. In place of our old blue cheese, you will now find our already-famous Smokey Rogue Blue Cheese dressing. The base of this dressing, Rogue Creamery’s Smokey Blue, is cold smoked over Oregon hazelnut shells for 16 hours. It has won several awards from around the world. We have also developed our own Ranch dressing. Pardon my bragging, but it’s outstanding! We’ve added a tasty blend of herbs and spices to a buttermilk base, creating a lighter and more flavorful Ranch than you’ve ever tasted before.

Finally, we have updated our Dinner and Dessert menus. You’ll find a few fantastic new starters on the dinner menu, including Janet’s famous Savory Tart with caramelized onion and gruyere. There is also a Salad Niçoise that features fresh Oregon Albacore tuna, and a curried lamb shoulder full of dozens of succulent surprises, which Kyle has proclaimed his new Favorite Menu Item.

Have you ever applied heat to peaches? It’s an amazing phenomenon, truly. The sugars begin to caramelize almost immediately and they take on this incredible depth of flavor (as though a fresh, juicy peach was lacking). To take advantage of this chemical reaction, as well as the availability of fresh local peaches, we have added just one new item to our dessert menu: The French Peach. It’s my new favorite. Here’s how we do it: a peach is halved, soaked in bourbon (another weakness of mine, admittedly), baked, and placed atop a french pastry. It’s served warm with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce melting all over. In case that wasn’t enough, we top it with crushed toasted hazelnuts. You might actually die of sheer happiness.

The story about this “Brew Beef,” however, deserves a bit more attention. We chose Oregon Natural Meats as a supplier because their business model and values are in line with our own. ONM aims to keep their operation as local as possible, purchasing cattle only from Oregon farms, keeping feed lots close to the processing center, and selling products almost exclusively to Oregon customers. Their #1 goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of their operation – no small task in a high-footprint industry.

Now, leave ONM on the back burner for a moment. Let’s talk about one of our premier beer providers: Ninkasi Brewery of Eugene. I went to college in Eugene, and have been a huge fan [since they began brewing in 2007] since I reached the legal drinking age in 2008. They are truly the Cinderella of the beer world: in the last four years, they have gone from a 15-barrel brewery to a 50-barrel brewery with distribution in several states. This is no small feat in Oregon, which is 2nd in the country for number of breweries per-capita. Ninkasi now produces close to a million gallons of beer every year, and it is delicious. The company gives wholehearted support of their local community, whether it be donating a keg or two to a local band’s show or giving all of its proceeds from a special batch to the McKenzie River Trust – a nonprofit that works to “maintain the water supply that feeds the brewery as one of the cleanest purest sources in the world.”

Now Ninkasi is working to reduce the waste created by the brewing process, and as eaters, we are benefiting. Ninkasi donates its spent grain to Oregon Natural Meats. When ONM’s carefully selected cattle arrive in the feedlots, which are located near Eugene, they are fed a 100% vegetarian diet of grains, forage, vitamins, and minerals. This diet includes upcycled brewer’s grain from Eugene’s Ninkasi Brewery as well as Deschutes Brewery.

According to Stephen Neel, the CEO and founder of ONM, this process is not quite as time-efficient as other commercial feeding systems. On big commercial feedlots, cattle are given little or no room to move and force-fed agricultural by-products in an attempt to fatten them up quickly. Not so at ONM, where “the feeding process takes more time and results in a high quality slow-fed animal.” He also notes that the cattle really like eating the spent brewer’s grain. ONM estimates that they have upcycled over 20 million pounds of Brewer’s grain since October 2009, preventing that amount of waste from entering landfills – and this is for a very small operation.

Everything about this story makes me feel good. People are making and drinking good beer, raising happy cows that produce tasty meat, and working together for more sustainable practices. It also makes me want a burger, and a beer!

And so I was introduced to Tayberries, a raspberry-blackberry cross unlike anything I’ve ever had. Their flavor is subtle, floral, a little tart, and a little sweet. They’re almost tannic, reminiscent of a nice black tea. They are tricky to find for a few reasons. One, they aren’t easy to pick: they have to be very ripe to come off the plant, which means they don’t store very long before they go bad. Tayberries also have a very short season- often just a few weeks. Furthermore, their low sugar content and big seeds make them less desirable (to some) for pies and other baked goods.

They apparently make wonderful jam, which I plan to look into, and they’re also exquisite just as they are. Janet, never one to ruin a good thing, is serving them along with Oregon Hood strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries with a warm butter biscuit and a dollop of fresh whipped cream. So don’t forget to save room for dessert!