Who’s Cooking

Island Grazing Table

Bryttani is the snack enthusiast behind Island Grazing Table — Lopez Island’s custom charcuterie spreads

From date nights, family gatherings, weddings and everything in between, she can help you celebrate all of life’s moments, big and small. Let’s face it… all celebrations need some grazing!

Madrona Murphy, Kwiaht

Kwiaht is a non-profit research cooperative with a mission for science for stewardship, and that includes researching and sharing new ways to use wild foods for local food security and resiliency. Botanist Madrona Murphy uses Taproot’s kitchen to share accessible dishes based on abundant, sustainably harvested wild foods including overlooked seafood, native crops developed by Coast Salish communities, and non-native invasive species.

Jim Birkemeier

Jim Birkemeier, local farmer, dehydrates a LOT of fruit in Taproot’s commercial food dehydrator. He dries several varieties of apples, pears, Asian pears, and more. The dehydrator can be loaded with about 70 pounds of fresh fruit, depending on the variety. Jim has been an avid support of Taproot for years.

These dried fruits are wonderful ingredients for many other things, including desserts and snack mixes. Plums, berries, peaches, apples, pears…. the list goes on and on.  

Taproot has a couple different styles of mandoline (fruit slicer) as well as a corer/wedger that, well, cores and cuts apples and pears into wedges at an amazing rate.

Buy or harvest your own fruit to dehydrate and have local fruit year-round!

Jean Perry, Vortex Juice Bar

With decades of growing, harvesting, preserving, preparing, serving, and selling food under our belt, Vortex Juice Bar and Cafe has taken on the production of small batch products which directly reflect our island food culture and can be sold at local groceries. We are making hummus, soups, dressings, and sauces that make use of the beautiful produce grown on Lopez Island and also incorporate other Lopez made products. We hope to feed people in an uncommonly nourishing way that both reinforces their connection to the island and supports the livelihoods of our island producers.

Vortex embraces the idea that local foods are an honest investment in our island culture and economy. Promoting locally grown foods also represents an investment in the small farms and farmers that produce food with a minimal use of fossil fuels, and with respect for, and conservation of our irreplaceable topsoil and water. We celebrate the idea of eating seasonally and of making good use of what grows well here. We want to offer foods that are beautiful, clean, vital, and delicious.

Taproot, as a shared commercial kitchen, allows us to produce our goods efficiently in a larger, better equipped space than the Vortex kitchen, and enjoy the mutual support and collaboration of other food producers.