At Mirador, we believe that the physical
nourishes the spiritual (and vice versa !) so that eating food prepared
by faceless corporations from produce grown by heartless corporations
is not only bad for your body, but your soul. Preparing and making your
own food can and should be a spiritually nourishing experience, not a
chore.
Baking
Bread
has been called the Staff of Life and there are few pleasures that
compare with baking and eating your own bread and other baked goods
from whole grains, especially when you grind the flour yourself. There
are a lot of different whole grains available that you will never find
in commercial breads (but can buy at People's Food Co-op, Food Front or
New Seasons). Using these grains, you can create a multitude of
healthful, delicious, and unique breads.
We carry several varieties of grain mills, both electric and hand.
We also carry loaf pans, muffins tins, cookie sheets, bread knives,
baking stones and peels for hearth breads, and many good books about
baking whole-grain breads.
Canning/Preserving
Eating food that you canned or otherwise preserved during the growing
season runs a close second to eating homemade baked goods. Whether you
are fortunate enough to grow your own produce or can buy larger
quantities from a local farmer's market, storing up food for the coming
cold season somehow connects us to the primal act of survival. What can
beat the feeling you have when you make your own spaghetti sauce from
tomatoes that you grew and canned yourself, or some raspberry jam from
those raspberries you picked every day for a month?
Mirador carries a wide
variety of canning supplies, many of which are hard to find elsewhere.
We have pressure and waterbath canners, canning jars (in sizes from 4
ounce to half gallon) and lids (including just lids, lids with rings,
and hard-to-find plastic storage lids in both wide-mouth and regular
sizes), and everything else you might need for canning including:
tongs, wide-mouth funnels, jar lifters, lid sterilizers, magnetic lid
wands, bubble-freers, jelly strainers, skimmers, long-handled cooking
spoons, cheesecloth, thermometers, and more. We also carry a steam
juicer that makes processing your grapes into juice a simple task (and
also doubles as a vegetable steamer!). If you are new to canning or
want to do a one-time project, you can even rent out a steam juicer or
a hand-cranked juicer/strainer (see Gadgets below) for a day or two. When it comes to
preserving, dehydrating is considered one of the most healthful methods
there is. Almost every kind of fruit and vegetable can be dried, and
the result takes up less space than canning and requires no electricity
(unlike freezing). We carry several sizes of food dehydrators that can
also be used to make yogurt or raise bread-- we also make tempeh in
ours.
Gadgets
We also carry a lot of low-tech gadgets to
assist you in baking and preparing fruits and vegetables for preserving
or just for dinner. We have apple peeler/corer/slicers which make short
work of apples for pies or preserving, a hand cranked juicer/strainer
that can whip out applesauce or pumpkin much faster and more easily
than a food mill (which we also carry, for smaller jobs). We have green
bean frenchers, cherry and olive pitters, pineapple peeler/corers,
avocado mashers, and spice grinders. Inspired by Asian kitchens, we have a slicer/grater
called a mandoline (which I can personally attest is great), a spiral
slicer (which creates neat spaghetti-like strands from vegetables), and
a Japanese style of mortar and pestle called a suribachi. Finally there
are the everyday items like can openers, garlic presses, measuring
cups, colanders, and lots, lots more.
Sprouting
Everybody knows that sprouts are healthful, but few know that there are
many other sprouts besides alfalfa and mung bean. Radish, clover,
lentil, pea, broccoli (recently in the news for its remarkable
health-giving properties) even wheat and other grains are all easy to
sprout at home. Watching a handfull of seeds turn into a jar or bag
full of vibrant sprouts that you can add to your salads and other food
is a simple but awesome process. Mirador carries sprouting equipment,
including sprout trays, sprouting bags, and various screens that fit
over wide-mouth mason jars.
Cookbooks
Mirador carries a large selection of cookbooks in many categories;
many of which you will not find in other stores. We specialize
in vegan, vegetarian, raw, special diets (diabetes, wheat and
gluten free, etc), whole-grain baking, healthful cooking for parents/kids,
soyfoods and others. We are comitted to providing difficult to
find information about alternative ways of nourishing the body,so
we have best-sellers like Moosewood and Vegan Brunch as well lesser-known titles like The Raw Gourmet. In fact, we have the best selection of raw books in Portland. |
