Community Garden Benefit Dinner -
September 23rd, 6:00 PM
If you have never been in the lot behind the restaurant, take a look next time you’re in.  Nestled up against the back of our building is our very own garden, with our extra wood for the oven against the fence on the north side of the perimeter.  The rest of the lot is the King Neighborhood Shortcut Community Gardens, a community garden sponsored by the Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust.  OSALT is a local organization committed to maintaining urban agricultural land and educating communities on the benefits of such spaces.  Short Cut started in May of this year, after OSALT was able to procure the space behind Ned Ludd from the city through a land swap.  It’s a beautiful space, take a minute to stroll through it next time you’re in.  A lot of time, hard work, and wonderful donations have gone into making the garden what it is so far.  The next project for the garden will be building a two-thousand gallon water catchment and reclamation system that will provide rain water for both the Ned Ludd garden and all of Shortcut’s community lots year-round, as well as some additional maintenance to the space.  To show our appreciation for Short Cut allowing us to use some of their space we are holding a benefit dinner Wednesday, September 23rd, starting at 6:00 pm.  Dinner will be held in the garden, weather permitting, under the cherry tree.  We will be serving six courses with drink pairings for each course and all of the food highlighted in the dinner will be sourced as close to Portland as we can possibly get.  In attendance will be the heads of OSALT, the garden’s new program directors – Gary Nash and Aimee Jo Bartholomew from Cycle Crop Farms – as well as the community liason for the garden, to discuss the process, what OSALT does and the future of the space both as a community garden and educational facility.  Tickets for the dinner are $75 and are going to go fast as space is limited to 35 seats.  If you have any questions or would like to purchase a ticket please call the restaurant or ask your server next time you’re in.

Upright Brewing Showcase -
September 30th, 6:00 PM
Our other speciality dinner for September will be a showcase of one of our favorite new, local brewers, Alex Ganum of Upright Brewing.  This dinner will be five courses with pairings from Upright with each course.  Alex uses Belgian yeast strains, open-top fermentation along with a number of other Old World traditions to create beers that are strictly Northwest.  This is why we feel Upright and Ned Ludd are such a wonderful fit: taking European tradition and local ingredients to create something completely new that could only happen in such a wonderful place like Portland.  Our chef, Ben Meyer, has been working very closely with Alex to develop a menu that will both complement and highlight Alex’s wonderfully unique brews.  Alex will be on hand to talk about his brewing methods, while Ben will be discussing how he developed the menu to highlight the different beers.  The showcase will be here at Ned Ludd.  Tickets for this dinner will be $60 and space is limited to 40 seats, so they’re going to go fast.  If you have any questions, or would like to purchase a ticket please call the restaurant, email us, or ask your server next time you’re in.

Highlight: Creative Growers
Creative Growers is a small family farm located in the foothills of the coast range west of Eugene. For the past ten years David and Lori Hoyle have been growing high quality, certified organic vegetables, fruits and culinary herbs for local restaurants and farmer’s markets in our area. They specialize in heirloom and European varieties chosen for their superior flavor, nutritional value and visual impact on the plate.  Their thoughtfulness and the quality of their produce make them a delight to work with.  If you’re in eating in the next few weeks you will see a number products from Creative Growers highlighted on our menu, including their heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, as well as a number of great herbs and greens.  Creative Growers attends two farmers markets in the area: Hillsdale and the Westmoreland market in Sellwood.