Extra flour power

In your March 2010 issue, you have an excellent article about restaurants and other places in Portland that offer food and bakery products (A Baker’s Dozen). I note that you did not mention St. Honoré Boulangerie, which has locations on NW Thurman Street and in Lake Oswego. This is our favorite place for delicious pastries and has some of the best coffee in the area. I’m sure you’re aware of its existence and inquire as to why it wasn’t mentioned.

—Lee & Virginia Robertson
Beaverton

Though we were unable to include all of the outstanding bakeries Portland has to offer, we can highly recommend the pain au chocolat at St. Honoré.

—The Editors

More than meat

Concerning your write-up on Gartner’s Country Meat Market (The Food Lovers’ Guide to Portland) in your March 2010 issue: you failed to mention that all of their products are made without the use of any preservatives or artificial additives. Clearly, this by itself makes them a most indispensable and healthy meat source.

—Dr. Charles A. Gutweniger
Camas, Wash.

Mutt Madness

I feel the need to comment on the Labracadabra piece in the April 2010 issue regarding the $2,600 Labrador retriever/poodle mutt and how this poor, gullible woman has been scammed. The Australian mixed-breed program was deemed a complete failure and dismantled because of how unreliable the dog’s “hypoallergenic” coat was from dog to dog and how, within a few generations, the coats were almost completely Labrador-like (meaning they were not allergy friendly). It wasn’t until the masses caught wind of these designer mutts that every other puppy mill started breeding them out of control.

I’m trying to figure out what kind of responsible breeder charges $2,600 for a mutt puppy, produces monthly litters, and has 18 breeding dogs. With the amount of mutts in shelters across the United States, why does anyone feel the need to buy a mutt from such a source? What do these dogs have that a standard poodle from a good, responsible, and reliable breeder wouldn’t have?

Frankly, I’m stunned that Portland Monthly is playing this off as some kind of second coming. People in need need honesty, not some dog sold by a used-car salesman for 10 times what it’s worth.

—Kat Schroeder
Vancouver, Wash.

Killara Ridge Breeding and Research Center maintains that they actively breed only seven dogs and produce an average of five litters per year.

—The Editors

Web Talk

Join the conversation about our April 2010 cover story, Great Neighborhoods 2010: Taking the Long View.

This was a very interesting article—however, for the Foster-Powell section, it is really more about a street (SE Foster Road) than a neighborhood. Many of the things you mentioned are on the south side of Foster, and the Foster-Powell neighborhood is only on the north side of Foster. Maybe a better choice might have been Mt Scott-Arleta, which has Foster on the north side, but also SE Woodstock Boulevard on the south side.

It is not that I do not love the Foster-Powell neighborhood, but your article would have a lot more credibility if the evidence it uses to demonstrate all of the great things in the neighborhood was actually in Foster-Powell. However, it was nice hearing about all the cool things in the other neighborhoods, like Creston-Kenilworth.

—Kim