Berry Fulfilling Trip Through Willamette Valley : South of Portland is one of the best places in the world to sample fresh- picked berries and dessert wines.

I’m sitting on the enclosed front porch of the Hawthorne Street Cafe, a restaurant in an area of trendy eateries and shops, east across the river from downtown Portland. I am here following a “berry path” around Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where I recently moved after 25 years in Los Angeles. This time of year, it seems there are berries everywhere.

At the Hawthorne Street Cafe, I find Marion berry coffeecake, a confection reminiscent of cheesecake, but it’s filled with mildly tart Marion berries (a variety of blackberries developed during the 1950s in Marion County, Oregon) rather than cream cheese. A bottom crust wraps up the back of each wedge, and a crumbly streusel with oats covers the top. It’s served warm, and the aroma is as delightful as the taste. Selling for $2.85 a slice, it’s well worth the money.

So, too, are many other berry experiences in the area. Portland is perched on the northern edge of the Willamette Valley, one of the best places in the world for sampling strawberries, blueberries, red and black raspberries and several types of blackberries that grow in abundance in the green, rolling countryside. Because this fruit is raised mainly for freezing--not for transport to other parts of the country--to enjoy fresh Oregon berries, you must be near the source between spring and late July.

As a newcomer to the state, I was skeptical of the claims people in these parts made about the superior quality of their berries. Now I’m a believer. Oregon strawberries, red throughout, are sweeter and juicier and have a much softer, less woody texture than those I bought last month that had been shipped in from Central California.

Like the Hawthorne Cafe, many of the city’s restaurants make good use of the harvest, preparing everything from berry soups to desserts. Caffe Cafe, a popular lunch spot, makes delicious berry smoothies ($2.75), Marion berry cobbler ($1.95 for individual cobblers) and raspberry crisp ($1.75), in which the tartness of the berries contrasts nicely with a sweet, crunchy topping.

Some berry creations are offered only during the summer months, but others--such as the famous three-berry cobbler ($3.50) at Jake’s Famous Crawfish, a downtown institution--can be enjoyed all year. The restaurant makes the single-serving dessert with quick-frozen strawberries, blueberries and boysenberries.

At Ron Paul Charcuterie, they serve a genoise (cake) wrapped around a cream filling spiked with berries, which change depending on the harvest ($3.75). They also use berries in fruit chutneys that are served with various entrees--a picante strawberry chutney, for instance, is sometimes paired with salmon.

Slightly northwest of city center, Elephants Delicatessen vends good muffins, cookies and bread (I especially like their baguettes and cheese-and-onion bread). During the summer they pride themselves on a cold blueberry soup ($1.75 per cup, $3.25 per pint) served, beginning Friday, for only the few weeks of this berry season. Also as a celebration of the harvest, they sell drop biscuits that are similar to scones and have a fresh blueberry center (95 cents each).

Cafe Duberry serves strawberry genoise ($3.75 per serving) and berry tarts with fresh currant glaze ($3.75 per serving). And at Papa Haydn, a dessert called Boccone Dolce--a meringue drizzled with semisweet chocolate and layered with whipped cream and strawberries--is a summer favorite ($4.50).

Oregonians have found other ways to savor the fruit long after the brief harvest season has passed. Tucked into an old warehouse in downtown Portland, Clear Creek Distillery produces an eau de vie de framboise : a crystal clear raspberry spirit made from a pure, fermented mash of fruit with nothing added but yeast, which reacts to the natural sugar in the berries. “It takes 100 pounds of raspberries to make one 375-milliliter bottle,” owner Steve McCarthy explained. The fruit to make the distillery’s products comes from his family’s farm near the town of Hood River, 62 miles east of Portland. The facility offers tours, has a tasting room and sells the eaux de vie made at the distillery (as well as grappa, kirschwasser, pear William and apple brandy). The framboise is $29 a bottle, should you need a gift for the folks back home.

Berries don’t go unnoticed by Oregon’s vintners, either. Kramer Vineyards, a family-owned winery in Gaston, produces a whole line of dessert wines made with raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries and loganberries. They will hold a berry social Aug. 7-8. Local chefs will donate desserts, served in bite-size pieces, that will be paired with the wineries’ dessert wines (ranging in price from $5 to $7 for 375-milliliter bottles, $7.50-$8.50 for 750 milliliters).

A raspberry dessert wine is also produced by Oak Knoll Winery near Hillsboro, just west of Portland. The Vuylsteke family describes their Frambrosia as an intense, rich wine with lots of flavor but just enough sweetness to balance the acidity ($7.95 a bottle). There’s a picnic area at the winery and a shop that sells Oregon-made gifts.

Harry and David, perhaps best known for their colorful Christmas catalogues, have an outlet store in Troutdale, a few miles east of Portland, where they sell discounted products, including dried berries, berry candies, jams and syrups. I have already used this as a source of gifts for friends in Los Angeles.

For those searching for berries closer to their natural state, farmers’ markets throughout the Willamette Valley, which stretches south from Portland for about 100 miles, also showcase the riches of Oregon’s berry harvest.

The Mid-Willamette Growers Market in Corvallis, 30 miles southwest of Salem, is considered by locals to be a real treat. On Wednesday mornings, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., farmers line up at the Benton County Fairgrounds. Not only are fresh berries sold by the pint, quart and box, but jams, syrups and honey blended with berry concentrates are displayed in a dizzying array of colors and flavors.

Or before, after or in lieu of a berry shopping spree, you might want to stop at the New Morning Bakery on 2nd Street in Corvallis for coffee and berry-filled pastries. They inject fresh berry-and-cream-cheese filling into flaky Danish ($1) and use the fruit in tarts ($3 for a three-inch tart), cream puffs ($2.75), whipped cream cake ($2.50 per serving) and other fancy desserts.

Farther south at McGillivray’s Log Home Bed & Breakfast in Elmira, 14 miles west of Eugene, the morning meal is served at a gleaming pine table that easily accommodates a dozen people. While guests watch, owner Evelyn McGillivray cooks pancakes on an antique wood-burning stove and serves them hot with homemade syrup made from Marion berries that she gathers on her property.

Other mornings, breakfast might be a parfait of low-fat granola layered with berries and a mixture of light sour cream and yogurt. Another favorite is McGillivray’s berry crumble, served with yogurt or cream. “After having breakfast here, most of my guests tell me they don’t need to eat anything more until dinner,” McGillivray said.

McGillivray and her late husband had the basic log structure built in 1982, then finished most of the interior themselves, including the construction of some of the pine furniture. The building sits on five wooded acres, 20 minutes west of Eugene and about an hour’s drive from the Oregon coast. The two guest rooms each have king-size beds and private baths ($60-$70 per night per room, double occupancy).

A little south of Eugene, near Cottage Grove, are the headwaters of the Willamette River. The valley that takes its name is a relatively level plain, varying from five to 60 miles wide. The combination of rich soils deposited by the river, warm summer days and cool nights enables this geographical pocket to produce outstanding berries.

The harvest actually begins above the valley, on the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains. Tiny wild blackberries and huckleberries are the reward for those willing to search them out and brave the thorny bushes.

First to ripen down on the valley floor are the strawberries. Red and black raspberries are ready for harvest by late June. July is blackberry time. Boysenberries, loganberries (a cross between a blackberry and raspberry), Marion berries and thornless evergreen blackberries can be found at the roadside stands and U-pick berry farms that dot the valley.

These operations are far too numerous to list, but should you want to try picking berries yourself, “The Good Food Guide to Washington and Oregon” (Sasquatch Books), edited by Lane Morgan, has listings throughout the state, as well as directories of farmers’ markets. Look for it at bookstores such as Powell’s Books for Cooks on Hawthorne Street in Portland.

GUIDEBOOK

Getting Berried in Oregon

All telephone numbers are in the 503 area code.

Caffe Cafe: 808 S.W. 10th Ave., Portland, tel. 243-1461.

Cafe Duberry: 6439 S.W. MacAdam Ave., Portland, tel. 244-5551.

Clear Creek Distillery: 1430 N.W. 23rd Ave., Portland, tel. 248-9470.

Elephants Delicatessen: 13 N.W. 23rd Place, Portland, tel. 224-3955.

Harry and David: 405 N.W. 257th Ave., Suite 506, Troutdale, tel. 666-6550. Open March 15-Dec. 31.

Hawthorne Street Cafe: 3354 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, tel. 232-4982.

Jake’s Famous Crawfish: 401 S.W. 12th Ave., Portland, tel. 226-1419.

Kramer Vineyards: 26830 N.W. Olson Road, Gaston, tel. 662-4545. Tasting room open April to January, Friday-Sunday.

McGillivray’s Log Home Bed & Breakfast: 88680 Evers Road, Elmira, tel. 935-3564.

Mid-Willamette Growers Market: Benton County Fairgrounds, 53rd Street, Corvallis, tel. 757-1521. Open Wednesdays, May to Thanksgiving.

New Morning Bakery: 219 S.W. 2nd St., Corvallis, tel. 754-0181.

Oak Knoll Winery: 29700 S.W. Burkhalter Road, Hillsboro, tel. 648-8198.

Papa Haydn: 701 N.W. 23rd Ave., Portland, tel. (503) 228-7317.

Ron Paul Charcuterie: 1441 N.E. Broadway, Portland, tel. 284-5347.