Like Food? Read On

Good morning,

I missed you.

I’ve had a foray away from the computer, and therefore, you, but I figure you are there and we’re chatting.

Oh, it’s just me typing? Well darn. I figured this was a two-way street. So, tell me, how was your week?

I wanted to give you a tour of Portland Oregon, and I will--sort of. You can call this a “Traveling with Joyce or Jo,” whichever.

On Friday we drove from Junction City to Portland in the sunshine, but the following day we slogged through rain, and what do you do in the rain?

Eat!

Great, just what my husband and I needed the day after Thanksgiving where I gave honor to Julia Childs with an Ode to Butter.

I buttered the turkey before putting it in the oven. The stuffing called for butter. I buttered the broccoli and the mashed potatoes, and oh yes, the sweet potatoes were glazed with butter and brown sugar.

No butter in the pumpkin pie—no, but that dollop of whipping cream on top was close enough.

I’m buttered out.

But thank you, Julia Childs, for telling us to cook with butter. And now that we know fat is good for us, well, what can I say? Ask daughter number one; she will rave about how fat is not only necessary to our health and welfare but will satisfy hunger.

That first evening in Portland I wanted a steak and salad--had one, not a good one though. I took the recommendations of the motel receptionist, and we went four doors down, to Bill’s Steak House. Don’t do it.

Breakfast: “Let’s have lox, bagel, and cream cheese at Kornblatt’s,” I say to husband dear.

We’re off with our little dog Sweetpea in tow. 

The 23^rd Street area is my favorite place to be in Portland, quaint shops, good food, and it is very dog-friendly with water bowls outside the shops, and many well-behaved dogs leading their people down the street.  Sweetpea waited in the car during our breakfast/lunch though.

Begin your day right--with a dill pickle.

Leaving Kornblatt’s fortified, we spent the day slogging through the rain. Rain does not keep Portlander’s home—the streets and shops were crowded and finding a place to park was a challenge even for a scientist with a slide rule. (Remember those?)

On one rainy day, my kids and I had the best day at Disneyland for rain did keep people away and we ran from The Indiana Jones ride to Splash Mountain and back again about three times.  I splashing in the rain is one difference between Pacific Northwest people and Southern California People.

We found Finnegan’s Toy Store in downtown Portland that I had seen advertised as a sort they don’t make anymore. Not a big box store but with lots of stuff, educational, scientific and playful. 

  

Sculpture alongside the sidewalk. Oregon is the Beaver State after all. 

We got wet, carried the dog, who would balk when she either got too wet, or decided she had had enough. wore ourselves out, went to our motel.

Okay, time for more food.

I didn’t feel satisfied with food so far; I wanted something with pizzazz. So what did I suggest? A pizza! One cannot be un-cheered with a pizza. Of course, it needs to be a good pizza.

Enter Pizzeria Otto on Sandy, Blvd.

 

I tried to get a photo of the cook throwing a pizza dough—we were sitting at the bar, close to the pizza oven--when one of the other cooks told me that one really shouldn’t throw the dough, “It should be treated like a delicate flower.”

The pizza was cooked Neapolitan-style, soft dough, crispy at the edges, just right. An excellent Caesar salad with anchovies preceded it. We added a glass of Chianti, and I was satisfied.

The following day we drove back up Burnside Street to 22^nd Street and stopped at The Elephants Deli, a delicatessen reminiscent of an old European market with prepared food, food to order, sweets, all made in-house, along with kick-knacks to browse.

They were featuring their in-house-made fondue, the sample tasted excellent, so I bought a pint to take home.

Fondue Do’s and Don’t.

Do: Expertly stir your fondue fork in a figure-eight pattern, don’t just dip.

Don’t: Lose your baguette in the cheese—tradition dictates that if you do, you must kiss the person to your left. (This might be a do, or a don’t.)

Do: Pare with white wine. (Duh.)

We’re home; the sun is shining.

Where shall we go next?

Can You Believe It?

It’s Thanksgiving in two days, didn’t we just do that?

I am thankful, that’s not it. 

I believe in being thankful every day, it’s just that time is speeding up so fast I can’t keep track of it.
 

And being a tropical person at heart, I do not look forward to wintry days, but here I am in Oregon.

I grew up in Oregon and loved the snow. As a kid,  I would awaken in the night and look out the window to see it had snowed, but then we lived up a long sweeping road, and us kids would ride our sleds for miles down the long  incline. Of course, that meant hiking back up the hill, but that didn’t matter. Hot chocolate was waiting at home in a warm house.

Then I spent some 20 years in California, guess I grew soft.

I raved and exclaimed, and praised last spring for we had moved into a home new to us, and with that came flowers someone else had planted, and I didn’t know existed.  I felt that someone had daily presented a bouquet to me. And that will come again. 

So I will enjoy the winter, and snuggle in and write and read, and if it snows I will note the silence of it, and smell the freshness of the air, and watch the sparkles in the air that are minuscule ice crystals.  

Walter Rauschenbusch, American writer, 1861, wrote the following. I added the pictures.

A Thanksgiving Day Prayer

 For the wide sky and the blessed sun, 

For the salt sea and the running water, 

For the everlasting hills And the never-resting winds, For trees and the common grass underfoot. 

We thank you for our senses By which we hear the songs of birds, And see the splendor of the summer fields,

  

And taste of the autumn fruits, 

And rejoice in the feel of the snow,

 And smell the breath of the spring. 

Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty.

-- Walter Rauschenbusch

Have a joyful thankful celebration,
Jo

Make a Little Magic--or a lot

"To affect the quality of the day is the highest of the arts."

-- Henry David Thoreau

--

Have you read #Seth Godin’s blog?

He has reached his 7,000th blog post.

There are no ads, never have been. No guest posts. No one can buy a slot or a referral. All Amazon affiliate revenue is donated to BuildOn and to Acumen.

Seth writes every word.

The secret to writing a daily blog, he says, is to write every day. And to queue it up and blog it. There is no other secret.

The blog contains more than 2,700,000 words, delivering the equivalent of more than thirty full-length books. The blog doesn't exist to get you to buy a book, Seth says. Sometimes, he thinks he writes books to get people to read this blog.

Seth hasn’t missed a blog post in many, many years--the discipline of sharing something daily is priceless. Sometimes there are typos, he says.  I hope that they're rare and I try to fix them.

“Over time, the blog adds up. People remember a blog post a year later. Or they begin a practice, take an action, make a connection, something that grows over time. The blog resonates with people in so many fields, it's thrilling to see how it can provoke positive action.”

From his Nov 10^th post :

Everyone else is irrational

Everyone else makes bad decisions, is shortsighted, prejudiced, subject to whims, temper tantrums, outbursts and short-term thinking.

Once you see it that way, it's easier to remember...

that we're everyone too.—Seth Godin

This made me think of my daughter’s comment this week. She has been commuting for over an hour to work for over a month, and began to listen to the radio. “I hadn’t listened for a long time,” she said. However with the long drive she turned it on.

You know how it is—you take a break from something—like soda or news, and it doesn’t taste good anymore. “It’s all fear based,” said my daughter. “You listen to conservative radio, it’s fear. You listen to liberal radio, and that’s fear based too. Has the world lost it’s common sense? Did it ever have any?”

“Look closer to home,” I said. “The people we know are wonderful.”

And then there are those who promote positive thought on #Instagram, #Twitter, and #Pinterest. They still believe in believing, and tell those reaching for their dreams to never give up. 

Any to the contrary? Ignore them.

From Caz makepeace--ytravelblog.com

“I've never quite understood it when people cry at concerts or at places like Disneyland. Well maybe at concerts, when I touched Lenny Kravitz's leg as he electrified the stage as a 17 year old, I nearly cried from joy! “But tears at Disneyland - I mean none of it's real.  “And then yesterday, I walked into Hogsmeade at Universal Orlando Resort and the tears began to prick. And then when I walked into Hogwart's and then as I walked into Diagon Alley. “What was wrong with me? “Simply,  I was overcome by the magic.” One young woman had the courage to sit down in a café, let her imagination run wild, and write it all down. You, too, can bring on the magic. Oh, here’s a great creative absurdity to dump into your head:  “There’s a #Twinkie in my Vodka.” A company in San Diego is making vodka out of old stale twinkies. Have no fear though, those the charcoal filtration takes out any flavor. Hee hee.