Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:18 AM | Bitty
You and I still aren't on speaking terms, Summer, but I suppose these little peace offerings get us a little closer to truce. Thank you for this handful of today's tomato harvest.
Sunday, June 8, 2014 at 7:35 PM | Bitty 
Stir fry ingredients about to go into a very large wok for tonight's dinner. AND cooking al fresco. It really doesn't get any better than this.
this wonderful life in food, good life Monday, March 10, 2014 at 1:37 PM | Bitty ;)
a prettier lunch than today's, using the OMGSOAWESOME box I received as an anniversary gift from SalllyI'll have an update soon (with lots of pictures!) of all the home improvement sanity taking place at Hall House, but in the interim, wanted to get a bento post up. It's been almost a year since I posted one, even though I've been doing bentos since, including taking pictures, just haven't been posting them. But I got all of my pictures from the last year uploaded yesterday and I'm going to try to resume posting them as they happen.
There weren't even that many to post, at least compared to years past. It's not Bento Burnout, exactly, but I've just been ambivalent. It happens. (Bento 2.0, Baby! was obviously a reboot after a similar period of meh.) I do still enjoy doing my bentos, just not like before.
But I took advantage of the home improvement binge to clean out the cabinet where I store my boxes and gear and reorganize everything so it's all easier to get to. The collection had outgrown the bin I had for them, and reorganizing the bathroom cabinet freed up some organizers that weren't working well in there but fit perfectly in the cabinet I use for bento stuff. (I love it when that happens!) And I got a new box (purple Lunchbot Uno, woot woot!) for my birthday that I haven't used yet, so I have that to look forward to. (Today's lunch needed heating, so a metal box wasn't going to work.)
So here I am, posting my lunches again and planning to continue. Not the prettiest one I've ever done, but at least I did it.
;)
lunch, Ms. Bento:
[The pictures I posted to catch up can be found in the daily bento gallery, starting about halfway down on page 4 and onto page 5.)
bento box - ms. bento in bento 2.0 baby!, food Saturday, January 4, 2014 at 8:29 AM | Bitty ;)
It's both coincidental and not that the last post on this here website (7(!) months ago) was a reflection about how blessed we are. It would've been a good stand-in for the obligatory end-of-the-old-start-of-the-new year post, and I suppose still is, since everything I wrote about then is still true. But on the whole, 2013 was a hard year, and by the end, I wanted nothing more than to see it in my rearview mirror. Hence the dearth of posting.
I've had a lot to share. I have drafts of posts I never got the time to finish, loads and loads of pictures to upload, bentos pics to update, and of course Hall House projects to finish writing about. But things were busy, like they always are, and as the amount of things to post about built up, it started to become A Thing.
And then November happened. Well technically, the end of October to the end of November, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was apprehensive about 2013 from the beginning, and as soon as I returned to work from the holidays, found out I had good reason to be. From the first day back, we were faced with some big challenges at the office that ended up taking months to resolve, a friend received terrible news, and it was looking increasingly likely that the plans I'd made for my milestone birthday would have to be cancelled. By the end of the first month, I had fired January altogether and put 2013 on notice.
;)
at Manzanita, looking toward Neahkahnie MountainThankfully, my birthday plans didn't have to be cancelled, after all. I celebrated my 40th in several ways, with family and with Sal and with my own quiet little sojourn. And later, with the Albino, whose birthday is just a month after mine, and our mutual friend, Twinklebugs. A year in the making, we celebrated the entry into our fifth decade with a Girls' Weekend in Manzanita. We rented a house on the beach and when we weren't just staring out the windows, we were out on the sand and shopping and eating ridiculously good food and staying up very late talking.
;)
the rapiers are the prettiest, but the longswords are the most funSigns continued that 2013 might not be so bad after all. In April, I attended the first ever Swords for Scribes workshop put on by my friend Kim and her partner. I got to handle swords and machetes and rapiers, oh my, and practice three different sequences and learn all the awesomely gruesome physics of blades in battle. We then vanquished a melon army and watched a live duelling session between people who know what they're doing. I also learned that I am madly in love with the two-handed long sword.
;)
Lake Quinault LodgeOur summer technically kicked off in May, when we spent a long weekend at Lake Quinault Lodge on the Olympic Peninsula, which I planned to post about in yet another brilliantly-written-only-in my-head post. We lucked out with temps in the 80s all weekend and a cabin room with an unparalleled view. We dangled our feet in the water and snapped pics of an otter swimming around the dock and climbed the roots of an ancient Sitka spruce. We took an epic 5 mile trail hike, up ravines, past waterfalls, and through a wetland.
My mom and grandmother came out for a visit for five days at the end of May, and we ran them (gently) ragged, to rose gardens and the forestry museum, Powell's and a plant nursery. We enjoyed dinner at the OCI restaurant so Grandmother could eat the food Sal teaches his students to make, and we enjoyed dinner at our own humble kitchen so Grandmother could eat the food Sal masterfully creates. We made a trip down to my office, so she could see where I work at my "very grownup job". And we spent a significant time doing my Grandmother's favorite thing of all: Visiting. (My family doesn't just talk. We visit, which is talking taken to the level of an Olympic sport, because my family are world-class caliber visitors.) We started a list of the things we'll do during her next visit.
;)
summer vacation in OceansideAt the end of June, we took our summer vacation to Oceanside and enjoyed a nice bit of time off together. We celebrated our 17th anniversary in mid-July with a driveabout, something we hadn't done in a long time. Our destination? The Arctic Circle in Prineville so we could have a Bounty Burger and fry sauce like the ones we had at the Arctic Circle in our hometown back in the day.
;)
Crooked River Canyon, looking eerily similar to our Wyoming homeOur driveabout led us to the Crooked River Canyon and we had the best, best day of adventure, windows rolled down and singing to our favorite road music at the top of our lungs and making it to a gas station juuuuuust in time on the way home. We capped off our wonderful day with a romantic dinner of takeout pizza by candlelight and talking until late into the night, hands held and maybe tears of gratitude a time or two.
;)
it's been more than 13 years since we'd last had a Taco Johns softshell, and it tasted just like we remembered(We made a similar nostalgic fast food daytrip on Labor Day weekend, this time to TriCities, which we'd never been to before but happens to be the nearest location of a Taco John's. Because sometimes, you just gotta drive three and a half hours for six pack and a pound.)
;)
rain, rain, glorious rainThe beautiful weather that started in May continued almost unbroken through the first half of September, which is how I found out there really is such a thing as Summer SAD and wow, do I have every single symptom. If there ever was any doubt that the PNW is my homeland, this summer cleared that up definitively. I actually like summer okay, and Oregon summers are pleasant and mild for the most part. But I do battle insomnia and loss of appetite when the weather turns warmer and this year, they came with a low burn anxiety that had me agitated and restless by mid-August. But the rains finally came in mid-September and we crossed into blessedly cool and wonderful autumn at last. It took a few weeks, but I started to feel like my old self again.
Really, 2013 could've been an okay year, my struggles with the summer notwithstanding. But there had been one particular shadow casting a long silhouette across everything all year, and in the back of my mind, I knew something very hard was coming.
Back in January amidst all the work stuff, my dear friend and colleague and mentor, Geri, received terrible health news. The kind of news that measures time in weeks and not years. The kind of news that brings everything else to a stop. Two months, they said. Maybe three.
She leaped into a battle for more time. Not time for the sake of it, nor time increasingly occupied by specialists and last-ditch treatments. She was determined to have good, quality, make-the-most-of-it, leave-no-regrets time. And warrior that she was, she wrested eight extra months of time from that initial diagnosis and in true Geri fashion, she packed a whole lot of living into it.
I was one of many incredibly fortunate beneficiaries of that extra time so fiercely fought for. We met for lunch regularly and I visited her at home when treatments left her tired. We texted all the time. We played epic rounds of Word Feud and Draw Something until well past either of our bed times. She regaled me with tales of a life well-lived, of a fearless woman who blazed trails and kicked asses left, right, and center while wearing very fashionable footwear. I showed her whatever artwork I'd recently finished and told her all my funniest stories and caught her up on the latest goings on at the office. I got to visit with her and laugh with her and hug her and hold her hand. I got to make sure she knew, every time, how important she was to me.
Her partner very kindly notified me the morning she died, and my colleagues very kindly shouldered the responsibility of figuring out how best to notify our staff, and my husband very kindly asked me what did I need. It was a pretty fall day, season of my heart, all blue sky and autumn colors ablaze in technicolor intensity, the kind of day that's so brilliant your soul feels too small to contain it all, and as I sat looking out our kitchen window, I knew it was a day to be outside, breathing that air and digging in the earth, connecting to life in a profoundly simple way.
;)
the lilac my mom bought for my new homeIt's a tradition in my family to plant something to mark events and occasions and to remember those we love. A lilac for a mother's day, perhaps, maybe a pretty clematis for a birthday. A favorite rose bush to mark a great grandmother's passing, a silver leafed tree to mark a daughter's graduation, a willow for a significant anniversary. Geri was a gardener -- she would appreciate such a tradition. A tree would honor her well.
At the nursery, as we wandered among maples and oaks and birch and ash, I thought a lot about her, touching each trunk -- was this Geri's tree? This one? Maples are my favorite, but the birches kept drawing our attention. The birch is a symbol of renewal and strength, the first to leaf when spring hasn't yet taken firm hold, quick to repopulate after the ravages of fire. Resilient in times of adversity, spreading beauty and comfort where they're most needed, a symbol of hope and a reminder that the dark days will brighten. Yes, that was Geri.
;)
Geri's treeWe decided on a birch variety called 'royal frost', which has red and burgundy leaves in spring and summer, turning gold in fall, and striking salmon-colored bark until it matures. We made a prominent place for it in our back yard near the stump of the old apple tree we had to take down last year, tucked in among ferns and bleeding hearts and snowberries and heuchera. That pretty salmon bark stood out beautifully, the last few leaves burning dark burgundy against the late October sky. Damp dark earth, sharp scented bark mulch, a hummingbird hovering nearby as if to oversee our informal little ritual.
The serenity of that day became a touchpoint of calm in the weeks that followed. There was the office remodel that became both a logistical and scheduling headache, the abrupt demise of my laptop a week before my clients' websites needed their monthly updates, the scramble to get the house ready for an appraisal for a refinance that moved faster than expected. There was my granddad in the hospital, and a week later, my dad. My granddad's surgery went well, thankfully. Dad's surgery did, too, but there were complications and days of worry and frequent check-ins, waiting to hear if everything was going to be okay.
There was Geri's memorial. There were the hard days that followed.
;)
There was a health scare for Smaug that saw us at Dove Lewis (emergency veterinary hospital) at 1 AM on a Monday night, where we waited for nearly five hours through a series of tests and scans, ending in inconclusive results and us returning home long enough for an hour nap before our regular vet opened for more tests.
;)
There was me forgetting the disk with the scans from the hospital in the rush to get out the door, which meant Sal had to bring them to me instead of getting a couple of hours sleep before work, and all of that complicated by a financial snafu that threatened to derail the refinance, which Sal heroically straightened out while we waited for the vet. Afterward, there was a mad dash to the office for a meeting, still in my clothes from the night before and barely able to keep my eyes open. There was a text from Sal when I got out of my meeting that his laptop stopped working because of course it had.
;)
the day Smaug returned from her ordeal at the hospital and the vetSmaug's recovered, thankfully, from what turned out to be an e.coli infection. But she and Hobbes will be 18 in a few months, and she doesn't bounce back like she used to. They've been slowing down a bit this last year, but she seems to be aging quicker since this last incident. I have a feeling that this was probably our last Christmas with her, and as close as she and Hobbes are, wouldn't be surprised if he follows her soon after. They both seem okay, but something seems to have changed, and I feel like she's giving us little signs to prepare ourselves. Maybe for months, maybe for longer. Maybe not.
;)
;)
;)
So we make extra extra sure to enjoy our time with them each day, and continue to be grateful for the many years of joy and immeasurable love they have brought into our lives. We will let them go gracefully and painlessly when their time comes, whenever it does. I don't know how I will face those days, or a home without their delightfully demented and crazed little selves. This is the price we pay for love.
But if the month of November was heavy with grief, it was not unrelenting. ProcrastiGirl got engaged and her obvious happiness is an infectious sort of joy. The appraisal exceeded our hopes, the refinance closed successfully, and we'll be able to start some long overdue projects soon. The laptops were replaced (after a not insignificant amount of sturm und drang, but compared to everything else, it's hardly worth a mention), and I was fortunate enough to borrow one from work in the meantime, managing through two months of client website updates without a hitch despite the disarray of our technology while we waited for our new laptops. Family and friends provided support and encouragement throughout the chaos. We squeezed in time for little diversions to relieve the stress. We enjoyed our annual Hall-Smiley Thanksgiving Extravaganza of laughter and fun and food and love.
And even after she was gone, Geri was still working her special magic. It was thanks in part to her that reconciliation came from an unexpected quarter, renewing a lost relationship. That loss was an old wound, deep, but long since moved past. But she healed it just the same, as if to remind me that she's still got her eye on me. On all of us. That was the kind of person she was, to have an impact on all the lives that surrounded hers. Renewal and strength, spreading beauty and comfort where they're most needed. Yes indeed, that's Geri.
;)
Christmas Eve fogHeading into December, I think 2013 decided we'd had enough. December came with spectacular bouts of fog and downright frigid temperatures, conjuring something akin to the winters we grew up with -- as close as you can get in the PNW, anyway --which it made it feel more festive somehow. We had some much-needed time off together, in which we baked cookies and listened to Christmas music and watched every single one of our Christmas movies. A few days before Christmas, we dressed up for a nice night out -- dinner at Veritable Quandary followed by the tree all lit up at Pioneer Courthouse Square and enjoying being out and about in our city all dressed up for the holiday. We went to all the movies we wanted to see and took walks through the neighborhood and brewed beer and spent time in the studio making glorious artistic messes.
;)
winter vacation in OceansideBetween Christmas and New Years', we made our winter pilgrimage to Oceanside, enjoying unusually warm days, a bit of sunshine, and the sounds of the waves soothing us to sleep at night. Sal found four intact sand dollars, the first time we've ever found one intact, let alone four, and that seems like a good omen. And we ended the year the same way we started it, with our Smiley family and all the little traditions we've created together for the last day and the first.
That's by no means all of our highlights -- nor all of our lowlights -- of the complicated year we've just put behind us, but they're the parts I wanted to share here, to memorialize. I won't remember 2013 fondly, but I do want to remember that so many good memories happened this year, too, and maybe 2013 was a lesson in taking comfort in those things amidst the difficult ones. To remember the symbolism of Geri's tree: of renewal and strength, spreading beauty and comfort where they're most needed.
;)
;)
;)
;)
Saturday, May 18, 2013 at 7:18 PM | Bitty 
Friday, May 10, 2013 at 9:38 PM | Bitty 
Thursday, March 21, 2013 at 12:51 PM | Bitty I am not a coffee drinker. My husband, the poor dear, is a connoisseur of the stuff and living in the The Coffee Bean House of Worship (aka Portland, Oregon, or the Pacific Northwest if you want to mollify Seattle) means that he essentially lives in Nirvana, Shangri-La, Eden, and Valhalla all at once. Which also means that I, the non-coffee drinker, spend a lot of time in coffee houses, bakeries, cafes, and bistros.
The good news is that these places all recognize the non-coffee drinker, offering alternatives of chai, tea, and hot chocolate. Some even offer a variety of each of those things! Which means I, too, can enjoy the experience of reading a book or surfing the 'net whilst sipping from my goodwill mug in some esoteric little place with paintings of radiators and bird feathers by local artists decorating the walls and a mix of indie, rap, and 80s pop (played ironically, natch) in the background.
I order the hot chocolate*. I love tea and chai, but I almost always order the hot chocolate. With whipped cream. And a pastry on the side. It's the small luxuries in life.... And after countless cups of hot chocolate in a countless number of aforementioned coffee houses, bakeries, cafes, and bistros, I have learned that coffee places cannot make hot chocolate for shit.
*(Yes, yes, I know. It's not hot chocolate, it's hot cocoa. Hot chocolate is actual melted chocolate, generally served in a demitasse cup because no one could possibly drink 8 oz. of it at a sitting. I have enjoyed the ecstasy of actual hot chocolate -- drinking chocolate -- and I agree that the distinction is important. But I have grown up saying "hot chocolate" not "hot cocoa" in the same way I have grown up saying "pop" not "soda" and these language differences are a signifier of regional nuances and cultural variations make us a tapestry yada yada and some things you just can't beat out of a person.)
I'm pretty sure that 90% of the coffee people who put hot chocolate on their menus have never actually tasted the hot chocolate they serve, and they universally labor under the delusion that a squirt of chocolate syrup in a mug of warm milk, stirred until it's no longer white, is all that's needed to call it hot chocolate. I get that coffee people do not deign to sully their palates with the plebeian tastes of the great unwashed. Nonetheless, it seems sensical to taste the items you're selling. If for some reason you cannot, then perhaps it should not appear on your menu. I have been tempted on many occasions to march back to the counter with my mug, hand it back to the barrista, and say, "I ordered hot chocolate. This, sir, is tinted milk."
I am utterly baffled by the dearth of a decent cup of hot chocolate in this town. With only a handful of exceptions, every hot chocolate I have ordered has been an exercise in disappointment variance. You would think, in the gastronomical mecca that this city has become famous as, in which we have elevated the donut to a performance art, beer to an elixir of the gods, and bacon to a freaking staple, that we might have mastered the simple combination of chocolate and milk. I'm frankly surprised that we don't see the same experimentation with hot chocolate that we see with waffles, ice cream, and potatoes, but I would just settle for mastery of the basics.
So to the coffee joints of this city that I adore, a simple request: please, learn to make hot chocolate. Taste what you're selling -- you don't have to be a fan of hot chocolate to know that what you're serving isn't cutting it. It doesn't have to have the consistency of sludge to be considered chocolatey enough. "Pale brown" is not a signifier that you're done. Topping with a big dollop of whipped cream does not transform a crappy mug of hot chocolate into a gourmet treat. And the bitterness of straight unsweetened chocolate and no sugar whatsoever may please your coffee-conditioned taste buds, but for a non-coffee drinker, it just makes me hate you.
pacific northwest paradise, rantalicious in food Wednesday, October 24, 2012 at 12:19 PM | Bitty ;)
Today is a post of odds and ends, wee tales of empowerment, quirkiness, and adorableness. Also, food.
A Tale In Which Our Heroine Gets A Sign From the Universe. Literally.
On the way to the store a few weeks ago, there was a handmade sign stapled to a lightpole saying "Go Brittney Go!" An unexpected exhortation to hurry, hurry to the store? Words of encouragement for braving the hordes in the produce section when I got there?
No, just a remnant from the Portland Marathon a few days before (the route brings participants across the bridge and down Willamette, which is the street I was on), one of many homemade signs of cheer and support along the route. This one was on neon pink posterboard and featured stars and glitter.
A little further on, another sign: "Brittney You Go Girl!" I grinned and said to myself, "Yes, Brittney, you go girl!" And then after that, "YOU ROCK BRITTNEY GO GO GO!" I nodded and pumped my fist a little, "Yes, Brittney, you do rock! Go, go, go!"
It was the most empowering trip to the grocery store I've ever had.
A Tale of What Makes This City Uniquely Fabulous
On the way home from that same trip to the store, I saw what would've been the most awesome thing that day, if I hadn't already taken the grocery store errand of champions just before.
In the bike lane on the opposite side of the street, a cyclist caught my attention from a few blocks away, which is saying something, since cyclists are ubiquitous in this city of that's a haven for bike lovers. It wasn't that he was an older man, nor that he was riding an older-style bike that forced him to sit more upright, nor even that he was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt instead of sporting the hipster-biker and/or Serious Biking Enthusiast gear that's more common. No, it wasn't any of those things, because you get used to seeing all types when bikes make up as much traffic as cars do.
What caught my eye was the white fur stole wrapped around the man's neck and shoulders. I kept staring as I got closer, trying to puzzle out this unusual fashion choice. Was it for warmth? It was a gorgeous 70 degree autumn day, so that seemed unlikely. And fur-anything is a rare sight here, the headquarters of Liberal and Vegan and Environmentally And Socially Conscious.
It wasn't until I passed him that I finally realized that it wasn't a fur at all.
It was his beard.
Parted in the middle and thrown over each shoulder.
I wish every trip to the grocery store was that awesome.
A Tale of What's Red and Black and Adorable All Over
Sister reported the following conversation between her and the Fabulous Miss M regarding favorite colors:
Miss M: And Aunt Bitty's favorite color is purple, like me!
Sister: Yes, and yellow.
Miss M: Mommy, what's Uncle Sal's favorite color?
Sister: I think he likes black. And red.
(I was impressed that she remembered that, by the way.)
Miss M: Uncle Sal is a Ladybug Man!
(And now you know why we spoil her rotten. When you're that adorable, it's a requirement.)
A Tale of Bento Catch Up
But not bento ketchup. Although that would be rad.
Super behind on posting bento pics, but there were too many good ones not to feature them here, and also, NEW BENTO BOX WOOT WOOT! In my search for non-plastic boxes, I've finally added a glasslock box called a Wean Green, which is a pyrex type of glass with a locking plastic sealed lid. This one is square and holds 490 mL, so it's a good in-between size with a nice depth. (For the locals: New Seasons sells them alongside the Lunchbots.)
;)
10/15/12 lunch -- Ms. Bento
;)
10/16/12 breakfast -- pink WeanGreen
;)
10/16/12 lunch -- bento colors purple
;)
10/18/12 lunch -- pink Natural Lunch
;)
10/22/12 lunch -- french bistro
title from "Get On the Road" by Tired Pony
Friday, September 21, 2012 at 2:47 PM | Bitty ;)
So...this is a thing that happened today. Sal said, "Yeah, I thought we were doing serious faces...".
(Duff is here for Feast Portland this weekend and needed a kitchen for prepping a few things. Of course he came to OCI, because OCI is home of the Kitchen Ninja. I MEAN REALLY DUH.)
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at 2:14 PM | Bitty ;)
We returned Sunday from a 4 day trip to northern Washington, where Sal attended a work-related conference and I tagged along, because hey, why not. More specificially, he attended Kneading Conference West, the purpose of which is "to inspire and educate novice and professional bakers, grain growers, millers, wheat breeders, wood-fired oven enthusiasts, food entrepreneurs, food writers, and anyone who loves to eat hand-crafted breads."
So basically, three straight days of talking about bread, literally morning, noon, and night, and Sal could not have been happier if he had been baked right into a loaf of artisan bread. He was so gleeful at the end of every day that he probably could've powered the entire city of Las Vegas with his excitement. And now there is talk of milling our own flour and (finally) building that earth oven we've been talking about for years.
While he spent his days at the conference, I spent my days writing and exploring the area around Mount Vernon. The last time we were there was with the Albino and Mr. T for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, (hence the picture up top). Even without the fields of rainbow flowers, the area is actually quite lovely and the little downtown area is also very charming. On one of my driveabouts, I ended at Bay View State Park, and another, discovered a really great park on a hillside overlooking the valley and enjoyed a wee picnic of cheeses and crackers while reading a book. Not quite the excitement of a conference about bread and baking, perhaps, but a lovely few days of R&R. I can do with a little less excitement at the moment, anyway.
Super behind on bento postings, but here are the last few. The rest are on the daily bento page, as always. (I just realized that I've had pretty much the same lunch for the last several meals. Hmmm, perhaps time to change things up.
;)
9/6 lunch, Lunchbot Duo
;)
9/6 snacks, Lunchbot Pico
;)
9/10 lunch, pink Natural Lunch
;)
9/18 lunch, origami squares
Friday, January 13, 2012 at 1:05 PM | Bitty The new ad for OCI is up on their site! KITCHEN NINJAS FTW!
This is the commercial Sal spent a Saturday at the school for a few weeks ago. A whole day of shooting and there are only two brief shots of him.... The appalling lack of Sal-ness aside, however, they did a really terrific job conveying all that's great and awesome about the school and it's unlike anything out there for culinary schools (::coughWesternCulinarycough::). It will pretty much make you want to sign up for classes. I mean who wouldn't want to be a kitchen ninja????
OCI "Rock Montage" Commercial from Actual Industries on Vimeo.
pacific northwest paradise in food, squee, work Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 5:52 PM | Bitty ;)
...damn hell ass kings.
AWWWW YEAH. It's time for the Annual Hall House LOTR Special Collectors' Extended Edition Marathon, in which we power through 14 or so hours of LOTR goodness to ring in the New Year, Eru bless us every one.
Preparations for the accompanying feast are underway, as you can plainly see. There are nine different cheeses, four meats, three different breads, and three kinds of crackers. And of course fruit and vegetables galore because we are all about healthy balance at Hall House.;)
There are also a shitload of our goddamn glorious wings. Sir Not-Appearing-In-These-Pictures would be the sour cream chocolate chip cake currently baking in the oven and the BBQ meatballs that will be the main course of tomorrow's feast when we finish the marathon. (Yes, we break it up in two parts. We make our own rules.) This event is not for amateurs.
I think I hear Sal in there sneaking wings so I'll cut short the end-of-year wishes to just say love, health, and happiness, everyone, and may 2012 be a terrific year for us all.
this wonderful life in food, good life, home Monday, November 28, 2011 at 2:11 PM | Bitty Thanksgiving at our house was the usual, which is to say: fun, quiet, and comfortable. And delicious, of course!
It's nice having a "usual" when it comes to holidays, a personal tradition that's familiar and easy, and family (Sister, Guy, and the Fabulous Miss M) to share it with. We've got the menu and preparation down to a science, share around the tasks of cooking and baking and cleaning, and no one has to get up at the ass crack of dawn to put a turkey in the oven. There's mostly playing and relaxing and sleeping, and whole lot of mouthwatering deliciousness.
What we do not do is venture into the Black Friday melee. I mean, the stress of all those people and all those cars and all that stuff is enough to make me break out in hives, but ye gods and little fishes, it's a freaking battlefield out there these days! Pepper spray? Shootings? Trampling and riots? What could possibly be so enticing that you'd literally take your life in your hands to buy it? And don't even get me started on the poor folks who have to work on what should be their holiday, too, just so Shelly Shopper can get a good deal on a cheap waffle maker. Screw them as long as you save $20 on that XBox, eh? I obviously don't get the attraction of the annual free-for-all, and to each their own, I guess, but surely there's a better way?
;)
lunch, French bistro:
This lunch is the result of having cleaned out the fridge and eaten up leftovers in preparation for the feast (and the need for space), and then eaten up (most of) the leftovers from said feast, as well as being at the tail end of our last produce delivery. Which is to say, a tad short on veggies and color, but that should be remedied shortly once I get home tonight and unpack the organics bin that will be waiting on the porch.
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 11:50 AM | Bitty ;)
We are sometimes the recipients of genuinely ridiculously awesome bounty. Part of that is a function of living where we live, and part is just plain good fortune.
Case in point: one of Sal's (former?) students recently went clamming with her family, which yielded an impressive haul of razor clams. The irony is that she doesn't like clams, just digging for them. So Sal was the recipient of an entire bag of freshly dug razor clams, all cleaned and shelled.
Thanks to her generosity, I enjoyed the most damn fine clam chowder for dinner last night that I have ever eaten in my entire life. Said chowder also included some of the smoked bacon that I mentioned last week that one of the other instructors at OCI smoked and cured with a class. He cut it up small and sauteed it with onion and celery, and combined with the magic of potatoes and cream and fresh thyme from the garden and, oh yes, and veritable mountain of fresh razor clams, and you have heaven in a pot, my friends.
;)
lunch, Ms. Bento:
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 12:25 PM | Bitty ;)
Part 2 about our weekend, continuing from yesterday... And yes, there is a recipe from Sal at the bottom of this post.
We waved goodbye to Sister and Guy Sunday morning, then Sal headed off to the school to prepare for a cooking demonstration at the Portland Nursery Apple (and Pear) Tasting. You may remember from last year's post that this event is like a birthday party for autumn, and I really have no better way to describe it.
;)
I arrived at the festival just in time to watch Sal set up for his demonstration. It's held in a busy area of the festival where there are vendors selling gourmet homemade caramels and other delectables that make your mouth water, and where you will be amazed at how many people will line up for a free taste of freshly brewed hard cider. The demonstrations are an informal setup with hay bales for seating, which means there may or may not be anyone sitting there to watch when you start. I'll admit I was a little worried that he wouldn't have anyone sitting down to watch and was tempted to go round people up to ensure he had an audience. He'd stayed late Friday night making 80 samples of the pear coffee cake with streusel he was demonstrating, and I didn't want him to be up there all alone. "People, there's a real live chef over there making a fantastic dessert and handing out free samples! Come, come see the magic happen! He's even sharing the recipe he invented! This will be the best thing you eat all day, I promise!"
I needn't have worried. The elderly lady who wandered up while he was getting his trays set up was soon joined by a few couples standing at the back of the seating area, arms crossed, and then familes, and then some older gentlemen, and within two or three minutes all the hay bales were packed and there was a genuine crowd watching him talk about pears and the wonders of cardamom and the amazing alchemy that transforms heavy cream when you whip it very patiently.
;)
Sal @ last year's demonstrationHe's so, so good at what he does and I never fail to be impressed every time I watch him at work, sharing his passion in his charming, inviting style, easygoing and welcoming to people that might be intimidated by talking to a real live pastry chef. Somehow, he managed to field questions despite the background noise, cut d'Anjou pears into perfectly even slices with a knife sharp enough to amputate fingers, and talk about the differences between pastry flour and cake flour, all while turning cream, sugar, vanilla, and spices into a beautiful cinnamon creme chantilly (a flavored type of French whipped cream). And then proceed to pipe it out into a decorative dollop on 80 samples right there with everyone watching.
The samples disappeared in minutes. As did the 50 copies of the recipe he had out for people to take. Several people came back two, three, four times. A few brought back companions standing in other lines saying, "OMG YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS." Many people said they don't really care for coffee cake, but this was amazing and did it really count as coffee cake because it was delicious and how was that possible? Many more asked where he taught and did they have a restaurant and was dessert served there? Were his desserts served there? I even talked to one lady and told her all about the school and the restaurant and how she totally needed to go there, like, nowish.
(And so now your mouth is watering, and you're wondering if it's really that good, so we have supplied you with the recipe at the bottom of this post for that coffee cake that transformed a random group of strangers into fawning gourmands in five minutes flat.)
(see all the pictures from last year's festival here)
Culinary awesomeness now complete, we made our way to the "Buy the Bag" part of the festival, where you walk amongst ginormous bins of apples and pears of a million different varieties you didn't even know existed, filling a bag (or more likely, bags) with as many apples and pears as you think you can possibly eat and it's all the same price, $0.99/lb. There are pears that are good for poaching and for baking and for sauteing, and apples that are best for pies and others that hold up well paired with meat and still others that store for a really long time, and many varieties of both that are perfect just for eating no matter whether you prefer juicy, tart, sweet, firm, crisp, mellow, flavorful, or any combination of all of those qualities and more.
And you will buy half a dozen a dozen dozens many pounds of both apples and pears and decide to skip dinner altogether so you can just gorge on apples and pears, which will sound like a mighty fine idea until about 2 AM, when the stomache to end all stomaches has you sitting upright in bed and second guessing whether the apples and pears were really that good. They were, but you might possibly be a bit more judicious about how many you eat in a single sitting next time. Which totally didn't happen to us, I'm just saying, you know, it could possibly happen to some hypothetical people who were a bit caught up in all the apple and pear excitement of the moment and let their gluttony get the best of them.
;)
lunch, Lunchbot Duo:
Chef Salvatore's Spiced Pear Coffee Cake with Pecan Streusel
Yield: 1 ea. filled coffeecake
6 oz. Butter
7 1/2 oz. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
3 ea. Eggs
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
8 oz. Pastry Flour
3/4 tsp. Baking Soda
3/4 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Cardamom, ground
1 tsp. Cinnamon, ground
1 1/2 C Sour Cream
1 ea. Ripe pear, cored and sliced into ½-inch sections
Cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla in small portions, scraping between additions. Sift dry ingredients together and add to mixture in three additions with the sour cream in two.
Spray and flour a bundt cake pan. Spread half of the batter into the pan, arrange sliced pears. Next, spread about 1/2 C of streusel (see below) on top of the fruit. Spread the remaining batter on top, then a final 1/2 C of streusel on top. Bake at 350 degrees. Check at 45 minutes with a skewer. When the skewer comes out clean, cool and depan.
Pecan Streusel
Yield: approx. 1 Cup
2 oz. Pecans, chopped
1 1/2 oz. AP Flour
2 oz. Brown Sugar
1oz. Butter, melted
1/4 tsp. Cinnamon, ground
Mix ingredients together lightly, breaking it up with your fingers to make a coarse meal.
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 1:50 PM | Bitty Sally and I had the bestest, bestest weekend together.
A few months ago, Sal had been asked to judge a wedding cake competition at the annual bridal show, which is a pretty big deal for him and for the school. And it helps with his professional credits. The competition was Saturday afternoon.
Unfortunately, that was also the day I was planning to attend Wordstock, which included some events I thought he'd enjoy, as well. But! In the kind of happy happenstance that hardly ever happens to us, both events were held at the Convention Center, which meant we could have our cake and eat it, too. *rimshot*
Yes, I've been waiting all weekend to make that joke.
Anyhoodle, we had a great, jam-packed day of books and authors and writing workshops alongside cakes and frosting and bridezillas-to-be wearing WAY too much fake tan. Good times! And it happened to be a glorious autumn day after a week of chill and gray, so we skipped out on the latter events I'd put on my Wordstock schedule to have a big and very late lunch at Widmer before heading home to enjoy the rest of the late afternoon/evening.
Gray and drizzly and foggy Sunday, which made it perfect for sleeping in. after a lazy start, we grabbed books and notebooks/sketchbooks and braved the traffic back up from the marathon to check out Arbor Lodge, the new coffee shop across from New Seasons. One hot chocolate and two coffees later, we walked over to New Seasons for some dinner groceries. Then spent the rest of the afternoon comfortably ensconced at home with the clouds hanging low in the hills across the river all day, Sal cooking and chopping away in the kitchen while I spent a bit of time writing until dinner was ready. Fabulous dinner while we finished off disks four and five of S3 Fringe (one more disk to go!), then a bit more writing for me while Sal concocted a mighty big batch of sauerkraut.
Seriously, who could ask for more?
;)
lunch, Bento Colors purple:
Whew! Can you tell that we feasted for Sunday night dinner?
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 11:29 AM | Bitty ;)
reblogged on tumblr, taken from this comic on funnyjunk.com -- life at Hall House in a simple two-panel comic
The only good thing about coming back to work after a three day weekend is that it makes a four day work week.
Ahem. I may be having trouble shifting gears from "leisure" mode to "work" mode.
We spent part of yesterday at Kelley Point Park, then took a late afternoon drive so I could show Sal my secret getaway. (Some Friday afternoons if the weather's nice, I grab a book, maybe toss a few things in a bento box, and hop in the car for a bit of a drive to my secret getaway, where I can watch boats pass by and read my book and officially start the weekend.)
;)
We sat for a bit in silence, watching the boats and taking in the view, and I closed my eyes to breathe in that scent of the water on the wind. I said, almost to myself, "I've come to realize how much I need to be near water."
He laughed and shook his head. "Duh. Took you long enough. Aquarius."
"Shut up, you don't know me." I laughed and bumped him with my shoulder. "How long have you known?"
"Pretty much since we first started dating. And then when we moved here, and the ocean...you know how you are."
I smiled and nodded. Yes, I know how I am. I appreciate that he knows, too. To him, I said, "Is there anything you need to be near?"
"You," he said without skipping a beat, and I fell in love with him all over again.
;)
lunch, bento colors purple
Today's lunch courtesy of the veritable cornucopia on our table for dinner last night, thanks to the delivery of our produce bin and lots of yummy odds and ends in the fridge that added up to a bit of a feast. We grilled some skewers and corn in husks, I put together a green salad, cooked up some rice, and, along with the caprese salad leftover from Saturday and the lemon cheesecake Sal brought home from work Friday night, we ate like kings. Damn hell ass kings.
title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, "Part V: The Single Hound, #51"
Monday, August 15, 2011 at 12:50 PM | Bitty ;)
Oh the adventures we have had! So many to tell you!
Like Wednesday night's neighborhood game night, hosted at our house. Or Friday night catching up and watching stuff with ProcrastiGirl. And yesterday, Sal rode in the Bridge Pedal, which is a bike ride that covers 35 miles and ten of the city bridges (including the St. Johns Bridge). (Which means Sal logged almost 55 miles, since it was 9+ miles to the starting point and then the same distance home.) And afterward, we did up a big ol' batch of stir fry on the patio, because life is ridiculously good.
Saturday, while we took our time over the brunch Sal made, talking about what to do with the day, we decided we were long overdue for a driveabout. We were getting a late start, so we needed a closer destination than, say, the coast. We decided on Vernonia, since we haven't explored much of the Coast Range that lies between Hwy 26 and Hwy 30.
We often pack a picnic for a driveabout, but didn't have much in the fridge that wouldn't take some prep time, so we decided instead just to grab a few snacks and our water bottles and go. Daylight was burning, after all. (You'll note I didn't say "sunlight", as it was overcast almost all day. But still temperate and nice, so no complaints here.)
Vernonia is situated in a little valley in the forested hills of the Coast Range. (Which sort of makes it a mountain town if you consider the Coast Range mountains. We don't, but the rest of Oregon does, so.) We took the Scappoose-Vernonia Highway from Hwy 30, a two-lane highway winding through deep, dark (I mean dark) forest and up and over the hills/mountains.
the Nehalem River at Hawkins ParkIt's a nice little town, a bit bigger than I imagined, with a slightly-larger-than-a-pond lake at one end and the perennially-flooding Nehalem River running through the middle. We stopped at Hawkins Park, which sits right alongside the river. They've built an ingenious little dam there to create a nice swimming hole (in lieu of a city pool, presumably), complete with a concrete embankment so you don't have to walk in dirt to get to the water, a ladder over the side down into the deep end, a wooden lifeguard stand, and a charming bank of lockers. They even used a water diversion to one side to create a wading pool for little ones. It wasn't warm enough to draw swimmers while we there, not even brave ones, but it wasn't hard to imagine what it must be like on hot summer days.
;)
Setting for a creepy horror flick? Do we commit the mortal sin of slasher films and go investigate the creepy abandoned building? Yes, yes we do.We headed to the lake next, where there's a nice paved walking path that skirts the perimeter. About a quarter of the way around, there's an abandoned building off the path about a hundred feet. According to the placard on the walking path, it's an old fuel house for a now vanished cedar mill. (The "lake", as it turns out, is the old mill pond.) It stored cedar chips to stoke the mill furnaces. It now has trees growing inside it. I love the poetry of that. Of course we had to look inside. And if I had woken up that morning with the intent to have an adventure, I couldn't have planned a more perfect discovery of treasure.
inside, a marvelous surpriseThe interior was like something out of a story. All four concrete walls completely intact, seven trees growing around the interior's perimeter, with sword ferns and bracken ferns and vine maples spreading out in the corners. The walls are decorated with colorful graffiti in more imaginative style than mere tagging, collectively creating the effect of a mural. And every sound echoes so that you speak softly and sparingly. A row of concrete platforms running down the center look like old stone seats from some ancient pagan ritual site, one that's so old that no one knows for certain just who built it or what they built it for, and combined with the simple peaked roof gables and the light slanting in through the trees, it has the look of a cathedral.
We still had some time before we needed to head home, so instead of our snacks, I suggested the restaurant that had caught my eye as we drove through town. It was really the word "brewery" that caught my eye, because Sal loves few things more than trying a new beer in a new town wherever we go, and I have had long experience looking for the signs of such things.
The Blue House Cafe, Espresso Bar, & Brewery, as it turns out, was just as much of a treasure as the mill ruin had been.The interior is charmingly decorated, all yellow and cobalt blue, with delightful touches here and there (like the beaded curtain made of wine corks and the blue painted nail heads throughout) and an ingenious outdoor seating area. It's a quaint restaurant serving time-tested family recipies and run by people who obviously care very much about what they do.
Their menu is largely Mediterranean and everything sounded wonderful, although that's one of the toughest cuisines for me personally since there are usually several key ingredients I just can eat. (Feta, kalamata olives, lamb, gorgonzola, pepperoncinis...I could go on, but it's just depressing.) Which means scanning for something innocuous or that doesn't have too many ingredients to ask them to hold, all the while wishing I could eat more than my frustrating palate allows.
We settled on the zataar flatbread, one with feta (for him), one without (for me). No idea what zataar was, but it was an adventure and that means you have to try things without knowing everything that's in them. He ordered their porter, I ordered a lemonade. Sal said the beer was decent, though nothing to write home about. The lemonade looked more like iced tea when it came, but I wasn't feeling particularly picky so I took a sip anyway. It was indeed iced tea, but so good I was glad for the accidental mix-up. It was infused with fresh mint and sweetened with brown sugar, so it had a delicious, crisp summery flavor that was most refreshing.
;)
PLEASE SAL FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS FOR ME I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER AMENOur order arrived and with the first bite, I was in love. The flatbread was handmade and still warm, the zataar (a blend made of thyme, sumac, sea salt, and sesame seeds all ground together very finely) was mixed with olive oil and spread on the toasted flatbread, then topped with fresh tomato, cucumber, and onion. It was, in a word, heavenly. It may possibly have supplanted bruschetta as my favorite summertime treat. I'm still thinking about that meal two days later, and thinking a day trip to Vernonia may just have to be on our regular excursion list from now on.
You always take a chance on a driveabout that your search for adventure will end up being an uneventful day's drive in the car to nowhere in particular. You'll take your chances with the doubtful looking roadside cafe and it'll turn into a bust as often as naught. You'll point to a place on the map and arrive to find nothing much of interest. You'll have car trouble that is funny in retrospect, but anything but enjoyable at the time.
Still, even the least eventful driveabouts have their special moments: the hilarity that becomes a future in-joke, the music that imprints the moment just so, the odd sign or bizarre sight that makes you both go, "Did you just see...?" If they didn't, we wouldn't keep taking them. But every once in awhile, the search for a bit of adventure will turn up a little bit of mystery and a little bit of magic alongside those memories, and then you're hooked for life.
see the full set of pictures here
;)
lunch, Paris slimline:
title taken from "Among the Ruins of a Convent in the Apennines" by William Wordsworth
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 2:08 PM | Bitty I was up very late last night working (on stuff for website clients, not my day job), to the point that I convinced myself that I wasn't going to take the time to pack a lunch. Too tired, no leftovers to scrounge, no starches/carbs, too much work, etc. etc. The usual. But our organics delivery had come earlier in the day so I certainly didn't lack for veggies, and eggs are always an option, and no starch/carb wouldn't be any big deal. So I ended up putting one together, as well as a small breakfast sidecar. I even molded a couple of eggs and cut out a few carrot shapes. It was so late by the time I was putting it all together I just figured in for a penny, in for a pound, right?
Tuesdays include a very long meeting, one that goes from morning until lunch, sometimes past lunch. So as I sat during our meeting eating from my little breakfast sidecar, I was thankful that I'd taken the time the night before. But our meeting went longer than usual and rather than order out, we decided to finish the meeting at a nearby restaurant (Macaroni Grill). Damn, I thought. I could've just saved myself the hassle of making lunch last night if I'd known. A silly thought, since of course there was no way to know that we'd decide on the spur of the moment to make it a lunch meeting, but I thought it nonetheless.
At first, I thought well, I'll just save my lunch for dinner, then. Consider lunch a treat, even though a part of me was bummed that the especially colorful lunch I was looking forward to would have to wait until dinner.
But once I got there and looked at the menu (which was perfectly decent food, if a bit heavy), I changed my mind. I wasn't very hungry yet, thanks to my little breakfast, and my pretty lunch was waiting for me at my office, packed full of veggies and food cut into cute shapes. I knew I'd feel better afterward if I ate that instead of the pasta and cream sauces. (HAHAHAHA ORDER A SALAD WHAT IS THIS CRAZY TALK?) My bento was my treat, I realized, and suddenly nothing on the menu could compare.
;)
breakfast, cute animals sidecar:
;)
lunch, bento colors purple
Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 10:12 PM | Bitty ;)
@ Powell'sOh my, what a terrific day! Brunch at Gravy, a trip to SCRAP, then downtown where Sal had reserved us a room at the Ace Hotel. Which is pretty much the kind of hotel we would have if we were hipper and cooler than we are. Seriously, what can you say about a place that has a vintage photo booth in the lobby, old payroll ledgers decoupaged in the bathroom, and an illustration from a sign language instruction book painted above the bed, except that it is indisputably awesome?
;)
The hotel's location is perfect. It's a block from Powell's, across the street from the Living Room Theater, next door to Kenny & Zuke's, and within a block or two of several great shops and restaurants. It also has an on-location Stumptown Coffee (Sal may have bowed in deference) and the hotel restaurant is Clyde Common, which apparently makes the usual best-of lists. (I didn't know -- when I asked Sal what kind of restaurant it was, he said, "You know, basically a run-of-the-mill Pacific Northwest place." Why would we want to go to a run-of-the-mill place? "Oh, it's a good place. It's won awards." Well that's hardly run-of-the-mill if it's won awards. "All right then, Miss Pedantic. 'Typical' would've been the better word. Yeesh.")
;)
A downpour started just as we headed out for Powell's, so happy birthday to me from the weather gods. They sure know how I love a good rain. We managed not to spend our entire evening browsing the bookshelves, and even more remarkably, came out with only one bag full to bursting. We've learned restraint in our old age.
;)
The wait at Clyde Common was far too long so we opted for Kenny & Zuke's, instead. I'm glad it worked out that way because we had a really great meal in a comfortable atmosphere. Sal had a Reuben, since he will always opt for one if it's on the menu, and I had the best damn burger I've had in a long time. Plus, homemade garlic dill pickles!
;)
Afterward, we walked up a few blocks to Cacao, a speciality chocolate shop, for a wee cup of drinking chocolate. Not hot chocolate. Drinking chocolate. I mentioned on Tumblr last night that I thought I knew what chocolate was, but oh, how very wrong I was. Pure chocolate in a custom blend -- mine was a blend of two different dark chocolates and a milk chocolate with a dash of cinnamon -- served warm and creamy, rich but not too rich, nor too sweet, just perfect.
Which is basically the description of my entire special day. Just perfect.
;)
chocolate chiffon cake with pastry creme between the layers and Italian buttercream icingAnd then he made me a cake.
