Late lunch in Paris

Okay, not literally Paris. But pretty close, wouldn't you agree? Late lunch at Petite Provence after sleeping in, heading to Omsi for the BodyWorks exhibit (and then skipping it for another time because of the crowds), then a bit of shopping for Sally at River City Bicycles for some new bike gear. Collage is across the street so I suspect that will be our next stop, but not before we indulge in a pastry (or three)!

vacation thus far

Sal @ Lovejoy Bakery, contemplating life, love, and the intricacies of laminated doughsOur WinterFest Vacation crossed the halfway mark a few days ago, which means we have successfully developed amnesia about all things work-related and managed to cram in a buttload of seriously awesome fun in the last week and a half or so: four days at the coast, WITH the cats, and no one ended up in handcuffs or a morgue; homemade gifts completed on time and delivered intact, and eventually gifted successfully; Smiley-Hall Christmas 2012 celebrated in the usual grand and entertaining style, with said homemade gifts exchanged during the festivities; a day of utter slothfulness that involved reading in the library with a cat on each lap and staying in our pajamas all day; full seasons of Dexter, Parks & Rec, and Sherlock (re)watched; and today, a Day of Portland that included Powell's and two(!) bakeries. And there are still four days left!

Powell's a complete madhouse today, by the way. We avoid anything that even hints of shopping in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but apparently, a mid-week afternoon three days afterward is still a time to be wary. Holy buckets.

I did, however, come out of there with two new bento boxes, of all things. The "Syrup O'Clock" line is new to me, but clearly adorable. They had locking two tiers that went with each of these designs, as well as a nesting set of square boxes for each, but I managed to resist. I do have some willpower, you know.

These are each 240 mL, which will make them perfect for my "Greek yogurt mixed with fruit" mornings. (The 300 mL sidecars are too large for a portion of yogurt and the 100 mL mini sidecars are too small. These are, therefore, the Goldilocks of my bento box collection.

and then we said "open", and everyone went bananas

Whew! We have officially survived the week of All The Things and are now on Day 2 of our Winterfest Vacation, aka Two Glorious Weeks (And A Few Days) Of Not Working Dammit.

The week of crazydom was not without its fun, however. Friday was the long-awaited holiday party at my office, and you will perhaps be a little surprised that a company party could be described as "long-awaited", and in some years past, I would agree with you, but this year...oh this year, I have a story to tell.

Way back in August, the Executive Team decided to "go big" for the end of the year party in recognition of everyone's hard work. We upped the party planning committee's budget for food, drinks, and decorations. We also decided to do swag bags, since our company has never really had products with our name and logo on them before. The swag bags would include a reusable shopping bag, a really nice insulated steel coffee tumbler, an insulated steel 1 liter thermos, chocolate bars with our logo imprinted, and polo-style shirts with our logo embroidered.

But that was only the start.

We usually have a raffle drawing every year for prizes (usually gift cards), but we wanted the prizes to be really big this year and for everyone to go home with something great. We couldn't send everyone home with a big screen tv or anything, but we could make the raffle prizes pretty spectacular and then surprise everyone who didn't win with something awesome, too. And when I say "spectacular", I mean it: 2 iPod Touches, an XBox Kinect (w/an NCAA Football game and the Michael Jackson Experience game), 2 Kindle Fires, 2 16x zoom cameras, an HP laptop, an iPad, 2 Kitchenaid Professional stand mixers, and a 50" plasma screen TV. For the remainder, the committee was given a list for shopping for the surprise gifts so they would know what we meant when we said "awesome": cameras, iPod nanos, Garmins, Kindle Touches, Wiis, Keurig coffee makers, cookware sets, and a food processor. (The Executive Team was in charge of the big gifts, so that even the committee didn't know what they were.)

So the committee has been on a series of shopping sprees for everything on their list for the last two months, increasingly running out of room as our storage unit. Space became even more of a problem for the raffle items, since we couldn't even let the committee members see those. At the end of the Executive Retreat on Tuesday, we assembled all the swag bags, then had to cram them all amongst our cars' trunks. But it was coming together and we were downright gleeful about what was about to come at the end of the week.

The committee worked their tails off all week getting the conference room decorated for the party (last year was the first time we did it at the office, and they made it look really terrific; this year, they outdid themselves). Wednesday, the committee and the Executive Team wrapped the surprise gifts, hiding things inside other boxes so nothing could be guessed. We stacked them all up along the far wall of the conference room, and I'm pretty sure that when everyone filed in at the start of the party, they assumed the prettily-wrapped stack of boxes were just for decoration to hide the IT station that runs the projector and sound system in the conference room. Little did they know....

The raffle gifts were set up on tables at the front but covered with cloths when everyone came in, with the swag bags all lined up underneath the tables. Once everyone was seated, we welcomed them to the party, took care of housekeeping (party schedule, turn off cell phones, etc.), then showed them the contents of the swag bag that they would be getting at the end of the party. We then announced how the raffle would work -- everyone got a ticket, which they would place in a bag in front of whatever item they wanted to try to win, and we would draw from that bag for that item.

And then the fun began. We slowly revealed each item. The iPod Touches were first and got a surprised gasp, and it just kept escalating. By the time we got to the iPad, the room was a constant buzz, and when we showed the TV, everyone flipped out.

After everyone had a chance to mingle and put in their tickets, it was time to eat, followed by a fun Mad Libs style game at each table. And then it was time for the main event.

The raffle items were a huge, huge hit. As terrific as the raffle was, however, the best was yet to come. "But wait! There's more!" we said. Pointing to the pile of boxes in the back that most everyone assumed were just for show, we told them that the they were in fact not for show, and that we would draw all the tickets of those who hadn't won, and when their name was called, to go pick one out of the pile. There were only two rules: don't shake any of the boxes, and don't open them until we tell you to.

Getting through the remainder of the names took awhile, and I think everyone assumed that whatever was in the boxes would be something okay, but nothing nearly as great as the raffle items. Maybe another swag item, or a set of knives, something like that. Nonetheless, everyone was still having fun.

Once everyone had their items, we gave them the go to open their boxes, and the next two minutes were the best two minutes of chaos pretty much ever. You know what it's like when kids are allowed to just go berzerk on Christmas morning and open packages all at once, and it's just a flurry of patterned paper and exclamations and noise and excitement? Now imagine that in a room full of adults who weren't expecting it at all, and who had enjoyed a glass (or two) of wine and beer, and you will have an inkling of what it was like for that two minutes.

It didn't matter that they weren't all iPads or stand mixers. They were nice gifts that no one was expecting and in many cases, wouldn't necessarily buy for themselves but really wanted. We encouraged people to trade if they got something that wasn't as useful, and by the time everyone left, I think they all ended up with something they were glad for. I tried to talk to as many as I could to find out if they had fun and to hear their individual story about whatever gift they got. For several, it was going to make a difference for an otherwise tough holiday -- a Wii for kids who wanted one but wouldn't have gotten one otherwise, or an avid reader who was struggling with sight issues but couldn't justify a Kindle, or a new set of cookpans to replace the mismatched set that were older than I am. A laptop that would make it possible to work from home, an iPod nano for someone who wanted but didn't own an iAnything (exact quote), a camera for someone who could now take nice pictures of the new grandbaby.

There's nothing I love more than giving gifts, except perhaps giving them to someone who really needed that little boost of magic and hope and joy. I've been blessed with some really wonderful gifts in my life, but nothing is ever quite as fulfilling as being able to do that for someone else. And Friday afternoon was some of the most fun I've had in quite some time.

Best. Company Party. Ever.

As you can imagine, the week was so busy that I'm behind on posting bentos, so there's some catching up to be done here:

Tuesday's lunch, Paris slimline:

• shrimp sauteed with garlic, toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• kale sauteed with garlic and caramelized onions (wow, lots of garlic today)
• brown rice
• sunflower seeds
• carrot sticks and steamed broccoli
• satsuma sections

Wednesday's lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• boiled egg,
• shrimp sauteed with garlic, toasted sesame seeds for garnish
• garlic butter dipping sauce in the little cup
• kale sauteed with garlic and caramelized onions
• brown rice underneath everything
• apple slices
• carrots and celery
• sunflower seeds

Thursday's lunch, Fit 'n Fresh:

• romaine lettuce
• boiled egg
• carrots, celery, radishes
• apple slices, mandarin
• sesame seeds

seen on a local store sign: mace-free holiday shopping

It's a whirlwind here at Hall House while we power through these last days before our (GLORIOUS) winter vacation begins. The culprits: work, as always, and our usual hectic schedule, piled on with extra-curricular activities. Last weekend, for example, Sal was at the school shooting their new commercial, yet more evidence that I am right and he will be a celebrity chef someday. Right? He would totally blow all those other posers out of the water. Not that he would ever seek the limelight, of course, but with that laugh and that face and that gift for both baking and teaching, the limelight seems to find him regardless.

I've been recovering from an unfortunate tumble down some stairs, which has been a bit of a setback in getting done what needs to get done, but I haven't let it slow me down much. Which is a good thing, because there wasn't much room in our jam-packed schedule for any slowing down. In addition to powering through to vacation, and some important activities, there is also readying ourselves for the Smiley-Hall Family Christmas, an epic annual event that is not for amateurs.

Although we don't technically participate in holiday gift-giving, we do have a gift-giving responsibility as part of the Smiley-Hall Family Christmas. To wit: handmade gifts and stocking stuffers all around. And of course presents for the Fabulous Miss M, because obviously. And as a family, we are seriously badass at the homemade gift thing.

Which meant venturing forth this weekend into the bustling masses at the exact time of year we generally try to avoid them. Thankfully, the local shops -- while bustling -- weren't so teeming with humanity that we were tempted to contemplate homicide. Like the shopping ninjas that we are, we managed to get all of Miss M's gifts*, supplies that we didn't already have on hand for the various planned homemade gifts, stocking stuffers, AND groceries for a kick-ass spaghetti and meatballs dinner Saturday night.

*(Sadly, the WAY AWESOME Grammy and Nonna's Toys, where we have gotten every birthday and Christmas gift for Miss M since she was born, will be closing after the first of the year so that Grammy and Nonna can move nearer to their grandkids. If anyone's interested in taking over a really successful and beloved neighborhood toy store, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you...)

Yesterday was spent in the kitchen, each of us working on some of our homemade gifts. There seriously must be some kind of productivity drug in our water recently, because we are crossing things off our to do lists at a ridiculous pace. NOT COMPLAINING BY THE WAY. This week is going to be insanely challenging due to everything ever landing on this one week on the calendar (NO SERIOUSLY I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING), but if we can actually survive to the end of the week, then it's easy peasy for the rest of 2011.

lunch, pink Natural Lunch:

• hard boiled eggs
• broccoli
• carrots
• satsuma
• sunflower seeds

lunch (from last Tuesday), Fit 'n Fresh:

• red and green leaf lettuce
• beets, carrots, celery, radishes
• egg, cashews, apple slices
• simple vinaigrette of oil and apple balsamic on the side

our usual holiday tradition

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:

• beef stir fry (tip steak, peppers, onions, carrots, green beans, kale, secret sauce)
• brown rice
• kiwi
• almonds
• walnuts
• dark chocolate-covered raisins

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.

st. johns appreciation post

our little market square hosts the St. Johns Farmers' Market until mid-OctoberSeriously, our neighborhood is the greatest. Sometimes I wonder how we got to be so lucky to live here.

We looked at 42 houses before we found The One, and we were looking long and hard at the neighborhood for each, not just the house. Which is to say, we did our legwork, no question. But there was a sizeable amount of luck and faith and hope, involved, too. Driving through the little downtown area of St. Johns then was deceptive -- many storefronts were empty and what was there wasn't promising. The houses ranged from well-kept to rundown. It was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of Portland.

But there was promise there. The downtown had a community feel despite the vacancies, and it was clear that many people had lived here a long time, and were proud of it. There was a police station and a fire house right there by the bridge, and a post office just a block past that, and a terrific library with original woodwork and stately old fixtures. There were wonderful parks and some great little shops and places to eat (granted, just a few). And then there was the house, and the bridge, and that view.

Saturday, after a trek out to Forest Grove for a vintage crafts fair (that turned out to be less "crafts" and more "stuff"), we stopped in our little downtown to check out a few of the newest shops we hadn't made it to yet. Barrel, a new wine and beer shop, was opening, so of course we had to be there for that. Right next door was Etcetera, a wonderful little home decor shop that will give me another place for gift shopping along with the already fabulous Salty Teacup. And right around the corner (past Grammy and Nonna's Toys, where we're always able to find something just right for the Fabulous Miss M), we had a chance to stop in at Olive and Vine for the first time since they opened. Salts and tea and olive oil and vinegars and spices, oh my.

Both of us now laden with shopping bags in each hand, we didn't dare cross the street to St. John's Booksellers, since we can never get out of that place without at least one book apiece (and our tottering to-read pile is already borderline hazardous). We had our options of Thai Cottage for dinner, or Anna Banana's, or James John Cafe, or Girasole, or John Street Cafe, or Signal Station Pizza, or could have bought ingredients to make it ourselves at Proper Eats Market. Afterward, we could've caught the latest release at the St. Johns Cinema (for less than one of of those big movie houses, and the option for pizza and beer to boot!), or a summer release for half the price at St. Johns Pub. Cakes and cookies from Tulip Pastry, cat food and litter from Tres Bone, bikes and supplies from Weir Cyclery, photography-anything from Blue Moon Camera, clothes for Sal at The Man's Shop...all of these and more are just blocks from our house in our neighborhood's little downtown.

From haircuts to freshly roasted coffee beans, our neighborhood has it all, and as we headed home, I had to pinch myself yet again at how lucky we are to live here.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• roasted butternut squash soup
• broccoli and hard boiled egg
• carrots and celery (with the leaves left on)
• Starkcrimson pear with cashews as gap fillers

breakfast/snack, cute animals sidecar:

• Starkcrimson pear
• kiwi
• walnuts

the fires of autumn are beacons homeward

our front Japanese maple is called "Firestorm", which has burgundy leaves that turn bright red in fall, then dark purple before falling off; it was a housewarming gift for Sal from my momWe planted this tree almost 10 years ago and every year, I forget just how gorgeous it turns in fall, and have to take seventy gazillion pictures of it, vainly trying to capture the degree of the red, a bright fire on an otherwise very gray day.

I always underestimate how long fall lasts here, and that the leaves stay on well into November, and how positively gargantuan some of the leaves are. I sent a collection of leaves to my grandmother one year, to share my Pacific Northwest autumn with her, and I collected two dozen different leaves without walking more than a block. The largest, from an old maple in the neighbor's yard, wouldn't even fit in a manila envelope without trimming the ends.

We had a day of errands Saturday, amidst wind and downpour, ending with a stop at New Seasons and bags of groceries to be hauled out of the car and up the stairs. (Douchebag developer, miraculously, finished up early and we've been able to park in front of the house again.*) In the midst of helping with the bags and being pelted with rain, I had to stop to take this picture of a rose petal amongst the yellow and brown. I know Sal must've wondered what the hell, and probably cursed me under his breath, but sometimes you've just got to stop and observe those little moments when they present themselves.

breakfast/snack, cute animals sidecar:

• Calville Blanc apple
• carrot sticks
• almonds

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• Another delicious soup that makes autumn kind of the best season ever. Broccoli cheese soup, to be exact, and holy deliciousness, Batman, it is simply divine.
• more broccoli
• not-at-all-hard boiled egg
• carrot sticks
• kiwi

*After all my pissing and moaning, you'd think I'd feel bad for complaining so much when they finished up a week early. Not really, but I do feel bad about complaining when I found out that the cross street that borders the property on the other side, which also has to undergo street improvements for the development, is going to be out of commission until February.

i don't mean to brag, but

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:

• the aforementioned clam chowder, which is somehow even better the second day
• carrot sticks and peas
• herb and cheese bagel
• Honeycrisp apple with cashews as gap fillers

apples, pears, and a recipe from chef salvatore

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:

• smoked sausages
• corn on the cob
• steamed broccoli
• Yukon gold potato (so sweet and buttery it needs no butter or salt)
• Starkcrimson pear
• yogurt-covered pretzels
• dark chocolate-covered raisins

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.

father-daughter time

a peek of sunlight on a hidden watterfall and pool at the Japanese GardenMy dad was here for a few days last week for a short but very nice visit. He and Mo are staying at Heceta Head this month doing tours of the lighthouse there, so he came up to spend a few days.

We had such a nice time! He arrived with spectacular timing, just as I was driving up to the house on Tuesday (I went into the office for a few hours for an important meeting) and got a chance to see Sal for a bit before he had to head to work. We visited while running some errands -- which included a salt cellar refill at The Meadow, eliciting the comment, "Who knew there were so many kinds of salt?"...hee! -- and stopped for lunch at Little Big Burger, where he got to try the oh-so-delicious fries with truffle oil.

We celebrated his birthday belatedly with dinner at the school (Dad got to have ling cod for the first time), finally rolling out of there (almost literally) stuffed and pleasantly sleepy. I inflicted our new memory foam mattress topper on him that night, as well. I'd bought it with the intention to make the guest bed a bit more luxurious, but didn't get it ordered enough in advance to give it a chance to air out the vile chemically smell that the manufacturer assured me would dissipate in 24 to 72 hours. Thankfully, a combination of good food, poor olefactory function, and sheer exhaustion made the smell absolutely unnoticeable for Dad, and he reported a very good night's sleep the next morning. So, score!

We spent Wednesday at the Japanese Garden, something I'd wanted to share with him for some time, so I was glad to cross it off the list at last. You know, I've been there many times, at different times of the year, and there really isn't a bad time to visit. And the rain we'd had the day before held off all day, making for a pleasant meander through the different paths and hideaways.

Father-daughter bentos! Mine is in the Lunchbot Duo, his is in the French bistro two-tier. Leftovers, mostly, although we did do molded eggs. Unfortunately, I didn't boil them along enough so they were a bit mangled and too soft to hold the mold shapes.We ate a late lunch nearby at the Rose Garden. Lunch was the bentos we'd packed earlier, comprised of random leftovers -- though you know the magic of bento turns random leftovers into lunchtime largesse. Yes, Dad very gamely agreed to try his hand at packing a bento. No, I did not twist his arm, shut up. (His folly, you see, was expressing interest in my bento lunches after seeing pictures posted here. Everyone else knows not to do this, lest they be cornered with a a show-and-tell of all my bento gear, but he hasn't had an opportunity to learn that so he was like the crippled wildebeast on the veldt that all the other wildebeasts leave behind when the lions show up. He didn't stand a chance, really.)

He was a good sport about staying up way past his usual bed time to see Sal when he got home, and we talked each other's legs off about everything from politics to publishing, grandkids and grandcats, and everything in between. Always hard to say goodbye, but we were sure grateful to get to spend some time together.

lunch, black strawberry:

• lemon-herb roasted chicken, risotto with mushrooms and bacon
• green salad (romaine, mushrooms, tomato, olives, cheese, ham) with balsamic dressing on the side
• yogurt-covered pretzels
• dried mango
• dark chocolate
• dried cherries
• orange juice in the drink bottle because I have been sick as a dog with a head cold since Thursday night, and I am mainlining Vitamin C liek whoa

every day of autumn is a horn of plenty

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:

• lemon & herb roasted chicken
• green beans and caramelized onions
• mushroom and bacon risotto
• fresh pineapple
• dark chocolate-covered raisins

Whew! Can you tell that we feasted for Sunday night dinner?

drive-by posting

Back from a week off, which included a trip to the coast, a Day of Portland, a Hall-Smiley Family Weekend, and several days of nothing that I didn't want to do.

And apparently I got so out of my regular routine, I totally forgot to post yesterday's lunch (even though I took the picture). I guess that's the sign of a good vacation!

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• chili w/cheese
• half of a tortilla
• celery sticks
• garlic dill cheese curds
• Honeycrisp apple with dried cherries as gap fillers
• yogurt-covered pretzels

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• chili w/cheese that was originally arranged more artfully into a nice lattice, but didn't survive closure of the lid
• tortilla
• green beans
• dark chocolate covered raisins
• Honeycrisp apple
• kiwi berries

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

We seriously live in the best neighborhood in the universe.

Just got back a little while ago from the neighborhood emergency planning meeting (also the monthly neighborhood potluck). Neighbors got together at the main gathering spot on our street* this evening for a presentation from a local emergency preparedness expert (also a neighbor). His presentation was all about why it's practical to be prepared, but he also gave us tremendous information about easy measures we can take and available resources we can use. (Tip: a lot of the materials we received tonight, which really are super informative, were apparently made available via Homeland Security funding. Which means it's likely that a lot of other communities have similiar departments and resources to offer.)

*[Two of our neighbors have built a wonderful community space on the lower part of their property. On the far end, there's a fire pit with earthen seats all the way around, and an astounding view of the bridge, river, and Forest Park. There's a covered stage for neighborhood concerts (we have lots of talented musicians) and lots of room either for seating or dancing or both. And there's an ingenious outdoor kitchen that makes hosting the neighborhood potlucks easy, but also makes it possible to have monthly "classes", where everyone learns the fine arts of food preparation and preservation. Pickling, fermenting, brewing, canning...Sal's even on deck to teach everyone how to make rustic breads.]

The idea isn't to be scared or paranoid, but to make smart, reasonable preparations for all kinds of emergencies. Not just the big stuff, like earthquakes, but also more frequent, less catastrophic things like extended power outages. Practical ideas, like stocking an emergency kit for home and car, learning how to turn off utilities to prevent gas leaks and fires, and alternative communications when cell phones and computers (or electricity, period) aren't working. (Tip: cell phones will almost always go down in an emergency to leave the lines open for emergency personnel communications, but texting will usually still be available. The City of Portland has a really cool site at www.publicalerts.org where you can put in your info and be notified via the method of your choice if there's an emergency in your area.)

Our neighborhood plans for this to be the first in a series. The first goal is for each of our households to do the things we need to prepare. Once we've started working on that, our next goal will be how our neighborhood can be a self-sufficient community in the event of emergency or disaster. Building an "asset map" (what skills and resources are available in our neighborhood, which is useful even when there's not an emergency); designating responsibilities (people to go around to each house to make sure gas valves are turned off, for example, in the event of an earthquake to prevent secondary fires, or people who will check on elderly or disabled neighbors); basic first-aid and triage education (so we can start caring for each other in the event emergency personnel are too overwhelmed or unable to reach us right away); central meeting places (to do head counts and situation reassessment, and for allocating resources).

After that, we'll be moving on to expanding the idea further into our community, so other neighborhoods in the area can do what we're doing and provide support to each other in times of need. Because (as I learned tonight) there are 300 police officers and 160 firefighters and 22 ambulance crews for the entire city of Portland, a population of 500,000 people. In the event of a city- or region-wide emergency, they'll be doing the heroic work, but the very best thing _we_ can do for ourselves and for them is to take care of each other. (The presentation materials we received tonight advised that we should plan to be on our own for the first 72 hours, so to have plans in place that could take care of everything through that time, if not longer.)

I just love our neighborhood so much! We are a community of progressives and activists and naturalists and urban farmers and dreamers and artists and craftspeople and teachers. We are rich in talents and skills and knowledge and education and passion. We all love our little corner of the world, and we are building a village together.

wicked fun

So at the last couple of neighborhood game nights, the game du jour has been a collaborative RPG called Arkham Horror. It is, in a word, awesome. There are eighty bajillion little cards and intricate character stories and monsters and big bads and weapons and MATH and COLOR CODING and ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS and OMG HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS GAME EXISTED BEFORE. Oh my little rational mastermind heart goes pitter pat just thinking about it.

Both the night following the first time we played, as well as last night, my dreams were occupied with Lovecraftian monsters and figuring out how many die I need to close a gate and strategizing what combination of Fight, Sneak, Lore, Will, Speed, and Luck I'm going to need for the next round. CLEARLY THIS IS A SIGN I NEED TO PLAY THIS GAME ALL THE TIME.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• smoked sausages
• boiled eggs
• green beans (more underneath the sausages and eggs)
• carrots and celery sticks
• dark chocolate with orange zest
• dried cherries

like a girl at the ball, and my dance card is full

The crazy train that has been our lives (and more specifically, my life) has slowed down from "death defying" to "breakneck", and our/my reward for surviving is a pile-up of several things we've been looking forward to for a long time. A trip to the coast, time off to write, Hall-Smiley family time, apple festivals, wedding cake judging competitions, and more.

And things kick off this week with an awesomeness double-header: neighborhood game night tomorrow and Thursday night season premieres (Community, Parks & Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock) with ProcratiGirl. Look at me being all social butterfly up in here.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (srsly, I made a vat of it Sunday night)
• carrots & celery
• Honeycrisp! apple
• dried cherries and cashews

summer begins to have the look, peruser of enchanting book

Fall is definitely here. It's my favorite season, all bright, crisp days and cool, clear nights. Or gray and rainy like it was this weekend. I love everything about it, from the smell and feel of the air to the turning leaves to the heavy sweaters and abundance of produce and craving for hearty comfort foods. And, joy of joys, Honeycrisp apples!

We were fortunate to not have a whole lot on the docket at Hall House, which meant that I could spend most of the day curled up in the library with a new book, and fall asleep in my chair for an impromptu afternoon nap. It also meant time to get laundry done without it feeling like a chore (folding while watching movies), and to stay on top of the dishes (always a challenge without a dishwasher), and to write for a good long stretch of time while Sal helped a friend harvest their hops (and coming home with a nice bounty as a result). It was the best sort of weekend, a combination of productive and leisurely, cozy and restful and restorative.

With such weather that makes a person crave hearty comfort foods, it's little wonder that Sunday night dinner would be something thick and creamy and served with crusty artisan bread and likely to put a person to sleep after two overflowing bowls full. Which we totally didn't have. We also totally didn't follow that with a slice of opera cake and a dollop of malted chocolate ice cream. We're all about moderation here at Hall House.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup
• Honeycrisp apple slices

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (potatoes, spaetzle, corn, celery, dill)
• peas and carrots
• Honeycrisp apple half
• opera cake

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson, "Part Five: The Single Hound, LXV"

and if i pretend her house is my house, well, that would be understandable

Forest Park, along the Leif Erikson TrailThe Book Fairy (who takes many forms, but in this case looks like Sal) heard my fervent prayers and delivered my most recent book wish: Wildwood.

I have been waiting for this book for, literally, months. It just came out a couple of weeks ago, but it's gotten a lot of pre-publication buzz (and has already been optioned by Laika). I, of course, first learned about it on the The Decemberists' mailing list.

It's written by, if you didn't know, Colin Meloy and his wife, Carson Ellis. (Yes, that Colin Meloy and that Carson Ellis.) About a wild forest and a little girl and magical adventures, starting right here in St. Johns and then across the river in Forest Park, written by the lead singer and songwriter of my favorite band ever ever ever, who is a former English major and who happens to live just across the river from me, and who has a deep seated love for fantastical tales with a healthy dose of darkness and girls who are the heroes of their own stories, and seriously, SRSLY! This book could not have been more written for me if it had a main character with my name who has a penchant for eating M&M's in multiples of five.

It's a gray and rainy day, with mist drifting low in the forest across the river that's the setting of this little tale, and Sal has returned from the German food cart with a generous slice of streudel. I think there's just enough milk in the fridge for a big mug of hot chocolate, and the kitties are particularly snuggly today.

So you'll have to excuse me today while I disappear to my cozy little library in the other room and lose myself in a book.

it's just a flesh wound

I took Friday off and headed to the coast to get away from the mid-90s that've plagued us for the last several days. (Seriously, we have had some cracked out weather this year.  Highest temps of the year in September? And we still never hit triple digits, which we usually do at least once or twice. I should be thankful that at least it didn't approach 100....) Just me, some good music, a few snacks, a book, and the open road.

Heading west was the right idea. It was 25 to 30 degrees cooler in Astoria, with a heavy fog bank sitting just a few miles offshore all day and all of Cape Disappointment enveloped in mist. I opted to head to the other side of mouth of the Columbia at Fort Stevens, all around the Jetty Lagoon and up to the observation tower at the South Jetty. (Where I could see across to the river and the North Head lighthouse where we were just a couple of weeks ago.)

see more pics here

While I was on my little Kerouac-esque sojourn, I made the mistake of checking G+ and saw that Sal had posted a pic of an injury sustained while he was test riding a new bike. Beneath the pic of his hand, all scraped and bloodied, he added the note, "Honey, I'm okay :-)". Which are usually the words that precede "I'm at the emergency room". He wasn't, thankfully, but I still worried about him all the way home.

My suspicion that he was hurt worse than the pic showed was confirmed later that night, when he arrived home from work limping. The hand was the least of his injuries -- he'd landed on his knee, which was now swollen and bruised, and sprained his ankle. And then spent the night on his feet on a concrete floor, with neither injuries bandaged.

So we've spent the weekend keeping everything iced, compressed, and elevated as much as possible. Of course, he's an irascible patient, stubbornly insisting on getting up to do things instead of letting me do them for him, and arguing every time I tell him to sit still. Guy, Sister, and the Fabulous Miss M were here to visit for the weekend, and nothing was going to stop him from playing at the park with Miss M, not even a moderate injury. He seems genuinely surprised to find out he's both mortal and destructible, and it's seriously the Knights of Ni all up in here.

lunch, Laptop Lunch:

• enchiladas
• salad (romaine, tomatoes, carrots, celery) with dressing in the condiment cup
• red grapes
• berry swirl cheesecake that Sal made and that I am officially in love with

the root of the wind is water

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

• Thai peanut chicken skewers
• jasmine rice
• caprese salad
• carrots
• wax beans
• grapes and just bit of lemon cheesecake

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"

post-it perfectionist

North Head Lighthouse @ Cape DisappointmentOn the advice of a friend, I assigned myself the task last week of letting myself make mistakes.

I mean, obviously I make mistakes all the time, because I'm A) human, and B) not perfect. Duh. I am biologically wired, however, to try to be perfect at everything, and only years and years of tamping down that dictatorial little personality streak like a 1980s South American despot has made it possible for me to be okay with just being okay. Hooray for maturity!

However. When I am under a lot of pressure and facing mounting tasks with unforgiving deadlines and high expectations, my inner dictator seizes the opportunity for a military coup of the State of Brittney. I'm in the midst of just that sort of period at the moment, in which work and website business pressures are combining to make me twitch a bit with the effort not to Be The Best At Everything by trying to accomplish all my responsibilities at once. Hence the advice of a friend for a little radical reverse psychology, to not just not be perfect, but to actually let the mistakes happen.

She may secretly be trying to kill me.

Last week, I was at the office late, trying to get out the door but with three separate piles that each needed to go to three separate people, and three separate post-its to be written. It's a good thing I was in the office alone, because as I was rewriting each of those notes, I had to bust out laughing at myself. Yes, you read that right:  I was rewriting post-its. As in, I had done a first draft, edited for mistakes and clarity, then rewritten them so that they would read well and fit nicely on the selected post-it size.

I, um, may have some work to do on this not-being-a-perfectionist thing.

(Yeah, the picture above has nothing to do with anything, I just love it. The pics from our daytrip to Cape Disappointment are posted, by the way, as promised.)

breakfast, Lunchbot Pico:

• oatmeal (with butter & maple syrup in the condiment containers), not yet cooked
• raisins, to mix in the oatmeal
• peach slices

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• Sal's Amazingly Wondrous Wings (the very last of the batch made on Saturday)
• wee potatoes
• celery sticks
• carrot sticks
• tomato
• dark chocolate and dried cherries