A proper summer finally arrived! Oregon, how I love thee. This week: – We took at a mini vacation to Oregon wine country last weekend. It was lovely. Highlights were: biking 6 miles around the North Valley Rd area of Newberg near Bergstrom Winery, the coziness of Brick House Vineyards, the view (& picnicking at Penner-Ash), sunsets from the rooftop bar at Hotel Oregon, and hammocks (hammocks!) at…
With over 150 wineries in the Willamette Valley, Portlanders are pretty lucky to be able to drive out to wine country for a quick weekend getaway, or even an afternoon tasting. Here’s what a trip to Oregon wine country looks like in August. We stayed at Hotel Oregon in McMinnville. And spent time biking and driving to Willamette Valley vineyards. We biked 6 miles around the North Valley…
Summer don’t leave us! It’s about this time every year that I want to fit in as much summery fun as possible, into each and every weekend. So here are a few of those things that made me happy in July. 1. McMenamin’s Grand Lodge Hotel – The Grand Lodge is about a 45 minute drive from Portland, in Forest Grove. Like all the McMenamin’s hotels, there’s a…
Does your juicer live on the counter or in a cupboard? Back when I was in the dreaming phase of buying a juicer, everyone told me, “Oh, you’ll have fun trying a few recipes, and then you’ll get busy and put it in your cupboard and forget about it.” Already short on counter space, I bought a kitchen cart at IKEA last year. So my juicer lives there…
This week = delicious. Someone (me) needs to start cooking more again. Tried a few new places: Dig a Pony, Kitchen Dances food cart at the Good Food Here pod (fantastic vegan cart!), Tapayala, Utopia Cafe, and Navarre. A tasty week indeed. This week… -Reading: The IKEA Effect – “when we make stuff with our own hands we like it more than the pre-fab version” via Sarah Wilson…
Carrot Apple Ginger is a classic juice. It’s both the perfect recipe to break in your new juicer with and the juice you’ll probably keep coming back to as a quick favorite. There’s seriously no way you can mess this juice up. After a few times, you’ll probably learn what your favorite ratio is of carrots to apples, but here’s a good place to start. Ingredients: 4 carrots…
Can you dig a Beatles reference and/or anything pony related? Portland’s newest bar — Dig a Pony — is open for business. Taking over the old Niki’s Restaurant space on the corner of SE Grand & Morrison, DAP (Dig a Pony) Portland has a vintage-y, cozy feel. Cocktails are in the $7-9 range, and worth it. Hopefully Dig a Pony can keep the current charming bartenders and staff,…
Pie is so the new cupcakes. And pie might be the new macarons too, or maybe macarons are the new pie? I’m sure there’s some hip dessert I have yet to discover that is even cooler. Regardless, “Let them eat pie!” and here are a few things I’ve had my eye on lately. This week… -You Are What You Eat is a series of portraits made by examining…
I use the tumblr off and on again, and I still love the idea of it and the UI, and the reblog feature, and a million *several other little things. What I liked most about my tumblr was that it was like a giant mashup of a way to share what I was liking in my RSS feed, random pics throughout the week, quotes, funny things, links etc…
It’s time once again to take a little peek at my Foursquare checkins & Foodspotting pics, as I’ve hit another 50 new places to eat. This time around, Portland had a little competition from the San Juan Islands, Vancouver, and the Oregon coast. So here are the new restaurants, bars, and coffee shops I’ve been to lately… Arabian Breeze (now Nicholas 2) – so so, Ya Hala is…
Oh, summer! You’ve finally arrived. Here are a few things that made me happy, happy, happy in June. 1. summer! & lazing about Col Summers Park 2. an impromptu cocktail crawl to Beaker & Flask, Veritable Quandary, and Central. (not as a cheap as a pub crawl fyi, ouch.) 3. I found this delightful, blue tank at Anthropologie. I like to think I look a tad bit happier…