Posts Tagged ‘Portland’
Fried Seafood and Doughnuts
Seafood Platter and Clam Chowder at The Depot
The Memphis Mafia: glazed banana fritter, peanut butter, chocolate.
We’ll just have to push back the start of our diet until we return from San Francisco.
We meant to cook some simple spaghetti at home tonight. But we couldn’t resist stopping at The Depot, a little hole in the wall fish ‘n’ chips place in neighboring Albany. We stopped for an early dinner on the way home from Portland.
Fish ‘n’ chips made with local Pacific Cod is the thing to order there. We had some on a seafood platter, which came with a delicious shrimp salad. I love the taste of those mild Oregon bay shrimp. They were scattered over red cabbage and greens and topped with blue cheese dressing (or that of your choice). The chowder, however, was bland and lacking in seafood.
We had skipped lunch and were hungry. But in addition to the fried seafood, we also began the day with an unhealthy snack. We finally got to the infamous Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, whose confections range from the decadent to the gross-out weird (think Pepto Bismal and Nyquil-glazed doughnuts).
We played it safe, splitting a huge Memphis Mafia banana fritter topped with peanut butter, chocolate chips and nuts. Just like Elvis, I’m a sucker for peanut butter and banana. I need to go on a raw food, all-veg diet!
The Depot in Albany
Finding Intellectual Center at Powell’s Books
From the Philip Gourevitch reading at Powell's
I’m still in cultural shock living here away from the thriving pulse of an urban center. So everytime I’m in Portland, I find an excuse to go to Powell’s Books. I’ve ordered obscure used books from them online since college, but only since moving here did I enter the temple to all things literary on West Burnside.
Even my parents, who were like why are we wasting a precious Portland day in a bookstore, were enthralled once inside.
Powell’s schedule of nightly author readings is perhaps what most tempts me from here in Corvallis. I did get to hear Philip Gourevitch, editor of the Paris Review, recently read from the quarterly’s new collection of interviews. His harrowing account of the Rwandan genocide is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read.
In these times of journalistic distopia, it was heartening to hear Gourevitch’s defense of reportage. “Mainstream American fiction underwhelms in it’s ability to dramatize the same level of human experience,” Gourevitch said.
But amid economic collapse, fiction is still a seductive escape. I’m anxious to read Marilynne Robinson’s Home after her interview in this Paris Review.
The author interview is an under-appreciated art. As an English major alienated by lit criticism, an interview with author Can Xue in China set me on a path, for better or worse, towards journalism.
What’s So Great About Ikea (Besides the Prices)?
Photo of Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn/Flickr Creative Commons/Listen Missy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/listenmissy/2428733478/
Today I shopped at Ikea for the second time in my life. I almost wish I hadn’t stopped there after dropping my parents at the Portland Airport. But that adjacent towering yellow and blue sign beckoned. I just find it to be a headache-inducing place that urges you to buy way more cheap made-in-China crap than you need. But their prices can’t be beat.
Ikea is also sparsely staffed and a confusing maze to new customers. I spent forever measuring out components for a mirrored-bathroom cabinet, only to learn when I went to fetch the pieces from the self-serve area that those mirrored were discontinued.
But you don’t want to come home empty-handed after wasting your time there. I was also bothered by the layout of the Ikea store, which forces you to walk through different showroom areas (living room, media storage) on your way to the exit just to convince you to buy items you didn’t know you needed.
Am I being too harsh? The $1 Swedish meatballs and 50-cent beef hot dogs served at the Ikea snack bar are a bargain lunch. And of course both of my second-hand couches originally came from Ikea. I just didn’t have to go through the trouble myself to get them.
Do you avoid Ikea or deck out your apartments and houses with their loot?
Sandra Tsing Loh: like Oprah on Fire
Sandra Tsing Loh holds court at Wordstock in Portland.
Live Wire! at the Aladdin Theater in Portland.
The food wasn’t even the highlight of the weekend in Portland. No, that was seeing Sandra Tsing Loh, the writer, comic performer and feminist first amendment icon turned public schools activist, who is just about my favorite person on the page these days. We especially love her bi-monthly column in The Atlantic.
At the Live Wire! radio show Saturday night, she read a five-minute stream from her new tome, Mother on Fire, squirming with nervous energy and flailing her arms as she recounted the woes of a 40-something perimenopausal woman clinging to her last strings of sanity, as she and her young children navigate the segregated, class-obsessed world of education in L.A.
But uncensored Sandra, holding court for a full hour at the Wordstock festival Sunday, proved to be the real treat. She lamented a feminist movement (though she embraces it) that drained our public schools of uniquely nurturing female genius, a movement that has never exalted the mothers-on-the-move powerhouse organization for change: the mighty P.T.A.
And she blasted politicians (Barack Obama included) and other journalists in the chattering classes for not putting their money where their mouth is by sending their children to public school. It’s like cops living in the suburbs, away from the violent inner-city districts they patrol, she said. They don’t have that same stake in the community where they work.
Besides, Tsing Loh works a crowd just like your great supporter Oprah, bouncing around with a microphone to her seated audience members, treating them as equals as they ask a question to her face.
Stuff White People Like: Portland
Portland's downtown Saturday farmers market.
Still, we miss that East Coast diversity. As perfect as the Portland Farmers Market was, with its artisanal cheeses and breads, rainbow of winter squash, hearty greens, home-cured pickles and soothing herbal teas, it felt, well, somewhat sanitized and white. Baltimore’s two main farmers markets, on the other hand, in Waverly and downtown under the JFX overpass, forge community among the races, classes and cultures that might overwise be oblivious to eachother’s corner of the city. Baltimore has this irrepressible energy that you miss.
At the Holocene club Saturday night, the DJ played “Shake It To The Ground” by Baltimore’s own 15-year-old club queen, Rye-Rye. Ah, memories of shaking it one last time this summer at Artscape. Just read that the Sri Lakan/British MC M.IA. will release a Rye-Rye CD on her new record label. Sweet!
And for all you moms out there, this is “Stuff White People Like.”
Simpatica
Portland has no shortage of culinary mysteries, including rare supper clubs such as Simpatica Dining Hall. We keep indulging on food since we don’t spend money going out to bars with friends here.
Inconspicuously nestled in a warehouse district in Southeast Portland, the “restaurant” has one family-style seating Friday and Saturday nights (online reservations required) and Sunday brunches that require quite the wait.
The chefs and hostesses treat the 30-some customers as guests at their intimate dinner party. For $40 a person, we had these simple yet succulet four courses:
Fresh Porcini Mushroom, Fennel and Arugula Salad (with shaved parmesan and the raw porcini were delicately shaved and marinated in lemon/olive oil)
Handmade Pappardelle with Rabbit Sugo (spiced with pungent fennel pollen)
Herbed Roast Leg of Lamb (thyme, rosemary, marjoram, garlic) with Braised Cavolo Nero (black kale) and Natural Jus
Glazed Viridian Farms Pippin Apple Bread Pudding with Warm Brandy Custard
Yum-Yum! We aren’t worthy. We’re living beyond our means I fear.
BaltimOregon to Maine 