Yee haw!

When you get an email asking if you’d like to go to the Mobile Food Rodeo, is there any answer besides “Of course I would!”? I didn’t think so. Which is how T and I found ourselves accompanying our friends Jenn and Bryan to a festival of food trucks. It was kind of a big deal:

First, we picked up our “Very Important Foodie” passes:

(which meant we got to check out the trucks two hours before they opened to the general public at noon.) Unfortunately, there are a lot of very important foodies in Seattle, so there was still some waiting in line:

One of my favorite food trucks (design-wise) was here, rocking his sunglasses.

Our intrepid hosts for the day:

Grilled oysters made to order (with three different sauces, of course.) We opted for bacon balsamic. Yum!

I think this is what we need to add on top of our outdoor fireplace in the backyard. It would really take our pizza-making to the next level…

In addition to the rad name (Happy Grillmore), I imagine that’s a pretty heavily contested title in Portland. Especially given that there were at least four different burger options at this little festival. Alas, we were too full to see if they lived up to the hype. Another time…

Final selection of the day: custom ice cream sandwiches. Shown here, peanut butter ice cream on snickerdoodles. Amazing.

Needless to say, we were all quite full as we strolled back to the car. I’d had ambitious plans of swimming in the afternoon, but that rapidly turned into puttering around with some unpacking duties and then sitting in the sunny backyard with a book. One of these days, I really need to get back to that whole exercising thing. Unless there’s some sort of triathlon that involves food trucks. Hmmmm…

An odd night out

The boy’s company was opening a new store in a town north of Seattle. They were having a friends and family event, sort of a “test run” the night before store opening. It was fun to see a brand new upscale organic grocery store. Everything was all freshly stocked and colorful:

My favorite section was the bulk section. They had all sorts of crazy heirloom dried beans:

And they even had this awesome raw cereal that I thought I could only order online. Score! It was fun to wander around the store and watch T schmooze with his cohorts. I think he knows everyone in the company now. It’s pretty impressive. I also really liked their check-out lane numbering design:

So, after spending time amongst the highest quality, sustainably produced, organic food, where else should one go to dinner but the Old Spaghetti Factory? It was conveniently located down the street and I must confess it is a guilty pleasure of mine. Besides, I’m sure this was just as healthy… oh forget it…

Besides, we got to eat in a train car! You don’t get to do that everyday. It was a fun evening out, even if it was a little bit odd.

Black Friday with the family

Erik & Nerissa had come up to Portland to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, so T & I thought it would be nice to drive down and hang out with everyone. Unfortunately for us, my mom had an Oregon Coast road trip on the agenda, so it was going to be a lot of time in the car for us. But we got up at the ungodly hour of 5:40 to hit the road and made it to Portland around 9:30 to drop the boys off at their dog boarding/vacation paradise. Then it was a quick trip to my parents house to drop our stuff off and get into the van for round two.

First stop on the agenda was a place called Camp 18, which is a former lumber mill turned restaurant.

There were tons of carved wooden sculptures outside, including this cute bear:

Erik posed with his long lost twin:

(He’s the one on the left… ;-P) And here’s one of my parents posing with some wooden friends:

Inside, there were more fun decorative touches:

And more fun things in the back:

After a hefty brunch, it was back into the car to go to Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach. Sadly, it had clouded up on the coast (we’d left Portland under a pretty blue sky.) but I think that the Oregon Coast is pretty in the fog.

The tide was out, so we could walk quite close to the big rock formations:

There were some tide pools in the rocks at the base, but I lacked the footwear and the inclination to hike out to them. It was fun taking Hipstamatic pics of the coast however:

And pictures of various family members. Here’s Nerissa:

I love this picture of my mom and I:

Me and the boy:

Then it was back into the car for a long drive home. All told, T & I spent about eight hours in the car. (Ugh.) The rest of the evening was spent in a battle of the iPads between my brother and mom in a Words With Friends battle royale:

As always with family gatherings, it was a complicated weekend. At times, I felt like an intrusion, getting in the way of my mom’s time with Erik. Other times, it was fine. I think it’s just the nature of being around family. The dynamics have developed over so many years and are layered and complex. I know we’re hardly unique in this, all families have their issues. Ours has been dealt some pretty major blows, so I suppose I should be happy we’re still speaking at all. But there are times when I wish we were closer to that mythical ideal we all long for this time of year.

The giving of thanks

Thanksgiving has always been a weird holiday to me. Growing up, we didn’t live near a big extended family so it was pretty much like a normal day except we were having turkey for dinner and eating it in the dining room. Over the years, T & I have made the traditional thanksgiving dinner so many times (somewhere around 10 or 11, by my rough count.) So, it’s not terribly stressful, and in fact, I quite enjoy it. This isn’t to say it’s not without it’s mishaps. I apparently haven’t gotten the hang of pumpkin pie baking in this apartments oven, as I’ve produced my second ugly pumpkin pie in it. (Both times, the bottom crust of the pie bubbled up, creating a caldera in the middle that pushes the filling up onto the sides of the crust.) Luckily, I was vindicated by a very pretty apple pie. I call them “Beauty and The Beast.”

We were also experimenting with a new turkey technique, where you stuff the cavity of the turkey with coffee beans. (Courtesy of Seattle celebrity chef Tom Douglas.) My before picture was a little gross, so here’s T posing with the end result:

The coffee beans lent the turkey a smokey quality. The bacon grease smeared at the bottom of the pan plus the onions and turkey drippings made an amazing gravy. J & M came over in the afternoon to hang out and play a little pre-dinner Rock Band. I even set a pretty table for us, complete with fancy cloth napkin folding (a hold-over from T’s days of working in restaurants.) I also busted out my parents wedding “silver” (actually pewter), which I inherited when they upgraded to new stuff several years ago.

We ended the evening with a viewing of a bootleg Twilight movie accompanied by lots of wine and yelling at the tv. (Those movies are so terrible! But so fun to mock while drinking wine on the couch.) We were up way too late considering that we had to hit the road early tomorrow morning for a drive down to Portland, but it was worth it.

Screw trotting, these turkeys are sprinting!

*** Apologies to my tens of readers for neglecting this blog so shamelessly. But trust me, there would have been a lot of boring blog posts about running and things seen on the bus ride to/from work. And does the Blogosphere really need more of that? I think not… ***

Today marked M’s and my fourth Turkey Trot race and the very first time that all four of us (J, T, M & myself) all raced together ever. So, it was a pretty momentous occasion. T’s & my marathon plan has us doing weekly track workouts and some pretty taxing tempo workouts, so my plan for the race was to see how fast I could go and really push myself. M & T were also looking for Personal Bests and J claimed to not make a distinction between running and racing. (We love J. He’s so special!)

I think this race has gotten bigger each year we’ve run it, but it’s still retained it’s wide range of participants. You’ll see everything from the guys in shorts and singlets who will do it in 15 minutes to the runners in silly costumes to the whole family (grandparents & dog included) running with their stroller. Combined with the low-key style of the race, it makes for a very festive experience. We lined up near the front to minimize the dogs and strollers that we’d have to pass. Here’s T’s game face:

The race director got up on a ladder to address the crowd and then we were off! Everyone set off at their own pace and I was pleasantly surprised to find M next to me. Then J caught up to us. At some point M had to drop back and I ended up dropping J on a nice section of downhill. T of course was up ahead of us, but surprisingly I kept him in sight. I pushed really hard on the downhills, trying to get as much “free speed” as possible, but I deliberately didn’t look at my watch to see how fast I was actually running. J passed me again on the final downhill section, which wasn’t terribly surprising.

The final mile is flat and I knew it was going to be a struggle and it didn’t disappoint! I was hurting big time, then M pulled up next to me. I tried to stay with her, but she was looking strong and had paced herself well (unlike yours truly!) I was feeling very disappointed in myself because I just couldn’t keep pushing at the end and actually had to walk across a street less than a quarter of a mile from the finish to get my heart rate under control. But then I crossed the line and looked at my finish time: 26:27. That’s a 5K personal best for me by a lot. Like over 2 and a half minutes, which is pretty amazing in such a short race. M beat me by 20 seconds, proving she’s speedier than she thinks she is. And both boys also sported respectable times.

Here’s the obligatory post race picture:

Now, let’s eat! M & J made bagels at their place, but first T had a little chore to attend to:

If I knew the words to “roll out the barrel” that would totally be stuck in my head right now…

Weeby little pumpkin

M & J had us over for dinner, where M showed off the super cute little pumpkin she saw at the store. They called them “weeby little pumpkins” (not sure of the spelling, so you get my best guess… ) Here’s M posing with her super cutey new acquisition:

Per usual, the Grumpersons had really outdone themselves. Here was the delicious spread to accompany the insanely good cheese fondue:

After dinner, there was a viewing of Over the Top, a cheese-tastic 80′s movie where Sylvester Stallone tries to win his son’s love (and a brand new semi-truck) by winning the national arm-wrestling championship. (No, I’m not kidding… ) How I missed this classic when it was in the theatres, I’ll just never know! It was a very fun night with our friends.

Behind the scenes

l woke up early, as I frequently do when sleeping in a new place. M had also gotten up early and already gone for a run when we got up. T & I were chilling on the porch drinking some coffee when she came cruising in.

The chickens were out in the yard, thus putting us over the edge for ridiculous bucolic splendor:

Watch out chickens, here comes M…

Then we headed over to the Prosser Farmer’s Market to meet up with the rest of the gang. There was a stand with some amazing breakfast burritos, but since we still had a run of our own on the schedule, we resisted temptation. (Well, T scored half of J’s but managed to save it for after the run… ) There was also a really cool guy who’d built his own espresso machine (which produced pretty awesome lattes, I must say.)

After that, we met up with Khai for a little run. We’d offered to take Lucky with us, which turned out to be like strapping a rocket booster to T. I think their opening mile pace was somewhere around a 6:30. But eventually T managed to reign Lucky into a brisk, but manageable pace. It felt pretty good for being the first run post-Grand Columbian.

Erin had arranged for us to take a tour at the Mercer winery with Jenna (who we’d met last year during the giant Jenga game.) It was a gorgeous day.

Our group:

We got to go into the tank room, which was very interesting:

We got to try an early Sauvignon Blanc, that tasted like a slightly alcoholic grape soda. It was surprisingly delicious.

Then we headed into the barrel room:

Where we got to try some more wine in process. This time it was various kinds of red, that were a little further along:

Afterward, there were some yummy snacks and some more wine out on the patio. This is the life…

So far, this is a pretty sweet way to spend the day before a big party…

Schmancy

As a belated birthday dinner for the boy, I made reservations for Staple & Fancy here in Ballard. I’d heard amazing things about it, plus they do a fun “Chef’s Choice prix-fixe menu that sounded really cool. M & J joined us for the festivities and we met at our place for some wine and cheese before walking over to the restaurant. The food was amazing (and plentiful) and the cocktails were both delicious and strong.

The restaurant was too dark for my hipstamatic prints to come out, but at some point Susan got a hold of my camera and took some very entertaining pictures. (And a few accidental videos… oops!)

M & J:

T & I contemplating the drink menu:

Um… not sure what this is, but it does sum up the mood nicely, don’t you think?

Then here is my artsy shot of the very cool brick wall that runs along one side of the restaurant:

We had an amazing time and I think the boy had a great birthday dinner. Even though his mom thinks he’s 43.

The other www: Walla Walla Wine

After our Prosser hijinks, we all headed down to Walla Walla in Erin’s sporty Audi (we were all staying in the same hotel and going to the same party, so it was great to be able to carpool.) We checked into the fabulous Holiday Inn Express and changed into our party attire with a little extra time to visit one of the local tasting rooms. As we were walking from the car, I saw this super cute little mural and stopped to take a picture:

Then T took my picture with it:

Then Erin took both of our pictures with it:

And then I took this super adorable picture of her and David:

(We got a lot of mileage out of that mural!)

The tasting room we visited was K Vintners/Charles Smith and it’s definitely not your typical winery. The tasting room was in a super cool industrial space:

I’ve been hanging around M way too long, because the first thing I did was take an artsy photo of my shadow:

But then I geeked out on the graphic design hard-core:

I loved the way they did their board showing the wines available (and of course the boxes are super cool):

Usually, when I see this much effort being put into creating cool branding I don’t expect much from the wine. But I actually really enjoyed their wine. They also had some fairly decent lower-priced offerings, which I always appreciate. We had fun trying the different options:

And lounging around in the super cool space:

(They clean up nice, don’t they?) Then it was time to head off to the party…

 

Idyllic summer

Apparently we’re having an extra social August this year. After Heidi’s awesome visit last weekend, we had a trip over to Eastern Washington on the books for this weekend. The main reason was a party for our friend Bryan’s big 4-0 on Saturday, but we kicked the weekend off right with a trip to hang out with Erin in Prosser. I love visiting Erin because this is what greets you after a long drive in the car:

Not to mention the delicious dinner, including a yummy zucchini cornbread:

After we ate dinner out in the backyard, in the warm summer evening. Afterward, we rode bikes down to a local coffee/wine bar for dessert. I borrowed Erin’s big pink cruiser bike (rather than riding Slim.) It was such a blast to ride! It was like being a kid again.

The next morning, we went on a nice little bike ride. Before we headed out, T had to snuggle Erin’s newest kitty “Kitten.”

Kitten looks almost exactly like her other cat Bandit, so it’s super cute to watch them play-fight:

After our ride, Erin fired up her crepe maker. (She’s recently started a crepe business as her local farmer’s market.) She was trying a new gluten-free batter, which was giving her problems. But once you put yummy fillings inside, they tasted just fine. It was fun to watch her in action:

T even got in on the crepe-making action:

And he did a really good job!

If this whole Interior Design thing doesn’t work out, it looks like T can fall back on crepe-making…