Hungry Times Two

Road trips in books and films always seem so fun, carefree, and adventurous.  Or they can be devolving nightmares that can't end fast enough. Our Oregon to North Carolina trip wasn't quite the latter, but it didn't nearly have enough of the former. Read on for an authentic account of Scott, Erin, and Loretta the dog, packed into a Ford C-Max hatchback for seven loooooong sub-caffeinated days. 

I read A LOT .. so I can't remember now where I first saw this.  Oh yeah, it was on a planning listserv that I follow.  I recall reading a Linus Pauling quote noting, "The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas."  I'm a community gardener and think this is a great idea - for the elderly (or "HonoredCitizens" as Tri-Met aptly notes) and anyone looking to meet new people. Grey fingers: Ageing Singapore uses gardening to fight loneliness http://www.thisisplace.org/i/?id=57e0917e-7682-4585-a77e-78b47072a724 The article has a great video in it as well, and if you're not familiar with the Queen's English (Singapore was part of the British Empire), an "allotment" is simply a garden plot and a "scheme" is simply a program - think of "schematic" (i.e. diagram) rather than "scheming" (up to no good). Simply put, community gardening combats loneliness, depression, and dementia, all of which can...

I started to think we had bad food luck in Portland. There was the "legendary" riverside spot with mediocre $35 salmon platters.  The "authentic" longtime Chinese place off 82nd that, for what it lacked in flavor and freshness, rocked a lively karaoke and lounge scene.  A three-hour wait for a table at a tiki bar.   The inedible greasy burgers and fries at a much-lauded dive bar.  The Indian restaurant that refused to let us order off the menu and instead demanded we eat from the buffet, where oil seeped and pooled from each dish and the stale, acrid odor of layers of fried food in the alcove should have been the first flag to deter us.  The chicken and rice place that, just as we stepped up to order, ran out of...chicken and rice.  And there were more! So. Many. More.  Until there weren't. For months Scott and I slogged through some bad choices, purposely avoiding the cool new spots for what we'd heard were local mainstays or h...

In the 13 months Scott and I have lived in Oregon, we've done our best to visit the varied landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. To mark our 12th wedding anniversary in April, we chose the coast. Or, as the highway signs here redundantly declare, "the Ocean Beaches." We've twice day-tripped to Astoria, camped at Bullards Beach State Park near Bandon, and spent a terrific weekend in Pacific City . On that last trip, we visited Neskowin's Ghost Forest on one of the lowest tides of the year, and we were eager to return.  We tend to be procrastinating trip planners, so we we decided to go about 10 days before our anniversary, which fell on the Easter holiday. A quick Airbnb search later, we had a condo with a kitchenette reserved at Proposal Rock Inn in Neskowin, a funky creekside condo complex with views of the Pacific Ocean and, of course, Proposal Rock. The Inn allows dogs, so our pup Loretta came with us.    The view from the condo balcony As a Sout...

I think I found my happy place. A spot with miles of green cow pastures, cool coastal winds, tasty seafood, and spectacular hikes along the shoreline. And CHEESE. Man, there's a lot of dairy goodness there. I'd been to Tillamook County once before, but a longer return visit this month - a spur of the moment weekend trip (aren't those the best kind?) - secured the place as one of my top getaways ever. Named after the native tribe who occupied the areas around the Tillamook and Nehalem Bays, Tillamook County's tagline on its website,  " The land of Cheese, Trees and Ocean Breeze ," s ays it all. Located 70 miles west of Portland in northwest Oregon, its 75 miles of coastline, four bays, nine rivers, verdant valleys and Coast Range mountain spurs make for gorgeous views. Plenty of rain during most of the year results in the greenest of grass, which turns out to be tasty eating for all the cows in Tillamook County. Outnumbering the locals, the cows are th...

64 degrees, friends.  That's the current temperature here in Gresham, Oregon, at 1:30pm PT on Monday, July 2.  This southern-born transplant is in awe. Yesterday while reading on our patio in mid-afternoon, I donned a long sleeve because of a light, cool breeze. If I was back in Charlotte right about now, I'd be removing as many layers as legally possible. It's a transition that's a welcome change. No more sweating off sunscreen or makeup, and goodbye frizzy hair that can claim it's own zip code? (Well, the hair is still kinda big.) I'm in! And Scott is no longer having summertime humidity  Nicolas Cage-style freak outs . Yet when it comes to gardening, the cooler temps and surprisingly dry weather so far are perplexing. After a bit of wrangling, we secured a large 20'x20' plot at Gresham City Hall community garden, which is walkable from our apartment. It took a full day to hack weeds out of the very rocky soil and hand-turn/till with ...

One of the trickiest but also most rewarding things about moving to a new place is adapting to the food scene and culture. A common response Scott and I heard when we announced our Oregon move to friends and family was " OMG. The beer. The wine. The FOOD. " While we're very excited to try out many of the notable restaurants, plentiful food carts/pods, and the crazy explosion of breweries and wineries, I'm most thrilled about having access to the fresh local produce and seafood of Oregon. Not only do I enjoy home cooking but let's face it -- it's often cheaper to make food than to dine out. Despite the sales tax-free shopping, Oregon food can be expensive, and with one of us (me) being on a brief "job break" at the moment, meal planning and sticking to grocery lists is an important budget focus.

If you review the photos on your phone, you will notice trends. Maybe it's cute baby photos, snaps of your pets doing something adorable and/or ridiculous, shots of your culinary feats or fails, or travel pics. For me, my photo album is bookended with images of mayonnaise.  I can explain -- really. When Scott landed his planning job for Multnomah County, Oregon earlier this spring, we had many details to wrangle and projects to complete. Sell our house in Charlotte, North Carolina - ok, we can do it. Purge or sell many belongings -- that's FUN, let's burn it all! And successfully drive all our belongings for more than 2,800 miles in a 20+-ft. U-Haul truck, with the Ford C-Max with adorable, ridiculous #LorettaDog  following along -- errrr, do what now??? The drive from Charlotte to Gresham, OR was my one hesitation. Not exactly known for my smooth driving skills, I rarely enjoy operating a motor vehicle, preferring instead to take frequently-delayed Amtrak t...