Hungry Times Two

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...

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.

How much salmon can one person eat? I'm trying to find out now as I take a 7-day excursion with Mother Dear here in Alaska. We've had smoked salmon dip in Fairbanks, a smoked salmon BLT at Alaska Salmon Bake in Denali Park, a Seafood pasta with salmon and King Crab on the Alaska Railroad, and a Salmon Pasty at  the Historic Roadhouse in Talkeetna.    I was tempted to try some salmon jerky too. We've had reindeer (aka caribou) sausage on a pizza in Denali at Prospectors Pizza and a Reindeer meatloaf at the Historic Roadhouse in Talkeetna.  Last night for dessert we found a great Airstream trailer converted into a food truck that sold rhubarb blueberry crisp in Talkeetna. The whipped cream was fresh! We've had some beer from the 49th State Brewing Co. and a nice shandy (Denali Brewing Co. beer and lemonade). The Alaska Railroad bartender makes a serviceable Bloody Mary with Alaskan vodka. We're on to Anchorage now, with a pit stop near Wasilla (aka Sarah Palin territo...

Hard to believe three weeks passed since my trip to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Time flies by, but luckily I have the photos to remember a lovely trip with my Mother Margaret. (I have a hard time typing "Mom," ok? I may call her "Mom" but really, she's totally a Mother Margaret. Below is the image to prove this.) Nova Scotia blew me away with its food offerings, from the fresh seafood (I tried nearly everything that has gills or a shell) to the fresh produce. Mom and I flew in to Halifax, and spent six days toodling around in a rented Toyota Corolla. We put some miles on that economy car, as we went up the eastern coast, then around Cape Breton counterclockwise on the Cabot Trail, down the Ceilidh trail on the western side, took a ferry to Price Edward, and roamed from Charlottetown to Cavendish, and then back over on the ferry back down to the Halifax airport.

Note: We're back on Blogger! Sometimes you learn if it ain't broke, don't fix it. (Sorry, Tumblr.) "I called New Orleans 'a small model of all the best of America' because I have found here a vivid expression of my conception of what the United States can be at its best -- a truly multicultural place, in which all social, ethnic, and economic elements of the society have somehow managed to fashion a distinct and vibrant culture out of the tensions among their differences.  This embrace of diversity is a beautiful thing, when you can find it."   -- Tom Piazza, Devil Sent the Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America Amen, Tom Piazza. We found it, we drank it in, gobbled it up, and embraced it. Then we came home and wondered why it took us so long to get there. Our New Orleans trip over the New Years holiday wouldn't have happened if our Nashville friends hadn't initiated the visit. Thanks friends, for the introduction. And hello to our ...

Ever the fan of a playful pun, I came up with several on our 45-minute car ride this past Saturday to Deale, Md., which is pretty much in the middle of Backwater, Nowhere. What's the big Deale? I can Deale with that. I hope we're getting a fair Deale. Deale or No Deale? You get the picture. Luckily, bad puns were the only poor thing we endured during our trek out to Skipper's Pier Restaurant & Dock Bar.

Hard to believe it's just two days away! What kinds of things will you enjoy this holiday season? Here's a rundown of what I expect we'll partake of this Christmas and New Year's: 1 ) Some form of sugar cake. You may recall I've waxed poetic on the Moravian sugar cake I grew up enjoying as a child of the N.C. Piedmont area. Winkler's Bakery in Old Salem is the place to get the sugar cake - it's like a coffee cake-style deal - cinnamon and sugar and all those good things. I have the recipe, but will I really work with rising yeast and stuff early on Christmas morn? That, my friend, is TBD. This little elf may want to sleep in. Mother Dear says she has a simple recipe for something similar, so we shall see. 2) Seafood! Mom's promising her amazing Carolina Rice & Shrimp dish, and we're headed for Charleston, S.C. to ring in the New Year. Shrimp, I am coming for YOU. 3) A pig roast! Scott's aunt and uncle have held a traditional New Year's pi...

Posting on behalf of my male HTT counterpart: My dad and sister drove up from Georgia this past long weekend and we explored Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Molly (my sister) had never been to Baltimore nor Philadelphia, Erin was new to Philly and I’d only been to Philly for about six hours in a snowstorm (stopped there midway from Asheville , NC to Montreal, left in a hurry trying to avoid getting stuck in a blizzard). My dad, laid-back as always, was open to visiting all three places, so we started with Baltimore on a Friday. Baltimore I drove them into town, with quick trek through downtown and then onto Chaps Pit Beef , a place on the far eastern edge of Baltimore City serving pit beef, Baltimore’s local take on barbecue. I’d seen Anthony Bourdain ’s visit , so I made sure to try the tiger sauce. That, plus heaping spoons of horseradish, had me in “food sweat,” which isn ’t a bad thing as long as tasty, spicy food is involved. Molly and dad got straight-...

I saw this article today and felt compelled to post it. Whole Foods is phasing out unsustainable seafood , so this will make it easier for people to do the right thing! If you enjoy having seafood, and want to keep on enjoying it, consider Whole Foods or simply consulting these resources .

Previous discussions on what you eat when no one else is around resulted in some pretty amazing confessions by myself and fellow readers: bowlfuls of popcorn, toasted roast beef sandwiches, cracker meals of Triscuits, cottage cheese and pepperoni. It just goes to show that a "meal" isn't always a tidy entree with two sides. My solo meal last night was no exception. Lately I have been eeking by with weekend grocery shops of $75 or less - a paltry sum compared to our ( hush hush retailer ) Trader Joe's shops circa Fall 2008/Winter 2009. While Scott and I aren't going hungry, we're not exactly brimming with meal possibilities up in our wee kitchen. Scott was in Baltimore on a bike ride - an evening ride through some pretty special "transitional neighborhoods" that had me a little edgy with concern, but never mind that. SO. After rejecting the leftover pasta I thawed from the freezer and canceling out the notion of a veggie burger sandwich (it was the b...

Our love for seafood has no bounds. It is, to use metaphors tragically, wider than any river, deeper than any ocean. It is for reel. ( Ok , terrible pun. I will stop now.) I knew Scott was the man for me when he ordered shrimp and grits on our first date at Asheville's Early Girl Eatery. Scott grew up on Low country seafood and my mom's side hails from the Wilmington, NC area, so our palates are well adjusted to all sorts of fruits of the sea. Appropriately enough, we served shrimp and grit cakes smothered in country ham tasso gravy and had boiled shrimp accompanied by a huge-ass shrimp trawler ice sculpture at our wedding in coastal South Carolina. (And yes, I must also mention yet again the awesome and legendary cheese castle that I didn't even ask my caterer for yet it totally rocked our friends and relatives' salivating faces off.) Behold - the kick-ass Cheese Castle (thanks to L. Adams for the pic) So we like it all - crabs, oysters, ...

Just at the moment when both parties in HTT feel like they're crawling out of their skin and going insane in their membranes, a kind friend issues an invitation to their house share at Dewey Beach. Thank you, dear friend. You know how to cure what ails us. Aptly described by another friend as "Do Me Beach," it's quite the meat market/rowdy beach to which many in the DC Metro area flock. I visited for the first time in June and well, it's no Charleston or low key NC-style barrier isle, but the area does have its charms. I'm thinkin ' a crabcake somewhere in Rehobeth and a first-time trip for Scott to the Dogfish Head Brewery - I'm gonna get my Namaste on. Grilled fish. Icy drinks. Dips in the water. Come on, quittin ' time! Hope everyone enjoys this first weekend in August - how did it get to be August already?!

Oh, how I lurve you, mint. You lend your refreshing, tingly herbal notes to many a fine thing: tea and tabbouleh, to name a few, and even the nostalgia of childhood, those Star Brights Mints my Grandmother Coxey used to keep in her candy dish. (I'd unwrap them and gobble them in secret, stuffing the plastic wrappers between the couch cushions. But nevermind that.) Our mint plant is doing remarkably well, so I plan on using it as much as I can while it's alive and kickin .' A great way to do so: a Rice Noodle salad with a Vietnamese lean. Yes, another Cooking Light recipe. I swear that cookbook is the best two dollars I ever spent! I made this salad last night, using baked salmon in place of the tofu. It was fresh and light and a great departure from the usual Jasmine rice and veggie stir fry we usually eat. Scott's contribution was trekking out to gather some herbs from our mint plant, currently "squatting" with our neighbors' garden goodness (inclu...

As a lover of all the fruits of the sea, I have really wondered about this awful cluster of an oil spill's effect on the seafood down in Louisiana and Florida, NC even. So sayeth an FDA staffer: "Our goal both collectively, FDA and NOAA , is to make sure that fish that have become contaminated or might become contaminated are kept off of the market so that they don't get to the consumers, so consumers don't have to ask themselves, 'Is the fish I'm about to buy safe?" I really love shrimp, scallops and oysters, and though I hate seeing the photos of oil-soaked birds (and this comes from a straight-up bird loather), my heart really goes out to the sea. I've always felt a strong attachment to the ocean and I hate the idea of coastlines being ravaged and the environs and organisms in them being devastated and depleted. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium - a top authority in seafood sustainability - "the spill will affect many popular commerc...

A friend sent me this link today about the DC area's best crab cakes. Somehow I think I should totally take a day (or two) off and just visit them all in a whirlwind feast of crab goodness. I do love me some crab. Right now I am fantasizing about a crab and avocado salad... I have never had one but I have seen many recipes for them and even on menus before and I never took the plunge. Something about the soft flaky crab meat joined with the cool and creamy avocado just seems decadent and absolutely wonderful. Methinks I need to make that happen. I am in the land of crab, yes? Over the weekend I visited the Delaware coast and hung out in Dewey Beach ( paaaaaarty on, man!) and Rehoboth (both family-friendly and a gay mecca). In Rehoboth I enjoyed a great crab crake at Claws Seafood House - not too bready , broiled instead of nasty fried, and plenty of substantial lump meat). We also lunched at Dogfish Head Brewing and Eats , where our incredibly witty waiter told us their cr...

Take a look at McSweeney's " Food Brought to a Sex Addiction Group Therapy Potluck ." My personal favorite items: Fish Tacos, Bangers & Mash. Yours?

Apparently, there comes a time in every Caucasian's food experience when they're gonna get denied. I'm talking about the ethnic food line in which us white peeps do not dare to cross. Our delicate vanilla taste buds just will not be able to handle it, according to the culinary gatekeepers to the ethnic realm. Such was the case this weekend with a friend and myself, both of us of the Caucasian persuasion who consider ourselves fairly adventurous. We attended the most awesome Passport to DC Embassy Row tour , taking in the music, food, dancing and cultural offerings of the embassies of Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Brazil and Cape Verde. Thailand had it going on, food-wise. While my friend and I watched a Thai cook prepare our papaya salad as she crushed all the makings in a huge mortar/pestle situation, we noticed a crock of black something or another on the food table. "What's that?," my friend asked. "Fermented crab. Not for you," was the reply. ...

Back in early January I declared that Scott and I would take on a vegetarian New Year’s resolution for 2010 . “Meat free and lovin ’ it!,” I exclaimed. Well, it didn ’t quite go the way I anticipated, so for the sake of full disclosure, I thought it’s time to set the record straight. Here’s the deal: for about three weeks in January, it worked. I did my research, planned veg-friendly meals, made sure I got my protein (but not too much – you can actually overload) and generally tried to eat more fruits and veggies. Scott apparently committed some random acts of hamburger eating on his own time, but for me it was great – I didn ’t feel I was missing out on anything and I really did think my energy level rose sans beef, chicken and pork (though I could have just been on a rising cloud of self-righteousness). Then the bottom dropped out – our living situation became a little nuts and we hit the road to apartment hunt during DC’s Snowpacalypse situation. Not the smartest move. Even thought...

You know when you've made a meal out of a cup and a half of cottage cheese and go out for a jog that leaves you wincing and wondering if you have any knee cartilage remaining that you're on one hell of a guilt trip. Such was the case on Sunday, when I plead my case to the Weekend Food Gods, asking for amnesty despite the last two days of food gluttony. It was gonna take more than some fat-free dairy products and sweaty poundin' of pavement to undo what I'd done. Scott and I hosted his dad visiting from GA and well, those men like to eat. Put fresh cocktails in their hands and full plates of good food in front of them and they're all kinds of congenial. I can't say I'm not partial to their ways. Who can blame them? On Friday evening, after Scott's dad learned the joys of navigating the streets of D.C., we set out for a place I found on UrbanSpoon.com. {US is a handy site - considering the recent controversy over the legitimacy of Yelp.com business review...