Met someone from Wallowa County almost 1.5 years ago and have been wanting to go there ever since! This article reinforces that! Someday….Heritage and HealingBY TIMOTHY EGANRanchers whose great-great-grandparents may have stolen land once vital to the Nez Perce now sit side-by-side with Indians. |
Category Archives: Oregon
for future reference: Wallowa County Oregon
Filed under Oregon
When next in Vermont: Snapdragon Inn in Windsor
I think I’ve found a soulmate for The Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon Coast (Nye Beach in Newport), famed for it’s bookish aura (the rooms are named after authors – most recently added are rooms honoring Amy Tan, Ken Kesey and Jules Verne), the place is full of books, no television, radio, wi-fi!). It’s the Snapdragon Inn in Windsor Vermont (photo above), in the central/southern part of the state, which apparently offers a “New York Times Best Seller” package that enables guests to choose a book from the NYT best-seller list and it will be waiting for them when they check into a room. Geddit? Book a room. Book a book. The inn is apparently the former home of a famous book editor (Maxwell Perkins) so that was part of the inspiration. No official word on whether you get to keep the book but guessing yes…
Pok Pok and Barbuto in NYC; Frontera Grill in Chicago
Thought of recent dining adventures in NYC, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, the other day when I read a NYTimes story about where top chefs go on the rare occasion when they don’t eat at their own restaurant. Chef Daniel Boulud goes to Barbuto for Chef Jonathan Waxman’s roasted chicken, which my brother also has discovered. I had a good meal there with my brother and his wife in 2011. 
Also on the dining front, is Pok Pok NY in Brooklyn and Pok Pok Wing (see photo above of Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings) on the Lower East Side. My husband and I ate at the original Pok Pok in Portland in 2010. (The chef Andy Ricker was named the Northwest’s best by the James Beard Foundation in 2011 so I bet it’s even harder to get a reservation now.) I see from the NYTimes that the two NYC-based Pok Poks have since opened. (Alas, we didn’t have the chicken wings when we went to Pok Pok in Portland. They look incredible! But it was very good Thai food by a non-Thai guy, which was the gist of the Times story. It also mentioned Rick Bayless and Frontera Grill/Xoco et. al. in Chicago which I’ve been to many times over the years.)
Filed under Chicago, New York City, Portland
Oregon greatest hits (from our 2010 trip there)
My sister-in-law and brother-in-law are going to Portland, Oregon and driving down to Sonoma, Ca. Don’t know their route but here are some greatest hits from our visit there two years ago. For more details, click on the “Portland” and “Oregon” categories on my blog:
Portland:
We stayed at Cafe Deluxe (fun, funky, reasonably priced). Cafe Lucia is sister hotel, more centrally located, place where masseuse accused poor Al Gore of groping her awhile back. Or some such.
Columbia River Gorge: well worth the drive. Columbia River gorge, old observatory, Multnomah (sp?) Falls, crossing the bridge to Stevenson, WA.
Restaurants, starting with the best on down (all good): Pok Pok (strange Thai place – book way ahead); Kenny and Zuke’s deli; Clyde Commons, Portland Farmer’s Market.
Oregon coast:
Newport: Sylvia Beach Hotel (homage to writers, quirky place) and Saffron Salmon (probably our best meal in Oregon and we wouldn’t have found it without strong recommendation from locals) Check out nearby Salishan Lodge and Yakina Head Lighthouse
Manzanita: pretty beach; stayed at good place
Cannon Beach: too manicured
Astoria: didn’t get there. next time!
Jacksonville: Rouge River Valley wine tasting, beautiful area near Medford
Ashland: Again near Medford – excellent Shakespeare, shopping, restaurants.
Crater Lake: gorgeous
Shakespeare – Stratford (Ont), Ashland (OR), Des Moines
Shakespeare is here, there, everywhere and we’ve seen some of it – unfortunately not in Stratford, Ontario for about ten years. I used to go there a lot as a kid growing up in suburban Detroit and judging from a recent NYTimes review of “Stratford’s” latest season it’s as good as ever with Christopher Plummer, at age 80 no less, among the performers. In March we saw a very modern Hamlet at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland
And on Thursday, we saw a lively production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (a rather silly play methinks) performed by the Repertory Theater of Iowa on the lovely grounds of Salisbury House, an old English stone and brick mansion in, of all places, Des Moines that provides a perfect backdrop for a Shakespearean play. A local tycoon built Salisbury House in the 1920s, inspired by a visit to the King’s House in Salisbury, England, which dates back to the 13th century according to Wikipedia. (And judging from the pix of Kings House, the Des Moines replica is pretty darned close.) Catch the “Merry Wives” while (and if) you can – performances through this Sunday…
Filed under Canada, Des Moines, England and U.K., Oregon, theater
Now that we’ve been to Oregon…
Now that we’ve been to Oregon (during a trip last March), there seem to be a lot of stories about places we went to or near. (Or maybe I’m just more aware of them now and my world view is less Saul Steinberg.) Anyway, here’s a few examples:
– A recent Wall Street Journal review raved about the Hip Hop Hamlet we saw at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. (I raved first!)
– A recent NYTimes story mentioned several restaurants in Ashland, including the stylish Asian one we ate at called Sesame. (Although I was confused by the story because it says Sesame opened “last April” – we ate there “last March” or maybe that’s “March” in NYTimes style) Others mentioned: The Loft, Blue, Chateaulin.
– We drove not far from the northern Portland suburb that has since become known as the hometown of a little boy who has gone missing in a strange, sad, highly publicized case.
– And this is the weirdest one: We almost stayed at the Hotel Lucia in Portland, opting instead for its sister hotel, the Hotel DeLuxe. Turns out that the Hotel Lucia is the hotel where a massage therapist claims she was assaulted by Al Gore.
Healthy Deli?
Yes, it seems like a contradiction in terms – healthy deli – but apparently some Jewish delicatessens are making a stab at providing more healthful food – some even going so far as to ban salami. (Say it’s not so.) A story in the NYTimes about this featured several delis I’ve been at or near recently, including Kenny & Zuke’s, a deli we visited for breakfast last month in Portland. Apparently the thing to have there is the specially-made pastrami – we came close. We ordered a corned beef sandwich which we happily shared – it was huge – in the Denver airport during our trip home.
The story also mentioned Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor which we visited last summer – who knew they made their own cream cheese although I wasn’t surprised they made their own rye bread. (I think we were supposed to have pastrami there too – again, we had the corned beef. Noticing a trend here?)
And earlier this month, we were on the lower East Side of Manhattan, standing outside of Katz’ s deli debating whether to join a long, albeit fast-moving, line at Saturday lunchtime. We decided not – and I guess this is good since the article seemed to single out old-school delis like Katz’s as, of course, serving stuff that’s not good for us (even if it tastes good.)
Goodbye Oregon
We arrived in the rain and left in the rain – but in between, we had a surprisingly amount of sunshine and warm temps during our 10-day visit to Oregon. Yesterday morning in Portland, we walked over to Kenny and Zuke’s Delicatessen – in the trendy Ace Hotel – for breakfast that could tide us over into dinner while we flew back to Iowa. That it did – I had a large plate of scrambled eggs with carmelized onions and large chunks of lox, served with a flavorful chewy onion bagel. D was happy with his eggs, very crispy bacon, well-seasoned hash browns, and authentic rye toast. And just to make sure we didn’t starve, we got one of the deli’s “big as your head” corned beef sandwiches to go – which we shared about six hours later in the Denver airport during our long trip home.
As always after a trip, there are places I wish I’d gotten a chance to visit so here they are: Astoria, Bend, Mt. Hood, Hood River, the southern coast, and specifically in Portland – the rose garden in Washington Park (when in bloom); the Japanese Garden in Washington Park; the Chinese Garden (we forgot to visit it on the waterfront); the Mississippi neighborhood. Next time.
Filed under DINING, Oregon, Portland, Uncategorized
Portland: exploring on foot and tram
We walked until our ankles – or at least my ankles – were swollen yesterday but how could we not on such a gorgeous day, sunny with temps in the 60s, light breeze. First stop the Portland Farmer’s Market – the first of the season – in the SW part of town on the campus of Portland State University. Not much produce yet but what there seemed very local – which is good and not always the case at Farmers Markets. Also pretty upmarket products – pate, smoked salmon, chocolate-covered cherries et. al. I had a Montreal-style bagel with cream cheese and locally made lox for breakfast. heaven.
From there we went by tram (free tram!) to the Portland Saturday Market – near the Burnside Bridge on the waterfront. Jam packed with shoppers and vendors selling crafts and tschotches, high and low, lots of street performers too. And from there we took the street car to the upscale Nob Hill neighborhood, wandering down NW 23 rd street, the main shopping area. This town sure has a lot of fancy shoe stores.
Last stop for the day was the Pearl, where we wandered into Powell’s again and to a design store called Canoe. Plopped down for awhile in a pocket park, watching kids play and D. watched the final agonizing minutes of his beloved Jayhawks unexpected loss to UNI. (Small consolation that they lost to an Iowa team.) Dinner was at Karam Lebanese Restaurant, popular unassuming place downtown. We fly home today. Been a great trip.
Portland: exploring the other side of the river
Today’s view is of a brick wall so we shouldn’t have any trouble motivating ourselves to get out on the town. After one last walk on the beach in Manzanita on a gorgeous day – a near record high of 69 I think I heard – we drove to Cannon Beach, stopping for coffee at the highly touted Sleepy Monk coffee-house then drove 1.5 hours back to Portland on Highway 26, which turned out to be a very scenic road through the mountains and farmland along a river or stream.
After some confusion, we finally found the aerial tram entrance at the Oregon Health and Science Center (0r some such) and rode across the south part of town with stunning views of snow-capped mountains and the downtown waterfront.
Because we had a car, we explored some neighborhoods east of the river that aren’t reachable by light rail – Hawthorne Street, between 34th and 40th, was fun and funky, with lots of people hanging out in the sun. Also went up to nw 28th “restaurant row” which had a handful of interesting looking places. And stopped at the food cart pod at 12th and Hawthorne for a fine lunch of pomme frites with tarragon anchovy mayo (one of several options.)
Dinner was an adventure at Pok Pok, a very different Thai restaurant from those we’re accustomed to. No pad thai, no thai people actually. The chef is an american guy who spent time in Thailand and brought back authentic recipes. Very popular place so we got there early – at 6p.m. and were seated at 7 p.m., happily waiting across the street at the restaurant’s sister joint, The Whiskey soda Lounge. Our wait was supposed to be 25 minutes (not). people who arrived at 8 p.m. had a 1-1.5 hour wait. Despite this, well worth a visit. Had a wonderful soup with homemade coconut milk; mussells with fried egg and bean sprouts, protisserie hen, a fantastic dessert with Vietnamese coffee over ice cream with a homemade donut, and a “Hunny”- fresh grapefruit juice, a drinkable balsamic vinegar, tequila. When in Rome…
TakeBetsywithyou 