one of the many

Reasons I love Portland is it's free piles. Now I've been know for quite some time to appreciate the freeer things in life, but I am always amazed at what people give away. With the general mentality of PDX being more liberal than my hometown I have definitely acquired more than my fair share of shit and gold over the past few years. Thats how the stuff from free piles usually boils down to either gold or shit. Here's some gold that I found right in my own backyard behind the dumpster.

Heck yes, free green Doc Martins straight from the UK that fit like a glove.

its happening

 

Springs here y'all!

once upon a time

I went to the coast once, twas a tiny coastal town with one of my dear friends. We ate, took pictures, and philosophisied on small town life/meth. Here's what we did.

 

The salmon and I were destined to be lifelong friends.

I don't think that making faces with my leftover food will ever be anything less than hilarious.

It's the subtly satisfying things that make you unaware of the time ticking by.

 

lucky portland

Well call me a loon but this Winter Hell hasnt really been that terrible. That being said I'll proabbly jinx it and we'll have a March full of nothing but rain, wind, and cold. With all this frolick inducing weather around I have been running more frequently, crafting, and cooking. On one of my runs this week I smelt my first daphne of the year, and then saw some daffodils popping up! If you've never had the chance to smell daphne it's has very citrusy floral perfume that comes from tiny clusters of purple-white trumpet shaped flowers. They bloom only once a year, and when they do I just want to surround myslef with their heavenly scent.

I got my first CSA box yesterday from hood river organics, and its fantastical! I've seen most of the items before, but I have never been adventurous enough to use them in my cooking. In that thar box up above is a half dozen eggs, four beets, three leeks, two bags of saute greens, one bunch of radishes, one box of micro greens, one brown bag of portobellos, raw herbed cheese, once baguette, eight carrots, seven potatoes, three turnips, and six pears. Whew! Thats a whole lotta organic stuff!

I figured that I should make something for dinner using at least two of the above ingredients, but pysch! I ended up using five! Holy balls batman, what could I have made???

 

Soup of course! The weather hasn't been that great. I also wanted to make something that could use up a good portion of the box o' produce on my kitchen table. So I started how I always do, with a glass of wine and a wondering eye. This night I ended up flipping through my Polish cookbook and using this leek soup as a platform for my csa soup spectacular. Oh and speaking of batman, that's me in high school when midriff was kind ok, especially when I weighed half of what I do now!


Polish Soup
Serves 2-4
Cook Time 1 hr(or so, depends on how much your drinking)

4 cups veggie broth ( beef would be good too)
3 leeks
4 potatoes
3 carots
1 Tbs butta
1 cup h20
1/2 green cabbage
1/2 tsp dill
sliced smoked kielbasa(optional)

1) In a smaller saucepan place 1 cup water, butta, and sliced leeks. Bring to a soft boil and let simmer.

2) In a larger soup pot saute kielbasa and carrots with a bit o butta. After those two get a good brown on, add the cabbage+dill and saute for a few seconds, then add the broth. Bring this to a boil and add the peeled cut potatoes.

3) Add the leek mixture to the big soup pot. The liquid should have reduced to about a half cup, but it should be extremely fragrant and the leeks soft.



4) Let this stay at medium heat for about 30min to get everything all nice and soft. I really wanted the potatoes to break apart and make the soup a bit thicker but we got hungry so this soup was on the fast track.

5) Serve and add salt to taste!


We ate cheese and baguette with this soup, and even went back for seconds! I have a feeling that the yum level of this soup would be amped up with a dollap of sour cream. It would also make it that much more polish.


xxoo

sf through the years

It seems that everytime I have the pleasure of visiting san francisco its for a little bit longer than the last trip. My first encounter with the city was driving through on our way up north, the next time was for a full twenty four hours, and the next two whole days. Taking this as a challenge my last trip spanned four whole days, and with no agenda. Yep, that's most definitely how I roll. Traveling for me isn't about seeing the things you are supposed to see when visiting, it's about creating your own experience. That can be food based, people oriented, or just plain random. More often than not I base my travels on visiting people I love and then possibly having one objective or goal. Lets take a trip back to the start of my love affair with the city on the bay.

 

 Throughout college one of my best friends from back home went to school an hour away from me in Oregon. At the end of a summer spent in sweltering Arizona we would make a road trip back to our respectable universities. We took a different route every time, and the last trip we made would be the first time we stayed over night in the bay. After driving 27 or so hours straight from AZ through Yosemite we were sleep deprived and in desperate need of an abode and our friend's sweet ass apartment by the stadium was perfect. After staying up for an extra twelve hours we fell asleep, only to be awoken by the sound of seals in the bay!

 

After a few months of being in Portland I headed back to the bay with two of my girlies for an epic long weekend of celebration for love fest. This is wheere I met the coolest kid in the world.

There were also plenty of sweet signs and costumes aplenty.

A few weeks ago I went down for one of my most important SF trips to date, a sort of memory mission if that makes any sense. I was there to rekindle the friendship flame, and also give hugs to those I love. Here's one of those bastards:

 

 We spent our time walking around rich people neighborhoods, eating chocolates shaped like mushrooms, and giggling like a bunch of fourteen year old girls.

that's a toy helicopter, GD rich people!

After I had my fun in the bay with family and friends who are family I headed down to a sweet ass little town called Mountain View to visit one of my favorite bitches.

I'm pretty fond of her owners too. It might be love, but then again it might just be arousal! To end our sweet embrace session we went into the city and did the only logical thing we could. We ate and drank to our hearts content.

 pumping iron

So fuck yes San Francisco, I do love you, and I will be back.