Feb 27, 2009 1
Eric and I ventured downtown Portland today, first to meet my dear friend Megan from high school to do a portrait shoot - she’s so cute! Eric was my dutiful reflector-holder, and it was the first time he’s been along on a shoot with me!
After the shoot, we walked around a bit and then decided that we wanted to eat at the highly-acclaimed Kenny and Zuke’s Deli, located between 10th & 11th on NW Stark.
Feb 5, 2009 1
Eric and I have established a routine here at the beach, and what that means is that we’ve been cooking a lot, but we’ve been cooking on a budget and making one meal last a few days by making lots and eating leftovers. It’s not too exciting, but it does save up money for the grad school tuition “monster” that we see looming in the distance.
This week, we made turkey chili from a recipe we found on Chow.
Jan 6, 2009 0
We know, we know. We already told you about Oasis. It’s our favorite Lebanese spot, and it exists right in the middle of strip-mall mania in Beaverton. Which means, of course, that we can walk there.
Today we walked there, and enjoyed a hummus plate. Never have we tasted hummus so smooth and fluffy. I had a chicken shawerma and Eric a falafel sandwich. You can get any of five sandwiches at lunchtime for $4.95, which is a killer deal and we love it. Please go check it out. It scares us when it’s empty because we don’t ever want it to go away.
Nov 27, 2008 3
I love Thanksgiving. And I know that some of you who are American and not at home are probably missing the Thanksgiving stuff today, so here in today’s post, I’ll include interspersed photos of the Thanksgiving dinner we ate today, from the beet and goat cheese salad Eric’s mom made to the turkey that his grandpa cut with such precison.
5. My favorite season is fall, so I like that there’s a warm holiday right in the middle of that season to enjoy.
4. Football. It provides the perfect opportunity to stretch out on the couch and zone out while you let the tryptophan run its course.
3. Thanksgiving isn’t a religious holiday; it’s an American holiday. So you can go around during Thanksgiving week and say “Happy Thanksgiving” to the checker at Safeway and your hairdresser and not feel at all weird about it.
2. I love mashed potatoes, and I won’t lie about it. I could eat a truckload of them.
1. The chance to be with family and friends and catch up after the long year before.
Happy Thanksgiving again, to friends and family far and wide!
Nov 27, 2008 1
Before my Grammy died, she asked me if I’d write a story about our family’s cranberry bowl. The cranberry bowl, which is a cut glass bowl (nothing too fancy, she told me) which was handed down to her from her mother, Josephine (which is also my cousin’s name). Josephine got it from her mother, and Grammy told me she thought it must have been a wedding present to her grandmother. It’s been in the family more than 100 years, she estimated, and will continue to be passed down. The amazing part is that nothing has ever been prepared or served in it except for cranberry sauce. And only on Thanksgiving.
This morning, before Eric and I left Beaverton to head north and spend Thanksgiving with his family in Aberdeen, Washington (our old hometown!) I made a quadruple batch of cranberry sauce and put it in the cranberry bowl, which has now been passed on to the next generation. The recipe turned out really nice, and I’ll have to report back on how it goes over since it was a new recipe for my family and I won’t be there to eat it with them tomorrow (which is actually later today, since I’m blogging nice and late).
Cranberries are an amazing fruit - I know this both because I love them and because Eric worked for Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. for three years, and through those years I learned a lot about the effects and the taste of cranberries. But what I didn’t really know was how beautiful they are. With 48 ounces of cranberries in my recipe today, I was captivated by their color variation, their vibrant reds and purples and whites and the texture of the skins, from when they were dry to when they got coated in the syrupy wine mixture to when they finally burst, one by one, and combined to make the sauce.
In my family, we have a Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table before we eat and sharing something in our lives that we’re thankful for. So this year, I’m thankful for my family and my friends and for the opportunity have discovered a place like Argentina, which brought Eric and I closer together while we explored the big, wonderful world. I’m also thankful that I got to know my Grammy for 25 whole years. I know not everyone gets that many with their grandparents.
We originally planned to cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner in Buenos Aires in our apartment, but after all the things I’ve been through in the last week, I’m so thankful to be at home with family. And last of all, I’m thankful that I got away so easy - all I cooked was cranberry sauce! Happy Thanksgiving!
