My neice, Amanda, has a bee costume ready for tomorrow night. When I visited last weekend everytime my sister, Sarah, came near her daughter with the antennae hat or fuzzy yellow and black bodice Amanda would screech, “NnnnnOOOOO!”
Here are some ideas for alternate costumes, brought to you by Bunny Bread Surprise because I really don’t think she is gonna wear that get-up.
And my favorite!
In other news, I will be participating in this year’s NaBloPoMo. That’s right folks, November is National Blog Posting Month and I will be celebrating by, um. . .posting! Posting every day! Grab your reading glasses and a doggy bag!
For several years Aaron asked me questions about the time I spent living in Berkeley, CA. I have lots of interesting stories about my time in the East Bay but he was mostly interested in the food commerce. You see, Berkeley has several fast food restaurants but none of them are drive-throughs. You can stop by a McDonalds, if you insist, but you have to get out of your car to do so. Exactly two years ago Aaron and I started the “Berkeley Diet” it consists of not siting in drive-throughs and, by extension of that, abstaining from fast food.
One of my favorite responses to the “Berkeley Diet” came from a friend who exclaimed, “Not even Bojangles?!?” No, not even Bojangles.
It’s not a weight loss plan, clearly one can consume equal amounts of crap in the privacy of their kitchen. It’s about not sitting for your food, and not indulging in food that came from a large cardboard container that sat in a warehouse in the Midwest for who knows how long. It’s also about not risking the chance of being in a drive-through line behind a man in a Cadillac when he experiences some kind of coronary/diabetic episode and passes out in line with his car running. That really happened to me, true story.
Aaron and I took a trip back to Portland for a very special wedding and important re-relocation fact finding. What’s funny is that when we lived in Portland 6 years ago we were flat broke, living in a trailer on 82nd Avenue and eating Hamburger Helper like it was a delicacy so whenever we return for a visit we immediately return to a cash poor mindset. I wonder if I’ll ever have the courage to really pay homage to all the awesome PDX restaurants that I read about? For now I am content to keep it cheap and simple while dreaming of the CSA boxes in my near future.
First stop, the food carts. We went looking for the Perogie Lady who is a cornerstone and landmark of my first impoverished summer with Aaron. Where is she?!? We settled on the highly regarded “Tabor” cart. I spent several months is Prague several years ago and I never saw a ciabatta “snitzelwich”. This was great, will eat again.
The paprika spread! Oh my lord the paprika spread.
Aaron and I have an unspoken deal, when we travel together I will tag along with him to countless thrift stores if he will accompany me when I visit a locally run coffee shop. We spent several hours combing through various stores and Aaron finally found a second hand goretex jacket, later that morning I finally found a bread pudding muffin.
Note to self: remove thrift store bag before snapping food pics.
The wedding was lovely. Aaron’s mother was beautiful and happy, mission accomplished. The cake looked great, but I didn’t try any. . .I have no idea why. The morning after the wedding we headed to Seaside, a sleepy beach town where James Beard spent is summers as a child. I was thrilled to see this place and even more thrilled to experience a staple of Aaron’s summers in Seaside, the Pig and Pancake Diner.
I didn't get much further then this, but I tried!
We took the afternoon to walk off the breakfast and wedding stress on the beach.
I met Aaron’s Aunt Peggy on our last night in town. We drove to her house outside of Portland and I discovered that Aaron did not, in fact, sprout full grown out from the muddy banks of the Columbia River. He has RELATIVES y’all. Living, breathing, kin’ folk! Aunt Peggy has a calendar for Sunday suppers. Everyone knows when they will happen and everyone shows up. There is a large television in the living room, a fridge filled with soda, and Uncle Doug’s wolf prowls the backyard. There are a ton of similarities between what I’ve come to know as Southern “country cooking” and what Aunt Peggy calls NorthWestern “farm cooking”. Both are hearty, feature seasonal and local produce, and involve dairy and pork the majority of the time. Aunt Peggy placed four huge pats of margarine on the fresh green beans. Ha. Not only in the South.
"Oh, hello Aaron's family!" ::photographs food::Too bad about the margarine. Watermelon on the right!"Farm Cooking"
::eyes pork, looks down at belly::
Uncle Doug foraged a ton of blackberries on his property in Washington before heading in for Sunday dinner. This pie was perfect. The sublime combination of “farm cooking” and modern locavore mania. Sorry this is so blurry, but hey, everything in the background is perfectly in focus!
bunny bread surprise 
