Category: Portland
following the masses
Just because you order wisely doesn’t mean you order well. It’s possible to be ‘good at food’ and simultaneously good at very little else. Food is not a virtue.
Lots of people eat at Mother’s in downtown Portland. Lots of people wait in line, tourists shove their luggage into a doorway the width of a very petite woman. The name of this establishment dictates its patronage; there will be children. You’re an adult with no children in tow, you will wait 45 minutes for brunch because someone you trust says that you should.
As you dodge launched Animal Crackers and Sippy Cups you might as well get the pecan cinnamon bun/strudel/whatever. You can finish it for dinner.
The matzo ball soup is Worth It. Very few places in Portland serve it, even fewer make it well. Get a cup, not a bowl. The bowl makes you look like a glutton.
I’m a surveyor of biscuits and gravy. I have opinions. The high point of these is the half flour/half corn meal biscuit dough. The gravy is under-seasoned. The eggs are transcendent, see the edge crisp on the over easy? Get yours.
This is the brunch special on your one and only visit to Mother’s. The hollandaise is whipped to a thick and velvet meringue, the crab is sweet and new, the potatoes are treated with animal fat.
The waiter compliments the two of you on your fine ordering skills.
Food is not a virtue, get the hell out of there.
Reasons To Survive November
Tony Hoagland sums up November like a master.
You can listen here. Please listen, I like force feeding poetry.
__________________________________________
November like a train wreck—
as if a locomotive made of cold
had hurtled out of Canada
and crashed into a million trees,
flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.
The sky is a thick, cold gauze—
but there’s a soup special at the Waffle House downtown,
and the Jack Parsons show is up at the museum,
full of luminous red barns.
—Or maybe I’ll visit beautiful Donna,
the kickboxing queen from Santa Fe,
and roll around in her foldout bed.
I know there are some people out there
who think I am supposed to end up
in a room by myself
with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
a locked door and my slack mouth open
like a disconnected phone.
But I hate those people back
from the core of my donkey soul
and the hatred makes me strong
and my survival is their failure,
and my happiness would kill them
so I shove joy like a knife
into my own heart over and over
and I force myself toward pleasure,
and I love this November life
where I run like a train
deeper and deeper
into the land of my enemies.
bunny bread surprise 