I wrote a series of 10 of these “Green Xmas” articles in preparation for the season, to be featured on the Exquisite Writing business newsletter.
They have handy tips and plenty of ideas for how to simply spend less at Christmas as well as saving the environment, or whatever that means on a population-wide scale. Most folks just don’t want to look too garish, I figure. Whatever…don’t waste just to be jolly.
While I was travelling back in the Twin Cities, I had a chance to visit some old haunts. Why not give them a review. I know some good secret spots, especially out in the burbs, but I dedided to start w/ that Uptown staple, the ol’ Leaning Tower of Pizza. You can see the review on wCities.
I can’t tell you how many dorm rooms I’ve seen their boxes. Good place for drinks, too.
Portland has always been very pancake friendly. Take the Hotcake House, for instance. This is serious business that we are not content to leave up to a national chain, even one with such a fancy name as the International House of Pancakes.
Enter the waffle. Crepes are soooo 2005. Hard times call for more flour and less egg. Hard times call for plenty of syrup. But, you might be surprised at the number of stuffed and savory waffles that are making an appearance.
One of the more curious and very Portlandesque (if that’s a word — it should be) Jáce Gáce, over on Belmont, combines booze, coffee, waffles and art. I just reviewed them for wCities and am a big fan of the atmosphere of this place. Sure, you can get a cheaper waffle elsewhere. And yes, mine are better, but I can’t feed all of you! Moreover, my house isn’t nearly as spiffy, and we don’t have nearly the beer and wine selection.
Having been forced into health-nut behaviour, I usually go for some juice or tea and a bit of the fruit covered sweet action. The grilled cheeze is but a dream, but you’d better really like your cheese to properly enjoy one.
Add to this the Waffle Window on Hawthrone and the Waffle Cart over in Northwest, and Portland, already a breakfast Mecca, is Waffle Ascendant.
Well, the very best is the kind I make at home on top of the oven, overnight. It’s just right because I take it off the stove when I want to, and better yet, no waste.
However, sometimes you want to have some for dessert. I’m not the sort of yuppie that owns a gellato machine (though I’d love a kickable ice-cream freezer), but I do like the taste of real yoghurt. I especially love cinnmon ice cream, and apparently the rest of the world isn’t hip, because it’s impossible to get unless you go to one of those annoying mall joints.
Well, enter Bleuet over in Northwest. I just reviewed them for wCities. They make their own tangy, not-too-sweet, non-fat, frozen yoghurt. It comes in plain, honey (Matt’s fave, being a sugarfiend) and my fave, cinnamon. I am in heaven. It’s all organic and this is one of the “greenest” businesses you’ll find. Heck, even the spoons are compostable.
Take the streetcar into NW, since parking is useless here, and get your yoghurt on. It’s a bit spendy, but cheaper than going to Cold Stone Creamery, and you’ll feel much better about yourself when you’re done.
After a bit of a health-related hiatus, I’ve put several reviews up on wCities. I’ll try to catch up here.
For starters, I finally made it down to the Brooklyn Park Pub a few months ago, to watch a Vikings game. I cannot tell you what a friendly neighbourhood place this was. I spent the whole game talking to a fellow Vikings fan and had a great time. They had the New Deal Hot Monkey Vodka behind the bar and, get this: Whiskey Around the World Club. The neighbours down the street are well on their way to getting $1 off all their whiskies for LIFE. Moreover, the bartenders were soooo friendly, I asked them if I could just have a plate of mushrooms, and they gave ‘em to me for free. Heck, she even bummed me a smoke, not knowing me from Eve. Please, if you like a neighbourhood sports joint now and then or whiskey, give these folks your money.
And, for the most part, you can eat them. However, just be wary of who gives you advice on where to go. When 
Matt’s parent’s (whose taste is dubious to begin with) recommended Eloy’s, I was surprised that it was any good at all. And by any good, I mean sort of, in that I’d not spend my own money there. However, the bout of food poisoning I had the next day was enough to keep me from ever going back there again.
Now, you can’t let a restaurant being in a strip mall disuade you, since just about everything in this wretched town is in a strip mall. Picoso, for instance, is in one and the food here was everything that Eloy’s wasn’t, namely fresh and made by real people who cared. I could eat here every day for the rest of my life and be pretty o.k. with it. Then again, I’m a little mental about good Mexican. I talked to the owner, and we agreed that homemade everything was just the only way to fly.
Sadly, the one place I was most impressed with had
already been reviewed, so you’ll just have to take my advice and get yo’ self down to Le Crepe Michel. Oh yes! French food in Alba-turkey. Even the soup made me weak in the knees, but it might have been the wine selection, too. Who knows, but it’s a shame you have to drive about 10 miles to get to anything worth a damn in that town. Old Town is otherwise an awful tourist trap next door to the National Atomic Museum (which may be horrifyingly cool - I don’t know - we had to get back for some unknown reason).
A friend of the family took us all out to Thai food in the Nob Hill Neighbourhood upon Matt’s recommendation. Though a somewhat dismal neighbourhood, the interior of Orchid Thai sure looked the part. Smelled good, too. The pad thai was not the best I ever had, but everyone else’s dish turned out good. They key here is to ask for thai hot food, because it was otherwise a bit on the subtle side, unless that’s what you’re looking for. The coconut lemongrass soup was very good. (Read on …)
Portland is blessed with a great many places where you can enjoy wine these days. I recently did a few reviews of those who are either run or cater to women. They also both happen to be near my house, which is even better for me, since we all know the Eastside is the best side. First there’s the Vino Vixens over on Powell, for all your wine drinking pleasure (bring your own dinner or have their snacks) in the most improbably location ever.
Then, there’s the Hip Chicks Do Wine – a real urban wine works where they primarily do the blending of juice and grapes that have been trucked in from elsewhere. While this may sound a bit industrial, it’s actually far less industrial than some of the operations that take place out in the country.
And, why shouldn’t women be all over the wine thing? I suspect women make a great many choices regarding wine purchases, and now that I’ve spent some time in the wine industry, I feel as if I’m qualified to say that my sisters can do a very good job of just about anything from running the vineyard (like Marsha does over at Eola Hills) to blending to pressing to selling and even turning into something even more impressive (aka spirits).
Yep, women are all over the booze these days. And, since I’ve been working here and there at the New Deal Distillery this year, I’m all over it, too. I like being a girl!
One of the best things about my job as a freelance writer is that I can do my own personal research on someone else’s dime, so to speak. As our plans to move to the 
south coast get closer to something like a cohesive permaculture design, I need to look into topics I’ve had only an overview knowledge of until now. Alternative energy (including solar, wind, geothermal and water power) is one of those topics.
To that end, I did a series of keyword content articles on all types of alternative energy a few months ago. I’m very intrigued by water and wind for that area. If there’s one thing Port Orford has in spades it’s wind and water. As always, keyword content articles can be a bit clunky, but I think I do a pretty good job of working some of the more difficult keywords in, if not seamlessly, not nearly as awkward as they could be.
There’s nothing quite like a liberal coffeehouse – well, I mean honestly, is there another kind? Perhaps in small towns, but they’re a different sort of place altogether. No, Mao’s Little Red Book and high levels of caffeination among young artsy types.
I hung out at coffeeshops because I wasn’t very good at getting out and meeting people otherwise. As luck would have it, i picked a venue that is very natural the habitat of someone like myself. Though I lean more toward the tea these days, I still feel like I owe coffee a debt of gratitude.
I recently reviewed a few coffeehouses – the first one was across where I worked in what a pal of mine called “the oil fields.” Though called the Bipartisan Café, it actually is quite liberal. Something of a kid-friendly shrine to the Democratic Party, really.
Regardless, they do serve good, homemade soup, which is the cornerstone of any civil society. Americans don’t eat nearly as much soup as we should. People from other countries are shocked at how little soup we eat, as a people. No wonder our medical expenses are so high. Lack of soup!
The other place I reviewed is right by my house. Matt and I walk by Legare’s almost every day on our way to New Seasons or Clinton Corner. When we stopped in one day, shortly after they opened, we were impressed w/ their odd selection of serve-yourself tea bags and nice proper tea service. They do also have the black stuff, but it’s very good to have another local tea house I can walk to. Especially one that’s open relatively late.
I review ‘em as I visit them, since I don’t write the nice, long sorts of reviews (though I’d love to) that warrants a food budget, I cannot affortd to go to even as many restaurants that open up in PDX in a given month on a writer’s budget. Therefore, when I hear that a place is good I wait ’til Matt wants to take me out and recommend we visit during happy hour. As we’re both freelancers, we can go whenever, which is double-great if we’re going to catch a late happy hour.
I reviewed Pasha after Lilah got me to check her belly-dance performance (I highly recommend it) at what was totally tripped out Middle Eastern disco that was being DJ’d by a fellow I believe was Ukrainian. Very trippy. Regardless, they have decent food, a darn decent all-you-can-eat lunch buffet (as long as you avoid the obviously not Middle Eastern dishes) as well as a buttermilk and mint drink that I swear to you is most excellent no matter what it sounds like.
I also reviewed the Blue Dragonfly, which serves a very high class pile of happy hour appetizers, thought the featured cocktails are not on happy hour special at all. It could be really cool if people find it over there on Powell. Thus far, it smells a bit of boondoggle, though I’ll very happily hit up the after 10pm happy hour ’til their accountants come to their senses.
