Cool patterns from the garden floor

I needed a break from work yesterday to get some air. It was bright and sunny out – praise! Earlier that day I read the WordPress blog feeder and learned that Lan Su Chinese Gardens in Portland’s Old Town/Chinatown has free admission through January 9th. The gardens are nearby and I had not visited since last April so I stopped by to check out the winter scene. In addition to the free admission they are also showing a collection of Chinese folk paintings that I could see hanging on my wall.

Persimmons and Pagoda

Paper mache mask from the gift shop

Outside the garden walls office towers loom

The buildings of Old Town backed by the more modern Big Pink in the background

Bright and sunny but it is Portland so there is gunna be some puddles. With reflections of the Blagen Block

Pretty day. Somewhat restorative walk.

Hi Donkey

So...I didn't get that promotion, huh?

Joe busts it open! Sorry donkey

Well, that took some of the edge off. Donkey came to the party filled with adult-appropriate gifts. His sacrifice was not in vain.

200 – Posts in total
5 – Years old in January
22,313 – Blog views in total
94 – Blog views on my busiest day
1809 – Number of times the search term “square foot garden” has directed people to this blog
71 – Comments (non spam) in total
5 – top picks for best search terms that have landed people on this blog: Bunny Mouth; Snow Pig; Two Headed Alligator; Grandma Candy; Flip Flop Fetish

There you have it. It’s only up from here.

All about the chicken. Picture from Flickr - dlp photo. Click on photo to view more of their work

Stop four on the alphabetical; somewhat historically and culturally inaccurate taste bud road trip was Arkansas. Charlie, Joe and Kyle came over for beers, food and convo. Once again I forgot to document.  Arkansas’ official state food is listed as rice and tomato. This meal had neither –Anyhoo..what I decided on was Chicken and Dumplings and Red Velvet Cake.  Arkansas is a big producer of poultry and eggs and is home to Wal-Mart and Tyson Food headquarters. I wanted this meal to make a nod to Arkansas poultry production and its Southern roots. The Chicken (soup) came out amazing. I don’t have a recipe but basically we simmered two organic chickens in a mix of broth and water with a bunch of garlic and fresh herbs for a couple of hours. We took the chickens out and deboned them once they cooled. We strained the broth and refrigerated it overnight. In the morning we scraped the fat off the top of the broth then sautéed onions, garlic, carrots and celery in a big pot, adding the broth, one can of condensed cream of celery, then the chicken then the dumplings. Best chicken soup I’ve had. The dumplings were too tough though.

The Red Velvet Cake and I had to duke it out. I tried from scratch and ended up with the most disgusting greasy mess ever. Don’t use this recipe HERE. Having been nearly defeated by the oil slick cake I went on counter attack with a box of Betty C. That bitch can get you out of a bind. Charlie made some cream cheese frosting and in the end we had some pretty tasty cupcakes.

The menu was as follows:

Starter: Cheap beer; Main: Chicken and Dumpl’ns; Dessert: Red Velvet Cake; Arkansas attire: Razorback Sweatshirt; Reading: Maya Angelou (lived there in high school), Bill Clinton; Music: Johnny Cash  (born in Arkansas)

You can see clear to the bottom of the river

On Saturday Charles and I headed out past Estacada to the Riverside Trail along the Clackamas River. It was cold enough that icy leaves crunched under foot but it was dry and sunny with blue skies – a rare beast in December. We did not do the whole 5 mile trail because Charles said he was freezing his ass off and couldn’t feel his face. But the 2 miles or so we did do were very pretty. This is a mellow hike with very little elevation gain along the cliffs and shoreline of the lovely Clackamas River. On our way up we spotting quite a few kayakers. Brrrrr! Click HERE and HERE for links to descriptions of the hike with directions and details.

Along the trail...see those bright spots? That is from this thing they call the sun

Numb Face

The river from above

At the Turkey Trot

Post race Bloodies with my buddies

Later we tucked into some smoked Turkey with the family and all the fix’ns.

Jon and Shani waiting on some turkey

Good looking ladies in my family: Grandma and Jackie

Ma made cranberry salad - pretty

And out of tradition Allison, Symphony, Liz, Mark, Jackie, Brian, Charles, Brian, Courtney and Vanessa all gathered at Livingstones for drinks that night.

Allison, Symphony, Liz at Stone's

Cuties at Breakfast

By Day Three and Four we ramped up our eating in an effort, I guess, to prepare for Thanksgiving. We woke up early to have breakfast at Awful Annies with the family before hitting the road to San Francisco.

Greg and Michelle - Sweeties!

Mindy kindly put us up at her flat above Maxfields and we revisited some of our favorite old haunts including beers at Zeitgeist and a soooo good dinner at Puerto Alegre. Oh my, I forgot how GOOD Mexican food can be. We went a little overboard at the 500 Club and took some fun pics in the photobooth. The next morning Simon joined us for leisurely breakfast at Boogaloos (polenta and eggs rock). Gosh, we pretty much just ate our way around town ‘cause the next stop was to visit Jana at Cheese Plus in Nob Hill. Jana is a badass cheese monger who has won competitions at the American Cheese Society and has competed at the Cheesemonger Invitational. The chick knows cheese. From there we went out to Ocean Beach to laze in the sun and watch it set. We met up with Liz and Winnie in the inner Sunset for Nan and Curry and spent a relaxing night back at Mindys. Next morning we saw Amanda for coffee then hit the road for FRESNO. Lovely to see our friends. I miss them.

CharChar levitation ritual at Ocean Beach

Waiting for breakfast outside Morning Glory

Inside Morning Glory. Fun murals, good coffee, great muffins

After breakfast it was back on the 1-5, past Mt. Shasta and onwards towards the north end of California’s Central Valley. We elected to take the 99S which takes you through some lovely farm country.

Sun!! Its like spotting a sasquatch in northern Oregon's winter

Hello Mt. Shasta

We arrived at CP’s brother’s house and got to shake the baby. They have the cutest little girl. It was so fun to see the family.

Our favorite little monkey

Day one: PDX to Ashland, OR