Friday morning we sent the dogs to the kennel (so sad!) so we could drive up to Portland (3 hours away) to spend the day going to Powell's books and a ukelele concert at the zoo.
These don't sound like reasons to write in a food blog, but there were quite a few food related thoughts and revelations on this trip. I am, after all, a foodie, so I could visit the inside of a cardboard box and think food-related thoughts.
Wednesday one of our dogs, a lovely standard poodle with a velcro coat that attracts every burr on our nine acres, had to go to the vet to have an emergency burr removal from his left front paw. Friday morning we felt a little guilty dropping him off at the kennel, but he appeared to be ok, just limping around and bandaged. And he had his "brother" for company.
The directions to the hotel were off by one exit and several miles. We drove around and around and seemed to stumble upon the hotel by accident. (We chose it a Google satellite map made it look like it should be very quiet. We thought we'd solve the problem of not being able to find it in the dark by finding it in the daytime. Besides, it was cheap.) The hotel looked very nice from outside so we thought we hit the jackpot. While we were standing in the lobby, trying to listen to the woman at the desk, who was chirping convoluted, circuitous, straight-out-of-a-Monty-Python-movie directions back to the hotel from Portland, I was looking around the lobby and wondering if I should pull my husband out of there. The door was covered with greasy fingerprints. The only two chairs in the room were missing upholstery on their arms. There were grimy spots on the floors, scuffs on the baseboards, cracks in the paint. I thought, if this is what they let the customers see when they are trying to sell a room, what are the actual rooms like? But I didn't say anything because it really was quiet and we didn't know if we had time to do everything we wanted to do.
We found the room, unloaded our car and tried to smile at the little table and refrigerator in the room and the king sized bed. But the bed had an obvious valley in the middle and the kitchenette cabinets hung crooked. I bounced on the bed and winced at the squeaks. We got back in the car to find Powell's and the Jewish deli.
We've been to Powell's before. It has a terrifyingly steep parking garage, but if you spend $100 in the store, parking is free, so the last time we were there, we parked in the garage, ate at the Jewish deli two blocks away and then shopped. That was our plan today. I had some medical books I was looking for and they aren't cheap.
I closed my eyes as my husband drove up the ramp. The pavement appears to almost meet the ceiling at the top. Do you know the Edgar Allen Poe story in which the man gets crushed by the room he is in? Well, I have never been crushed to death or even nearly crushed to death, but I imagine I am every time I enter a garage like that. By the time we walked the two blocks to Kenny and Zuke's Delicatessen, my heart rate was beginning to return to normal.
We added our name to the waiting list (which was mysteriously long despite the fact that there were four or five empty tables for two and one empty table for four). We waited. We waited some more. We would have left, but our previous experience told us that although the service was so-so, the pastrami was terrific. My back hurt so I leaned on the hostess stand while she was away from it. She came back and asked me to move. There were chairs stacked up near the window someone could have put out for us. Moreover, there were empty tables! I thought about leaving again, but we were there and we were hungry. Also, my husband really enjoyed the pickled tongue and pastrami he had the last time we came. So we waited some more. The hostess finally started seating people, one group after another, in the empty tables. She may have had orders from the kitchen; it may not have been her idea at all to make us wait. I don't know because no one explained.
The waiter took the order of the people at the table next to us, who were immediately ahead of us on the waiting list and were therefore seated just before us. He said he'd be right back to us. He came back 15 minutes later. The other table got their sandwiches about 15 minutes after he took our order. An hour after we sat down, David motioned to the waiter and said, "Is there a problem with our order?" The waiter said, "Oh, no, there is no problem." But the people who sat down just before us had long finished eating and people who sat down quite a bit after us had already been served. We got our sandwiches about ten minutes later. No explanation.
The waiter did take 20% off our bill without our asking. Maybe he realized when the restaurant was half empty and we were still there, that something really was wrong with our order. During my teens and twenties, when I worked as both a waitress and a cook, I was full of myself and hardly understood customer service. However, I did understand that although no one wants to hear excuses, they also don't want to be ignored.
My husband and I would gladly have forgiven if someone had come up to us before we had been there half an hour and said, "We are sorry about the wait and appreciate your patience." And after an hour, if we were still there, "We have a new cook today and we got our orders mixed up. We would like to offer you a 20% discount to show our appreciation for your patience and patronage." Since no one made any sort of apology, I feel almost used for having sat there waiting so long.
The sandwiches were just as good as they were the last time: thick slices of homemade pastrami on rye and a generous scoop of potato salad. But we both had stomach aches after. I don't think it was the food. I think it was because we were famished by then and we probably wolfed the sandwiches down, hardly chewing.
I have a recipe for pastrami; I just need to order the seasonings and get a big brisket. From now on I will make it at home.
After we paid, we went to Powell's. I tried really hard to find a medical book that would work for me, but none of them were what I wanted. So I went downstairs to the food section. I like to collect used books about the history and science of cooking. I rarely buy actual cookbooks because I rarely follow recipes. When I go into the kitchen, I usually have a specific feeling, texture or taste in my head. If I look at six or seven recipes, usually none of them are what I want at that moment. When I go in a bookstore, I focus on the techniques I know I have not mastered and need to in order to make what I imagine appear on a plate. (You will notice I rarely take photos. My food is almost always very tasty and very ugly. When I start taking pictures, it will be because I have learned presentation!)
Bread crust is something I want to master. Twice in my life I have had truly fantastic crust. Chewy, crunchy, bitter and sweet crust, slightly over-brown and cracked like plaster from a wall of an ancient villa in a sun baked place like Italy or Greece or the south of France or Morocco. The kind of place where gangsters and writers hole up, jilted lovers blow their brains out and American tourists with cameras stray away from their tour buses because they want a picture of that cat sunning in the vacant window.
I was walking slowly through the cooking section of Powell's, in case anything jumped out at me. The cover of Jim Lahey's My Bread did. The crust actually didn't resemble those poetic thoughts. What stopped me and made me pick up the book was that the bread was in a cast iron pot. One of my great-great-great-great grandmothers cooked her bread in a cast iron pot. (I know because we have a book written by her grandson.) But when I tried it, my bread stuck so badly I had to sic our Boston Terror-to-food dog on it to gnaw on the pot for half an hour before I scrubbed it myself for another half hour. His mouth was rubbed raw and pink and so were my hands. Does the pot on the cover of this book look like it needs to be rescued by a Boston Terrier? No? I didn't think so, either.Then, when I was flipping through the book, I saw several loaves with crunchy, chewy, crackly outsides and stretchy insides. One studded loaf reminded me strongly of one of those two fabulous loaves of bread I have eaten.
One February I went with Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association to the Russell Office Building in Washington, D.C., where we planned to stuff currently (or threatened to soon be) illegal home and farm produced artisanal-quality goods into any senator and representative who wandered into the room. Our keynote speakers were Joel Salatin and Ron Paul. Farmers and homesteaders came from all over the East coast to this event, our first. We had hand churned Amish butter, free of artificial colorings; long-aged cow milk cheese from New York and Pennsylvania; fresh goat cheese from Virginia; subtly smoked, home-butchered free-ranged pork; deviled eggs from pastured hens; etc.
It's the bread I remember the best. It was sourdough, studded with dried cranberries. I do not remember the baker's name. He had the easy friendliness and self assurance of someone who knew the quality of his goods. When I told him I had some sourdough rising on my counter and ran out of time so I threw it in the refrigerator for two days, he just laughed, "You didn't kill your sourdough," he said, "You only made it angry."
We happily fed our elected representatives, trusting them to taste the good sense in allowing us to continue to raise our chickens and goats and sheep and cows and bake our bread and churn our butter and sell our products locally on our own farms and at our local farm markets. None of us were asking for government handouts. We were actually handing them, our government, the best meal they had probably ever eaten, for free.
I tasted that bread. I wanted to keep tasting and keep tasting it, but I was a good little American citizen who knew I needed to save it for our elected representatives, because surely once they tasted it, they would allow this charming man to sell it at his farm stand.
I should have eaten it myself. Our elected officials said one thing to us and another thing to each other.
But I digress.
My husband saw me salivating over the pictures of the long, thin loaves studded with tomatoes. He bought me the book. I probably won't follow the recipes. But Lahey wrote an introduction in which he describes his apprenticeships in Italy and New York. He describes the fires he made in wood ovens and the heat he uses in commercial ovens. I read the introduction once already. I will read it probably two more times and think about it. I will dig up my ancestor's book and some other old cookbooks and try to figure out the techniques and temperatures they used. I think the major error I've made all these years is to be waaaaaaay too timid with temperature.
After we left Powell's, I let my husband go get the car. I thought if I waited on the sidewalk at the bottom of the garage, I wouldn't have more heart pains. But then I had pains worrying about whether he would be crushed. I guess when one's phobia extends to one's spouse, that is proof of love.
We drove to the Portland Zoo, where the ukelele player was. We lined up early because we thought maybe we should; we had never been there before. Some guards watched us. At 4:00, a guard came through the line and searched bags. We didn't bring anything with us at all but a water bottle (they said we couldn't bring it in unless it was empty) and my purse, which is tiny, but holds my Epipen and inhaler. I don't go anywhere without them. The guard insisted that I open my purse. I hate that. I can't hide anything in it that someone can't hide in their pockets, as the nice gentleman next to us, said.
The line was growing longer, so we felt good about being there early, but wondered about the fact that everyone else had chairs, coats, umbrellas, blankets... and we didn't. The guards checked us all again. Then they let us go to the next check point. People started racing past us like we were all in elementary school. My husband is an athlete, but there was no way I could keep up. Although we were originally 4th in line, by the time we stopped at the next gate, we were pretty far back. We had to wait again. I left David for a quick foray to buy us a couple of bottles of apple juice for $2.50 each because we were starting to feel sort of woozy. We waited and waited and waited some more. We wondered if we should go back to the car to get some gear, but we weren't feeling so good and we were afraid to leave the line.
Then guards came through the line again, snapping off our tickets and stamping our wrists. We waited some more. Then they let us in and everyone made a mad rush to grab the best places on the lawn. I sat down in the grass. David went to rent a couple of chairs that were regulation height; we didn't have any in the car, anyway, so we would have had to sit on blankets and that wouldn't have been very comfortable. Then he came back and we sat down to wait until 7:00. It started to rain. So I went to ask a guard if I could go back to the car to get our coats. She said she couldn't answer that question. I'd have to ask someone else. I asked another guard. He said no. I asked a third person, a zoo employee at the gate. She said she couldn't guarantee she would let me back in. I showed her my ticket and my stamped wrist. She said again she couldn't guarantee it. I told her my husband and I were from down south and we didn't know it would rain in Portland in June on a day that was sunny just a few minutes ago. She shrugged. I said we left home at 8:00 that morning. She shrugged again. I turned and walked back to David. I sat back down and stewed.
Others had picnics, hoodies, tarps, umbrellas, hats and blankets. We were in short sleeve shirts. There was still over an hour to go before the music started! I couldn't believe they wouldn't let me leave all by myself and come back all by myself with a couple jackets.
While I was thinking what a horrible, rotten day it had been, people kept walking by us with full bottles of wine. The first maybe three people didn't catch my attention too thoroughly. Maybe they brought the bottle from home. Why not? They brought enough goods to set up camp in a jungle. Then someone walked by balancing not only a bottle of wine, but also a disposable plate of bulghur with parsley and chickpeas and I sat up and said, "Whoa!" If we had gone to a concert in southern Douglas County, festival beverages would have consisted of Bud and Bud Lite in plastic cups. In Portland, we did see the pale yellow beverage in plastic cups, but also some red and dark beers, too, and an amazing variety of wine. People ate the usual burgers, pizza and fried something or the other, but also panninis, sopapillas, bulghur, and something that I could not see but smelled like roasted bell peppers. Others came with cold picnic foods in Whole Foods and Trader Joe's bags.
We still had stomach aches, so I didn't feel like wandering around to find out where the good-looking food was coming from. I had the fleeting thought that even though Portland already has a gazillion plus restaurants, this would be the place to open one. The thought quickly disappeared because we had experienced too much stress over unfriendly people, crazy traffic, bad drivers (once that included me because I didn't know I was about to turn the wrong way on an unlabeled one way street), bad directions and bad rules. I knew that I was going to be ready to go home, even to the town where I cook for people who don't want to find out what rosemary and basil are. But since they are always happy to see me, I will be happy to only use salt and pepper if that is all they want from here on out. At home, even the people who help us unload trash from our truck at the dump are nice.
This thought led to the thought that I couldn't let the zoo rent-a-cops ruin our day. Yes, I had free coats in the car, but we drove a lot of miles for this concert and it would be hard to enjoy it if we were cold and wet. I finally stopped feeling sorry for us and went off to buy a couple of jackets. Then my husband and I leaned into each other and held hands like newlyweds. The evening was a lot more enjoyable after that.
A few minutes before the show started, zoo staff let loose some raptors to fly over the audience. Their bald eagle was beautiful.
Then the ukelele player,
Jake Shimabukuro
came on stage and introduced himself, to wild applause. He played a good variety of music for such a young guy - from athletic strumming to melodic picking, from rhythmic boom chicka's to balads for ailing grandmothers.Watch a short clip of him here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqozsGJGdM&feature=relatedHe is a cutie: charming, very young and incredibly talented.
I tangled with the zoo rentacops again within the hour. A bunch of people started standing in line to get their cds signed. I encouraged David to do the same. Wanting to do something nice for him and the others in the line, I started talking to guards and staff, pleading with anyone who would listen to let the artist know when he was finished playing that there were people waiting for him to sign their cds. I didn't ask anyone to interrupt him or go on stage, only to wave at him when he came down the backstage stairs and show him all the people in line. No one agreed to even wave at him to get his attention, even when I pointed out that these people, some of whom were elderly, were standing in the RAIN for the chance for an autograph and it would be awfully sweet for them to do just this one little thing to help all these people have a good day.
We left after Jake finished playing, before the second artist, who we would have liked to have seen, but we were tired and didn't want to try to find our way around Portland in the dark. The volunteers at the gate wished us a pleasant evening and thanked us for coming. Too bad the people who were earning a living couldn't take a few lessons from the people who were there for free.
We were planning to save money by buying a rotisserie chicken at a grocery store on the way back to the hotel, and to eat it with the hummus and veggies I had brought with us. But we were hungry and had seen a sign for a Thai restaurant on Barbour Street south of town. We found it (after I made several more wrong turns, once because I couldn't shake a tailgater). Half the sign announcing the restaurant's name was burned out. I considered the lesson of that hotel: if they will show the burned out sign to the customer, what is lurking in the kitchen? We saw another sign for a Japanese restaurant across the street. So spur of the moment, I whipped the car into the parking lot. We went inside and it was very nicely appointed, so our spirits lifted.
Sho Japanese Restaurant
10100 Barbur Blvd. Portland, Oregon
http://www.shorestaurant.com
We were served by a very nice man who conducted himself with a sweet, humble pride, as if he were delighted to have customers like us who truly appreciated the details of his wonderful food.
From the website:
Everything on our extensive menu of traditional Japanese dishes are made from scratch using the best possible ingredients - homemade sauces, soups, dressings, as well as fresh seasonal vegetables and seafood.
Why SHO「匠」? Because it defines what we are as a restaurant; a professional artisan whose work is consistently of high quality. As I always say in Japanese, "Ichigo Ichie," we are very lucky to have met you in your lifetime and greatly appreciate your visit. So please enjoy and have a relaxing time with us.
We decided to refrain from ordering a la carte sushi because we can spend $75 in no time doing that - without a single drop of alcohol. But we felt like a little sake tonight as a celebration (we rarely drink anything other than a glass of wine on Shabbat) and our night was really starting to look up!
I used to work at Japanese restaurants - and even took Japanese in college. So I ordered us what I considered to be a relatively economical and delicious grouping of items off the happy hour, special and regular menus. They included: Yoshinogawa Sake, a hand-roll sushi sampler, the crunch roll, kani tama and a type of fresh, raw bonito fish. The sake was good at $5.50 for a large cup. The bonito was delicious, not at all resembling the dried and salty flavoring often used in rice and soups. The slices were meaty, red, smooth. Two of the three hand rolls were quite wonderful, the poki tuna, which had an onion and toasted sesame flavor, and the red snapper. However, the asparagus roll was too bland to be served with the other two. The crab crunch roll was tempura fried and served slightly warm. We enjoyed it. My favorite was the kani tama, which was a type of chawan mushi, an egg custard that is in this case set with some pieces of crab and scallop over rice. It was smooth, silky and quite seductive. I closed my eyes and nearly swooned over it.
This is our new favorite restaurant!
We couldn't find the hotel again in the dark. We called the front desk and asked how to get there from the Mormon Tabernacle. The desk clerk actually said she could see the Tabernacle from where she was but she couldn't give us directions. She suggested we go ask in a store. We said there were no stores around the Tabernacle. She suggested we drive west until we find one. Wow.
We did find our way back to the hotel. We pushed a big coffee table up against the door. Really, I would not have wanted to stay there by myself because it looked like the sort of place that was really nice ten years ago, before the maintenance manager was abducted by aliens and his staff was so heartbroken they no longer cared to fix towel racks, toilet handles, cabinet doors, counter tops, sagging mattresses, broken deadbolts, ripped carpets...
But it was quiet.
We left early in the morning to drive back. We collected our dogs, drove up to our house and felt very lucky indeed to live where we do. What a beautiful home we have, with our big kitchen, our own chickens and our happy dogs. How refreshing it is to go into almost any store, even the Goodwill and know that the person who works there will say hello.
Hello, Douglas County!
Today I cheerfully served up red beans and rice, Jimmy Dean sausage, scrambled eggs, Folgers coffee with Sweet and Low, biscuits from a can, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Oreos and Pepsi, all the while dreaming of that chawan mushi.
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