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Jul 30

Summer blended gazpacho

Summer in Oregon isn’t exactly the summer I’m used to. I grew up in the rainy, humid, sweltering summers of the Midwest, then spent most of the last decade’s summers in the dry, oven-like heat of inland Southern California. I’m not used to these overcast mornings and cool evenings, where dinner the backyard is more comfortable with sleeves. But don’t take this as a complaint – I’d take chilly over sweaty any day, and am always more comfortable in a sweatshirt than in shorts.

I just say this to point out that gazpacho isn’t quite as necessary here as it is in the sort of summer that keeps you out of the kitchen at all costs – but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t perfect for a post-travel light summer meal, and that I didn’t happily eat it in the backyard with a sweatshirt on.

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Jul 23

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Summer cocktail: cherry bourbon fizz

Our first vagabond week took place in Eugene at Brett’s parents house, enjoying steamy hot Oregon summer days and cloudy, chilly, misty Oregon summer days (oh, Oregon). We rode our bikes along the river and ran on actual trails and had lunch with friends, and breakfast with friends, and (cheap, amazing) beers with friends. We drank Oregon pinot. We went to the Fair. We moved and unpacked and organized all of our earthly belongings, sorting them into “see you next year” and “mobile lifestyle” (aka living out of a car for three months) piles.  Then we made that second pile smaller, and smaller, and smaller. We promptly reopened almost every box looking for the camera tripod, which eventually turned up in the backseat of the car. It’s going to be a long year of searching for and moving around our belongings.

And we ate cherries. Cherries, and cherries, and cherries.

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Jul 18

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Oregon Country Fair: The Food

We spent this last weekend at the Oregon Country Fair. The Fair is a beast which requires a full post of its own to even remotely begin to describe, and as such you should immediately head to the post I wrote about it on the site we’ve started to document this crazy year of travel and adventure.

Because here I just want to talk about the food for a bit. Ahhhhh, Country Fair food. As big a draw for me as the costumes, the music, and the general ridiculousness of the whole thing. As most festivals and fairs are, the Country Fair is packed with a huge variety of food booths and stands, the vast majority of which are full of things delicious and worth waiting for in the long lines that sneak through the Fair’s paths for most of the day.  Some booths are Eugene-area regulars that show up regularly at farmers’ markets, the Holiday Market, and other community events. Some are Fair-only setups, once each year. Some are outposts of classic Eugene-area restaurants and food companies, many of which serve special Fair-specific items. (For example: Springfield Creamery, maker of beloved Nancy’s yogurt and a veritable culinary institution in Eugene, sells at the Fair items like ice cream, frozen yogurt, and other products they otherwise don’t sell anywhere, in stores or anywhere else. Most notably, ice cream sandwiches. Delicious, delicious ice cream sandwiches. More on that later.)

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Food options range from simple salads and smoothies to extravagant sandwiches and from classic Northwest-style natural foods to ethnic cuisines of almost any sort.  As Brett and I are wont to do in almost any eating situation, we shared almost everything we ate, in this particular case to make sure we each were able to try as many things as possible.  Here’s a rundown of everything we ate at the Fair (plus our own cereal for breakfasts and other food for snacks), with notes on the most spectacular: Read more

Jul 11

Peach upside-down cornmeal skillet cake (bye bye, CA!)

So. It doesn’t really feel any different, really. We loaded up our stuff, we drove away, we unloaded our stuff, we set up our bed in a completely new room in a new city in a new state, and soon we’ll even leave that. We drank beer at lunch today (on a Wednesday!), and if I didn’t check my email for another five days there’s not really anything that could happen to me.

But nothing feels significantly different. It’s kind of like when we got married, and I took the fact that absolutely nothing felt different as a good sign (a very good sign – but we’ll save more on that for some future installation of Bowen’s Thoughts on Marriage). And this time, as we went through the motions of leaving, I kept telling myself to feel something BIG – like when we ate at our favorite bakery for the last time, and when we spent our last evening on campus, and when we handed over the keys to our house. (Funny story about that, below.) But everything just felt kind of … normal, and I’m taking that as a good sign that all of this is happening at the right time. When I’ve tried to force myself to see the significance of everything, I just see this sort of satiny, infinite ribbon spreading out ahead of me – I think it represents time, maybe? Or freedom? Something like that. I’m not really sure why I picture the next year as a ribbon, but in any case I have this really strong visual that I don’t understand but that I associate with positive feelings, certainly. (Or maybe it’s guilt at all that perfectly good leftover double-sided satin wedding ribbon I threw out as we cleaned out our house.)

So since I apparently don’t need to spend any time “transitioning,” I just get to focus on doing everything that catches my eye as worthwhile or fun or interesting (as long as it doesn’t cost too much money).  Which at the moment means enjoying summer, especially a summer a little more temperate than our Previous Place of Living. We’re in Eugene for the next 10 days or so, including a few days working at the Oregon Country Fair, plenty of time in the backyard, some exploring of what we’re hearing is a pretty fantastic new “Brewery District” in town (more on that next week, I’m hoping), and lots of summer fruit.

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Jul 8

Weekend links, July 8

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I’ll be a little MIA for the next week or so (leaving tomorrow!), but to keep you busy in the meantime, here are some links from the past few weeks:

Crowd-sourced maps of public fruit – either in or hanging over public places (you know you can pick off a private tree from wherever it hangs over public spaces, i.e. sidewalks, right?) – including quite a few Los Angeles neighborhoods.

I am very intrigued by this “turn your grill into a brick pizza oven” business.  If only I still had a grill …

Let’s file this in my “one day/dream kitchen” file.

And this.

How American booze expenditures have changed over the past decades.

A photography project documenting the “official” sandwiches of all 50 states. (p.s. I cannot WAIT to eat some walleye this summer.)

I’m not the hugest fan of the particular combination of ingredients in this summer drink generator, but I do love the concept …

Piloncillo is a pretty fantastic addition to coffee, and Rancho Gordo is making it even easier to find and use.

One time my Gram came to visit and was shocked (SHOCKED) that she couldn’t find a Nut Goodie anywhere in Southern California. Looks like she’s not the only one with a preference for a hometown sweet.

Once I have a home again, I could use one of these as a housewarming gift. Does that give you enough advance warning?

I think I have some Grover Cleveland-type preferences. (Also – this is a fascinating timeline of how the American culinary world has developed over the last 200+ years and is worth at least a skimming.)

On a completely different note, here’s how I’ve been distracting myself for the past three weeks or so – doing this whenever possible, and talking about this with whoever will listen. I have a feeling these may not appeal to everyone, but it’s your loss.

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