Archives for November 2017

Fall at the Portland Japanese Garden

I have previously shared some details about the newly updated Portland Japanese Garden. I recommend visiting every season to see how it looks different, and so for autumn I visited the last week of October. This is a little later then I would suggest – peak fall color is usually the 2nd and 3rd week of October, but that’s the best my schedule can do, so what could I do? This meant by the time I arrived the famous Japanese maple tree was already naked, having shed its leaves already, but Fall at the Portland Japanese Garden is still gorgeous – here’s a look at my attempts to capture the visual memories I was seeing during my 1.5 hour visit.

Fall at the Portland Japanese Garden, visiting for Autumn Portland Japanese Garden fall foliage photos on October 2017 Fall at the Portland Japanese Garden, visiting for Autumn Portland Japanese Garden fall foliage photos on October 2017

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Dia de Los Muertos Dinner with Hand Made Mexico

I love pop up restaurants because it allows chefs to have a life without the grind and debt of a brick and mortar restaurants with set daily hours, and these more intimate dinners always present an opportunity for a chef to come in front of the guests and talk about what inspired the food or how they made the food. The recent Dia de los Muertos Dinner with Hand Made Mexico series is a perfect example of how going to a pop up, even solo (you are sitting usually at communal tables and meeting people anyway!) is worth it for those backstories.

Dia de los Muertos Dinner with Hand Made Mexico with Chef Cynthia Vigil and Feastly

The dinner was a family affair, with references to food memories of meals by or with Chef Cynthia Vigil’s  mom or with her sister, and hearing the techniques (some time consuming, some causing blisters!) passed down through generations being used to make our dishes. Here’s a look at the dinner, which also served as a fundraiser – 10% of the total sales were donated to Pintando Esperanza (Painting Hope) to help build houses for those who lost everything on the 9/19 earthquake in Mexico City and Morelos.

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