Bumper cars in Portland

Felt I just had to post this famous footage. Fortunately the street I live on is not so steep- it's the one that run perpendicular to me that go up the hill steeply. In fact, the other night, at 11pm, I heard people sledding down that street for a while. Tonight… there are people snowboarding down the street and doing some air tricks, sadly.

We have more snow now than in this video (which is from a previous snowstorm). Unfortunately, poor drivers have not learned their lesson from then: one of my co-workers yesterday told us on one certain hill out in Beaverton, there was a 4 wheel drive leaning sideways into a ditch… but you could drive by that car. It was the Hummer that was stuck across multiple lanes that was the problem… ha!

 

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Snow day in Portland!

Look, the snow followed me from Chicago to Portland… it's even sticking. People seemed confused- no one was driving, the Max line (train) was so cold and buses weren't letting people on because their chains were strained…etc. Heeee. I liked the patio area of Hotel Moderna- if I hadn't been hurrying to brunch at Mother's (a place that honors a new mom each month) I might have sat there like a fool in the snow, pssshing that this is nothing compared to Chicago. Today the city was empty- I hardly saw anyone walking, which I wasn't surprised at what with this flurry snow that no matter whether I was going north or east, or south or west, was always blowing in my face somehow… but no one was driving either.

It really isn't that cold- it's oh, in the early 30s, so at least it's at freezing, but I didn't see any ice, just slushy and fluffy snow. Since it's going to drop to the mid 20s Mon and Tues though, some people are actually going to work from home because of the "ice". They also closed all the schools- good thing, with the whole 3-4 inches on the ground, traffic that extended to a whole hour (oh nooos!), and the arctic chil of temperature below freezing in the 20s!

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And… look at this video admonishing a "fast" driver in the snow (within the first minute). Another video offers driving tips for the snow, on the Portland news. Is it wrong to just find this amusing yet cute, just like the message on the car below?

 

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Cravings for Asian food

I'm not sure if it's because I know I'm going to Thailand soon (from the 29 of December to January 11), but this week I really had a craving for some Asian food. I didn't try anyplace new- instead, I went back to two places to see if I ordered something else, would I still like the place.

For dinner one evening, I returned to Typhoon and had the "Three Flavor Fish"- a flash-fried halbut with a spicy sweet and sour sauce. Unfortunately when the waiter put it down the stacked fish fell over, but you can see the delicious crispiness all the same. It's quite a bit of fish, and I ate all of that up. Maybe I was straining myself for the last third, but that crispness wouldn't be there if I saved it and took it home. Another thing I like there is there large selection of teas to choose from, so I had a pot all by myself practically. 

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I also went back in Beaverton while running my first Zipcar errand to Petco and Fred Meyer to a dinner at Jin Wah, which I have also blogged about earlier. This time, I remembered to capture the Joy Yee-ness of the place in their photographed food examples, and the largeness of their menu. This time, I somehow noticed the oilyness that I missed the first time- or was willing to overlook because of their drug-like control of me when I have their chinese sausage fried rice. This time, when I tried their noodles, it was a fail. No crispy burnt parts at all! Fail!

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And… Zipcar? What's that? Well, I recently joined Zipcar, which is a membership car coop program in which I pay a small annual fee, but otherwise it's about $10 an hour to rent a car (or $70 a day) and there are several cars nearby in walking distance just sitting in designated rental parking spots (for instance, 8 within half a mile of my house alone). I use my card to just open the car after making a reservation approximating how long I would use it, either doing so online or via phone. I don't pay for insurance, or for gas (there is already an insurance card in the car, and a gas card I can use as well). The use of the car card is pretty cool- it scans it from the windshield, which unlocks or locks the car. The actual key to the ignition is permanently attachedf with a cord in the car. Thieves don't steal the car because unless you activate it with the card, the engine doesn't even work.

I also got a discounted annual fee by buying a coupon book from Whole Foods, and that book has lots of coupons for groceries and restaurants. I've already made the money spent on the book back on savings through my membership savings of not paying an application fee and getting some driving credits, and that's without me using the grocery store coupons in the book. I have often thought of joining ZipCar, but since I know of 3 ZipCars within a 5 minute walk of me (one is only 2 blocks away) and with the addition of that coupon book and the fact that some of the bigger stores like Target, Petco, and such are farther away and would be a pain to go to public transit wise, it just makes sense for me to have a Zipcar.

So I own a car now! Sorta.

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Kate Davis @ Jimmy Mak’s

I've heard several good recommendations for Jimmy Mak’s, a jazz club in the Pearl district area, and it did look pretty cool when I passed it one night riding the streetcar to Bridgeport Brewery. When I also heard it was smoke-free (most jazz clubs are not since Portland does not have its smoke-free ordinance starting until January), that sealed it as a place I wanted to check out now rather then later. I would definitely go again- I didn't make reservations, which was fine because instead of sitting at a table on the main floor, I was able to sit upstairs in the balcony where they have a row of stools with a small table space jutting from it, which allowed a great view still. The club is actually also a Greek restaurant- I wasn't hungry this time around, but maybe next time I'll sample the food. The only review I would have is that the martinis are better than the margarita.

Last week Saturday, playing were the The Kate Davis Band and The David Friesen Band. I'm actually pretty ignorant of jazz musicians besides Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and my favorites John Coltrane (in his somber spiritual period before he entered his what I think of "screaming sax" techniques before his passing), Ella Fitzgerald and Ernestine Anderson.  But, from my list of who I do remember, you can see that I overall tend to like the more singer-oriented jazz as opposed to the more lively or the technical execution of jamming styles of musical instruments. I like jazz music to be sad- I like the nostalgic and simple combination of just live, acoustic music with a good voice that is relaxing, thought-provoking to all sorts of vein of conversation, and tinged with a bit of heaviness that is communicated through the very personal style of a voice and just a handful of instruments. As much as possible, somber, emotional, melancholy. Kate Davis fit this preference of mine perfectly- her website includes a few samples that she did perform that night, and she is extremely young but was able to express an amazing amount of maturity and emotional style with her clear voice

 
Last weekend I also tried the gougeres recipe again, and you can see what a difference not putting in too much butter is. I wish I hadn't snacked on some of the cheese before I grated it though, because this time around I didn't find the gougeres cheesy enough, though they certainly had the right amount of light fluffiness:

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A very turkey Thanksgiving

I thought I would be having a vegetarian Thanksgiving of mostly sides this year since I didn't come back to Chicago for the holiday, but a peer at my work graciously invited me to his family's home for Thanksgiving. He shared the tentative menu with me before, and asked me to bring sides. Although green beans are what in season, I didn't want to make them: the green bean casserole I had tried to make didn't work out well last year, and my favorite green bean dishes are actually stir fried and Asian (though maybe after looking at Judy's Thanksgiving, maybe I should think about a candied nut and sauteed green bean dish next year). I really wanted corn niblets, and asparagus (the same asparagus dish I showed on my blog earlier- roasted in the oven with hazelnuts, drizzled with truffle oil).

My friend is a localvore- eating organic and local. Although he hadn't put such restrictions on me (I prefer organic but am not necessarily going to choose local though I like to), when I went to the market, the asparagus were not organic and they were from Mexico. So I ended up with frozen local organic corn and frozen organic asparagus. This turned out to mess with my asparagus recipe because the spears had more water in them from being frozen, and they were smaller than the thicker firm asparagus I usually use, so they ended up soggy. The guests said that they had good flavor, but I thought they were mushy and instead of being crisp, were limp. The end were the only good part, because they were crispy from a slight burn from the roasting.

I have a recipe from recipezaar that I used for the corn niblets, called Copycat Green Giant Corn Niblets In Butter Sauce. I like the website because it has a community, similar to what Amazon.com uses for reviews, with people posting pictures and stories of what they thought when they used the recipe, and ranks recipes with stars. The recipe uses frozen corn anyway, and is very straightforward but tastes better and is cheaper then purchasing the Green Giant Corn Niblets in Butter, which was the standard in the Pongched household. I used sweet corn, and sweet butter, and I cut back on the amount of water/cornstarch called for because I liked the buttery taste.

I also volunteered to bring some small appetizers for the cocktail hour which we talked out would be a good ice breaker and also so we didn't walk right in and sit at the dinner table. This is where I started getting myself into trouble. It seemed straightforward enough- I was just going to assemble, not make from scratch. I had purchases from the farmer's market like smoked salmon cream cheese (it was cute- the daughter has a diary stand with milk and butter and cheeses and across from her, her dad has the fish stand, at the Portland Farmer's Market) and New Seasons purchase of smoked tomato with basil hummus for the vegetarian and the low-dairy guests. I was just going to put them on crackers and sprinkle on some green for visual presentation.

As it turns out, I got strangely obsessed about how I wanted the microgreens to look on the crackers, and because I had a presentation in mind, I couldn't just go to his house and assemble them: they had to be pre-prepared, so I also went to Ross' and purchased these cool cake trays that had lids and handles on them. But, it took me like 45 minutes to do the spreading and decorating of the melba toast crackers.

I also was worried that it wasn't enough to serve 12 people, but the guest list ended up with only 10 anyway (with 3 of them children). I was paranoid the hummus was too dry- I thought it was dry, and wanted to add olive oil to them, but F said it tasted fine to him. I also wished I had thought to use grape tomatoes for the hummus, if I had known they were going to be sorta dry to me and also looked sorta plain with just the greens (too earthy- a punch of half a grape tomato would have been awesome). As it turns out, I noticed the salmon cream cheese were much, much more popular than the hummus, so I think my taste buds were right and I should have added something to counteract the dryness, even if we were drinking wine at the same time.

But look how cute they turned out as I was sweating over them as my gougeres were baking, my corn was being kept warm ont he stove, and my asparagus was waiting to switch places with the gougeres. I do not envy prep cooks at restaurants who do this painstaking arrangement of tiny food daily at all.

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I also thought they looked adorable in the trays, waiting to be transported. I used red and aqua for the appetizers, and another try like this with a green top for the asparagus, while the corn niblets were in the only corningware I brought from Chicago.

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Because of my worrying about whether I had enough appetizers, I also made gougeres- but I found that generally I am not a good baker. I am a bit free-form when I cook because I throw ingredients together, and although I try to load it in my favor by using good ingredients, it won't help with the more precision needed in baking. Once again, my attempt at cheese bread was a failure. When I made pao de quejo, I thought there was not enough melty cheesiness to replicate the first time I had them at Fogo de Chao.

In making the gougeres, I found the version I followed was not as light and fluffy as the William Sonoma dough I had gotten for Christmas before- these had too much butter, though the cheese flavor was good. Turns out that was my fault for putting in too much butter because the recipe called for a stick instead of an actual measurement in tablespoons or cups. I still have half the cheese left (I only grated half), but I don't know if I can take making it again real soon. I ate the last 5 mini-rolls with sriracha to balance out the richness. The plus though is since I don't have a mixer, I had to beat the eggs one by one by hand, and I felt like my arm muscles looked great that night!

Here's my Thanksgiving!

Melba round crackers topped with either smoked salmon cream cheese or smoked tomato and basil hummus
Organic Turkey (it was pre-sliced on the plate for presentation and very juicy and moist)
Gravy from turkey fat
Wild Rice with hazlenut stuffing (both vegetarian-style and with sausage, cooked separately)
Northwest Salad: Wild Greens, topped as you wish with nuts, pomegranate and gorgonzola cheese
Cubed squash dish
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet corn kernels in butter sauce
Roasted asparagus and hazelnuts drizzled with truffle oil

Several cranberry sauces- they had the typical cranberry "rounds" (you know what I'm talking about) but also this awesome horseradish cranberry that looked almost like ice cream but was soooo good spread on the warm turkey
Pumpkin Cake
Pear Cream Cheese Pie
Pecan Pie

Lots of various white wines and pinot noir were also enjoyed throughout the meal, followed by tea, coffee, and/or port wine with dessert. 

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