Mystery foods explored…

October 16, 2008 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

Remember this weird mushroom with a seafood texture that I made with pasta?

I have discovered its true name: Monkeyhead mushroom, also known as, per Wikipedia, Lion's Mane Mushroom, Bearded Tooth Mushroom, Hedgehog Mushroom, Bearded Hedgehog Mushroom, pom pom mushroom, or Bearded Tooth Fungus. Studies in rats explore whether some of the effects of this mushroom's compound include regulating blood lipid evels and reducing blood glucose levels. and a clinical study extended to humans suggest an antidementia effect by being an inducer of brain tissue regeneration and causing 6 out of 7 elderly patients in one study to have improvements in their perceptual capacities. Of course, they had them in soup, not cooked in butter, so it was a bit healthier than my preparation.

In other mystery foods, when I went to sign my rent, there was a food stand not far from the intersection where the office was and I stopped in. The produce was not as impressive compared to the farmer's market, but apparently this store also doubled as an ethnic grocery. I didn't have a use for most of the mysterious goods I saw, but one intrigued me: maamoul cookies. They had two kinds- one filled with walnut, and one with date. They were wrapped in powdered sugar and powder so you could only glimpse and guess at what wonders were inside.

Apparently, Maamoul are traditional Lebanese cookies served in the Middle East during special holidays, and there are three kinds of maamoul fillings: walnut, pistachio and date. I purchased the walnut one to try. I was surprised how sweet these were: what I thought was just white powdered sugar turns out to be hiding white icing all over the cookie. The cookie itself looks almost like a big round piece of shortbread. But, it's much more buttery than shortbread, and softer: it just crumbles in your fingers, and sorta melts in your mouth. Pretty good!

There was also something else in the market that I didn't try, but I really feel is important to share the progress of food:

DSCN0100

Filed Under: Cooking, Weblogs Tagged With: chicken shapes, lion's mane mushroom, maamoul, monkey head mushroom, recipe

Portland’s Fareless Square

October 13, 2008 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

I am *trying* to balance this blog by talking about Portland the city and other things (anything…) besides food once in a while. These photos I've actually been meaning to post for a while: I took them the week I was meeting F for lunch while I was waiting for UPS boxes to arrive and I had not started work yet.

Portland has taken an interesting strategy to decreasing the congestion in the downtown area of the city. For more than 30 years, they have let the people ride for free on the various public transportation options (bus, light rail, and streetcar), any time of day (not just certain hours). The area is designated "Fareless Square" and includes not only the downtown area proper where you find various corporate and government offices and hotels, but also the Amtrak and Greyhound stations, convention center, a large shopping mall, and a indoor sports/concert arena. No, the area is not really a square at all, but it has a nicer ring than "Fareless Area". Actually, I think the area looks a bit like a rabbit foot, including the chain.

There is an actual area that is a square that in my mind at least, I see as the middle of the city, even though actually it should be the street intersection of Burnside and the river that is the true center. But it's sort of inconvenient to have an intersection be the heart of a city, so instead it is an area called Pioneer Courthouse Square. It is a big public space that I often see people gather just to eat lunch, watch movies in the summer, or attend political demonstrations, or see the city christmas tree. I used to really dislike this area when I was a visitor because this is where you can most often see the bums of the city.

Unlike the homeless in Chicago who generally have psychological problems of some sort, the bums in Portland are lazy youth between high school and their 30s who don't work and instead sit around with cardboard signs asking for money. Sadly, they eek out an ok existance this way: Portland's people are very mother earth-loving, including wrapping their uneaten leftovers and placing them on top of garbage cans for others to enjoy. Recyclable materials, such as metal, aluminum, and glass can actually make people money as well at recycling centers, so on one hand, recycling programs are successful here, but on the other hand, meth heads steal pipes, air conditioners, and plaques off of buildings and graves.

More recently though since I have been able to pass through Pioneer Square a few times (ok, a few times I was also lost wandering around for landmarks without remembering what the address was), I have gained appreciation for a lot of the art displayed in and around the square too. One art work that I always mean to see in action but keep missing is the Weather Machine. As per Wikipedia's concise description of the Weather Machine:

"Another public art installation, the Weather Machine, consists of a tall metal column topped with a large silver-colored orb. At noon each day, the following day's weather is announced with a fanfare of trumpets, flashing lights, and a spray of mist. The orb opens to reveal one of the following:

a golden sun, for a clear day;
a great blue heron, to forecast a rainy day;
an open-mouthed dragon, when storms are forecast.

Light bulbs on the side of the machine are reminiscent of a mercury thermometer and light up progressively as the temperature increases."

The other artwork/public works installation I really like are the fountains. There actually is a two hour walking tour of the various fountains you can take. On one hand, the fountains are pretty cool public works because they were built with the intent to encourage more water drinking and less drinking in saloons (you actually shouldn't drink the water in the decorative fountains now: they have real water fountains on the sidewalk for that). On the other hand, the variety of fountains built in Portland also bring some great art among all the buildings in Portland's City Center. I took some pictures of one of the twelve fountains: the "Animal In Pools" Fountain just one block from the Pioneer Courthouse. I've always liked these fountains eternally paddling ducks, upright otters that can't seem to believe what they see when they look at you, mama bear fishing for her two cubs with chubby butts, and earnest beavers.

Despite that sorta complaint/rant from me about how the granola earthy aspect of Portland is abused by some, the fountains are a reminder of some of the artsy quirkness of Portland that give the city a whimsical personality.

Filed Under: Portland Highlights, Weblogs Tagged With: animal in pools fountain, fareless square, pioneer square, portland

Forget the car dad! It’s a small thing…

October 9, 2008 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

I can totally picture my dad and Steven having that conversation. Anyway, this was the talk of the town yesterday! This occured about 5 miles south of where I live.

Highlights of the article from the Oregonian:

West Hills home smashed in landslide

Neighbors come together to rescue the owner as her house literally falls apart around her

Thursday, October 09, 2008

JOSEPH ROSE, NOELLE CROMBIE and MICHAEL ROLLINS

The Oregonian Staff

A sound like garbage cans scraping across the street rattled Greg Sherwood from his sleep Wednesday morning.

The noise quickly became louder and more ominous, like wood snapping and concrete cracking apart.

Out the window of his home on Southwest Burlingame Place, Sherwood saw the house across the street slowly drop from the horizon. It was going down like an elevator, he thought.

In a blur, Sherwood and his wife, Debbie, raced into the predawn chill to see Kathy Hendrickson sliding down the hill, her house falling apart around her. She was frantic, riding a slab of debris, looking for a patch of earth that wasn't moving.

Next door, Sam Silverberg ran from his house and grabbed an aluminum ladder. Together, Silverberg and the Sherwoods were on their bellies, trying to extend the ladder to a still-sliding Hendrickson.

"Grab the ladder, Kathy!" Greg Sherwood shouted.

The 5:40 a.m. landslide sent the Southwest Portland home about 100 yards down a 45-degree embankment. Down the slope, along Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard, the sliding house — built in 1930 at 6438 S.W. Burlingame Place — hit two other homes, moving one off its foundation and bending it in the middle.

… [skip some content- if you want to read more see the actual article, but this is Pech's editing…]

Neighbors said Hendrickson initially couldn't open the front door, but eventually got it to budge as everything buckled around her.

As the sliding house collapsed into hundreds of pieces, Silverberg's wife, Anne Johnston, called 9-1-1 and told the dispatcher that her neighbor's house had just fallen down the hill.

"Your neighbor's house fell down the hill?" the emergency dispatcher replied in disbelief.

High-pitch screaming started in the background. "It's still going," Johnston said, before stopping her conversation with the dispatcher to repeatedly shout "come this way" to Hendrickson.

Johnston then told the dispatcher that she needed to put down the phone to help. She yelled, "Sam, get the ladder!" The line stayed open.

Reaching for the ladder as the silty soil continued moving under her, Hendrickson grabbed the bottom rung. On the 9-1-1 call, she can be heard sobbing after the trio hauled her up the hill to safety.

Downslope, in the 6300 block of Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard, the Chou family was in the middle of its own 9-1-1 call.

Yuan Chou, a researcher at Oregon Health & Science University, awoke to what he thought was the sound of rain. It was actually the first smattering of dirt to give way above.

"But then it started to sound like a crackling fire," Chou said.

Chou peered out the window and initially thought the Hendricksons' house was on fire because sparks were flying as the structure hit power lines. He shouted for his son Ben, 26, to call 9-1-1.

Ben Chou, though, realized what was happening. He told his parents to get out.

… [skip some content- if you want to read more see the actual article, but this is Pech's editing…]

From the street, Yuan Chou watched rolling gravel turn into a wall of dirt and cartwheeling trees. He noticed a neighbor backing his car out of a garage.

Chou thought about the expensive Honda that he had just bought. He told his son that there was still time to get the car. But as he started to run toward the garage, Ben Chou grabbed his father and held him back.

"No," Ben Chou said, "there is no time to be concerned about the car. It is a small thing."

Within minutes, the sliding house crashed into the Chous' two-story home, pancaking the second floor onto the first.

Photo slideshow of West Hills home landslide from Oregonian

You can watch this at your own pace (as well as read the whole article) at the Oregonian, or watch video aerials of what it looks like kgw (local news) website. Pretty crazy thing to wake up to. I'd be totally disadvantaged as a non-thinking, non-morning person. Also crazy is that anyone would think a video that teeny is that useful. Great user experience there, KGW…

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Weblogs Tagged With: landslide, oregonian, portland, west hills

Some basics of me living Portland

October 5, 2008 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

Portland, OR was founded by two people, one from Portland, Maine and one from Boston, Massachusetts. Both wanted to name this new city in Oregon after their hometown, and it was a flip of a coin that coined Portland, Oregon. I previously talked a little bit about things being in the northwest or southwest, and I wanted to explain that a little like Chicago, Portland is on a grid system. Fortunately, their grid system is easier to figure out than using the city block coordinate numbers like Chicago. Here, they actually just use literally the letters NW, NE, SW, SE in front of the street names to denote where in the grid you are.

Also useful is that they bring the numbers more to the forefront. While in Chicago you had to always look at the numbers underneath the street names that were words, here in Portland all the streets that run north/south all use numbers that radiate from the meeting point (Burnside divides north and south and the Willamette river divides west and east).

Portland grid map for street prefixes

So now when I say I live in SW Portland, you know what I actually mean. I don't live that far south of Burnside though- close enough in fact that although by the grid system I live in the SW, by the neighborhood I basically live in, the Goose Hollow neighborhood, I am still considered to be living in a northwest Portland area. The main things I have to characterize where I live when I describe it to people is

1) the Goose Hollow Inn, which is this neighborhood bar/restaurant which I have been told has an excellent reuben sandwich. You know you're in Portland because not only is there a meat version but also a vegetarian version. The founder of this pub used to hear about people's woes and worries so much that the story goes that he decided to do something about it and ran for Mayor– and was the mayor for 8 years. The family still runs the place.

2) This is also close to PGE Park. This would be like living by Wrigley Field, except Portland doesn't really have any major sports teams or say, even any known sports teams outside the local area (ok, the University of Oregon Ducks being the recent latest exception). Not only that, but it's a park that not only hosts football (Portland State Vikings), but also minor league baseball (the Beavers) and soccer (Timbers), and are available for various other high school and college level teams as well. So, it's an all-purpose stadium. So, it's not at all like the kind of atmosphere you would find at Wrigley, though it does have similar age occupants and housing options in the neighborhood compared to Lakeview.

3) The Tri-met Max (light rail- they run on the roads here alongside the cars) stop here and then start going through a several mile run through tunnels of the West Hills. In other words, I'm living just where the big hills start. I literally can look up and see steeply sloping streets going up the Hills and houses built on what looks like foresty cliffs.

When I go to work in Beaverton, I have to go west, past the hills, and into the suburb of Beaverton where I then walk through a campus almost like a college campus to my building. Door to door, it's about 45 minutes- 6 minutes to walk to the Max stop, and then another 6 minutes from that Max stop to the doors of my building. I usually don't have to wait long for a train. One thing I've noticed is that every stop actually has a map with times all day so you can see how long until the next Max train (or bus), and it has been mostly correct (maybe 1-2 minutes off) so far. Besides the schedule, I also like how every train station has an automated machine where you can purchase your ticket for one ride, multiple rides, or a monthly pass using your credit card.

The only weird thing is that no one really checks your ticket on the Max when you get on. Once in a while someone will walk down the car asking to see your ticket and if you are not able to produce a valid ticket, you can be written a ticket for $115. But otherwise no one sees your ticket when you ride the Max. On the bus you show your ticket to the bus driver like you would on any other bus, but they don't have an automated reader or touch pass- they still use paper punched ticket when you pay in cash if you don't have a pass from a machine.

Well, that's enough about Portland for now. What have I been eating? I've been mostly making swiss cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and dinner. I attended a Chi-foo meeting (an association for those in my career line) on Wednesday and ate dinner at Nature's Harvest with other team members who were attending the same meeting. Nature's Harvest is similar to a Whole Foods, but their food court section is not quite up to par to what I've seen in LA yet.

I also tried two outposts of Thai restaurant chains that are famous in Portland. On Friday, I took my immediate team of interaction designers to Typhoon. This reminded me a lot like Vong's in Chicago, but with much better food because although it had been modernized to tastes here, it still tasted good and had recognizable good Thai taste. Can't say that about Vong's fusion food, in my opinion. Also, Typhoon has an extensive tea selection, which I really liked. Thanks to that lunch, I'll get to do my first expense report next week. I ordered a chef special, which was battered tilapia in a sticky sweet but spicy sauce with basil and bacon and chili fried rice. All it needed some ability to spritz lime and it would have really been excellent.

Yesterday I also signed the lease to my apartment on the actual triplicate form at the office, and then went to an outpost of Thai Orchid, another chain based on Thai food here in Portland. I thought it was just ok- everything has a sweet taste to it rather then the complex taste it should have had combining more salt, sour, and spiciness. It just couldn't compare to Typhoon, which at least still brings those flavor profiles to the table, literally. I definitely want to try Typhoon again.

Last night I also went with F to walk along Hawthorne. We walked all the way there, and Hawthorne is on the Southeast area. We walked up to basically 37th street in the SE grid and we started out at 16th street in the SW grid. Unfortunately we stopped at the first pub we came across, Roots, for a little taste of their beer. The Oregon Beavers were playing USC, so we watched the first quarter. I had a walking map of the street, and I also reviewed that and circled places I wanted to stop. When we started walking though, I naturally with my baby bladder had to stop at Safeway to go to the bathroom. Then, when we finally got to where the interesting things were (the walking map describes this neighborhood as similar to San Francisco's Haight district, but I have no comparison), everything closed at 6pm. So, we ended up killing time at the Bagdad Theater and Pub, where we caught a showing of Wall-E (yes, my 3rd time seeing it) for just $3 a ticket. I like the Bagdad because they have a little bar table in front of each row of theater seats for your beer (or wine) that you can enjoy during the movie. On the 2nd floor, they actually have a more loungey atmosphere with cushioned couches, loveseats, and chairs.

Despite not being able to see as much as I wanted on Hawthorne street, it was a fun walk (hopefully next time we will be a bit more efficient on time and also not walk all the way there). On our walk there, we crossed the Hawthorne bridge over the Willamette, which is a cool vertical lift bridge. The panoramic photo is not mine, it's from Wikipedia

Hawthorne bridge

I also passed on Hawthorne some houses that cracked me up. The first one… I guess they really value their privacy, thus the bamboo forest in front. The other ones didn't even seem real- they look like playhouses to me.

Filed Under: Portland Highlights, Weblogs Tagged With: hawthorne, hawthorne bridge, max, portland streets, thai food, thai orchid, typhoon

Portland Farmers Market on Sat

September 30, 2008 by Pechluck Leave a Comment

The Farmer's Market on Saturday is even closer than the Wednesday one- it's on the most south part of the South Park Blocks, so I don't have to go to the other side of the South Park blocks. And, it is many times bigger. At one of the vendors, Tastebud, I had wood fire baked brick oven bagels. I think I showed the picture of the brick oven ported to the market on Wednesday, but on Saturday they didn't have the oven, just the bagels… and they make bagel sandwiches, and pizzas. Although I was tempted by the lamb sandwich with roast leg of lamb, pesto, tomato, and arugula, I knew this was only the first few stands of the market. So, I got just a simple tomato sandwich. The bagel was smoky and chewy. I think this coming Saturday, since I have now walked the whole market and had all the samples, I can go get my lamb! I also won't let F hold onto the raspberry lemon soda because it was all gone before I could even taste it. And he didn't even offer to get me another one! 🙁

Another thing I really want to go back to the market for is some bread. I already had purchased a loaf of bread earlier in the week to make peanut butter sandwiches (with crunchy and roasted organic peanut butter of course) and cheese sandwiches for lunch. But, as soon as I finish my loaf, I want some of Dave's Killer Bread! Not only does the guy actually look sorta like the illustration which I think is awesome, but the 21 whole grains bread was really good! I don't think I've had bread that good since high school. I also think the sprouted seed peace bread would be great with a little butter (say my honey pecan or black truffle butter from Zupan's that I got the other day) alongside some wine for a picnic. 😀

DSCN0063

Other great finds was a stand that just had roasted peppers. The roasted peppers were sold in ziploc bags with numbers to indicate how spicy they peppers were… and freshly roasted in what you see below. The bags were still steamy and warm. Along with the rainbow of tomatoes at another stand and a pickle stand, you could come up with quite a cold plate! I did get some of the peppers, which was only $5 for a pound of blackened peppers. It took me 3 days to eat them though since I was eating them by myself and there were only like 5 peppers in it for one person to eat, and one of them was supersize. We passed on the tomatoes and pickle, and I was able to convince myself to not get more greens since I already had asparagus and spinach at home, though they looked great. But I finally was too tempted by the various baked good stands to not get something (I got a cheese and sunflower seed bread which was amazing- the first time I walked around there were like half a dozen, but the second time I circled to make purchases and got the very last one!). F was the one that got us to get the Sol Pop which I had successfully resisted the first time around- I got the basil lemon and he got raspberry nectarine. Mine was better because of the tartness. The cart guy was happy the sun had come out (it was cloudy and cool for quite a while- many people had sweatshirts, sweaters, and coats on), telling us it was easier to sell the pops with sun. 🙂

For dinner that night, I had some of the roasted peppers, since they were so fresh. I also made asparagus which I shook in a ziploc bag with olive oil, and then drizzled with a bit of truffle infused oil and then sprinkled with roasted hazelnuts. A couple nights later we made our own broccoli pizza on wheat dough. I like the baby broccoli trees. So far, the pizza is the only thing we have eaten together besides the Sol pops.

All that food were really good. I still have a lot of hazelnuts left, but I am going to try to save them for the pancakes. F brought this over to me at the Fred Meyer and we laughed at it… and then I wanted it just to try and see what would happen. He's been mocking me about it ever since, asking when I'm going to make pancakes. I just want to say for the record that he started it though- I don't even know where he got it from and I had probably walked right by it. And I laughed at the pre-made pb&j sandwiches before with him- but I wasn't the fool who lifted it off the shelf and brought it to the cart like he did.

DSCN0061

Filed Under: Food and Drink, Portland Highlights, Weblogs Tagged With: butter, dave's bread, portland farmers market, sol pops, wood fire brick oven bagels

Mystery foods explored…

Portland’s Fareless Square

Forget the car dad! It’s a small thing…

West Hills home smashed in landslide

Some basics of me living Portland

Portland Farmers Market on Sat

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