I hadn’t seen airport carpet in quite a while when I bundled up baby Marion and carried her and my carry on into PDX International. I hadn’t flown anywhere in a year and a half, honestly. Continue Reading…
Now…where were we?
Ah, well, this week in Oregon it was all heatwaves and doughnuts, wildflower hikes and roasted marshmallows. (Until it was sorrow and heartache…but I’ll save that for another time.)
The seasonal whiplash here on the blog is one thing. I mean, yes, I make no apology for the long silent spells, and I refuse to stress myself out over arbitrary posting schedules and inflated expectations. This corner of the world is my spot to share what I love, as I have the time. I know that I’m jumping from January to almost-June.
So, consider the blog jump my little way of illustrating how the past few days felt: transitioning from 40 degree lows to 92 degree highs in a couple short sleeps. Continue Reading…
Hey friends, after last year’s successful Bake Sale for Refugees, Portland bakers and bloggers and local businesses are coming together for a repeat to Bake America Great Again. All proceeds this year go to Portland’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), a 40 year old nonprofit known for welcoming and caring for new neighbors in our city.
If you’re in the area, come buy terrific homemade treats enter the fantastic raffle and show solidarity with our neighbors who have come to call this land their home: Sunday 12/18/16 from 6-9pm at Pip’s Original in NE Portland.
P. S. I’m contributing homemade Creamy Eggnog Fudge.
Super rich: be warned. Continue Reading…
“Love is a fruit in season at all times and within the reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Everyone can reach this love through meditation, prayer, sacrifice and an intense inner life.”
– Mother Teresa
Apple season’s just fading to memory again as the deeper darker rhythms of Oregon autumn carry us toward November. Can it really be that time of year to swap fresh fruits for root veggies? To grab a jar of preserves instead of a fistful of berries?
Here in our home, we’ve been living on applesauce and apple butter. (That is, when we’re not chugging lemon ginger tea and garlic and honey, trying to fight off tenacious chest colds.)
Marion, eight months old, scarfs down bowl after bowl, banging her spoon joyously on the high chair tray, grinning wide with fruit smeared into her eyelashes. Continue Reading…
Since early last summer, today’s hovered on my mental calendar as an exciting unknown: February 3rd. My 32nd birthday, and the day before my baby’s due date. Celebrations were in order, of course, but would they be for a girl in her third decade or a baby in her first days?
Would we be a family of three or a family of four?
Knowing there’s little use making concrete plans during such an up-in-the-air season, I didn’t really anticipate what today would look like until it arrived…but now that it’s hours from over, I can happily go on record saying it was just about perfect.
No baby (yet), but so very many favorite things from this life I love.
Have you felt, like me, overwhelmed and powerless to meet the dark struggles of the refuge crisis with tangible relief? It’s far too easy to be fired up on social media and then too frozen in real life to do a darned actual thing to help.
I’m one small person living in a cozy house with my little family in North America. How can I use what I have here to make a difference way out there in the wild, weary world?
Would you smirk if I told you I’m joining the effort to combat this current refugee crisis…with baked goods?
Laugh away, if you must; this is something I can do.
And if you live here in Oregon, you can, too.
Will you be within an hour’s drive of Portland this coming Saturday night? Come to Pip’s Original to shop the Bake Sale for Refugees. Score all sorts of delicious baked goods and raffle prizes from local bakers, bloggers, and restaurants (pssst: buy my κουραμπιέδες*!), and know that 100% of the proceeds from your valuable dollars spent will go to the Migrant Offshore Aid Station. Continue Reading…
That’s it. No punchline. They walked into a Portland coffee shop, bought me an iced latte, and invited me to share pictures of food. Next thing you know, I’m cooking shrimp and sharing a photo of it on their beta app.
I love my life.
Last night’s Instagram post started it all: “Slow cooker sweet corn polenta and chili lime shrimp, made today and shared (virtually) with my new friends over at @piqniq.” I wasn’t even going to blog about it anytime soon, but with so many of my friends replying on the post (or texting direct!) asking for the recipe, I thought I’d share it here for ease of distribution…and I might as well include a little bit of the backstory. Continue Reading…
Food, Short and Sweet and Scattershot, The Little Peach, Tidbits About Us
Family Time + Dessert Before Dinner
April 9, 2015It’s pretty nifty for us that Portland’s best little organic frozen yogurt sweet spot is just blocks from Lucie’s daycare… On sunny days like today, Ted calls mid afternoon and says, “Meet you at 5:30 for ice cream!”
Typically, Ted leaves his office in the Lloyd District and heads for homework and night class up in North Portland, and I’m usually finishing up a day of drafting and preparing to trek back to outer NE with Lu for an evening of controlled chaos, dinner time, bathtime, and bed (and then a post-kiddo-bedtime attempt at squeezing in a few more to-do list tasks before Ted gets home at 10:30pm). All too often, we three feel like ships in the night during the week. Continue Reading…
My little brother calls Lincoln City the “Chile of the Oregon Coast.”
The long, long skinny beach town hugs Hwy 101 for miles: a rambling collection of nondescript businesses, gas stations, and strip malls dotted with a few eye catching boutiques, outlet stores, and saltwater taffy shops. I remember my parents taking us to the shoreline in the eighties and nineties to watch soaring cloth birds fill the sky during the annual Summer Kite Festival, but my adult memories of Lincoln City consist of passing quickly through on drives to destinations north or south: never quite enough time or reason to simply stop and be there.
This trip, though, the pin on the map at the end of our route was just a west turn off Hwy 101 and two blocks from the sand: a cheery little beach house in Lincoln City, proper. Continue Reading…
I’ve known my dear friend Jenna since we were both eleven. We’re only 41 days apart in age, and this year marks 20 years of friendship. (I’ll let you do the math.) Continue Reading…