Headed Home...to Reality

This, our 10th year in PDX, was one for the books.  So much good food, time with good friends and the nephew, good wine, good laughs, and good memories.

I wonder sometimes if I will get sick of it here.  I wonder if I lived here would I love it so much.

I guess I'll have to do more research and come more often.  We never have been here in the winter you know. 

Wish for smooth air and better movies on Delta on the way home.

XOXO

P&C

Last Night in PDX...

Finished the amazing day at Nostrana for dinner.  Again, with the amazing meal!!

We had apps and salads and pizzas and pastas and steak and drinks and wine and dessert.

And no pictures.  🙂

Saturday...Best of the Willamette Valley! Part 4...

And finally...stop 4.  Sokol Blosser.  They had a cat named Harry.   Wines were solid as usual. 

We were all so full and drunk and ready to take a nap in the Pinot Car.  Which we did.  Promptly.

Saturday...Best of the Willamette Valley! Part 3...

Stop 3...Beaux Freres!

It was a quick trip, where...because Carlos our Pinot Car driver ran into Dundee to pick up our lunch...we had to sit outside, sequestered from the other people.  I would have been super annoyed but it was nice for it to just be us!

Porkchop had a litter recently, and I asked to see her, but no...she is also sequestered.

Good wine.  Fun lunch from Red Hills Market.  As usual!!

Saturday...Best of the Willamette Valley! Part 2...

Next stop - Patricia Green.  Caroline wasn't supposed to work, but she hung around to hang out with us!  Love her...

Great wines and snacks, saw the Beaux Freres pigs and petted them and got splattered with what I hope was mud.

I love it there.

Saturday...Best of the Willamette Valley!

Stop 1:  Brick House.  ALWAYS our best stop of the day.  Spent a leisurely 2 hours and way more money than I should have here, but hanging out with Steve on the patio looking at the vineyard drinking exquisite wine isn't a bad way to spend your morning.  Nope.  It's not.

Budem!!

Pronounced "boo-dyim!" it is a Russian toast.  And well, at Kachka, we toasted!  Or we were toasted?  Or both.

Kachka was this amazing Russian restaurant - and everything was divine.  Except the pickled watermelon, that was nauseating. 

We had flights of vodka, we had mixed drinks, we had pickling juice to cleanse our pallet.

We had, in no particular order, meals of:

• Heirloom tomatoes with farmer cheese and dill olive oil
• Baltic Sprat Buterbroti with tiny smoked fish on pumpernickle
• Sheep cheese and pimento spread
• Some thing that was like a savory quesadilla but Russian
• Golubtsi (Cabbage Rolls)
• Rabbit in a Clay Pot
• Beef, pork, veal and onion dumplings
• Scallion and farmer cheese dumplings
• And.   The very best thing:  house breads and whipped salo

 Now, let's talk about that last thing a little bit.   There was sourdough bread, and pumpernickel that was like candy.   And then.  There was salo.  Salo is pork fat that has been whipped like butter.  And you spread it on the bread.  And eat it.  And if you die of a clogged artery, you don't even care.

I will absolutely come here again...and eat whipped pork fat.

Who you callin' Lardo??

Well, if you have never been to Lardo in Portland, I am honestly telling you there is a hole in your soul that you didn't know you had.  But it's there, just waiting to be filled with Lardo sandwiches.  And then you are complete.

I probably shouldn't get as emotional about food as I do, but when you couple the amazing beer list, the fun and wonderful staff, the chicharrons and the sandwiches...it's like getting a hug.  From the baby Jesus.  On your birthday. 

• 2 Bahn Mis (one without cilantro, thank you very much)
• Smoke Stack (like a cheesesteak kind of)
• Korean Pork Shoulder

Thank god there isn't one of these at home...

Catching up! Friday...And Yahtzee

Friday was another perfect day.   We started our day at The Beermongers for beers and cards.  And Yahtzee.

Beers were really good, The Replacements were on the stereo, and then we decided to play Yahtzee.  Chris went first...and on his first turn, ended up with this:

I then called him a dick, picked up the cup and dice, shook the cup, and mightily slammed it down upside down on the table.  When I removed the cup...this showed up.

I mean.  Someone who has the energy to do the math can tell me what the odds of that are.