An Afternoon in Oakland

New post at Fiberly One's new home:
An Afternoon in Oakland

Busy week...no pictures

I keep thinking I want to make sure to include pictures when I post, but if I wait till I get the gumption to process pictures, we could all be waiting a while, so here's a recap of the week sans pictures.

Birthday girl
That was me last Saturday, and it was a great party. In an unusual turn of events, everyone who said they would show up actually did and a person or two who hadn't said they would come showed up. It was a good mix of family, old Apple friends, cruise buddies, neighbors, business owners turned friends, and one high school chum. I will get to processing pictures...soon...I promise.

Tom's eastern North Carolina Barbeque-style was a hit. Most tried and liked the "traditional" sandwich by piling the coleslaw on top of the barbeque on the mini-buns made just for us by Market of Choice. The appetizers brought by friends, my Bill Neal shortcake with Oregon strawberries and, sweet tea (to complete the southern theme) and we all ate quite well.

What a great way to turn 50!

Move-in days
Monday we headed to IKEA to pick up a bed frame and dresser for my mom, then down to Wilsonville to wait for the guys from Take Care Move Assistance to arrive. Somehow we'd managed to fill the moving container in pretty short order, just the two of us, but we were very glad we hired Bill and his guy because to move the contents of the box from the loading area up three floors and down the hall 150 paces (Tom size...he counted) to my mom's new apartment. What took them 1 1/2 hours would surely have taken us the full day. And there was time left on the clock for them to build my mom's bed. Now you just cannot beat that.

We had decided that it was best to start her new apartment experience Tuesday morning so everyone was fresh. So we packed her clothes that we'd moved via Alaska Airlines baggage check and headed over, where even more clothes were waiting. Thanks to neighbor Laurie, we had enough hangers to accomodate without having to make a side trip to the Container Store. We made our first grocery store trip and inagurated the refrigerator. Tom built the dining table (chairs having been built on Monday) and the entertainment unit.

Wednesday the dresser was built, the new phone programmed, and the TV set up (except we couldn't find the remote), and my mom had spent her first night in Wilsonville. She seemed pretty spunky and on seeing her yesterday, she is settling in quite nicely. She's doing something she could never have done in Sun City West - walking Tootsie outside twice a day. We have lovely weather and her new pacemaker to thank for that, I think.

Miscellany
Lest you think I was slacking when we weren't hanging with my mom: I also managed four morning walks and a belated birthday lunch at Zeppo's in Lake Oswego; had printed 200 Columbia River Sewing Guild newsletters which I then (with a little help from my cool hubby) stapled, addressed, stamped and posted; located a long lost cousin to whom my mom wanted to send an address change; made and sent out the address change notices; and made and sent out thank you notes.

Baltic Blossoms
And I finally managed to get in some forward progress knitting on Saturday.

I started the border in early June when we were in AZ. I took out 6 rows of said border when we were in AZ. I thought was my first attempt at nupps but in researching a definition, I find that I must have knit them in Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail. At any rate, they were giving me fits (k1,YO,k1,YO,k1 into one stitch, purl 5 back). I didn't like the results so in my second (or maybe third) attempt I found that knitting into the front and back of the stitch for five stitches made it much easier to purl back. Still, after making unfixable mistakes, I ended up pulling out 16 rows of border (over 200 sts each) without winding the yarn as I went and then spending the ensuing day untangling the yarn. The next time(s?) I did it, I wound the yarn so resuming wasn't to difficult.

Saturday, with no distractions, and Sliding Doors (which I've seen many times) in the background, I whipped out 32 rows of the border without so much as a hitch. Go figure.

My projects for today are to get to the last set of border rows, and do laundry which I don't think I've been caught up on since March. Maybe this week.

More things to like about where we live

Nothing against the other places I've lived (and being an Air Force brat, I've lived in a few), but I have never really enjoyed where I was living till now. Now part of that may be attributed to the fact that I have the good fortune to not have to go to work everyday, so I have time to enjoy my surroundings. Nonetheless, almost everyday, I see or hear something new or different that makes the decision to move here all the better. Mind you they aren't always big...

There are the parks.
Last week, we went to Foothills Park, a Lake Oswego city park. It's not big, but the footpath goes along the Willamette so there's lots to see. Along the way we saw a couple of egrets on the rocks.


We also saw a building that has piqued our curiosity along. We saw it from the back on a walk in George Rogers Park. Was it a city building or a home? It's one of two concrete buildings in the park. I've often seen the other riding along Highway 43. I can't even think what to search on in Google...


Mary S Young Park gets a mention because it is but a mile from the house and walking there you can practically forget were smack dab in the middle of a developed town.

...and the dogs in the park
Mandy is enjoying getting out, and is getting used to the cool smells in the dog park at Mary S Young.
 

Berries
I had my first boysenberry on Wednesday from South Barlow Produce we found at the West Linn Farmers Market. We also got some huge blueberries and raspberries. To give you some perspective the blueberry was about the size of a dime.

Theatre
Last year the Clackamas Repertory Theatre put on a production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!" We'd seen the off Broadway production and saw it again in San Jose, and this was the best of the three. On Sunday, we saw "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" and it was great. There are still two performances left...

"Singin' in the Rain" caught our eye in the West Linn Tidings. Put on by the Broadway Rose Theatre Company, it was an enjoyable performance, highlighted by Daniel Lee Robbins as Cosmo. The Oregonian's review really sums up the performance.

The second performance in the Broadway Rose season is "Cole" which we saw last night. Once again we were not disappointed. Great music, great singing and a little tap number by Meredith Weber. It runs through next Sunday.

Yarn
The Portland area is a veritable mecca of knitters and yarn shops. Alas! yesterday began the closing sale at Lint so soon, we will be one store less.

Yum!

Just back from my official birthday dinner at a new restaurant in the Willamette Falls neighborhood here in West Linn. L & B's Restaurant & Gallery opened in October and we found out about it in one of the coupon flyers we got in the mail. The ad showed a more upscale restaurant than any other in the city, so we decided to try it out. Good choice.

We were greeted by Jennifer, who also turned out to be our excellent server. The menu is fairly extensive. We were tempted by the tomato roasted red pepper soup, intrigued by the roasted radish soup du jour, but opted for crispy calamari - very light and tender served with a spicy marinara sauce.

The entrée choices were variations on typical "American" restaurants with a chicken, several fish, steak and port options. Tom chose the cioppino, which, though a little salty, he enjoyed. But I think I had the best with the special tilapia - not normally a fish choice I'd make. It was served lightly pan fried, topped with a caper relish served over risotto with a lemon beurre blanc sauce. Yum!

We tried their crème brulée and strawberry rhubarb crisp. I love custard. This brulée, was a little creamy for my taste, but good. I will forever miss Harrison's version of the dessert, which I enjoyed, for the last time, a year ago, and they closed unexpectedly two weeks later...but I digress... Tom liked the crisp, but liked my brulée better.

We will go back.

No website and not much online coverage yet, but they are located at 1717 Willamette Falls Drive, West Linn (503) 722-9561.

Dragon Boat Races

It's been almost two weeks, but I've finally processed the pictures we took at the Dragon Boat Races during the Portland Rose Festival. Our original plan was to cheer Dianne and John on as the Realty Trust Red Dragons participated in their second year, but we missed the first day because we were sure they wouldn't run the races at the same time as the parade. Wrong!

But we did make it to see them in their quarter-final and semi-final heats, along with Jean. It was a lot of fun!
 

More pictures are here.

It bears mentioning that between the races we had lunch at the European Divine Café—because pea soup I had was delicious (and not just because I was hungry), while Tom and Jean both seem to enjoy their gyros. The service was very slow, but it appeared to be a "mom and pop" shop with only three people working there. Perhaps they weren't quite prepared for the Dragon Boat race crowd.

Good recipes

Dianne asked me if I was going to blog about dinner last night and my first thought was, "probably not." But after a bite of the dessert this morning, I decided I'd share the wealth.

We invited Dianne and John come over (that's Dianne Rodway and John Becker of the City Properties Group in case you're Googling either of them), to dinner and a whisky tasting. Of course, Tom was hosting the tasting. It gave him a good excuse to open some bottles he'd purchased and share with people who would appreciate good whiskies. That's not to say that all were good, but the good apparently outweighed the bad. I wouldn't know. I'm not one of those people; water was my beverage of choice.

Tom was in charge of the main course and he adapted a lamb shank recipe by Mario Batali he found on Food Network. He used veal shanks (osso bucco) since I don't do lamb, a variety of olives from the olive bar at Market of Choice, frozen artichoke hearts and thyme instead of rosemary as the herb. I did say adapted. Tom is quite good at that. The braised veal and veggies were served over Marscarpone Polenta, from a veal shank recipe, also from the Food Network. It was all delish—especially the polenta.

At Market of Choice strawberries and rhubarb were prominently featured, so we decided that would be the basis for the dessert. My favorite place to look for recipes is epicurious.com. For 20 years we subscribed to Bon Appetit, but my love for cooking had waned and they were taking up just too much space, so I gifted the issues to a friend. But I digress. There were lots of pie and compote recipes, but I finally narrowed it down to Strawberry Rhubarb Pudding Cake. It seemed easy and foolproof. And it turned out to be that and fabulous. Tom and I agree that of all the fruit desserts I've made this one springs to the tastebuds as the BEST. So I highly recommend it.

Brunch with friends

Renée had a question about how to turn a tablecloth and three curtains into a larger tablecloth. I said I'd be happy to advise and we settled on her house last Saturday. Tom would accompany me and he and Joe could mind the girls while we "consulted." Then Renée had a better idea—brunch—including Dianne and John, and Claude, her dad. So Saturday we had a yummy brunch of ham and cheese strata, gigantic strawberries and bagels along cinnamon toast (real comfort food) and apple cake brought by Dianne. We provided gelato and sorbet from our weekly visit to Coffee Rush in Oregon City.



There more pictures here.

Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat

Dianne and I attended our first Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat over the weekend, and we're already looking forward to next year. It was weekend of classes and knitting, dining and a little shopping.

There were the Classes (after all, that's what it was all about)

A Stick and a Handful of Stones
I settled at a table with Yvonne, who was at the retreat to take the one class from Judith MacKenzie McCuin. Point of fact, the majority of the class were "groupies" and several were taking just the one class. Judith's goal was to get everyone to become weavers. After I signed up for the two-day class, I worried that it would too much—especially since I'd only ever woven the obligatory kindergarten pot holder, but it was exactly the opposite. Judith started with a history of weaving, set her goal—to convert everyone, especially knitters, to weaving, then got us started. We started by making weights with aquarium gravel, plastic wrap and yarn, then set to weaving. I wish I'd gotten pictures of other works in progress, but took a couple only of my own.



At the end of class, Yvonne, who was weaving with her own spun yarn, gifted me with a ball of her yarn. Lovely.





Stripes and Stripes that Aren’t
I can't say exactly how many classes I've taken from Sally Melville over the years, but I've taken more than a few. Sally likes stripes and taught us about matching (and not), color and contrast and a few skills (weaving the yarn in and weavers knot—both of which I learned in earlier classes with her.) But she really likes "stripes that aren't"—knitting in stripes, but adding a pattern or element that makes them appear to be something else—like slip stitch or modular knitting. And she showed us beautiful examples, most of which are in her Styles and Color books. Although, I was already familiar with the skills and patterns covered, Sally is an excellent and personable instructor, so it was all good.

Oh, and the really cool thing is that Sally complimented me on the Warm Orenburg lace shawl I knit last year.

Using your Stash
Sunday morning was spent with Ginger Luters. In retrospect, if I'd really read the class description, I probably wouldn't have taken it. Ginger was personable and her sense of color is great (she has a degree in fine arts), but the class seemed to lack focus. It was all about swatching, but I didn't come away with any specifics on what we were trying to accomplish with all but one of the swatch examples. The one was use of the three-needle bind off to connect two pieces. I did come away with one tip—in garter, Ginger slips the last stitch (YFWD), instead of the first, then knits in the back of the stitch to create a nice edge to join,

Two Colors, Two Hands
It was the end of the weekend, we'd had a not-so-good class in the morning and I was seriously considering blowing off my last class. But once in Sally Melville's last class, it was clear that I was going to end the weekend on an "up" note. The class about learning how to hold yarns in different ways and finding the one that was most comfortable to you. We learned knitting with one yarn in each hand, two yarns in the right, two yarns in the left and purling with the yarn over your neck (documented in Sally's Purl book.)—very cool.

Additionally, Sally showed us exercises to prevent injury to neck and hands and shared some great stories, including the one about her son who was at University in a quiet room, except for the person who began swearing. He turned around to see who was knitting.

And then there was the Dining
We ate very well, though I seemed to experience small issues at every restaurant we visited.

Indochine Seafood and Satay Bar
The food was excellent and the portions large—which is where I ran into problems. Not asking, and thinking I was ordering appetizer sizes, I ordered three starters. Wrong! I finished the six shrimp and took back a plateful of tofu and 5 potstickers—which I ate for breakfast. They were also good cold.

Twokoi
Walking back from the food fest that was Indochine, we spied Twokoi and settled on that for the next night's dinner. If your palatte doesn't take spicy-hot foods, please avoid the Spicy Pork, even if the waitress says it's only mildly spiced. Fortunately the miso and salad were generously sized and I did make it through about half of my pork, it was a bit on the hot side for me (Dianne really enjoyed hers, though.) I figured a little dairy would help, so I order a green tea ice cream, which the waitress gave me on the house.

Over the Moon
We found out that Tacoma is a 9-5 kind of town, when we headed out for lunch on Saturday and most of the places we passed on Broadway were closed. Intrepid Dianne headed into a jewelry store to get a recommendation, and we ended up at Over the Moon, "which was good even with the new décor." And it was.

Dianne's salmon salad was beautiful and I got to sample the grilled cheese sandwich while I awaited the chicken sandwich I'd ordered. The décor was a little cheesy, but the food was good. We were joined by Lissa from Sequim, WA.
 

Djembe Soul
Did you know that I was raised on okra, grits, and biscuits? So when a class mate said she'd enjoyed her meal at Djembe Soul (including the sweet tea) a southern food restaurant, I wanted to go. I think because it harkened back to the basic foods I ate growing up it was my favorite meal. Though everything was fried, which usually gives me trouble the next day, I think they must have used really hot, clean oil because nothing was greasy, and I was just fine. I didn't get to enjoy my first choice of Chicken and Dumplings (no dumplings), but I did get fried okra (my friend Mark—who drove down from Seattle to join us—tried one, Dianne had a few, and I ate the rest) and pork chops, with excellent red beans and rice and candied sweet potatoes. Yum.

And finally, there was the Shopping
On our way to find a restaurant the first night we happened on BKB and Company, self-described as the "Tacoma gallery of wearable and decorative art." Very nice shop, where both Dianne and I found hats and Dianne bought a very cool paper lamp.

Then there were my yarn acquisitions:
Fancy Image Hand-dyed Yarn had some great colorways, and it was hard to decide, but I came away with these—all merino fingering. I'm always thinking lace.


Linda's Knit 'n Stitch offered 20% off any purchase, so not being one to pass up a deal, and in awe of the Koigu collection, I brought home some skeins of this unusual colorway.


RainShadow Farm had some lovely soft yarns, including the merino/silk/cashmere "Ollala."


Toots LeBlanc & Co Angora/Rambouillet called to me, so I brought it home to make their shawl pattern.
 

Maybe we'll see you there next year.

Date Night

It's not that Tom needs a cooking class, but he enjoys cooking and people, so when it came to deciding what to "get" Tom for Christmas, I chose a "Date Night" class at Sur La Table in Portland's Pearl District because of the menu: Roasted Fennel Soup with Pernod Cream; Dungeness Crab-stuffed Halibut, with Citrus Beurre Blanc; Artichoke and Lemon Orzo; and Grand Marnier Bread Pudding with Candied Orange Peel.

It turned out to be a great choice. Not only was the menu delish, but we prepped and cooked with some nice people—Tom and Kelly, and Matt and Jan. It was the other Tom's 40th birthday present, and like my Tom, he is the primary chef in their household, while Kelly is the baker. In contrast, Jan doesn't bake (except for boxed mixes) and Matt doesn't cook. The experience paid off because our meal looked and tasted great.

Jessica Benedetti, the chef, was an excellent teacher, along with the kitchen assistants. I think it's something we'll probably do again.

A New Year!

All the best to everyone for 2007!

Don't forget to have some black-eyed peas for good luck
Growing up, my father used to soak the dried black-eyed peas and cook them with a piece of fatback, then serve them with rice—also know as Hoppin' John. New Year's Day 1970, we had literally just arrived in Denver, and we couldn't find any black-eyed peas. That was the year Daddy had a heart attack, so we've made sure to have them on New Year's Day ever since.

My version of Hoppin' John is a recipe I found in Better Homes and Gardens and it's easier than Daddy's. It's a much less traditional version, but it's tasty and we get our black eyed peas—which is the important point. Click here for the recipe.