i heart portland

so i just got back from another trip to portland...4th one...in fact, it's the most visited city that i've never lived in, which is rare since i usually like going to see new places. granted, each time i go, it's for a different reason where i see different people and different places. this time around, i went with jon so he could take a look at wscc's campus. this visit was also more of a exploration of portland and (since i'm with jon) an eating marathon. i hadn't really trolled around the different portland neighborhoods yet, so it was interesting to see them all. my conclusion (besides the obvious fact that i heart portland and i'll be moving up here soon)...portland has some of the most creative and interesting cocktails in its bars/restaurants/lounges. the best was from the teardrop lounge where i had a cocktail called "the freedonia", which is made up of foie gras infused armagnac, costa rican coffee, some other liqueur that i can't remember, and pistachio gastrique. strange, but so smooth. of late, i've been getting back into cocktails and even starting to like gin...maybe this past harvest kind of put the kibosh on beer and wine for me temporarily.

oh and did i mention the eating? we had a lot of good recommendations from a friend of jon's and we tried many of them and they were all quite tasty. our favorite restaurant was "pok pok", a thai restaurant, that we went to twice...couldn't get enough the first time around! you can see the bar in the background below...i didn't take many photos...it was basically grey and cold in portland...but please enjoy the one below of mt. shasta. you can also see my rubber duck collection in the corner. tom stransky gave me the red one randomly one day and just the other day, someone left the white one on my car windshield in san francisco...

gobble gobble gobble

happy turkey day...yeah, i know...it's december, but it's been incredibly busy at work and i'm just now getting around to posting a couple of photos from my thanksgiving. this year, i decided not to go home due to the expensive plane tickets and the possibility that i would have to work over the long weekend. instead, jon hosted a small gathering of friends and we cooked thanksgiving dinner. it was a great night where the drinking started in the afternoon and most everything went off without a hitch. i even rallied to go out to the elbo room for some dancing later that night.
paul hobbs winery provided me with a 17.6 lb willie's organic turkey...biggest thing i've ever tried to cook! but it was a beautiful turkey. we wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked it for about 4 hours (an hour or so too long since we were distracted by our oysters on the half shell and champagne) before removing the foil, basting with herb butter, and baking for another 30 minutes. i thought it was quite tasty, but jon thought it was a bit dry. well at least it looked delicious as you can kind of see below...sadly the photo of our thanksgiving table as well as our guests didn't turn out quite light enough, but below is our side table with a view of the candy pumpkins and pumpkin pie. my 1st attempt at a pumpkin pie...i've never been a big fan because i always thought pumpkin pie was a little too heavy so i found a pumpkin-chiffon pie recipe where there was added honey and whipping cream...mmm...and i hadn't even added the honey-brandy whipping cream and candied pecans on top yet :) all in all, it was an awesome thanksgiving. i give thanks to my friends, family, jon, and the fact that we're going to have a democrat in office by next year...cheers to that!