Portland, Oregon

After we left Comptche, we drove almost 14 hours along Route 1 into Oregon. It was a long day. We stopped to say hi to John's Aunt Honey and Uncle Eric, who live on a sort of menagerie in rural Oregon, and then we spent the duration in PDX, itself. We'd both been before, but never with such worthy friends to stay with and never over Thankgsgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite no matter where you spend it, but may I especially recommend you find a year to spend that holiday in Portland. The drizzle, the bungalows, the comfy style of the city is perfectly and completely suited to a November vacation devoted to eating.

The next few posts will be a collection of the most photogenic moments of our trip. Just to put names with faces, we were visiting Jesse and Lauren, old favorites from Virginia and Mary Frances Wegmann, my better half. Hope you'll indulge yet another photographic reminiscence.











More soon.

Kaleidoscope Weekender

You can't plan being this technicolor, but when it happens it makes you feel like you're on fire. Like the momentum of your life is unstoppable, like everything is going to work out and like you are at the center of it all. But then again, maybe your new orange sweater is just stealing all the light.






On Saturday Marianne, pictured above, made me the most amazing meals I've eaten in recent memory, also pictured above. They were bursting with summer's vegetal bounty, in all shades of yellow and orange and green. And they tasted as much, if not more.

When in Rome

Here is the remainder of our days in Philly, most of which were spent retracing old routes and enjoying the familiarity of the city's bumpy streets, perfect skyline and friendly faces. With meals like roadsigns, we set out to capture not only the very best parts of our three year existence but added to it, the landscape of life in Philly now, in a whirlwind of five short days. It feels so GOOD to see your friends.

On the Things We Did In Philly Past side of things: getting tofu hoagies from Fu Wah, in West Philadelphia; drinking a Citywide Special over pool at Fiume on a Monday night; beers and dog watching in Clark Park; Sarcone's sandwiches (we saved these for the airport); Indian buffet at Sitar with the extended Gang; standing in line to buy 8 dollars worth of vital wheat gluten at Mariposa; a ride on the broad street line through city hall (shiver) to transfer to the Green Line; the walk for a case of Lion's head, complete with word puzzle bottle caps home from Salt & Pepper; taking my seat on the bench outside Via Bicycle to wait for John to fix our flat tire; the view from Sabrina's across Christian Street in the Italian market; talking with Sue in her bright sunny studio about every single thing; and the smile that crossed my face watching John and Ryan riding the tandem together, two peas in one pod.

And of the Philadelphia that postdates our move, we got to see a new apartment for Halimah and Larissa, while breakfasting on a fruit salad of melon and avocado and lots of toast and picking out clothes from Halimah's closet. We drank late night coffee at Starr Garden (that's that dark rectangle directly below) to refresh ourselves after jet-lag and barbeque at Brie and Sebastian's new house. We saw new workplaces for three friends at a restaurant, a gelateria and a storefront. We checked out Local 44, the new fancy gastropub in our neighborhood with a huge beer selection and a nice bartender.

This photo courtesy of Sue & her fancy new camera.

Can't say when we'll be back next, but I sure hope it's Soon.