worshipping a new saint

a few weeks ago i was finally able to try out gladstone pizza and the saint pizza lounge. 

i had heard about this place quite a while ago but it's a bit off the beaten path so it just was never in the forefront of my mind when trying to think of places to eat.  luckily my friends suggested it and i'm so happy they did.

gladstone pizza is made up of two storefronts at 38th and division.  one is the pizza place and the other is the st. pizza lounge.  being as though i always will sit in the lounge if that option is given, we headed into st. pizza which is like a restaurant version of my home!  anyone who knows me, knows that i collect all sorts of saint icons and frida's as well (she is practically a saint right?).



so of course i had to sit under the giant frida mural!  i'm not sure whose idea it was to paint this on a side wall in a pizza place but i LOVE it.  the lounge is clean and sparse with a bit of a retro feel to it.  i'm not sure if it ever gets very busy on this side of the restaurant, i was surprised there weren't very many people sitting in there but this is where i will head every time i dine at gladstone pizza.



oh and hey, i can't forget to mention that the pizza is phenomenal.  i generally go for a pretty simple margherita pizza but the server suggested this one with sausage and carmelized onions on it.  topped with fresh arugula it was so good and gone in minutes.  we ate every last bit and still made room for a piece of blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream.  yeah baby, it was good!  i can't wait to get back here again soon.

gladstone pizza is at:

3813 se gladstone

open 5pm-midnight

503.775.1537

and they do also have a nice outdoor sitting area in the back so if you enjoy dining alfresco, as to sit out there.

GOAL!!!

oh yes people. it's that time, the time i have been counting down to for the past four years. it's WORLD CUP SOCCER!

i love world cup and aside from tennis, it's the only sport i will get up to watch and ungodly hours of the morning. and i must say, for this next month, it's all about world cup for me. i have to get my fill in to tide me over for the next four years.

the last world cup i was all about portugal and when they were out of the series i was pulling for forza italia. i am happy with either one making it to the finals. who is your team?

i got on line to see where i may be viewing my early morning games and found that beulahland has a really easy to navigate schedule listed and three big screen tvs, so i may start my viewing there this year. besides, they have great cheap breakfast and awesome biscuits and gravy.

beulahland is at 118 ne 28th ave 503.235.2794
here is their soccer schedule

fleet week

it's fleet week in portland when thousands of drunken sailors emerge upon downtown where hopefully they will be shanghai'd back into the seas from whence they came.


oh let the rose festival begin!

golf pro...

...i am not! in fact until this weekend, i had never played a real game of golf in my life. not that what i played at mcmenamin's edgefied could be called a "real" game but for me, it was a far cry from the putt putt i used to play as a kid at the phoenix metro center course.


i have loved edgefield ever since i moved to portland and my friends first took me there. i don't make it out as much as i used to but i do try to make it once or twice a summer because nothing beats a lazy summer weekend hanging out around the little red shed drinking rubies or "rubinators".


so the fact that this time i actually played golf was an entirely new experience for me. luckily, i good coaches and after a few rough starts, i was able to get my first swing onto the green.

and the course is absolutely beautiful looking down the hill onto the edgefield grounds. you really couldn't beat the great weather we had out on saturday, it was a clear blue sky day.

i really hope i can get out to edgefield a few more times this summer. i'm not sure if another golf game will happen, i don't know if i have the attention span to play even nine holes but i definitely hope to make it out for some music like willie nelson or pavement. oh i can't wait for summer!

mcmenamin's edgefield is located at 2126 sw halsey st troutdale 503.669.8610

photo 1 courtesy of eats and interest
photo 2 courtesy of macgeek

i missed you pdx

hi everyone! after a whirl-wind tour of denver, i'm back home in my lovely portland. i must say, though, that denver was fabulous--the weather, the company, the food, the sights, the shopping...whew, i'm tired.

i apologize for such a short post but i wanted to keep my promise that i would be back today. however, it's tamale night tonight and lorenzo is hard at work so i want to get back to help him out (and eat some tamales). so here are two of my favorites from my trip to denver and i'll be back tomorrow with a little more.


the lights of larimer square downtown were so pretty. it was raining the night i took this so it's a little blurry but i still thought this looked cool.


we went to dinner at this great french restaurant called z cuisine. it was really cute, the food was great, the service was great and i had one of the best glasses of syrah i've ever had.


this was our server and hostess. they were the cutest, sweetest things. the hostess was very pregnant and wearing black chuck taylors. how cute is that!


this was the view into the kitchen from our table.


and this is what came out of the kitchen to our table. ooh la la! it was good. i loved the salade gourmande and the steak frites but really, everything was great.

so if you are in the denver area, check out z cuisiine. it was a really great experience and thank you brooke for taking us there. it's in the cute neighborhood lower highland (i think) at 2239 w 30th ave 303.477.1111

paris in portland?

several years ago, i was going through a phase, you know--that phase. the one where you question everything in your life and wonder why you are who you are, why you work this job or that one and not the really fabulous one that you think you should be working. or why can't you be more intelligent, beautiful, successful and all of those other self-doubts that we are so good at focusing on rather than the fact that maybe your life is really just where you might want it to be.

i had been preparing for my upcoming trip to france and italy. i had been studying both languages religiously because i didn't possibly want to be seen as an ignorant american traveler. i had researched exactly where i wanted to go and whom and what i wanted to see. i quit my job, the one i had found after i graduated from interior design school and was a perfect fit for me. i just wasn't ready to accept that this may be it, that at 34 years old, i had reached my biggest goal so far and it just simply wasn't enough. so i had set other, bigger goals like becoming fluent in five languages. no, one other language wouldn't be enough i needed to know FIVE. now i look back and think how silly (not to mention exhausting with all of that conjugating).

i fell in love with florence and venice and in retrospect, should have stayed longer in florence rather than heading on to lucca. lucca was a small town and while it was a great place to learn italian because not many people spoke english, i never felt connected with it. perhaps that is because my first night there, i got lost and it started to rain and get dark and no one would help me until after several hours, i met a nice man who spoke english that helped me find my host family. so i completed my program there and took the first train out to nice early the next morning.

when i arrived in france, i felt like a weight had been lifted. i don't know why but i felt an immediate connection with france and was happy the minute i walked off the train. i stayed in nice a few days and went on some really great day trips from there before heading north to paris. on the train to paris, i met a girl named sophie who was a little younger than i and lived in avignon and commuted to paris every monday morning where she would stay the week and then head back to avignon for the weekend to be with her boyfriend and family. sophie was very sweet to me even though my being in the wrong train seat caused her laptop to get coffee spilled on it in all of the commotion (i swear i was in the right seat, the crazy car number was wrong). sophie and i hit it off and she really helped me out when i arrived to paris with no clue where to go (thank you sophie, wherever you are). i got off the train in montparnasse in the rain and instantly knew that i was in love with paris.


one of my first views was this one from the top of montmartre (photo by landscape photo)

my time in paris was amazing, i loved everything about it (except that i was alone and couldn't share it with anyone) but after a few days, i headed to brittany to visit a friend. i remember like it was yesterday, sitting on that train and asking god to help me find a way to stay in france because the one place i thought i would rather be than portland was paris. and you know what, be careful what you ask for! i found myself being invited to stay in france indefinitely (granted it was not paris) and when faced with the choice to leave portland, i couldn't do it. it's not easy to leave a place you know and love, not to mention the language barrier which in spite of my studies, i was far from being fluent. i felt like an idiot and cursed myself for not taking french more seriously all of those years i studied it in school. so when i was scheduled to leave france, i happily boarded that plane to come home, to mount hood and portland and my old job that had hired me back freelance for a temporary job.



and this is when i knew i truly did love portland. but i still think of paris, a lot. and some day i will go back but for now, i find my own little piece of paris all over portland. and sometimes my life is just like one of those french films i love to watch. and you know what? now i have some one to take to paris with me, and i found him right here in portland. xoxo lorenzo. and i still can't speak five languages but i'm ok with that!

these are some of my frenchie portland favorites.


southpark
you already know how much time i spend here.


cinema 21 (photo by zazzle)
i watch a lot of french films at this theatre and guess what, now they serve beer and wine. yippee! i loved this photo of the marquee featuring "ballet russes". i thought it was appropriate since picasso and jean cockteau both worked with the ballet russes.


you can't get more quintessentially portland and paris than down the street from cinema 21 at le happy. i mean this is a creperie that has a special that includes a pabst blue ribbon. how portland is that!


then i can cruise back over to the eastside for some chicken liver mousse at bar avignon...


...followed by some fab macarons at pix on division.
photo by cake and commerce


photo by m portland real estate



there is also a true french crepe cart right down the street from my house. this is a much shorter trip than going all the way to montmartre.

and this blog and book series transport me back to paris wherever i happen to be.


after i returned to portland, i found the website, french-word-a-day that not only helps me with my studies but features amazing photos of france.


i also found the aimee leduc series by cara black which features a different paris quarter in each installment. it literally walks you through the different paris neighborhoods while solving a murder.

is there any place you love to visit? what are the places you have found in portland that remind you of this place? i would love to hear about some of your escapes.

a swift heart

so we made it through labor day weekend and the summer is drawing to a close. it's amazing how once the long holiday weekend is over the air feels different. i was at the court block party last night and everyone was commenting on how fast the summer has gone by and that they can tell fall is in the air. even the trees are starting to change color. i had to drive to salem early this morning and it was very cool and foggy. yes, it is the end of portland's short summer.

as you know, though, i look forward to fall. it really is my favorite season. here fall is nice because it still isn't raining everyday, we still have a little sunshine and our beautiful greens turn reds, golds and oranges. besides, we have something very special in portland during the fall--our very own version of hitchcock's "the birds" going on over at chapman elementary school.



fortunately, though, our version of "the birds" is much safer as our birds are not ruthless killers but tiny vaux swifts.

over the years, vaux swift would stop off in and around portland on their migration down south to south america. however, with logging and urban growth, they were losing places to stay and somehow found and adopted the chimney at the chapman school as their place of refuge here before continuing their journey south.

since 1994, approximately 30,000 swifts spend the night in the schools chimney where they can feast on small bugs to store up to continue on their trip. when they first started staying at the school, teachers and students would dress warmly in the fall so the school would not start the furnace until the last swift flew out of the chimney for the day. now the school is heated by gas so the swifts don't have to worry about furnaces anymore. basically, the chimney is still there just for the birds.



so evenings throughout the month of september, people gather at the school to watch the swift's performance at sundown. you will see birdwatchers with their binoculars, families with their children and picnic diners with their champagne.

you will see a few swifts at first begin to circle around the chimney. each rotation gathers more and then more swifts and almost magically, the moment the sun sets they all dip into the chimney like bees to a hive.

it is truly a memorable scene so if you haven't ever made it over to see this performance, you have the month of september to check it out. for more information, go to the audubon society's swift watch.
the chapman school is at 1445 nw 26th and guess what their mascot is now? you got it, the swift!

(photo by mike houck)

swedish love

have you tried the restaurant broder over on se clinton yet? the other night my friend suggested it and i've been meaning to get over there so i was excited about checking out a new restaurant.

while they have been open now for about three years they have mostly become known for breakfast and just recently begun serving dinner.


we were not sure what to start our with so the server suggested the surf board which is three different cured fish one being the swedish national dish of pickled herring.


we also started out with this asparagus and tomato salad that was so beautiful we hesitated to take it apart. i'm glad we did, though, yum.

after our starters, we shared a burger that was really rich and delicious. the cheese they used was a chevre and i thought that was a nice touch for a burger. the burger had a lot of flavor and was sooo juicy. i just love a good burger!

the service was really great and they were very sweet to lulu and made sure that she was taken care of as well.


broder occupies the space of the old henry's cafe which i have always loved. if i had my own restaurant, this is the type of space i want, long and narrow. it kind of reminds me of the restaurants in new york that are located on the ground floor of old brownstones.

i have always admired swedish interiors for their beautiful simplicity and this was true for broder as well. i loved the simple decor with the pale blue accents and the sparkling white lights.


ok, i know this is weird but i had to take a picture of the bathroom entry because it was just so simple and pretty. i absolutely love the blue the white and the black accents.

broder is located at 2508 se clinton 503.736.3333

i'm looking forward to trying breakfast over there next.

my gypsy heart

i must admit, i have a fondness for gypsies mostly because my chilhood dog was the sweetest golden retriever named gypsy. she went everywhere with me from 5th grade until i graduated and went off to college. because of her and how much i adored her, i've always loved anything "gypsy" and would dress up as some version of a gypsy, hippie or bohemian growing up and sometimes i still do. while i have my sweet lulu and willie, now, gypsy was my baby growing up and i miss her dearly.

so because of my gypsy love, of course i heart the gipsy kings. several years back, my friend and i went to see them at the schnitz which was truly amazing. if you have never seen a show at the schnitz, i highly recommend it. it is such a beautiful theater and it really plays a part of any show you are seeing there and it was no different with the gipsy kings who were just incredible. so aside from seeing them at the schnitz, i think the next best thing would be seeing them at edgefield which is where they will be playing this sunday night, september 6th. imagine the gipsy kings out in our beautiful edgefield under the stars. oh, i think it will be really amazing.

it looks like tickets are still available at the mcmenamins website so let's make a day of it and head out to edgefield next sunday to make the very best of our last days of summer. i can't think of a more perfect place to do this.

have a very happy monday!

i bat my lashes

another very cool event happening on thursday is bat for lashes playing at the wonder ballroom. i am totally infatuated by natasha khan, isn't she just gorgeous? and her music is very ethereal and dreamy but rockin. oh i hope i can make it to this show! is any one else planning on going?
the wonder ballroom is at 128 ne russell 503.284.8686
(photo bat for lashes)



oh my gosh, it would be so great to go have dinner at toro bravo before hand! it's right next door. i could really go for some of their chicken liver mousse, yum.
(photo what's cooking america)

andiamo alla festa!

festa italiana at pioneer courthouse square


wouldn't it be cool to win a scooter like this? lulu and i could cruise around portland in it!

this weekend is the annual portland festa italiana, one of my favorite summer events here in portland held at pioneer courthouse square. it takes place this thursday, friday and saturday and it's free. they always have great music and great drawings! oh wouldn't it be nice if i won that trip to italy they auction off each year but i would even take a scooter if that was an option!

so hop on your bikes and head down to the festa! vieni, vieni!

latin love

i know i've mentioned the restaurant andina before but it definitely merits more than just one little mention. if you have not ever tried this restaurant, get your best friend and go out and try it asap. i have been there several times over the years since it opened and let me tell you, i have never once been disappointed. the food, the drinks, the atmosphere, the music...i could go on but i want you to check it out for yourself.

my girlfriend and i just went by for dinner and it was so good. we started out with a pitcher of the white sangria and dined on some of my favorite tapas. i love the yucca relleno and the palta relleno, which i always get but next time i go, i want to try something completely different because the food at the next table looked so good i was wishing we had tried it instead, not because i was disappointed in our choices i just can't get everything that i want in one visit!

they also have live music every night which makes for such a pleasant dining experience. i love the spanish classical guitar and they usually have at least one musician there playing.


this is their gorgeous dining room which is great if you have a large group but i prefer the bar area if i'm with a smaller group. (photo from portland food and drink)

look at our fabulous dessert, this is the goat cheese flan. i thought it looked so good that i had to take a picture to show you. and yes, that's a rose on top. love it!

andina is in the pearl district on the corner of nw glisan and 13th.


rodrigo y gabriela

a few years ago, my friend and i dined at andina before we headed over to berbati's pan to see rodrigo y gabriela. they just so happen to be headed back to portland on october 12th and playing at the schnitz, so i think we may need to make this a tradition.

if you have never heard of or seen rodrigo y gabriela you must check them out. they are so cool. my friend and i went to see them two nights in a row because they are that good. it's just the two of them playing guitar and it is one of the best shows i have ever seen. the thing that i love about them is that their music does not fit into one box and they just have such an incredible energy. all ages can listen to this music and love it. i cannot stress enough how amazing they are so go check them out right now, i'm sure you can find them on youtube.

comfort zone

today it's cool and overcast in portland, which has me thinking about fall, my favorite season. i know i'm crazy but while most portlanders look forward to warm and sunny weather, i am anxiously awaiting fall.

where i grew up in the southwest, fall was such a beautiful time of year with the aroma of roasting chile in the air, the autumn harvest and feasts going on in the pueblos and the leaves of the aspen trees turning vibrant colors. i think fall has always been my favorite time of year.


i needed to run some errands during lunch today which took me past several of my favorite "comfort" spots. the first one being saucebox. while there are always the "in" happy hour places around town, i still love my old standby, saucebox. they have consistently had one of the best happy hours in town for many years. we often head here after work because it's within walking distance but i would come here even if it wasn't. and you can still get a good beer, snack and some edamame for $10 during happy hour. saucebox is at 241 sw broadway 503.241.3393
(photo by vancouver sign group)


this sign is relatively new. for many years you only knew you were at the right place by the ice cube below.




kitty corner across the street from saucebox is another portland original, tugboat brewing. i have been visiting this tiny establishment since i first moved here and i still do. if you have never been here, you need to check it out. it's a quirky little place with mostly their own brews and the snacks are made right there behind the bar. they have great, funky jazz music nightly and it reminds me of a place you would find some famous jazz musician playing under a different moniker a la woody allen at michael's in new york. if you do pop in to the tugboat, just be sure to take cash as they still do not accept credit cards. how old school, i love it! it's located at 711 sw ankeny 503.226.2588


look at this great wall of books at the tugboat. (photo from pdxtopia)


oh and how i do love southpark. i almost hesitate to talk about this place because now everyone will know where to find me if they can't track me down otherwise. since i was in the neighborhood today, i stopped in for lunch and had their fabulous tuna salad sandwich. mine at home never taste this good.


i have been visiting the wine bar at southpark ever since it opened almost ten years ago. what i love about southpark is that the atmosphere never changes and many of the wait staff have worked here for years. when i used to work split shifts, i would take my french and italian homework here and study during my breaks. for many years it was my home base downtown. and with it being in such close proximity to the library, i would stop off here and have a glass of wine whenever i got a new book that i couldn't wait to start reading.



i sat at the bar and looked at this mural when i planned my first big trip to europe. i love this french girl in her striped shirt. she always reminds me of the movie "le divorce" for some reason. southpark is at 901 sw salmon 503.326.1300


on my way over to southpark i passed by this great fall window at banana republic. i love this current trench coat campaign and now i'm trying to find the perfect trench for the fall. the windows totally remind me of some of my favorite french women below. every girl needs a fantastic trench coat for the fall.


a black trench and some fabulous luggage for you next train trip? (photo from frillr)


ooh, how about a polka dot umbrella to go with that black trench. (photo from fashion rat)


would wearing a brown leather trench make me look like eva green?

what are some of your favorite comfort zones? is it a place, food or something to wear? i'd love to hear your ideas of comfort.

bisou, bisou! and bon weekend!