a full house

May 26th, 2008Tags: , , , , , ,
| beauty, beer, farmers market, friends, fun, good stuff, life, oregon coast, portland | chris | 0 comments


last monday our good friends gabriel & jaclyn arrived in portland. they are in the middle of a grand road trip to alaska and are stopping in portland via the “long route.” first they stopped in denver to stay with a friend, then los angeles to go sailing for a few days with a friend, and now here in portland for the last week. they leave today to finish the last leg of their trip through british columbia and on into the great frontier. gabriel will be a guide in the alaskan backcountry while jaclyn nanny’s for a family for the summer.
on friday night, our good friends ren & rebecca flew in from iowa city. just before that, however, our old buddy pete found out the gang was going to be in town, so he jumped a train down from seattle. so friday night we went to bailey’s taproom for a tasty brew, hit up the farmers market saturday morning, then a hike in the sun up by the rose and japanese gardens. (we also cracked open my homebrew, but that post will be coming later) yesterday we rented a van, piled in in road trip fashion and hit the coast. after spending time at haystack rock in cannon beach, looking at the abundance of life in such a small area, we walked through town in search for a kite. then we drove further down the coast to find the right spot to put some wind under our stringed rainbows.
now, pete has boarded his train and is safely home, gabriel and jaclyn will be packing up and heading out this morning, and ren and rebecca will be here until this friday for some more portland shenanigans.
(p.s. if you didn’t put it together, that is 7 people in our 550 sq. ft. apartment. :) )

intro to garde manger

May 21st, 2008Tags: , ,
| good food, just stuff, school | chris | 0 comments

as i said before, garde manger is mainly just a fancy word for the cold kitchen, however that is not how it is literally translated. that said, intro to garde manger was a great class. we learned the basic components of salads, appetizers, and hors d’oeuvre.

overall it was a fun class with a lot of opportunity for creativity and experimenting. i’m really looking forward to the challenge of advanced garde manger. that will come around next cycle after i finish this current one. for this cycle we are in our first baking course. everything i see and hear in this class is new to me. i don’t know much of anything about baking, so i really look forward to getting my hands dirty and taking it out on some dough. this first week we’ve been strictly working with bread dough and in the coming two weeks we’ll be doing some pastries, cookies, and all other sorts of baked goodness.

stay tuned.

another cycle down

January 25th, 2008Tags: ,
| crazy, food, good stuff, school | chris | 0 comments


don’t worry, i’m still here.

things have been quite busy with this last class. culinary skills 2 has been a whirlwind of cooking methods, stocks, sauces, and all sorts of dicin’ fun. this week has been all sorts of crazy with written tests, knife tests, product identification tests, and food prep up the wazoo.

today we got to cook up a banquet for ourselves. i would say overall it was a pretty good time. there’s something about the way the kitchen feels when everyone is working hard and fast to meet the objective.

click here to check out a few photos from the day. i wish i would have got more pictures of the prep, but was really too busy to make that happen.

the next three weeks i’ll be back in the classroom with a couple more of the gen. ed. required classes. i could use a few days in a laid back classroom.

another beautiful weekend

October 28th, 2007Tags: , , , , ,
| autumn, beauty, farmers market, food, good food, just stuff | chris | 0 comments

Forest Park
we got a few extra hours of sleep friday, which was needed. since the weather was nice we decided to check out forest park, a local hiking park. it is only about 6 miles from downtown and provides a semi scenic drive and beautiful wooded surroundings. it was a nice little hike. friday night we went out to eat at aura, a hipsters lounge and restaurant. deeann had the grilled salmon with steamed veggies and new potatoes. on the side was a marionberry-port wine reduction that was killer. yum. i had a creole rice dish that had all sorts of seafood, along with sausage and sauteed veggies. to drink, deeann had some crazy delicious orange citrus mixer. i had the fish tale organic amber ale which is a medium-bodied beer. with a gentle sweet character, it had a zesty flavor without a bite. very yum.

saturday we did not sleep in. we got up and drove down to the portland rei store which was having a garage sale. we got there at 8:30am and the line was already around the block twice. we didn’t get inside until about 11:45. afterwards we hurried our way home to make it to the farmers market just in time. rushed through to get what we needed(one of which was ground buffalo to make a screaming good chili for tonight) and went up and unloaded everything. i cut up a bunch of fruit(apples and pears are deliciously in season) and mixed up a quick sangria to set for the afternoon. then we decided to go to whole foods to pick up what we weren’t able to get at farmers market. on our way home, on the streetcar, i forgot i left my coffee mug on a table back at whole foods. get back to the apartment, unload(again) and make our way back to whole foods. thankfully they held on to it for me. whew. by the time we got home it was 7:00 and we were beat. poured up some sangria and plopped down to watch little miss sunshine. i had seen it but deeann hadn’t. i recommend it.

today, we got up and went to imago dei. good ‘ole time with them. made a quick run(if there is such a thing) to best buy and ikea, and now just sitting here waiting for the buffalo bill chili to finish so i can send deeann to work with a full happy tummy. i think i might go for an evening run before i chow on my chili.

all in all, it was a good weekend. beautiful fall weather. now we have to start gearing up for the week.