pre·ten·tious

I am a total snob about food, on a number of levels. I know this.

It not only makes up an important part of my work: research + teaching; it makes up an important part of my daily life.

We spend a lot of time trying to make choices about what we purchase, put in our bodies and support with our forks and finances--and sometimes we're just hungry and throw it all to the wayside (sometimes). What that has meant for us is a lot of discussion about how we want to interact with the marketplace and how difficult (or easy) that might be with all the attention now on the actual creation of environmentally sound, healthful and whole food options and the artificial crowd-pleasers.

What this means in practice since we moved has been a lot of research and whining (mostly from me) about options in our immediate area. I keep thinking about how spoiled we were before. We had a butcher we knew by name and who we could talk with about the suppliers in the area and their practices, we had the Valley and its wonders. There was a local, organic, fresh, diverse politics of food that we could immerse ourselves in that did not have us relying on increasingly watered-down standards and ambiguous claims and labels (see for example: "all natural"). In fact, I think I may have gotten too comfortable, so much so that I started to forget to look into practices and sourcing for restaurants, blinded by creative menus and "local/authentic/craft/scalar" claims. Side note: we can talk about local later. I've spent a lot of time thinking/writing/teaching about it.

So we've tried out some new things, done some research and I am happy to say that we found a winter CSA to tide us over while we figure out our new foodshed. And in the interim, we've tried to be a new/different version of ourselves...hmmm...or maybe retooling some of our ideas around region together....or realigning/readjusting...searching for ourselves again.

We found a bit of ourselves yesterday in the orchard, searching among the brambles for berries and then partaking in the farm market.

Raspberries

We also drove a bit out of our way to seek the simple pleasure of a seasonal, organic, free range, local, grass-fed, hormone and antibiotic free menu. The place we went for lunch was very very proud of themselves, and I thought "why shouldn't they be?" they are one of a few in this region starting to promote this type of menu. But after awhile it did start to grate on you and Joe remarked that they seemed to be trying much too hard to impress. But it was delicious, and I suppose I am every bit as pretentious...

Before the storm

I fully realized on Friday afternoon that this is my last weekend before the academic clock begins to tick. Yes, classes begin on Tuesday and yes, I teach my first class on Wednesday...and suddenly I will have almost 200 students to teach (read: deal with). But it is also the start of my tenure clock at a major research university. As always I have had the competing work/don't work entities on my proverbial shoulders basically all summer and especially this weekend.

So with that in mind I did not sync my files and bring them home. I did not bring home the textbook for my class. I left all my writing on campus. In fact, before checking out for the weekend, I don't think I even woke up my computer to tell it to go to sleep or shut down what I was working on before 5 hours of meetings swept away my productivity earlier in the day.

Instead of doing what I should be doing...I spent the vast majority of yesterday reading for pleasure. And finished the day by enjoying an extravagant meal in an odd setting. It felt good to be generally avoiding campus, not just because it might be one of my few opportunities to actively do so in the near future, but also because it is move-in weekend...and I remember what that's like.

And stairs

I didn't mention that this house has stairs. This is, in fact, the first house we have lived in to have stairs. This may not seem like a particularly interesting detail, but when your sense of scale (around the house) changes things start to feel very far away. Seriously, leaving things upstairs is my new nemesis.

Also, Risa has seen stairs and dealt with them at my parents place, for Pocket and Catch this was a first. I desperately wish that I had video of Pocket's first attempt down the stairs--human toddlers are more daring. Not to mention that we started them at the top of the stairs (having closed them in a small room while we moved in) and it took both of the boys the entire day to work up the courage to head downstairs. For Catch, food did the trick, but Pocket resisted even being carried down the stairs. So you can imagine that watching him sit at the top of the stairs and consider them for some hours and then finally take the plunge, making sure to put each paw on each step before proceeding was quite the event.

The first state

We only did one day of unpacking so we could have a day of exploring while my brother was still with us.
Our new state is the first state and the second smallest in the country. The east side is all coastline, 117 miles of it to be exact. So we thought we'd go to the beach. Apparently that's what people do here.

Now you can imagine that our desire to drive any distance was limited, so we thought we'd try for the coastline in our county. Just as a reference there are 3 counties in DE and we are in the northernmost. The most popular sandy beaches are in the southernmost, in fact they are about as far away as you can get from our little town and still be in the state--and that's saying a lot. Go ahead look at a map, and come back.

We found a very nice fishing pier with a small stretch of sand. We also found a crab shack that fully embraced both the art of alliteration and homonyms to create a raunchy yet kid friendly atmosphere. Blech. But they did have some very nice patio seating and seafood, which we took as our consolation prize for not going in the ocean. We did see the Atlantic at least, which was enough for Blake.

I want to emphasize that for this place, this is tame

At the pier

We also stopped at a different seafood shop on the way out of town where I bedazzled the staff with my complete ignorance of soft shell crab--"I'm from the PacNW you see, we eat the dungeness kind there" I explained. Meh. Anyway we brought home some soft shell, which I fried up and was delicious but somewhat eerie to behold:

It still looks like a crab.

We also sampled a new restaurant in town that boasted "craft beer"--I think they're still working on their beer menu. IPA fail.

can you spot the error in the IPA?

Joe and I tried again this past Sunday to see about some beach, we traveled through every county (and seemingly every state road--there are a lot here) in our state and instead of going to the most popular beaches, which we had been to before as younger people, we opted for a less claustrophobic setting. It wasn't really a good swimming beach (okay for me!) and there were many rocky spots, but that kind of made it feel like home a bit. We did wade out a bit, me somewhat less than Joe (surprised?) and in the end decided it would be a good place to go if you didn't want to worry about waves and/or excessive amounts of people.

It's about 2 feet deep for a few hundred feet

Joe waded out to the end of the sandbar/ledge/whathaveyou and bathed on the other side, while I sat on the beach in my eternal mental rocking chair.

sand and breeze

Meanwhile, Joe has begun work, so we're sampling his new wares and I am trying to put my office and my fall semester class together. Occasionally we consider unpacking the few remaining boxes that are scattered about.

Onward...

Catch: "WTF"

We sold a house. We packed. We scared the living daylights out of the cats pretty much everyday. Our last two days in the house I work up to this:

I have less of the pillow than he does

Cats huddled all around me, head to toe--perhaps they were afraid we would leave them? Perhaps we were afraid we would leave them? mwahahahahahaha

Joe and I packed the truck in 12 hours (mostly). I channeled my inner dentist (if you know my Dad you will get that joke) and per self-review "was surgical with this shit." I took all our mismatched boxes and found the perfect! home for them.

damn we're in a tight spot?

Joe jigsaw puzzled the furniture

We had excellent help for driving across the country...

Enjoying our last meal to not come from a cooler

...and drive we did. I took exactly one picture of my view, which was pretty steady for the most part, not WY though, WY was stunning)--we did OR to WY on the first day, WY to NE on the second, NE to IN on the third and IN to DE on the last day:

Bug splats and all

Blake and Joe had charge of the cats in the pick-up (saints these men, or demigods) and I drove the moving truck and the trailer (it felt like driving the 12-passenger van for my field class...really really, plus I've done this before--a few times). 

The catmobile

it's longer than it looks...

I had a lot of time to reflect on leaving the place that has really become our favorite. I kept my shit together for exactly 30 minutes of the first day. I had music blaring, the window down, and the whole of the high desert filling up my windows. But after a little bit, the full weight of leaving this place hit me. Maybe it was seeing the mountains in the rear view mirror. And I know we'll be back, maybe not on a permanent basis, but you can't keep me away from that skyline. Some prefer the skyscrapers, I prefer the peaks.

I also decided to claim the PacNW as home, or at the very least as where I'm from when people ask me. Usually I just tell people I'm not from anywhere (which surprisingly goes very poorly for the conversation). I just haven't stayed very long in any of the places I've lived--this of course can be measured at different scales (houses/schools/cities/states/countries), but I grew up a wanderer as part of a military family and it just stuck to me. I view this as a positive thing--I've rarely felt that I couldn't go somewhere or not achieve a goal because of distance. But now I also feel ready to settle down. I know we're not going to just yet (rental housing for one, partnership for the other), but, for example, I am ready to buy pieces of furniture with a specific room in mind, or knowing that I might not have to move it again...despite my many moves I seem to have excellent amnesia about how much packing and unpacking sucks. Or maybe it's just the excitement of a new place that balances it out...

At a rest area on day 1

The drive was, as expected, exhausting. To drive across with minimal stops in four days would tire anybody out, but we did it. In fact I can put it in writing now, since we're here...as far as the "on the road" piece goes, this was the smoothest trip I've done across country (and I've done 9--4 of them as an adult). No traffic, minimal disruption from construction, no accidents, no major roadblocks of any kind. We made it to each of the hotels that I reserved each night, we lost nary a cat, and aside from my spectacular skills with a truck and trailer had very few issues. As an aside, I can now include "backing up 200 feet with car trailer" as part of my skill set (may or may not include furious cursing). At least we didn't have to take the car off (again).

I also have to say (because there has not been enough cat-talk in these posts--cue eye roll) that the cats were not total asshats in the hotels. Which is kind of important, since we needed sleep and energy for the drive the next day, and they needed to shut the hell up and sleep the whole time...catlife is sooooo hard.

Pocket as overlord of the room

We rolled into town on evening #4, picked up our keys on the morning of the 5th day and unpacked the truck (it was very very very hot) in a few hours. Some things took some serious finagling to get into the house--our oversized couch for one, and moving the kegerator (gregerator) is always a delight.

New (old) house!

Our house was built in the 1930s and has had a hodgepodge of updating. So far we all (cats included) love the sun porch, and are trying to figure out how to tolerate the dollhouse-like nature of the upstairs--either people were not tall, or they cared less about hitting their heads all the time in the 1930s.

Made with 100% real unicorn tears

Selling a house is a pain. Add three indoor cats (it's your own fault) and it's a huge pain. It also provided the added benefit of getting to move all of our furniture a couple of times.

Furniture out (to the kitchen, the garage, the back porch, the neighbor's garage--we owe him big) carpet in.

old carpet

making the most of space

sans carpet

Recycled shoe underlay...I can't get away from this brand

Some of the furniture got to come back in for some fantastic staging done by my Mom.

Risa observes the staging

Adult looking house...eh?

Those are real apples. I made them into sauce after.

House for sale, cats (not) included

We also practiced taking the cats out in their new backseat nest. The cats were less than enthused by all of the above.

Pocket was not into the backseat

At all.

But the house is sold. Closing complete. Chapter ended.

And, we still got to take ourselves out on some adventures in Oregon prior to roaring across the states.

This included a couple of sunset dinners, which sound way better than they ended up being...it's windy in the high desert, so after the sun sets it becomes difficult for some people (read: me) to not freeze...yes, even in the summer.

Dining at the only downtown rooftop with dinner

Sun protection + pinot gris

The other was worth the chairlift ride--spectacular view, but thank goodness dinner was inside--far too windy.

Sisters and Brokentop from Bachelor

South Sister from moraine lake

We also adventured apart for a weekend--I saw more of the lakes, and Joe, along with some of our closest friends took to the river.

Lava tube inside later lava flow

Two canoes and four dudes:

Setting out on the Willamette (dammit!)

Setting off, take two

Following that we headed east, where we had planned to hike--hotel--backpack--home and instead hiked-- "hoteled"--got "thunderstormed"--and hot spring bathed instead. Not exactly what we had desired for our outgoing trips, but we saw some beautiful scenery, enjoyed having the hot springs basically to ourselves and generally just relaxing. I'd call it the calm before the storm, but it was already literally storming, so the metaphor loses.

Valley in the Steens

Incoming storm over the Alvord.

It was cold at the summit

Excellent cell reception at the summit...ah nature

We had a lot of time to chat about the move and life, the universe and everything, while also cracking up making jokes about unicorn tears and other silly things, like this cricket. We also started a tally in the dust on the dashboard, but have since forgotten what we were marking...

Eleven and the Coast

At cape lookout

We'd been wanting to visit this place for awhile and meet with the brewer/owner--and seeing a good couple of days without a work shift or house showings we packed up the car and headed to the coast.

Not a bad way to spend the summer solstice.

 








It had been about 9 years since we'd headed to this spot together and it was funny to recreate a similar scene. We even found the same bottle of wine (different vintage) to enjoy on the beach.


We didn't exactly make a "leaving Oregon" list, but we are definitely picking up on places that we've loved in our time here. Nothing wrong with a little sand in the shoes.

Eleven

A lovely view on our walking food tour

walking food tour - plus cops!

I find that my personal Oregon list-making is centered a lot around places that I want to go eat and drink (and be merry...for example). We did a bit of walking tour of town on the eve of our anniversary (no. 11 for wedding and 15 overall) and then settled in on our anniversary proper for an amazing five-course, wine-paired menu at a place we'd often thought of going to but booking a table was always a 30-45 day in advance experience (we took advantage of the fine weather and popped in at opening for non-reservable patio seating). It was exquisite. Also, one of the menu items is now a strong contender (up there with chili-fried ants) for "most unusual" item I've consumed--cow thymus, or cow throat, interestingly enough in the culinary world called "sweetbreads" (sorry, no pictures). It was chicken-fried, which added to our confusion about what the hell we were eating...fry bread? chicken? I don't eat chicken anymore and considered abstaining from the course entirely, but instead I got to puzzle over it. It reminded me of what the puree of chicken parts that goes into nuggets tastes like. The waiter was almost gleeful when he told us what it actually was--I imagine that the shock value goes a long way toward making the night enjoyable for the wait-staff. Either way, new, interesting and now identifiable.

Sunset in the Old Mill, last stop on our walking food tour

At green lakes

We've made a number of plans to keep being outside and exploring activities and places we'd always wanted to while also revisiting others. The July calendar is starting to look like a 3-4 day cycle of: pack car, travel/camp/hike/eat food/enjoy/travel, unpack car, go to grocery store, pet/feed/water cats, repeat. There's something a bit strange in traveling a bunch before setting out on the cross-country drive, but perhaps we can think of it in a "saddle time" kind of way...