My what a busy couple of weeks

I’ve been rather busy over the past couple of weeks. And I’ve loved it!

A couple of weekends ago after returning from a short vacation, I was able to enjoy a fine (and rare) weekend with my girlfriend. Taking advantage of the time and the weather to go for a walk from Portland Hill Walks. We decided to start with the very first walk in the book, which took us from NW Portland along the shores of the long gone Guild’s Lake up into Forest Park, down into the hillside neighborhoods, back up into the park, and finally dropping us off along Balch Creek and Lower Macleay Park. Not only was it a great time, but I was surprised by how much I learned about this area despite many visits in the past.

View of the Waterfront from the Alexandra St Bridge

Mayfair Reservoir #1

Thurman Street as it crosses over Lower Macleay Park & Balch Creek

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The following weekend there was a birthday to celebrate around our apartment. After a long day a work, I took my girlfriend to Biwa, a restaurant we’d been intending to go to since for a while. We had a perfect meal of tsukemono, gyoza, pork belly, and ramen all washed down by shochu. The next night, my girlfriend was greeted by a lemon meringue pie when she got home from work.

Pie. Evidently I made perfect golden peaks

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To wrap up the past couple of weeks, this past weekend was marked by some meat cooking fun. A while ago I came across a recipe for matambre that sounded great. After picking up a cast-iron skillet earlier in the week, I decided that this was going to be the recipe that broke in the new pan.

Accompanied by a salad of homegrown greens and mashed potatoes, it was the perfect meal to wrap up the first sunny and warm (dare I say hot?) Saturday of the year. And for dessert I broke out the ice-cream maker and whipped up a batch of Grapefruit Campari sorbet.

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Wow. That didn’t really seem like that much until I typed it all out, probably because I’ve had so much fun that past couple of weeks. And I got a good start on a number of of my goals. And best of all, it feels as if summer is here.

The first albums I’ve bought in a while and some books I’ve read

A few weekends back I went to my local record store and picked up a couple of new albums: No Color by The Dodos; Tomboy by Panda Bear; and Helplessness Blues by the Fleet Foxes. On first listen I really enjoyed all three. In the week or two that has followed I’ve listened to two of them pretty often at work. I’ll post more on them in a bit.

Not only have I been buying new music, but I’ve also been doing some pretty enjoyable reading as well. While on a quick vacation last week I inhaled Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. While I wasn’t too surprised that I enjoyed the book, I have yet to really let it sink in and am interested to see how much of an impact (if any) it has on the food and meals that I’m eating.
The title is the perfect companion to Pollan’s other works The Omnivore’s Dilemma and to a lesser extent The Botany of Desire. And while I think that he has become somewhat of a layman’s expert on the topic of agriculture and eating, I hope that his next book moves in a new direction and explore another topic. What that topic is I know not, but Pollan has a gift for journalism and I would love to read as he used his gift to explore a new topic.

Additionally, as part of my 30xThirty Project, I’ve put together a pair of page where I’ll be keeping a list of the books I’ve read and the albums I’ve bought. You can find the books here and the albums here.

30xThirty #30 Plant a Terrarium

30) Plant a terrarium

Maye it is just me, but it seems as if terrariums are hot at the moment. To be honest, I’ve never considered myself a trendsetter, nor a trend follower, so I’m not really sure why this appeals to me. I’d rather have a full-sized garden than a mini garden. And in fact, I do have a garden.

So why plant a terrarium?

Most importantly because they look cool. Really, really cool.

Less importantly, because they don’t take up too much room. While I have a pretty spacious living situation at the moment, both indoors and outdoors, I realize that it isn’t permanent. Without thinking too hard I can think of a dozen situations that would result in me leaving this apartment. Maybe the next place would be as posh as this one, but it might also be a quarter of the size and 10 stories off the ground. No matter where I’m living, I will be able to find enough space for a cute little terrarium. And if I do find myself in much more typical urban living situation – no garden, smaller space, etc – it will be really nice to have my own private little self-contained garden.

30xThirty #29 Sew a Bicycle Hat

29) Sew a bicycle hat

I enjoy wearing a bicycle helmet under my helmet. The cute little brim helps keep too much rain, wind, and sunlight from getting behind my glasses and into my eyes. It helps keep my head dry and warm when it is raining. When it is sunny and warmish, the hat both keeps me from burning my head (oh the joys of balding…) and absorbs a fair bit of perspiration. And while the little cotton caps aren’t expensive or hard to find, I’d really like to make one. Partly for the fun of it and partly for an excuse to get somewhat comfortable sewing.

30xThirty #28 Grow Mushrooms

28) Grow Mushrooms

I really like mushrooms. I also find satisfaction by making or growing my own food. And the mushroom grow kits seems to have grown quite popular as of late. So I figure I might as well grow my own mushrooms. I can grow varieties of fungi in my kitchen that they don’t even sell at my local market. Seems like a win/win situation to me.

30xThirty #27 Start an IRA

27) Start an IRA

Sorry that this isn’t a more exciting goal, but it is what it is. When I realized that I’ll be turning 30 it was also a pretty good reminder that I need to make sure that I’m putting away money so that I can (hopefully) retire before I die. Starting an IRA (and making regular contributions) is one way I hope to achieve that goal.

30xThirty #26 Go to a New Restaurant Every Month

26) Go to a new restaurant every month

While I love cooking, I also enjoy being cooked for. And in Portland it seems as if new restaurants are opening (and closing) every month. So why not eat at a new one each month? I’m not talking about going to the hot new place every month and going broke trying to meet this goal. Sure I hope to have a lot of good meals, but there are hundreds of well received carts in this town that I have yet to dine at. So hopefully this will end up being as much an adventure in seeing the city as it will about eating my way through the city. And maybe I can find a good Indian restaurant while I’m at it.

30xThirty #25 90 days without Drinking

25) Go 90 Days Without Drinking

I don’t drink much. And I don’t have any intention to quit drinking in the future. So why do I want to go 90 days without drinking? I don’t really know. I kind of like the idea of it. I also know a number of people who have quit drinking for a variety of reasons. Whenever I think about the idea of quitting, I want to give it a temporary try. 90 days isn’t really that long, but at the same time it is about 10% of the time before my 30th Birthday.

30xThirty #24 30 Weeks without Smoking

24) 30 Weeks without smoking

I’ve been a smoker to varying degrees for over a decade. I wish I knew why I started, but since I started I have always wanted to quit. First it was going to be when I turned 18, then 21. I’ve gone long for months in the past, but I always seem to slip back into it, be it for just a couple here and there to a week of craving a cigarette. To be honest, my real goal is to quit smoking, but I want to first achieve the goal of 30 weeks. After thirty weeks, then another thirty, and so on until I can honestly say that I’ve quit smoking.

30xThirty #23 30 Albums in Thirty Months

23) Buy an album a month

There was a time, long ago, when I would spend hours upon hours listening to music. Usually it was the same album, on repeat, as loud as my mother would tolerate for days on end. I would lay on my bed, listening, staring out the window, and read whatever liner notes the band decided to include until the point where I had practically memorized the album (the music, the lyrics, and the notes). Granted I had a lot fewer responsibilities at the time, so it was easy to find a time to do this, but even now I rarely spend my free time just sitting and listening to music.

I’d like that to change. Or at least I’d like to buy new music to listen to.

There is a great feeling about bringing home a new CD (sorry, I just cannot get into vinyl) , putting it on for the first time, and just watching time disappear. Sometimes something feels off, so I’ll listen again and again until I can figure out what it is that I do and don’t like. And if an album is lucky, at some point in the future something will happen in my life that will inexorably link a song or an album to a memory. Whenever I think of one I cannot help but think of the other.

Unfortunately I feel that I haven’t had a lot of moments like that for a while. And to be honest, I’m kind of a junkie for those moments. Hopefully one of the many outcomes of this goal will be a new library of music for my new experiences to attach themselves to.