Home in Portland 1st stop the Screen Door.

We drove up to Portland Saturday for a little surprise visit to some family and friends we haven't seen for the 6 months that we have been living on the road.  It was so nice to see everyone even if just for a quick trip.  Our very first stop was to have breakfast at the Screen Door. www.screendoorrestaurant.com

This is one of my most favorite places to eat in Portland and I have been missing it. This is saying a lot because there are a ton of really great restaurants! We started with the sticky buns. Wow! is all I can say about that bun of utter love. Honestly, I am not usually a sticky bun kinda gal, but something told be to give it a try and boy am I glad I did. Moist, sticky, gooey, so perfect I swear I could have eaten an entire pan of them. As if that wasn't enough caloric intake for the day, I ordered the corned beef hash with spinach and mushrooms drizzled with a light creole mustard cream sauce. The flavor was outstanding with the mustard sauce really bringing it all together.  Everything was very well balanced and cooked perfectly.  I love my corned beef to be cubed so it gets really caramelized on the grill. 

Chris had the fried chicken and waffles, so how can you go wrong? The chicken is very juicy and  has a crispy spicy crust. You get three HUGE boneless fried chicken breasts and a malted Belgian style waffle.  She dug in before I could get a picture of the presentation so the picture is of it deconstructed. If you order this you will for sure have left overs. The Screen Door is very good and very consistent which is one of the hardest things to find. Yes, there can be a long wait but I have found you either have to get there right when they open or wait until around 11:00 am when the morning rush is starting to thin out.

The food is Southern and the setting is casual. Everything is very fresh, mostly organic and locally sourced. The dinner menu is fantastic as well.  They always have a few really great specials as if what is on the menu is not enough.  They even have a seasonal sides menu (often vegetable dishes and salads) you can add to any of your other menu choices. It is also very vegetarian friendly.  I have been going here for years and the owner always remembers me and says hello even if I haven't been in for a while (6 months just recently). 
 Once you try the Screendoor, I'm sure you'll be a lifetime fan like me!

Rooster stew with frog leg dumplings?

Well I am blogging at 4:00am because I am wide, wide awake! Why you ask? Great question! Well because apparently I am unknowingly in an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom Vacaville CA style. To clarify, there is a rooster behind our campground that is obviously unaware that we are on Pacific Standard Time and is cock-a-doodle-doo’ing to the top of his very well developed lungs about every 5 minutes!  There is also a small pond on the resort and 2 bullfrogs that are having a croak as loud as you can contest or maybe their version of the Voice. Honestly, they must be the size of watermelons, and survived the last ice age with their prehistoric sounding throaty whales back and forth. So alas I am awake...WIDE awake! Normally being a very good, and very hard sleeper I sit here on the couch with envy that Chris (Who normally sleeps with one ear and eye open.) is resting peacefully like a little baby. Which is making me have visions of parading up and down the motor home shaking a tambourine until carpel tunnel sets in.  What does any of this have to do with a food blog? Another great question...Nothing really, just thinking up recipes and a way to incorporate a “Rooster stew with frog leg dumplings” into my cookbook!

Sangria Recipe!

Sangria

Fruit

1 Orange

1 Peach

1 Lime

3 or 4 strawberries (if you like)

Spice

1 chunk/1tsp Crystallized Ginger

Liquids

2 bottles cheap red wine (I use Gabbiano Chianti)

1 cup brandy (substitute bourbon if you like)

½ cup Pimms liqueur

¼ cup Triple sec

Soda (you can substitute ginger ale or 7up if you like it on the sweeter side)

Prepare

Quarter the lime, orange and peach (removing the pit) half the strawberries.

Use half of the lime and orange and save the others for garnish.  Squeeze the citrus juice into your container/pitcher and toss the remains in with it. Then add the entire peach, strawberries and crystallized ginger. Add the wine and other liquids and stir. Let sit for at least 3 hours (overnight is best).

Serve

Serve over ice in tall cooler style glass or mason jar with a “splash” of soda (or to your liking) garnish with orange and lime slices!  (A mint leaf makes it even prettier)  Enjoy!

Audition video for pie town productions for HGTV House Hunters RV edition.

Napa Valley/Update

We are staying in Vacaville CA just outside of Napa and its lovely but hot. Tomorrow we are heading to Napa for food and wine tasting and I am looking really forward to it! Generally things have been going really great and we have continued to get press.  We were told that we were 95% in on the HGTV House Hunters RV edition but haven't heard anything in the past two days but I am sure these things just take time.  I had a great interview/chat with a cookbook publishing company and it got me inspired to blog more. I have gotten in a bad habit of only writing when we get into a new town or leave it. So, I am turning over a new leaf as of today to blog daily!Also, I am going to post our videos of our audition for HGTV and a tour of our motor coach! So look for that in the video section.

Goodbye Salt Lake Hellooo California (again)

Well, we are pulling the anchor and heading back to Cali today! I am excited to get moving again.  Especially, because we are heading West which brings us closer to home.  I have missed you Portland Oregon home of Portlandia (well except for the rain). It will be nice to see my friends again I haven't been home in 6 months. I miss my favorite restaurants like the Screen Door, Country Cat, Lincoln and Pok Pok.
Salt Lake City is a lot cooler than I thought it would be, and has some really great restaurants.  It seems very local as far as community support.  You don't see a lot of chain restaurants or chain anything really. Sure you have your Target and Wal-Mart as an option, but small business is very much in charge here and it shows in their local economy.  I don't know if the Mormon presence plays a part in it or not.  I expect that it does because they are known to be a communally supportive organization. The parks are plentiful and well kept they have a great public transportation system and a lot of construction going on which are all indicators of a strong vibrant community. It just goes to show when you keep your dollar in your community your community benefits not overseas stock holders.  Not to mention it is absolutely beautiful here. If you visit SLC make sure you check out the Sugar House neighborhood, it reminded me a lot of home. We will be back for sure! Thanks Salt Lake!

Chris is getting some attention...

I am proud to announce that Chris has had two magazine articles released recently. I am very proud of her and very proud of us actually making this crazy idea work! It has been a long haul but it is starting to pay off. We made a decision that we wanted to live our lives differently, now we are and are having a blast doing it!

Road Warrior, Stores Magazine: http://www.stores.org/STORES%20Magazine%20June%202011/road-warrior

Living Life to the Fullest, RV Life: http://www.rvlife.com/Digital-Edition/rv-life-digital-edition.html

Tweeting in Twitterland and Urban spooning

Local Chow is now on Twitter. I am a little new at linking all of this stuff so bear with me! It is a HUGE social media world out there! So many great links to cool things and cool people it throws my O.C.D and A.D.D into overdrive at warp speed! I also am starting to write some reviews on Urbanspoon so check that out as well! It is all under Local Chow.  Hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day! We are in SLC Utah and it has been cold and rainy for 2 days.  I have secretly been enjoying it after months of sunshine and 80 degree weather. I am still an Oregonian and I and just not used to all of that sunshine! So we stayed in and I made a root vegetable beef stew with Guinness beer and watched movies it was perfect and delish!

Zion and ostrich eggs

We are right at the base of the Zion National Park in Virgin Utah. It is a breathtaking place. We are headed to the park today for some hiking and sightseeing. I am looking forward to sharing some pictures of our trip on FB.  Its funny that I have no cell service but there is what appears to be an organic grocery store up the road a just few miles. I was on a bike ride the other day and drove by an ostrich farm where you could buy fresh ostrich eggs.  I have never had an Ostrich egg and quite frankly I have a little weirdness about eggs in general. They have always kind of given me the creeps. So, I cant imagine eating one the size of a cantaloupe. Anyway, I will post more on this later. Happy Memorial Day!

Interesting info...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eatingwell/natural-meat-myths-busted_b_852541.html

Phoenix AZ

Joe's Farm Grill

This place is so cool! We went here several times while we were in Phoenix AZ. It was featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives! The food was unbelievably fresh and local and organic. Most everything is grown on the premises at their own 10 acre farm or locally sourced from other farmers in AZ. I had the pulled pork huevos rancheros and Chris had to BBQ ribs and waffle on our first trip there.  The BBQ chicken pizza is amazing as are the onion rings!
http://joesfarmgrill.com/

The Duce

We stumbled upon this place on the way to a Diamond Backs baseball game. We were looking for parking and I saw their cool sign. We went in and were totally blown away.  Upon entering there was a vintage clothing store and behind that a boxing ring with classes going on.  Around the corner from that a 1940's bar will a long list of organic vintage cocktails.  Beyond that was an large outdoor patio with an old travel trailer that is being used as an outdoor kitchen.  There is a Southern feel and Southern menu serving breakfast and lunch during our "brunch" a local band strolled in and started playing. It was super cool and I highly recommend stopping in.
http://www.theducephx.com/

Well...I'm in love

Well this is a little late but still needs to be shared. (from March)

So, we went to East L.A. today to visit a couple of pharmacies and one of the appointments fell through so we decided to grab a quick lunch. I have been wanting to hit the Nom Nom food truck which if you don't know, they were the winner of the Great Food Truck race on the Food Network. They specialize in Vietnamese street food with a twist. We both got a Banh Mi` which is basically a Vietnamese sandwich. The link below shows a diagram. http://nomnomtruck.com/banhmi/

I have to say; it was on of the most wonderful sandwiches I have ever had in my life and I am pretty sure I will dream of it for the rest of my life. It is the perfect balance of flavors and texture. The adventure begins with a light crisp perfectly soft bakery fresh baguette, then just a touch of cilantro, followed by a carrot diakon radish slaw with a touch of vinegar, below that, is the love of all loves...spiced, grilled honey glazed pork (its ridiculously tender yet crispy and delicious) as if it needs anything else below that are long thin slices of fresh crisp cucumber, to add a touch of heat some fresh thinly sliced jalapenos and just a touch of mayonnaise. Crisp, spicy, savory, sweet, tart and well just sheer perfection! As I said, I am in love and will be sure to find them again and enjoy that bliss before we leave this area. Past that I know it will be a lifetime craving that I will try to fill however I can.

So ya, Its been awhile...

Well as you may have noticed I haven't been blogging much...I guess I have sort of been caught up in the lifestyle change of living on the road and all.  Chris's work has been very busy and I have been doing some traveling to pharmacies with her.  We are still in Newport Beach CA.  Chris has a few friends from college in the area that we have been hanging out with. So, I haven't been cooking all that much. Honestly, I haven't been all that impressed with our dining experiences to write about them.  Which is sort of surprising you would think with all of the big money here and all the the "hype" about food that you would find a lot of cool places.  I suppose I am somewhat of a food snob being from Portland OR where we have so many great places.  Down here there seems to be a lot of "glam" with no "bam"! We had sushi twice since we have been here and both places put Krab in our roll...Yes that is crab with a "K"...ew. We ordered a roll because I wanted to sort of play it safe. Its one thing to eat that as a choice but to not announce that is is fake? Well, that is just wrong. Anyway, The food is pretty with no flavor or real thought.  There is one place called Sol Cocina www.solcocina.com/ its pretty good and has a great happy hour within walking distance. We should be heading to San Diego soon and I am hoping to fair better there. Other than that things have been going great and we are loving the nice weather and beautiful surroundings. The RV lifestyle has been fantastic and if you can find anyway to make it a part of your World I highly recommend it!

Moss Landing CA...

We have spent the past 3 weeks in Moss Landing CA. This is located about 15 min North of Monterey CA and 30 min South of San Jose CA. We just loved it here!  It is a very small fishing village surrounded by farms, mostly artichokes.  There were many farm stands as well as the catch of the day right out our door.

Phils Fish Market http://www.philsfishmarket.com/ is right down the street.  This place is best known for its Cioppino, Throwdown with Bobby Flay! We ate there a couple of times and liked it overall. Nice atmosphere other than it’s a bit too "family friendly" for me. So there are tons of kids screaming and running around everywhere.  There was a cool four man bluegrass band playing on heated covered patio.  The food was good, casual and comforting.  There is little service mostly you just order at a counter and sit down with a number on your table. On our second visit, we found it was better to sit at the bar.  The famous Cioppino is a little expensive but you get a lot of bang for your buck, the portions are huge and loaded with fresh local seafood that comes in on the boats right literally across the street. Overall I think if you don’t walk in with huge unrealistic expectations because the Food Network was there you will for sure leave satisfied. Oh, and the caramel cheesecake was pretty awesome!

Has true hospitality been toasted?

I am WAY behind on my updates on this and I have A LOT to share with you all. We have had a ton of things going on to make this transition of our lives happen. We have purchased the RV (The one below that I posted the pictures of on here a few months ago.) and have been living on the road fulltime for the past few weeks and it's great! We are super happy and very excited to get to our next stop. I will certainly get back to that in a bit. But, I wanted to touch on the subject of Hospitality in the food/coffee/wine industry. We eat out quite a bit and tend to tip big and rack up a pretty good size bill. Between the two of us for dinner and drinks our average tab is around $70 to $80. Also, I would consider myself a patient person and sure most of you that know me would agree…almost to a fault. When we go out to eat we don't expect the staff to welcome us with a hug and jump up and down with excitement or anything. However, we have noticed that with the food, restaurant/coffee shop "trend" there are a lot of places popping up that have very cool creative local organic concepts and I am all about supporting in them with my money. But I will tell you what, I don't care if you have the BEST food or coffee on the planet, if your service isn't good and your staff is not at least somewhat friendly enough to act like they enjoy their job on some level. We will never return. I would rather have good service with mediocre food any day of the week, than great food served by people that think they are too cool to be courteous and pleasant. I hate to sound like and ageist but honestly I find it with younger 20 to 30ish folks. Maybe they grew up with so much technology based interactions, that they didn't develop adequate social skills or something I don't know. I don't find that I experience this as often (but have) at established "fine dining" places such as Wildwood, Lincoln, Pazzo or Nostrana. Typically, and unfortunately it is a places that are great conceptually that I would honestly like to support and help succeed. Toast in SE Portland one of these places for example. I have tried it twice, hoping that the first time I just had pulled a bad card. Super cute place, great menu concept, and pretty good food (not great) but the service, is super-duper lame. I also seem to experience this same service in several coffee shops around town. There almost seems to be a cocky, quiet, reserved, arrogance that goes with it (Particularly in the Hawthorne/Alberta / Mississippi District). It seems like that crowd that is like…"I'm so cool in my grungy, artsy, alternativeness that I don't need to have manors or any kind of customer service etiquette". Again, I'm just saying… smile and say hello with some eye contact and be polite. Don't act like the customers are an inconvenience and your time is so damn precious. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old or becoming a snob. I hate to just pick on one place I have experienced in several places in Portland, Seattle and Bend. It seems to be happening a lot more often and my fear is that I will have to spend $80 for dinner every time we go out to get decent service. I was just curious of what your thoughts are on this and what you have experienced out there. I don't want to turn this blog on a negative note, but I have heard it from other people too. I would especially like to hear from my friends in the industry.
Thanks all,
B

Eat Wild!

Here is a really cool link....This is your source for safe, healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles...There is a lot of great info here to find great resources to healthier eating.
http://www.eatwild.com/

UW Lecture Series...Food: Eating Your Environment

My friend Kari shared this on FB and it looks like a really cool lecture series.  We are going to attend the lecure on October 19 - "Food Politics: Advocacy for Social Change" Speaker: Marion Nestle - Paulette Goddard Professor, New York University
There are several others that sound really cool.  I wish I could go to them all.  They are free so if you're interested you should really check it out.
https://go.washington.edu/uwaa/events/2010food_lecture/details.tcl?ref=nfcture/details.tcl?ref=n

Slow Food

This is an organization that politically advocates for sustainable healthy food. I have attached a video in my video section for you to check out.  If you visit their website they also have a petition you can sign too help put tighter regulations in place to help prevent the poor and unsafe farming practices that are running of  control. slowfoodusa.org

UPDATE:Our journey is near!

I set the stage in my description of this blog and then, I sort of just started posting to this blog just about some local restaurants in Portland that I enjoy to get familiar with it. But the real focus is on our upcoming RV journey everywhere USA. So I just wanted to give a quick update on where we are on that.

We had a huge garage sale back in June and sold over 1/2 of everything we own. The rest we kept to stage the house and got a storage unit for keepsakes and such. I have to say that it was a great feeling to purge stuff. You don’t really realize how much crap you really have. When you make a decision to change your life and embark on a journey like this, it really offers you the opportunity to look at "stuff" differently. What you need, what you don’t, why you have been keeping it, storing it, shuffling things around for years…that type of thing. I mean, what do I really need? Granted, I like to have nice things and be comfortable. I certainly don’t claim to be Gandhi or some sort of live off the land kind of gal or anything. (As much as I admire it, it certainly wouldn’t be for me). We are purchasing a 40’ diesel pusher RV and towing a car behind it for God sake. I’m just saying how many cookie sheets do I really need? How many sauce pans and little dishes for olives and spreads and what not? It is completely ridiculous really. I honestly think we sold like 5 shovels. I mean what the Hell it isn’t like we run a landscaping business or anything. It just seems to happen. Well I am here to tell you it feels great to look around your life and really decide what you really need, really don’t and PURGE it. Other people are so happy to have it too. It’s almost as if it gets reborn and reenergized. Oh, by the way, I hate having a garage sale. I swear I will never collect enough again to warrant having another one. For the record, there were a few things I wondered if I really wanted to get rid of but did, and I haven’t missed them at all.

Since then, we have been prepping the house to put on the market. It was really tough in this particular market as you can probably imagine. The chances of getting any real return on your investment are slim to none. So mostly we just did the things to separate our house from the pack. A fresh coat of exterior paint, some interior paint, power washed the driveway and some refreshed landscaping ETC…Well, needless to say, it worked! We got an offer after 5 weeks on the market. We went through the inspection phase and now we are waiting on the appraisal to come back with fingers crossed. Soon we will be ready to move into this, or something very similar…

 

This is a 2010 40’ Itasca Meridian. We have not purchased it yet because we are waiting for the house deal to go through. But as soon as it does we will be on our way. The funniest part of this whole RV thing? Neither Chris nor I have even been RVing much less driven one. (Well my dad rented one when I was really little in about 1976 but I don’t really remember much.) Oh fear not we are going to purchase a video camera and shoot some videos for your and our enjoyment. It should be quite comical and entertaining. But for now we will just have to sit and hold our breath and hope the appraisal comes back favorably!