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absolution @ 2016-12-20T15:22:00

2016-12-20T21:23:02Z

holy shit even my filters like "humans only" work now, whut

fume: serge lutens' la myrrhe

2014-09-11T19:39:07Z

opening smells eerily just like the powdery thick dark green latex dental dams i spent hours breathing through as a little kid from a non-fluridated-water-supply-country adopted into the US, stuck in a dentist's chair for what felt like half my youth (he even wrote academic papers about my progress!). it's not a terrible evocation or anything, but not one i'd seek out either. huh.

fume: dior's eau sauvage

2014-08-27T18:35:53Z

i wasn't expecting much because this class of perfume, the kind that's bright, light, and citrusy for daytime in the summer, tends to underwhelm me (and i downright disliked a lot of the similar citrusy stuff from hermes). but it smells GREAT--that pine-y rosemary mixed in with the citrus and (very present and bracing, yay) lavender really gives it that added something that makes it special. only problem is, like most of these sorts of perfumes, it doesn't last long at all. but if it wasn't for the longevity issue, i'd be all over this for summer especially given it fulfills a niche in an area that's sorely barren for me because i don't like most summery scents.

still waiting for a few samples of some of the supposedly more unusual or true-to-life woody or aromatic aquatics and greens (stuff like sel marin, figuier, l'homme de coeur, kenzo pour homme), to see if i can find something i like for summer besides steely iris stuff. if that works out pretty soon i'll have a definitive list of my favorite perfumes, broken down for any occasion.

i've also determined given i live in a perfume shop wasteland when it comes to walk-ins, reformulation is just a shitty shady thing marketing-wise (nordstrom's and all of those places pretty much lied to my face in email about the whole 2013 edp version of mitsouko which really turned me the hell off), and gray market online retailers have been a total bust for me, i'm just going to have to resign myself to giving up the glamor of bottle designs of my more obscure absolute favorites and just buy the biggest size decants from sampling spots i trust that label different versions honestly (mainly the perfumed court and surrender to chance). so i'll have some little spray bottle decants that all look alike, which is kind of a bummer, but at least they'll actually smell like they're supposed to, having been stored and cared for properly. grumble grumble.

absolution @ 2014-08-14T00:28:00

2014-08-14T05:28:23Z

it was insolence, the edp, that's what it was that smelled like purple dimetapp to me. (also, i tried midnight poison before bed the other night and was very "eugh"...i'm not having much luck so far with non-niche, designer stuff, alas...the summery hermes stuff i've sampled so far hasn't been awful but at best unremarkable. and i've never liked any of the chanels i've tried, though i hear good things about the exclusifs line. and i'm still holding out hope for dior's dune.)

also, tonight i sampled nasomatto's hindu grass and the opening is intensely like novacaine or going to the dentist's or numbing agents to me, whoa.

fume: guerlain's mitsouko

2014-08-11T23:53:55Z

hasty, hopping in while trying to make dinner and after 48 hours of not enough sleep. but i have to say something here to myself about this!

damn, where do i start with this one. so shalimar blew me away early on in this most recent bout of fragrance sampling. and i totally fall for the guerlain hype in general, finding the old bottles and nearly 150 year all-in-the-family pedigree and historical context for their most famous stuff glamorous indeed, in a world with little of that left in the mainstream. of course, i'm late to the party and the family sold the thing to moet henessy louis vuitton or whatever, and much reformulation and the cheesy contemporary touches like flankers and whatnot has occurred in the last 10 or so years, alas. supposedly LVMH got wise to the whole "buying a revered name, gutting it in hopes noone will notice because it's just perfume, profit!" not working in this case, and some better faith re-reformulation has been going on in the last 2 years. i ramble about this in the most facile way just to give background to how dizzying falling for guerlain in general as a historical concept only to be disappointed the more i learned in these breathless last couple months has been. and the "guerlain-ade" or whatever 'fumers call it, that "a ha!" recognizable foundation in so many of their major works, didn't seem to be working for me--it's not that it isn't lovely, because it is in an old fashioned way, but it just wasn't for me. vol de nuit was just so overwhelmingly old fashioned POWDER and l'heure bleue has that vaguely toilet-and-toilet-cleaner thing real florals so often have to me...so by the time i got around to this i wasn't expecting to fall in love. i figured it'd be like the others aside from shalimar (which i love but is hard to wear in everyday life), where i'd admire them, recognize them as "lovely", while immediately sensing i am not.

and it seemed that way at first. i still get a vaguely blue-toilet-i-can-tell-should-be-flowers-and-probably-is-for-normal-folk thing at the top, and some powder, but neither aspect comes close to being at the dealbreaker levels of vol de nuit and l'heure bleue. also, especially with vol de nuit i felt like maybe i could've gotten over the powder if there'd been something else there to love, but i couldn't find anything else. here, the opening has those things i don't care for but muted, and furthermore, as it goes on the changes are astonishing, yet never brash or cinematic "notice me". the whole thing stays subdued, subtle throughout, yet uncannily emotionally powerful. i was surprised and pleased, hours after putting it on and noticing the way it would silently shift over and over every time i sniffed my elbow, saying to Robert "this perfume is making me sad but i like it!", to find other reviewers online describing it as melancholy, a rainy-blue-day-mood-type thing, introverted but poignant, and--maybe my favorite--"if someone asked me what a perfume meant to smell like ghosts would be, it'd be this". yes! it's not anything like amouage opus vii (so green and brash at first then quietly, after everyone's left the party, stunning), but the powerful way they both can make one feel intensely but the emotion itself is a private, subdued sadness sort of thing, is remarkable. opus vii is a top 3 perfume for me, and of my top 3 it's the most unusual in that it can do that, alter my mood in a way that seems negative but isn't, that feels true, honest. mitsouko has the same shocking-but-quiet power too, but without the bandit-like bold posturing brassiness--it isn't confident at all (not insecure either though--more like it's too wrapped feeling what it feels to even be aware of the outside world or how it comes across to it), it's just depth and blue memory, wallowing and a faint sort of invisibility song. it's for feelings you get once in a while alone that most of the time you have to push aside to get around in the modern universe. but deep down, they're still there hanging out alone, even if 99% of the time forgotten or ignored. it's the feeling of having something beautiful then life-alteringly sad happen to you, and going about your life because you have to, but more subdued forever in a subtle, not-noticeable-to-the-naked-eye way, a little dented, part of you meanwhile permanently stuck in a quiet place alone feeling everything that past life did to you, over and over in the forest clearing that's the inner chambers of the heart/head (in this regard, it reminds me a little of why that pj harvey song "silence" kills me sometimes). no one can tell except you what you've been through and remember. contrary to the gloss of motivational posters, it makes you a little fainter, softer, slighter. but immovable.

i LOVE it. i haven't been this obsessed or haunted by a perfume since...well, maybe ever. opus vii is much more contemporary and the mood itself isn't exactly the same one. but they both create a moody atmsophere for me like no other perfumes have, and they just so happen to be moods i know so fuggin' well. they are like long lost kin, and i feel most like myself when i smell them. now to do the running around hassle of figuring out which exact formulation i sampled, and how/if i can order more.

i wonder what julie doucet and lynda barry would say

2014-08-11T19:03:52Z

otherwise, they included so many of the biggies i'm impressed.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristenradtke/draw-naked

"Comics has been the perfect medium for capturing discomfort that is very real but isn’t visible to others."

"I wanted to depict my bipolar moods in a visceral way — for myself and for the reader — so I drew myself loopy, stark, realistic, cartoony, abstracted, in ink, pencil, polished, sketchy… Embodying and externalizing my feelings in the self-portraits, when I really nailed them, was truly cathartic."

"I want to see women’s bodies portrayed in a non-gratuitous, nonobjectified, honest way… I think it’s important to see women in comics who are not commodities or sex objects, but complex humans with their own desires, hungers, lust, and love."

"What bothers me about women’s bodies I see in many comics is that they seem so removed from the woman herself. Their primary function is to be on display for the reader… This is bad not just from a ‘that’s sexist’ standpoint, but from a storytelling one as well."

"We need women’s bodies in our stories, having sex and getting our periods and eating food and doing whatever bodies do, so that the things our bodies do are normalized and present — so that boys don’t grow up thinking women are gross or whores or pigs or any other horrible epithet."

"I look forward to the time when honest depictions of women’s bodies are a normal thing to look at, instead of some kind of statement."

"It’s challenging to be any kind of female in this world, and it’s challenging to be any kind of cartoonist… Women need to create comics or our realities will be erased, ignored, or distorted."

"You are asking a middle-aged female if an industry, which traditionally supports and advances the ethos of primarily young white males, has presented challenges to her in the almost 40 years she’s been producing comics. Where do I start?"

"There are so few opportunities to see non-heterosexual and female-centered depictions of sex… As a gay person, I know firsthand the despair that comes from believing you’re the only one, of not being able to imagine having a sex life — because you haven’t seen it."

absolution @ 2014-08-10T00:15:00

2014-08-10T05:15:08Z

http://ask.metafilter.com/266452/Smells-that-dont-exist-anymore-or-are-harder-to-find-in-real-life

timely as this sort of thing's been on my mind lately due to dabbling in perfume and the frustrations of reformulation, banned materials/structures, etc. plus that sloppy but well intentioned sound archive one's been making the rounds.

are there any sounds or smells one doesn't encounter much if at all anymore that you miss? i'd love to hear about them from friends.

fume: yves saint laurent's m7

2014-08-09T17:21:39Z

infamous m7 ad campaign, you alright!

definitely an "only late at night privately before bedtime in the middle of a cold dark winter" deal, so no full bottle status for me...but i think it gets at the kind of oud i like. it's not the kind that smells dirty to me but dry and smoky. it's surprisingly sweet, tobacco-y, woody, heavy, and resinous, not unlike tobacco vanille in heft and longevity and "everybody around you better be on board with this!" presence. it's not that it projects that far so much as IF you're close enough to smell it, you will REALLY smell it...once sniffed, it's strong. it's like a masculine dessert perfume, dark and heavy but sweet with hints of my favorite herbs (rosemary, a little oregano, yep). it's going on my list of "buy samples of these again come winter for evening-at-home enrichment", of the "sipping brandy for pleasure after dinner" kind. little experiences.

found my mascot in demy's "donkey skin" of all places

2014-08-08T16:57:18Z

MISS GLUMCAKES, NO OCCUPATION. I doubt it's even worth trying...I told you so.

fume: serge lutens' sarrasins

2014-08-06T21:04:55Z

serge lutens sarrasins on the other hand...immediately at the top it smelled eerily like a portajohn, right down to the chemical blue aspect layered over sweet waste product, plus the nearby flowers and river/pond in the background as portajohns tend to be in nature spots like hiking trails, parks, etc. i couldn't get past that. i can vaguely see how one might, but i've always for whatever reason been super sensitive to the "flowers kind of smell like sweet shit and that's nauseating" indolic thing. ah well. as a plus, the pumped up purple hue of the juice won't be staining anything of mine.

i sampled something else a couple nights ago that smelled to me just like the grape dimetapp my mom was constantly spooning in me as a kid. i think it was lutens too...hm. will have to go look and edit this.

fume: yves saint laurent's rive gauche

2014-08-06T20:40:03Z

or, sometimes marketing works

wearing rive gauche today! great example of how perfume is more than the explicit sensory experience in the moment merely insta-personal and devoid of background, that it can have a history and story, evocation of things far beyond smell or romantic notions of a single person and their individuality. i knew on the face of it it wouldn't be for me--i don't like powdery aldehydes, lemon, or roses in perfume--but i also have heard enough about how it was, as these things go, iconic, "revolutionary", encapsulating a wave of women going to work after the social and political upheavals of the '60s (you know i like the name, though what it conjures seems more like the stimulus, the proto-era whereas the perfume is the eventual result...the finished product is not of the name but after it), that whole "brush off the old world's romanticized baroque ornamentation and softened edges; soon you'll be able to wear pants even!" thing. right down to the ad campaign and wonderful packaging (its smart, practical, but very zingy case instantly makes me think of a certain '70s tennis wear piping primary blues and greens aesthetic; my mom had a simple bright blue with white trim vinyl hand bag from then that later i inherited to play with and this perfume's look and smell transports me to sniffing at the bottom of it as a kid in the mid '80s) and indeed the bright-powdery (it's not a musty dusky rosy type of powder AT ALL), "fresh"-but-dated (dated in the particular way things people think of as modern from decades ago are), comfortingly nostalgic but yeah, not romantic smell. and yet it's definitely "feminine" somehow, just for sure a certain kind of feminine that one doesn't usually associate with perfume's general old fashioned sweeping melodrama marketing copy. it's feminine the way Candace Bergen wearing a white oxford shirt and khaki trousers and a sweater wrapped around her shoulders might be (i doubt i'm explaining well). a lot of fans a bit older than i am talk fondly of how this is the smell of their mom, an office working or career woman (!), from back then. reassuring and competent, busy, no-nonsense but still maternal. proof perfume can work magic in layered, context-significant, complex ways.

i didn't think i'd say this but i would like some, perhaps a modest decant, to have around less as a personal fashion statement projecting outward than as a ticket anytime i want to an inward journey of a certain era and industrial-modern-now-lost feeling, of safety and optimism, when you were little in the '70s and '80s and liked going downtown hand in hand with your mother, gawking at huge government buildings towering over you, being excited about the space program and thinking TV ad campaigns were charming, not annoying...that sense of curiosity/wonder and trust you still had in institutions, business, world commerce, the workplace, social movements, whatever. before disillusionment with that model of modernity. it's an optimistic smell, that's it. optimistic we could just cut the bullshit of pre-'68-and-'69 traditions out and by '71 that would be that, the world would be new and great, brimming with possibility and newfound capability.

absolution @ 2014-07-30T19:40:00

2014-07-31T00:40:58Z

killing time at the mall after lunch, learning that holy shit, miss dior is not for me. i have never been so repulsed by a perfume. it reminded me a little of those powdery european fruit candies, once the top note of apple pie gone bad dissipated. eek.

absolution @ 2014-07-23T18:04:00

2014-07-23T23:04:04Z

sampled interlude man yesterday, now wondering if i'm ever going to not smell like it ever again. :b it is as powerful as all the warnings said, and i'm such a subtaster/smeller/sense person in general that even monsters like shalimar, le baiser du dragon, epic man, and tobacco vanille didn't faze me--this is the first perfume i've put on where i'm like "even though i like it will i ever be free of it?!"

meanwhile, still madly smitten with l'air du desert marocain to the point i found myself googling tauer interviews on youtube. discovered he is like a tidier, cuter alton brown with a swiss accent. adorable. so now my crush has even more vectors.

kinda bad timing with perfume mail--got samples i've been dying to try for months now of a lot of the great weirder notorious classics (stuff like bandit, rochas femme, black, knowing, insolence edp, habit rouge, knize ten, kouros) a day AFTER trying l'air. and i still am excited to try them, but i'm also like "how the hell am i ever going to wean myself off l'air long enough to sample anything else?" part of me truly can't fathom ever wanting to smell like anything else ever again. read a woman on the fragrantica boards describing her similar fate before me, and how she wound up buying 6 bottles all at once and has had no regrets and will reorder soon. gah.

absolution @ 2014-07-22T11:08:00

2014-07-22T16:09:00Z

holy smokes, no matter what else happens today is going to be a great day because i have finally tried l'air du desert marocain and it is everything i could have dreamed of and more. i have never huffed at my elbow like a maniac over and over before, but there's no way to show any restraint with this one. i have found 3, maybe 4 "could definitely see wanting a full size bottle and calling it Mine" signature-possible perfumes so far, but of course there's always something fiddly about each one preventing me from pulling the trigger--too rich literally and figuratively (amouages), too bizarrely impossible to obtain (fumerie turque, alas), too seasonal and i didn't plan ahead wisely (comme des garcons 2). but this. i think i may just stop everything and order a bottle of this posthaste.

it reminds me of our road trip through the southwest, there's a clarity and vast blue skied clean-yet-dusty/sandy (almost sagebrush) BIG SPACE quality to it yes, but also those warm sweet spices i tend to gravitate toward. but the combo of the dry dustiness and big open sky sort of feel with those spices sets it apart which is no small feat considering as much as i lean towards warm spicy oriental perfumes i recognize the same-y tired "does there really need to be thousands of these" thing. and also keeps it from being strictly a late night winter bedroom thing, which is the other problem with them for me now given i live in memphis (but just can't bring myself to do grapefuit, nope). it's the frame i'm used to, that anything i'd consider really "Mine" would have to at least quote, but yeah, put into a huge open blue sky, the sort of summer heat that makes the air have a sparkly sound to it, the aural equivalent of seeing stars when you smash your eyelids closed. ohhhh.

EDIT/update: done! fastest nose to bottle to clicking "confirm order" ever i reckon. makes getting 2 falling through not at all sad anymore, but weirdly ideal.

ubar

2014-07-19T21:57:08Z

gosh darn it but do i love me some amouage. i didn't think there was a white floral on earth i could love but you did it--not sweet, almost bitterly green at times, and admittedly initially with a hint of mosquito repellent, but worth it for that big, beefy/meaty fresh dewy rose and animal skankified jasmine. so big, so powerful, and not a whit prissy. warm too, not a cold fragrance, and not at all musty/dusty. floral perfume for a girl with an honest tan and uncombed, knotty sea-wet hair in the heat wave of summer. love love.

absolution @ 2014-07-18T17:34:00

2014-07-18T22:34:14Z

making heritage frosting for the first time ever tonight, to cover a chocolate layer cake filled with raspberry jam (Robert talked me down from going weird/nuts and doing a thin layer of habanero jam instead) and ganache for R's birthday. wish me luck! if it works out (it's been so long since i did anything remotely ambitious when it comes to what i jokingly refer to as "structural baking"--layers and frosting usually have me running, especially now that i'm here in the land of ruthless heat and humidity) i might get weird and do a belated classic golden butter layer cake (shirley corriher's with some minor blogosphere tweaks) with franken-buttercream (cook's illustrated's via chowhound) and sprinkles for my birthday. and that doesn't even include Julie's donut cake (and that new raspberry cake, ooooh), which i almost must make sometime soon, ack. CAKE ON THE BRAIN ALWAYS YES. it's been a while.

fume: cartier's le baiser du dragon

2014-04-17T00:42:57Z

This is another one courtesy Kate's recommendation. The copy for it doesn't sound quite my style--kinda old school classical and a little romantic/medieval--but let's give this a whirl!

Immediately it smells "perfume"-y, the way when you're very little and you go in to hug your grandma at an evening holiday party, when she's clad in a mink stole because that was still cool then and waxy lipstick and powder and hairspray and real pearls or gold jewelry, you get a whiff of her perfume. It's like that. Classic older lady who likes to have fun perfume. There's flowers and make up powder, lots of powder. But there's this edge of smoke and citrus too, even at the top, that keeps it from being boring or too prissy. It smells like her make up drawer, the tubes of lipstick encased in gold--waxy and a little warm, woody in a cedar chest way. Definitely smell the amber, musk, and benzoin that structures it all, feels like a very classic base composition. The amaretto and bitter almond aren't as strong as I was afraid they'd be, and the alcohol aspect of the amaretto isn't a burning fume type, which is a relief. I feel like I'm back in a wood-paneled '60s basement bar and the grown up relatives are all dolled up and smoking and drinking while I play with my toys on the retro carpet. And the old school oriental profile makes me think of my paternal grandmother's living room, how opulent and over-the-top to the point of cheesy it was, with floor to ceiling mirrorerd panel walls and gold lion statues and big Asian vases and gilt everywhere. This is made of good fuzzy faraway memories of women in my family who have been long gone.

ETA: the drydown on this is superb with my chemistry, sexy and intense but sitting closer to the skin, animalic without becoming full on boudoirish. My cat, who seems obsessed with smells of any kind (she oughta become a perfume nose!), was rather fond of this one. And the longevity is one of the most impressive I've tried of late--I put it on at 2pm yesterday and can still smell it now, 23 hours later. It did give my bedsheets a faint BO odor early this morning, but everything that came before made it worth it, and by the time that starts in it's almost time to shower anyway...

more sloppy notes of our Pacific Northwest trip, stuff by day

2013-06-14T04:07:15Z

schedule/events by day

Monday June 3rd (fly into Seattle late, get car rental and hotel squared away by midnightish):
-Canon

Tuesday June 4th:
-Portage Bay Cafe
-Pike Market/Pioneer Square/Wall of Sound shopping etc.
-Paseo Caribbean
-university area, book store
-Maritime Pacific Brewing Company’s Jolly Roger Taproom
-Alki Beach Park
-Ma’Ono Fried Chicken and Whiskey
-Caffe Vitta

Wednesday June 5th:
-Macrina Bakery (breakfast as well as park food)
-ferry to Bainbridge Island
-Sequim (pick berries for park food), Port Angeles, Forks en route to Olympic National Park: Hoh Rainforest, Mora (Rialto Beach)

Thursday June 6th:
-Olympic National Park: Kalaloch (Ruby Beach, the numbered coastline beaches), Lake Quinault Rainforest
-Lardo
-first Thursday Art Walk, Museum of Contemporary Craft, strolling Pearl District, Chinatown, and Downtown
-live band karaoke Mefi meetup at Tiger Bar
-Ground Kontrol

Friday June 7th:
-Tasty n Sons, strolling Williams neighborhood
-shop (The Meadow, comic shop, music shop, Control Voltage, Powell’s, etc.)
-Lan Su Chinese Garden
-tried to do Tanuki and did Country Cat instead
-Mount Tabor neighborhood, Mount Tabor Park cinder cone at dusk
-Sapphire Hotel

Saturday June 8th (possibly my favorite day just because I couldn’t get over how perfectly everything went and what a full day it was):
-Veritable Quandary early al fresco brunch, city getting ready for Rose Festival Parade
-PSU Saturday Farmers Market for picnic provisions
-Washington Park (International Rose Test Garden with afternoon picnic, Japanese Garden, Hoyt Arboretum, glimpsed some of the 4T trail)
-Mother Foucault’s
-Laurelhurst neighborhood, Millennium Music
-Ava Gene’s
-Townshend’s Tea
-attempt at walking Eastbank Esplanade, attempt at visiting abruptly shut down Beaker and Flask, Green Dragon
-Potato Champion, Whiffie’s Pies
-naked bike night!

Sunday June 9th:
-Broder Cafe for Scandinavian breakfast before a day of nature stuff...initially tried to go to Screen Door but the wait looked too long (and had me thinking of Portlandia of course). I’m actually glad it worked out this way instead--we can get Southern-y breakfast any time but not delicious aebleskiver, lingonberry jam, and smoked trout hash with beets. And yeah, the bloody mary was the best ever. Also let us see yet another cool neighborhood, felt more like older more established folks with some visible gay presence.
-attempt at Larch Mountain, Columbia River Gorge including the various waterfalls via the Old Historic Highway
-Pok Pok
-peeped into Branch and decided it wasn’t our thing, Salt and Straw ice cream, Alberta neighborhood
-Bailey’s Taproom
-Ground Kontrol redux!

Monday June 10th:
-Jam on Hawthorne
-Oregon Pacific coastline from Astoria to Arcadia Beach to Manzanita
-Toro Bravo
-Secret Society
-White Eagle Saloon and Hotel

Tuesday June 11th:
-Portland Penny Diner
-Blue Star and Coco Donuts packed to go for the island
-Cathedral Park and Sauvie Island
-attempt at Tanuki, peep-ins at Laurelhurst Market and Ox before deciding we were done with hip dinners, Grain and Gristle
-R visited his high school band friend and I packed and planned our return home, a relatively relaxing evening

Wednesday June 12th:
-Pine State Biscuits
-Bunk Sandwiches packed to go for the flight
-layover in Salt Lake City which made for an incredible view, a little late getting in, home around 11pm, unable to sleep until nearly 4am!

sloppy repetitive and inconsistent diary-type notes on our Pacific Northwest trip

2013-06-14T03:27:30Z

ack it's so badly organized and so much to rememeber!

in Seattle:
-Canon--I couldn’t get over how nice they were given it’s, you know, Canon! I had something that sounds very weird--a Smoked Monkey or something like that, where they steep bananas in scotch--and it was nuts how delicious it was. Nuts! Our server was so friendly and helpful and lit up at how I liked the weirder and whiskey-er options on the menu.
-Portage Bay Cafe--I had the savory congee with brown rice, miso-marinated pork, mushrooms, daikon sprouts, and a darjeeling tea egg. R had the dungeness crab cake benedict and said it was one of the most delicious things he ate on the trip.
-Paseo Caribbean--I didn’t realize until we got here this was one of the places featured in that “best sandwiches around the country” thing on NetFlix, ha. I worried about waiting in a long line but it wasn’t that bad and the pork sandwich was indeed AWESOME. I can’t even begin to do it justice. You’d think that’s too much cilantro, but no, perfect. And the bread’s toasted and directly from Macrina! The scallops and black beans were also wonderful. Loved this place, one of my favorites for the entire trip.
-Maritime Pacific Brewing’s Jolly Roger Taproom--feels very working class, in an industrial pier-y zone, lotsa wizened old men with impressive beards reading fantasy novels of all things at the bar, friendly staff. Did a flight and learned flights in this part of the country seem to be hugely sized; doing the flight was enough to knock me out so no Walrus and the Carpenter or Zig Zag. It was happy hour so Thai curry mussels were cheap as hell (a big bowl with plenty for 2 to share for under $5) and we didn’t resist it and I’m glad.
-some cute little pie shop, they’re all over the place the way cupcakes used to be--R was thirsty and I wanted a spot to sit down and write some postcards, so it did the job. The problem was the milk I drank was so rich I wound up too full to make much of a dent in the awesome fried chicken at Ma’ono :(
-Ma’ono Fried Chicken and Whiskey--sticky pork buns, fried chicken with incredible kim chi and homemade sauces, this awesome cocktail with hoppy beer and St. Germain in it, root beer R said was some of the best he’s ever had
-Cafe Vitta--near the gay clubby district; we parked in front of a bar that instead of sports on the giant TV over the bar had a screensaver of endless built naked men going
-Macrina Bakery--Coffee, bread, and baked goodies (a cornmeal jam-studded cookie thing, an Italian plum tart thing, what else...) for both the ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island and “car camping” in the park. As wonderful as I was hoping for, and tasted just like the sort of thing the person who wrote the cookbook would make based on the recipes I’ve made. So good! And they were super nice too.

in Portland:
bfast (we quickly got into a groove where we’d have really awesome breakfast, do a bunch stuff all day with packed snacks in the car just in case one of us got a little hungry, then eat dinner around 8pm or a bit later, with drinks or coffee afterward to finish the night...a lot of the best meals were breakfast things):
-Tasty n Sons--chocolate potato donut holes with creme anglaise (yummy), baked cherries (R’s favorite), Moroccan chicken hash, North African sausage with egg, couscous, and cauliflower, a Mayan Maiden Bloody Mary with smoked chile, orange, lime, worcestershire sauce, Cholula, pilsener, and a cocoa-cinnamon salt rim
-Veritable Quandary--the best pan-fried scrapple evar with cooked greens and duck egg and maple butter biscuit, R had johnnycakes with rhubarb ginger compote, strawberries, and whipped cream. Sat outside in the gorgeous weather as the city got itself ready for the Rose Festival Parade.
-Broder Scandinavian--best bloody mary ever (aquavit, beet, pickled pink onion, cuke, tomato), smoked trout hash with beet, aebleskiver with lingonberry jam and lemon curd
-Jam on Hawthorne--blueberry oatmeal chai pancakes, lemon ricotta pancakes, marionberry jam, wild blueberry jam, really good maple syrup, salmon hash, hash with this awesome spicy-sweet sausage...it was an obscene amount of food (you get the pancakes a la carte, Anne told me not to miss them and she was right, they were the best thing) so it’s all we ate all day while doing the coastline ride.
-Pine State Biscuits--so good! I had the biscuit with fried chicken, bacon, cheese, and apple butter. R had some crazy monstrosity with fried chicken, bacon, fried egg, and tons and tons of really good gravy. Arnold Palmers.

afternoon/dinner:
-Lardo--Went here when Potato Champion wasn’t open yet the afternoon we drove in as it was just across the street. The dirty fries, which are studded with these huge fucking pieces of lardon, were fantastic. My lamb merguez sandwich was good (later I noticed it’s on menus everywhere in Portland for some reason) and R liked his burger.
-Country Cat--biscuits, steelhead with farro and greens with nuts and dried fruit (really delicious, more so than listing the components indicates). R had duck that came with this thick slab of bread pudding that was yummy. I was very surprised at how reasonable this place was given the level of cuisine--it was on par with Salt in Pittsburgh or Sweet Grass when it first opened or Iris here, but in a more family restaurant-style setting, and the price was significantly lower.
-Pok Pok--the famous spicy wings (totally lived up to the hype--I don’t know how they make chicken wings so big but so tender), basil and rhubarb drinking vinegars which went great with the tuna mango salad and sticky rice...R even tried a durian dessert while I went safer with mango coconut cream and sticky rice
-Toro Bravo--tapas! Felt so much like Casa Montana in Valencia, which made me love it. We even stood by a little table trying sherry and snacking on pintxos (yummy yummy boquerones and salt cod fritters with aioli) first while we waited for seating, which felt super tapas-y inadvertently. Goat cheese marinated in rose petal harissa, really incredible squid ink pasta studded with nuts, and churros with chocolate. They were also super nice despite the hectic and complicated nature of the place; it’s part of the same empire as Tasty n Sons, and I noticed they both had that whole “awesome down-to-earth service despite craziness and fanciness” down magically.
-Grain and Gristle--We’d kinda had our fill of the hipper dinner spots (we peeked into Laurelhurst Market and Ox first and decided we didn’t want to deal with that) and the neighborhood this was in felt a lot...hm. A lot more family-oriented and down-to-earth. More boquerones because I’m obsessed with them, enjoyed with a Death in the Afternoon containing elderflower, then local lager with mussels and frites. Our server reminded me of Ryan’s boyfriend Nick, and when we got to the end of our mussels he brought us spoons to slurp up the remaining broth, mentioning that’s his favorite part. R was happy we were doing something less fancypants, I think, and he loved the mussels.

midday/snack:
-Portland Penny Diner--The Alderwood Smoked coffee they had here, from a place in Seattle, was amazing and unlike any coffee I’ve ever had--it is in fact woody and smoky tasting, but smooth too. Got a duck bologna and sauerkraut sandwich with coffee mayo, and it was delicious. R had a fried chocolate-nut-peanut butter Elvis-type sandwich. Old-timey soda fountain drinks. Candidness and camaraderie among the staff, singing along to overhead “Back in Black” and “Piano Man”.
-Bunk Sandwiches--Of course we kept making “Bunk Moreland would eat here” remarks. Awesome overhead music and a crazy amount of Boylan’s flavors and unusual beers (Elysian did one branded for Sub Pop called Loser Beer!). Oregon albacore tuna melt was so good, R’s cuban was great too.
-Potato Champion--Thai “PBJ” frites and poutine. So good! Enjoyed late at night while the naked bike ride was going on. I loved that people were out and enjoying the space, gathering at the picnic tables, jokingly trying to ride the kiddie carousel, Christmas lights strewn...just that city feel I love. Felt a bit like that area in Chicago where Big Star is, and I liked it more.
-Whiffie Pies--same-park dessert on our late night food truck bender!
-Salt and Straw ice cream--Smoked hefeweizen, blue cheese and pear, olive oil, and I forget R’s other scoop...the smoked hefeweizen and the olive oil stood out, so much so I think aside from Persian rosewater, pistachio, and saffron stuff and maybe one or two Iris ice creams, they were the best ice cream I’ve had. The olive oil was so much better than other sweet goodies with olive oil I’ve had, everything you hope for and then often don’t find--the fruity complexity, savory-sweet quality, etc.
-Blue Star Donuts--big gourmet Krispy Kreme-style stuff. Bourbon blueberry basil, carrot cake (cream cheese frosting was so good), a filled and powdered one with nutty intense chocolate that was awesome, and some dulce de leche-type thing, yum.
-Coco Donuts--in neat contrast, simple but deliciously made old fashioned cake donut-style stuff. Lavender donut, some glazed nut crunch one, and one of those ginormous apple fritters.

-Ground Kontrol--Had to go multiple times of course, only fair as R’s always willing to go to bars for nightcaps with me when he doesn’t drink. The bartender was super nice and gave me free drinks the second time we went, and the doorman recognized me. The bathroom made you feel like you were on the set of Tron Legacy. P.S. Arcade games, with their original controllers and wonky response, are hard! And stuff like Frogger just makes my brain hurt. That said I think I love Dr. Mario now.
-Sapphire Hotel--possibly my favorite of all the places to drink. So, so nice, beautiful and memorable atmosphere without seeming alienatingly hip, and the drinks were so good, as good as at Canon. I liked the feel of the neighborhood it was in too.
-Ava Gene’s--So many rows of amaro I’d never heard of! The art on the walls was kind of fantastic too.
-Green Dragon--super down-to-earth, the bartender reminded me of Ted Allen somehow. I liked it a lot. It felt like the sort of h-hum comfy place young people would just regularly hang out, as evidenced by all the raucous board game playing that felt like a regular ritual thing and the way it turned out to be a changing station for the naked bike night.
-Bailey’s Taproom--The bartender was nice, the digital pour thing is kind of cool, but there was a strange fratty/yuppie vibe even on a relatively deserted night like the one we went (late Sunday I think? The whole area it was in downtown seemed pretty dead). The beer that looked and tasted like rose surprised me, so did the one that tastes way more like chocolate and coffee than any beer I’ve ever had that claims to. I think I could’ve mistaken it for a cold steeped coffee even, yum.
-Secret Society...I liked the couple who lived a block away and were friendly and chatty, and the way the staff joked the overhead music--sad country ballads about being lonesome mostly--was a running emotional barometer for the night.
-Tiger Bar, only because the live band karoake Mefi meetup was there. Pretty crappy in terms of social atmosphere, and the bartender was a jerk (I’m not talking in a harried busy sort of way or a “having a bad day in general” or “bare bones is the style of this place” way; she was either sugary sweet OMGBFF or flirty to other people and weird and frosty to us, shouting right in front of our faces to the door guy because she didn’t believe we were of age, and then dismissive of us and interrupting interactions between her and us mid-sentence to cater to people she liked more the entire night...this was true when the bar was deserted pre-karaoke and when it got busy later too). Then there was this other guy who just stood around clearly looking like staff but all night when people asked him questions he was like “you’ll have to ask the bartender that, I don’t do that” in a rude and amused way, and when people then asked him “well, do you know where she is” he’d just go “nope”. I thought I was just being oversensitive but R confirmed none of them were very nice. The regular patrons sitting outside weren’t friendly either, and I was beginning to wonder if Portland was going to be That Kind Of City for uncool me (this was the first night we got in) but luckily this bar seemed like a fluke and everywhere else we went the entire trip people were welcoming and friendly. On the plus, it was dirt cheap to drink there so I got to try some Deschutes seasonal beers for nearly nothing.
-McMenamins White Eagle Saloon and Hotel (‘cause it’s where we were staying). The slow Monday night we were there killing time and they played all that nostalgic ‘90s radio rock slayed me. Cranberries, “Glycerine”, Candlebox, STP. I am getting old; that stuff’s nostalgic/oldies now...

shops etc.:
-Pike Market!!--bought a couple pieces of art from a very nice woman, used books from a guy who perked up when he saw I was getting Ellroy and Pelecanos and had photos of himself all over the world by the register including one of him on a camel in front of an Egyptian pyramid, spices and tea from Market Spice (they had these gorgeous peacock teapots where the tail plume was the handle but alas, flying back and porcelain do not mix), some awesome import pantry goodies and picnic provisions for Olympic Park from De Laurenti (Zingermans Zzang! Candy Bar, Cole’s Smoked Wild Mackerel Skinless, Boneless from Portugal in Olive Oil, LSU Palmiers, Arnott Tim Tams, Italian macaron-like almond cookies for R, Fennel Pollen, etc.), what else...was so tempted to get some of the eye-poppingly beautiful bouquets that were dirt cheap all down the front of the market (huge bright peony and poppy blooms for like $5, crazy) but didn’t have a real reason to.
-U-Pick berries in Sequim for Olympic Park picnicking
-university book store, surprisingly great but I tried to control myself because I knew luggage space was at a premium and they seemed to excel at unwieldy used/cheap treasures like big fat neurophilosophy texts and cookbooks :(
-a used book shop in West Seattle, don’t know its name (grabbed my copy of Anne Sexton’s letters there, so good)
-Powell’s (lotsa theory stuff from people like Spivak and Wallerstein and Habermas and Levinas; Elaine Equi; Jim Thompson; Guy Gavriel Kay; Greg Egan among others)
-Mother Foucault’s (more obscure theory and lit stuff...the used Christa Wolf titles are some of the most exciting stuff I’ve seen out in the wild in ages)
-The Meadow
-a comic book shop by The Meadows (Adrian Tomine’s latest stuff, Renee French who the cashier gushed with me about, Jim Mahfood, Jason, someone who looks like they do Ariel Schrag/Julie Doucet-type work, etc...didn’t realize Craig Thompson was a local. The cashier was so nice, looking stuff up online about the Rose Parade after I mentioned idly I was from out of town and wondered if it’d mess up my market-to-garden plans. As we left she said “I hope your farmers market picnic dreams come true!” and lo, they did.)
-Control Voltage
-Millennium Music
-Tea Zone and Camellia Lounge
-Townshend’s Tea
-some pretty card prints from the Japanese Garden
-Laurelhurst, Mount Tabor, Alberta, Hawthorne, Pearl, Chinatown, Downtown, Lloyd, Hollywood, Cathedral Park neighborhoods...I’m forgetting one or two too, I think

stuff we did:
-Pike Market/shopping
-Alki Beach for the view of Seattle right before dusk
-taking the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island
-Sequim, Port Angeles, Forks en route to Olympic National Park: Hoh Rainforest, Mora (Rialto Beach), Kalaloch (Ruby Beach, the numbered coastline beaches), Lake Quinault Rainforest
-first Thursday Art Walk and free admission to the Museum of Contemporary Craft
-live band karaoke with Mefites at Tiger Bar--hugandpint’s rendition of “Mother” had my jaw literally dropping
-Lan Su Chinese Garden
-Mount Tabor Park cinder cone at sunset
-PSU Saturday Farmers Market--marionberry lavender jam, pickled cherries with chile, Olympic Provisions saucisson d’Alsace and chorizo rioja, olive levain, local shucked raw oysters, grass-fed yak jerky, asparagus and hazelnut pesto
-Washington Park: International Rose Test Garden, Japanese Garden, Hoyt Arboretum
-Columbia River Gorge via the Old Historic Highway, entering through Troutdale (tried to do Larch Mountain but the road was closed for the season as a snow hazard)
-Oregon Coast: Astoria, Arcadia Beach, Manzanita
-Cathedral Park and Sauvie Island
-R met up with an old high school bandmate the night before departure, which made me happy

stuff we didn’t do:
-Mount Hood. We tried to do Larch Mountain on the way to the various waterfalls on the Columbia River Gorge but it was closed for the season/snow danger (later twice I overheard locals complaining about how that’s just them being lazy about not changing the gate on time). You could SEE Mount Hood all over the place...it seemed like enough.
-Mount Saint Helens
-omikase at Tanuki--this was a freak thing where the chef had a gnarly accident involving cutting her cornea (!) and so it was closed the whole time we were in town
-Branch--we walked in but it didn’t seem interesting so we left
-Beaker and Flask--had abruptly closed, seems it lost its license! (We also tried to find the walkway for the Eastbank Esplanade at the same time, with mixed results ending in going to Green Dragon just as board games and naked bike night were both getting started, so it was all good.)
-More museums like the Art Museum and OMSI. Too gorgeous outside for that.
-Steven Smith Teamaker--would’ve been cool to see the more unusual in-store-only stuff but it was a bit out of the way with hours that didn’t work for us given we were doing day trips to see nature and stuff, and it turns out the tea’s available for purchase all over the city so I got my Lord Bergamot fix that way
-4T trail--got a good idea of what it’d be like just by seeing the various routes on our own around Washington Park and the various districts with tram etc. lines
-Elk Rock Garden
-Catholic Grotto
-more hiking in spots like Council Crest Park, Forest Park, Sellwood/Oaks Bottom--we did some other spots along the gorge and Mount Tabor and Washington Park areas and got a good feel for it
-Hopworks--just didn’t get to it! R went to meet his high school buddy our last night, and I decided to stay in and pack up and organize for the plane ride back.

other notes:
-This trip was weirdly a boost for my self-esteem; I got hit on something like three or four separate times at least, and two in particular were quite over-the-top (one so much so that I continue to be pretty cynical about it--guy said I was stunning and beautiful and all that and then went as far as to say it’s the beauty of a woman like me that makes the world go round, haha!). Also, people were almost always overwhelmingly nice and friendly and interesting (not really that surprising I guess). I love how things can be cool or wonderful or special or whatever--shops, art, food--without a trace of pretension or snobbery/exclusivity (this is something that kind of bothers me about Memphis, TBH). I also like how it’s just a given at bars to have a big stash of board games, and people actually play them (the Jenga we watched was impressive).
-The two guys at Green Dragon who asked us what we thought the name of the Muppet character figurine above the bar was (it was Animal!). I wish I could remember what the one guy thought his name was, because it made both of us laugh.
-The sweet family behind us on the first Columbia River Gorge waterfall trail, the father patiently carrying the big stroller all through these small knotty paths and then asking us how much farther completely good-naturedly, and alas my leading us astray...still feel bad about that.
-The father and daughter in the pick-up truck fishing at the Astoria pier, how she turned back to grin at us and when I got down there to take pictures I noticed she’d packed her gear in a Dora the Explorer backpack.
-The guy with the loooooong fishing reel, impressive beard and tiny old man build, 25+ 6packs of beer in the back of his van like it weren’t no thang, and “support strippers” car ribbon magnet in the same parking lot.
-The two guys talking passionately about loose tea behind me at Lan Su, the two older men in hawaiian shirts gaiwan-ing it up together, the women by the window with matching heavy wingtip eyeliner and gold jewelry languidly draining their yixing teapots and parade of dim sum-y plates, watching the bird and fish pond out the window, and the circle of men--a bearded trucker-type, a fatherly bespectacled Dr. Hibbert sort, and a young boy--drinking from gaiwans expertly but making crass jokes about backwash while doing so. And how nice and non-judgmental the woman who served me my flight was about my clumsy attempts at using a gaiwan!
-Guy in a kilt riding a unicycle and playing bagpipes I saw when we parked in the Mount Tabor neighborhood the first time, and how a day or two later I overheard folks discussing him somewhere and put two and two together and got the extended explanation that he plays around the old theaters we kept seeing around town, changing up the music because it's all based on current release soundtracks. Stuff like that's what makes Portland feel like the Austin of Slacker to me, in the best sort of way. Reminds me of the regulars commiserating over how Larch Mountain etc. stays closed too long--"another two weeks!"--just out laziness, not actual snow hazard, just after we'd tried to do it and found that the case. I like cities where people just talk to each other.

july 2013 road trip general itinerary

2013-04-12T18:43:37Z

-memphis tn (leave wed july 3)
-(16hr--will break this up somewhere inconsequential) denver co (arrive early afternoon thu july 4, leave early morning fri july 5)
-(9hr) pocatello id (arrive late evening fri july 5, WEDDING sat july 6, leave early morning sun july 7)
-(3hr) antelope island state park in davis ut (arrive and leave midday sun july 7, brief visit)
-(1hr) salt lake city ut (arrive early afternoon sun july 7, leave early morning mon july 8)
-(7.5hr) canyon de chelly in chinle az (arrive and leave afternoon mon july 8, visit ~2hr)
-(4hr) albuquerque nm (arrive very late mon july 8, leave early morning wed july 10)
-(1hr) santa fe nm (arrive and leave morning wed july 10, visit briefly)
*going to need an oil change at some point right about now*
-(12hr) austin tx (arrive very late wed july 10, leave early morning sat july 13)
-(10hr) memphis, tn (arrive late evening sat july 13)

places we will be coming into very late (note for hotel options): albuquerque (hostel?), austin

stuff i wish we could do but don't think is feasible:
white sands nm

totals:
3900+mi, 62hr

albuquerque nm july 2013 trip plans

2013-04-12T16:44:20Z

this one's still mostly a placeholder, haven't done any research yet.

(focus for this leg of the trip is on natural beauty, not cityish or museum-y or food/drink stuff.)

do (7.5hr) canyon de chelly in chinle az en route (+4hr)--make sure to have water and gas beforehand!!

mon july 8 late night arrival (or stay at a budget spot near acoma late at night if too tired)
tue july 9 all day (early breakfast and to-go packed lunch for nature sightseeing: acoma pueblo, tent rocks, white rock and overlook park, bandelier monument, tram ride up mount sandia)
wed july 10 early morning departure for austin tx (12hr, santa fe en route 13hr)

food:
*have breakfast at mary and tito's carne adovada (9am-6pm), then order and grab to-go food at grove cafe market (7am-4pm) OR golden crown panaderia (7am-8pm) OR sophia's place (7am-3pm) OR frontier (5am-1am) and pack it up in the cooler for the day we spend sightseeing out in the desert*
latenight dinner/barfood: ?
breakfast: frontier (5am-1am) OR grove cafe market (7am-4pm) OR golden crown panaderia (7am-8pm)
lunch/dinner: mary and tito's carne adovada (9am-6pm) AND sophia's place (7am-3pm) OR ezra's OR jo's place OR green chile spots like monroe's
drinks: hotel parq central's roof deck, cactus martinis
early or to-go breakfast before departure?:

to do:
acoma pueblo (tours 9:30am-3:30pm, $23 and ~2hrs, set up tour beforehand, no photos or skimpy clothes, buy pie, walk back instead of taking bus)
tent rocks (7am-6pm, $5)
white rock overlook park
bandelier monument (dawn to dusk, visitor center 9am-4:30pm, $12)
tram ride up mount sandia (9am-9pm, $20, pack a jacket or sweater)
atomic bomb museum
los alamos historical museum
el malpais
balloon ride (rainbow ryders)
petroglyph monument for desert-y hiking
day trip to santa fe?

/

schedule:
-mary and tito's breakfast carne adovada (9am-6pm)
-order and grab to-go food at grove cafe market (7am-4pm) OR golden crown panaderia (7am-8pm) OR sophia's place (7am-3pm) OR frontier (5am-1am) and pack it up in the cooler
(~12pm) tent rocks (7am-6pm, $5)
(3pm) white rock overlook park
(4pm) bandelier monument (dawn to dusk, visitor center 9am-4:30pm, $12)
(after 7pm) tram ride up mount sandia (9am-9pm, $20, pack a jacket or sweater)
-frontier dinner (5am-1am)
-hotel parq central's roof deck cactus martinis

salt lake city ut july 2013 trip plans

2013-04-12T16:39:44Z

from pocatello id to salt lake city ut, make sure to stop at antelope island park and the great salt lake first en route
cheapo options: camelot inn and hotel, royal garden inn, rodeway inn, days inn

sun july 7 midday arrival (after visiting antelope island):
lunch/dinner (which is which depends on when we get in and which copper onion time-of-day menu we like best): copper onion (brunch 10:30am-3pm, dinner 5pm-10pm, bar food 3pm til) AND red iguana (10am-9pm)
~~snack: les madeleines cafe kouing aman pastry (someone swore by it)~~ (alas, closed su and mo!)
drinks: squatters microbrew (10am-12am)

mon july 8 early morning departure for canyon de chelly in chinle az (7.5hr), then albuquerque nm (+4hr):
early bfast: blue plate diner (7am-9pm)

to do (options right now, haven’t prioritized yet):
[antelope island and the great salt lake (7am-10pm, $9, en route to slc)]
aviary at liberty park (9am-5pm, $7)
red butte garden (9am-9pm, $10)
spiral jetty
temple square
public library (1pm-5pm)
the king’s english book store (11am-5pm)
doughnut falls, big cottonwood canyon
natural history museum of utah (10am-5pm, $11)
cathedral of the madeleine (8am-5pm)
~~salt lake masonic temple~~ (closed su)
heritage park
gilgal sculpture garden
~~ensign peak~~
~~homestead crater~~

denver co july 2013 trip plans

2013-04-12T08:27:34Z

thu july 4 midday arrival:
-lunch/afternoon arrival: biker jim’s (daily 11am-10pm)
-dinner: buckhorn exchange sit at bar for apps rocky mountain oysters (mo to th 5:30pm-9pm, happy hour 4pm-6pm)? then euclid hall schnitzel, poutine, and beer (lunch mo to fr 11:30am-2am) OR domo japanese country inn (daily 5pm-10pm)
-drinks: cruise room in the oxford hotel art deco bar (su to th 4:30pm-11:45pm)?

fri july 5 early morning departure for pocatello id (9or10hr):
-bfast: snooze (mo to fr 6:30am-2:30pm) OR mona’s (daily 7am-2pm)

to do (~~need to think of something possible and flexible to do in case there's time...~~ thanks ayun!):
wax trax records (10am-7pm)
tattered cover book stores (9am-9pm)

austin tx july 2013 trip plans

2013-04-12T07:45:02Z

wed july 10 late night arrival:
-kerbey lane cafe late night (24/7)
-draught house tap beer (mo to th 3pm-2am, fr to su 1pm-2am) AND/OR rio rita bloody marys, empanadas, hibiscus gimlet, spicy knees, hibiscus-vodka lemonade, watermelon and cucumber gin mulan (mo to fr 10am-2am)

thu july 11:
-juan in a million con queso breakfast plate (daily 7am-3pm) OR la cocina de consuelo migas, tacos (lunch mo to fr 7am-3pm and su 8am-2pm, dinner tu to fr 6pm-9pm) OR ciscos migas (daily 7am-2:30pm) OR tamale house #3 migas (mo to sa 7am-3pm)
-j mueller’s la barbecue el sancho loco sandwich (we to su 11am til sold out, call ahead for to go orders) OR franklin barbecue brisket (tu to su 11am til sold out, be prepared to get there 2 or 3 hours early and don’t go on sa) OR ?? in lockhart
-switched on (daily 12pm-6pm)...go to rio rita while R’s doing that?
-blanton art museum (tu to fr 10am-5pm, free thursdays)
-torchy’s tacos (daily 8am-10pm) AND/OR taco more cabrito taco and consomme, posole (daily 7am-11pm) OR polvos mexican (daily 7am-11pm)
-peche cocktails (daily 5pm til, happy hour mo to fr 4pm-6pm)
-alamo drafthouse (check listings)?

fri july 12:
-biscuits and groovy (daily 9am-2pm) OR la cocina de consuelo migas, tacos (lunch mo to fr 7am-3pm and su 8am-2pm, dinner tu to fr 6pm-9pm) OR ciscos migas (daily 7am-2:30pm) OR tamale house #3 migas (mo to sa 7am-3pm) OR juan in a million con queso breakfast plate (daily 7am-3pm)
-mayfield park, barton creek greenbelt trail/zilker park/gus fruh trail
(hyde park historical district?)
(lbj museum (daily 9pm-5pm, free parking)?)
-tacodeli (daily 11am-3pm, call ahead for pick up)
-south austin, south congress, north and south lamar shops
(mexic-arte museum (daily 12pm-5pm) AND/OR austin museum of art (tu to su 11am-4pm)?)
-congress avenue bridge bats (daily 7:30 to 8pmish, free parking at austin american-statesmen lot)
-polvos mexican (daily 7am-11pm) OR taco more cabrito taco and consomme, posole (daily 7am-11pm) OR torchy’s tacos (daily 8am-10pm)
-midnight cowboy (tu to su 6pm til, online reservations and buzz harry craddock)
-alamo drafthouse (check listings)?

sat july 13 morning early departure for memphis tn (10hr):
-ciscos migas (daily 7am-2:30pm) OR tamale house #3 migas (mo to sa 7am-3pm) OR juan in a million con queso breakfast plate (daily 7am-3pm)

to do:
-alamo drafthouse (check listings)
-barton creek greenbelt trail AND/OR gus-fruh park AND/OR zilker park AND/OR krause springs AND/OR hamilton pool AND/OR mckinney falls
-mayfield park peacocks
-congress avenue bridge bats (daily 7:30 to 8pmish, free parking at austin american-statesmen lot)
-blanton art museum (tu to fr 10am-5pm, free thursdays)
-south austin, south congress, north and south lamar book and record and junk shops
-switched on (daily 12pm-6pm)
-consider picking up some dublin dr. pepper to take home! (central market, kroger)

maybe:
-mexic-arte museum (daily 12pm-5pm)
-check for amoda events
-austin museum of art (tu to su 11am-4pm)
-lbj museum (daily 9pm-5pm, free parking)
-walk around hyde park historic district

portland or june 2013 trip plans

2013-04-12T00:41:41Z

breakfast/brunch:
tasty n sons chocolate potato doughnuts, bloody marys (daily brunch 9am to 2:30pm, daily else 9am to 10pm, happy hour 2:30pm to 5pm)
veritable quandary prawn and pork belly hash with duck egg and grits, pulled pork chilaquiles, scrapple (sa and su 9:30am-3pm, bar food 3pm-12am)
pine state biscuits (daily 7am-2pm, fr to sa 6pm-1am at alberta location)
jam on hawthorne corned beef hash, a la carte pancakes, brunch cocktails (breakfast daily 7:30am-3pm, lunch weekdays 11am-3pm, dinner we to sa 5pm-9pm, happy hour we to sa 3pm-6pm)?
screen door fried chicken (sa sun brunch 9am-2:30pm, go early!!)?

lunch:
portland penny diner beef belly banh mi, duck bologna and sauerkraut egg sandwich, foie gras poutine, fernet egg cream (mo to fr 7am-3pm)
bunk sandwiches (8am-3pm)
broder scandinavian (breakfast and lunch daily 9am-3pm, dinner we to sa 5pm til)

dinner:
tanuki omakase for 2, japanese and korean cult movies (tu to sa 5pm-10pm)
pok pok spicy wings, boar collar, drinking vinegars (daily 11:30am-10pm, long lines)
higgins seasonal fancy (mo to fr 11:30am-12am, sa and su 4pm-12am)
decarli happy hour snacking on oysters, pate, bruschetta, etc. then elsewhere? (bar seating happy hour 5pm-9pm)
laurelhurst market (daily 5pm-10pm)
toro bravo (daily 5pm-10pm)
~~apizza scholls ny-style pizza (daily 5pm-8pm)~~
le pigeon (daily 5pm-10pm)?
nostrana bar pizza, cheese, etc. (happy hour 9pm-10pm)?
~~ned ludd?~~
~~DOC~~

snack/truck:
stumptown annex tastings (fr, sa, su, mo 10am-4pm, tastings 3pm)
salt and straw ice cream pad thai iced tea, olive oil, pear and blue cheese, strawberry balsamic cracked pepper (daily 11am-11pm)
whiffies fried pies (tu to sa 6pm-3am)
potato champion poutine, pb and j frites (tu to su 12pm-3am)
blue star donuts basil-glazed (daily 8am til run out)
coco donuts (mo to sa 7am-3pm)
olympic provisions charcuterie good for picnic packing (mo 11am-3pm, tu to su 11am-9pm--if get at psu market, don’t bother)
food carts around town

breweries and pub houses:
green dragon (daily 11am-11pm)
hair of the dog (tu to su 11:30am-8pm)
hopworks (daily 11am-11pm, happy hour daily 3pm-6pm and 10pm til)
deschutes brewpub (daily 11am-10pm)
horse brass english pub (daily 11am-2:30am)
rogue pub (daily 11am-12am)
cascade brewery (daily 12pm-10pm)

bar:
sapphire hotel brothel-y, cute menu, live jazz on sun (daily 4pm-12am, happy hour daily 4pm-6pm and su to th 10pm-12am)
secret society (daily 5pm-12am, happy hour su to th 5pm-7pm and 10pm-12am)
beaker and flask (mo to sa 5pm-11pm)
ava gene’s campari, truffle cocktails (daily 5pm-11pm)
branch whiskey bar bourbon flights, duck fat fries (daily 5pm til)
clyde common barrel-aged cocktails (lunch or brunch daily 11:30am-3pm, happy hour daily 3pm-6pm, dinner daily 6pm-10:30pm, late night mo to sa 11pm-12am)

todo:
psu farmers market pick up picnic provisions (sa 8:30am-2pm)
washington park japanese garden (mo 12pm-4pm, tu to su 10am-4pm), rose garden (7:30am-9pm), arboretum (daily 6am-10pm, free)
art museum (tu to su 10am-5pm th and fr til 8pm, $15)?
lan su chinese garden (daily 10am-6pm, $10)
mother foucault’s book shop (tu to sa 11am-6pm)
powell’s books (daily 9am-11pm)
ground kontrol arcade and bar (daily 12pm-2:30am)
omsi museum (daily 9:30am-5:30pm, $12)?
museum of contemporary craft (tu to sa 11am-6pm $4, first thursday of the month 11am-8pm free)
first thursday gallery walk
the meadow cook’s store (daily 10am-6pm)
~~chinatown?~~
hawthorne district (laurelhurst park record shopping, mt. tabor, bagdad theater)
alberta arts district (kennedy school)
~~pearl district?~~
eastbank esplanade
sauvie island
columbia gorge
forest park (daily 5am-10pm)
council crest (daily 5am-9pm)
cathedral park
elk rock garden
catholic grotto?
sellwood oaks bottom park?
wildlife refuge and wetlands preserves?
oregon coast and oregon dunes national rec area
mount hood?
~~movies in the park?~~
~~aerial tram?~~
~~tunnel?~~
shows at the crystal ballroom?
(so bummed can't do the 50-types-of-apples tasting as it's in october, alas)