This Isn't Your Farmer's Market

Way back when, I visited an old friend in Boston only to discover she had turned a sickly shade of yellow. "Holy cow," I said. "Do you have jaundice?"

"No," she replied. "I just eat a lot of carrots."

Erica had discovered Boston's Haymarket: not a riot, more than just a T stop, Haymarket is a nearly 200-year-old tradition in the heart of Boston's downtown. I think I lived in Boston (meaning Cambridge) for eight years without ever going to the Haymarket. This was probably because, back then, the Haymarket lived in the shadow of Boston's central artery, the elevated freeway that used to divide downtown Boston from its harbor. Everything around the central artery was super-sketch and generally unpleasant.

No more. Whatever else one might think of Boston's infamous Big Dig, it did succeed in opening up this core slice of central Boston. In place of the looming concrete jungle of pollution and noise, we now have a human-scaled park and a sense of openness in the midst of the city. This makes the Haymarket rather more appealing as a Saturday morning field trip. 

The Rose Kennedy Parkway: Much more pleasant than a freeway.

I don't know what the Haymarket was back in the 1800s, but today it is Boston's discount outdoor produce market. This ain't no farmer's market: you will find no organic produce or $3 doughnuts here (a staple of Harvard's farmer's market, the $3 doughnut stand always has a line). No, Haymarket is the landing place for the produce the grocery stores don't want any more, those still-edible fruits and vegetables that need a good home, stat. And if you do get hungry while shopping, hole-in-the-wall pizza and falafel joints line one side of Blackstone Street (I can't recommend any of them, but at least you can get a full meal for your $3).

I love an outdoor produce market. With surly vendors, mounds of bright vegetables, and a cross-section of Boston's diverse population, Haymarket reminds me of a scaled-down version of the Hague's Turkish Market. The Haymarket isn't nearly as impressive, but the food is at least as cheap. On a recent Saturday, we were buying 8 apples for a dollar, a pound of pickling cucumbers for just over a dollar, healthy bunches of parsley and cilantro for 25 cents each. Of course, none of it would last past Monday.

So what do you do with ample, cheap produce that isn't going to keep - at least, if you don't have ten mouths to feed that night? You can pickle it, like Jeff, who recently made quarts of refrigerator pickles out of mini-cucumbers. You can jam it, like a colleague of mine who decorates his living room with different colored jars of preserves. You can bake it, like I did with those twelve-cent apples. (OK, so maybe I intended far more baking and sauce-making than actually occurred - best of intentions...) And then there's stock-making, stew-freezing, and good ol' massive stir-frys. 

I recognize that cheap, hit-or-miss, nonorganic produce is not everyone's cup of tea. Toto, we're not in Whole Foods anymore. But here's a couple things to consider: First, while this produce is in no ways "sustainable," the Haymarket does help save it from total waste. If we're going to fly in planes full of peppers from Chile, we might as well use them. Second, not all of us can afford to shop at Whole Foods. Third, a bit of savvy shopping will get you a long way. Bring small bills (this is a cash-only world) and browse the stalls and prices before you buy; insist on picking out your own produce (let me reiterate: insist on picking out your own produce); don't do business with vendors who are rude to you; and keep in mind the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen - those fruits and vegetables you should always buy organic vs. those that  carry the least amount of harmful pesticides. We never buy the former at the Haymarket, but we'll stock up on the latter.

Still, your mileage may vary. If nothing else, the Haymarket is a scene worth seeing before moving on to the Rose Kennedy Parkway (a.k.a., the Big Dig's final legacy) and fresh cannoli in the North End.

Haymarket runs pretty much every Friday and Saturday. The closest T-stop is, unsurprisingly, Haymarket - but it's also walking distance from most points of interest in Boston's compact downtown. 

Fall in(to) Cambridge

Cambridge is made for fall. From the university campuses to the tree-lined streets, fall in Cambridge means two months of bright blue skies and flaming leaves set off against the red bricks of school buildings and sidewalks. I first came to Cambridge fifteen years ago as a freshman in college, only to find that fall in New England was a fundamentally different concept than fall in Portland.

First, a New England fall is sunny. In Portland, on the other hand, the rain starts around October 1 and doesn't let up until sometime in May. 

Second, thanks to the clear skies, the leaves in Cambridge crunch. If you grew up outside the Pacific Northwest, I assure you - you underestimate the miracle of crunchy leaves. All through my childhood, fall just meant decomposing piles of sodden brown leaves beaten down by weeks of rain. You didn't rake leaves as much as push them into sad little piles that vaguely resembled something scatological. 

Third, because fall is a true shoulder season here - a distinct change from what came before, but not so sudden that you just want to hide indoors - there are super-special fall festivities, annual traditions keyed to the gradual shift in season. These traditions make the fall for me. After the difficulty of moving back across the country and starting a new job this summer, fall in Cambridge was like a warm and fuzzy welcome mat. Year after year, these are my favorite (free) fall traditions:

Oregon: Off the Beaten Path

Part of my family recently spent a weekend in the Wallowa Mountains, in the northeastern corner of the state. Stuck in Boston, I can only contemplate how I have never been to the Wallowas. Indeed, a proud native Oregonian, I have never been to many parts of the great state. Behold the richness of the American West: more majesty than we can experience in a lifetime.

In 2009, when we still lived in D.C., I dragged Jeff on a big tour of Oregon: the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood, Bend, the Willamette Valley wineries, and my favorite stretch of the Oregon Coast around Newport. These are like the state's golden oldies. But things got most interesting when we traveled (way) off the beaten path, down to a part of Oregon as new to me as it was to Jeff: Steens Mountain.

Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert

"The Steens" sits in the southeastern corner of Oregon, a full day’s drive from anything resembling a town. There’s not much out there, once you pass Frenchglen (population: 12). The mountain is a long, jagged gash of rock in an otherwise flat landscape of sage brush and emptiness. To its east stretches the Alvord “Desert,” a bright white playa that is home to the mineral-rich Alvord Hot Springs. The hot springs are more surreal than substantive: a tiny tin shack in the middle of the flat playa, where campers come to bathe in the steaming water while watching the sun set over the Steens.

What does one do in "the Steens"? Hike (but beware the heat, and bring gallons of water). Contemplate existentialism. Camp on Bureau of Land Management territory (just about everything here is owned by the government). For those without camping equipment, the historic Frenchglen Hotel on the other side of the mountain provides quaint lodging and home-cooked meals. But you lose something of the extreme solitude and vastness of the landscape if you don't spend the night alone under the stars, surrounded by nothing in all directions.

Oregon is full of extreme and surreal beauty once you get away from the evergreens and rolling farmland. I can't vouch for all of these - like I said, there's still much of the state that I have never seen - but here's a partial list of Oregon's greatest natural treasures:

God Is in the Barren Places

Maui's famous road to Hana was everything I thought Hawaii would be: verdant rainforest, waterfalls, vistas of undulating coastline and azure ocean, bright tropical flowers and hidden swimming holes. 

Yes, that was nice. But it was the road that stretched beyond Hana that swept me off my feet. 

Here was the inverse of everything that had come before, a barren and empty land of rocky soil, the occasional windswept tree, and very little evidence of human presence other than the rutted road. There was almost no living thing out there - just gold, grey, brown, and sun-bleached stones. It was like I had eternity all to myself. 

Portland Sidetrips: To the Coast

Don't get your hopes up: The Oregon Coast will never be
this sunny for you. 

The first thing you should know about Oregon's western edge (and this is true even in the height of summer) is that it is the “coast” – not the “beach,” the “shore,” or the “sea.” You do not lay on a beach blanket or play in the surf. Instead, you admire the raw beauty of the coastline before heading indoors for some clam chowder.

The second thing you should know is that the entire shoreline is public - there is no such thing as a private beach in Oregon. You are entitled to wander wherever, whenever, you want. This also means that there are state parks up and down the coast where you can rent a yurt or cabin right next to the beach for $30 a night (b.y.o.bedding). 

The third thing you should know is that the coast is easy-peasy - just a day trip away from Portland (though I recommend a full weekend). If you head due west from Portland on Highway 26, you dead end into the coastal highway, Highway 101, in just under 1.5 hours. But where to go from there? Here are the highlights, from north to south.

Armchair-travel-plus: Finding Japan in Portland

I was laying in bed last night contemplating my mortality. If yesterday had been my last day, it was singularly unremarkable. Death is inevitable, and as they say - you can't take it with you. That leaves me with today. This is why I travel: to gather experiences to make today something different, something new. And in between trips, I try to see home through the eyes of a traveler.

Cherry blossoms at Waterfront Park

Which brings me to cherry blossoms, that symbol of the fleeting beauty of life. The Japanese cherry trees along the northern end of Waterfront Park bloomed in full glory this year, in a rare week of spring sunshine in Portland. There was actual hanami, festive picnicking under the trees by young people and families. It was a tiny sliver of Japan in Portland.

When we came back from Japan last fall, I went through withdrawal and started seeking out bits and pieces of Japan in our immediate surroundings. Some was pure armchair travel - like my marathon of Japanese movies. Some was already well-known to us - like our favorite izakaya and conveyor-belt sushi (see list below). Others were more subtle, like the cherry blossoms.

Embracing the Obvious

Driving east on our way to Boston, we detoured briefly to Yellowstone - that quintessential national park teeming with families and RVs, where campsites are packed in tent-to-tent and the lodges are booked up a year in advance. We entered the park through the popular northern gate, making our first experience in Yellowstone the hordes of families at Mammoth Hot Springs - like Disneyland, but with steam vents.

Like many of our generation and temperament, I disdain the obvious. I do not follow well-trod paths; I like to feel original, to have "real" experiences when I travel (by which I mean, experiences not clogged up with other tourists). In an ideal world, I like my trips to be just un-mainstream enough to provide me with decent anecdotes for yuppie dinner parties. Yellowstone is as mainstream as it gets. 

But here's the rub: places are usually popular for a reason. Sometimes the collective does know best - consider, for example, crowd sourcing and (more often than not) juries. What Yellowstone lacks in obscurity, it makes up for with super-amazingness.

Here

Back in Portland, two posters hung over our bed. They look identical: empty white sheets of paper framed in black. But they each have a single, barely visible line of text precisely in their center. The one on my side of the bed said: Somewhere better than this place.

It is the motto of our meta-life. We met in Boston five years ago only to move to DC, to the Hague, to Portland, and now back to Boston with the expectation of another move two years from now. On good days, I feel like my life is a grand quest, with us cast as the fearless explorers (albeit of a modern, domesticated sort).

But on bad days - and there were many bad days in recent weeks - I feel scattered, my mind and body so jangly that the skin under my skin feels like it is vibrating. In our last couple of weeks in Portland, living amongst boxes yet again, our quasi-nomadic lifestyle deeply unsettled me: it's like a perpetual motion machine, with us propelled forward every time we think we come to rest. In those moments, I was drawn to the poster that hung on the other side of the bed: Nowhere better than this place.

With our remaining time in Portland slipping away like it never existed, I tried to collect a few last moments that were purely "here." It being June in Portland, I literally stopped to smell the roses.

Strawberry picking on Sauvie Island 

Sauvie's: a flat delta island just beyond the meeting of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, a pastoral enclave right on the edge of the city. Most of the farms are u-pick, and the first big crop is the strawberries. It was a good year for Oregon strawberries; at the very start of June, the vines were already dense with fruit, real strawberries that are bright red and delicate all the way to the core. These strawberries are too fragile to ship; they can only be eaten locally. My sister wanted flats of them to make strawberry jam, yet with four of us, the picking only took twenty minutes. (A jar of my sister's Oregon strawberry jam was the first item in our new fridge in Boston. It didn't last long.)

The Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade

A repetitive childhood memory: waiting for what seemed like eons on an overcast day with drizzle for the annual Rose Festival parade to start. Was it an omen that this year, for the first time in my memory, parade day dawned bright and sunny?

Moving Day Doughnuts

We have officially survived Moving Day, that traumatic life experience Jeff and I keep repeating like a broken record every two years. As with other unpleasant but necessary life experiences (dentist appointments, final exams, various tests of reproductive organs), I usually have to bribe myself out of bed on moving day. In Portland, that means doughnuts.

Oh, doughnuts! How I love you! Fried cake with frosting and sprinkles, you warm the cockles of my heart!

Portland has good doughnuts, with countless independent purveyors scattered around the city. VooDoo Doughnuts gets all the attention, but waiting in line for a doughnut defeats the purpose: doughnuts should be guilty pleasures. If you have thirty minutes to weigh the pros and cons of eating a doughnut (or three), you're missing the whole spirit of the thing.

No, the ultimate doughnut in Portland is made by the humble Delicious Donuts, a small family shop in a nondescript mini-stripmall at one of the busiest and ugliest intersections in Portland (where E. Burnside crosses MLK). The friendly couple who runs the shop opens it at 3 a.m. six days a week; they often sell out by 9. Their basic cake doughnuts are soft with a moist crumb and just a hint of lemon; the yeasty raised doughnuts still have a bit of bite to them (none of this pure sugar, insubstantial Krispy Kreme nonsense); and their maple bars are both sweet and savory, without the cloying imitation flavor that ruins much of the maple genre.

And then there's my holy grail: Delicious Donuts' chocolate-frosted old fashioned doughnut. They shape their flavorful cake doughnut into a flattened ring, increasing the fry surface area and thus the crispness of its ridges, and then cover it in a thick, dark chocolate glaze - rich, dense, yet not too sweet. Yes, it's a heart attack in five bites, but it is also doughnut perfection.

So, for myself and for our movers, I pulled myself out of bed early on Moving Day to pick up a baker's dozen of Delicious Donuts. This was a fitting tribute to Portland: Boston might have cannoli and cream pies, but its doughnut market was long ago cornered by the nefarious Dunkin Donuts. Those sugary processed concoctions are a far cry from the real thing; doughnuts, as I know them, would soon be beyond my reach.

After securing my beautiful box o' doughnuts, however, I realized we had another problem. After 18 months, Portland managed to turn Jeff vegan just as we were packing up to move back east. My lovely doughnuts were a trial by fire: the poor man had to endure not only the trauma of Moving Day, but also hours of our house smelling like freshly fried dough and his wife having repeated food orgasms in the kitchen ("oh my gawd, this is sooo goooood!"). Some sort of recompense was in order.

Besides the doughnuts, we will miss Portland's large and growing cadre of vegan food establishments, from pubs (like Sweet Hereafter) to upscale cuisine (Blossoming Lotus, Natural Selection) to countless food carts and small cafes. This does not exist in most of the rest of the country, not even in the People's Republic of Cambridge, MA. Indeed, Portland has at least two vegan bakeries (that I know of). Think about that: a bakery that does not use milk or eggs or butter. Fascinating.

As luck would have it, we stumbled into one of them - Back to Eden - that very evening. Even I, a gleeful butter eater, have to admit that their stuff looks pretty good. Not as good as Delicious Donuts, mind you, but a plausible substitute for the true believers. Jeff got his vegan doughnut, and all was right with the world.

A few days later, we loaded up the car with the last dregs of our stuff and started the long drive east to Boston (Cambridge, to be exact). Early that morning, our friends came to see us head off into the sunrise, and they brought us one last farewell gift: a Delicious Donuts' chocolate-frosted old fashioned doughnut. 

Taking the Tri' to the East Side

When I was young, I wanted to be (a) a U.S. senator, (b) a novelist, or (c) a TriMet bus driver.

My affinity for Portland's buses was directly correlated to the amount of time I spent on them: just getting home from my summer camp at age 10 took three buses and about 1.5 hours. But kids don't mind killing time, and true to form, I used the gaps between connections to indulge in a daily food ritual (pork hum bao from an early downtown food cart, corn dogs from the Burlingame Fred Meyer's - I was not a svelte child).

The last bus on my daily journey - the 39 - only came every half hour and took even longer to reach my house, and its only riders were those like me who had all the time in the world. I always sat in the front seats, legs dangling, corn dog in hand, giant sweating fountain drink between my knees, so I could listen to the bus driver chat with the other passengers. Buses are still pretty friendly around here. Riders greet the driver and say "thank you" when they disembark, and drivers and riders are prone to striking up long and usually random conversations (which make great dinner table stories in the retelling).

Portland's bus mall and Bud Clark's muse.

Mushroom bus shelter-turned-coffee shop.

My TriMet heyday in the late '80s was the era of the original downtown "bus mall": two streets dedicated to public transit, with two bus stops per block and lots of 1970s public art installations to which our mayor Bud Clark famously exposed himself. The bus shelters were brown-and-glass mushroom-like capsules with honkin' television monitors that displayed, in shaky type like in airport terminals of old, the arrival time of the next buses (which was a-MAAAA-zing in 1988). One of these old stops has been left as a relic, turned into a coffee stand; the new shelters are all sleek and glassy, with flat screen monitors and no real protection from the rain.

Today it's the MAX light rail and the little streetcar that get all the attention (and the funding), but the buses still do most of the serious work. Don't be fooled if you come to town sans car: other than getting to and from the airport, the MAX and the streetcar are pretty much useless. You want the buses.

Granted, buses are not as tourist-friendly. But in Portland, you really can ask the bus driver for help identifying your stop or where you want to go. Plus TriMet has a decent trip planner, which is also integrated into Google maps, and there are more than 50 apps (as collected by TriMet) that provide real-time tracking of the buses.

Alas, due to serious budget shortfalls (and, imho, over-spending on extending the MAX and streetcar lines), TriMet has recently cut back bus service even further. What this means is that locals can't get cross-town quickly (say, from SE to NE Portland) - but it is still super-easy to get just about anywhere from downtown. And for tourists, that is likely what matters most.

The new shelters: sleek, yes; rainproof, not so much.

OK, so let's say you are staying at a hotel downtown, which also means you probably don't have a car, but you have an extra day to kill and you want to check out this "East Side" you keep hearing about (which is really, truth be told, where you find the heart of Portland these days). What do you do?

Pick a line, ride across the river, and hit up one of East Side's distinct neighborhoods. Roughly from south to north, your best neighborhood bets are:

How to Spend a Saturday in Downtown Portland

Let's say you're passing through town only briefly - for business, for a friend's wedding, as a pitstop between San Francisco and Seattle - and you only have a day to learn the lay of Portland's land. What do you do?

Welcome to PDX (says the White Stag)

My short answer: Waterfront Park and the Saturday Market, Portland's living room, Powell’s, some good food, and – time permitting – walking around the Pearl. Allow me to elaborate.

First, you should eat something. 

This is, after all, what one does in Portland.

Downtown has a number of “hot” as well as classic Portland restaurants. For breakfast, consider Bijou Cafe (132 SW 3rd Ave; no website), an early entrant on the Portland breakfast scene that serves excellent, largely local, largely organic breakfast and brunch dishes. Two other classic Portland restaurants serve consistently high quality brunches and lunches: the Veritable Quandry (with delightful patio seating; reservations recommended) and the Heathman (very classic Portland; reservations probably smart).

For “new” Portland (read: longer wait and no reservations), try Kenny and Zuke’s, a more industrial space with New York deli-style plates (they smoke and cure their own meats – including fabulous pastrami – and their bagels are above average). And the famous/infamous Tasty n' Sons, the unofficial King of Portland's popular brunch scene with the two-hour waits to prove it, has recently opened a second outpost right downtown, the aptly named Tasty n' Alder (it's on Alder).

Do do that voodoo that you do so well.

Or, if you really like lines, there’s always the downtown outlet of Voodoo Doughnuts. Now, I love a good doughnut – but I refuse to stand in line for more than 5 minutes for one. But Voodoo Doughnuts has rapidly become a Portland institution, and standing in line at the downtown store has become something of a Portland institution as well. So I leave the decision to you.

Date-worthy Happy Hours

In case you haven't noticed, I like a good deal. Portland has so many restaurants, trying them all for full evenings out would be a financial undertaking akin to a downpayment on our first house. So I have become a self-proclaimed expert on Portland's abundant happy hour scene, a scene that has allowed us to sample restaurants that would otherwise be outside our normal dining budget. After 18 months of exploration, here are my six favorites, from the casual to the upscale:

Dig a Pony: This is where the 20-something hipsters come to play like it's 1899. Huge windows fill this lovely open space with natural light; the artisanal lightbulbs and plentiful candles means attractive lighting for all once the sun sets. Exposed brick walls, an old-fashioned horseshoe bar, and a smattering of old books class up the joint, while the thumping (but always hip) music keeps it young, and the moody bartenders with their suspenders and bowties keeps it attitudinal. Happy hour runs until 7, with local beers, well drinks, and plates of food all $3. Best bet: the Cubano. The fries are good, too.

Hubers (411 SW Third): For something completely different - think 1890s without the irony - get to Huber's early to snag a booth in its dark-wood bar before it fills up with happy hour regulars. The menu is not particularly noteworthy other than its incredible cheapness: a long list of meal-sized dishes for $3 or $4. Since the food's such a deal, splurge on a Spanish coffee, the making of which Huber's has turned into performance art.

Clyde Common (1014 SW Stark): A new classic on the Portland scene, Clyde Common combines the woodsy/light industrial look with well-executed dishes that typify Portland's trendiest food trends (e.g., nettles, terrines, obscure pasta shapes, various forms of pig). The happy hour food menu is limited - you're here primarily for the $5 cocktail specials, most of which involve bourbon. Sitting around the communal table as the open kitchen behind you gets on with dinner prep, you will feel jazzed and maybe even a little hip; you might even feel inspired to stay for dinner, but be forewarned that the dinner menus aren't even printed until happy hour ends at 6.

Heathman (1001 SW Broadway): On the other side of downtown, and at the other end of the new school/old school spectrum, is the Heathman Hotel. Portland doesn't go for grand or ostentatious; it likes understated and comfortable elegance, which pretty much sums up this traditional lodging and dining establishment. The Heathman's reliably excellent restaurant is a popular lunch spot for lawyers and business types, and its bar is a classy choice for an afterwork drink. A cheaper food menu is available all night long in the bar and in the tea court lounge, where you can sip with sophistication on chaise lounges and love seats underneath the grand chandelier. Even better, the tea court lounge hosts live jazz Wednesday through Saturday.

ClarkLewis (1001 SE Water Ave.): For a classy but modern ambiance, head over the Hawthorne Bridge to the cluster of trendy establishments in the inner east side's warehouse district. ClarkLewis was a hot restaurant five or seven years ago; the buzz has died off, which just translates to "same great space, more chill vibe." I love that their happy hour drinks include real martinis and gimlets - and more-than-just-house wines - for $5. As for the food, expect a scaled-down version of their regular fare, not as good or as intricate but a decent value: a deliciously fatty burger is $6, a plate of house-made spaghetti bolognese (properly cooked al dente and not overladen with sauce) is $4, and a large green salad with seasonal toppings is $3. They also keep a dessert option on the happy hour menu (usually around $3, too), so you could have a full three-course meal for $12-$15 per person. Particularly on a nice day, with the garage-door windows rolled up, this lovely space feels positively date-like, or at least more New York than new Portland. Happy hour runs daily until 6:30 (6:00 on Fridays).

Lincoln (3808 N. Williams): Like Clyde Common, Lincoln focuses on what I think of as new Portland cuisine - house-made mousses and terrines; perfectly prepared local vegetables; well-seasoned game ragus. Like comfort food, but cooked with the precision of a French-trained chef (and speaking of chefs, chef-owner Jenn Louis is one of the best in town). Even the space feels like an upscale pub, with big windows and comfortable booths and a small bar flooded with light as the sun sets. Service is friendly and attentive; the happy hour menu is ample and constantly changing to keep pace with seasonal ingredients. This is a perfect end to the day: mellowing over plate after plate of perfectly executed fare while watching the bike commuters on N. Williams whizz by. Happy hour runs until 7 on weekdays. 

PDX Brews: the Micro, the Macro, and the Nano

My mom has always been ahead of the times. She moved to Portland in the '70s - way before it was hip  - and, when I was a kid, would take us to the city's first brewpub: McMenamin's Hillsdale Pub. Lyza and I liked it because if you were a rube enough to order a "large," the thinly cut fries (skin still on) would come out heaped on a baking sheet. Tee-hee. Mom liked it because she could bring along a Ball jar to fill with fresh beer to take home (a growler before we called them growlers).

Today McMenamin's is a huge chain; their food is rather mediocre and their beer quality rather spotty. A micro-to-macro growing pain, I suppose. But they have a thing and they do it well - see, for example, my notes on the Kennedy School. McMenamin's is still a stalwart of old Portland, as are the other early pioneers of the Oregon microbrew scene: Bridgeport (Portland 1984), Widmer (Portland 1984), Deschutes (Bend 1988), Rogue (Ashland/Newport 1988).

Joe, our beer guru, with tasters at the Commons Brewery.

So if you're visiting Portland for the first time, know that all of these breweries have large, welcoming brewpubs with full menus and (for the most part) family-friendly atmospheres. For a great, old-school beer crawl right downtown, start at McMenamin's Ringler's Annex (1223 SW Stark) and then work your way through the Pearl district - past Rogue (1339 NW Flanders), then Deschutes (210 NW 11th), and ending at Bridgeport (1313 NW Marshall).

You might have a sensed theme, though, in my PDX posts: as a native Portlander, I can't help but view Portland through an "old Portland/new Portland" prism. Let's say you have a beer-savvy friend coming to town, and you want to impress her with a more "new Portland" (hip/edgy/small batch) brewery experience. You're in luck: in the last few years, there's been an explosion of "nano-breweries" around town. As I've said before, I'm no beer expert, but I know what I like - and this stuff is good.

New Portland Comfort Food

Old Portland is alive and well when it comes to food: from the Heathman to Huber's, Portland's culinary institutions soldier on unfazed by the vegan/pork belly/itzakaya/food cart fads that might be sweeping the rest of the city. More on these stalwarts later.

The East Side: Home of New Portland

Then there is New Portland, the Portland of Portlandia, of hipsters and mavens and prematurely retired young people of a creative and entrepreneurial bent who seem unfazed by their limited economic prospects. In the extreme, this Portland can be tiresome - but it also provides great benefits. Like the following: my favorite destinations for New Portland-style comfort food, all with distinctive ambiance, good food, and weeknight-friendly prices.

Sweet Hereafter (3326 SE Belmont): Vegan comfort food served in a dark and hip bar - and it doesn't even have a website. You can't get more Portland than that. The dishes are rich and not particularly healthy (other than the lack of meat and cheese), just the way pub food should be. The beer list is decent, particularly given that all the beers are vegan, too (though I'm not particularly clear on what differentiates a vegan from a non-vegan beer). But while we really like the food at the Sweet Hereafter, the reason we keep coming back is its date-worthy atmosphere. Hint: Order before 7 p.m. for a $1 off entrees and a $1 off most beers.

Bollywood Theater, before the dinner rush.

Bollywood Theater (2039 NE Alberta): Indian street food, served casually in a bustling cafe of mismatched tables and silent screenings of the cheesiest of old Bollywood movies. The flavor of each dish is multilayered; the paneer is housemade. Excellent vegetarian options abound. The paneer kati roll, our favorite item on the menu, is a full dinner for just $7. Other winners include the shrimp curry (light on the coconut, balanced use of cardamon, a noticeable kick of spice) and, for those looking for less rich and more mild comfort food, the aloo tiki - fried potato cakes with peas, served with a chickpea stew.

Grain & Gristle (1473 NE Prescott): We might be particularly partial to G&G because it's right down the street from our house, but this cosy pub of rough-hewn wood tables and a welcoming bar is our winter-time favorite. The menu is meat-focused, classic bistro food but with fresh flavors and local ingredients. Best of all, most dishes land in the moderate $10 range. The cheeseburger is a perennial favorite, as are whole pan-roasted fish and freshly made pastas. I particularly appreciate the bar's excellent draft list of local beers, as well as their per-ounce pricing (there's no shame here in ordering just a glass, and no volume discount for ordering a pint). Also popular: the "two-fer," a daily meat special large enough to share, served with vegetables, a couple beers, and a dessert for just $20.

Broder (2508 SE Clinton): Brunch done right. Scandinavian-style, with aebleskiver, lefse, and mixed bords of delectable treats. On weekends, expect a wait, but at least you can sit around inside the Savoy Tavern next door with some Stumptown coffee to keep you company. I love the bright ambiance and the very good food (unusual for a brunch spot), plus it reminds me sweetly of our time in Copenhagen.

Snuggling up at Biwa.

Biwa (SE 9th & Ash): Portland has an abundance of good Japanese restaurants, and we're not talking just sushi here. Biwa is our favorite among the city's many itzakaya (drinking pubs), a snug underground gathering place with a long menu of ramen, yakitori, and drinking snacks and an even longer menu of shochu and sake. This is where we often take friends from out of town, both for the good food and for the hip but comfortable atmosphere. Also, their logo is an adorable chick. Best deal: After 9 p.m., at the bar, giant bowls of ramen are only $5.

Kennedy School (5736 NE 33rd Ave.): OK, so this isn't technically New Portland - the McMenamin's franchise is about as Old Portland as you can get. But it has a great set-up: they converted an old elementary school into an adult amusement park with multiple funky bars ("The Boiler Room," "The Honors Bar"), a restaurant that includes a lovely courtyard, a hotel (complete with "soaking pool"), and a second-run movie theater with $3 tickets. This is our preferred movie venue in Portland - not great on the technological front, but the seats are vintage sofas with homey end tables in between for your food and beer, and did I mention the tickets are $3?? (Fair warning: weekend movies can sell out - get there early.) Granted, the food is mediocre, but Jeff is particularly fond of their soft pretzel.

#1 Very Best Day Trip

Mt. Hood from the air: a "real" mountain.

When we have out-of-town guests, our #1 very top pick for a day trip from Portland is not wine country, but the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood. Natural beauty, sunnier weather, a plethora of outdoor activities, a "real" mountain – all an easy drive from Portland. It's a winner every time.

So hard do we push the Gorge/Hood loop, we compiled detailed instructions on the route for our wedding guests last year. The guests' consensus: two satisfied thumbs up. For posterity, then, the Maggie & Jeff Guide for the Best Day Trip Ever from PDX:

Part I: The Historic Highway and Vista House
Drive east on I-84 out of Portland for about 30 minutes until you reach Troutdale. Take the main Troutdale exit (Exit 17) and follow the signs for the historic highway: go straight through the first light and turn right at the second light past a big shopping center. After you clear the shopping area, take a left at the light and head down Troutdale’s main street. You are heading the right direction if you go under the arch that says “Troutdale” and past a bunch of new Old West-looking storefronts.

The highway first takes you across the Sandy River and then starts to climb up through fields. When it crests, you will get your first view of the Gorge. Shortly afterwards, the road passes around the Vista House. Get out here for some key photo ops.

Vista House (on the right): Gateway to the Gorge.

The highway – and the Vista House – were built during the Depression by the WPA. Before I-84 raced along the bottom of the Gorge, the old highway wound its way precariously along (and through) the cliffs. Only this stretch, from Troutdale to Multnomah Falls, is still open to car traffic.

Vista House itself is a charming little rest area situated at the mouth of the Gorge. It is aptly named: the start of the Gorge unfurls to the east in lush folds of cliffs and river. Once you have pictures of the vista, if you'd also like pictures of the vista that includes the Vista House, backtrack slightly up the highway to the prior lookout.

Part II: Waterfalls and Hiking
After the Vista House, you will pass a series of waterfalls: Latourell Falls, Sheperd's Dell, Bridal Veil Falls, Wahkeena Falls, and the biggie, Multnomah Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in the western hemisphere (and a key Oregon photo op).

On Coffee: A Portland Declaration

Around these parts, people take their coffee with absolute seriousness. This leads to a certain amount of pretension and posturing - something I've been guilty of since high school. But let's be honest: most of us do not have any real expertise to distinguish between, say, excellent coffee and really excellent coffee. Hence my Portland declaration: We should just drink what we like.

If only it were that easy.

I recently sent Jeff to a barista class at Clive Coffee, an exemplar of the Portland coffee scene. Clive doesn't sell coffee, they sell the coffee experience - by which I mean $70 old-fashioned coffee mills so you can grind your coffee by hand, $65 Japanese water kettles so you can pour your water with precision, and $170 stands crafted from salvaged wood for your conical filter and glass beaker (to replace your $5 plastic coffee filter holder and freebie mug). I'm actually not being cynical here - this stuff is beautiful. But it's nothing you need, and in that sense reminds me of the Japanese tea ceremony: the beauty of the form becomes as important as the quality of the final product.

Clive also sells $5000 home espresso machines, which then necessitates classes to teach the new owners how to use them. I just thought it would be interesting to learn how to pull a shot. So off Jeff goes, and he brings back this story.

At the outset, the barista-instructor pulled a shot of espresso and tasted it. "Mmmm," he said. "That's good." Then he passed it around to the four students. The first three concurred: this was the good stuff. Jeff was last.

Jeff's first thought: "I don't even drink the communion wine at church, and you want me to revel in four strangers' backwash?" Jeff's second thought: "This tastes like a particularly sour lemon." Jeff says, "Oh. I don't think this tastes good." Everyone laughs, but it wasn't a joke.

My point: Way to go, Jeff! A $5000 machine does not guarantee a transcendant coffee experience, just like a two-hour-long wait doesn't guarantee a transcendent brunch experience or a triple-dose of local hops doesn't guarantee a transcendent microbrew (in truth, it never does). We should be honest with ourselves and drink what we like.

Consider also Jeff's personal mission to score a "real" cappuccino in Portland. In Portland, people love foam art. You know, the leaf/heart/tree/flower that skilled baristas can shape through precision pours of "microfoam." Problem is, foam art is not conducive to old-fashioned cappuccinos - the kind with thick foam you can stand a spoon up in. Baristas' solution: insist that microfoam coffee art does a cappuccino make. Yes, that means a cappuccino is pretty much the same as a latte, but only plebeians insist on a dry cappuccino, and plebeians' requests are easy to ignore. So foam art it is.

This is, however, a good problem to have, this imbibing pretension, because it's a symptom of having wine/beer/coffee worth being pretentious about. Our collective standards here in Portland are high, and human beings generally don't want to end up on the wrong side of public opinion, so we reach imbibing consensuses that sometimes miss the bigger picture: we should like what we drink, especially when we have so many high-quality products to choose from. 

That's all I have to say about that. Here are a few of my favorite coffee drinking establishments, plebeian though I am, for those passing through Portland and seeking something beyond Starbucks.

Barista: The store on Alberta is my current favorite coffee shop in Portland because it is so Portland. The coffee can be exquisite (advanced foam art, ahoy), and its decor nails 1890s hipster, complete with artisanal lightbulbs and wall-mounted taxidermy wearing Timbers soccer scarves. (Meanwhile, their Pearl District store nails the exposed-brick-light-industrial look. I appreciate their neighborhood-specific aesthetic.) Also important: it's a pleasant place to sit.

Extracto: I had the most beautiful espresso at their secondary location on Prescott. Unfortunately, not as pleasant as a place to hang out.

Water Avenue Coffee: I recently had a transcendent espresso experience here. It was so good, I had to restrain myself from jumping up and immediately ordering another. I also like the layout of their space, with a few different types of seating options. Conveniently located next to Clive.

Spella: Tiny storefront right in the middle of downtown that's hardly every open. Like many places around town, they roast their own coffee (one of our favorites), and they hand-pull their shots. It's a little slice of Italy, complete with European hours.

Stumptown: As they like to say on Portlandia, it's OVER! Except it's not. Stumptown is no longer "cool" or cutting edge, but it's still reliably good. I'm a fan. Their shop on Belmont is worth spending time in - and their nearby Annex, which serves only individually brewed cups of coffee (no espresso), pretty much started the whole individually brewed cup of coffee thing. It's worth a visit.

Sidetripping Sideways

One can day trip from Portland in any direction - my perennial favorites are to the west and the east (more on those to come). Most recently, however, we sidetripped sideways, an hour southwest of town, to the Willamette Valley wine country.

Oregon is no Napa; there are no fake chateaus here, or $400-a-plate restaurants. But we still have three critical assets: rolling vistas of vineyards and farmland; enough foot traffic for wineries to invest in pretty tasting rooms with regular hours; and decent wines (sorry, Virginia - it wasn't meant to be).

Putting a spring into my step:
my very first 10K.

Now, truth be told, we decided to spend the day in McMinnville - the population epicenter of Oregon's still-growing wine region - for entirely non-wine related reasons. I had found a small 10K race organized by a local school and decided it was time to cross item 16 off my list of life goals ("16. Run a 10K"). And we had a lovely gift certificate to a McMinnville restaurant only open for dinner. We figured we could fill the interim seven hours with the wine-related stuff.

The wine-related stuff

A friend once described her mixed feelings for New Orleans by explaining that it's where the South goes to get ugly. I sometimes feel that way about the wine region around McMinnville: at our first stop last Saturday, when it was just barely noon, we shared the tasting room with two bachelorette parties and a birthday party. An hour later, driving the winding country roads between vineyards, we passed a white stretch Hummer limousine that looked as out of place as rhinestones on a nun's wimple. 

Here's my understanding: if you are serious about wine (which we, frankly, are not), you would limit yourself to two, maybe three tastings in a day - at which point, your palette is spent. You should only need a few sips of each wine to evaluate it, and you likely want to spit out most of those sips so the alcohol doesn't fuzzy your senses. But that's not what people do, so it's no longer what the industry expects.

People go wine-tasting to get drunk. Tasting rooms thus charge, on average, $10 for a flight of one-ounce pours (which is a fair value, if you're actually drinking the wine). There is an expectation that you might visit half-a-dozen wineries in an afternoon. Indeed, small towns like Dundee and Carlton consist almost entirely of winery tasting rooms, so you could sample a dozen different wineries on foot in the course of a couple hours. Like a wine crawl. This is not my scene.