"PortlandOregon" news and stories

Grown-up sodas. Image: Details.

A few of the best stories spied elsewhere on the Web this week:

BoingBoing picks up The Economist's story (and awesome graphic): "How many minutes do people in your city have to work to buy a Big Mac?"

Adult sodas from the stylish fellas at Details.

Starbucks-lovers, alert! They are lowering prices on some drinks but kicking them up a notch on others.

The L.A. Times reports: Facebook has created "Restaurant City." You may never get work done again.

Another ephemerally gorgeous piece from Design*Sponge's "In The Kitchen With" column, featuring a meringue-raspberry ice cream cake and some enviable dishware.

Portland, Oregon continues to rule, with a Fermentation Fest on Thursday of next week. (Clearly either our invite was lost in the mail, or they do not know about our pickling problems.)

Have you sampled the blackberries in the market right now? They are super-sweet. This Blackberry-Cabernet Caipirinha from Chow had us drooling.

The best Bruni interview of the bunch -- from the New Yorker.

My heart leaps with joy! It is finally the season of pumpkins and apples, soups and nutty baked goods. I went apple picking over the weekend, relishing the cooler air and the ways in which fall light is distinctly different than summer. I would have picked up a pumpkin or two, but the lines at Linvilla Orchards were a little too long and crazy. It looks like the pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island, just outside of Portland, OR, was far less crazy and more serene.

Thanks Mike, for adding this lovely picture to the Slashfood Flickr pool.

Source

Yesterday I picked "Ethiopia Sidamo" from the thermal pot at my fave local coffee shop, on a whim. I almost never go with the boring, ordinary Colombian house blend. Sometimes I'm wowed by my alternative selection, other times it's just coffee.

Color me wowed. I can't get enough of this stuff. It tastes like berries. No lie. And I'm sure you're thinking, coffee that tastes like berries? I totally passed that raspberry-flavored stuff up in the coffee aisle at my grocery store. But this is more a terroir thing (do they call it terroir in coffee?). The coffee beans, they're not that different from grapes, after all. Roasting brings out these amazingly complex and, yes, fruity flavors. According to the roaster, Stumptown Coffee, "The cup is Neopolitan ice cream... Intense chocolate, strawberry and creamy vanilla flavors in every sip." Plus it's organic and fair-trade and ohmigod I am so in love with this coffee. I wish I could give you a taste, you'd never be the same.

I'm not what you would call a sushi purist, but I really hate "California rolls" and other constructs meant to make sushi palatable to picky eaters and those fearful of raw fish. My favorite rolls include spicy tuna, barbecued eel, or soft-shelled crab, and I have a guilty love of that spicy mayonnaise served with some tempura rolls.

But when I visited a little sushi joint in downtown Portland at the insistence of my three-year-old son (he loves "slushli" and has been eating barbecued eel since before he was one), I almost didn't order the peanut sauce roll. But it had everything I love in one roll - spicy tuna, avocado, cucumber, tempura shrimp. And Thai-flavored peanut sauce. Why not?

I tried it, and though I felt a little silly, I loved it. It's terribly frou-frou and not "real" sushi. But it's good. I don't know - it works for me. Would you order such a silly piece of sushi?

[Photo Sarah Gilbert]

I ate my Danish for D-day but didn't get a chance to write about it. Now, I do.

This Danish is... literally... six inches across. It's the most decadent thing for breakfast within a good 17-mile radius, scented with cinnamon and butter, dotted with crumb topping crumbles, sparkling with icing and swirled with raspberry jam. These delectable pastries, in a variety of flavors and many studded with whole blueberries or sliced local peaches, are baked fresh every day by Bowers Bakery in Portland. Just wait until you see the height of this ultra-yummy pastry.