Author Archives: cee

Keg Bike

Tall Bike

Dust and Memorials

It’s been 10 years. It doesn’t feel like 10 years.

I wanted to share with you some photos. I’ve never done anything with them – just shot them to document the reality of it all then placed them in a folder on my hard drive. I’ve looked at them twice in the last several years, once when I wrote this post exactly three years ago today, and again just now.

To be honest, it was really hard to look at them. I preferred to just keep them hidden away, like the vial of dust hidden in a box somewhere that I collected from downtown a few days after the towers fell, and the postcards of the Twin Towers I bought from a Bleecker Street tourist shop. The New York Times did a piece this week called What We Kept which I found fascinating. I realized I’m not the only one who saved something from that time… I wonder how many others have vials of dust hidden in a drawer somewhere.

Below are some photos I took, along with the dates & location, and a Google Street View of what’s there now. Some of the buildings were too damaged and tore down. Others look like nothing ever happened.

174 Broadway

174 Broadway Now

Corner of Trinity Place and Cortlandt St.

Corner of Trinity Place and Cortlandt St. Now

Wall Street by Trinity Church

Fulton & Broadway

Fulton & Broadway Now

A Shop Keeper across from WTC

The dust lasted for months

Memorials were everywhere…


A fire station in the Village

Washington Square Park





Union Square Park








And finally… the only photo I have of the Twin Towers which I took myself

Hashbrowns

Made from yummy potatoes from Susan’s garden.

Mt. St. Helens

ผัดกระเพราเต้าหู้

recipe here

ฉันปลูกใบกระเพราเองด้วย!

White Raspberries

white raspberries

Marionberry bush

marionberry bush

Marionberries!

marionberries

Mutant Oregon Raspberries

mutant oregon raspberries

Cloudy Day

cloudy day

Best Coffee in Portland?

I often get asked where are the best places to have coffee in Portland. I used to think I was a coffee snob and knew a little bit about coffee before I moved here. Let me tell you – Portland’s coffee geeks have humbled me. That aside, here are the places I have tried and liked so far.

South East


Heart

heartroasters.com2211 E Burnside
This place is right near my house. I love the vintage science classroom decor and the super cute hip girls working there. Their coffee is delicious. They roast in-house & sell their beans too.
Order a Latte or a crazy Japanese Siphon coffee.

Coava Coffee Roasters

coavacoffee.com1300 SE Grand Ave
These guys are real coffee geeks. Probably the geekiest in the city. They take their coffee very, very seriously. They invented their own (reusable! sustainable! local!) metal cone for pour over coffee and they won the most recent NW Regional Barista Competition. They share a space with a (sustainable! local!) bamboo flooring company. How Portland.
Order a Pour Over or something espresso based

Stumptown

stumptowncoffee.com3356 SE Belmont St
How can I not mention Stumptown? Stumptown is the largest(?) roaster in Portland and is the default coffee bean at most shops which don’t already roast their own. They have a few coffee shops in the city and sell their beans in the grocery stores too. This one on Belmont has two shops – one regular coffee shop and one “tasting room” called the Annex where they do free tasting flights of single origin beans every day at noon and 2pm. No joke.
Order a French Press

North West


Barista

baristapdx.com539 NW 13th Ave
These guys make a great espresso. Try any of their espresso-based drinks. They’re always nice inside too. They have a really beautiful shop up on Alberta but I read on the news that it got pretty damaged by a fire caused by the 4th of July fireworks last week. No word when it’ll re-open. Sad. In the meantime, go support their Pearl District location. **EDIT** They’ve re-opened the Alberta location as of November 7th, 2011. 1725 NE Alberta Street.
Order anything espresso based

South West


Café Vélo

cafe-velo.comPSU Farmers’ Market – SW Park Ave & SW Montgomery St
Café Vélo makes single-origin bean pour overs at the Saturday Farmers’ Market at PSU. Their stall is a bicycle. One of the best pour overs in town. Don’t be intimidated by their menu – just ask them to recommend a bean.
Order the pour over – have them recommend one ** Only open on Saturdays!

Courier Coffee

couriercoffeeroasters.com923 SW Oak St
I am in love with Courier. It’s teeny tiny and right nearby Powell’s. There’s two guys who I always see work there, and I swear they must wake & bake every morning. They’re sweet and can tell you about the origin of every ingredient in every item in their store. Everything is hand-made (including the hand-written menus). They roast their own coffee & deliver beans by bicycle. If you have time for only one coffee shop in the West side – go here.
Order the latte in the mason jar (jarbralter) and try a cookie or other random hand-baked goodie

Coffee and a Cookie

I’m sure I’m forgetting some people’s favorites. If your favorite coffee isn’t listed here – there’s a chance I haven’t tried it yet. Let me know and I’ll check it out.

Berry Picking on Sauvie Island

I’ve now gone to three different U-Pick berry farms on Sauvie Island near Portland in the last two weeks… Here’s my review:

Sauvie Island Farms

sauvieislandfarms.com
Directions: Cross the bridge to Sauvie Island, & continue straight. Follow up until the road forks and stay left – about a mile up on the right. map

Went here first last week and picked about 8 pounds of Mt. Hood strawberries. Delicious. Best strawberries I’ve ever had. They are not organic but they don’t “spray” (but do apply fungicide to the soil). Strawberries are one of the “if you can’t afford to eat organic, at least just eat organic with these 10 items” so I’m a bit worried, but not enough to not eat them.

I went home and made jam with half of the berries. And I may have eaten the rest over 4 days. Did that make me sick of berries? No! A week later I went back…

Verdict: Great pick


Kruger’s Farm

krugersfarmmarket.com
Directions: Cross the bridge to Sauvie Island and this is the first farm on the right. map

So, Sauvie Island Farms is closed on Sunday but this place is open… My friend who brought me to Sauvie Island Farms said this place kinda sucks – too many tourists who pick the place clean and they’re overpriced. Well… she was dead on right. We spent about an hour here and got nothing but screaming children and teeny picked over berries and sad plants and a whole lot of dust. We left for better pastures.

Verdict: Pass this one up


Columbia Farms

columbiafarmsu-pick.com
Directions: This one is on the other side of the island – near the nude beach. White barn, light green roof. map

They were super nice here. Not sticky sweet “give me money but I hate you” nice, but actually, honestly nice. They re-weighed our plastic boxes and bowls from Kruger’s (we had weighed them there so they could tare them) and we found out that Kruger’s scales were way off. And when I say way off, I mean at least double what these items actually weigh. Columbia Farms had just calibrated their scales this week so they were accurate. No wonder my raspberries were so expensive at Kruger’s. Yikes…

They had 4 types of strawberries when we went – we picked about 9 pounds. Then we went over and picked a bunch of blueberries and raspberries too. 7 pounds of raspberries. We got about 18 pounds of berries for $23? Jam day is today!

Oh, and if you’re near the blueberries and keep hearing a crazy loud angry bird… that’s a recording coming from teeny speakers on the fence. Scared the shit out of me.

Verdict: Best of the lot

Blueberries

Strawberries