Modern Day Gothics

My family.

She's 30!

My roommate Ingrid turned 30 yesterday.

We spent the evening snacking on grapes, plantain chips with white bean and basil hummus (YUM!), and wasabi almonds. We drank white wine and champagne. We played with our hair, tried on dresses, and did our make-up. By the time we were ready to go, it was 9.


Up up the hill to Liberty Glass. Walking in our heels and short dresses.

The night included triscuit nachos, whiskey, crushes being formed (not by me this time!), pints being thrown, fists flying, pictures being taken, and presents being given.


Loads of fun. (Minus the fists being thrown, but nobody knew about that til later.)

Here is a series of photos that was taken:






And here's the two of us, eskimo kissing (how fitting):




Also, this week in Portland food news: Veganopolis closed down. Sad day for vegans dining downtown in Portland. But the flip side--an all vegan Italian restaurant called Portobello will be opening sometime soon. That should be awesome--vegan gnocci, alfredo, pizza... hopefully there'll be all vegan wine too!

2 important things

I want to tell you about this place. It's called Liberty Glass. It is a purple house that sits atop the hill of Mississippi Avenue. I've been there 3 times in the last 24 hours. This bar/restaurant/cozy oasis is my new home away from home. If you live in Portland, go there. If you don't live here (come visit!), then maybe you should think about moving here (Hi Anna!) just for places like this. It's cozy and sweet and homey and a bar with delicious veg*n food (they have meat here too, for those of you who eat that stuff) and sweet sweet sassy servers.

Also, I want to tell you about YELP. For those of you who don't utilize this website, you should start. It's in every major city. Come here to read reviews, to write reviews, to post pictures and events coming up, to look for people to meet--it's like a Craigslist meets CitySearch meets Facebook. But better. Check it out.

That's all. I had a wonderful weekend--lots of biking, eating, drinking, napping, getting passport pictures taken (MUCH cuter this time!) and cleaning. Headed back to work tomorrow.

My best friend Abby gets back from Mexico this week and my mom and little brother Jesse are coming up to visit too! Busy week!

With every twisted ankle comes a silver lining--mac and cheese!

So, it was bound to happen sometime.

When one combines drinking + bike-riding, one is bound to crash. And when I say "one" I mean me. Too many beers led to a twisted ankle and my foot getting all scraped up. It's fine, just hurt a little.

And I had someone nice to take care of me.

that's Rob playing pinball

Before the beers, though, and the twisting, I took a nice picture of the moon next door to my work:
So pretty!

And after the beers, and the twisted ankle-tending, and a good night's sleep, I ate at Pine Street Biscuits--the newest thing in breakfast in Portland. They've been around for awhile up on Belmont--6 or 10 months or so?--but it was my first time. Had the biscuits and mushroom gravy for brunch, with some fresh OJ. Pretty good. Service was quick and friendly. I'd definitely go back.

And then tonight after work, I came home and made something delicious! I finally made that cashew cheese I've been thinking about. Didn't know what to do with it, but figured it out.
Boiled some elbow macaroni noodles, made the sauce (recipe to follow), and added a few other goods. So good! I went back for seconds, which I haven't done in some time.

Cashew Cheese

1 1/2 cups raw cashews, cut up small
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp flax seed oil
1 tsp peanut oil
1 tsp sesame oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tblsp dijon mustard
1 tsp garlic
paprika, to taste.

Cut up cashew pieces and put in blender with water. When blended, add all other ingredients. If too watery, add more cashews. If too thick, add more water. I also added a touch of Silk Soy Creamer.

Janessa's Mac n' Cheese
(serves 4)

1/2 cup elbow macaroni noodles
1 recipe cashew cheese sauce
1 apple sage vegan Field Roast Sausage, sauteed in olive oil
1 cup broccoli
1/2 cup frozen peas
soy cheese, optional

Boil water for noodles. Add the noodles. Put the broccoli in a steamer above cooking noodles. After a few minutes, add peas. This takes total about 6 minutes.
Drain macaroni. Mix veggies, cheese sauce, vegan sausage, and noodles together.

Now, this would be good (actually Great!) to eat right now. But I went one step further. I put the whole creamy mixture in a bread pan, and added some cubes of soy cheese on top. Turned it up to Broil for about 5 minutes.

Oh wow. Forget it about it. I know there's lots of oil in this recipe, but I felt like comfort food tonight. It was so worth it. Had some white wine I bought at a cute wine shop on Hawthorne this evening after work.

What a nice mellow night, and what a great way to relax on a hurt foot! (I really really wanted to go to the Okkervil River show at the Crystal Ballroom, but have already seen them and really should take it easy.)

Tomorrow's my Friday, then may go to the beach this weekend!
Yay!

Weekend with Janessa

My weekend was awesome.

On Friday I went for a run and crossed the Broadway Bridge (so I ran for probably, like, 2 miles total, but it's baby steps, people, baby steps.) and then my sister-in-law Michelle came over for baking.


I baked that savory vegan birthday cake--with sun-dried tomatoes, dried rosemary, and apple sage vegan sausage. It looked delicious, but I haven't seen Craig yet, so I may eat this one and make another. Round 2 usually tastes better anyway. I also made some mini chocolate cupcakes, and had left-over batter, so added some rum extract and made a chocolate rum cake. I have yet to do anything with those. I think I may have to whip some more stuff up today to bring to the potluck in Washington Park. Michelle made a coconut peanut butter chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and topped with chocolate chips, walnuts, and coconut. Wow. For a girl who says she can't bake, she sure blew me away.



After our baking and sampling and giggling, I had a bike date. I met Rob down at the Steele Bridge and we biked down the Eastbank Esplanade to the Springwater Corridor and into Sellwood.

I mapped the journey on ByCycle.org (this site is only in beta version in Portland and Milwaukie, Wisconsin right now, but it's my new crush. It's like mapquest for bike routes.) and learned that it's about 7 miles from my house to Sellwood. Hot and sweaty, we headed into New Seasons, picked up some picnic food, and went down by the water. I had a roasted vegetable sandwich on foccacia with a white bean spread. Pretty good, a little too bready. I also got their edamame salad. Which was light and tasty great little snack.


There were tons of cute dogs! (And a few really ugly ones) I wish I could get a dog. I've got dog envy. Sheesh. Anyway, the waterfront was so beautiful!

We headed back into town to the Slow Bar for a beer (so there went the non-drinking thing. But I felt after a run and biking 14 miles that a beer was extremely necessary.). I had a Belgian White that was DELICIOUS. I wish I could remember what brand, because I'd really like to get it again.
Then we headed to Burn After Reading, the new Coen Brothers movie. Decent. Kinda seemed like a throw-away film though. Nothing too spectacular or redeeming about it really. Rob and I hit up the B Side Tavern after that and then Muchas Gracias--a 24 burrito place on Weidler. Our burritos were delicious and cheap (2 of my favorite things) and after we ate there I heard a bad story about that place. But, like most bad stories about fast-foodish places, it involved meat. Since I will never have a chicken burrito there, I will be back for their bean and rice and lettuce burrito. Mmmmm.



So that was just my Friday! Saturday I went to work, then headed down to the Boiler Room for Melissa Chester's going-away-to-New-Orleans(-a really interesting time to move!) Karaoke Party. I don't usually like the Boiler Room, but it was so much fun this time!

From left: Melissa Chester, her friend Anna, Beth-a co-worker, and Andrea

Oh man. My friend Andy from Portsmouth, England came. Rob came. Ingrid came. Andrea (my dress designer--the one who covered me in duct tape) and our friend Shana came.
The Boiler Room was packed with so many fun people, most of whom were with us (and of course the requsite 21 birthday girl drinking Long Island Iced Teas and her cohorts).

Top: Zhara, Ingrid and I. Below: a big bunch of us

We sang and danced and drank (I had 3--maybe 4?--glasses of wine but felt simply awful in the morning!) and took pictures and just generally had a blast. Got home late, woke up late.

Yesterday, the Day of Rest, I puttered around the house for awhile, took a nap, took a few headache pills for my hangover, and then pulled it together about 2pm. Biked downtown and got a new bike lock from the Bike Gallery, a local bike store. They were very helpful. By the way, it was about 90 degrees yesterday, which by itself is awesome, especialy in Oregon, but when you're biking around and dripping sweat out of every single pore, it can feel not quite so awesome.
Met up with Shelley in the North Park Blocks, who is rocking a new hairstyle and a new bike, and we headed up to Joette's for a BBQ.

Note the tattoo

Lots of yummy food, met some new people, had a nice mellow time.

Shelley and I shared this plate: garden burger with mustard, ketchup, and relish, macaroni salad, pasta salad, spinach salad, blue corn chips, and some spinach dip. I didn't eat the spinach dip, but everything else was good.

Shelley and I left around 5 to meet our friend Dave Pendleton for gelato at Via Delizia, since none of us were drinking. Oh boy. I shared some with Shelley--1 scoop of rum, 1 scoop of tiramisu. First of all, the rum flavor was amazing. Second of all, I haven't consumed that much dairy in quite awhile and my stomach was definetely letting me that it wasn't okay with that decision. Yikes.

We left Pendleton and headed home over the Broadway Bridge. Stopped at my house briefly to lay on the floor and pant, then biked up the Mississippi Hill. I made it all the way up, Shelley had to get off and walk for a bit. That hill is HARD.

We rode up to Vendetta, where I ran into Dan The Fisherman. For those of you who don't know this story, let's just say he's the one who caused me to walk down the street in heels and tears on New Year's Eve, right as the bells were ringing, whistles blowing, and lovers kissing. Ugh. So that was awkward. I shook it off though and Shelley and I ended up playing some killer games of Yahtzee.

Then I headed home and was in bed by 11!

I hope everyone else had a great weekend too. Today is my Sunday. I went for a run this morning (just to the Broadway Bridge, not over it this time) and am going to bake something, then bike over to that potluck this afternoon.