Portland August 2013- The Bite of Oregon

Sometimes the best parts of a trip are those that are unplanned. When we were driving to the Marriott Downtown Waterfront, we discovered that The Bite of Oregon food festival was taking place directly across the street from our hotel. I consider myself a "foodie" and love trying new things, but I had never been to a food festival. We were celebrating my birthday on the trip, so I picked the festival for our first meal in town.

The Bite of Oregon entrance fee was only five dollars a person. The vendors are cash only and although all of the sample prices were reasonable, we spent close to a hundred dollars trying everything. There is a bag check at the entrance and bottled water is not allowed. This wasn't such a huge deal, except for it was hot at the event, so staying hydrated is a must.

We kicked off our gorge-fest at The Original Shrimp and Crab Company.

The staff at The Original Shrimp and Crab Company were super nice and asked us about Los Angeles. Apparently I had the right answer when I declared no love for any particular Los Angeles sports team. I think if I had said the Lakers, I would have been kicked right out of the event! Dan and I shared a crab melt, which was probably the best thing that we ate at the festival.

Crab Melt covered in spicy sauce. So good!

Our second course was a stick of enormous chocolate covered strawberries from the BerryKa Bob booth.

The cutest booth was definitely The Honey Pot Sweet and Savory Pies.

The Honey Pot truck just makes me smile.

Beyond being adorable, The Honey Pot has delicious food. We shared their flight of mini sweet pies.

I've heard tales of places that offer tastings pairing cupcakes and wine. Unfortunately, this just seemed to be advertising the idea and not offering a sample.

Just as we were getting completely parched, we happened upon one of the beer gardens. Prior to our trip, I had read that Oregon is known for its great beers and is a place that takes beer very seriously. I was eager to sample the local offerings.

The Beer Tent (the most popular place at any event)

We tried three beers. Out of the three, the one that I really enjoyed was the Raspberry Wheat from Cascade Brewing. It was sweet and light, great for summer. I can't remember the other two samples, but they were not very good. Dan disliked them enough that I ended up drinking a majority of all three beers. I had a great afternoon!

We learned that the lottery in Oregon helps fund new companies. We tried their food samples. I don't know much about it, but it sounds like a smart thing to have some of the lottery revenue going towards helping local businesses.

Local companies that the Oregon State Lottery has helped fund.

Castello Cheese is amazing! We had a sample of brie with honey that was fantastic. If it had not been free, we would have paid to fill up on cheese. We wanted more, but didn't want to look greedy.

Castello Cheese Booth. Next to the beer tent, cheese is probably the most popular thing at the festival.

We saw a very impressive balloon hat.

The Rouge Farms booth gave us the chance to try beer crust pizza. It was okay, but in a sea of unusual food options, it wasn't a very special thing to picked to fill our limited tummy space. This was our one regrettable food choice. We had a slice of the salami with oyster mushrooms.

Pretty much anything with animals is a win. We sampled the FatDog Inc. spicy pretzels, which had a cat on the packaging. Smart branding to appeal to both dog and cat people!

Portland was crawling with Car2Go branded blue and silver Smart Cars. There are cars that you can rent by the minute and drop off anywhere in your neighborhood when you are done. It seems like a popular idea for a city where public transportation is so good that people don't necessarily need to own a car. The Car2Go company fills in for those occasional times when the convenience of car is helpful. Dan and I have two Smart Cars and I can vouch for their excellent trunk space. They may look small, but we have loaded them up with huge hauls from Ikea with no problems.

If I return to the event in the future, I will plan out my visit better and include some of the chef events. Something called Iron Chef Oregon has to be good. Maybe the challenge ingredient will be doughnuts from Voodoo?

On the opposite end of the beer garden, we found the wine and cider section. My favorite beverage of the day was a cider sample from the Portland Cider Company. The cider was so sweet that it almost tasted like a dessert. I am remiss in remembering the name of what I drank, but I would definitely seek out the Portland Cider Company and try their products until I found it. I wish that we had skipped the beer garden and gone straight over to the wine/cider area. The area had several wineries offering dollar pours.

One of the biggest food surprises was the Fish People Seafood booth.

The Fish People sell seafood entrees in pouches that are ideal for camping. I don't camp, but I like the idea of fancy camp food. I'd probably buy their products and make them at home. They were that delicious. I'm going to look for their products the next time I'm at Whole Foods.

We picked a lemon crepe from the Crepe Chalet for our final sample. It was light and sugary.

I snapped a couple of last pictures as we left the festival feeling stuffed and tipsy.

The Bite of Oregon is over for 2013, but if you have a chance to attend future events, I highly recommend it. Bring loads of cash and a big appetite!

So You're Dating a Brit- Local Find

Last Christmas dinner, Dan cooked a traditional English Roast. The meal planning involved a trip to a local British imports grocery store, Friar Tucks Shoppe. While it was a lot of fun to poke around in Friar Tucks, we spent a ton of money and walked away with a small bag. We declared it a great little place when Dan needs a taste of home, but certainly not somewhere that we would shop with any frequency.

Cut to last night...

We were craving Indian food and decided to try a local Indian grocery store that has an attached casual restaurant, India Sweets and Spices. India Sweets and Spices has been walking distance from my house forever, but having only recently discovered a love for Indian food, it's not a place that I had ever visited.

It was a good find.

The dining area is more fast food, than a restaurant, where you pay at the counter and pick what you want from giant vats cafeteria style. It's cheap, tasty and plentiful. Seriously, I couldn't believe how much food was piled on to our plates.

The combo meal came with a small mango lassi, so it was like getting a drink and dessert in one go. One of the main dishes that I ordered was a vegan curried cauliflower. I love vegetables, but cauliflower is one that I normally avoid. It always seems bland. The way that they had the cauliflower prepared was delicious. I also had a fried cauliflower dish that was great, although deep frying anything normally makes it yummy.

After dinner, we went into the grocery store, which was huge. Dan was delighted to find rows of products imported from the UK. Tons of stuff, including lots of Cadbury! Although more than we would pay in the UK, the prices were far below those at the Friar Tuck Shoppe or Cost Plus Imports. Not only were the prices better, but the selection was easily double. We hit the jackpot!

A nice employee handed us a shopping basket and we started throwing all kind of stuff into it. Admittedly, the only UK product that we bought was Jacob's Cream Crackers. We head to the UK in a few weeks, so we can do our grocery shopping there. Although, with the terrible exchange rate, we might be better off buying our UK treats in America!

Shopping at India Sweets and Spices was a truly international experience.

We bought Marilan wafer cookies from Brazil, tomato rice mix from India, Mutter Paneer mix from India, Tikka Masala from California and pineapple jello from Pakistan. What Americans call Jello, the Brits call Jelly. Initially this led to a bit of confusion in our household, but this morning, I caught Dan referring to the Jello as Jello. Score one for Karen! Apparently they call Jello, Jelly in Pakistan too.

All of that, plus a coconut, came to fourteen dollars! We were very happy with the good deal and fun shopping experience. I'm looking forward to future trips and new discoveries.

Dan's 40th Birthday Big Bear Weekend- Day Three

We began our last morning in Big Bear with breakfast at the Grizzly Manor Cafe.

The Grizzly Manor Cafe is a small restaurant with a ton of character. The interior of the cafe is covered with drawings, stickers, signs and business cards. Unfortunately, I didn't have any blog cards on me, otherwise I would have put one up on the wall!

I took some pictures of the menu. I like the warning regarding special orders and I heeded it!

Grizzly Manor isn't the only Big Bear cafe that has coffee cups supporting local businesses. I love it.

Dan drinking coffee out of a First Mountain Bank mug.

Dan loves pancakes and we read that Grizzly Manor Cafe had enormous ones. The pancake came and it covered the plate!

I don't normally order waffles, but it seemed like the thing to do here. Breakfast was delicious in this quirky establishment. I highly recommend checking out Grizzly Manor Cafe.

We had about an hour to kill before our Action Zipline Tour, so we drove around to the other side of the lake to check out the observatory. Unfortunately, we found out that the observatory was closed to the public this summer. Hopefully it will be open on our next visit, as it is something that we would love to check out.

Bear art is all over Big Bear and we contemplated buying a piece. Some of the stores had wooden bears that were hanging off window sills, like they were taking a peak inside of a house. I must have one.

It finally came time to begin our Action Zipline tour. The tour began at their office, where we filled out waivers and we were given a short briefing from the office staff.

Action Zipline  Office, Big Bear. — Action Zipline Office, Big Bear.

We were told that cameras and cell phones were not allowed on the tour due to safety reasons. Also, they wanted us to leave all lose articles, specifically car keys, in lockers that they provided at the office. The lockers had a key with a wrist band and felt secure. I don't mind that they wanted us to leave things behind, although I thought that it was funny that they specifically mentioned that we could take our wallets to tip the guides. I was planning on tipping the guides of course, but if things falling out of pants was such a big problem, wouldn't wallets be included in that?

Our group had about fifteen people and they took us up the mountain in two vans. It was approximately a twenty minute drive. At the base of the zipline camp, we were outfitted with helmets and our zipline harnesses. The four guides introduced themselves and helped us get into our gear. We were then taken in two groups further up the mountain in military style vehicles. The bumpy ride was fun!

We did nine ziplines, most of which I found to be completely terrifying.

I was absolutely trembling after the first two lines and nearly backed out when I got to the third. What made me jump off of the third was a rude woman in our group threatening that she would push me, if I didn't get on with it. Nice. She was scared of heights and it was hard to have sympathy towards her after that comment.

The heights didn't bother me. I also trusted the guides and the safety equipment. What got to me was the speed and worrying about having to reach up and use my gloved hand to brake myself. I don't really enjoy fast movement and was completely intimidated by the speed in which I was hurling towards the guides waiting to catch me if I didn't properly brake.

This was 100% outside of my comfort zone and although I am glad that I tried it, I would never do it again. I was actually supposed to go on a zipline tour with my mom in Maui about six months before she passed away. The day of our excursion the winds were too high and it got canceled. My mom was the daring one in the family. I inherited none of her love of adrenaline rushes. She went sky diving for her sixtieth birthday and loved every minute of it! My mom would have been proud that I went through all of the ziplines without bailing.

Action had a professional photographer on the excursion and we were encouraged to let go and wave. All of my pictures were terrible as I refused to relax and had a look of complete fear on my face. They managed to get one good shot of Dan. He looks like he's having fun!

Just like the Segway tour, it was a good idea to wear bright colors. The bright colors really pop in the pictures. Even though we didn't purchase proof of me in action, we did decide to buy a nice picture of Dan and I together.

Action Zip Line Tour! We still had two more zip lines to go when this shot was taken.

I'm not going to deny it, I was happy when the tour was over. It was terrifying! If you decide that it is something you would like to try, I would definitely reccomend Action Ziplines, as the guides were fantastic and we thought that it was a good value for an adrenaline packed morning.

After the hot and dusty excursion, we were parched and desperate for a beer. We headed to Village Pizza for lunch.

Oddly enough, our last meal in Big Bear was the only one that we thought wasn't a very good value. The prices were more akin to Los Angeles restaurants, so maybe it was a good way to ease back into reality. We each had a large beer and shared a medium pizza, which was more than enough food for two. Good pizza with loads of tomato sauce, toppings and a thin crust.

On our way out of town, we made one last stop, The Magic Mountain Recreation Area. Magic Mountain, not to be confused with the Six Flags chain, is a small family fun zone with a water slide, horse rentals, an arcade and an alpine slide ride. In the winter they offer snow tubing. Dan really wanted to go on the Alpine Slide, so we bought five tickets for twenty.

Tip- Don't store the tickets in your pocket. We used two tickets and lost the rest. Dan bought a single extra ticket to ride the slide a second time, so that I could record him coming down.

The best part of the Alpine Slide is the ride to the top. The transportation is via ski lift chairs, which gave us great views and made the entire experience last twice as long.

The lift has hooks on the sides that carry the "sleds" back up the hill. The speed of the sled is controlled with a hand brake. I took it slow down the slide, but Dan flew down!

I love this shot that Dan took of the slide. There are two tracks, one for slower sliders and a fast track.

On Dan's second ride, I took a short video of him finishing the track. It looks like he's moving slowly, but it's only because this is the part of the track where he is required to slow down to prepare for stopping.

Dan's 40th Birthday Weekend was a huge success and we were sad to drive home. Hopefully we will return to Big Bear soon!