January Salem Monthly out

January 6, 2010 by Emily Grosvenor

I’ve often wished that everyone I know in Salem could meet my neighbors, Keith and Sarah Chilcote. They have introduced us to some of the secret sides of the city (he’s my pick-your-own pinot hookup) and have overwhelmed us with their generosity and good natures.

Well, now you can! Salem Monthly just did a little story on them and their business, American Antique Hardware.

Keith is one of the most loquacious people I have ever known. I am consistently amazed that he can manage a dozen properties, run a business and be father to three darling children when he can barely remove himself from a good conversation. Adam and I both have dad crushes on him.

Sarah is a fabulous mom who has found a way to work from home and raise her kids there — a goal I’m striving for myself. All new parents need role models, and we seem to be surrounded by them.

They have built this mini-Eden in the middle of Northeast Salem, a secret city alcove the is all but overflowing with pears and apples and blueberries and plums in the summer.

Oh, and they sell awesome antique hardware at decent prices. Eat it, Hippo Hardware!

By the way, if you are one of the 2.3 people out there who are wondering why there is no Desperately Seeking Salem column in the January issue of Salem Monthly, I’ll enlighten you.

I totally dropped the ball!

Well, kind of. I’m generally gestating these pieces until about the 23rd of the month, when I write them out in a spontaneous burst of literary activity that lasts about an hour. I was working on such a piece when I went into labor.

Thankfully my editor gave me a reprieve for January. Thanks, Eric!

So sorry to my readers: grandma, Jan and my cat De Kooning. I’ll be back in business next month.

Posted in Celebrities, Home, These are the people in my neighborhood | 2 Comments »

Great Expectations

January 2, 2010 by Emily Grosvenor

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Now it’s the New Year, with a new family member, new aches and pains, and I’ve got new ideas of what counts as “getting sleep.”

I will spare you all the really gory details of the birth of our first son, a whopping 9 lbs. 3 oz., 21 inches, who arrived December 26 at 5:30 p.m. at Silverton Hospital after I was in labor for three days (I blame that Dungeness crab dish at La Capitale, which I ate over lunch on the 23rd…).

By the way, if it’s not “progressing” apace,  it’s not true labor.

Uh huh. Well, I was sure in crabwalk labor for a long time — it never let up.

So yeah. I’m exhausted.

But let me tell you something. As he was flying in the air from my doctor’s hands to my belly, the only thing in my head was that I could do it again.

And I probably will.

Just not this week. Or this month. Or this year.

Say hi to the world, James Dashiell Diesburg!

Posted in Home | 15 Comments »

The Wait Continues

December 21, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

Hello. You’ve reached the no-baby hotline. There is no baby here at this number. We take each and every call we receive seriously and look forward to communicating with you soon.  In the meantime, thank you very much for calling. BEEEEEEEEEP!

Posted in Holidays | 8 Comments »

Reporting on the Reporters

December 15, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

I’ve wanted to be a writer all of my life, but the journalism bug bit later. I’m a born reporter and storyteller, but you could also say it was a bad experience with another young reporter that got me into this business.

Here’s what happened.

I was studying n Germany on a Fulbright in the weeks following the September 11, 2001 attacks. It wasn’t my first sojourn in Munich, so I was well-connected to some of the other American study abroad programs in the city.

One day, a young undergraduate journalism student came knocking on my door, hoping to get my comments on what it was like to live abroad during a time of political upheaval at home. Thing was, my life hadn’t really changed that much. He asked me if my habits had changed. I told him I read the paper even more voraciously.

When the story finally appeared on some random Minnesota regional paper’s website, I was mortified.

He actually had me saying that I started reading the newspaper after the attacks. Minor misquote, you may say, but for a literate person it was like a kick in the gut.

Ever since, I have lived in fear that someone would read this misquote from me and imagine me to be some unconnected, unengaged idiot who didn’t even pick up a paper until she was 24 years old.

Years have past, and my web presence has pushed that little story way back into the farther reaches of the Google archives. Good riddance. You probably couldn’t find it if you were even looking for it. Seriously, I dare you to try.

Now I am a journalist and writer, one who pays especially close attention to how my sources are represented in print and online. No one wants to live down the embarrassment of a botched or misrepresented quote, least of all people whose names might appear once or twice in a news story in their lifetimes.

I’ve gotten a little cagey about other reporters. It’s a control thing, and it’s a quote-gone-bad baggage thing, but it wasn’t much of an issue until the Statesman Journal called me a few weeks back to get my comments on a story about feral rabbits a reporter was writing for the community pages.

You might remember I spoke of the “free-range bunnies” in my neighborhood on this blog a few weeks before that.

Well, the story, by Tarah Campi, has finally run in today’s print issue.  It’s pretty good. As usual, the real stories are going on in the comments section. She neither misquoted or misrepresented me.

The other story that you can’t see is that some of the major players quoted in the story are bloggers. Have you ever read ThePollenation, a Salem blog by Brandy Kinch, whose anecdote about adopting a feral rabbit leads the story?

That got me thinking. Now I’m wondering how long it will be before every person quoted in a traditional print media outlet has a blog. At the very least, being a blogger gives you the chance to the coverage in a personal way — or refute it.

Could have used that in 2001.

Posted in Media | 2 Comments »

Emily: Angry! So much to be angry about!

December 14, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

You’d think that the holidays would make me happy — after all, I’ve never seen more people out and about in Salem.

But I’m feeling a regression of sorts, back to the days when I used to write long, scathing letters to corporations such as CVS when their employees wronged me in ways that were beyond the pale.

In the grand scheme of the universe, these may seem like minor infractions, piddly quibbles.  But when you are 9.45 months pregnant, your patience tends to  spread thin like cellophane.

So here’s some stuff to be angry about:

Imports adrift. In January, Tuesday Morning – is moving from the “zoning abortion” of Lancaster Drive, as a wise Willamette Valley winemaker once described it to me, to a space on S. Commercial near Wal-Mart. Chances are good that I’ll never again make the trip down there for a snuggie/imported Belgian chocolate/Limoges dishes/decent rug/cat-shaped lint remover. At least that zoning abortion is closer to home.

Keep Salem Lame. Someone in this town is actually making the argument on my column from November that Salem needs to stay lame. Months ago I thought about starting an ironic “Keep Salem Lame” movement, in which “lame” could be reappropriated to mean awesome — I know, a little too hipster for this town — but, there are actually too many people working actively as part of the real KEEP SALEM LAME movement. It would never work.

Instead, I would hope that someone would actually comment on the other end of the spectrum, since I can’t. Oh, poor, lonely Salem Monthly columnist… so alone in her hopes for cultural impulses…

Bad customer service. I’m into everyday superheroes. I’m into people who take pride in their work, people who fill their work days with actual work, people who understand that there is something noble and dignifed about doing what you do — whatever it is — best. I reward these people by not acting like an asshole in the public sphere and by generally being a dream customer.

So why do I keep running into salespeople who would rather talk to their work colleagues than sell me something? I’m talking about you, Patrick in the IKEA housewares department. When an adorable hippo asks you if you have a fir-scented candle, don’t say you don’t have one so you can keep talking to your fatty friend. I found that candle after waddling around for fifteen minutes. And no, I didn’t buy it.

Things to feel grappy about:

Always angry when a store fails, a little happy when it’s a concept I kind of hate.

Scrapbook Fever, on Hawthorne Ave, near Pietro’s pizza, is closing. My condolences to the owner’s, who I’m sure are kind and forthright people, but I just don’t think you need a bunch of doodads by Leeza Gibbons to make a decent scrapbook. Or to tell your personal story in any meaningful way.

Apparently, the market agrees. I wish them the best in their next venture.

Posted in Emily: Angry! | 12 Comments »

Free Stumptown at Salem’s Latte in December

December 10, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

It’s no secret that I’ve given up most of my favorite things by getting pregnant. Pinot, coffee, artisan cheeses, a graceful gait.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t let you know that Salem’s Latte, my favorite drive-thru coffee place in Salem, is offering free Stumptown for the entire month of December. That’s a free coffee, just for checking out a PNW bean purveyor that has been called the best in the country.

We drove by on Tuesday to get some for my husband and ended up picking up three 3/4 lb. bags of whole beans to send to our friends and family.

In other words, this is a very good promotion.

Stop by and see barista Carrie, tell her I sent you.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Maybe We’re Not Quite Ready to Have Kids

December 5, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

Thank you to Adam’s work colleagues, who threw him (well, us), a baby shower last night to welcome our little dude to the world. We’re overwhelmed with your generosity. And we really hope our kid isn’t allergic to cats.

Posted in Capital Shots | 12 Comments »

Holiday Gift Guides and Eating Through Salem

December 2, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

Happy Salemversary to me!

One year ago yesterday, my husband and I headed out of Idaho Falls, racing along 84 and down I-5 to make it to Salem at 3:43 p.m. on the afternoon of December 1.

We celebrated in true Salem fashion — we worked late, cooked at home, and watched Jon Stewart before collapsing in our bed.

I’ve been frantically putting together gift baskets based on Salem-area edibles for the past two days while trying to finish up the semester at the University of Oregon, finish some work projects, decorate the house, and not succumb to the nesting instinct that is taking over my mind more every day.

I wrote about these baskets, and the idea of exporting Salem, in my column this month, which lists a few of the area treasures I’ve scoured up over the past months, but it struck me that there aren’t any embedded links on my December column at Salem Monthly, so here’s the good stuff with links to the producers.

  • A bag of Gnome Hazelnut Factory hazelnuts – with the hope that they might entice people to come walk with me among our area’s gorgeous hazelnut groves in the new year.
  • A 3/4 pound bag of Hairbender coffee from Salem’s Latte, the only place in town that carries Stumptown coffee.
  • Oregon White Truffle Oil for the foodies in the family, the only real American truffle oil in existence, hand-infused by Jack Czarnecki of the Joel Palmer House, who actually unearths all of those truffles himself.
  • E.Z. Orchards Marionberry syrup, with a gift card carrying my favorite of Chris Rock’s jokes about former D.C. mayor Marion Berry.
  • One resin wine stopper (pic above), designed to look like a 19th century Victorian doorbell, by AmericanAntiqueHardware.com, a preservation site run by my neighbor.
  • Silver Falls Creamery Goat cheese, a chevre so mind-bogglingly good my husband and I have a song we sing about it.
  • A bottle of Eola Hills 2008 pinot noir to tie it all together.
  • To clean up afterward, one bar of S.L.A.B. soap with a holiday-friendly Douglas Fir or Frankincense Myrrh scent profile.

That’s just my list. What do you put in your local gift baskets? What is Salem’s most exportable good?

Posted in Shopping | 7 Comments »

Christmas Trees in the Land of the Doug Fir

November 30, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

Last year, Adam convinced me that we didn’t need to get a Christmas tree.

We were shuffling between an apartment in West Salem and our current abode in Northeast Salem and were waiting for our moving truck to arrive between December 1 and 10th. It didn’t come until the 18th, and we were unpacking through the New Year.

I’m still holding a grudge.

For even if we had just hung up a branch of greens and strung some popcorn on it, it would have made me feel a little less alone in our new city at the holidays.

This year, I claimed, would be different. This year, I would get my first-ever family-appropriate Christmas tree and heavy its limbs with ornaments. This year, I would have a tree by the beginning of December.

Now I’m sure you’ve seen the trees lining the makeshift tree lots in parking lots all over town by now. They are a decent way to get your hands on a tree.

But the truly Oregonian way is to do it like my friend Jan and her family does it — make a trip out to the Willamette National Forest and cut one down yourself.

This is a legal program run by the U.S. Forest Service. If you don’t include the cost of gas to Detroit, Ore., this tree will also run you a pleasing $5 permit fee and a little back and arm labor.

But I fear my husband’s conspicuous modesty, one of his most darling traits, has won out yet again. For we have decided to accept a dear little throwaway tree from our new Salem friends, who spent the weekend landsculpting their new backyard in a 1950s Salem neighborhood.

Adam picked this tiny Tannenbaum out, repotted him, shaped him as if he were the most prized bonsai, and stuck him in the corner, on top of an antique end table that houses many of my old paperbacks. We strung him with LED bulbs and ornaments I picked up in Germany.  After Christmas, we’re planting him in the yard.

The only drawback of choosing such small shrubbery is that he doesn’t exactly fill the room with the crisp scent of Christmas. But I guess that’s why I picked up that fir-scented candle back in October.

I’m already in love with this tree. We really only needed a little Christmas, right this very minute, and that’s what we’ve got.

Posted in Holidays, Shopping | 3 Comments »

Pregnant Pauses in Salem

November 24, 2009 by Emily Grosvenor

It’s no secret that I’m pushing nine months pregnant. This isn’t a mommy blog, and thus I haven’t made its readers privy to all of the regular annoyances of the gestational cycle.

But it should be clear by now that being pregnant in Salem changes things. I’m no longer the spry, energetic blogger I once was, posting nearly every day, extending my circle far and wide, traveling nearly every weekend.

In fact, these days I’m pretty much a Weeble.

The biggest surprise of pregnancy for me is how small it has made my world. I’m still desperately seeking salem, but my consumer habits have changed remarkably over the past two or three months, and so has my energy level.

So I will make this one post on pregnant Salem with the hopes that you pregnant women, or once pregnant women, or husbands of pregnant women, or friends of pregnant women will find some value in it.

Best pickles: Auntie Becky’s dill pickles, made right here in town, have won the top prize at the Oregon State Fair. You can buy them at Roth’s — and if you were lucky enough to be  there last weekend, you might have even met Auntie Becky herself.

Best hungry pregnant woman dinner: The avocado burger at Rockin’ Rogers on Market Street NE. As an added bonus, you can giggle over the Saturday Evening Post advertisements on the tables.

Best place to geek out on baby stuff: Baby Depot at Burlington Coat Factory. I have never bought anything there, but it’s wonderful eye candy for when the womb takes over.

Best second-hand baby store: Reruns for Kids on S. Commercial.

Best retail baby stores: T.J. Maxx. I bought this Small Paul snuggly sweater the other day — probably my biggest baby splurge so far.

Best maternity wear, retail: Burlington Coat Factory. As my belly (and, erm, the rest of me) has grown, I’ve been buying size 14 Calvin Klein dresses there for far less than most maternity wear costs.

Best maternity wear, second-hand: My husband’s closet. Outside of my home, Value Village. I’ve heard Goodwill has a pretty good selection as well.

Nicest people to pregnant people: E.Z. Orchards’ staff. It must be the abundance of produce and the donuts at the door.

Any I have missed? I still have about four weeks left and haven’t ruled out taking  many more trips outside before settling in for winter.

Posted in Shopping | 5 Comments »

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