May « 2009 « Desperately Seeking Salem

Archive for May, 2009

E.Z. Orchards shortcake stand open for season

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Shortcake

The good news: E.Z. Orchard’s shortcake stand is open for the season!

The bad news: They are using California strawberries until their expected crop comes in early June.

The unsurprising news: I ate strawberry shortcake for lunch on Monday.

I had been sitting in a lavender-edged picnic area for a few minutes, happily sharing a giant strawberry shortcake ($4.75) with one half pound cake, one half biscuit, strawberries, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream when an often-experienced wave of dread came over me.

I looked around. I looked at my mother-in-law, who was politely spooning a dish of marionberry ice cream [insert Marion Barry joke here] and then I looked at my husband.

“You are eating too fast and it is really stressing me out,” I told him.

Shortcake2

That’s what I get for marrying an Iowa who grew up with two equally high-octane brothers. Seriously, those guys will distract you as the fork comes to your mouth and steal a bite right as it arrives in the hangar.

I don’t need that kind of anxiety on my days off.

Luckily, Adam is really good at just sitting back and letting me take a few spoonfuls before diving in again when I offer up these candidly selfish statements.

Luckily, the shortcake at E.Z. Orchards is the size of an infant’s head, so large that its contents are prone to spilling onto the picnic table around it.

And the large really is perfect for sharing. If you can do that.

Posted in Food | 4 Comments »

Poet gets job in economic downturn

Monday, May 18th, 2009

chasar No, that’s not an Onion headline. I’ve spent the last five days showing visitors to Salem around, which should hopefully account for my not posting very much lately.

Two of my guests were a lovely couple from Iowa City, IA who are moving to Salem in the next few months. One half of that couple is a poet named Mike Chasar who will take up a position as poetry professor at Willamette University next fall.

I have a few hunches why someone like Mike could get a job in poetry during these trying times for men’s souls.

All one need do is take a gander at his blog, Poetry and Popular Culture, to understand that this guy is not some notebook and pen in the corner of the party kind of dude.Recent posts on his blog have included a guest posting of a much-needed shakedown of Khalil Gibran’s popular “The Prophet” and a post on a new anti-aging cream called “Poetry in Lotion.”

Mike doesn’t even really strike me as a poet of the academe variety. He understands that poetry is everywhere in our lives and is not confined to obscure literary journals.

And like me, he knows that even a place like Salem can inspire a few lines.

During his time in Iowa City, Mike began writing a poetry column for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, a smaller paper also owned by the Gannet Corporation, the same company that owns the Statesman-Journal. Sadly, his recent poem on Iowa City’s own urban chicken debacle didn’t make it into the paper because it was written in the popular, bawdy, Renaissance style.

I.e., it was too dirty…

I am hoping that the talented Mr. Chasar single-handedly changes the poetry meme here in Salem so that never again shall I read another article about a poetry festival that starts out with some general phrase about how poetry is unpopular, how the masses don’t get it, and how they never will.*

*And by the way, here are these people who are still writing and consuming it.

Posted in These are the people in my neighborhood, You are what you read | No Comments »

Oregon ad kicks California ad's butt

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

California: Find Yourself Here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md69zCJKD1c]

Message: We are a state that inspired the classic Epyx sports video game “California Games” and elected Ahnold.

Compare that to the new I am Oregonian ad from Travel Oregon on Vimeo that keeps getting me all wistful during my evening couch sitting.

Message: We really like to drive cars, are a state that can look forward and backwards at the same time. We don’t need props to recreate. Except for cars. Oh, and we’re all ruggedly handsome with a poetic sensibility. Grrrrr.

The California ad does look a little slicker, and of course, has celebrities. But I must be an Oregon girl because I’m totally loving Travel Oregon’s new tv spot.

I wonder when Travel Oregon will put “our” ad up on YouTube so people like me can post it?

Posted in Media | 5 Comments »

Emily: Not as Angry! Emily's are going out of style

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

emilyangry2
This post should actually read Emily: Happy!, but I don’t have a picture for that.

The Social Security Administration announced its list of top baby names this week, marking the first time in my recent life that the release of its annual list has actually made my day.

Emily, you’re going down!

That’s right, Emily is going out of fashion. Well, it’s still third on the list of most popular names, but I can only hope that people will get a little more inventive, and Emily will go the way of Ashley (my sister’s name), and make its way farther down the list.

Now, I’m sure there are a ton of people out there who share their name with people they know, but there’s something special about Emily’s. Emily’s write novels. Emily’s have big red dogs. There is a book out there, The Other Emily, about a girl named Emily who is shocked and forlorn when she discovers that someone else shares her name. I personally had three best friends named Megan in grade school and I can attest, only an Emily would let the existence of another Emily get her down.

There is even a really wonderful poem by my favorite Irish poet, Medbh McGuckian called “The Most Emily of All,” which I think best captures the essence of Emily.

My husband once put together a list of songs with Emily in the title, and you are forewarned: Emily’s are schemers! They’ve got agendas, and plans, and they will break your heart (Emily means “industrious”).

I am totally an Emily.

Parents can name their kids anything they want. But I think they should deliberate long and hard about whether or not their precious will actually become an Emily.

At the very least, I would request that new parents look for some new options so I’m not turning my head like a confused golden retriever every time I walk through the grocery store.

Posted in Emily: Angry! | 12 Comments »

Anticipating the next big thing

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Pietros

I think I’m in the wrong business. If I could anticipate the next big thing or role or image that kids will latch onto, I think I would be able to make my millions fast and retire in style at 30.

But kids are fickle and trends come and go. Pietro’s pizza place on Hawthorne is proof enough of this truism. The place is like a museum to dated trends — it’s like they just go with whatever is hot with the kiddies now, and build layers of the images and icons on top of each other.

I’m guessing that’s how they ended up with a firehouse theme — complete with this awesome dude coming down a fire pole — which has been superseded in recent years by a Pirate Adventure focus a la Pirates of the Caribbean. Yar! This pizza is cooked in an oven that flames me timbers! Yar!

But will pirates hold up as kiddie icons now that those Somali pirates have shown us what real pirating is all about? I don’t know. But I imagine that someday they will be just one more layer to the Pietro’s puzzle.

Posted in Food | 2 Comments »

Oregon Spring white truffle season underway

Monday, May 11th, 2009

WhiteTruffles
When I tell people that I moved to Oregon in part for the almost year-round mushroom season, their eyes generally glaze over.

But get a load of this, you crazy supermarket shoppers — a couple of pounds of spring white truffles unearthed from a private forest in the heart of the Willamette Valley wine country.

The whites don’t smell as earthy and pungent right out of the ground as the blacks, but should ripen for a few weeks until they have a slightly garlicly, herbal smell to them.

I only kept half a dozen of the ones I found — including a raquetball-sized monster I dug up almost immediately — because if you read about my last truffle adventure, you know that I almost truffled myself out by taking on the challenge of cooking with them every night.

But if you’re eating at the Joel Palmer House some time in the next few weeks, chances are good that you’re downing a truffle I’ve touched.

I don’t think I’m an expert at the truffle hunt. But I do feel like I’m developing a sixth sense for where they might be located in the forest. I found my humungo truffle by following my instinct, raking around in a 10-ft. square spot because I know there just had to be something there.

Truffles are totally magic.

Posted in Food, Uncommon gifts | 1 Comment »

The Blackfish Cafe

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Blogpics

When we go to a new town, I like to approach strangers and ask them where to eat. Taking our cues from the locals rarely leads us astray — such as our recent trip to Newport, where we discovered the best crab melt I’ve had at a hole-in-the-wall diner.

There’s no central meeting place for strangers in Lincoln City, which is just half a dozen towns that have incorporated themselves under a common name. So we were getting kind of frustrated yesterday when we were driving down the Pacific Highway, trying to tell from the outside of a building where we might like to eat.

Why not just google it ahead of time or check the guidebook, you may ask?

That, my friends, would ruin the adventure. And since I’m a hyper-over-planner the rest of my life, sometimes I need to just head in some general direction and take it from there.

Here’s a true story. I walked up to an older guy near a phone booth at one of the public parking lots near the beach and just put it out there.

Me: Are you from around here?

Dude: Well, I know the area pretty well.

Me: Where do people eat around here?

Dude: I don’t know, people like Mexican, they like Chinese…

Me: No, like are there any little cafes or diners where the locals hang out?

Dude: There’s the Blackfish Cafe down the road, but it’s rather rich for my taste, and pretty expensive.

Me: And that’s where the locals eat?

Dude: Well, a lot of the locals eat at McDonald’s.

And that’s how we ended up eating two fist-sized gourmet Ding-dongs with berry coulis at the Blackfish Cafe in Lincoln City, one of the handful of James Beard-recognized restaurants in Oregon. Our poor server Michael says he has to offer the “homemade ding-dong” about two dozen times a day.

He stuffs it into the middle of his sentence as to draw less attention to it, but you can’t ignore a ding-dong, even if his voice does drop a little when he says it.

The response from diners is always the same. We look at him, we look at each other, we look back at him, and we order it.

“I’ll take your finest homemade ding-dong.”

Oh, we also had the best fried snapper sandwich of our lives there. But twenty years from now, it’s the ding-dong we’ll still be talking about.

Posted in Food, Travel | 1 Comment »

The Tickle-Me Elmo for the New Millenium

Friday, May 8th, 2009

earthMachine

Apparently I am one of the estimated 3,569 Salem residents burned by this year’s one-day only composter sale. In more proof that local advertising is bucking national trends and that people are still looking for more stuff to buy for the home, the one-day event, last Sat., May 2, was so popular that demand for these $29 Earth Machines vastly exceeded supply.

I couldn’t get to Fred Meyer in time, so I sent one of my handlers, who discovered herself in line with 100 other people too late to get the tiny dirt-makers. They were also selling then at Roth’s Wilco Farm Store in Stayton and Silverton, and at Coastal Farm Stores in Woodburn.

The ad for the new millienium’s Tickle-Me Elmo in Salem Monthly‘s green living section was placed by the Marion County Public Works Environmental Services.

I’ve heard the media buyers at the public works weren’t sure that demand for the composters would continue to be high — some had wondered if the market in this area was already saturated by previous events like these.

Obviously lots of people want to see some good come of their garbage, so I can’t be too sad that I didn’t get my hands on one.

You can still contact the company if you didn’t get there in time.

Posted in Shopping | 6 Comments »

Won't you be my neighbor

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Pix

I’ve been thinking a lot about what needs to go into the new neighborhood — you know, the one in the Bermuda Triangle of burgeoning hipsterdom where the Salem Cinema has just lifted its curtain. I’ve had some down moments in Salem lately, days when I wondered how I was ever going to make a life here when we can’t even find a good restaurant open at 9:30 near downtown (apparently we’re turning Catalan).

So I’ve got a lot of hope for NoBro, or NoHo, or the Carpet District, or the Mission, or whatever you want to call it.

If you own property you know how important it is to have the “right” kind of neighbors. You want the lawn mowers, the flower planters, the doggie-do picker-upers, the silent meditators instead of the all-night rockers. Some might even go as far to say that in Salem, you don’t want the chicken-keepers. But above all you want that strange mix of characteristics that together form the “right” kind of people.

Yeah, I think that’s some pretty conservative, close-minded gibberish too.

But there’s some truth to it. Especially if you’re trying to launch a cultural movement to breathe life into a downtown neighborhood.

So I’m going to put this out there and hope that the links and the vibrations and the word gets out — if you are interested in opening an insanely sophisticated food shop in a setting that is a little industrial and raw around the edges, please consider bringing your craft product to Salem. Seriously, I should be sending invoices to the Chamber of Commerce.

And if you are Pix Patisserie (see pic above), consider yourself invited.

Posted in Nightlife | 1 Comment »

The Salem Project is out in the world

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

salemproject2

There are a couple of one-man cottage industries in town trying to make something happen on the cultural front. One of them is photographer William Bragg — a well-traveled early 40-something, calmed-down former misfit who is now raising his son with his partner here in Salem.

Bragg has lived in Japan, China, the Phillipines, and Indonesia, and has squatted on the streets of New York City, but now that he’s in Salem for good, he’s determined to make this town a cool place for his son Liam to grow up. By day he works as associate director of the Willamette Academy, a non-profit that prepares historically under-represented teenagers for academic life at college.

The Salem Project started out as a way to market his own work, but as Bragg becomes increasingly interested in promoting artists across media, it’s grown to include the work of other people creating stuff locally.

This year’s issue of the self-published volume includes work some interesting food culture photography by Nate Rafn (you might know him from my previous post on his underground supper club), and some charming portraits by Elizabeth Bauman.

It also features some haunting images of my favorite freaky-deaky place in Salem, the State Hospital, by Bragg himself.

You can pick it up for 10 bucks at locations throughout town, including the WU bookstore, Hallie Ford Museum, Coffee House Cafe, Venti’s, and Cafe Noir.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Desperately Seeking Salem