Mikestache

Throughout the years I have grown accustomed to Mike's various facial hair. Let's consider it his personal form of self-expression. Sometimes it's minimal like a simple soul patch.

Sometimes he gets more creative such as with his pork bars phase.

Sometimes Mike is inspired by others, like his ode to John Waters and his recent dirty moustache coupled with long side bars or his dirty bars.

Usually it is just a full blown beard, which grows at an alarmingly fast rate. Sometimes I think he stashes $100 bills in his beard.

Throughout the years Mike has participated in friendly moustache or Maystache (usually occurring in the month of May) and Octobeard (occurring in October) competitions amoung coworkers. We've even joked about having Mike enter the World Beard and Moustache Championships held last year in Bend, Oregon. But those guys are serious competitors and it is more of a hobby for Mike.

While running errands on a sunny weekend we noticed a number of men running around with some seriously groomed moustaches. We didn't think much of it, as we live in Portland, Oregon so a group of perfectly waxed moustaches and beards isn't that strange.

That is until we noticed men with meticulously groomed moustaches and beards in stores, at the coffee house and just hanging out on the street corner. That's when we realized there must be a contest in town. The 2011 West Coast Beard & Mustache Championships was this last weekend. And the catch? It costs spectators only $10 and participants $20! Yes, double the cost if you want to participate. Now, you've got to be serious if you're gonna enter.

A Farewell To Remember

Not long ago a dearly loved family member passed away. For the following 7 weeks (49 days) we honored her with weekly remembrances and temple offerings. On the 49th day we officially let her go onto her next journey and transitioned her mourning table to a remembrance table.

One of the uniquely buddhist traditions is to annually remember our loved ones with a meal consisting of foods they loved. This got us all thinking about what foods we would want to have at our remembrance meal.

However, during the mourning period only traditional vegan food is prepared and served, and if you have ever had a temple meal, the food can be delicious.

Traditional temple food is vegan and typically does not include onions or garlic. Mom managed to turn out several terrific dishes the monks and guests all enjoyed, starting with stir-fries.

Dad even chipped in a peppered tofu and seitan dish.

Mom decided to make our dear grandmother's own recipe kiem, a silky, starchy soup with sheets of tofu and yams.

A close family friend contributed the best vegetarian eggrolls we have ever had. Crunchy, savory and light, you betcha we wrote down the list of 8 ingredients!

To satisfy the sweet side a coconut and sweet bean sticky rice and a che dessert of sweet rice and black eyed peas cooked in coconut milk was served.

In combination these dishes perfectly complimented one another. The only taste missing was spicy, which honestly allowed the subtle and soothing elements of the meal to shine.

It was a very memorable meal and one cooked to help ease everyone on with life.

Pantone World

It has been nothing but gray gray gray rainy weather so we thought we'd post this video of some colorful scenery! Dulux Paint please come and include Portland in your Let's Color Project. If it were up to us we'd paint every house in the neighborhood some ungodly bright color, it would sure break up all the gray!

Shigezo Izakaya

After only a few minutes discussing food with us, you will quickly realize we have a true and deep fascination with one particular country's food - Japan's. As you delve deeper beyond sushi, raman, teriyaki, and yakisoba noodles a pattern of certain ingredients presents itself and the infinite ways to use such a limited number of ingredients in infinite dishes is insane to comprehend. We love love love it!

Our food gods finally answered our prayers for a proper Japanese Izakaya with the recent opening of Shigezo Izakaya in downtown Portland. An izakaya is a Japanese pub and you better believe we quickly memorized the Japanese kanji for izakaya while traveling through Japan. The minute we stepped up to the door we knew we were going to like this place.

When we were in Japan we ate almost daily at an izakaya and each one was memorable in aesthetic and food. Shigezo did not disappoint and kept our fond memories of cozy wood interiors, comforting food, beers, sake drinks and casual atmosphere in tact.

Recently we have become obsessed with getting a kotatsu table for the studio. Shigezo even had a cozy kotatsu room for those cold Portland winters.

So, how was Shigezo's food? The izakayas we know of typically have HUGE menus. Page after page of food. Shigezo - not so much, but their happy hour was well priced and had the typical izakaya food represented. And in typical izakaya style we ordered a few drinks, some food, ate it, chatted for a bit, ordered some more food and drinks and began the cycle all over again for several hours. It was leisurely and casual, the way all izakaya meals should be.

Here are only a few items we ordered. We were celebrating birthdays and there was a lot of plates and drinks tossed around so we put down the camera and joined in the celebrating!

Avocado Tuna Cocktail. Served in a cocktail glass on a bed of spun daikon radish. Delicious, the similar textures of the avocado and tuna are a match made in heaven! This dish tested our desire to only eat sustainable fish, which tuna is currently not. It is certain times of the year, but not during the winter months in Portland. Oh well, we can't always be saints and if this dish represented the devil - call us sinners!

Ebi Mayo, battered and fried shrimp in a spicy mayo. You can find this dish on most Chinese restaurants, but Shigezo's version is far superior, with light and crispy shrimp that had a nice bite to them. The key was the spicy mayo, which wasn't heavy and provided a nice tang. Ba & Me may even like these.

California Roll. The table actually ordered spicy tuna rolls and Alaskan rolls before trying the California roll. The true and usually not scrutinized aspect of sushi is the rice. A somewhat labor-intensive rice that will make or break your sushi and Shigezo's was really good. Rolls fillings were well balanced. Sushi rolls should have layers of flavors and most importantly layers of textures in your mouth (something other cuisines outside of Asia rarely take into consideration) and Shigezo's rolls had crunch, creamy, pungent and delicate flavors and tastes. Score!

House Okonomiyaki. We had to wait until the clock hit 5pm to order this dish, our most anticipated of the night. Off the dinner menu's hot appetizers, the okonomiyaki consisted of pork and squid (two items we usually don't put into okonomiyaki when we make it at home) and since this is an izakaya and not a okonomiyaki house there was only one to order and it was good. Much gooier than our crunchy version we still gave it a thumbs up!

Not pictures, but ordered and eaten was the tsukemono (pickled Japanese vegetables and bonito flakes)- very fishy compared to the tart and tangy versions we have had, subtle and delicious, but not for those just learning about Japanese food. Edemane, seaweed salad, kara age (fried chicken) several chicken wings, salmon carpaccio, and several happy hour menu sushi rolls.

Oh and then there were the happy hour beers and drink specials, which included 22oz steins of beer for $5. Shigezo has a fantastic selection of soju drinks too! Woohoo! But the drink we shall be recreating almost immediately was the Calpico Chu - a carbonated lime yogurt beverage that was so yummy - add some soju (Korean distilled sweet potato liquor that is similar to vodka) and as one birthday girl said "dangerous" but oh so yummy!

We shall be returning to try the ginormous raman bowls (seriously huge), curries, kushiyaki (skewers), proper kushiage (panko-fried skewers), robata (hibachi/grill items) and we barely touched on the sushi menu! Can you tell we're excited that Shigezo has finally arrived!

Shigezo Izakaya

910 SW Salmon

Open Monday - Thursday 11:30am - 11pm

Fridays 11:30am - 12midnight

Saturdays 2pm - 12midnight

Sundays 2pm - 11pm

503.688.5202

Looking Ahead

Now that we have recapped how we rang out 2010 and rang in 2011. We're looking ahead! This is going to be a big year and we want to make sure we hit the ground sprinting!

C'mon - Let's Do This Thing!

More Yummy New Year

We gave only one gift to each other this year and it was a Cuisinart Griddler Gourmet. Honestly the only reason we'd consider setting up a wedding registry is to put this somewhat frivolous kitchen gadget on the list.

While out on our NYE holiday walk around the neighborhood the day before, we slipped into our local grocery store and bought up some of our favorite sandwich fixings for a memorable New Years Day pressed panini sandwich.

After doing a test panini of peanut butter and banana we were ready to make a real sandwich. We have been dreaming of making our own pressed muffaletta sandwiches for awhile and here was our first one!

Seemed easy enough - assemble sandwich and press. And it really was that easy.

Later that evening we decided to try another sandwich we have been dreaming of creating at home - a traditional Cuban Sandwich. We managed to snag some of the carnitas from our NYE's tamalero, add a few pickles, some swiss cheese and a slice or two of Virginia ham, press and bam! A pretty darn good Cuban sandwich!

If this is what we're eating 24 hours into the New Year, here's to a gut busting 2011!

Yummy New Year

2011's New Year's celebration was the complete opposite of our 2010 dancing in the rain to a latin marching band outside a makeshift rave tent. We decided to take it easy and ring in the new year doing something else we enjoy - eating food we made.

2011 New Year's Eve started with sunny-cold weather, which was the opposite of the deluge of rain we received last year shorting out the electrical equipment (hence dancing in the rain outside the tent in 2010!) We started with a nice walk through the neighborhood, allowing us to take in the holiday decorations without the holiday crowds.

It was a wonderful way to start the holiday weekend and new year just strolling through the quiet streets, while taking care of errands.

Since we didn't have plans to meet up with friends until after 10pm we took our time and our afternoon of walking errands turned into a 2-hour-post-holiday-get-your-body-moving-or-you-will-freeze-but-its-nice-I'm-freezing-with-you kind of afternoon. Plus we knew we tonight we will be stuffing ourselves with tamales!

Our good friends had invited us to a tradition they had wanted to re-visit for years and this year was going to be the year of the tamalero! We arrived as the first test batch was being pulled from the steamer. This was a holiday tamalero in the truest sense in that we brought over all our holiday leftovers to make tamales with.

We got the masa ready for our first batch of tamales made with our left over mashed potatoes, a bag of frozen peas and carrots and a special chili powder mix.

As soon as those were wrapped up and placed in the steamer we moved on to chicken mole, from our Christmas Chicken Mole dinner and Albert's perfected carnitas.

Once they were in the steamer we ready to toast and ring in the new year! We quickly lit fireworks, toasted and ran back inside to warm back up and wait anxiously for our tamales. Not a bad way to ring in the new year - going home with bags of tamales for the freezer, family and tasty new year day snack!

So, is it easy to make tamales? Goodness yes! The secret is to use some sort of lard or fat like bacon grease or straight up lard, you can totally feel the difference in the masa mix!