Astoria, Oregon Wedding Weekend

We headed out of town for a very special wedding in Astoria, Oregon. All these years if we needed a little beach/Pacific Ocean fix we would head south, not north to where the mighty Columbia River dumps into the Pacific Ocean. We were pleasantly surprised at how quaint, hip and interesting Astoria, Oregon is.

We arrived and checked into the centrally located and cute Commodore Hotel before heading down the street to the pier to take in the sunset over the Columbia River bay dotted with large freight ships.

After a lovely rehearsal dinner we headed out to lounge at one of the many divey bars in the main town area. We were surprised at how young the residence of Astoria are - what do you all do in this town and in the winter no less. Maybe hang out at the VooDoo Lounge?

The day of the wedding we started with a fantastic espresso from the 14th Street Coffee Shop conveniently connected to the hotel lobby.

We needed to make sure we had plenty of food in our system so we walked up one Astoria's steep streets to Blue Scorcher Bakery for some breakfast, another great local business tucked conveniently in the main part of town. We got a terrific breakfast burrito and watched them frost the wedding cake.

They also had one of the best magazine selections we have ever seen in a bakery/cafe.

As we walked back to the hotel to get ready for the big day, the City of Astoria was up and roaring in celebration of Veteran's Day.

The wedding was short and sweet; the reception was fun meeting friends and family we had only heard stories of and reconnecting with friends we've known, but not seen in years. Before ending the night at the VooDoo Lounge with a personalized tour of the theater connected to the bar.

Halloween Birthday

It doesn't get much better than having your birthday on Halloween. And that's exactly when Mike's birthday is - Halloween. Lucky devil!

This year with Halloween on a Monday, the celebrating was all weekend long. Starting Saturday with celebratory raman noodles, shinkansen drink specials (shot of Japanese vodka, shot of sake, and a shot of Kirin beer; done one right after the other), Japanese beers and the biggest cream puffs we have ever eaten. We then partied down and danced the night away to all our favorite Talking Heads songs.

Sunday was family dinner with requested birthday meal of Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa and a pie.

On Halloween we celebrated in a cemetery discovering the historical figures of Portland and their Untimely Departures. Then off for stiff mixed drinks at a favorite bar before ending the night with cognac toasts. A great Birthday/Halloween weekend! So much so we're including our travel video "Tuk Tuk Ride to Nowhere in Bangkok, Thailand" to keep the party going.

God's Eye View

Since we met while working at a movie theater and to continue on our theme of movies here is a incredible montage of movie scenes all shot from "God's Eye View" synced beautifully to Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Down Boy". How many movies do you recognize?

This Is The Take Over

The last movie we saw in a theater was back in April, before that we're not sure. We used to go to movies all the time, but lately we can't even find the time to watch the DVDs we get from the library. That is until we came across this little gem just sitting on the shelves. We kept renewing and renewing this movie until finally we plopped it into the DVD player and was blown away by what was coming out of our tv. All the old school rockers & dub songs we have on heavy rotation in our house was playing in this movie.

The movie is about a Roots Rock Reggae drummer named Horsemouth who decides to set up his own business selling Jamaican records via his motorcycle when a band of theives steals his cycle and Horsemouth decides that justice must prevail. This movie is seriously stylish!

Thankfully there are subtitles because that Jamaican patois was heavy! For those of you who love Roots, Rock, or Dub (ode to Portlandia's Mayor played by Kyle Mclaughlin) or for those of you who just love Jamaica this movie is a must see! REMOVE YA!

Signs of Fall

Looks likes fall has officially arrived in Portland. Not sure how we feel about its return yet.

Bachelorette/Bachelor Blow Out

This last weekend we celebrated our friends' final moments of non-marital status with a full day of celebrating. In typical fashion the bride was showered with a nice calming day at a hot spring spa complete with soaks, wraps and a massage. It was nice to get out of town, see the beautiful scenery of the Columbia River Gorge and the Resort was rustic and grand.

A few hours of pampering later we headed back into Portland and enjoyed a great southern feast at the Delta Cafe. We had plans to meet up with the boys for a Zombie Rock Show downtown , but had an hour to kill so a little kareoke was in order.

We finished off a pot of coffee and headed downtown in the warm fall night. We arrived in old town, decided the cover cost for the show wasn't worth it and ended up at a cozy bar enjoying more cocktails and gross bachelor/bachelorette themed shots, before heading over to the adult arcade Ground Kontrol for beers and old school arcade games and pinball. The evening ended with sidewalk photoshoots and more fried foods. With a groom/bride/group of friends like this, the wedding is going to be crazy fun!

Autumn Colors

The deciduous tree leaves aren't the only ones giving us glorious autumn color right now.

Taken from the window of my office building.

Harvesting and Preserving Our 2011 Garden

One of the quincessential Pacific Northwest things to do is have a small garden and spend the summer months growing your own food. This year with our mid-summer wedding we decided we'll still have a vegetable garden, but select vegetables we could harvest at once in the later part of summer. For example we decided to plant an Heirloom Goliath Tomato verses a prolific constant ripening cherry tomato. This beauty grew large over the months of July but only started to bare large green tomatoes in mid-August into late September.

As the green fruits grew and grew and grew, but didn't turn red we started to think we'd have 100lbs of green tomatoes to deal with, but with a couple hot September weekends our tomatoes started to turn red and our plan to can and preserve for use in the winter was back on track.

Our decision to attempt canning our tomatoes was solidified with this bad boy. A pressure cooker/canner purchased with some wedding money.

Sure we could have easily purchased a simplier water bath canning pot, but this 23-Quart Pot is also a pressure cooker. We could easily make a pot of beans for a huge group of people in less than an hour or cook a whole chicken in under 40 minutes! We also heard it's the safest way to can tomatoes which was our main objective. We started by sorting our fantastic harvest of tomatoes by size and whether they had an blemishes.

We were really surprised by how beautifully round and picture perfect the Goliath variety was. The largest firmest tomatoes were saved, later sliced and dehydrated into little round disc that we reconstitute in broth or water for our spanish rice, soup and flavoring bases for just about anything.

All other tomatoes were then prepped to be skinned and prepared for stewing or tomato sauce.

We quickly dunked the tomatoes in a pot of boiling water. After 40 seconds most the skins would visibly split and we would scoop them out and immediately dunk them in a bowl of cold iced water. 5 seconds later the skins easily peel off. Half the tomatoes were cut into quarters for stewing and the other half were roughly chopped for tomato sauce.

We cooked the tomato sauce down for two hours and immediately poured the sauce into the canning jars.

The pressure canner had weights and gauges and initially seemed very scientific and dangerous, with the boiling pressurized air/water situation, so we didn't document watching the pressure build and maintaining the heat so the pressure remains within a certain zone for safe canning.

We can tell you the tomato sauce was alot sweeter than we imagined, the stewed tomatoes had a smokey kick due to some roasted jalapenos we added and we were able to capture a little bit of summer with ingredients grown in our own backyard or within biking distance. We think even our cat Cleo approved.