put an egg on it.

so here are all the pictures of the food we ate on our trip to portland. This is not everything we ate, but most of it. I think my sister made fun of me quite a few times for declaring things "the best _____ ever," but what can I say, I'm passionate. One thing I craved but got shot down every time by the peanut gallery was a crisp bean burrito from taco time (west coast fast food chain). It's a food from my childhood, you try one of those dipped in ranch and tell me it's not magic. I'm no food snob.

oh and the total weight gain: 1 lb. Jazz hands! 

tuesday:

meat cheese bread: right from the airport we went here and I had a mushroom sandwich. Mal had a sandwich with green beans on it, which was really good.
voodoo doughnuts: this place is a tourist trap, so take it or leave it, but it was near where we were driving and I have a weakness of my favorite trifecta of sprinkles, maple glaze and cinnamon sugar on one doughnut called the blunt.

wednesday:
 
pine state: this place is perfection (love the alberta location). One of my all time favorites. Mal and I shared the Reggie deluxe, a beautiful composition of flaky biscuit, fried chicken, cheese, bacon, sausage gravy with an egg on top. sigh.
salt and straw: really great ice cream, I had the cinnamon snickerdoodle and almond brittle, but almost went for the strawberry balsamic and black pepper.
tam tam: place we went for banh mi, and pho, which was alright, but not amazing. I just found a place on yelp, but it was decent.

thursday:

Nickolas: We went here for Lebanese food and they brought out delicious pitas the size of a pizza to share. Huge portions, easy to share. 
Waffle Window: We went here for dinner, after such a late lunch. This place is also a must. Their sugary waffles are so good. I had one with huckleberries, and lemon panna cotta.

friday:
 
Broder: I had been wanting to go here so badly, after having so many friends recommended it, and I love anything Scandinavian. All their items we had were so great, totally worth the hour wait.
pix: always has great macarons.
taco truck: this place is near Mal's house (I'll update the name and address when I get it), true dollar tacos. We had the Al Pastor and they were so good, and the homemade aqua fresca and horchata were delicious.

Saturday:

baker and spice: this wonderful bakery right by mal's house is a great place to eat for breakfast or lunch. The people that help are so friendly, and everything is so good. I alway have to have their crumb cake, which is fulfills all your dreams of a crumb cake with more crumb than cake. And they always oblige with a center piece request.
native bowl: this vegan food cart has a great rice bowl, but if I had a request, I'd put an egg on top.
homemade cake: mal and I always attempt some large thing to bake. We made a chocolate layer cake with salted caramel frosting and whipped ganache.

monday:

clyde common: this place never fails to make a perfect evening. I've had such good memories here, it's just a place you want to bring those you care about, and share some really fresh seasonal delicious food.
ruby jewel: this ice cream place was a nice place to go at night, I had a strawberry lemon pudding ice cream sandwich with lemon cookies.

tuesday:

Being our last day, we went out with a huge bang with a food cart feast. I want to relive this lunch every day.
euro trash: Jon got this prawn sandwich that had the most amazing coconut curry sauce.
Violetta: This place had the corn dog of my dreams. DREAMS. BEST. EVER. Sweet cornbread batter with huge beef hog dog. Jon (my sister's husband) had never had a corn dog in his life and this one took his virginity.
Lardo: this cart is epic, I got the double burger with pork belly, and when I asked to get an egg on top, the man said "nice! That is going to be beautiful." He was right. Mal got the banh mi, which was really good also. Would maybe get that again over the burger. Their fries with fresh sage and parmesan were like candy. salty candy.  

back to my singleton reality.

We got back late last night from our Portland trip. We had such a great time eating our way through the city and having lots of fun with my adorable nephew Theo. He's pretty much the cutest thing ever. And he's a master unlocking all our iphones, finding his favorite apps and taking as many pictures as he can, moving apps around and maybe deleting them. Kids and technology. 

There's nothing like spending time with my sister. When we're apart it's like there's always something missing. It's funny that every time we get together, I'm still amazed by how much we are the same.

I miss those unique twin things that can only happen when you're together. What was once an annoyance when we were young–now I love it when people stop us in the street or I can tell they are doing the conspicuous stare at our clone faces.

I'll have to do a round up of all the food we ate, it exceeded all my dreams. We only ate in two meals in a week, and I still feel like we just scratched the surface.

neon.

So I previously showed a new project that I was working on, and started sewing away. Then my machine jammed up. No one told me that you are supposed to change your needle about every project (which I've never done, and I've sewn miles) and I hadn't cleaned out the lint in a while. So I had to get a tune up, which now my machine purrs and doesn't make a clunking sound. figures.

The last couple days have been a whirlwind of sewing, I got a lot done. I'm pretty happy with the outcome, I'll show it off this week. I got to use neon thread and some favorite thrifted neon stripe fabric.

I am getting ready to fly out west to sunny Portland tomorrow, I can't wait. I'll be catching up on some dearly missed twin time, and to see my nephew running around. I'm usually pretty terrible about blogging while I'm gone, so there may be a post in the next week, or not. But I'll be all over instagram (username: secretpocket) probably showing off every meal I eat, and lots of theo photos.

See you soon!

baby soft.

So it still kept raining, and raining. I think gigi got a UTI because she wouldn't put her pretty little face outside. Drama, drama. So here are some dim pictures as I'm sitting in the overcast darkness. Bring me sun!

During all that rain I finished my knitting project for the week, a little baby towel/burp cloth for my hairstylist. I'm hoping that I can somehow get her maternity leave to only a couple months long. It took me so long to finally find a stylist that can give me my perfect haircut and I'm afraid to lose her!

This turned out a bit bigger than I thought it would be, I used some organic cotton that's so soft, it turned out incredible. It was super easy and nice to knit something mindless after all the sweater knitting I've been doing lately. All the details are on my ravelry page, it's been too long since I've added a project.

rain. go away.

 Like probably a lot of other people here in the east, it's been raining non-stop for almost 3 days. I'm starting to go a bit crazy, the constant gray and soggy everything. Although it does give me an excuse to just hunker down and knit. This project is to be a baby towel for my hairstylist who's having a baby soon. Hairstylists on maternity leave is a disease to pixie cuts. Why would she even think of doing this to me?

Today there the sun came out and I thought the rain was done. I took gigi out for a quick walk because gigi is such a diva and won't go outside in the rain without desperation (causing other problems). Halfway home and it started to rain again. And then it rained harder. I tried to take shelter under a tree, thinking about waiting it out, but decided to just run the half mile home.

But someone wasn't having it. My spry little pup went into diva mode and didn't want to walk at her usual fast pace and kept stopping. I literally had to pick up the soggy 8 lbs of beyonce and jog home the half mile.

naked peaches

This weekend I picked up a ripe half peck of peaches from the market, and was determined to make some jam. My mom clued me into using instant pectin for a fast jam. I know that might be cheating a bit, but actually for peaches I think it's perfect. I chopped up some, and put the rest in the food processor to keep it chunky. With instant pectin the fruit isn't heated, and with delicate peaches they stay intact and firm and taste really fresh and not so sweet.

It was really easy to make a few pints in about 30 minutes, and it tastes so good. Peach preserves don't seem to set up really firm like other jams, but it is still thick enough even though I was worried at first. We went through a whole pint this weekend spooning it over ice cream and english muffins, and maybe just straight from the jar. I don't think the rest are going to make it to the freezer.

Make some jam this week before the peaches are all gone, you won't regret it. If you can stir, you can do it!

my contribution.

Today is Tyler's thesis defense. He's been working hard on it all summer, and we've been looking forward to this day. Of course I had to make something for his committee because that's really all I can do to help. I still can't fully even explain what his thesis is about, but I can bake.

I made my favorite banana bread recipe into muffins. I think this is the most fool proof way to make banana bread, because I always seem to get that doughy bit in the middle and the edges a bit too brown in my loaf pan.

I followed the recipe exactly, (well as close as I ever would) but I used whole wheat pastry flour and no peanuts. I am one of those people who think nuts in baked good is a terrible terrible thing. I sprinkled a generous amount of cinnamon sugar on top before baking so they have perfect crackly tops that shatter when you bite into them. Heaven.

::update:: I forgot to mention that I baked them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.