OK, so Saturday was good too but it was really overshadowed by Friday. In fact, by Saturday morning I was feeling a little...mellow. What better for that than a cappuccino?
Fairly close to the hostel was a bakery we'd been wanting to try, esp. because the associated restaurant was so good: Ken's Artisan Bakery. Arriving at about 8:30 am was the perfect time. There were tables available and a full case of yummy goodness (about 20 minutes later the place would have a line nearly out the door and no empty tables). We both ate some meaty items I'm not going to detail here (but they were wonderful - imagine a _____, gruyere & thyme croissant and a ______ & vegetable quiche). I will say that the peach and blueberry galette (pictured below) was not only beautiful but a delight on the tongue. As you can see our plates (in the background) are stacked - I was supposed to take this little treat to go but couldn't wait.
Next, we set out for the farmers market on the PSU campus. To tout Portland's superb transit, I must say that we had the option to take the free streetcar to the market. Yep, free - they have a "fareless square", which is actually quite large and all transit is free in this area. This is a picture of the cute little street car making its way to us.
Oh, we did stop at Stumptown coffee on the way. Sandy was saving himself that morning for this bit of caffeinated pleasure.
On to the farmers market! Last November when we were in town, the farmers market was just a few stands of this or that - nothing special. This time, however, it was a harvest festival of sorts. Of course there were the tables piled high with mushrooms, fat cucumbers, extra large garlic and leeks but there was also a guitar player with a microphone and a good sized group of watchers/listeners and a chef talking about cooking meat (while actually cooking it), and not one, not two, but three balloon animal makers. One guy was a true artist with those balloons - he made a turtle wrist corsage for a 4 year old girl.Just a small portion of the weekly farmers market event:
Blackberries, little yellow tomatoes, and strawberries (organic of course):
Look at that burst of color (I'm obviously not referring to the coffee drinking white guy)!
such an amazing variety of tomatoes:
The day was fairly uneventful after that, we walked to the Pearl District and through the Nob Hill neighborhood and fell in with the throngs of people out enjoying the sunny afternoon.Sometime around 5:00pm we made our way to the Deschutes Brewery. I had what was basically a bowl of seasonal mushrooms in broth with chunks of bread and we both shared the beer sampler - the Jubelale was my favorite. Here is Sandy and the samples:
We adjourned to the hostel to drop off some stuff but ended up dozing lightly for about 1/2 an hour, then we headed out to the symphony! We saw Beethoven's Symphony No.9 performed by the Oregon Symphony with a choir at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall (aka "the Schnitz"). This is Sandy enjoying a pre-concert beverage inside the place - it was stunning.
While I enjoyed the performance, I don't think I've ever sat through the entire 9th symphony before. It was longer than I thought it would be and the cheap seats were hot. We went to a popular wine bar afterwards and then took one last trip to the Rogue Brewery (we did hit Saint Cupcake earlier in the day). At the hostel we were a giggly mess but tried to be as quiet as possible while preparing for our last night of deep, oxygen-enriched sleep in that playground of a city...
Sigh...Thank you for the Portland fix.
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