This was a very good day! It was super misty when I took the dogs out this morning and I had to stop to clear my glasses a couple of times, but that is perfect Portland weather for you. After walk came the real exercise: drying the dogs. Buckley is no problem, he is small and has short hair. Katy takes a full-sized bath towel on a misty day with her big dog self and metric ton of hair. (That may be a small exaggeration, but she is a hairy beast.) After all that work, I was ready for breakfast.
Breakfast was the standard Trader Joe's organic corn flakes with sunflower seeds, dried strawberries and ginger chips with almond milk. As you can tell from reading this blog for the last few weeks, I have four breakfast favorites: cereal, PB&J with banana sandwiches, banana bread and the occasional waffle. All good things.
Lunch was pizza, take two. Brian used the same crust and sauce from last week (frozen), but this time added a bit of salt to each. That really helped. The toppings were kale, onion, pepper and tomato, with a tiny bit of fresh grated Parmesan to hold things together and add a little flavor. It was really good. I think we can do just a touch more salt next time. It is funny, salt has never been a problem for us. We rarely use it and never add it at the table. But without the salt that comes from meats that are normally in a dish, we're finding we need more of it in our vegan dishes.
Even with a good breakfast and a really good lunch, dinner was the main course today. Brian and I went to the airport to pick up a family friend (essentially Brian's god-mother) from way, way back. She is a SWEETHEART and we love her! She would only let us pick her up and take her to her hotel if she could take us to dinner somewhere nice. Hmmmm.... tough choice. Of course we picked her up!
Urban Spoon is one of my favorite sites for finding good food in a city I don't know very well, and it suggested a place near her hotel called The Farm Cafe. Their webpage touted the local farm to table concept of super fresh food, simply cooked. That sounded good to everyone, so we tried it. Strangely enough, it turned out that Brian and I had been there 10 years before with his mother and my brother. Even funnier, we had been thinking of that restaurant, but misremembered the location. All we remembered was how quaint the place was (a remodeled Victorian house) and how fantastic the food was. This night was no different.
We started with broccoli fritters. Any southerners reading this blog cam immediately think of hush puppies with chopped broccoli. Because... that is exactly what they were. It was not what I expected, but they were quite good. As we ate our fritters and sipped our beverages, we enjoyed the company of our long time friend. She is so charming and delightful; so animated and positive. Have I mentioned how much we love her?
Eventually, we made our main course decisions. She and I both had trout (with all the bones removed!) on a bed of quinoa, mixed with vegetables, covered with greens. Oh my, it was delicious. The fish was rubbed with salt and stuffed with herbs and was amazing by itself. When tasted with the greens and grain, it was a flavor sensation not to be missed. It was fantastic. Brian had risotto cakes, crusted with quinoa, served on a root vegetable puree, with a side of brussel sprouts. The risotto was excellent, but the rest didn't thrill me. Of course, I'm not a fan of sprouts. (Understatement of the year.)
Finally, there was much discussion about dessert. The options were: huckleberry bread pudding, apple crisp a la mode, molten chocolate pudding cake and some kind of cheese cake. We decided on the apple crisp with the ice cream on the side. That way, Brian and our friend could enjoy all the dessert they wanted, while I could eat a few bites of the apples without getting too much sugar and no dairy. It was utter cinnamon-y, nutty, apple-y goodness. YUM!!
Have you ever had a situation where everything was great: company, location and food, but the combination made everything even better? This was one of those times. We had such a great time chatting, eating, catching up, eating, enjoying each other, enjoying the food.... It was truly a great day!
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