Cool Stuff

Cool finder
  When I was in Mexico I met a "cool finder".  These are people who are actually paid to hang out and find cool things.  This was an Aussie lady who was paid to live in a groovy surfer town and "find cool things". Before Mexico she found cool things in Paris, London, and L.A..  I had heard of these jobs and wondered if it was some sort of urban myth but apparently not.  Jeez, I would do this for free.  Oh wait, I do.  Finding cool things is one of my most favorite things to do.  So I have decided to maybe make a "things I found that are cool" a semi-regular feature here on the Delightist.  So without any further ado, here is the first thing trending for the Delightist :

    Sunset print leggings made out of recycled plastic bottles by Teeki

  These are so comfortable and well made. The waistband is like the kind on yoga pants enabling me to avoid the dreaded muffin top.  Here's where to order them online http://teeki.com.  They look like a great company. If you live in Portland and you want to see some in person or see some of the other amazing print patterns they come in, I noticed that they carry them at the fabulous Wanderlust + Wildhearts on N.E. Mississippi St.http://www.wanderlustandwildhearts.com.  

  Okay, moving on to the next thing totally trending in Delightist land: 

Unicorn horns, baby spider balls, and cosmic drift

  Every year around this time these spider webs show up with perfect little ball shaped clusters made up of a LOT of baby spiders.  These baby spider balls are all over the yard but this one really spoke to me because of it's symbolic placement in this unicorn assemblage in my front yard.  I wonder if the baby spiders band together to weave their web or if there is a mom spider who sets it all up for them?  I have no idea but another cool thing happens if you blow a little puff of air on these babies.  The spiders fan out quickly and in an orderly fashion thusly:

  Sorry, I didn't have the patience to figure out how to make a GIF of this magical happening.  Suffice to say it's pretty darn cosmic and it makes me think of the ever expanding universe.
  Okay, moving on to the third and last cool thing I wanted to share in this installment of "cool things":

     Dancing the sun up on May Day

  At my daughter's school around 30 kids study English Country Dancing as an elective. Every year their troupe "Raven's Magic" gets invited to dance the sun up on May Day with other folks who do this sort of thing. It's somewhat mysterious who even organizes this event.  It also seems to be at a different location every year, as long as it has a view of the sunrise, and you just kind of have to know about it. I found no mention of it on the internet or in social media.  The school tells me where to be so I just get up at 4 am and troop a few boxes of donuts up to the chosen promontory and absorb the festive yet mysterious vibe. I sure wish I had sound-o-vision for this picture from one of the most magical moments this year:

 A harpist had decided to take a photo of the glorious sunrise.  He stepped up to the edge and gently put down his harp so he could take a picture.  Being that it was dawn, the wind had started to kick up a bit.  Also being that it was dawn, the crowd was ever so groggily and quietly milling about.  At first, almost imperceptibly, we heard a hum.  And as the wind picked up it filled out into an eerie, multilayered, celestial tone.  The wind was playing the harp!  Wow, how absolutely gorgeous and so fitting that the elements would play us a little tune at such an earth honoring event.

  Here are some more pictures of the proceedings:

  Thank you so much to all the dedicated dancers who practiced the intricate steps and celebratory (and perhaps a bit bawdy) songs. Who jingled, sewed, beribboned, and bedecked, and who undoubtedly made certain that Spring continued to unfold at an even clip.  It has been duly noted.
  I'd like to finish with two quotes from two different novels by Terry Pratchett:

"It is hard to understand nothing, but the multiverse is full of it.  Nothing travels everywhere, always ahead of something, to break out, to move, to feel, to change, to dance and to experience--in short, to be something.
            -Terry Pratchett, "Raising Steam"

  "...the drummer beat the drum a few times and the accordionist played a long drawn out chord, the legal sign that a Morris Dance is about to begin, and people who hang out after this have only themselves to blame."
            -Terry Pratchett, "Wintersmith"



Just kidding Morris Dancers, you were awesome.
                                              

Snow Days Portland Style for the Newbs

  Hi all. Greetings from frosty ass Portland, Oregon. We are currently encrusted in multiple layers of intricate crystalline structures. Oh.    I mean snow and ice.  It probably won't last much longer though.  It's just not our thing.  Sorry snow, it's not you, it's us. We really lack commitment and apparently so does the snow. It hardly comes around anymore. We only plow 10 percent of our streets.  We barely have the energy to salt or sand. We just need our space man. But it was great while it lasted.
  Lots of folks have moved to Portland in the last few years and we really haven't had a snow/ice "event" in 5 years so I think it's a good time to review snow day etiquette. First and foremost snow day = mental health day for the vast majority of Portlanders.  I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or anything but if you're a "non-essential" worker you really need to stay home.  Look at it as a get out of jail free card. Bonus: almost everyone is aggressively cheerful due to the surprise mental health day and impending fun.
  Rob (the husband) grew up here and wanted me to pass on these helpful hints:

RE: Snow.

Facts:

1) The City of Portland does not salt the roads when it snows.  ( See all the old cars that are still around, love them for their artistic values, or hate them for their lack of gas economy, and the safety features of a brick, they are still around because of the no salt attitude ).

2) The drivers in the City of Portland do not know how to drive in the snow.  This is not strictly true, but we mostly lack these basics: snow tires, snow chains, practice driving in the snow, salt ( see above ).

3) We have hills.  When it snows, all side street hills are reserved for sledding, all major street hills are reserved for people who like to slide their cars into other cars, street signs, and other ( soon to be ) debris. (Okay, the hills are not "officially" reserved. It's just an unwritten rule -Jen)

4) Four wheel drive will not help you stop.  Driving fast just because you have a four wheel drive vehicle may lower your intelligence quotient and increase your damaged vehicle ownership.

Solutions:

1) Go home and have a "snow day".  Get a bottle of scotch on the way by the grocery store ( or, whatever, more beer, but beer can be heavy to carry while wandering around in the pretty snow covered city ).

1a) Go home before the snow starts.

1b) Seriously, get the fuck out of work and go home before everyone else decides to go home and you get stuck on a freeway watching the gas tank slowly empty as you stare at the back of the same car that is artfully cutting back and forth in front of you making no more progress than the other car that slid off into the ditch.  And the pretty snowflakes fall.

2) You may think you can drive in the snow, you may have been able to do that in your home state ( California? ), but we have things here that you did not have there.  We have hills, we have no salt, and we have other drivers that do not know how to drive in the snow, who are now between you and your destination.  They have run out of gas, and are abandoning their cars in the middle of the road / freeway / that hill that you need to have momentum to get up, or, at the bottom of the hill you just started down.

3) Walk.  To the store, to the liquor store, to the bar.  Preferably, go to a bar that has a good view of a freeway on/off ramp.  Or one with the Snow-pocolypse playing on the TV.

4) Keep the streets clear for essential personnel : fire brigades, bartenders & barista's, grocery store workers ( sorry, grocery store RESOURCES/TEAM PLAYERS/OTHER workers but you're our lifeline to beer and cookie making ingredients.  Thank you for your service.), police, the sheriff's secret police, other nebulous government agencies.

5) Once the snow has stopped falling, go sledding and wassailing ( bring the scotch )

 Thanks Rob.  Well said. Very helpful indeed.

 This just in: Rob has an addendum.  Clearly he's on a roll tonight. Here goes:

Re:

Snow in Portland:

And another thing, why do some of you insist on shoveling the show off the sidewalk in front of your house?  If you are trying to prevent injury, it's very counter productive, because, at the end of a snow event/apocalypse/happy fun cute time, there is usually a round of freezing rain, to give everything that was snow covered a nice candy coating of crunchability.  Except your sidewalk, which has become a skating rink for the unwary.

  

  Once again, thanks Rob. Clearly you have a natural, "let the snow be snow, man", shovels be damned, aesthetic.  I like that.  It seems to go with our general Portlandia zeitgeist around the handling of winter weather.  Okay everyone, back to your cookie making, knitting, sledding, drinking, sledding, sleeping, etc..

  

A Painterly Approach to Tomato Sauce and Cooking in General

Of heirloom tomatoes, saws, gratitude, neighborhood smoking party (not what you're probably thinking),and Jen's home made tomato sauce for the lazy and/or distracted

  So I was riding the vacation bump a couple of days after our return from Iceland and Scotland.  It was a beautiful late summer morning and I was seriously appreciating my neighborhood, the greenery, the food, and the quirky people about.  As if on cue, my neighbor, Hans, showed up with a bunch of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes from his garden and a Bjork CD.  I felt so friggin' grateful!  He has such a beautiful veggie garden.  He also makes really artful arrangements of old tools in his yard.  Like thus:

  All these layers of goodness inspired me; "I'm going to make sauce!"  But first a bike ride.  On the ride I ran into Duane and Betti and they gave me a zucchini from their garden and the idea to make a zucchini fritatta.   My veggie appreciation magnetized even more sauce ingredients later in the day when i stopped by my neighbor Brian's house to retrieve Ruby, who was hanging out with his triplets.  His wife Liz had gotten him a smoker for his birthday and he gave me some of his smoked tomatoes.  Oh sweet jeezus, this sauce is so ON.
  Brian is so jazzed about his smoker he's thinking of inviting neighbors over for regular smoking parties where we'll answer the question, "will it smoke?"  I'll have to admit I got swept up in the excitement and I hope to soon be smoking peaches, beets, and um, marshmallows.  I'll keep you posted.
  Anyhow, back to the sauce. I wanted to keep it simple and I just don't have the patience for recipes (I'm more of a painterly chef) so I just went with what I had; onion, garlic, tomatoes.  

   Step One: Caramelize your chopped onion.
       Great for the lazy and/or distracted chef because you want to stir minimally whilst caramelizing.  The sugars in the onion sink to the bottom and create that lovely caramel effect.  If you happen to have some peppers, mushrooms, or zucchini to add, do it when your onions are almost caramelized.

   Step Two:  Put in as much chopped garlic as you like.  I put in 4 cloves. You actually need to focus at this point in time as garlic can burn fast.  Keep it movin'.

   Step Three:  Throw in your chopped tomatoes, salt, and preferably fresh ground pepper.  Also if you happened to open up a beer that tasted like crap to you because it was way too sweet, throw the other half of the beer in there like I did.  Wine is good too. Herbs are good.  And let's not forget the smoked tomatoes if you're lucky enough to have some.

Tomatoes about to be cooked down

  Then you just let it cook down. There will be no blanching, peeling, straining or the like. This isn't that kind of sauce.  Ain't nobody got time for that. Plus I like the flavor that the skins and seeds impart.  
  Cooking it down can take awhile.  I have no idea how long, an hour?  It depends on how many tomatoes you started with. I was able to check my emails, listen to a podcast, keep an ear and eye on the small hoard of kids playing in my backyard, and kick out an easy zucchini frittata.

Zucchini frittata with awesome sauce

   So just cook it down until it's the consistency you like. You will not believe how much the flavor deepens and intensifies.  Especially if you use sweet home grown tomatoes.  And, oh my gawd, the smoked tomatoes took it to whole new level. I only needed about half the sauce so the rest will be going on a G.F. pizza tonight.  The only downfall is that it will ruin you for store bought sauce FOREVER.

Cat bow ties. Yep it's a thing.

Your cat most likely needs a bow tie
  I'm so in love with this idea!     I may be in in love with this idea but my cats are avowed nudists who eschew even the simplest of collars. I'm afraid bow ties for Mr. Tomkinz and Katerina might result in pee-soaked laundry and other undesirable acts of resistance.  Still, someone's cats could rock this look. I saw these at Last Thursday. (More on this later). Check 'em out at:http://businesscatual.com. Oh, and they're only 8 bucks AND made out of recycled materials. 

  They have really great postcards too.  And probably the largest selection of cat bow ties you'll find anywhere.

  Okay, so Last Thursday, how can I possibly explain you?  It's basically a monthly "arts"  (let's just use that term loosely) unjuried, free-for-all, street fair that happens just a block or so from my house in beautiful Portland, Oregon.  With around ten thousand of your closest friends wearing anything from t-shirts and shorts, to a jellyfish costume, to paint.  Um, just paint. It's very "organic" by which I mean to say it's VERY lightly organized. It can be an unbelievable cacophony of sound and smell.  And if you're not in the right frame of mind it can feel like unmitigated pathos and make you seriously question...well, everything.  But at some point in the evening, I promise you will see or experience some crazy-ass, imaginative, amazing thing or collision of things that will bring you BACK. Ready to mainline life again.  Thank you very much random freaky people.

  Besides,  there's usually organic cotton candy.

Organic cotton candy because I care!