Thanksgiving Week in Portland

Since Lauren moved to Oregon to attend law school six years ago we have celebrated Thanksgiving and the girls’ birthdays (both born on November 29^th two years apart) at her condo in Portland (technically, Lake Oswego, which is a swanky little community ten miles south of downtown). It was a near-perfect Martha Stewart Thanksgiving this year with the house decorated to the hilt, a loving family gathered together round a beautifully-set table, and a traditional turkey dinner.

Turkey place card with trivia feathers

There are challenges with entertaining in small spaces that go beyond limited floor space, although that is a primary concern. Our group of nine this year outgrew Lauren’s small dining table for six (eight was a squeeze last year; nine impossible). We found the perfect fix online…a 3-foot square game table. A little furniture rearranging and we had one long table to seat everyone together. Verne and I worked our magic in her small kitchen with very few cross words (I did have one small melt-down we won’t discuss, but that has become the norm). It helped to have made (and preserved) several components of our dinner a few weeks ahead. After all, I am the queen of food preservation! And finally, my crafty daughter had decorated her home beautifully with a “Give Thanks” banner, a Thankful Tree with the names of family and friends written on each leaf (it looks a bit like a Peanuts’ Christmas tree), and adorable paper turkeys with trivia questions written on each of five tail feathers. Fortunately for all of us the answers were written on the backs of the feathers. We switched our tradition of “giving thanks” to after dinner (last year dinner was cold after an hour of sharing and weeping). There was still plenty of weeping this year, but at least it was on a full stomach. Before I move on to the rest of our week in Portland, I want to share one of the small-kitchen, single-oven tricks I learned this year. Our sausage-sage stuffing was cooked in a slow cooker! Not only did it free up oven space, but the dressing was better than usual and stayed hot for second servings. Thank you, NY Times daily blog!

For years (pre-Verne Moser) I prided myself in stretching a turkey for four or five days. Day one hasn’t changed much with the bird and all the fixings. Day two was re-heated leftovers (always tasted better the second day with a fraction of the work). Day three was turkey tetrazzini. Day five was a French (I really don’t think it was very French) onion soup made from turkey stock. I don’t remember what I did on day four, but I’m sure it was equally delicious. All that changed 30+ years ago. Verne had a tragic experience on Christmas Eve when he was a teenager. The man who had raised him for much of his first 15 years, Sig Hanson, died. For days after Sig’s death neighbors and friends brought food to the family…turkey! Verne has always used the association of a holiday turkey with Sig’s death as an excuse for limiting his consumption of turkey to two small pieces on Thanksgiving. That’s it for the entire year! So I have given up on getting creative with turkey leftovers. I buy the smallest of birds and give the rest away with the carcass and giblets a holiday treat for the barn cats. All that as a prelude to our Friday night dinner, which wasn’t turkey leftovers…

Thai Peacock dinner

One of the first “favorite” restaurants we discovered in downtown Portland is called Thai Peacock. It’s directly across the street from Powell’s Bookstore, another fave. Just a side note, Powell’s takes up a city block and has over a million books, new and used. They claim to be the largest bookstore in the world and I believe it. I carry a map of the store so as not to get lost. As for Thai food over the holiday weekend, why not? For our “Asian-at-heart daughter” Thai food is always a perfect choice. I call Lauren that because during a visit to a friend’s home the girl’s mother watched Lauren masterfully use her chopsticks and said, you are more Asian than my own daughter born and raised in China. Lauren discovered a dish called Pad Se Ew while she attended UC Berkeley. A few years later, during her stint at Lewis and Clark Law School, she served a summer (law) internship in Laos (and traveled to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam). Her summer adventures, documented in her blog (Adventuresof a Book Worm Abroad), included a one-day cooking class where she learned to make all the food she loves, Pad Se Ew, Tom Yum soup, curry, and mango with sticky rice to name a few. Lauren made suggestions for our order and as we enjoyed several courses of delicious Thai food, we reminisced of her 2010 trip to Southeast Asia. As parents, the worries were burned into our memory…civil war breaking out in Chaing Mai the day Lauren left on her trip, cultural immersion week at a refugee camp for young women, dengue fever, foodborne illnesses. The list is long. For Lauren, who has no qualms of traveling to third-world countries, it was probably the best three-months of her law school experience. 

Scott and Ini at Thai Peacock

Birthday Girls at Thai Peacock

Verne and Andy at Thai Peacock

Jana and I are the tea drinkers in the family and she ordered a pot of Jasmine green tea for the two of us to have with our food. We commented several times during dinner that it was the best Jasmine tea we’d ever had. We ordered a second pot and continued to discuss it to the point of being annoying to the rest of the fam, which only served to encourage us to continue with our accolades (LOL). As we were leaving I noted that the brand was Smith Tea. We googled it and lo and behold we found that Smith Tea headquarters and tasting room is located in Portland. Steven Smith, who died a few years ago at the early age of 65 (hope it was not due to drinking tea), was the teamaker and cofounder of Stash teas and the tea shaman of Tazo. Based on the price of the tea, which I ordered, it is definitely “uncommon…with a curated line of flavors like nothing else in the world.” In other words, it’s a snooty tea for serious tea drinkers and definitely a step up from Stash and Tazo. By Sunday, all of the family had left to go home and we were alone to run a few errands and complete a DIY project in the afternoon (replace Lauren’s garbage disposal).

DIY garbage disposal

We had an errand in northeast Portland that took us very close to the Smith Tea tasting room. All it took was for Lauren to say she would really like to find a tea she likes (she is historically a tea teetotaler) and we were off to experience Smith Tea. And what an incredible experience it was! We spent an hour sipping and slurping a flight of teas. Yes, slurping. We learned that slurping aerates the tea and enhances the taste. This was an experience we will repeat as often as we’re in Portland. What fun!

Smith Tea, a flight of four

Slurping

Beautiful fall day in front of Smith Tea

Have I mentioned that Portland is a “foodie” town? Lauren’s mission has been to scout out new restaurants for us to try during our visits. The real challenge has been to get us to try them. We have so many favorites and our trips are rarely more than four or five days. This particular trip was longer than most giving us an extra couple of dining opportunities.

The first, which occurred before Thanksgiving, was truly amazing. Verne and I arrived in Portland on Tuesday afternoon while Jandy (Jana and her boyfriend Andy) arrived very late Tuesday night. We all met up at Lauren’s house on Wednesday mid-day and decided to head out to try one of these new eating establishments that Lauren had been raving about. She suggested Laurelhurst Market, a combination butcher shop and restaurant in southeast Portland, as the perfect place for our group and so we called to make reservations. At the time, it seemed unfortunate that the restaurant only had reservations at 4:30 pm when they opened, but in retrospect it was perfect (fewer people meant more attention from the wait staff and less noise for the hard of hearing – everyone but Lauren – in our group). The restaurant is beautiful and quintessentially Portland. Menus with local seasonal selections were passed around and it was immediately apparent it would be challenge to order as everything on the menu looked delicious. We decided to begin by sharing some starters – a pickle board with about 6 different pickled vegetables, each pickled in a unique manner and served on an actual board, an order of fried oysters, and two bowls of French onion soup. These hors d’oeuvres were impeccable, each more delicious than the last. As we feasted, our waiter decanted the wine we brought and then poured it out for us. We sipped and sampled our way through this first course and then began to think about the main event. As I mentioned above, Laurelhurst Market is a butcher shop/restaurant and focuses much of its menu on steaks. Each cut of beef is served in a unique style and our waiter was on hand to discuss each in depth. He asked questions on our preferences, inquired about our previous experiences with steak and then made recommendations. The result was an amazing meal for each of us – steak frites for Verne, a flat iron steak with a golden raisin vinaigrette for myself and Andy, a coulotte steak with a Thai hazelnut sauce for Lauren, and grilled shrimp for Jana. This is to say nothing of the sides – Yukon potatoes with aioli, smoked wild mushrooms, and mac & cheese with a potato chip crust.  In the end, we spent about two hours relaxing and reveling in a glorious meal and outstanding company. Our waiter was incredible, always ready with a recommendation and refilling our glasses of water or wine before we realized we needed it. We ended the meal with fresh beignets and an untraditional “carrot cake.” As we left the restaurant we all agreed it was one of the best meals we have eaten in Portland and Jana declared it better than almost all restaurants in LA as well (high praise indeed!). 

Our final new restaurant experience in Portland occurred on Sunday evening after the others had left. Verne, Lauren and I went to Nicoletta’s Table in downtown Lake Oswego, an Italian restaurant Lauren had been interested in trying for the past year. It’s located in a small, inconspicuous shopping center and is right next door to Lauren’s Mexican food favorite, Senor Taco. Well, Nicoletta’s Table is simply fantastic. The restaurant is beautiful and includes an open kitchen plan so that you can watch the chefs cook as you eat. What more could you want than a show with your dinner? We started with Nicoletta’s famous mini meatballs in red sauce and they were perfect. As we ate, our waitress brought us a small rustic bag filled with fresh focaccia bread and a large delicious cracker. A bottle of olive oil on the table provided a perfect dip and each bite proved better than the last. For the main course, I sampled the lasagna (which proved unique and delicious), Lauren tried the spaghetti Bolognese (another winner), and Verne ate a classic, spaghetti and meatballs (wonderful). We all agreed that we had found yet another favorite to add to the list and that Jandy must accompany us to Nicoletta’s on their next visit.