Farmer's Market Season is upon us!

This was the first Thursday Farmers' Market in McMinnville of 2009. Attendance looked good, and everyone was smiling.

92 degrees this evening - I think this summer's going to be a scorcher, like 2006. When it hits 108 in Mac, though, you can always go to Pacific City, if you prefer 68 degrees and a sea breeze, like I do.

My friends Jim Hoffman and Sarah Marcus are selling Silver Falls goat cheese at the McMinnville market. Reportedly, they will take over cheese production, and the Silver Falls Creamery will supply the milk and raise the goats. The cheese is really tasty, as chevre should be. Nice texture, too.

Alien Festival

This was the first year I missed the UFO festival. Max went down with his friend, and I stayed home and toted 50-50 soil from Greenlands to fill my raised beds. I guess I'm finally going native!

When I lived in Santa Rosa, I usually missed the big parades, I'd just see the marching band kids practicing in my neighborhood for the week beforehand. Now, I guess it's the same.

My workmate, a third generation McMinnville resident said, "I kind of saw the parade - I was moving out of my apartment on Cowls, so it was right there." She also says to whomever choreographs something to "Thriller" every single year to just knock it off! "That's not even aliens! It's monsters!"

Possible bike rides around McMinnville

These start from the Cozine Cycling Coop.
64 miles to Corvallis from Mac on back roads. Straight down 99W is exactly-ish 50 miles.

Cherry City Metals

Salem, Oregon has magic vortices that ensure that you'll get lost nine out of ten times you go there. This happens when you try to cut through from 5 to 99W, it happens when you try to find the Amtrak station, and it will happen when you go to visit Cherry City Metals.

Cherry City Metals is famous. It's a scrap metal yard par excellence. And I don't use fake French lightly.

My compatriot Jim took me down on Saturday, to check out the bikes and the metal and all the sheer possibilities of scrap metal.

The first impression is overwhelming. You don't know where to look. You catch a glimpse of a maul-head, and focus on where you thought it was, and find you're looking into a feed trough FILLED with maul heads, axe heads, hammer heads, shovel heads and double-jacks.


They have signs. Street signs, bus signs, railroad signs, pedestrian signs, street signs, stop signs, go signs, sign signs. Signs. They have scaffolding. Industrial shelving (the kind you stock with a fork lift). Hoods. Bed frames. Headboards. Car hoods that would make awesome headboards.
Motors. Hydraulics. Milking machine parts. Lots of milking machine parts, but they could all be gone as some as some Keizer dairyman stops in. Rowboats. We didn't even get a chance to look at the rowboats, because 50 minutes goes by in the blink of an eye.
At 10 minutes to 1 (they're open from 8 am until 1 pm on Saturdays, and like I said, we got lost), we headed in to check out. Jim got a huge roll of antique wire fencing and a cool little oiler. I got: A five-drawer Proto toolbox, a $190 Wear-Ever cookpot, an awesome numbered basket, two green anodized heavy aluminun tubes I plan to build LED bike lights inside of, a heavy ball of brass, and a weird little item with two small bearings and a zirk fitting for each one. And a giant whisk. All for $40. It should've been $50, since they wanted $33 for the $190 pot and $15 for the vintage Proto tool chest. And a couple of dollars for the weird trash at $.50 a lb.

Hotel Oregon tasty food

I heard on the down-low that McMenamin's Hotel Oregon recently hired a new chef and sous-chef.

Of course "the down low," means "post it on the internet as soon as you get around to it." If it wasn't a secret, I would've put something up immediately. So you see my journalistic credentials are still extant, only pronounced with a Swedish "j."

Well... that explains the consistently good fries for the last month, the sudden appearance of gorgonzola pear pizza on the specials (soon to be regular) menu, and the fantastically tasty portobello mushroom sandwiches!

The Hotel Oregon's menu is going to change this week, way for the better. I'd say "you heard it here first," but it's probably on the McMenamin's website...

If this chef stays, and stays focused, things are going to be a lot different, and I'm going to be a lot happier. That gorgonzola pear pizza is really good. I even eat the crust.

Caveat: we entirely eat vegetarian food at home, I eat mostly vegetarian out, and we value different things in a dining experience than you do, so your gastronomic mileage may vary.

I think it's a harbinger of the good things to come with the Obama administration.

Nick's in the alley

alley entrance
Originally uploaded by Philip Williamson.

Who would guess that down this alley, past the dumpsters, guarded by a row of McMenamin's trashcans, is the entrance to a very pleasant little lounge?

On a fashion note, this photograph was not taken in 1988.

On Wednesday, Jim and I stopped in after a bike ramble around McMinnville's neighborhoods. It was quiet inside, wood-and-wine-bottle-y, with pleasant downbeat music. A Cure cover, some Bowie, maybe. Cat Power.

We had the red-felted pool table all to ourselves (free), and played a couple of games. The cues are straight, well weighted and nice. The table is well-lit and level. It's not a fast table - the waitress said "lotta green on that table" as my shot ran out of gas well shy of the pocket...
Legend has it that before the closed-down Trask Brewpub (next door) got its horrific Macarenas (whatever) makeover, Nick (of Nick's Italian Cafe) would let himself in at night to play pool on their red-felted table. The rest is history.
I mean legend.

The food was really good, and quite cheap reasonable. We each had a bowl of Nick's minestrone, split a crostini with baked garlic, and had two Heater/Allen pilsners. Each. Duh.

Beer brewed three blocks away, world-class soup and a well-tuned pool table! Geez. It was really nice.

The bill came to $34. I'm not sure how it broke down, but the crostini was $5.
Let y="soup"
Let x="beer"
2y+4x=$32
Soup = $7, Beer=$3.50? That sounds right.

Not bad for Very Good food and beer in a very mellow atmosphere.
The waitress (friendly-casual but attentive (fairly perfect, really)) did break a $20 with two tens for the tip. She got about $4 extra. With the pool table, good service and great food it was still quite reasonable - I hope she tipped out the kitchen like she shoulda!

freeze-dried ice cream bar

freeze-dried ice cream bar
Originally uploaded by Philip Williamson.

The Space Museum opened in McMinnville the other weekend (iMax theater, Titan rocket, lunar dune buggy), so roving bands of 'astronauts' passed out packages of dehydrated ice cream bars.
They basically taste like cardboard Oreos.