Hometown Visit: North Market

One of the best things in Columbus is the North Market. It's been around for a very long time, but the current location opened in 1995 in a renovated warehouse. There are permanent stalls inside, and on summer weekends farmers set up outside.  The new building has a great rooster sign:

  

Jeni's Ice Cream is still there of course, and doing very well. After our trip I found out it's being distributed nationwide, including to Zupan's Markets here in Portland. I might have to check out if they carry any of the sorbets next time I'm near one. Her flavors are amazing and creative. She now has a case full of very fancy ice cream treats, pictured above, like ice cream sandwiches with macaroons, and terrine. Plus she came out with a cookbook recently. Very cool to see her doing so well.

 

It was delightful to find it hasn't changed much since we moved away. Most of the vendors I remember are still there, including Pastaria, with all the same dishes. I used to get the Pasta Arribiata, which has anise seeds in the sauce. It's very good. The day we visited we stopped for good coffee from A Touch of Earth and treats from a new booth, Expressly..., with vegan baked goods. 

One unfortunate change we did notice is that one of our favorite vegan friendly soup places, Benevolence, is no longer operating. They ran a small booth (where Expressly... is now, at least there are still vegan baked goods in the same spot!) in the market and a separate shop around the corner. Their soup was amazing and I'm sad that they are no longer around. We ended up eating at our other old standby in the area, Barley's Brewing Company. They have a really nice space with tin ceilings, and the veggie burger & fries are very good. Okay, now I'm hungry.

Hometown Visit: Clintonville & German Village

 

The German Village is a really pretty area south of Downtown Columbus. As a kid my family went to see all the plays at Schiller Park, usually two Shakespearean and a Musical every summer. We's take a picnic. In college my friends & I spent a lot of time at the Book Loft (above right) & the Cup of Joe next door. The Book Loft was just as I remembered, tons of rooms with different music playing in each, new and used books, and lots of fun to explore. And Cup of Joe was definately the best coffee we had while we were in Columbus. They even carry vegan treats from Pattycake. 

  

Actually, that might be the first place I knew of that had Patty Cake baked goods in Columbus. Their story says they started in 2003 in a Cup of Joe, and they didn't open their store front in Clintonville on North High street until 2005. This was the year after we moved away! Now it's an important place to stop when we visit, along with Whole World (though we missed that on this trip, since they were closed on Monday.)  I also noticed that Clintonville now has a vegan friendly hair salon in the same area. Not bad, nice to see vegan stuff doing well in the Midwest, especially in my hometown. Anyway, Pattycake Bakery has an adorable sign now, and was serving up these adorable cat cookies, aren't they great? 

Road Trip! Chicago to Ohio

Usually the highlight of the trip between my parents' house and my grandma's is the wind farm in Indiana. But this time we were traveling at night. I slept most of the way, but we stopped in Lafayette for diner. They have a brand new Chipotle! I used to work for an architecture firm that designed the stores so I tend to geek out a little overtime I eat there. This store was a very different design so there may have been some extra geeking. Cleaner, more modern and simple, there was no art in this one! Not even the burrito king, and there's one of those in every store. But I have to say it was pretty nice to see them move on from so much corrugated metal and simplified light fixtures.
Another highlight of the trip was a very lovely sunset!

Eating Out: Native foods Chicago

Yesterday my parents and I ate out for lunch at the new Native Foods Cafe on Belmont. Too much very good vegan foods. We shared the nacho appetizer, which was my favorite dish. I love nacho plates. This dish had fresh guacamole and what I think must have been cashew cheese.

I also had the Chicken Run Ranch Sandwich, billed as what chickens would serve if the were in charge of the ranch. I also picked it because it was marked as a great dish for first time visitors. It was really good, just enough ranch dressing without going overboard. Sweet potato fries on the side come with a green spice sprinkled on top. It suited the potatoes so well I didn't even bother with ketchup. We were too full for deserts, but they looked great. I am sure we will sample those often when they open the location in downtown Portland next spring. (One just opened in Tigard, outside of Portland, but that's a bit far for us to go....although now that I know how good it is, it might be worth the trip.)

Our other activities yesterday included going to the DIY trunk show. Tons of great vendors, and I'll admit to checking out their booth setups for inspiration too. On the way there we saw a black squirrel! And we ended up ending our day watching Shutter Island. It was so good I think I'll make Chuck watch it with me again when I get home.

Vegan Mofo: Bombay Chaat House Food Cart

 

So I've gone a few short days without posting for Vegan Mofo because after we made tofu loaf, the lentil & sausage stew and picked up food from the Bombay Chaat House food cart, we had leftovers for many meals. We got 3 large meals out of the dinner we picked up Friday night at the food cart! 

Bombay Chaat house is located 12th & Yamhill, which
is conveniently located for us. The cart is 100% vegetarian and they indicate that they can make most of their dishes vegan upon request. Yay!

In the picture above on the right are some appetizers and sauces. The pillowy crisps are Pani Puri which we had never tried before. The instructions were on the side of the cart (pictured on the left.) They are hollow, and came with a spicy potato mixture, which you put inside and then dip the whole thing in spiced water before eating it. It was very flavorful!

We also had another potato appetizer, the great big ball in the picture on the right was a Batata-Vada. Also very spicy! With two of the veggie dishes, and some vegan friendly naan, we had tons of food. 

Live Music: Mississippi Ave.

Last week I fairly spontaneously purchased tickets to see Joan as Policewoman at Mississippi Studios for last Saturday night. Chuck pretty quickly agreed we should go since it had been too long since our last show and he declared we could check out a place with vegan pizza over there that he's been wanted to visit for a while, Mississippi Pizza Pub. We great pizza and beer there, the place was crowded but laid back, and about half way through our meal there was entertainment. Local swing jazz trio Boy & Bean (note that their site plays music upon opening), pictured above, made us want to spend all of our weekends on Mississippi Ave. 

Mississippi Studios is a recently renovated venue; work was completed in 2009.  Local architects Sum Design Studio designed the space which features steel and glulam beams, red walls & old theater seats. It's also decorated with re-purposed drums as lights behind the stage, and old light fixtures, a reminder that the rebuilding center is right down the street. You can just barely make them out in this picture, on the left, but I really liked the chipboard guitars hanging on the wall...after years in architecture school it almost seems like something I'd enjoy making, but on second thought they look like a heck of a lot of hard work, involving intense cutting and gluing. Very impressive

I suppose because I've seen that so many musicians I like have played there since we moved here, it fell pretty high up on my list of Portland music venues to check out. (We definitely need to check out the Doug Fir soon though.) It was smaller than I was expecting, which was great. The first opening band (local group Themes) played on a nice rug on the floor in front of the stage.  This made for a very quick transition time between acts, and a night filled with lots of music. The second opening act was Bhi Bhiman from San Francisco, who took the stage alone with his guitar, almost crowded out by Joan's equipment. His guitar skills and songwriting impressed us.

And then Joan Wasser is just very cool. Her outfit was all black, with open strips in the back. It seemed like she was having a great time. She even mentioned that Mississippi Ave was "dangerous" because of all of the cute shops and she was glad she didn't have more time to spend on it. I think the highlight of the show, for me was the performance of their song "Save Me" which was dedicated to the rapture. 

We had a weekend full of music! There's always live music at the PSU farmer's markets. And friday night we went to Al's Den at the newly completed Crystal Hotel to check out more free music, Brian Bonz. That's also a really cool space with really good music. A little closer to where we live too, but Mississippi Ave. is too cool not to go back often.

Vegan Treats: More Petunia's!!

Over the weekend we once again had amazing treats from Petunia's Pies & Pastries at the PSU Farmer's Market. It's too hard to resist! This time I had a lemon tart, with strawberries, soo good, and Chuck had a Gooey Pecan Roll. According to facebook, there will be more of these at the market this weekend if you can get there early enough! 

  

Here are some other pretty things from the market. Had to have tulips for Easter, and Chuck with a bag of potatoes. Potatoes are always good. It was such a bright sunny day last Saturday, I hope we have the same kind of weather this Saturday!

Vegan Treats : Cloud 7 Cafe

Bare light bulbs everywhere we went this weekend in Portland! This is above the counter at Cloud 7. They have fantastic coffee, they really know what they are doing. They brew Intelligentsia coffee (which was founded in Chicago) with a pour-over technique. They also use Intelligentsia cups, mine was the large latte cup with a cute red star at the bottom that made smile, while Chuck's looked similar but slightly more masculine (and no red star.) He also wants one of these Coffee Kettles of which I saw three. So they scored a lot of pints with use design-wise, plus it was a cozy place to be. It's located right next to Jamison Square in the Pearl District for fun people (lots of families and dogs!) watching.

 

Petunia's Pies & Pastries are also everywhere, which is great because they are vegan and so good. We went to Cloud 7 on Saturday, having missed her at the market earlier, so we managed to still get our treats. Chuck had the crispy bar, which was already a favorite. I had a chocolate banana peanut butter cupcake and that was just the best that peanut butter icing can be done, I think. 

Vegan Dining: Blossoming Lotus

Yeah, we ate out twice last weekend just because it had been a while and we really need to explore all the vegan places Portland has to offer. Blossoming Lotus has been on the agenda for a while but we finally went for the first time Saturday afternoon (after sleet/hail, of which there was more of for just a few moments today. Spring in the Northwest is full of fun unpredictability in the form of freezing rain!)

 

Chuck had the Smoked Maple Tempeh and I couldn't resist the Spicy Butternut & Black Bean Chili Quesadilla. Quesadillas are always tricky to get or make vegan though. Without the cheese things do fall apart, usually. I thought the beans were going to help keep everything in place, but they didn't quite do that, so eating it was a bit of a struggle. However, it was really yummy. Chuck's wrap was really good (and stayed together a bit better.) I just had coffee, but Chuck ordered the strawberry banana milkshake....I was very sorry that I only got a few sips.

Their space is very cute, in a neat older storefront space on Broadway. Filled with art featuring birds and other animals. There were a pair of matching circular paintings of white barn owls (like in Labyrinth, yay!) that I particularly liked. Oh, and a very tempting cake from petunia's was on display. We'd just had some doughnuts from petunia's at the market that morning, but otherwise, very tempting...

Hmm...this has been a very food heavy week of blogging. Surprisingly our walks this weekend didn't involve stairs, but perhaps they are called for after having so much yummy food lately...

Vegan Dining: Sizzle Pie

Sizzle Pie is a fairly new pizza place on Burnside, which just opened at the start of 2011. Chuck has something of a mental cell phone app that knows our proximity to vegan pizzas. I wanted to walk over the Burnside bridge to get yet another view of the Cherry Blossoms, which meant that Sizzle Pie wasn't out of the way for lunch.

  

This was essentially our breakfast and lunch. We ordered 2 slices each of the two vegan pizzas (which are in the top of the case in the photo on the left.) The brunch pizza (in the middle) is called Drugs Benedict and has tofu scramble, hash browns, vegan bacon bits and a really tasty bean sauce. We followed that immediately with our lunch, the Spiral Tap. Alternating stripes of caramelized onions and marinara sauce so it was pretty as well as really tasty. And of course we ordered beers. 

Giving their menu a glance, I am really eager to try anything with their Basil Cashew Spread. And I'm highly amused with the Caligula salad with vegan ranch dressing. One morning when we're not quite as hungry we definitely have to go for the brunch special.

There's a nice set of photos of the interior here, and it's a nice clean, modern design: very comfortable. They have a jukebox and while we were there there was metal playing. Not usually my kind of music, but for a restaurant with the slogan "death to false pizza" it just felt right.

First PSU Market of the Year!

It's nice that we don't have to go very long between markets here, but I missed it while it was gone! It stopped in December and we got a nice Christmas wreath at the last one.

 

Lots and lots of nice root vegetables, radishes, parsnips, you could even just smell the carrots as you walked by one booth with stacks of carrots. Daffodils dominated the flower booths, but I was excited about the booth full of hellebores/lenten roses since I just learned about those recently. Also lots of greens, like this Chard, and potted plants including catnip, mojito mint and rubarb starters.

 

Vegan treats too! Cheesecake and Bundt Cake from Petunia's Pies & Pastries. Her stuff is so irresistible. We picked up brussel sprouts and some Heidi Ho vegan cheeses, which is a new booth at the market this year!  The market is the perfect way to spend Saturday mornings and I'm so glad it's already back!

Hawthorne Food Carts: Whiffies Fried Pies

 

We ate at the Hawthorne Food Cart Pod Thursday night before heading to the concert. Chuck was excited to try out Whiffies Fried Pies which offers several vegan options cooked in a special vegan deep fryer. There are six carts at this pod, and nearly all of them have vegan options. This even includes the Creperie which I wasn't sure about until I heard other vegans asking about vegan options.

  

The insides of our order. We had the BBQ Tofu which although didn't exactely make me think of tradition BBQ flavor, it was a little sweet and just a little spicy and very good. It also had green peppers in it. For dessert we each had half of the super gooey peach and berry whiffies. A little messy but worth it. Chuck almost didn't get the peach. Good thing he did since we both liked the peach best. The crust on all of these was so good too.

It only took one visit. Now I'm feeling kind of obsessed with this particular food cart pod. On the way back from the concert we were still a bit hungry (we both had had small lunches) and, yes, we needed to stop at Potato Champion. We split some Fries with Banana Ketchup and Satay Sauce. Fantastic. Plus I love all the lights that are strung up, the fire pit, and there are tons of tables. It's so cozy. 

Back to Back to Eden Bakery

We dropped in Back to Eden Bakery for our second visit this weekend when we went over to Alberta St. to pick up tickets for the last of the Google Best Ever Concerts. Walking up to the shop I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to resist getting the wonderful whoopie pie again if it was there, which it was. I decided to go for something more savory to resist the temptation. Chuck opted for chocolate: 

 

Mine was a Spinach Artichoke Tart and Chuck's was a huge Boston Creme Pie, which he couldn't quite finish on his own. Oh no! Good thing I was there to help out with a few bites at the end, after finishing my tart. We managed to beat the crowds by just a little and sat inside the botique this time. While doing so I notice they carry a few pieces of pottery by Vegan Dish! Very cute bowls, almost as tempting as the food!

And we did mange to get our passes to the concert on our second try. This one is Thursday night at a Church!

Back to Eden Bakery Yumminess

I don't really have a ton to say here that isn't conveyed just as well by how yummy these pictures look. We finally got ourselves over to Alberta St. to check out the Back to Eden Bakery Boutique yumminess. It's a good thing it's not closer to where we live because everything in their case looked pretty fantastic. (I'm feeling pretty well situated in relation to all the vegan yumminess in Portland. Most of it takes some walking at least, and VooDoo Doughnut almost always has that huge line.) 

I had the Pumpkin Whoopie Pie. OMG.

Chuck had the Chocolate Peanut Toffee Bar. He was happy. I had a bite too, but to be honest I was very distracted by my Whoopie Pie. I think it had a pretty tasty combo of flavors (I'm sure it did, actually) but, yeah, it's all about the whoopie pie.

The space was really cute inside too, lots of vegan cookbooks and fun products. But there were no seats free because it was a very small, popular space. I suppose that makes the Boutique part of the name sound pretty appropriate. We ended up heading over to a bus stop since it wasn't that cold out and the bus had just gone by & no one else was waiting. We did some people (and people with dogs) watching while we enjoyed our treats. We did end up having to wave a bus pass once...but I felt comfortable with that, it's Portland, you know, we're laid back here.

Happy Birthday to Me!

 

Just a quick post, it's my birthday! I'm turning...old, or at least not young anymore at 31. Anh, it's no big deal. And I get homemade cupcakes - Chocolate Stout with Buttercream icing, recipe from Vegan Cupcakes take over the World (of course!) I can't wait to try them...after the nice dinner Chuck is also making me!

Chuck's Pot Pie & Vegan MoFo

 

Look what Chuck made us for dinner this week! It lasted us two nights since there were 4 total. He's been very interested in playing with crusted/stuffed baked meals lately. A few weeks ago he made us pasties, pictured below, (and not to be confused with the other kind of pasties.) I think we had been watching something British, in which Cornish Pasties were mentioned, and ever since he's been interested in the idea. Personally, I was a little more excited about the Banoffee Pie I recall being mentioned on one show (The Old Guys, which has a great theme song) and I'd love to try a vegan version sometime soon.  But meanwhile I certainly can't complain about Chuck's experimentation with yummy filled crust dinners. The crust on these was great! I asked him about posting a recipe or something here, but he says he's still experimenting.

Meanwhile it is the Vegan Month of Food (or Vegan Mofo, heehee) which means there are great images of vegan food, recipies and all sorts of yumminess appearing on blogs all over the internet. I'm not doing it this year, though I did a few years ago and it was great fun. One great way I've found to sort through the posts is using google's blog search. But of course the official blog is also a great way to get a round-up of the best posts. Ooh! these cranberry-chocolate tarteletts just caught my eye. Please excuse me while I go make a new bookmarks folder...