Rafting trip on lower clackamas river

Ceci, Jose and I bought on a Livingsocial deal on a rafting trip in Oregon City, 15-20 min south of downtown. We called to reserve the trip for this Saturday, which turned out to a perfect day. There's not a wisp of cloud in the sky. The temp was in the low 80s.

After 15 min of trying to figure out the logistics and another 15 min of getting stranded on the highway and almost getting lost, we managed to get to the starting point of the rafting trip, which is not where we were told to meet the group. At one point, I was thoroughly confused and decided to just follow Jose and Ceci. The company that organizes the trips, Northwest River Guides, seemed overwhelmed by the responses from livingsocial deal that they were struggling to get things organized. So we didn't get off a good start.

Our guide was a young guy named Ben, who was trying to make witty remarks that fail to solicit any response from the rafting crowd. Everyone was still a bit pissed by the start and couldn't wait to get in the water.

Unfortunately we were told to leave all things behind, unless its water proof, I couldn't bring the camera with us. These were the only photos I was able to get before leaving it in the car. We also had to put on life jackets, the only reason I agreed to do the trip since I don't swim.

that's our raft

lower clackamas river

Jose and Ceci having a talk with our guide Ben, the buy in yellow

Once on the water, the mood of the crowd lightened up. Something about floating on cool water just calms you down. Everyone was also busy trying to memorize the different paddle commands and various paddling strokes. Jose volunteered as the stroke captain and took the job seriously. Whenever the guide said "all forward", Jose would go "stroke, stroke, stroke..." It cracked me up.

It may look easy, but paddling is a serious core workout. It's a small raft that held three people each side. We got a 12-yr old boy on my side who's more interested in riding the bull on the front of the raft than paddling. That means me and the other guy behind me had to work extra hard.

We weren't paddling the entire time, as we were going down the stream. There were a few rapids during the trip, level I and II. Nothing spectacular for seasoned rafters, but for people who've never rafted before, like myself, it was super fun. Dotting the side the of river are little rocky beaches where people sunbathing and chilling off.

Midway through the trip, we came to a spot called the "High Point", which is a stretch of the river with tall rocks on either side. Local teens were jumping off the rocks into the river. Some jump-off points were 30 feet tall. We were taking a break at the High Point. Jose and Ceci were both going to jump off the tallest one. I wasn't. Did I mention that I don't swim? Although I was standing up there with them from the rocks. It looks scarier from up here. They both jumped and came back up with a huge smile on their faces. That's when I was talked into jumping from a lower rock, which was still 15 feet above the water. Jose and Ceci are now in the water waiting for me to join them. I was having second thoughts. I heard Jose say "don't think, just jump".

And I did just that.

I stepped over the edge and immediately the feeling of free fall kicked in, followed by "when is the water going to hit? damn this is high!", followed by water rushing into my nose and vision blurred by white foam. I wanted to breath, but wasn't sure if I was still submerged in water. All of the sudden, I could hear Ceci and Jose laughing and screaming, and realized that my head is indeed above the water (remember the life jacket?).

That's when it hit me. The water was cold.

I wish I had my camera with me. It was so fun. So we did it again. They from the tall rock and I from the short rock. I even fantasized about a fancy pose when I leap off the rock. But all I could manage to do was simply stepping off the rock. Then the same sequence of sensations cycled through, the free fall, the fear, the water impact, the blurred vision and finally the cheer from Jose and Ceci.

When Ceci said she wanted to come back here soon, I agreed. That was really the highlight of the trip. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. When we were not paddling, we could look up to see the houses on the side of the river. We could see ospray resting on shore. We played splash war against the kayak team.

It was an awesome trip. I'm proud of myself for jumping off a short rock.

Tina's killer oven fried wings

This was an accidental recipe that I adapted from two different recipes and improvised a little more. But it turned out the best wings both of us have had.

Tina's killer wings

I rub the wings (padded dry) with salt, five spice powder and some old bay. Let them marinade for at least 8 hrs. Just before putting them in the oven, I lightly coated each wing with a corn starch and baking powder mixture. Arranged on a wire rack over a baking pan, and baked at 425 degree for half an hour, rotating half way through.

light coat of corn starch mixture

While wings were baking, I made a sauce with sriracha, tahini, rice vinegar, honey, fresh garlic and ginger. Blended all ingredients till smooth. Once the wings are out of the oven, throw them in a big bowl, pour the sauce over the wings and shake to coat well. Consume immediately.

Srirachi/tahini sauce

Just out of the oven wings; the skin is so incredibly flaky

need I say more?

Beeting heart

I went by a farm a mile away from my work on Friday, and picked up some fresh organic produce for the weekend. It made me feel all Portlandic. =)

I got lots of beets, both golden and regular. Gave them a good scrub and roasted them in the oven. They're super sweet. The flesh is beautiful. They are also really good for improving bowel movement, if you know what I mean...

Beast

We were so grateful when our friend Jodi sent us a gift card of a dinner for two at Beast restaurant.
Beast is one of those restaurants for very very special occasions. This award winning restaurant is both intimate and communal. They have only two seatings each night, 6pm and 8:45pm. There's no menu to pick from. You get a six-course prix-fixe dinner, wine pairing optional.

We reserved two seats on a Friday evening at 8:45pm. The 6pm group was still finishing up their meal, so we waited outside of its unassuming store front. Beast is located in the general Alberta art district, a rapidly gentrified, artsy and fun neighborhood.

Once the 6pm group has cleared out, the restaurant crew was busy setting up the space for us. It's a fairly intimate space with an open kitchen. The L-shaped dining area houses two big communal tables. You share tables with other people. Cross-party conversing is encouraged, but not required.

an intimate space with communal tables

We sat at the end of a table. People at our table were more reserved and kept to themselves, while the other table was bustling with chatters. After a long work week, we were okay with the low level of social interaction. I also had a great vantage point to see some of the actions in the kitchen, while Jose intently studying the menu for the night.

menu of the night

The dinner started promptly after everyone was seated. Jose chose to do wine pairing for his meal. So before each course, the server would introduce him to a different wine. The first course was a chilled tomato soup, perfect for a warm summer night.

Second course was a charcuterie plate with six different bite-size morsels. Our favorites were the "steak tartar & quail egg toast", "buff pastry with pork filling (not the actual name of course)" and "fois gras bon-bon". There was woos and ahhs from the table while sampling these tasty bits. Although I can't help but shaking my head at the serving size. I'm clearly not cut out for high-end dining.

The third course, which is the main course, was lamp chop with bing cherry reduction and prosciutto salad. I am typically not a fan of the gaminess of lamp meat. But these lamp chops didn't have that overwhelming gamy taste. It was cooked to perfection, medium. Eating it with a knife and fork is really not the most efficient if the goal was to get as much tasty meat off the bone as possible. In the presence of company, I had to refrain from picking it up with my hands. =) This was also perhaps the only course served with a red wine.

The main course was followed by a palate cleansing salad and a cheese course. Again look at the serving size of the cheese course. It's like feeding a cat. The brie cheese was particularly stinky. I liked the other two cheeses better, and thought the cardamom shortbread cookies were excellent.

cheese course with three tiny pieces of cheese

The last course, the dessert course, was a chocolate torte with crushed berries, lemon ice cream with cracked pepper tuille. Tuille is this thin crackling decorative thing that's big in pastry world these days. It certainly looks impressive. The chocolate cake was out of this world rich and yummy. What a great way to end an expensive meal, I thought. Coffee and tea was also served during the last course.

amazing chocolate torte with pretty lacy decor to end the meal

As we walked out of Beast at passed-midnight, we both agreed that it was wonderful food and we were glad that we tried it, and that we would never pay for it with our own money. The dinner itself was $136 for both of us. The wine pairing was additional $35 on top. And I know I'd be hungry in about hour.

Blueberry pie

It's farmer's market day again on Nike campus. Unger farm was there too with their enticing berries. I went a little overboard and got a whole flat of berries, four pints of blueberries and two pints strawberries. For people who haven't had Oregon strawberries before, it's hard to describe to you how much better they are than the standard ones from California. The blueberry has a silky buttery mouth feel and it's juicy and sweet.

I bought more than we can eat fresh, so I decided last second to make a blueberry pie. Because it's last second, ready-made store-bought pie doughs have to do. I use Pillsbury one that comes in a pack of two roll-up doughs.

Blueberry pies are the easiest to make. You dress the berries with some lemon juice, a bit of sugar and touch of salt. Coat them with 2-3 tablespoon of cornstarch. And that's it. The berries are fairly sweet naturally, I cut the sugar down to 2 tablespoons. You can find more elaborate pie recipes at America's Test Kitchen, which involves using natural pectin from apples. That's not something I was going to attempt on a week night. =)

The baked pie has such a rustic look with over flowing blueberry juice, still bubbling out of the oven.
Guess what's for breakfast tomorrow?

Slow cooker pulled pork

Since it's been wet and cold all weekend, I took out our slow cooker, which hasn't been used since we moved here. I was wanting meat, tender falling-off-the-bone pork, in particular. Ever wonder why people tend to crave comfort food when it's cold and miserable?

America's Test Kitchen has a simple pulled pork recipe for slow cookers. It calls for a 6-7lb pork butt and a couple cups of BBQ sauce. You just put both in the slow cooker pot and cook them on high setting for 8hrs. I set it up in the morning and left the house. By 6pm, dinner's almost ready.

The result was amazing. I did have to boil the cooking juice down to thickened sauce once the pork is taken out. When the sauce is simmering, I shredded the meat with forks. Mix in the sauce and we were ready to eat. It's good on a bun, in a tortilla shell, over rice or noodles. We served it with a simple salad.

summer tomatoes and romaine salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing

Where's the Portland summer that we've heard so much about?

This entire week has been contradicting all we've been put up to believe about Portland summer. It's cold and rainy and it's showing no sign of letting up. We had to scratch our hiking plan for the weekend.
 

from our porch

Cannon Beach

Portland is close to various elements of nature. There are mountains to the east, deserts to the further east. Columbia river to the north. And the Ocean an hour and half to the west.

We've been here for almost six months. This is the first time we made it to the coast. Our destination was Cannon beach. In the city it was 80 degrees. Here on the beach it felt more like 60s with the wind. The water is freezing. This is not your typical beach where people sunbath. Although it's great for surfing.

haystack rocks

It's low-tide time of the day. You can find all kinds of good stuff that's left behind by the ocean water in the tide pools. The rocks were covered with barnacles and sea mussels. There were also big fat star fish, seaweeds and what looked like anemone.

The town of Cannon Beach is small and quaint. We ate lunch at Ecola Seafood, a family eatery, where you order food at the counter and bring food to the table yourself. There were four of us. So we got four fried fish and chip basket, cod, halibut, razor clam and oysters. They were very good, highly recommended.

Portland rose test garden

Portland Rose Test Garden is a huge garden of roses...duh. If you are into gardening or simply are fond of looking at beautiful blooms, you'd be spending hours in this place. There are rows after rows of rose bushes, arranged in a multi-tier garden that sits on a 4.5 acre land.

There you would find the usual red, white, yellow and pink roses. But you'd also find some very unusual varieties. I had a lot of fun taking photos of them.

steamed fish

Uwajimaya is a Japanese chain grocery store in the northwest. The original one is in Seattle, I think. There's one not far from my work. We picked up a red tilapia from the seafood section, all gutted and scaled.

One of the best way to cook a whole fish is steaming. We stuffed it with garlic, ginger and fresh cilantro, and generously salted it. It took about 15min on full steam to cook this pound and half fish. The flesh was tender and flavorful. The best part was the head of course. =)

You can call it fresh fish at its simplest.