Gilding the Lily since 2006
My great-grandparents, Elizabeth Heagel Arndt and Johann Arndt, immigrated to Portland from the Norka colony near Saratov, Russia in 1910. So, I think I’ve mentioned once or twice that I’m a (fucking) German girl, and while I generally use that as an excuse for my …
Oh man, so I was in the field for a couple days last week, this time in central Oregon. My intrepid coworker and I were feeling a bit peckish, and still had at least 4 hours to go before we hit Prairie City (oxymoron that …
Ah, Castagna. Our preferred fancy date-night place. They had a special morel dinner last night (the last in a three-part series), and we had to partake. Usually our steak-frites-and-pear-martini place (well, Scott usually gets a Manhattan since he’s not a homosexual), it was kind of …
What a fucking week. I got a sunburn that may warrant a trip to the dermatologist’s office, leaving me with cracking and peeling on my ears and shoulders that feel like I spent a fortnight moving refrigerators. I needed a full recovery day of napping …
Simpatica Catering and Dining Hall is one of our very favorite restaurants ever. We eat here every other month or so, and are never disappointed. Best-looking kitchen in Portland. There’s just something about boys in aprons, lemme tell ya. The people we were seated with …
Can I ever express enough how much I love this place? Saturday, March 15 Cajun Night Appetizers Oysters On The Half Shell with Tabasco Mignonette Fried Pickles Cajun BBQ Shrimp Hush Puppies Louisiana Hot Links Cabbage Slaw Zydeco Meat Pies with Andouille Sausage Cajun Salad …
Okay, some of you know that I have a day job: I’m a field biologist working in natural resources consulting. I grew up watching a lot of David Attenborough programs. I have seen a lot of crazy shit in my life (truth really is stranger …
Okay, I think I’m back a little. I’m back in the kitchen, anyway. Last night I tried my hand at the sous-vide method of cooking (chinook salmon with roasted lemons, dijon mustard, honey and thyme). Hindsight always being 20/20, I would’ve bagged the portions individually …
Wow, what a whirlwind. We got home Sunday morning at around 9:00am, and since we’d been tying one on while enduring the 10 hour flight, we saw fit to keep drinking until we fell asleep (oh, don’t look at me like that – it was …
I just got back from more adventures in the field. This time, it was a proposed aggregate mine in Yakima, Washington. Yakima is a shitty, shitty town. The first night after G arrived, we decided to try a Tuscan restaurant on Yakima Ave (the Main …