Sandwich happiness at Lardo

As most of you know I'm serious about eating... I love it. It makes me happy. And I love sharing good food finds (and warning of not-so-good food finds).

Within the past month I've had two stellar and one just OK sandwiches at Lardo, a food cart located at the cart pod at 43rd and Belmont in SE Portland. If you see either of these first two on the menu give them a try! The third, well... maybe not.

grilled asparagus, farm egg, arugula, fresh ricotta and crisp prosciutto

 Really good, excellent bun, great contrast of textures. Seeing this picture makes me want to recreate this one at home... immediately!

pork meatball banh mi with Sriracha aioli, pickled vegetables, and cilantro

 The pork meatball is well seasoned and the pickled carrots add a nice fresh zing... one of my favorites at Lardo.

broccoli rabe, sweet roasted peppers, olive tapenade, capers, mozzarella

Now this one I'm not totally sold on. It was just too bitter for me. I brought half home, scraped off some of the olives, and added an over easy egg and I thought that helped.

Car Porn

If you have even the smallest appreciation for beautiful cars, and you happen to be in Portland, then you must head to the Portland Art Museum before September 11, 2011.  The Allure of the Automobile exhibit is amazing. A great grouping of truly beautiful automobiles... from an era when cars were actually sexy.  These were my personal favorites.

1961 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato, the paint color was amazing, and I happen to think Gus and I would look perfect in this car... don't you :)

1961 Ferrari 250 GT Comp/61 Short, had a great blue racing stripe down the middle

1957 Jaguar XK-SS Roadster, No. 713, leather straps hold down the hood!

As a bonus, every Saturday classic car owners (different category each weekend) park their cars outside the museum and you can get up close and personal some some real beauties. Can't make it to the show, check out a slide show of the cars here.

I'm back!

After a break of almost exactly two years I'm back to the blog, which I've decided to freshen up a bit with a new design, etc. Life has been good (with only just a hink of bad), and I'll try to bring you all up to speed with some highlights from the last two years mixed in with new news in the coming weeks.

Glorious Summer Days

This week has been glorious! Started out with a kick ass BBQ at my house on Saturday, an awesome neighborhood bike ride with Katy, Nick, Jen, Ben and 20,000 other Portlanders on Sunday, then a lovely afternoon in the backyard with cocktails, pizza and friends Sunday evening. Yesterday I spent the day out on the Willamette River... can you beat water skiing on a Wednesday morning with zero boat traffic, glassy warm water and a boat full of friends? Love it!


The BBQ


Sean and Becky - smooth water on the Willamette


The garden has been turning out some great zucchini and carrots, and my green beans are just days away from a first harvest. But now that I have the back yard fairly under control I have to turn my attention to my front yard, which currently is looking a wee bit shabby. I have several plants that I want to remove, many that need to be cut back, and whole area that need to be dug out in an attempt to get rid of thousands of invasive day lilies. I have a feeling that will be an ongoing battle... arg.


My carrot trials yielded interesting results. Same amount of seeds, same area, planted the same day, big difference. From left to right; Red Samurai, Napa Hybrid, Rainbow Hybrid, and Bolero Hybrid.

Moved in, and loving it!

The last six weeks have flown by, and after talking with a few of you I realized that I haven't posted any new pictures since the end of May, which is before I moved back in! My apologies.

Since the remodel is nearly complete the blog will make be transitioning into a record of my day to day adventures in gardening, travel, cooking, eating, work, time with friends, and outings with Gus... and of course the on going projects around the house (upstairs is far from complete). This time we'll start with garden and end with house pics.


My zucchini have really taken off in the week. There are dozens of giant orange blossoms, and as of today there are several baby zucchini in the works, with more to follow I'm sure.


Gus loves the new lawn and each evening he trots outside with me to inspect what's new in the garden.


I thought I had killed this rose bush when I had to transplant it during the construction of the garage. It was looking seriously sad for a while, but it has made a full recovery and is now full of flowers!


I started several tomato plants from seed this year and they are now completely out of control. Like MASSIVE. I'm not kidding when I tell you there are easily hundreds of tomatoes on each plant. I'm going to have enough roma tomatoes to keep me swimming in sauce until next summer!


Another plant I'm happy to say survived the remodel is my lovely wisteria. After a major pruning prior to the remodel, it has grown vigorously the past few months and is flowering for the second time this summer. The thick green foliage and beautiful clusters of lavender flowers provide much needed shade on the deck.


You know, I'm not really sure what this plant is, but the giant clusters of pure white flowers
sure are pretty!


Snap peas! Yum!


The latest completed project happened this past weekend thanks to the help of Mom and Del! This is the sandstone from my old patio, which Del laid in concrete. Then Mom and I smoothed out the joints and scrubbed the stone of concrete residue. Let's just say I wouldn't want that job for a living.

And now for the interior! This is a before picture.


Cute, but really dark (one light fixture with exposed light bulbs), and the back entryway was tiny and really drafty.



This is the after... as of yesterday.


Same amount of counter space in the kitchen and I even have a place for my stool and under counter garbage and recycling! Woo hoo!


The sitting room. Gus enjoys hanging out in here as much as I do.


It's great to have a place to hang coats and store shoes!


The large deck outside the sitting room is like having a whole other room to use (at least for 2/3 of the year). And I love, love, love my built-in bookcase. I desperately needed the storage and display space!


Isn't my new bedroom lovely! Loving the hardwood floors and the cool breeze from those awning windows at night.


I can even get all three pieces of bedroom furnitre in here now!



Plus Gus has his own little nook for his bagel bed.


And in the end I have a decent closet after all!

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

I love before and after shots, so here are a bunch of the exterior/yard.

The back entrance to the house, taken October 2006, right after I moved in.

February 2009 - The foundation for the addition is framed here.

Today, May 31, 2009 - The addition is where the old deck used to be, and the new deck is where the overgrown secret garden used to be!

October 2006 - Some pitted grass, a makeshift slate patio, and a much smaller laurelwood hedge in the back.

May 31, 2009 - Flat lawn, trimmed hedge, and veggie garden.

February 2009. You see the side of my neighbor's garage and shed, then the foundation of my garage, then the massive piles of wood on top of my poor raised beds.

May 31, 2009 - Super cute garage, raised beds with veggies, new sod, and my firepit!


October 2006 - Side yard is over grown waste of space.

May 31st 2009 - This area is now home to my favorite spot in the yard (the lawn chair under the trellis), shaded by my beautiful wisteria and bamboo. I fired up the grill for the first time last night and had dinner on the deck.

Advil anyone?

My back, my legs, my shoulder! Staining the two decks this past weekend took its toll on me. But they sure do look good! I made some good progress on exterior painting as well and I now have three of the eight areas I'm doing finished. Yesterday a lot of work was going on inside, installing the baseboards, reinstalling my appliances, attaching window hardware... lots of little things. And on the outside the landscapers were there tearing up the remnants of my old lawn, tilling, leveling, adding super smelly compost. Today they will be back to lay new sod and place some stepping stones I bought over the weekend.

I spent two days staining the decks... you would think Gus did the work by how pooped he looks in this picture! I did the first coat with a waterborne neutral colored base, and then a clear top coat finish.

Lovely new exterior light fixtures.

Cork floors are in. We are having a few issues with the installation of some of the tiles so it looks like they are going to have to come back and relay some pieces.