Wednesday, May 28, 2008

i've been in a car with joni...i felt safe



Vanity Fair spills Bob's brain onto the page. It's kind of cool, no?

I raided the library for all my missing Dylan and am spending the evening rediscovering Infidels. You've got to admit Mark Knopfler did a hell of a job. I like this album, including all the strange political references and polished production. Hey, at least man's done naming all the animals.

I've also discovered that I missed celebrating International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day, but there's always next year.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

in print

I love rediscovering my pieces when they come out in print. Often, months go by between the completion of a piece and its actual publication. And in most cases, I'm not involved in the layout and photos that accompany my text; the package comes as a nice surprise.

Last week, I made my FOODday (the Oregonian's Wednesday food section) debut with the front page feature story about white asparagus. The photos are so wonderfully eerie, like a scene out of a haunting sci-fi film. And when I arrived home on Saturday after running some errands, I was delighted to find two pounds of green asparagus, one pound of white and a few pints of fresh strawberries sitting on the porch, a kind thank you from farmers Manuel and Leslie.

Instead of using one of the recipes from my piece, I took a different route, braising the white spears in chicken broth and butter and serving with a citrus reduction. Yum.

I made another debut this month in Northwest Palate magazine, where I gave wine lovers some advice on how to both respect beer and enjoy it. Not only was "Beer Demystified" my first piece for NW Palate, but it happened to be the publication's first-ever story about beer (they've been around for 20 years). Always happy to break new ground when it comes to beer education.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

voting by drop box

While voting by mail guarantees certain benefits (like filling out a ballot in your pjs with the Google on hand), it means missing the chance to visit a voting booth. Call me old-fashioned, but there's something great about pulling aside the little curtain and stepping into a protected little space designed for just one thing: participation in a functioning democratic system. (Forgive me. I tend to get highly patriotic on election days.)

This morning I filled out my ballot at the kitchen table, post espresso of course, but a few hours later I ended up at the library, an official ballot drop spot. Because the library didn't open until 10 a.m., people were instructed to drop ballots at the neighboring McDonald's.

Even so, at 9:45, people started to appear holding their little voting envelopes, anxiously waiting to shove the ballots into the blue tupperware box, secured shut with padlocks, inside the library. Somehow I got the voting booth feeling by just watching the crowd gather.

Maybe I'll hand out "I voted" stickers at the drop box in November?