Fellow Foodies and Travellers,
All of a sudden the Northern Hemisphere Summer in London at least, is well and truly over.
We’d like to welcome all the new subscribers that have joined us this month and thank fellow travel writer for the shout out she gave us to her readers in the last edition of her excellent newsletter ‘Journeys and Jottings’.
From here on in we’re going to be publishing a new story three times a month, and we hope you enjoy this last summer hurrah set in the Pacific Northwest.
Marco & Sabrina
We’ve been on the road for over a week in the great outdoors of this remarkably scenic state and the three of us (Sabrina and I have our teenage daughter in tow), are picking over the highlights as we occupy a coffee shop table at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, on a perfectly timed rainy afternoon.
For our daughter, who is an avid collector of Japanese Manga, the whole journey has been building up to this moment as Powell’s, which takes up a whole city block, has arguably the largest collection in the country. For Sabrina, it was prospecting with a deer hammer for ‘thundereggs’ in the agate beds of Richardson’s Rock Ranch near Madras, followed later that afternoon by a hair raising white water rafting trip through Class 3 rapids on the Deschutes river.
For me it was the sudden appearance of millions of black and orange Painted Lady butterflies on their annual migration from Canada to Northern Mexico, as we climbed the foothills of Mount Hood en route to Timberline Lodge, the exterior location for the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s movie, ‘The Shining’. Happily, that film’s creepy interiors were inspired by another magnificent lodge, Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel and were constructed in a studio, so we didn’t have to worry about being checked into Room 237!
Dedicated by FDR at its opening in 1937, the Lodge was an ambitious New Deal construction project featuring spectacular iron work, wooden furniture and fittings which were carved in situ. Even in late summer the building is above the snow line, so unsurprisingly I found no takers for my pre-dinner ascent to Silcox Hut, one thousand feet above the hotel, with the upper slopes an awe inspiring sight in hazy golden light.
Timberline’s restaurant was taking full advantage of the brief Columbia river Sockeye salmon season, and as if that wasn’t enough our waiter was the spitting image of Abraham Lincoln in his presidential pomp (admittedly without the stovepipe hat).
Fusilli with Salmon in Pesto Sauce: Serves Five
I’ve always loved preparing a beautiful piece of salmon with pesto. Something wonderful happens when the richness of this particular fish and the herbiness of the basil come together.
Pesto:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
2 cloves garlic
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Large pinch of salt
2/3 cup E V oil
Put all the ingredients in a food processor except the cheese; process until finely chopped. Transfer to a dish and stir in the cheese.
Salmon and Pasta:
12 oz fusilli pasta,( I prefer whole wheat) cooked in lots of salted water
1 lb wild caught salmon
Half cup sour cream
Heat a large skillet with 2 tablespoon of oil, panfry the salmon until done. Transfer to a plate and remove the skin, flake the fish. In the same pan with the heat off, add the pesto, then the sour cream; stir to combine and add the pasta; (if it seems a bit dry, add a little of the pasta water).
Toss all the ingredients together and serve, (you may want to heat it gently to warm it through).
In a trip crowded with National Monuments, a couple of days later we were approaching Crater Lake through the Pumice Desert after one hundred unbroken, ramrod-straight miles of blacktop through a pine forest. All of a sudden the lake appeared in the distance like an aqueous mirage, alternating between cobalt blue and indigo. Close up, the effect from the rim is not dissimilar in scale and majesty to that of the Grand Canyon. We caught the last boat of the day to explore this massive body of water which fills Mount Mazama’s caldera to a depth of nearly 2000 feet, after circumnavigating it on foot with Ranger ‘Dan’, all the while watching clouds of smoke from a massive forest fire below the west rim hang heavily over the water and create an unearthly ‘dirty sunset’ over Wizard island.
Up before dawn to hike the Garfield Peak trail I was rewarded with an equally astonishing vista as the freezing cold water of the lake met the warmth of the rising sun.
Crater Lake Lodge, which has recently been completely rebuilt in a faithful, but much more comfortable re-creation of its 1915 splendour is arrestingly perched on the rim of the caldera and the wooden rocking chairs on its elevated sun terrace were hard to tear ourselves away from. A far cry indeed from our backwoods next stop, the somewhat optimistically named Oregon Caves Château. Set amongst thick, sunlight blocking stands of old growth Douglas fir trees, the Château was dubbed the ‘last hurrah for Rustic Park Architecture’ and its bark covered exterior and dark halls are a fitting companion to the stygian caves themselves. With frequent mountain lion sightings in the area my hiking wings were firmly clipped, so accelerating our departure back into the light we headed for the Oregon-California border to drive the 101 coast road northwards to Portland.
Reminiscent of Northern California’s Big Sur but without the stealth wealth and laid back luxury hotels, Oregon’s savage coastline boasts astonishing natural wonders with its storm-tossed sea arches, soaring sea stacks and mile upon mile of the monumental coastal dunes which inspired Frank Herbert’s fictional planet of Arrakis.
We combed the driftwood and tide pools on Whalehead Beach, ate some of the best fish and chips and clam chowder ever by Gold Beach, where the Rogue River pours into the Pacific Ocean and hiked up the sandy 500 foot high dune inclines near Florence as sand boarders flew past carving squeaky turns. Further north we watched a lone Orca hunt seals in the shadow of Yaquina Head lighthouse before reluctantly turning inland towards Portland, passing through McMinnville, where Howard Hughes giant seaplane ‘The Spruce Goose’ lies in its specially constructed glass hanger and succumbing to tempting pitstops to taste some of Oregon’s finest Pinot Noirs in the Willamette valley.
“Keep Portland weird”, which was unashamedly borrowed from Austin, Texas a couple of years ago is now the city’s unofficial motto, and debating which of the two deserves the kookiness crown is an evergreen if frankly pointless debate. Suffice it to say that I love both places and while the acreage of tattoos worn appears to be about even, Austin definitely scores on music venues, bars and barbecue while Portland parries with counter-cultural art and happenings (the Velveteria Museum of Velvet paintings and The World Naked Bike Ride) and alternative food offerings (Vegan food is huge here, The Voodoo Doughnut shop sports a marriage license and The Rimsky-Korsakoffee House has ‘haunted’ tables).
No matter. With the rain petering out and our daughter loaded with Manga paperbacks that I suspect will at least partly end up in our suitcase, we head to the legendary Jake’s Grill in The Governor Hotel, debating which of their many amazing seafood dishes we’re going to order for our last dinner here. Weird it is not, but then who wants a side order of strangeness with their Alaskan lobster or Dungeness crab?
Your writing soars, competing with the glorious sights and marvelous experiences.
Oregon really does look lovely and your easy weave of culture, history, sightseeing and food makes for a very engaging read. How I envy you being caught in a butterfly migration. I must have been spectacular!