One of Ben's friends from high school and his brand new fiancé just came to visit us this weekend. We made our rounds of Portland - starting with some IPAs at home, dinner at Bete-Lukas for a family-style Ethiopian feast, sour beers at Cascade Brewing Barrell House, and weird but amazing ice cream (Ben got a Madeira wine and prune chocolate ice cream) at Salt and Straw. Dodging the heavy rains, it was a totally Portland evening full of great food and drink with a tinge of the PDX weirdness that makes us love this city so much.
We spent most of the night relishing that we had the same stressful wedding planning timeline in common. Both of us struggling with venues, keeping costs down, wrangling big and small guest lists, and Fall-Spring dates that make for rainy weddings in Oregon. It is always refreshing to know that others struggle with similar issues - dealing with big, stressful life events solo is not particularly enjoyable. They say misery loves company, but I think everybody loves company. Whether we're miserable, stressed, happy, confused... we love to not feel alone. It was fun to watch our friends argue over the exact same issues that we do (decor
Today we finished the sopping wet weekend (we're in for another huge rain and wind storm tonight) with delicious donuts at Blue Star this morning. Ben and I shared a passion fruit and cacao nib donut and a blueberry, bourbon, basil donut and were in a bit of morning heaven. We walked the donuts off around Powell's Books and then kept the eating train going by visiting Slow Burger for some Oregon beef and blue cheese goodness.
When in Portland, or when showing guests Portland, there's no question about the schedule. Eat.