Mushroom Hunting

I went mushroom hunting with the BF this past weekend for our first time.  A couple months ago we joined the Oregon Mycological Society, and they’re so great.  I learn a lot at the monthly meetings and I can’t wait to learn more!

I wrote a post for the Plantwise blog about how to hunt for mushrooms here in Portland.  It’s really easy, but don’t expect anyone to tell you exactly where to go!  I’m so proud of that huge morel (pictured) that we found, and it was deeelicious later that night (soaked in half-and-half, stuffed with chopped onion, walnuts, whatever cheese you may have, breadcrumbs and spices, then baked for about a half hour).

I can’t wait til the next time we both have a morning off and can go mushroom hunting again.

Happy Hour at Widmer Gasthaus

After sampling the Prickly Pear Braggot, the BF and I took a short jaunt-just across the street- to check out the happy hour.  (Apparently Portlanders love Happy Hours, so at Portland Monthly we’re trying to profile one a week).  Though it was held at weird hours (2-5? Who’s even off work then?) and the BF didn’t like the pigs in a blanket (“kinda burnt”), the fondue was to die for.  Read my post about it here.

Charity Event, and Elvis

Photo by Dan Cronin

On Saturday I covered a charity event for Portland Monthly.  It was in support of Bradley Angle, a really cool local charity that supports survivors of domestic abuse.  The charity is open to helping anyone though, regardless of your gender affiliation, sexual preference, etc.  which I think is just so cool.  Plus they are the oldest domestic abuse shelter on the West Coast, and were started by a group of women.

The charity event featured famous impersonators: Elvis, Cher and Tina Turner.  I didn’t realize that I knew the lyrics to so many of their songs!  Plus Elvis was a stone-cold fox.  He had all the ladies  in the audience-young and old-swooning over him.

In all it was a lot of fun, a lot more fun than I expected!

You can read the short article and check out the photos here.

Widmer Brothers Prickly Pear Braggot

One of the best things about being a journalist is getting to try new things before they’re available to the public, or try things you normally wouldn’t (in this case, because I couldn’t afford to!)  I was lucky enough to cover the release of the new Widmer Brothers Prickly Pear Braggot (half beer, half mead) and wrote about it for Bar Pilot.

The best part was getting to take home my own bottle of the fancy $10 beer that I’d never buy in the store normally.  Can’t wait to pop it open with the boy for some semi-special occasion!

Read the post here.