Archives for the month of: September, 2023

House-hunting and Other Adventures, Part Five

September 18, 2023 //
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While we were out buying melons on Sauvie Island I asked Carol if we could stop at a grocery store for train food: I bought a sourdough baguette to make a sandwich with and a couple of yogurts.

Back at Carol’s farmhouse we got out the slow cooker and I proceeded to chop the leaf lard into small pieces. I usually buy lard already rendered, but a homesteading website said to chop it up and cook it slowly for two hours.

“Shall I read all of the instructions, or shall we wing it?”

“Let’s wing it,” said the genuine Washington-born farm girl.

She thought we should use a basket to hold the lard above the melted lard, so we did. This resulted in the project taking four hours instead of two and gratuitously greasing up her steamer basket. You want the pieces of lard cooking in the rendered fat, which causes them to render faster. We didn’t know. I pulled the pieces out and chopped them more finely.

We also didn’t know I should have trimmed off the few visible bits of meat before rendering. Oh well. I hoped the lard wouldn’t taste porky.

Hours later, Carol got out a large and a small mason jar for me and I poured the rendered lard into them to cool. While it cooled, I talked politics with Spike, Carol showed me some of her recent artwork and we watched a few episodes of a home-buying show because, you know, real estate.

“Look at how beautiful it is. It’s so white,” Carol said.

I read about how you could fry the unrendered bits for cracklings.

Meanwhile I had been in correspondence with one of my Zoom writing students who lived on the Oregon Coast a couple of hours from Carol’s house. We invited her to come to class in person the next morning. We would supply coffee and snacks if she would arrive by 8:45 for a 9:00 o’clock class.

On Monday morning I got up and packed my luggage. I dressed and poured a cup of coffee: Carol sets it up before she goes to bed so that all I had to do was push a button. I ate something — leftovers? fruit salad? — before making a salami and cheese sandwich for the train with lettuce, mustard and Carol’s homemade bread and butter pickles. The sandwich, the yogurts and two jars of lard fit perfectly into my frozen lunch box.

Mary Bess arrived early and she and Carol hit it off, immediately finding an acquaintance in common. Carol poured coffee and offered fruit and cookies before it was time to pop into my Zoom frame to show the rest of the class that we were actually in the same physical location. We then separated to avoid multi-device-induced feedback. Mary Bess took the back porch. Carol went upstairs to her office and I conducted class from the dining room table while Spike rested in the bedroom.

After class Carol shooed me out to talk with Mary Bess. We sat at the table on the back deck and discussed real estate, my reasons for my eventual move, M.B.’s life in Seaside running a health clinic. Mary Bess invited me to stay in Seaside if I came through Oregon again and asked if she could take my picture

Then it was time to say goodbye. Spike carried my bags to the car. Carol drove to Portland. I checked in at the historic Portland train depot, all high ceilings, marble and wooden benches with high backs.

I spent another 22 hours on the train, eating my sandwich for dinner, my yogurts for breakfast and trying to sleep in the uncomfortable chairs. When I got back to the Bay Area we had WiFi so I spent the last leg of my train journey chatting with a writing buddy about my adventures before catching a bus from Emeryville to Kensington and resuming my regular life, which is not so regular anymore, but that is another story.

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Categories home cooking, Travel

House-hunting and Other Adventures, Part Four

September 17, 2023 //
4

The plan for Sunday morning in Port Angeles was to pack up to leave, to try the second breakfast place that I had been tracking from afar, and to visit the year-round Port Angeles farmers market, one of the reasons I chose Port Angeles as a potential place to live. While packing I kept dealing with annoying texts from a Port Townsend realtor: I had been trying to book an appointment to see a Victorian cottage there. Carol and I would be able to stop in Port Townsend on our way to her home in St Helens, Oregon, if we could get an appointment in the early afternoon.

The texts asked me to declare things like was I planning to buy a house. Yes. Then they wanted to know if I planned to buy it immediately, in two months, six months, or more than a year. My honest answer, “more than a year” was the kiss of death: the next flurry of texts concerned when an agent could speak with me. I kept texting “Pls no texts” because texting is difficult for me (flip phone meets dexterity deficits due to cerebral palsy).

Carol and I did make it to breakfast. After my elaborate French toast the previous day and our gourmet dinner at the lake, I decided to go with basics: scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes and toast. I took particular care to ask about the breakfast potatoes because I do not care for hash browns.

The restaurant was a long narrow room with tables against the wall and a long counter. One server seemed to be doing most of the work: taking orders, carrying food to customers, serving people at the bar. She took our order, returned in a few minutes with our plates and was at the other end of the restaurant before I could tell her I had been given the wrong plate: there, next to the eggs, sat a slab of hash browns. Also, neither Carol nor I had received water, although we had asked for it.

While Carol tucked into her salmon I tried to signal our server. When she approached I said, “I think I was given someone else’s order.”

She consulted her pad. “Oh, they just gave you hash browns instead of breakfast potatoes.”

She swept the plate away and brought it back moments later sans hash browns. On another pass through the room she set down a second plate containing breakfast potatoes and several packets of jam. I lucked out here: my first plate had had Smuckers strawberry, which I do not like, but the new installment included blackberry.

It’s hard to mess up scrambled eggs and toast, but the potatoes were nothing to write home about.

We returned to Carol’s car and scored a parking spot across the street from the farmers market. While we waited for it to open, I received another text, asking if the real estate agent could call me at a later time.

“Yes,” I texted, getting tired of this.

We crossed the street and entered the farmers market. Carol had been talking about wishing she could buy a share of a butchered pig and, next to a bakery stall, we walked past a stall advertising beef shares and pork shares. Continuing on, we stopped at a produce stand with glowing golden beets: Carol bought some to take home.

We browsed a mushroom stall. Across the way I saw a beautiful wool hat on a stand. “That would look good on you,” Carol said.

“Try it on if you want” said the owner of the booth, who was spinning as she spoke.

“Your work is beautiful,” I said, pausing to look at bundles of roving. “Is this purple or indigo?”

“I would say it is a dark blue.”

That was the wrong answer: had it been purple I would have bought it for a friend.

“Have we seen everything?” I asked Carol.

“I think so,” she said.

On our way out she stopped by the pork shares guy and bought something. I had a sudden inspiration: “Do you have leaf lard?”

The vendor dug through a cooler and brought out a one pound package. Leaf lard is the fat around a pig’s kidneys: it is the best kind of lard for baking. I use lard as part of the shortening in pie crust — it adds flakiness.

“Do you know how to render it?” he asked. “Put it in a slow cooker for a couple of hours.”

“I have a slow cooker,” Carol said.

“Do you mind doing a kitchen project?”

I knew Carol wouldn’t mind: she puts up her own pickles and jams.

In the mean time, the real estate agent hadn’t called back, so we decided to drive to Port Townsend ourselves, figuring we could get a look at the outside of the house and be around if an agent could show it to us.

As we were approaching Port Townsend a real estate agent called to say he could show us the house at 3:00 PM.

“Can we see it at 3:00?” I asked Carol.

“No, that’s too late,” she said.

“That’s too late,” I said. “I’m only here one day from California and we have to get back to St. Helens tonight.”

“I don’t have anyone who can show you the house.”

Fine. Carol and I drove around Port Townsend until we found the small house on a corner lot. The backyard was full of deer scat and the exterior had not been painted in some time. There was a lock box on the red-painted front door and plenty of cars on the street but no sign of real estate agents or house tours.

“I’m going to look around,” I said.

I walked all around the house, peering in windows. I could get a good view of the living room that way. I hesitated before walking up onto the back porch to peer in the kitchen window. I couldn’t see the layout of the kitchen.

I wanted to jimmy a window, but I didn’t want to get arrested in Port Townsend. All I wanted was a three-minute walk-through of the house to see what the rooms felt like: I like Victorian cottages, but this was 692 square feet. I needed to know whether I could live in a place this small.

Because I was unwilling to commit a property crime, I did not see the house, which is now pending inspection. C’est la vie. Carol and I commenced our road trip back to St Helens, making a stop at a diner en route outside of Olympia, where I had a plate of sweet potato fries and Carol had half a club sandwich. Our server kindly filled both of my water bottles for me and we were on our way again.

The next morning in St Helens, Carol made the kind of breakfast potatoes I would have made, frying up the spicy sausage she had bought in Port Angeles with potatoes, corn, fennel and onion. Carol, Spike and I ate them with an egg apiece before Carol and I drove out to the Sauvie Island farm stand for more produce.

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Categories home cooking, Travel, Uncategorized

House-hunting and other adventures, Part Three

September 8, 2023 //
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I am a sucker for lakes: when I have wheels at my service and there is a lake nearby I want to see it, even if someone has claimed that the water temperature is 50 degrees F and I have no swimsuit with me.

Before I left the Bay Area for points north I had discovered that there was a restaurant at Lake Crescent Lodge. I sent Carol a link to the menu, told her I’d like to go for a splurge meal there and phoned for a reservation. So, after Carol and I visited a restaurant, a bookstore and a coffee joint in Port Angeles and I tried to make an appointment through Zillow to see a Victorian cottage in Port Townsend the next day, we drove out to Lake Crescent for dinner.

We arrived to find a beautiful, blue lake ringed by mountains. Children in bathing suits swam and played in the water. Adults cruised about in small boats. Carol and I saw a sign for boat rentals.

“Do you like kayaking?” I asked her.

“Spike does,” she answered.

Spike, Carol’s husband, was back in St Helens, Oregon, so we walked to the dinner reservation desk and I gave my name.

We were half an hour early and could have had a drink on the screened porch, but every table was taken. We walked to the dock instead. Unable to resist, I told Carol, “I’m just going to go put my hand in the water.”

I bent down at the shoreline. The water was completely clear, revealing pebbles underneath, and about 70 degrees. If we had not had a pending dinner reservation I might have gone wading, but I restrained myself — I didn’t want to fall in and be unpresentable.

After dawdling and taking photos of each other, Carol and I re-entered the lodge, admiring the dark wood, fieldstone fireplace, multi-paned windows, leather chairs. Someone showed us to a corner table overlooking the lake.

We studied the menu, even though both of us had seen it before. We both wanted a chilled corn and crab soup (when in the Olympics eat Dungeness crab). I eyed an autumnal salad featuring greens, berries, feta and hazelnuts and a dismaying lavender dressing.

When our server returned to the table I outright lied: “I’d like the seasonal salad, but I’m allergic to lavender. Could I have it with another dressing?”

He offered me Caesar dressing, ranch or balsamic vinaigrette. Then I scored points by asking whether he recommended cider, Prosecco or Riesling with my meal. I ordered Riesling, a wine I first had with shellfish when my late father ordered it at Spenger’s Fish Grotto in Berkeley. My father died decades ago in a hiking accident in the Olympics and it made me happy to sip Riesling on his birthday.

Carol ordered salmon. The server brought her corn soup and my salad. I watched her swoon over the soup and wondered why I had not received mine. It arrived as my second course. It tasted vaguely Indian, reminding me of coconut, cilantro and chiles, with sweet bits of crab. We agreed it would be worth returning for this soup alone.

While we ate, our server seated a party of four at the adjacent table. They arrived with double martinis and cosmos in hand and promptly ordered a bottle of wine. They appeared amused by a wedding that was taking place on the dock and suggested that the bride conclude the ceremony by jumping into the water. Then they ordered another round. “They’ll be good tippers,” Carol said.

Carol urged me to get dessert. Nothing stood out, so I asked what kind of ice cream was on offer. Vanilla or huckleberry. No contest: how often am I going to taste huckleberry anything? I urged Carol to taste it. She ate a few modest spoonfuls and half of a chocolate-lined pirouette cookie while I watched the sun sink over the lake.

As we walked back through the lobby, I said, “I’ll take this one,” meaning that of all the buildings I had seen this was the most to my taste. I began dreaming about holding a late summer writing retreat there, housing my students in the rows of expensive little cabins, starting a scholarship fund. Carol wondered aloud if Spike would like to come stay at the lake another year. I bought postcards of the lodge and lake, Carol bought Spike a t-shirt, and we left, driving in a few circles before regaining the highway to Port Angeles.

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Categories Travel

House-hunting and other adventures, Part Two

September 2, 2023 //
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My realtor and I drove to the first house, a more modern house than I’d prefer. I got my first look at engineered hardwood, which I had never heard of (not a fan). Other than the flooring, the first thing I noticed was an awkward angle in the living room. Why did they build it like that? I’ll never know.

The kitchen was nice: wooden cupboards, plenty of space and light, marred only by characterless modern shelving in a recessed pantry area. This motif was repeated in a bedroom closet. The bathrooms had lovely sinks mounted in beautiful wooden tables, but no closets or medicine cabinets. I do not want to display every item that belongs in a bathroom.

The backyard was large and steep, leading to an alley. I could not walk down the exit stairs, which had no railing.

The picture that house left in my mind was the awkward living room wall, with seven houses to come.

House number two looked like a contemporary house from the outside, all sharp planes and picture windows. The realtor had trouble opening the door. When he got it open, the first thing we saw was cracked yellow linoleum. The house turned out to be an older house, facade notwithstanding, with dated wallpaper, hideous carpets and the first wood-paneled bathroom I’ve ever seen. Why would you put wood paneling in a bathroom?

I tried to find some positives in house number two, but, at this remove, I can’t remember them. It required more fixing up and ripping out than I had hoped to tackle.

I think the third house I saw was the one where the layout reminded me of my maternal grandmother’s house in El Cerrito, California. The front door opened onto the living room. The steps up to the front door needed a railing — I had to put a hand down to crab-crawl up them. The house had small bedrooms without closets: I would have to buy wardrobes for clothes storage. The yards had possibilities. The house’s best feature was that it was a short walk to the public library.

I saw a small Craftsman cottage that my cousin had found on Zillow. It featured a porch swing, good windows and light and the ugliest fireplace surround I have seen to date, a white and gold geometric pattern that my realtor said dated to the 1970s. There are lots of things about the ’70s I do not care to remember. Still, if I ripped that out and replaced some flooring, this house was the most promising yet.

House #5 was a larger Craftsman with its original living room intact, all built-in cabinets, hardwood flooring and multi-paned windows, an original front door with stained glass. The yard was beautifully landscaped as well. It’s “bones” were good and I suppose I could have camped in the lovely living room while repainting, stripping wallpaper, pulling up shag carpeting. This house ended up being my second favorite.

I saw two more houses. I can’t remember the order in which I saw them. One had a nice kitchen with some wooden features and a water view. The main bedroom could be instantly improved by painting the wooden ceiling white. The owners had mulched their front yard with wood chips, which made it look better than all of the dying lawns Port Angeles features in late August.

The other house did not look promising from its photo, a bit like a fairy tale cottage with its peaked roof and arched door. When we stepped inside, however, it was in move-in condition. I liked everything from the table in the breakfast nook to the staging in the kitchen, the cabinet pulls, the flooring. It even had a water view. If I could have written a check that day, I would have wanted to buy it, even though I had doubts about its distance from downtown. Alas, others felt that way because a sale was pending within 48 hours (I had seen the house just after it was listed).

None of the houses I saw felt walkable to me, in terms of their proximity to the business district: I couldn’t have known without visiting that Port Angeles did not have housing downtown: there are expensive houses up on the bluff above the businesses, reached by a steep wooden stairway, a car, or perhaps ropes and pitons.

After touring seven houses I felt weary and discouraged. I wasn’t sure I would be able to remember the features of each house, even with the aid of photos. Which house had the narrow, steep staircase to the second floor? Which one had the bedroom turned into a comfortable office? Could I get to a grocery store from the one otherwise perfect house?

As I pondered these questions, lying on my bed in my motel room, I learned that my old friend Carol was arriving. I opened up the room and went to greet her, showed her to her room in my unit. Although she had driven from St Helens, Oregon, she was eager to drive to town to begin to tour the highlights. I directed her to the menu of the Hook and Line Pub with its Louisiana-style Po’ Boys, gumbo and fish ‘n’ chips.

“Looks good,” she said, and we drove off. She had a bowl of gumbo and I had a delicious shrimp po’ boy. I asked our waitress where to find the strongest coffee in town.

“I don’t drink coffee,” she said. What is it with the servers in this town? Fortunately, a young woman picking up a to-go order gave us the coffee scoop we needed. We ended up with very good coffee, but not before we spent some time browsing in Port Book and News where I bantered with the clerk over the Trump mug shot while he found me a copy of The Lost Journals of Sacajawea by Debra Magpie Earling. The shop had wonderful gift items, too, including stuffed Audubon bird toys that made the birds’ calls when you squeezed them. I wanted to buy the loon, but restrained myself. I bought a box of cards instead. I would be happy to have Port Book and News as my hometown bookstore.

I longed to buy art supplies: because I had focused on having adequate water for my train trips and adequate clothing for hot weather and possible rain, I had not added watercolor pencils and paper to my heavy day pack. I missed them and would have had hours to sketch woods and waterways from the train. Next time.

Carol and I flunked an assignment from our zen and writing teacher. I had promised her we would visit Raymond Carver’s Port Angeles grave, but, after our afternoon coffee, I learned that the cemetery closed at 4:30 on Friday and would be closed all weekend. Oh well. I guess we’ll have to come back.

Our next destination has me scheming to come back as soon as I can for as long as I can.

To be continued.

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Categories Travel, Uncategorized