Start the Party

On a bike ride along lovely Willamette Drive (and by lovely I mean a frayed, sun-blasted bluff perched above the industrial sprawling Port of Portland, with views stretching across the river to the tidy downtown skyline and the emerald quilt of Forest Park) the other day, I was telling my two-year-old Cash about his older friend Cece’s upcoming birthday party. According to the invite, festivities will include a bike parade and cupcakes, two things that make us both very happy. Once he mulled this over, he began chanting: “Start the party! Start the party!”

Though that particular shindig is still days away, I’m heeding my son’s admonition to get things rolling, namely this blog. After a summer mostly dedicated to things other than work (traveling, hosting, canning, laying new carpet, rehabbing my knee, etc.) I’m afraid that if I don’t resume some form of regular toil (and what is more toilsome than writing?), I’ll never get back into the groove.

So, why do you care and why should you bother to read my blog?

I’ve lived in Portland for 12 years, during which time I’ve reviewed restaurants, researched the wine industry in the Northwest and interviewed chefs, restaurateurs, authors, bakers, brewers, architects, coffee roasters, winemakers, mixologists, farmers, etc.. Early in my career, I came to know the city the way a child becomes intimate with her immediate surroundings. As a staff writer, then editor, for Willamette Week’s arts and culture section, I attended rock shows, multi-course dinners, burlesque fashion shows, readings, sketch theater, comedy clubs, road races, whatever, all in the name of getting the story. The joys of writing for publication are the purpose and access an assignment grants. You don’t just attend an event, you experience it for others, which requires focused observation, digging around into people’s minds and hearts and a knack for zeroing in on what readers will want to know.

Now I primarily investigate the local dining scene as a free-lance writer and regular contributor to The Oregonian, co-authoring the restaurant news column Platter, critiquing restaurants for the Dining section and writing features for the paper’s magazine of food and drink, MIX. In 2007, Chronicle Books published my book “Pacific Northwest: The Ultimate Winery Guide”.

Over the years, I’ve often joked that I should start some sort of concierge or personal guide business as friends, readers and acquaintances repeatedly solicit recommendations for restaurants, wines, hair stylists, custom upholsterers, yoga classes…and more. I welcome the requests because it fires my enthusiasm anew for a favorite coffee shop, perfect butter lettuce salad, amaro-based cocktail or beloved author.

Following that old creative writing trope, I’m going to write about what I know, like and dislike. My motives, of course, are mostly egoistic. I’m self-employed and crave the demands of regular deadlines, in this case, self-imposed blog entries. But if you’re interested in food, wine, books, toddler-appropriate activities, travel or design, you might get something out of it too.