Our dear (and newly hitched) friends, Geoff and Katy kindly sent us this great cookbook, Home Made by Yvette van Boven. It has tons and tons of unique and creative recipes which focus on and build upon base ingredients and making things from scratch. The back cover says it best:

How do you make cheese from pantry staples? How do you create an oven smoker from scratch in just two minutes? How do you make ice cream without an ice cream maker? And how can you use your homemade cheese, smoked fish, ice cream and many other delicious ingredients in original recipes? In Home Made, winner of the Dutch Cookbook of the Year, Yvette van Boven will show you that preparing your own food is simple.

Clear step-by-step instructions will encourage you to try these easy techniques without having to buy expensive appliances. Once you’ve created an ingredient, Yvette’s original, authentic and easy recipes will immediately inspire you to make a breakfast, lunch or dinner that you can proudly announce is truly HOME MADE!

The book is very well crafted and has many many descriptive and helpful photos (a must for me) with intuitive instructions and witty commentary.

We’ve already tried out a simple gelato recipe with our leftover frozen marion berries from last summer which turned out great (even without an ice cream maker) and Tracy tried out one of the many bread entries, a Rosemary Olive Focaccia.

Let me tell you…the pictures do not do this justice. I know what I’ll be eating for breakfast this week!

Have no fear…no animals were harmed in the making of this post.

This past weekend we’ve been on the hunt for furniture (nightstand less than 18in wide, coffee table, dining table, and potentially a small desk), reclaimed wood, a large picture frame and doilies.

What a weird conglomerate of items you might say.. well, yes. The furniture is obvious. We have a lack of those items. The reclaimed wood is for making the furniture that we can’t find. A large picture frame is a project of mine to make a cute chalkboard to put near the door. And the doilies, yes, doilies. Who doesn’t love them! I have a few small ones and I want a variety of larger ones. The plan is to sew them all together in a rectangular-ish shape to create a table runner. I’ve been eyeing this project for some time and have been looking without any luck. (If you have some you are willing to part with I’m looking for white, ecru and cream!)

Anyways, on to the hunt! We set out Saturday as it started to get a little too toasty in our A/C-less place. Our first destination: Hawthorne Vintage. We rode the bus to the shop, as it was the farthest one from our humble abode, and then slowly made our way back down Hawthorne towards the Willamette River, stopping at many vintage/thrift/resale shops along the way, including: ShadowHouse Collectibles, Sorel’s,  Goodwill and House of Vintage. We had one destination on Division St. so we decided to walk through some lovely Eastside neighborhoods en route.

On the way we were greeted by a talking squirrel. What he was so adamant upon telling us we will never know, but something was definitely on his mind as he chatted and posed for a picture. After making it to our Division St. destination, Village Merchants, and leaving empty handed- like all the stops before, we continued on Division looking for a street to take to lead us back to Hawthorne were are other stops awaited us.

Then out of nowhere, it appeared: the infamous AWESOME CONE! Jacob and I heard of this lovely little food cart and its stellar awning through a Judge John Hodgman podcast (definitely worth a listen) while still living in Texas. So of course we had to cross the road to get a closer look-see. Throughout East Portland, foodcarts are scattered in clumps, making for a nice neighborhood eatery made up of unique and staunchly independent vendors. It was a little warm for an actual “awesome cone” (it was a grueling 93 degrees (!) – okay Texans, I realize you are dealing with triple-digit temps everyday but this is the first it’s been this hot since we’ve been to Portland and living without A/C has been an adventure in itself) so we instead partook in dairy-free frozen fruit treats from the adjacent, Oregon Ice Works. It dee-licious and refreshing! I chose Lemon and Jacob the Bing Cherry.

We made our way back through the adorable and historical neighborhoods back to Hawthorne where we continued on to Vintage Pink, Deco to Disco and Lounge Lizard. All were great, but didn’t have exactly what we needed, considering we are tight on space and have to stick to the desired dimensions. Lounge Lizard is especially great, p.s. since they have a ton of furniture, in good condition and very affordably priced.

We didn’t know where to go next. All of the other thrift stores on the East Side were pretty far away and we were determined to not have to pay for another bus fare. We decided to head back to our side of the river and go a thrift store in the NW. At this point we still hadn’t made any successful shots on our hunt and were going home empty handed. I just hoped there would be something good at this thrift store. Lo and behold there was! I found a solid-wood, unfinished frame for a whopping $5. It wasn’t as ornate as what I was looking for, but Jacob loved it, and it was considerably less expensive than others we’ve seen.

We made our way home after 6 hours of walking and rewarded ourselves with a garlic chicken pizza delivery from Bellagios Pizza.

Sunday we continued our hunt in the afternoon. We had heard wonderful things about this place called Hippo Hardware and it surpassed our expectation. They had just about everything (including the kitchen sink) you need to restore an older home. Old wood doors and glass doorknobs and faceplates, reclaimed wood and molding scraps, old paned windows, porcelain tubs, hardware and a huge upper floor full of lighting. We picked up a few picture rail hooks and left, knowing we would be back for more!

We continued on to I Heart Retro, and another Goodwill, but still no luck. Maybe building what we need was the answer. How hard can that be??  …

All in all, our hunt wasn’t as successful as hoped (we are pretty picky after all), but it was a blast seeing new shops and people, getting our exercise in for the weekend and getting to know more of this great city.

Golly-gee, where have we been? I promise the Oregon wood-fairies have not captured our souls and left you without our life commentaries just yet. It’s been a busy/stressful few weeks here in our new home. Tracy and I have been actively searching for a job for her (with success! – take that, high unemployment rate), we flew to Florida for a week vacation in Ft. Myers / Sanibel Island with family, Lulu has had a little trouble adjusting to our new place (all’s better now, thanks to The Cat Doctor), we were involved in a minor but still traumatic car accident (no injuries thankfully, but we are without a car for a few weeks – yay, successful public transit!) and thus have still not completely “moved-in” (450 sq.ft. is an awfully small amount of space to fit a surprisingly large amount of material possession).

As you may know, finding a full-time teaching job is not as easy as one might think. Even for Tracy, who is a teaching superstar with two years of intense experience (plus like 7 or so years of working with kids) under her belt, it was a challenge even to get an interview. There were only about 2-3 full-time elementary openings we found in the Portland area and they have since been snatched up. We also didn’t want her to have the commute and out-of-city experience she had while we lived in Dallas and her working 25 miles away in Lewisville. Enter Campfire Columbia. This was a posting she found where educated and motivated young adults tutor and work with kids after school (up to 25-30 hours a week) as part of the Portland Public Schools. Jackpot. Tracy applied, interviewed and landed one of the only 4 new hire spots! She is going to be working with kindergarten and first graders at a school in SE Portland. Obviously she is super excited. Plus, this program puts the Campfire Staff at the kid’s schools where they can also interact with teachers and administrators – making way for future full-time employment opportunities…

So, our time has been adequately filled. We also have been taking long walks in the park, along the river and through the city, enjoying the cool summer (averages 65-80 degree sunny weather!). Above are photos taken last week at the Portland Farmer’s Market. There are several of them in different locations across the city but this one, held in the South Park Blocks at PSU (about 3 blocks from where we live) is the biggest. We’re talking over 150 individual booths full of fresh and local produce, berries, flowers, meats, cheeses and specialty foods. Plus several eatery stands, live bands and a ton of people. It runs from 8:30–2pm on Saturday (March – early December) so the past couple of weekends, we have tried getting out earlier to beat the crowds. But if anyone would like to visit us, plan your trip around a weekend because this is a must-see event. Also plan on eating the most amazing blackberries (and local marionberries), raspberries, blueberries and strawberries ever.

We’re Jacob and Tracy. We were friends and then best friends, boyfriend-girlfriend and then became husband-wife in 2009. Jacob, the Doodles, is an aspiring architect and Tracy, the Blooms, while an elementary teacher, has a passion for flowers and floral design. We have lived and worked in Dallas for two years and are now off to the Pacific Northwest as Jacob will begin his graduate studies at the University of Oregon in Portland.

photo credit: Andrew Moon