Monday, February 09, 2009

Maryann's Visit Thus Far

My sister, Maryann, is in town for a few days and we have been having a good time of it. She arrived on Thursday while I was learning how to guide high school students on how to fill out a scholarship app. To say that was a grand entrance filled with excitement and intrigue would be a lie. It was interesting for me because I will be doing this a few days a week until March 2, 2009; but not as interesting to Maryann who has no such plans. When that was done we headed to Hopworks Urban Brewery where I told her I would be vegetarian for her visit. I had french fries and an order of hummus and veggies for dinner along with some beer and freshly roasted peanuts. It was a good meal but I kind of had a craving for the pepperoni pizza that walked by....

Anyway we awoke on Friday and had coffee and donuts from Voodoo Donuts. They have a vegan donut which allowed Maryann to get a donut after years of senselessly (wink) depriving herself of them. I am not a huge donut fan but an occasional donut every once in a while is fun. Voodoo Donuts is a fun place to go when the craving hits. They specialize in strange combos such as a donut that is shaped like a man that is stabbed with a pretzel (like a voodoo doll), a maple bar topped with bacon, cereal topped donuts (Cocoa Puffs, Trix, etc.), chicostick topped, an apple fritter covered with peanut butter, chocolate and chocolate chips. You may have seen this place on Rachel Ray's show and most recently on the Amazing Race, it is a Portland standard. Anyway then I had to head to work and she headed to a day of gallivanting about town. When I was finally done with work and the responsibilities inherent within that realm we went out. The first stop was Report Lounge, where we met some co-workers. Then we ended the night at East Burn.... we also found out that Portland craft beers are stronger then Coronas. Of course by we I mean she found out and I realized in the future a warning might be in order. The next day was more or less a wash. We met Dad, MaryJo and Aunt Wanda at Macaroni Grill and had a nice chat. Then we went to see Valkyrie at Laurelhurst Theaters where I drank beer and she abstained. She was still a little less then 100% and we went home and watched movies....

Today we slept in a little and then headed to Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea is a vegan bakery at the vegan "mall"; one of four stores. Yes, vegans call a four store grouping a mall.... they gets no respect! If you were a vegan you might be happy to see a place where you could get sweets, slogan tees, a tattoo and groceries (all guaranteed to be cruelty free) in one spot. You might also think that Sweet Pea's scary Sunday brunch is worth going back to. Of course, I am not vegan so I am merely supposing here. I went to Sweet Pea mainly because my crazy tree hugging sister was dying to go there. I ordered a bagel with a chipotle spread on it and a cup of coffee. No that is not true.... I ordered orange juice but orange juice is for brunch participants only. My second choice was coffee. I am still wondering how that coffee was so hot.... Anyway the bagel was good but the smear was really spicy, almost unpleasantly so. Maryann dived on the brunch and the orange juice. The brunch had one decent looking thing.... a hash brown slightly reminiscent of a McDonald's hash brown. Then they had neon yellow glop that pretended to be eggs, a sad looking gravy, biscuits that I personally thought needed to be browned for a moment or two, and these super scary grey lumps. Maryann reports the grey lumps were delicious..... I think that this further proves that vegans are crazy. Imagine if you will that you own a paper pulping business and one day while you are pulping paper you begin to wonder if the grey mush is edible so you cut a chuck out, bake it and eat it. Soon you have added seasoning to it and people that are totally crazy start buying it from you.... that is what I thought about as I looked at the grey lumps. Those grey lumps were scary looking, Maryann admitted that she was not thrilled by their appearance but she knew they were animal product free and she gobbled it down. Why? Presentation should count for something! Alas I am speaking of people who hate animal slaughter but love meat so much that they spend a lot of time making products look, taste and feel like meat. Sounds like a lot of wasted time to me! Apparently mysterious grey lumps are just fine for most vegans. Well that is enough on scary grey lumps and loony non-meat eating meat lovers. I must confess that my theory is that all vegans had a bad petting zoo experience where a goat followed them around biting them and it caused massive emotional trauma to their psyche.

Anyway I was dying to go to a place called the Curry Leaf. The Curry Leaf is a great little Indian food place in Beaverton. They have a buffet on Sunday that is completely vegetarian and several of the offerings are vegan. We headed there even after the scary brunch. Maryann loved it. Indian food is one of the things I always use to argue that meatless does not mean bad or side dish all the time. This particular place serves two buffets on the weekends. Saturday is the more familiar buffet with Tandoori chicken and a few other meat dishes amongst vegetable dishes, apparently this style is more common in Northern India. Southern India has it's day on Sunday and it is sans meat. All the products are flavorful, spicy and filled with a variety of textures that make you crave another helping. It was my second trip and I hope to go back again soon.

From there we headed to the Japanese Garden for a walk around in the crisp February weather. It was a good day for being at the garden as most people stayed at home and kept warm. From the gardens we headed to NW 23rd avenue, known as a shopping mecca in Portland. We wandered through a few shops before arriving at Laurelwood Public House and shared a basket of garlic fries. I had to get home to work on some homework which Maryann made all the more sweeter by providing a sweet treat from Sweet Pea (all puns within this sentence are intentional). I should clarify that the baked goods at Sweet pea are actually really good and not noticeably vegan. So maybe the Vegans are trying to slowly win over the non-vegans by serving a few tasty products without relying on any other animals besides the human making it. When I was done with my homework stint we headed out to see the movie Religulous at the Laurelhurst theater and did so with a pitcher of beer. Anyway I am about to call it a night.

As for any vegans out there I am just teasing. You can pursue making the perfect non-meat meat product for the rest of time if that makes you happy. Someone has to eat all the strange grey lumps in the world and it might as well be you. As I read this aloud Maryann tells me that she was never chased by an evil goat at a petting zoo; I guess my theories are sometimes wrong. Maybe people that eat meat were harrassed by petting zoo animals.....

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