perhaps one day it will have a name

Step into my office: Heart

Heart Coffee Roasters - 2211 E Burnside, Portland, OR  Website

(Another installment of my Office Away From Home Series…)

Wifi - Yes. But, BUT, just one outlet. Full laptop batteries only, please.

Coffee - Consistently awesome.

Pastry - Small selection of gems. Try the homemade “oreos”. The GF poppy seed muffin has truly perfect crumb.

Noise - Perfect.

Location - Hard to get more central than Burnside…

Bonus points - Excellent taste in music, fab interior design & genuinely friendly baristas.

Minus points - The banquette seat closest to the windows gets BLAZING hot if you sit for more than 15 minutes. Aforementioned single outlet.

Overall - A My platonic ideal of a coffee shop. The chic vibe and central location make it easily my favorite place for meetings. Slightly less so for computer-type work.

Step into my office (a review): Albina Press

I have a tendency to think of the city at large as my office. My work takes me all over Portland, to all five quadrants (even the ‘burbs once in a while). I don’t spend a lot of time at my actual office on NE Alberta, though it’s quite lovely and I’m so glad it’s there when I do stop in. I have a pretty sweet home office, too, but I often crave a change of scenery to get certain kinds of projects moving. 

What makes a great home office away from home?

• Free wifi, obvs
• Adequate quality coffee
• A craveworthy item in the pastry case
• Not too quiet, not too loud. Music that doesn’t make me want to jab my pen in my own eye.
• Somewhat central location & free parking within a block
• Bonus points for being stylish, friendly and having better than average coffee

Albina Press - 4637 N Albina Ave, Portland, OR

Wifi - Yes

Coffee - Above average, sometimes excellent

Pastry - Hit or miss, nothing is consistently in stock. I believe they use Nuvrei.

Noise - Perfect

Location - Perfect, plus easy parking without a time limit

Bonus points - the aformentioned overacheiving coffee, plus copious outlets if you need them for the laptop.

Overall - A-  I work here all the time. Hits all the critical notes. I like it best when they’re friendly or I need to be nearby.

:::Disclaimer: These are like, just my opinions, dude. Your experience may vary.:::

Stuff in Jars

Now that summer has finally begun, the McGovney household canning & preserving season is also in full swing. In the last week, I’ve picked and frozen 20 lbs of blueberries, made a few jars each of cherry, peach, and raspberry jam, and pickled snap peas, cherries and peaches. I’m tired just typing that!

So far, the thing that I’ve been most surprised and delighted by is the cherries.

I love cherries. I love them every way I can get them in my hands: fresh, dried, jammed, braised, candied, in pies and crisps and in tender, sweet muffins with almond-streusel topping.

I could pit cherries all day long; I find the chore of pitting to be just enough work to keep my hands busy and allow my mind to wander. Find a rhythm: stem, pit, plop. A note of caution: wear a black shirt and pit your cherries outside. Cherry juice splatters and stains.

I’ve been mildly obsessed with the idea of pickled fruit this summer, so this time, I decided to try pickling cherries two ways. My eventual plan is to buy a case, from my favorite grower of peaches, apricots, and cherries, Baird Family Orchards, and pickle at least a dozen jars, but I wanted to try before I made that kind of commitment. I decided on two recipes: a vanilla bean-black pepper-lemon rind version and one with allspice-cinnamon stick-cloves. An informal taste test revealed the vanilla-pepper-lemon to be the clear winner. They’re light, a perfect summer pickle, and the spices are subtle enough to allow the cherries to stand out. The other version is full of rich, warming spice making it more of a hearty winter pickle, delicious alongside a roasted pork shoulder or some such.

Here’s a link to the blog post that inspired me (http://bit.ly/aoiQmk) with some really great pictures of the process. If you’re a beginning pickler, this is a great place to start, as it takes about 20 minutes to make them and you just store them in the fridge, no canning required (they wouldn’t last that long anyway!)

I wish I had taken more pictures as I was making them, but…life happens. Here are the spiced ones:

And what’s left of the winner of the great Pickled Cherry-Off of 2010: