Greek Festival 2009!

This weekend I did end up being able to make it out to the Greek Festival at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in SE. I'd never been before, but apparently they've been holding the festival for over 50 years, and it started as a way for the ladies of the church raise money to help pay off the old mortgage when they moved to a new location.



I just have to say that it was INSANELY crowded, but first things first, I needed Talents.



Talents are white plastic chips used instead of currency at the food booths outside. I set myself a budget of $15 to start with, because I didn't really know what to expect with regards to food costs.
Now that I had some "money" it was time for one of the most wonderful things in the world Spanakopita.



It was exceptional, a light flaky, crispy crust with a warm melty spinach & feta filling. YUM!

After I had my fix, I started looking around at the other dining options ans settled on something I hadn't had before called Loukoumas, they are a fried yeast dough coated in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. It was very sweet and eye rollingly delicious.



Feeling a little sugared out, I headed for the extremely long Gyros line, and while I was waiting, I was able to get a little work done on my current WIP.


Harmony needles are so very pretty, and wonderful to use, one day I will have a whole set.



Mm, gyro...
It was a fairly simple one, they use the frozen pre-sliced meat, taziki, tomatoes, and onion filling.

After I'd eaten, again I headed over to check out the other side and got to watch some very industrious cooks and live music with dancing.





Unfortunately by this time I was so over stimulated that I was getting close to needing to leave, so I counted up my remaining Talents and started wading through all the people to the pastry counter.



I had just enough left to get one of each of the desserts available, so I got a piece of Baklava, a Kourambie, and a Melomakarona.



These little beauties I got to go and saved for later, and they were also wonderful, I will definitely be going again next year, but I think I'll go on Saturday and try to be there in the morning before it gets too crowded. If I'm feeling exceptionally brave I may even stay for more of the cultural events.

Introducing Happy Knits!

Last night my cousin A, her husband R, their gorgeous little girl S, and I all went to the grand opening for then new yarn store on Hawthorne called Happy Knits.

But first, the food carts. In SE on Hawthorne two blocks down from Yarn Garden and four blocks down from Happy Knits there is a corner with several food carts. It really doesn't look like anything from the street, but you will not be disappointed for going inside.



R stopped at Potato Champion for some fries and was very generous with sharing them, while we waited for dinner. Potato Champion is known for being open late and their poutine, which if you've not had it is fries with gravy and fresh cheese curd on top of them. That being said, the fries with only a little salt on them were awesome! They were perfectly cooked with a crispy outside and a nice soft center.



Now dinner we got from Whiffies Fried Pies, A and I went with the BBQ brisket with mozzarella, and R got the chicken pot pie. Ok, so they hand you this hot, foil wrapped, little thing that looks very much like one of those hostess fruit pies. Luckly, shape is pretty much the only thing they have in common, the crust is flaky and buttery, the brisket was very tender and they used a sweet BBQ sauce with just a little heat, and the melted cheese makes it just perfect. R said the pot pie one was good as well, and I have to admit it smelled tasty.



For dessert I tried the Nutella and banana crepe from Perierra Creperie, and A got a Marrion berry pie from Whiffies (I've had them before and they are delicious).



I'd not been to a creperie before, and I thought it was really cool to watch them make it. The crepe it's self was extremely thin and crispy, and the Nutella and bananas worked really well together, net time I'll have to try one of the savory ones.

After we'd eaten it was time to head up the street to Happy Knits for the opening. The store is really spacious with high ceilings, and a almost bookstore like layout.



They also have a, well a common room for lack of a better word with a giant table, a sitting area in front of a gas fireplace, and a window & access into the classroom & children's playroom.





I think I'm going to call them a working yarn store, I didn't see one skein of the novelty variety anywhere, but they had plenty of felting, sock, and worsted yarns. I saw quite a big selection of yarns from Malbrigo and Cascade, and way more other stuff that I can't remember right now.

Festival Japan!

Saturday was the Japanese festival at Uwajimaya and I almost missed it! If I hadn't been at a friend's party Saturday night I wouldn't have driven by and seen all the booths setup, that prompted a visit to their website to find out what was up.

First stop upon arrival, taiyaki.







This is one of my all time favorite treats, taiyaki is made by placing cast iron molds with fish or round shapes on a griddle, pouring batter into them, let that cook most of the way, and add either the traditional asuki bean paste or vanilla custard on half the molds. Once this is done you flip the griddle cakes that don't have filling on them onto the ones that do, pop out and serve. The flavor of the cake is like a waffle, and with the custard inside it's just perfect, one of these days I'll even get brave enough to try the asuki.

Once I had my wonderfully warm taiyaki, I set to wandering around the booths at the festival and as always there were interesting and informational items on display, but it seemed like there were more information booths and fewer booths with wares for sale than in the past.

I did stop and watch the takoyaki guys for awhile though, I don't eat it but still think it's pretty. Actually I keep thinking about picking up one of the molds made for home use and just improvising my own fillings.





Wandering about I saw quite a few people dressed in Coz play including the soy sauce sample lady.


I would have been making way worse faces, she had some of the most insane shoes on.

There were even some people dressed in yukatas.



There were two stages, one did primarily martial arts oriented things, while that stage I was at for most of the day was more entertainment based. There were several Taiko groups that played one that I'd seen before and really liked was Monmouth Taiko.




Oh, and my knitting made the trip out as well.

Another group that I hadn't seen before was Takahashi Taiko, though I'm not 100% on their name. This group is kind of nuts, but they have great energy and are a lot of fun to watch.



The last thing I watched was the natto eating contest, natto is fermented soy beans so they're a little mushy and they have this really really stringy goop which kinda holds it all together. Now I imagine that if you are a fan of fermented foods, like sauerkraut that it wouldn't be all that bad, but this stuff smells nasty and I wont touch it. This is the only eating contest I've ever seen that the organizers are required to supply barf bags and have a minimum distance from the crowd due to the high probability of regurgitation. The MC for the event did note that of the previous day's contestants roughly half had needed to use the bags.





Luckily for us none of the contestants on Sunday needed the bags.

Oregon Flock and Fiber 2009

Well I forgot to take my camera this year, so I don't really have any pictures, I have one or two from my phone, but I'm not real sure on the quality, I might load them on here later though. Anyhow it was wonderful, I got to wander through the barns and play with the bunnies.

I also got some awesome yarn, though I really tried to restrain myself as Sock Summit was only a month and a half ago, and my yarn bin is still over flowing.



These are the delectable skeins of wonderfulness that I picked up from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth. On the right are STR medium weight mill ends so the colorways are my best guess, the top one I think is Korppi, Autumn, ST-2, and Froggin. The center purple one is a Seduction Rare Gem, and beside that BFL Sport in Downpour(this one is also a guess because it's not labeled).

After Blue Moon I only had enough left to pick up these beauties from Frog Creek Fibers.



The skein on top is Ebullient in the Blue Diablo XL colorway, the lower skein is Bamboo Blend in the Blue Bonnet colorway.

I really wanted some of the yarns from Abstract Fiber but I resisted. At some point in time though the Black Opal, Manzanita, Laurelhurst, and Sweet Pea colorways will be mine.

I'm also seriously considering camping out at the fair grounds next year I think it would be fun to take one of the workshops, and just kind of hang out at the festival for the weekend. I may even wander around Canby and it's not that far from Willsonville or Woodburn for that matter if I felt like getting in some non-knitting shopping.

Portland Pirate Festival 2009

Ok, so had not heard about this event until this year, and didn't really know all that much about it, so I did a little research on their website, found here. Oddly enough while it is pirate themed it is also about as family friendly as they could reasonably make, being as they're pirates and all. If I remember correctly there was only one vendor offering liquor at all and it was Rogue Brewery, so no beer garden at least not that I found anyway.

This event is a really interesting mix of cheesy stereotype and authentic re-enactment, over in the kid's area they have these huge inflatable play structures and games aimed at kids on one side.



On the other side however the historical re-enactors were camped out.


There were also some pretty awesome costumes going on, this is one of my favorites.


The picture just didn't feel right though, so I did some editing and came up with this.


The marketplace was pretty awesome as well, and had many beautiful things like these that I SO couldn't afford, but I got some great ideas.



Oh, yeah there was also an attempt while I was there at the Guinness Book of World Records for the most pirates gathered in one place. I just checked the site to see if they'd received confirmation and found out two things, one the previous record was 184 and the grand total gathered at the festival with signatures was 1,651 totally blowing the previous record out of the water.

While everyone waited for the signatures to be collected and for the required 15 minute time period to elapse Capt. Bogg and Salty kept the crowd from getting too rowdy. The group is a family friendly pirate band, and if I must say so, their songs are catchy and quite humorous, I took some video for my cousin's kids who couldn't go.

(I couldn't get the video to load so I'll post it on Flickr and add in the link later)

A couple other humorous sights were the environmentally conscious pirate.



The lady pirate with offspring barnacle.



And the human statue child scaring pirate.



I think it was a pretty fun event though net year I think it would be nice to go with a group.

Rain N' Roses

A couple friends and I got up insanely early on Saturday morning to go up to the Rose Gardens for a photo walk. I stopped off at Noah's for breakfast which was delicious, and to read this weeks WW (featured a story Modest Mouse) before going to the transit center to meet-up with J.



It drizzled the entire time we were up at the gardens, and by the end we were completely soaked, but I got some cool pictures.