(August 5th-7th, 2013) Once the conference got underway, my trips out to restaurants became fewer and farther between. As we often only had a brief amount of time to grab food for lunch, my colleague Mike and I headed out to the famous food trucks of Portland to get a quick meal a few times. As many breweries as there are in Portland, there are easily twice as many food trucks (on the order of hundreds) spread across the downtown. It's a Portland thing, and it's fantastic. Many of them are listed on Yelp too as they tend to be semi-permanent installations, so check them out if you get the chance. Below Mike is visiting DC Vegetarian, one of the higher rated food trucks in the city. It unquestionably lived up to its reputation!
After grabbing our food, we enjoyed it while sitting on the waterfront. Passing time, we started to observe all of the runners and joggers (and there were hundreds of them on this beautiful August day). We came up with a hypothesis: In Portland, there is a strong correlation between wearing Nike products and running with an IPod. There's no way for me to not sound like a snob with the next two sentences, so I'm going to say that I'm a running snob and move on. In general, runners that are more serious about training for races (as opposed to running just for health reasons, which is probably a more sane approach to running mind you) tend to askew IPods or other music devices as they distract from the joys of running and what's going on in your environment (i.e. the honking car that's trying not to run you over or the rattlesnake warning you to back off). At the same time, with a few exceptions, Nike trainers (i.e. running shoes that aren't specially designed for speed work, etc.) tend to be frowned upon as well as they're perceived to be a more casual product with a marked up price due to the brand name. Granted, with Portland being so close to the Nike headquarters, it's not unsurprising that so many people wear Nikes, but it's nonetheless usually indicative of casual runners.
For our research study, we observed approximately 150 individuals that were jogging or running and made coarse estimates as to their speed/fitness in addition to noting their running gear. From our study we were able to conclude that, with a 95% confidence interval, if a runner/jogger was wearing an IPod, then that runner/jogger would also be wearing Nike gear. As for other hypotheses that might be formulated, more research will be necessary to draw any definitive conclusions...
Aside from our lunches by the river, I had time for one more nice dinner out during the conference. Due to my reputation as someone that is able to find great restaurants in a new city, my colleagues have started to put me in charge of organizing the dinner activities for us when we need to have a meal out together on an otherwise light night. So, that's how I found myself marshaling a group of twelve colleagues to Southpark Seafood.
At Southpark, we all had large, decadent meals - though relatively light due to it being seafood. To start, what I always must have when traveling to the Pacific Northwest - Oysters. This time I had Shigoku and Kusshi oysters, both of which were sweet and smooth. I'm always glad the Kusshi oysters are so widely available on the West coast as they're becoming typical of my favorite type of oyster. There're a few varieties that I like better, but the names of those I can never remember...as long as I can remember to ask for something like a Kusshi, though, I'll be set. My main course, above, was a trout wrapped in prosciutto, with potatoes, green beans, and mustard sauce, topped with fried artichokes and accompanied with a barigoule puree. All of the varied, complex flavors complimented each other very well - Crispy, salty, savory, smokey.
Accompanying dinner was my first (and later second) taste of an Oregonian wine, Pinot Noirs. Both were good...the first, Soter, was a bit fruity while the second, Roucas, was a more Earthy and very robust wine.
For dessert, the chocolate bonet, served with chocolate creme caramel, an almond croquante (the long stick in the photo), and assorted cookies that came in a hazelnut chocolate basket. The almond croquante was a honey almond mixture that paired really well with the chocolate bonet (like a mousse). The cookies were pignoli, pistachio, biscotti, almond toffee, and shortbread. Those of you that have seen me catching a smell of an Italian bakery know that I absolutely adore pignolis (Italian for pine nut cookies), especially when they're fresh and soft still. Mmmmm, pignolis.
Next up: some time to myself in Portland...
After grabbing our food, we enjoyed it while sitting on the waterfront. Passing time, we started to observe all of the runners and joggers (and there were hundreds of them on this beautiful August day). We came up with a hypothesis: In Portland, there is a strong correlation between wearing Nike products and running with an IPod. There's no way for me to not sound like a snob with the next two sentences, so I'm going to say that I'm a running snob and move on. In general, runners that are more serious about training for races (as opposed to running just for health reasons, which is probably a more sane approach to running mind you) tend to askew IPods or other music devices as they distract from the joys of running and what's going on in your environment (i.e. the honking car that's trying not to run you over or the rattlesnake warning you to back off). At the same time, with a few exceptions, Nike trainers (i.e. running shoes that aren't specially designed for speed work, etc.) tend to be frowned upon as well as they're perceived to be a more casual product with a marked up price due to the brand name. Granted, with Portland being so close to the Nike headquarters, it's not unsurprising that so many people wear Nikes, but it's nonetheless usually indicative of casual runners.
For our research study, we observed approximately 150 individuals that were jogging or running and made coarse estimates as to their speed/fitness in addition to noting their running gear. From our study we were able to conclude that, with a 95% confidence interval, if a runner/jogger was wearing an IPod, then that runner/jogger would also be wearing Nike gear. As for other hypotheses that might be formulated, more research will be necessary to draw any definitive conclusions...
Aside from our lunches by the river, I had time for one more nice dinner out during the conference. Due to my reputation as someone that is able to find great restaurants in a new city, my colleagues have started to put me in charge of organizing the dinner activities for us when we need to have a meal out together on an otherwise light night. So, that's how I found myself marshaling a group of twelve colleagues to Southpark Seafood.
At Southpark, we all had large, decadent meals - though relatively light due to it being seafood. To start, what I always must have when traveling to the Pacific Northwest - Oysters. This time I had Shigoku and Kusshi oysters, both of which were sweet and smooth. I'm always glad the Kusshi oysters are so widely available on the West coast as they're becoming typical of my favorite type of oyster. There're a few varieties that I like better, but the names of those I can never remember...as long as I can remember to ask for something like a Kusshi, though, I'll be set. My main course, above, was a trout wrapped in prosciutto, with potatoes, green beans, and mustard sauce, topped with fried artichokes and accompanied with a barigoule puree. All of the varied, complex flavors complimented each other very well - Crispy, salty, savory, smokey.
Accompanying dinner was my first (and later second) taste of an Oregonian wine, Pinot Noirs. Both were good...the first, Soter, was a bit fruity while the second, Roucas, was a more Earthy and very robust wine.
For dessert, the chocolate bonet, served with chocolate creme caramel, an almond croquante (the long stick in the photo), and assorted cookies that came in a hazelnut chocolate basket. The almond croquante was a honey almond mixture that paired really well with the chocolate bonet (like a mousse). The cookies were pignoli, pistachio, biscotti, almond toffee, and shortbread. Those of you that have seen me catching a smell of an Italian bakery know that I absolutely adore pignolis (Italian for pine nut cookies), especially when they're fresh and soft still. Mmmmm, pignolis.
Next up: some time to myself in Portland...
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