So there's this television show that I have only seen on internet postings of clips passed around on Facebook or reblogged. It is a show that spoofs and parodies the City of Portland, Oregon, that place where I go to get lost in a maze of highways and bridges or to shop for bargains that are unavailable in my remote little mountain town, or to attend classical orchestra concerts and to buy organic, sustainably-farmed food for my family. Portland is a quirky place. The streets and highways were designed by someone on a bad drug trip; the scenery, with its rivers, hills and mountain sculpted horizons (including Mt. St. Helens) are charmingly photogenic; the culture is, shall we say, "liberal" and decadent; and the food, in markets and restaurants, is simply the best in the country.
This television show, I'm sure, must make non-Oregonians shake their heads in disbelief but for those of us who have been there, we laugh knowingly. We laugh a lot.
As further proof of the validity of that television parody, I offer this page from last Sunday's Oregonian, the living section, an article about a Portland shop that sells fashions -I mean Trashions- called Junk to Funk:
"Portland is an amazing little bubble of awareness. If I were to do this in the middle of Kansas, it wouldn't go anywhere. The rest of the world is not like Portland."
Understatement much?
That woman's hair adornment is made from wine corks and her outfit was made from wine labels. You can't make this stuff up.
Next, Paris!
Renew, reuse, recycle.
Everything.
But one area where Portland continually redeems itself is its appreciation for well-made food.
I share that appreciation. And so do my kids.
Especially my oldest son who knows that a way to this mama's heart is through her stomach.
