Hot Off the WordPress

October 2nd, 2008

My wife and I had a wonderful time this last weekend in Portland at WordCamp. For a ten dollar registration fee we were treated to several general sessions that ranged from building a blog in ten days to a preview of the new and upcoming version of WordPress. For those of you who are not in the know, this is the software that we used to construct our blogs. In addition to these wonderful presentations we had three different opportunities during the day to choose between three different topics in mini, one hour sessions. These sessions dealt with more specific topics that revolved around WordPress and blogging in general, but while all of these lectures were wonderful there was even more.

We all got a WordCamp T-shirt; they served bagels and coffee for breakfast, pizza for lunch and Mediterranean food for dinner. This was way more value than ten dollars per person but the icing on the cake was the two kegs of beer they tapped around four o’clock. Give me a break. I don’t know how we could possibly have gotten more for ten dollars anywhere else in the universe. Hurrah for the organizers and a tip of the hat to all involved. It was a great time and a fantastic value.

I won’t go into a lot of detail on the WordCamp food and drink except to say that they had my favorite flavor of beer….cold. The food was delicious and filling for a price that could not be beat. We left a little early as we were filled with information that we are both still trying to digest. The best part was actually meeting and talking with fellow bloggers. I won’t call you all out by name but I have been sharing comments with a few of you and I greatly appreciate the conversations and exchanges we had.

Having lived on the coast of Oregon for a couple of years, I have a great appreciation for the state in general. I love that you can’t pump your own gas. I love that they have no sales tax and I love that they vote by mail. This is an extremely civilized state. Moving away was sad for many reasons but living in Seattle is a blast. It is just a plain and simple blast. We love the city and there are a thousand things to do at any given moment. When we decided we were leaving the small town we lived in on the coast we had harbored secret hopes that we might end up in Portland. My wife was changing jobs and conducting a nationwide search for a position that had challenges as well as the potential for growth, and while we had come to love the west coast in general and Oregon in particular, we were trying to look at all of our options. Portland seemed like it would be wonderful. Lots of stuff to do and still in the state we loved. Small town living had been a real education for us and we can honestly say that while we had made some great friends with some fantastic people, the general level of opportunity and the frustratingly small town view of many of the citizens had grown old quickly. In fact, it seemed as though most of the population itself was doing little more than growing old and older in a physical as well as an attitudinal sense. It was time to move on.

Portland is the home of Powell’s which is perhaps the greatest of all used book stores. Portland also lays claim to having more breweries than any other city in the world. That’s right, the world. Not the country or the state; we’re talking about the whole planet. Having had the pleasure of visiting the city several times since we moved to Oregon, we both thought it would be great to move there. However, fate dealt us a different hand and my wife never even got called for one interview there. Seattle is where we found ourselves and we are glad to be here.

On the Friday evening before WordCamp started, we met with one of the great friends we made in Oregon, who happened to be in the city for the weekend, and had a delightful dinner at a Newport Seafood Grill. We were tickled that he was in town and he met us at our hotel where we walked a few blocks for dinner. I ordered a glass of Oregon Pinot Gris and an appetizer plate of California Roll sushi. California Roll sushi is the baby stuff. If you have never eaten sushi before and think you might like to try it, begin here. It has a very mild fish in it and lots of rice that you can soak with soy sauce or perhaps some pickled ginger or a dab of wasabi if you are really feeling adventurous. The rolls were great and before my dinner order came I decided to change horses, so I ordered an Australian Shiraz. Shiraz is the name they use in Australia for the Syrah grape and the wine has a bit of a spicy finish that stands up well with stronger tasting foods. I had ordered gumbo and it came with the standard dollop of white rice in the center of the bowl. It was crammed with oysters, prawns and sausage. I love gumbo and while this was not as good as the stuff I make (it’s not braggin’ if it’s the truth) it was pretty good. Just a little bit spicy. Not really too much, just a bit. I like spice but often times dishes that are supposed to be spicy come with way too much heat and you can’t even tell if it has any flavor or not. I think poor cooks use too much heat to cover up for a lack of skill. This stuff hit the spot and the Shiraz bellied up right next to it, holding its own in the battle of flavors that was happening on my tongue. We had a wonderful time catching up with our friend over dinner and decided it would be a waste to try to stuff dessert on top of it, so we didn’t.

We were unaware that they were going to be serving bagels at WordCamp the next morning so we stopped at the little restaurant on the ground floor of our hotel and grabbed some coffee and cereal before we headed over there. I had oatmeal and my wife chose raisin bran with bananas. She was disappointed they did not have non-fat milk. My breakfast came with what looked like a crop circle in my bowl of oatmeal. When I see that I know they made it in the microwave. There is just no way you can put traditionally cooked oatmeal in a bowl and have it look like that. It has to have been cooked in the bowl and that means the microwave. It also usually means instant oatmeal which to my taste is just not the same. We were in a hurry so I didn’t think much about it. I got about half of the oatmeal down and half of my cup of mediocre coffee. It was time to roll.

I have already described the food they served in camp and I wouldn’t diss it even if it was terrible, but it was not. Thanks again to all who helped put this conference on.

As I said before, we cut out a little early as we had absorbed about all we thought we could and were frankly tired. There was an avalanche of information and we were both trying to soak it up as fast as we could. I was feeling a bit overloaded but I thought that my wife was completely wrapped up in the whole scene. When she looked at me just before dinner was announced and said she was tired and wanted to head back to the hotel, you could have knocked me over with a feather. She was flushed with the heat of the moment and stuffed with information. It was time to cut out.

After slouching back to our hotel room we changed clothes and took a deep breath before girding our loins and heading up to the bar/restaurant on the top floor. We found a small table outside on the roof overlooking the Portland skyline and had a quiet drink. Off to the north we spotted Mt. St. Helens with its flattened top and the glass towers of the convention center loomed before us as we looked over the city to the south. The sun eventually slipped behind the mountains to the west and with the air chilling we moved to a table in the bar and ordered some light appetizers. I got the buffalo hot wings and my beautiful wife chose the chicken quesadillas with onions, green peppers and tomatoes. She liked them and I found the wings good enough to choke down but certainly not the hot wings I have found in other locales. The bartender brought them to me with the sauce on the side because he was afraid they would be too hot for me. While the sauce was, as usual with most of these dishes, too heavy on the heat and too light on the flavor, it made eating them with the dressing problematic. You could dip them in the hot sauce and then again in the dressing but you always ended up with too much of one and not enough of the other. Not a big deal. Just a little annoying.

Later I sat at the bar and watched the light fade in the west as the beautiful lights of Portland started to come alive. All in all the food had been, while not terrible, not fantastic either. I sipped some Oktoberfest beer from the Widmer Brothers of Portland and found it as mediocre as the rest of the Portland food. I have eaten great food in this city so I know it is out there. I just happened on this visit to not really hit on anything wonderful. But then again, that was not the reason I came. My wife and I both came for the conference and it was great. I didn’t make an effort to search out fantastic food while I was there and I did not have any jump up at me. Such is life. May your travels lead you to fantastic people, events and hopefully fantastic food.

There is nothing to be gained from pouring on the heat in your life and ignoring the flavor. Trying to cram too much into the moment can leave you with all of the first and none of the last.

Entry Filed under: General