How Does Your Garden Grow?

We’ve had a few good days of warm weather and sunshine around here, making me want to get outside and help things grow!

I’ve enjoyed watching things bloom, like the Irises:

and Lilies outside my window:

and these sweet little Columbines:

What really gets me excited about gardening though are things like this:

The strawberries are coming!  I know these berries have been on sale in the grocery stores for over a month now, but seriously, nothing compares to eating your own homegrown strawberries.  I’ve already been fantasizing about things to make, including strawberry jam.  Mmmm, can’t wait!

I’ve also started this year’s parsley (named Rooty Huxtable for obvious reasons):

Soon we’ll also be planting tomatoes, basil and squash!

I also re-started the compost pile over the weekend, so I think my inner farmer has officially been released for the season!

Tulipomania!

It’s been on my list of places to go and things to see for the past 3 years and this weekend, I finally got to Tulip Fest!

It was truly a dream come true.  I heard they were having a “Petal Party” on Sunday and who could resist that?  So boyfriend and I headed out for a beautiful Oregon afternoon.  I have to credit some of these photos to him.

I love this one:

Check out more of my favorites on my Flickr.

There’s over 40 acres of tulips at the Wooden Shoe Farm, so it was a little hard to stop taking pictures.

Pioneer Woman!

One night last summer I stayed up until dawn reading Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, Pioneer Woman’s love story with her Marlboro Man. I was hooked. I fell in love with her blog, photography and recipes. I was warned by my friend Erin that I would love her, hate her and want to be her.

Tonight she came to Portland!  (She’s the one on the left, smiling.)

She’s just as sweet and cute as you’d expect and I am pretty sure that based on the hundreds of people who came to see her tonight she could start her own cult.  I was forewarned about the possibility of being stampeded by housewives in the book store, yet still somehow felt unprepared.  Maybe because I didn’t have a diaper bags packed with necessities for a serious camp out.

Pioneer Woman (aka Ree Drummond) was a little late arriving and the poor patient man who had to keep the crowd at bay, announced that she would be arriving soon, that she’d gotten into some traffic problems, her Jag broke down and so she was being helicoptered in.  An unsure woman with a stroller in front of me, turned around and said, “Is he serious?”  Hmmm….

I was making sure to keep on the outskirts of the crowd, though I was able to eventually find an empty ladder among the shelves, and snap the above photo while she did a Q&A session.

I stayed almost 2 hours until my poor feet and hungry tummy just couldn’t stand it any longer (and the place was still packed).  Sorry PW, maybe we’ll meet some other time!

My New Obsession: Portland Food Carts

I am obsessed with the food carts in Portland – in particular, now The Grilled Cheese Grill. My boyfriend and I went yesterday during a lovely springtime stroll on Alberta. It was the perfect day. I hate to admit it but we are sickeningly in love, it’s gross. Take a newly in love couple, add a sunny warm spring day in Oregon – flowers are blooming, birds are singing. Add the most freakin awesome grilled cheese ever and get instant euphoric explosion!

The Grilled Cheese Grill sits on a lot with covered picnic tables, cheeses grilled to perfection in a converted Airstream trailer and an old school bus for indoor dining. You can go simple or gourmet, the grillers appeal to both young and old taste buds here and we went for “The Pops” – Havarti with tomato slices and honey mustard on wheat. Their obscene food trademark though seems to be The Cheesus Burger – a burger with two grilled cheese sandwiches for buns – OMG! We stepped on the bus and waited for our order, marvelling at the pimped out dining car with its psychdellic roof mural and Zappa-esque music on the stereo. This didn’t exactly take me back to my childhood, but to some other way cooler girl’s childhood perhaps.

At any rate, I just had to express my newfound love for the GCG! If you’re in Portland, you must experience this cheesy treat!