kimmykimmykokonut

YUM!

I love early summer in the Pacific Northwest. The abundance of food is always a challenge for me in preserving, freezing and eating eating eating eating. Since this is not my food blog, you can look there for recipes. I just wanted to share a picture of the 7 pounds of luscious strawberries at the end of their season.

We picked at Koch Family Farms in Tualatin and the berries were about $1.15/pound for pick your own. The raspberries were just coming in, so they weren’t as amazing as the strawberries but still delicious. So far I have made a strawberry sauce for waffles, fruit roll-ups, strawberry lemonade and frozen most of it for the upcoming rhubarb pie.

We’ve been enjoying being within walking distance to a cheap movie theater and biking distance to even more.  I was surprised at how many cheap movie houses there are in this city.  It’s always nice to see a movie with a crowd and a number of the theaters sell beer, which is a wonderful concept.  I don’t have a favorite theater yet, but there is one that keeps disappointing me.

The Clinton St Theater is $6 a movie and $4 on Tuesdays, but their schedule has been wrong in the paper and on their website.  I’ve been there 3 times to see a movie and either a.)It started 30 minutes earlier than their website and newspaper said it would or b.) another event was happening instead (a hypnotist and a skate show benefit).  I was disappointed—they should at least have their own website be accurate.

All the other places we went to we didn’t have any problems with, and they were significantly cheaper.

I love the Bagdad Theater.  Owned by the infamous McMennamins brothers (who may just buy the entire Pacific NW one day), this 1927 theater has been revitalized but still has that other-era charm.  It’s a beautiful theater with comfy chairs and some rows have bench-like tables so you have somewhere to put your pizza and beer.  It’s $3 for a movie and sometimes has other events.  Hawthorne neighborhood.

The Laurelhurst Theater has 2 rooms for movies, also $3 second-run style movies.  They sell pizza (no vegan) and great local beer.  The rooms are a good size and there are some bench-tables for your food.  No complaints about the 1923 art deco building, but it doesnt’ have that luxurious feeling like the Bagdad.

The Avalon Theater is nestled in the middle of a nickel arcade and has 2 small rooms for movies.  The seats are a little run-down and there’s no beer, but it’s $2.50 and you can go play DDR and skee-ball afterwards.  Belmont neighborhood.

Another old building that the McMennamins brother bought and turned into a movie house is the Mission Theater. Originally intended for Swedish Evangelicals in the 1890′s, it’s now a great place to have the McMennamin beer and watch a movie.  Who thought churches were boring?  There’s some traditional seats in rows as well as some round tables and chairs.  The balcony is a nice place to watch the $3 movie from.  They also have monthly Science Pub nights, which I have not been to but sound interesting.

There are more movie houses in historic buildings owned by the McMenn’s but the only other one I have visited is the Kennedy School, which is really cool.  It’s an elementary school from 1915 that has classrooms converted into hotel rooms and the teacher’s lounge is a bar.  There’s a swimming pool (only available to guests and OR residents) and a large restaurant with a nice outdoor patio.  The movie room is in the auditorium and instead of boring chairs, it’s an assortment of comfy recliners and couches.  My only gripe is that the restaurant has consistently bad service, but the beer and movies are cheap ($3).  They have other events too, like live bands and cocktail tasting nights.

I like my new kitchen

After being unemployed for nearly 10 months, my efforts to furnish our new apartment have been on the thriftier than usual side.  When I can, I buy used/second-hand when possible to keep “stuff” in the cycle and out of the landfill and to reduce the demand on production of new products.  We were lucky that a neighbor was moving out (and to South America, no less) when we were moving in and we hit up a few tag sales as well.  The majority of our free stuff has been acquired from friends and the side of the road, including a working microwave and toaster (usually that stuff is the aftermath of a tag sale).  I’m quite proud that we haven’t spent much on furniture, which is what we were mainly lacking.  I’ve found a few things on craigslist, but it does have a reputation for flaky people that don’t respond to you or remove their post when it’s gone, but there are good deals that I still look there.  Usually for the free stuff you have to be able to go there as soon as the ad is posted to get it.

Here’s a proud list of what I was able to get for absolutely FREE:

1. a queen size mattress and box spring and frame
2. 2 end tables
3. a computer desk
4. a full length mirror
5. a dresser
6. clothes hangers
7. papasan chair and lots of pillows
8. coffee table
9. flower pots
10. houseplants
11. microwave
12. toaster
13. george forman grill
14. bookshelf
15. file cabinet/end table thing
16. a chair to sit in
17. a lamp
18. kitchen stuff (drying rack, bowls, vases)

And if you want to know what a freegan is, they basically are the opposite of consumers.  Think of dumpster diving, picking berries off the roadside, etc etc.  There are people who live their lives 100% this way, which is pretty dedicated and conscientious.  So hooray for them!  We could all learn a little something from them when it comes to the mass-consumerism based-society we live in.

I don’t know exactly why, but we keep getting sick and we’ve been back in the US for over a month now. It’s a different sick than in Peru. That was mostly intestinal anger. This includes head colds, sore throat, cough, itchy angry eyes, etc. Perhaps we are acclimating to the new germs; perhaps we have parasites, who knows? All I know is that I need a cleanse.

Fresh Carrot Juice & Muesli.

Before we left for Peru, Matt and I fasted about twice a year (juice fast) and while it’s challenging at times, it is very rewarding. I feel better, physically and emotionally, and giving my body a break from constant digestion and allowing it to clean house is great. Fasting is something that’s been practiced for over 5,000 years and is used for detox (the liver stores a lot of pesticides and other toxins), boosting the immune system and preventing/healing illnesses (the aging process even gets reversed a bit). We’re exposed to so much toxicity, whether air pollution, pesticides on produce or even our overexposure to plastics, it makes me sick (literally and figuratively).

Raw Ginger Almond Rolls.

Along with our typical 3 day juice fast (we’d do longer, but I lose more than 10% of my body weight which puts me out of cleansing mode and into starvation mode) this time we’re going to eat 100% raw for 5 days before. “Raw food” is food that hasn’t been cooked or heated over 104degF (there are many schools of thought on Raw Cuisine whose “rules” vary) and includes soaked nuts, seeds and sprouts (and dehydrating). The main thing that stands out is that the enzymes aren’t destroyed in cooking, thus aiding digestion and preventing/healing chronic diseases and illnesses. Plus I’ve always wanted to learn more about raw food-ism, so now’s the time. I’ll be documenting the fast on my food blog, so if you are interested, head over there!

Speaking of my sweater, a friend recommended the web community ravelry.com to me. It’s a free knitting/crochet website sort of set up like the myspace thing but not as annoying, seizure inducing or “friend-based coolness factored.” You basically have access to free patterns, ideas and are linked in with a bunch of other fiber nerds. There’s forums for questions, groups to join to go do real life knitting/crochet with other humans in your area (good for when we make that upcoming move), and your own little profile, complete with your list of projects and photos.

I’m not addicted to it, but I’m enjoying it so far and it makes me feel a bit more motivated to work on my projects since it is announced and listed. I also have a queue based on other people’s projects that I’d like to do one day. The neat part it that it’s all linked. My current sweater is using yarn I got in Peru. By entering my yarn type, I can see who else is making projects with the same brand of yarn and what the projects are. The sweater I made years ago (and never finished) from the SnB book is on my list, meaning I can now see who else is making that sweater (and see fotos of their work). It’s really fun to see how one pattern can look so different.

So it’s nice to be back at the knitting needles and even nicer to be linked into a community since I am far from home or friends to knit/crochet with. Especially since this new sweater is designed by me and I’m playing it all by ear. I’m trying to use Elizabeth Zimmerman’s techniques for a raglan sweater and am very roughly looking at a sweater pattern book I got from the library. We’ll see how much I get done in early summer Florida!