FOREVER SEARCHES, PARTS 1-5

Forever searches are not futile.

You’ll eventually find what you’re looking for, along with other finds along the way.

Keep looking and you’ll find it in the end.

If you don’t, then it’s not the end.

 

#1: The stink in the refrigerator

You cook an amazing dinner, or bring leftovers home after a night out, and you forget about it while the remains slowly migrate to the back of the icebox on the lowest shelf.

One day something smells off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

You search it out and find the limp scraps of a once fine dinner.

But it’s not the smell, so you keep looking.

Eventually you get to the produce drawer and under the pack of romaine is a bag of mushy broccoli, and it stinks to high heaven.

What to do?

Re-bag the broccoli and throw it away, chop up other veggies on the verge of going off, and sauté them with the scraps you found.

Win, win.

 

#2: The Best Beer

Beer lovers are always on the lookout for the champ, the top, the beer of all beer that you can drink all you want without regrets.

Which is somewhere between two and four.

From English beer in England, Belgium beer in Belgium, Spanish beer in Spain, none match Oregon beer in Oregon.

For a reminder crack a few Stella’s and Coors Light in a taste test.

Which one wins?

Then pour something from Breakside, Boneyard, or Rogue to clear your beer palate.

 

#3 Cheese Steak

I had to join the army and go to Philadelphia before I’d even heard of one. Getting stationed at the Defense Personnel Support Center helped.

The South Philly neighborhood started right across the street.

My sergeant mentioned a cheese steak.

“A what?” I asked?

“Cheese steak. You never heard a cheese steak? You gotta be kidding. Everyone knows the best sandwich ever invented and the best of the best right here. Here. This part of town. The city’s best. You could swing a cat and hit the top of the top. Come on, let’s go.”

Call it cheese steak-bonding.

Have I found anything to replace those food memories? No, but I keep trying. Portland baby boomers need to keep searching, not settling though it would take the cheese steak of cheese steaks to crowd Philadelphia.

So you know, I’ve chased cheese steak rumors from NE Portland to SE and even the SW suburbs. For you.

The cheese steak quest ended in NW Portland.

 

#4 Chile Relleno

Chile rellenos gained new status around here after a dinner at Santa Fe’s ‘LaFonda.’

Me: Dinner for two?

Maitre d: Do you have reservations?

Me: No.

Mait: As you can see we are very busy, but we can seat you in the hallway?

Me: Hallway? Is it a nice hallway?

 

And that’s how we found ourselves, wife and I, sitting on stools at a tall table with a commanding view of the entire dining room.

The hallway was more of a door way and the hall was an extension of the lobby.

Even so, the wait staff took pity and put us first on their rounds.

 

Me: Could I start with a beer, then another one in five minutes. How are the chile rellenos.

Waiter: They are the best you’ll ever eat.

Wife: That’s what I’m having.

Me: Me, too.

Wife: And a gin and tonic please. Do you have Beefeaters?

Waiter: Yes we do.

 

My food searches have gone from the perfect Reuben, which I never expect to match my memories of Rose’s on NW 23rd, to cheesesteaks.

I ended the Reuben search after making a reuben casserole, which was way too good.

The cheesesteaks ended when I made a bunch of them here and decided it would never get better.

 

#5 Tax Money Search

I just got a property tax statement, maybe you did too?

The list of where the money goes is impressive.

Compared to what?

I’m paying Portland Community College and the Port of Portland? Yessssss.

Do I use either one? Nooooo.

But I know others do use PCC as I have in the past, and my car may have come through the port.

I vote yes on bond measures designed to improve the community, yes on anything impacting my kids, yes on anything for the grandkids.

 

Is tax money wasted on people who find a loophole to get paid? Probably.

Does it go to boondoggles where people sign contracts, get paid, and forget about the work? Maybe.

Does it go to low-life sons of bitches double talking their way around accountability for their actions?

 

PS: When a man ascends to high office, they are still a man, not a king, an idol, or a messenger from God.

PS: When a man sees the man in high office as their lord and savior, who then turns on them, they lose faith.

Don’t do that.