Wander: Portland, OR

Last year, our dear friends, Joe, Jill and Luca took a chance on carving out a more creative life for themselves and made a break for Portland, Oregon. They have since settled in a tree house perched among the pines, landed dream animation gigs, found work with interesting clients and Jill completed and staged a rock musical aptly titled DREAM. It more than seems to be working out.

All this, and they’re steps from 30-lush miles of hiking trails that are pine-scented and rich with treasures their son adores, like plump, slimy banana slugs.

We had an ambitious list of things to do during our visit. But lingering over endless cups of coffee in their living room, watching our boys delight in their insta-playmate status and sliding into our familiar places at their dining room table, with wine in hand, as we had so many nights over our years together in Chicago, slowed us down. Which was exactly what we needed. 

We did however, manage to connect with other friends in Portland, sample silky charcuterie at Olympic Provisions and meditate on the turning maples at the Japanese Garden. And headed out on the gaping open road (no traffic snarls, or towering buildings and ‘buy this!’ billboards polluting sight lines) to Cannon Beach.

Dining at Le Pigeon or Bar Avignon and a tour of the World Forestry Museum will have to wait until next trip… as if we needed any more incentive to return.

Create: Raise a glass to 2014!

Our pals Sara and Andrew never roll up to any event empty-handed. In fact, they are too generous with their gifts of homemade marmalade, sugary cakes and my favorite of their specialties – cranberry shrub. It’s a refreshing way to toast the new year, and here are five ways they suggest to mix up your shrub.

* Pour over ice and top with club soda.
* Mix with sparkling white wine.
* Muddle with an orange slice Then add ice, bourbon and top with club soda.
* Mix equal parts orange juice, tequila and shrub.
* Shake with ice and equal parts shrub, gin, sweet vermouth and strain into a glass.

Oh, and cheers!

Create: Holiday cheer

We’re having ourselves a busy little Christmas season here. How about you? But we did get in a visit with the man in red, and returned to Santa’s Village in Brooklyn, put on by the very crafty elves at My Brooklyn Baby. At three, Soren is at that sweet age where Christmas is still all about magic and fantastic tales of elves and flying reindeer, and not yet tied to stuff (well, save for candy canes).

Wishing all peace and a good bit of magic, too.

Gift: Post-feast treats

Last year, a friend who had hosted a giant Thanksgiving dinner tipped me off to the most thoughtful hostess gift: breakfast for the next morning. As a host, what could be better following the days of cooking and hours of cleaning involved in these epic holiday feasts than having someone else plan a meal for you?

And as a guest, it’s pretty simple to pick up a dozen bagels, bake muffins, make a quiche, whip up a batch of Jane Lerner’s granola or, if staying overnight, wake the house up with a pan of Adam Miller’s chilaquiles. You will surely score yourself a return invite every holiday. And that’s certainly something to be grateful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Pass the stuffing… tip the turkey to me… and wishing heaping helpings of love and gratitude to all.

Create: Got buttermilk?

Buttermilk cake/ Good House GuestThere are always those recipes that call for a tablespoon of this, a dollop of that or a quarter cup of an exotic or rarely-used ingredient. Said item then sits in your refrigerator, ducking behind those everyday stars – like milk and orange juice – just taunting you to make use of it before it morphs into a science experiment.

The latter is usually the way those things go over here. But there are those rare moments when I become this resourceful (not wasteful) keeper of the kitchen. And so I had to share this recipe for a lemon buttermilk cake that saved me from dumping the creamy remains of this icebox lurker. 

It’s spongy, lemony and all-around delicious – the only thing I would change is to double up on the glaze. With the dairy-heavy ingredients, I have this vision of this recipe as one handed down between the generations of a farming family. Somewhere out in the Midwest, on a green patchwork of well-tended fields, the creamy batter would be stirred with love and efficiency in a farmhouse kitchen, and placed in a window to cool only just until a small hand couldn’t resist crumbling off a corner any longer.

Agrarian roots or not, this is a darn good cake, and perfect excuse to use the leftover buttermilk taking up space in your fridge.

Wander: Camptown ladies

camptown/ good house guest

I haven’t pitched a tent, lit a camp stove or burrowed deep into the secure cocoon of a sleeping bag as owls called out to no one in particular, in far too long. Nine years to be exact. The last camping trip I mapped out was to the Apostle Islands, but that was also the same summer that my dad died, and I cancelled the trip. So when my friend Jane threw together a last minute mid-week camping excursion, I couldn’t refuse.

woodland valley campground/ good house guest

And I’m so grateful that I was able to juggle schedules and move work and childcare days around to get out to Woodland Valley Campground in Phoenicia, New York, tucked into the Catskills at the foot of Slide Mountain.

stream cooler/ good house guest

The tidy campground established by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early 1930s, was practically empty on this Wednesday in October, and we had our pick of sites. Signed off on all the bear disclaimers and bundles of firewood purchased, we pitched our domestic domes on the bend of a gentle stream that slipped over a shallow, rocky river bed. And attended to very important matters, like setting the beer to cool in the stream. Nice work, Sue.

We strolled, leaves crunching underfoot, to the trailhead which led to substantial ascents to the ridge line, but we only had enough daylight for a healthy scramble part of the way up. This was a power camping round, but we did it all: Jiffy Pop on the fire, a gourmet feast of rich black beans and Alaskan salmon (thank you Iliama Fish Co.) and s’mores roasted over the fire pit. There was strong French press coffee in the morning and the newest trick in the outdoorsy book: heating lavender-scented face wipes in a pot of bowling water to freshen (and warm up) in the morning. My idea of a spa retreat. It was nourishing on every level, and I can’t wait to return in the spring…

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Wander: Summer Round-up

Good House Guest/Chez NousWith somewhat regular desk jobs (translation: less free-roaming vacation time) this past year, summer travel was more about the long weekend away and revisiting tradition. Some old, like time spent at the family cottage (100 years old this summer!) in Bellaire, Michigan.

Good House Guest/ Cuttyhunk, MAOthers newer, such as the three-summers-old tradition playing castaway on Cuttyhunk Island off the coast of Cape Cod. This year we loaded up on groceries, wine and diapers and stayed for one whole blissful week on island.

Floating Farm House/ Good House Guest

And, something we hope that will become a tradition, an escape to the Floating Farmhouse, in Eldred, New York, for the birthday of a dear friend. The meandering drive along two-lane roads trimmed with farm stands by way of New Jersey, with a jog into Pennsylvania and back over the New York state line to the Catskills, made it fell like more of an adventure than the easy two-and-a-half hour journey it was. 

Good House Guest/ Gazebo

This 200-year-old farmhouse was artfully revamped to blend the existing structure – wide wood floors, exposed beams, rustic wall planks – with new elements. Most notable was the open kitchen with its wood-burning pizza oven and soaring wall of windows facing the pine-dense forest. Ok, we were all ga-ga over the deep soaking tubs, vaulted ceilings and generous porch perched on the muddy pond, too.

Good House Guest/ Floating Farm HouseFrogs croaked their creaky songs at night on the pond. A black bear sauntered through the woods in plain sight. People wandered out to the gazebo with coffee in hand and a book, or rocked in the hammock. Frisbee breaks were mandatory and frequent. Like a group of test kitchen chefs, we worked on perfecting a pizza crust recipe. We lazed for hours on the loungers surrounding the pond. And we laughed, a ton. It was filling on all levels. And I can’t wait to get back there again next summer…or, in any season, for that matter.

night farm/ good house guest

Gift: Something crafty

Good House Guest/ Paper SourceI had a goodbye-for-now lunch with a friend who was off to travel and write her way around the world for the next year. And, in an unexpected turn of events, she presented me with a parting gift. Ever-generous, it was in keeping with her nature, and it was something that I never knew I needed – a bag of decorative paper scraps.

There were bright gold sheets, crinkly tails, thick card card stock and wallpaper-worthy Japanese-style prints. Soren ripped right into it and we made kites and oddball collages, and I’ve found that the scraps make perfect gift cards. 

Gather up your own assortment of colorful scraps, or pick up one of the gorgeous grab bags from the Paper Source. It’s just the thing for paper lovers of all ages – especially crafty kids.

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Create: Good work

Good House Guest/ This is Not Going to WorkWe all strive for some sort of meaning in the daily grind. Some just have it more figured out than others – and there is loads to be learned from those folks. With that in mind, my husband, Todd, began interviewing people who seem to be on the right path to finding joy in what what they do. In creating This Is Not Going to Work, he hopes to offer (and discover) “… a little motivation from those who have “figured it out” to all of the people who are on the path. Who couldn’t use a good dose of that?

Wander: Sonoma County, CA

We experienced the perfect reason-to-escape storm earlier this month: a wedding of a dear friend, Todd’s birthday and a grandmother all-too-willing to take on our toddler for four whole days. As an added bonus, we were returning to wine-soaked Sonoma, where we had spent a long weekend following our wedding. Our first trip as Mr.+Mrs., and one that kicked-off our year of sporadic travel (everywhere from northern Wisconsin to Japan) that we classified as our honeymoon.

Years ago we stayed at the mod cottages of the Duchamp in Healdsburg, a town that has been significantly built up in the last seven years. This trip was also coupled with a work jaunt (I know, tough gig) and we bunked at the charming Farmhouse Inn. Here’s a little dispatch/postcard from our weekend among the vines, and a few pics we snapped, too.

Wander Sonoma Good House Guest

Local bounty at Shed.

Wander Sonoma Good House Guest

Winery picnic with friends. I could do this every day.

Wander Sonoma Good House Guest

Just your average Friday afternoon.

Wander Sonoma Good House Guest

Gorgeous couple, gorgeous setting. Congrats Julie + Ben!

Wander Sonoma Good House Guest

Birthday swim in the Russian River.

Wander Sonoma Good House Guest

Grand finale.

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