A Reason to Celebrate 2013

February 22-23, 2013

Portland, Oregon

Corvallis girls bday trip at Salt and Straw
Lyd, Meg, Caroline, Kara, and Cherie

My friend Cherie and I really wanted to do something fun this year for our birthdays.  Since our birthdays are Feb 24th and 25th, that is easy to combine the fun.

So, we planned a weekend in Portland, not knowing who of our close girlfriends might be able to come.

We left early on on Friday and went to Woodburn outlets, Ikea, Mother's (for Lunch), Lovely's 5050 (for dinner) and and Salt and Straw (for ice cream that was TO DIE FOR!!!!), hot tubbed at the hotel and then talked for hours.  We slept in (and I didn't have to wake up to feed a baby - first time in 13 months) on Saturday morning and then shopped until some of the girls had to get back home. Lydia and I went to 23rd and ooohhhed and awwwed in all the shops and then had sushi and talked forever. And then much to our delight (and dismay...see scoop size!) we found another Salt and Straw and had more ice cream.  My ice cream flavors were:

-Sahagun's Oregon Kiss-
Sahagún has a long history with chocolates in Portland having made a name for herself with her own small chocolate shop and selling at local farmers markets. We've taken her infamous hazelnut truffle and reinvented it by making ribbons of hazelnut chocolate gianduja in a chocolate ice cream.
-Freckled Woodblock Chocolate-
We add in a bit of Jacobson sea salt, the first
to harvest salt from the Oregon coast in over 200 years,
and then use an old-school ice cream making technique
called "freckling" to suspend the chocolate
in an untempered state.
-Grandma Malek's Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache-
Handmade in-house,
this is our Grandma Malek's almond brittle recipe
that she'd make on special occasions since we were little.
 We added our own touch with salted chocolate ganache and mixed delicious chunks into a creamy vanilla ice cream.  
and my Favorite:
-Woodblock's The Pirates of Trinidad-
Chocolate beans carefully sourced from a farm in Trinidad, by Woodblock Chocolates, make for a spicy, dark chocolate ice cream. To ensure a true Carribean experience with every bite, we cooked in a splash of Spiced Rum and chocolate-coated spiced popping candies that fire off in your mouth.

(Yes, there are POP ROCKS in this ice cream...they popped in your mouth!)

Some other flavors that the girls tried were:  Love Potion Float (had beets and blood orange in it), Honey Balsamic Strawberry with Cracked Pepper, and Pear with Bleu Cheese.  Crazy delicious!  Seriously, these flavors were out of this world. Just the smell of the waffle cones is enough to make you sweet drunk.

This trip kind of turned into a foody trip, but we were all lovin that, and it was well worth the calories!

I am glad to have good friends to make memories with.  It was much needed for all of us.  Pretty dreamy...doing what you want, when you want!  Ha!

Hoping 34 will be a year full of light, new goals and accomplishments, and positive change.

Here's to Me at 34!

Happy Birthday!