Willamette Week, October 12, 2022 - Volume 48, Issue 49 - "Perfect Portland Dining Days"

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WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS

PAPER VOL. 48, ISSUE 49

Last summer, Dorian Cannon was found joyriding a stolen boat’s jet ski on the Willamette River. 8

Rene Gonzalez called for Portland Public Schools to reopen classrooms in October 2020. 10

You can get your grits fried (regulars recommend it) at Grits N’ Gravy. 16

Fans of Frito pie can order the Nacho Bag at Pine Street Market: Doritos smothered in cheese dip and queso fresco. 16 LeChon’s Bird in Hand cocktail is a riff on the Jungle Bird—the traditional welcome drink for Kuala Lumpur Hilton guests in the ’70s. 17

The ube latte at Cà Phê comes in a shade of Tinky Winky purple but isn’t nearly as sweet as it looks. 19

Fehrenbacher Hof’s cinnamon twist is the best baked good in town , but getting your hands on one is a game of chance. 20 James Beard called RingSide’s

onion rings the best he ever tasted. He wasn’t wrong. 20 Breakside Brewery serves beer out of a refurbished 1972 Winnebago at the Collective Oregon Eateries food cart pod. 21

Obon Shokudo is the only vegan homestyle Japanese restaurant in town. 24

When out-of-town friends ask what to eat in Portland, point them to the 18-ounce pork chop at Phuket Cafe. 27 Oregon has an award-winning cowboy poet (because of course we do). 29

The latest buzzed-about cannabinoid, HHC , is a hydrogenated form of THC that was first synthesized by a chemist in the 1940s. 31 Alex G is not above a jokey cover of “Life Is a Highway.” 32

On Nov. 20, 2013, a fireball soared over the Willamette Valley and disappeared into the rising sun. 33

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Expanding Arts & Culture Coverage

Bringing Portland more stories that matter.

This week we are asking Willamette Week readers to help us raise funds to expand our arts & culture coverage. Portland and Oregon have witnessed their artists and cultural institutions severely challenged over the past years. Now that the region is opening up again, it’s important for our city and region to be informed, celebrate and rejoice in the vast array of cultural offerings available in this area.

Head to wweek.com/support to become a Friend of Willamette Week and contribute to our efforts.

Proponents of ranked-choice voting say it’s like booking a plane to Houston: You don’t have to understand how a jet engine works to have a safe flight. Using that analogy, think of last week’s edition of WW as a paper airplane. We test-piloted the proposed new system of voting, a rankedchoice ballot in multimember districts (“Portland’s New Math,” Oct. 5). In our test run, we took beloved fairy-tale characters like Mother Goose and the Big Bad Wolf and gamed out how they’d fare in different scenarios. Here’s what our readers had to say:

TOMMCCALLSSCOTCH

GLASS, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Ranked-choice incentivizes a push to the moderate middle. Trying to capture as many votes even as a second or third pick as possible. For those who have a hard time extrapolating, this means politicians who want to win will need to appeal to a broader and more inclusive base of voters. Without having a parliamentary coalition government with five to seven different parties, rankedchoice will at least move us away from the extremes.”

SCARY SHRIMP SEASON, VIA TWITTER: “Thank you for doing this write-up. Anyone who still claims it’s ‘confusing’ should be pointed here.”

TERRY HARRIS, VIA TWITTER: “I tried to explain without a whiteboard over dinner with friends this weekend and mostly failed. It was hard enough to just get past the ‘one ballot-three coun cilors’ thing. Then, the fractional vote transfers mostly brought big laughs.”

PK, VIA WWEEK.COM: “‘One person, one vote’ is a bedrock principle of democracy, right? In the Charter Review Commission proposal (multimember districts and RCV), those who vote for the eliminated least-popular candidate essentially vote a second time when the Big Bad Wolf’s votes are redistributed, while everyone else is stuck at one vote. With each elimination round, those who vote for eliminated candidates get to

vote again, diluting the value of votes for popular candidates. That is the effect of a single transferable vote in multirepresentative districts.”

MARJORIE J. SIMPSON, VIA WWEEK.COM: “And why do we have to go through this algebra exercise in order to elect people to City Council? Oh, that’s right, because the proponents of Mea sure 26-228 think Portlanders are all racist and we need a computer to calculate fractions of votes in order to make us less racist. Except the majority of our current City Council is from minority com munities living in East Portland, and the open seat is contested by a Black woman and Hispanic male who both live in East Portland.

“But apparently that’s not rep resentative enough for the handful of nonprofit organizations shoving hundreds of thousands of dollars to convince voters this shiny new voting system is better than what they (and 99.9% of Americans) have been using their whole lives.

“And I wish WW would factcheck their stories. They simulate single transferable vote, but then note that Benton County and Alas ka use it, which isn’t true. Those areas use normal ranked-choice voting, not this math Ph.D. disser tation known as single transfer vote.”

NOT SO COMPLICATED

My God, how much are you fishing (phishing) for a scandal here? I lived in Minneapolis during the first election where that largely functioning city used RCV to vote

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

I read your column on those outrageously priced condos [Dr. Know, WW, Sept. 28]. How do we get this to stop? Also, how do we get Wash ington to put a cap on rent increases like Oregon’s? (Although I think even 10% per year is a lot!) —Linda H.

I assume the “this” you want to stop is sky rocketing housing prices in Portland. Here’s the thing: Greedy developers are bulldozing beau tiful, historic homes in desirable neighborhoods to build ugly, high-priced apartment blocks for rich assholes. The problem is that they’re not doing it nearly fast enough.

Look, I love a 1920s Craftsman as much as the next guy; I’m not saying this because I’m bitter (although I am) that I can’t afford to live in one. But think about it: If some six-figure-earning tech bro can’t find a luxury building, he doesn’t just vanish in a puff of bitcoin. (If only!) He still needs a place to live, and now he’s going to go after the crummier,

for city council and mayor. IT WAS NOT THAT DIFFICULT! Serious ly. Now, knowing the Oregon and Portland ways of making simple solutions bafflingly complex and prone to fail, the way they structure the ballot will have a big impact on this, but I recall it was as simple as filling in a bubble in the column for first choice and then another bubble for second choice, and so on.

Seriously, WWeek, you seem to be hell-bent on turning this once die-hard supporter of your news paper into a strong critic and foe, and you’re starting to win. I once thought about contributing to your fund, but with this kind of nonsen sical and grossly underinformed “journalism,” the chances of me doing so are about 0.00023%. Did you ever think to pick up the phone and call voters in Minneapolis or other areas that use RCV to see what their experience has been like? Talk about LAZY reporting… I can also tell you that in four short years, the Minneapolis City Council has seen a significant shift in who has been voted in—out went the older white guys and in came a much more diverse (race, gender, age, etc.) council. Of 12 members, I think only two are still on the council from 2017’s ballot. You also need a better copy edit ing team. The number of obvious and embarrassing mistakes that I find in nearly every issue is getting larger and larger. I’d volunteer to help, but you already have preconceived notions about most topics, so I’m sure you don’t think you need help.

Andy Reichert Outer Southeast Portland (i.e., one of the parts of town forgotten and ignored by WW and Portland government)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek. com

more busted places you and I used to be able to afford, driving up the price.

In a perfect world, we’d be building just as many cheap apartments for poor people as we do expensive apartments for rich people. But increasing the number of available units at any level (within reason) helps reduce price pressure across the board. So when you see one of those awful buildings going up, swallow hard and remember it’s for the best.*

As to your second question, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that Washington state law forbids rent control of any kind. There’s a push to change that (Seat tle’s city council passed a resolution urging repeal in 2015), but don’t hold your breath. The good news in Oregon is that with inflation at 8%, the true cost of our 10% per year increase is more like 2%.

Psych! Just kidding—we didn’t pay much attention back when inflation had been steady at 2% to 3% forever, but our cap was actually written not as a flat 10%, but as the rate of inflation plus 7%. Thus, in 2023, landlords can jack up the rent a full 14.6%. Chalk up another win for The Man (assuming you have any chalk left).

*You’d think it wouldn’t be controversial to suggest one solution to a housing shortage is more housing, but I bet I’ll get letters.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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JAILERS NIX SHOWING OF PRISON REFORM

FILM: The First Step, a documentary about successful, bipartisan federal prison reforms pro duced by former WW journalist Lance Kramer and directed by his brother Brandon Kramer, made its local debut last week at the Portland Art Museum. The film explores how a Black activist, Van Jones, worked with the Trump ad ministration to reduce sentences and the terms of incarceration for tens of thousands of pris oners. Lance Kramer has shown the film at jails and prisons across the country—and he sought permission to show it at the Multnomah County Jail. But Stephanie C. LaCarrubba, a manager in Sheriff Mike Reese’s office, said prison reform was not an appropriate topic for prisoners. “To ensure MCSO’s values are in concert with our en tire community, it is imperative that we maintain bright lines around political positions or mes saging,” she wrote in an email. In his response, Kramer expressed disappointment. “The film is an independent, nonpartisan project,” he wrote. “It’s not an initiative of any political party, candi date or media company. We’ve worked very hard over many years to represent the issue and story in a nuanced, complex and accurate manner that does not take political sides.”

LABOR UNION ALLEGES MEIERAN THREAT ENED REVENGE: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 88, which represents 3,700 Multnomah County employees, filed complaints with the Oregon Employment Relations Board and Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s office on Oct. 11. The complaints allege County Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who’s running for county chair, waged an unsuccessful pressure campaign this summer to gain an endorsement from the union. They say Meieran first asked union representatives to either endorse both her and her opponent or water down their support for Jessica Vega Ped erson. When the union declined, according to union documents, Meieran called union president Joslyn Baker to say she’d no longer participate in bargaining sessions. The secretary of state complaint argues Meieran used undue influence to garner support for her campaign: “Simply put, Meieran’s communications with Baker sought to bully Baker into supporting her candidacy. In the words of the statute, Commissioner Meieran was using her authority and power to ‘coerce’ or ‘command’ [the union] to ‘promote’ her election.” Meieran says the allegations are false. “The tim ing of this complaint, a week before ballots drop, doesn’t pass the smell test,” she tells WW. “It seems more like a political hit job, with AFSCME signaling how far they will go to advance their chosen candidate and protect the status quo. I trust voters are able to see through this cynical political ploy.”

PORTLAND COPS ARE FINDING MORE GUNS:

Police are recovering more guns from Portland streets than ever, according to new data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire arms and Explosives. The agency helps local law enforcement trace original sellers of guns found at crime scenes. The ATF conducted 1,339 such traces in Portland last year, according to a report published last month, which is likely a record—it was the largest number of traces reported in the previous 10 years of data reviewed by WW. It’s also a 50% increase from the number of guns recovered a decade earlier. Not all agencies use the ATF’s gun trace program consistently, so the data is not always a reliable way to deter mine the frequency of guns recovered. But Lt. Nathan Sheppard, a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau, tells WW the bureau “consistent ly” sends all recovered guns to the ATF. “Any observed increase in gun trace data,” Sheppard says, “would directly correlate to an increase in the number of guns recovered.”

PAMPLIN PENSION FUND HACKED: As WW has previously reported, Robert Pamplin Jr., owner of the Portland Tribune and 23 other Oregon news papers, has, as sole trustee of his corporation’s pension fund, made a series of risky and poten tially illegal transfers of underused real estate from Pamplin companies to the fund. Now those pensioners have another worry. On Sept. 21, the company notified 2,400 participants in the near ly $100 million pension fund that hackers “had not only encrypted the company’s data, they also acquired and began to sell certain data on the dark web regarding employees, retirees and ben eficiaries.” In response, Pamplin representative Gary Williams told participants the company had upgraded security and software and “recovered or rebuilt the data that was subject to cyberat tack.” The plan’s assets—stocks, bonds and real estate—were not subject to the hack. A Pamplin spokesman declined to comment

CANDIDATES READY TO GO WILD: Multnomah County ballots arrive in Portland mailboxes next week. You know what that means: It’s time for a talent show! Candidates Gone Wild, WW ’s cavalcade of politicos enduring mild embarrass ment, returns to Revolution Hall at 8 pm Monday, Oct. 17. Along with candidates on the November ballot—City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, her challenger Rene Gonzalez, and county chair hopeful Sharon Meieran—the show will include appearances and cameos by Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, comedian Patton Oswalt, Portland Public Schools board members Michelle DePass and Herman Greene, former Mayor Sam Adams and the Unipiper. Terry Porter and Storm Large host. Tickets can be purchased for $12 at https://tinyurl.com/vtmvan3h.

PIPING HOT: The Unipiper

NEED

Dorian Cannon

A murder suspect fell through every crack in Oregon’s mental health system.

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

Two times in as many days, 50-year-old Dorian Cannon was shipped by Clackamas County sheriff’s deputies to a hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Twice, he was arrested again within hours.

The first time, Cannon walked out of a local hospital and was arrested for obstructing traffic at a Happy Valley intersection. The second time, he was sent to the Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Portland and was arrested the next day for allegedly stabbing another man to death on an Old Town street corner Sept. 30.

Cannon’s was one of four homicide cases that weekend—a spike in violence that Portland police described as a “tragic coincidence,” but which further investigation by WW has shown are symptoms of civic systems gone awry.

Last week, WW reported that the alleged perpetrator of an other Old Town stabbing, Kalil Ford, 20, had been released from jail the day before after police failed to recover video evidence that would have helped prosecutors justify holding him behind bars.

Now, WW has examined the criminal and medical histories of a second alleged perpetrator, Cannon, to understand how the systems that were supposed to treat him and protect the community from the violent symptoms of his disease failed to do either.

“He dropped right through a hundred outstretched hands,” says Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland. Renaud points to the state’s shortage of “step down” housing, which can help hospitalized patients transition into the com munity.

MEASURED IMPACT

Initial research of Measure 110 finds no correlation between decriminalization of drugs and calls for police service.

As the Nov. 8 general election approaches, crime and the condition of people living on Oregon’s streets are hot-button issues.

Part of the discussion: Measure 110, the ballot initiative voters approved in 2020 by 58% to 42%. The measure decriminalized possession for personal consumption of many drugs, in cluding methamphetamine and heroin, and diverted most of the state’s recreational canna bis tax revenue to new referral and treatment services for substance abusers. Decriminaliza tion began in February 2021; treatment funds are only now beginning to flow.

RTI International, an independent, nonparti san research firm based in North Carolina’s Re search Triangle, got an interesting assignment earlier this year: Figure out how well Measure 110 is working.

Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy funded by billionaire John Arnold, gave RTI a four-year

A spokeswoman for Unity, Elizabeth Baker, declined to com ment on Cannon’s stay at the clinic, citing state and federal laws. But Baker sent WW a lengthy statement defending the Legacy Health-owned institution, noting that it cares for more than 1,000 patients each month, most of them homeless, and has experienced a “consistent increase in numbers” in recent years.

“We will continue to advocate for the resources and support we know are greatly needed,” the statement concludes.

A review of Cannon’s criminal history shows Unity was just the last of many safety nets he fell through.

Cannon’s criminal history goes back decades. His first con viction came when he was 19, according to court documents. The first record of him WW could find in Oregon dates back to 2004, when he was cited for theft and dodging TriMet fares.

At some point, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He recently told a county employee he had been homeless for 25 years and cycled in and out of Oregon State Hospital, the state’s locked psychiatric ward, five times.

Defendants too mentally ill to “aid and assist” in their own defense are sent to the state hospital to be treated and, in theory at least, recover their sanity.

Over the following two decades, Cannon was charged with 10 felonies. And Cannon’s illness—and his crimes—became more acute.

2015: Police arrested Cannon at gunpoint after he boarded a bus downtown and threatened to slit the bus driver’s throat after he refused to refund 35 cents Cannon had paid.

2019: Another TriMet bus driver denied him a refund. This time, Cannon called him the N-word and kicked open the bus door, breaking the glass. He was convicted of criminal mischief and a bias crime. He was put on probation.

2020: Cannon was again convicted for addressing a bus driver with the same slur while hanging on to the front windshield and brandishing a knife. This time, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison, minus credit for time served.

TriMet banned him from the public transit system for a year, beginning in March 2021.

August 2021: Cannon was caught stealing a boat from River place Marina—and hiring someone to pilot it to the ocean. He didn’t make it far. The owner called police after finding Cannon joyriding the boat’s jet ski in the Willamette River. Cannon told police he “came to the boat to party.”

November 2021: Cannon was hauled to jail when he failed to show up for court, and was later hospitalized.

June 2022: He made a deal with prosecutors: His 30-month sentence was reduced to one year and one day—most of which he had already served. “I’m glad to be here, honestly,” he told the judge, and promised to get a job to pay the $1,400 in restitution he owed the boat owner.

Sept. 9: Cannon finished serving his prison time and was put on 24 months’ supervised probation to ensure he continued taking his medication. But he wasn’t released. Nor was he transferred to a treatment facility.

Instead, he was back in jail. There was a warrant out for his arrest on a previous harassment charge in Clackamas County. But the county sheriff quickly determined that Cannon needed treatment.

Sept. 27: A Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy found Cannon in the middle of the street near a pediatric dental clinic in Happy Valley. How he got there remains a mystery.

Jail administrators were holding Cannon until a bed opened up at Unity, according to a clerk who answered the phone at the jail. Instead, an ambulance took him to a local hospital, which he apparently walked away from hours later.

Chris Owens, a Clackamas County prosecutor, said he was told that was a mistake.

A spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office of fered an explanation that only raises more questions about the county’s handling of Cannon’s case: “Once a patient is in the custody of [American Medical Response], their policies and procedures for transporting patients determine which facility they transport to,” Deputy John Wildhaber wrote.

Regardless, Cannon was brought back to county jail and suc cessfully transported to Unity the next morning.

Sept. 28: Cannon was transported to Multnomah County’s parole and probation office for an interview. There, officials tried unsuccessfully to find him housing. None of the facilities would take Cannon due to his extensive criminal history, says county spokeswoman Jessica Morkert-Shibley.

The county is short “longer-term, transitional beds,” Mork ert-Shibley adds. “Demand outweighs supply.” Instead, Cannon was sent to a shelter and told to report to his probation officer the next day.

He didn’t. Instead, police arrested him outside the Union Gospel Mission on West Burnside Street in Old Town. Witnesses said Cannon had stabbed Anthony Hartley, 40, in the neck. “I had to do it for my humanity,” Cannon allegedly told the arresting officer.

and how it was impacting the law enforcement agencies that were told to carry it out.

We visited four counties, two large and two small, separated geographically. We spoke to 20 people in law enforcement, including police, district attorney’s offices, community correc tions and juvenile justice. And then the other 14 individuals represented social service and health agencies, including treatment and harm reduction agencies.

What did you hear in those interviews?

grant to evaluate M110. Arnold shifted from managing money to focusing on public policy in 2012 (he spent $2.75 million in 2014 on an unsuccessful measure to open Oregon’s pri maries). RTI, founded in 1958, employs 6,000 experts in policy analysis. It formed a team of criminologists, sociologists, epidemiologists and economists to evaluate Oregon’s first-inthe-nation experiment.

Earlier this year, RTI staff traveled to Ore gon to interview 34 people in law enforcement and social services about Measure 110—and, when the team began crunching numbers on its first data set, calls for police service. (Like FBI crime stats and Multnomah County’s bi annual homeless count, calls for service are an

imperfect indicator, but they provide a basis for comparison with other cities and over time.)

Hope Smiley-McDonald, director of RTI’s Investigative Sciences program, led the first of a series of looks at Measure 110.

In an interview that’s been condensed and edited for clarity, she told WW what her team found. NIGEL JAQUISS.

WW: How did you evaluate Measure 110?

Hope Smiley-McDonald: To start, we concen trated on law enforcement since the decrim inalization aspect of Measure 110 was imple mented first. We looked at two components of the law enforcement piece: how Measure 110 was rolling out in particular communities

Law enforcement representatives gave us the impression that Measure 110 had resulted in increased crimes, especially as it related to property crimes and disorder.

They would often tell us, “Measure 110 has resulted in more crimes. We’re seeing a lot more property crimes than we have before. A lot more disorderly conduct.” They really were clear that there was a before and after.

What data did you look at?

Calls for service. Those data reflect what the public is asking law enforcement to handle. And it also provides a window into how officers are spending their time. We compared Portland to peer cities over time to see what was going on in Oregon before and after.

Collection Basket

Oregon passed a 2019 law to ensure nonprofit hospitals provided sufficient charity care. A union says it’s not working.

Tim Stricker got a blast from the past a couple of months ago—notice from a collection agency that he owed $1,668 for a visit to a Providence emergency room in 2008.

A Southeast Portland resident, Stricker, 32, says he was on Medicaid at the time—which means the government program for low-income Oregonians should have covered his bill.

“I have fought with Providence in the past about this bill with no luck. It originally was a $600 to $700 bill, and now I’m being forced to pay double that,” Stricker says. “Prov idence should worry less about [money] and more about taking care of the people within their communities.”

Providence said it couldn’t comment because Stricker lost his bill.)

Bottom line: We’re really not seeing any change in Portland’s calls for service initiated by the public after Measure 110 was enacted. It’s pretty surprising to see that Portland mirrors its sister cities because there is a perception that, after Measure 110, crimes have increased and the public is no longer as supportive as in 2020.

Is it possible Portlanders simply stopped calling the police?

If that’s the case, then you would expect the calls for service to go down right after 110. That’s not the case.

What else will RTI look at?

We are certainly going to be looking at over dose fatality data, but those data have a bit of a lag time. The main drivers of change with overdose in terms of substance use treatment and harm reduction services are not really in place just yet. We’re probably not really looking to see what that change looks like, at least for another year.

What would you say to citizens upset by Measure 110?

I would urge patience. Any benefits from Mea sure 110 won’t appear in the health outcomes data for some time because the treatment and harm reduction services were only just funded in the past three months.

Providence operates 51 hospitals across the West and in Texas, including six in Oregon, as well as more than 900 clinics. It is structured as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which means it pays no taxes on profits or on most property. In exchange, Providence is supposed to serve Medicaid patients such as Stricker and provide free or steeply discounted care to uninsured patients who cannot pay their bills.

A New York Times investigation published last month, however, found that Providence aggressively pursued Med icaid patients and spent less than its peers on charity care. Its practices are the subject of a lawsuit filed by the state of Washington. Providence called the Times’ findings “absurd.”

Just how much charity care nonprofit hospitals should provide is a sore point. In Oregon, where 58 of 60 hospitals are nonprofits, Service Employees International Union Local 49, which represents custodians and home health care workers has long pushed hospitals to be more generous.

That push culminated in a 2019 law requiring hospitals to treat patients more fairly and offer a minimum level of charity care, including no charge for uninsured patients earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level.

On Oct. 11, SEIU published a report that reviewed Provi dence’s and nine other Oregon hospital systems’ compliance with the new law.

“If these nonprofit health systems truly want to live up to their missions, they need to match their public personas to what patients actually experience,” says SEIU Local 49 political director Felisa Hagins. “But no, instead, they seem to be creating roadblocks that prevent patients from accessing financial assistance and failing to comply with state financial assistance laws.”

Providence spokesman Gary Walker says Providence disagrees with SEIU’s criticism.

“ We absolutely understand how stressful it can be to deal with medical bills. We take this incredibly seriously and don’t want financial hardship to ever get in the way of needed care,” Walker says. “Providence’s charity care policy in Oregon already exceeds the requirements under state law.”

Becky Hultberg, CEO of the Oregon Association of Hos pitals and Health Systems, also takes issue with the union’s report. “SEIU released a document at a suspect time that provides a limited and incomplete picture of hospital finan cial assistance practices,” Hultberg says. “At a time when patient care is threatened due to staffing shortages and financial instability, we must work together to preserve access to care in Oregon.”

Here are five findings from the SEIU report:

1. Compliance with basic parts of the law is spotty. Most hospital systems, SEIU found, “are employing practices that effectively obscure the availability of financial assistance or create unnecessary challenges for qualifying patients to complete the application process.”

2. Hospital systems are seeking more information than the law allows, “demanding that applicants provide in formation about assets (like savings and checking account balances), despite the law being clear that household income is the only criterion.”

3. They are “aggressively sending patients to collections well before their window to apply for financial assis tance has closed.” Federal law gives patients 240 days to seek financial assistance, but the union says Oregon hospitals often send accounts to collections after just three months.

4. Many patients eligible for assistance receive‚ and are made to pay for, care at clinics the hospital systems own. The 2019 law covers such clinics, but SEIU found hos pital systems are doing a poor job of allowing clinic patients access to the same financial assistance they are eligible for at hospitals. “A review of the plain language summaries for all 10 systems reveal that it still isn’t obvious that financial assistance can be accessed,” the union’s report says.

5. Although all of the hospital systems SEIU examined offer online bill payment to make it more convenient for patients to pay, the union found the technology is far less robust for patients seeking charity care: “The majority of sys tems we reviewed appeared to only accept applications by fax, mail, or in person.”

MILK MONEY

appears to have changed.

Neither Berggruen nor NBP returned calls or emails seeking comment.

Address: 915 NE 21st Ave.

Year built: 1928 Square footage: 1,530 Market value: $873,280

Owner: NE 20th Artist Studios

LLC

How long it’s been empty: Since 1993 Why it’s empty: We don’t use the telegraph anymore.

The fate of the old Sunshine Dairy on Northeast 21st Avenue appears to reside with a French-born Ger man American billionaire who once sold everything he owned except a small bag of clothes, his BlackBerry, and a Gulfstream IV jet that used to roam the world looking for deals.

Nicolas Berggruen, born in Paris to a wealthy art dealer, according to The Washington Post, owns a majority stake in NBP Capital, a local real estate company that has been buying up marquee proper ties in Portland in recent years, including the old Multnomah County Courthouse and a 290unit apartment complex near the South Waterfront.

In February 2019, NBP Capital paid $8.1 million for the Sunshine Dairy building, and the tiny Fire Alarm Telegraph building that sits just north of it. On the dairy site, the company plans to build a seven-story, 271-unit apartment building with parking under neath, according to documents filed with the city of Portland.

T he Fire Alarm Telegraph building was built in 1928 as a hub for a system of 750 “pull boxes” around the city where Portlanders could report fires. The messages went through the little building on 21st and Pacific Street and were relayed to the closest of 16 fire stations. The building shut in 1993, replaced by a 911 call center in Southeast Portland.

“The walls in the stone build ing had heard millions of cries for help from citizens of Portland, and alerted firefighters to respond with its electronic circuits and underground cables,” Portland Fire & Rescue says in a history of firefighting on its website.

Schematic drawings show the telegraph building untouched.

The Portland Design Com mission approved the project in December 2019, just before the pandemic thrashed the world economy. Since then, artists have dressed the building in a stunning series of murals. Beyond that sur face adornment, however, nothing

NBP Capital was founded by the sister-and-brother team of Lau ren and Spencer Noecker. Lauren graduated from the University of Southern California in 2004, and Spencer got his bachelor’s from the University of Oregon two years later. The pair started NBP in 2008 and partnered with Berg gruen a year later.

NBP calls its project the Dairy Apartments, an homage to the Sunshine Dairy, which operated on the site from 1936 until 2018, when it went bankrupt with $12 million in debt.

Strange though it may seem, Berggruen, the vagabond billion aire, has a history in Oregon. In addition to his real estate deals, Berggruen invested $80 million in an ethanol plant in Clatskanie that operated for just seven months before shutting down (“Corndog gle,” WW, April 7, 2009).

Judging from his lifestyle, Berg gruen’s other investments have performed better. These days he lives like a philosopher king, à la Plato. He runs something called the Berggruen Institute in L.A., which “addresses fundamental political and cultural questions in our rapidly changing world,” the institute’s website says.

Berggruen’s latest project is called “Antikythera,” which he describes as “a new program re orienting planetary computation as a philosophical, technological and geopolitical force.” (The proj ect takes its name from an ancient Greek astronomical computing device found in a shipwreck off the Greek island of the same name.)

Meanwhile, back at the Dairy Blocks, Lauren Noecker is in charge. In 2015, her brother Spen cer went hard into the cannabis business, buying warehouses for grow operations. In a six-month span, he bought 400,000 square feet for $26 million.

These days, Spencer runs two weed companies. PDX Industrial Investments buys industrial and retail buildings and leases them to his other company, Groundworks Operations LLC, which, according to his personal website, “rethinks, redefines, and sets the bar for pro gressive cannabis culture through artistic vision, scientific rigor and world-class talents.”

One can see why the Noeckers and Berggruen get along. ANTHO NY EFFINGER.

Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Port land, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next.

The fate of the old Sunshine Dairy rests with a jetsetting philosopher king and his cannabis consorts.

STAT!: Advocates want Oregon hospitals to offer more charity care.

Fever Pitch

Rene Gonzalez would return Portland to a simpler time: 2019. To many voters, that’s an appealing offer.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

Rene Gonzalez senses this is his moment.

“There’s no doubt I’m a place-and-time candidate,” Gonzalez tells WW. “I don’t think I would’ve been successful in other cycles.”

One of those election cycles: 2018, when Portlanders sent Jo Ann Hardesty to the Portland City Council. That vote felt like an act of resistance—electing a life long critic of the Portland Police Bureau at a moment when citizens were defying President Donald Trump and the city seemed relatively peaceful.

Gonzalez, 48, is Hardesty’s polar opposite. With a placid demeanor and a closet full of sweater vests, the lawyer, small-business owner and soccer club founder promises to restore calm to a city that’s been ravaged by the pandemic, record gun violence and civil unrest.

In some ways, Gonzalez’s platform is simple: more police, more homeless camp sweeps, more law and order. He argues Hardesty’s positions have made Port land less safe, both by alienating the police force and indulging camping in parks and on sidewalks.

That’s a strong pitch for residents reaching their breaking point.

Is it also a sign of a city moving backward?

After all, Gonzalez seeks to unseat the first Black woman elected to the City Council—an official whose unrelenting criticism of cops spurred the police union president to leak a report to The Oregonian falsely implicating her in a crime (“Zero Hour,” WW, Dec. 15, 2021).

Gonzalez, who is of Mexican descent, argues he is no less a champion for people of color than Hardesty has been. “I think there’s a group of far-left voters who feel Jo Ann is their champion. I think they’ll feel a loss there,” he says. “But I’m not sure you’re going to hear that from the Black community, the Asian community, the Latino community.”

Berenice Lopez-Dorsey owns three construction businesses in town. She voted for Hardesty in 2018. Now she’s firmly in Camp Rene.

“ We used to be more engaged in the diversity of the community without having to worry about whether we were politically correct or hurting people’s feelings,” Lopez-Dorsey says. “It felt like he was really listening to that. Him being a biracial child and me having a biracial family, it’s not about one group or the other,

it’s about all of us together.”

Over the past two weeks, WW spoke to 20 associates of Gonzalez. They described a man whose political engagement grew out of a sense that Portland had responded too radically to the pandemic—and that its policies would harm the people they were supposed to help.

Gonzalez says Portlanders in 2018 were willing to experiment with Hardesty: “We thought we could accept things that were a little out there if they don’t fundamentally imperil core livability.”

Gonzalez says he voted for her. Now he argues her policies have, in fact, imperiled core livability. So he’s running on a platform of restoring it.

To understand the base that propelled Gonzalez into politics, just visit Delta Park in North Portland on a Saturday morning. There, you’ll see hundreds of kids in blue-and-white soccer kits—and their parents.

Gonzalez helped build United PDX, the city’s largest youth soccer club. It serves about 3,000 kids a year and has 400 adult volunteers—and it was a logical spring board to his involvement in groups that advocated to reopen public schools.

“A soccer club might seem like a small thing, but it’s really an emotionally loaded organization because people are dealing with their kids,” says supporter

Matt Compton, investor and former board vice pres ident of United PDX. “Navigating that gives me a lot of confidence. He’s not going to shy away from what he believes in.”

Soccer was an early passion for Gonzalez, who grew up in a middle-class home in Anchorage, Alaska. His dad, a retired federal prosecutor and judge, is Mexican American and his mom is white.

Childhood friend Mike Hallinan describes Gonzalez as “socially nimble”—along with playing soccer, he took all the honors classes and competed in a mock trial. “He was always confident and prepared,” Hallinan says.

Gonzalez played soccer at Willamette University while he studied history. Two of his former teammates say he was a natural leader. “I really looked up to him,” recalls Bearcat teammate Karl Hochtl. “He was a lit tle quieter, but he didn’t need to be loud to make his presence known.”

Gonzalez earned a law degree from Willamette Uni versity College of Law before working as a real estate

FIXER UPPER: Rene Gonzalez is running on a platform of restoring order to city streets.

and corporate lawyer at Stoel Rives and then as a law yer at Knowledge Universe, an international tutoring service.

In 2012, he started his own firm—with three employ ees, including his wife and himself—that helps mostly local beverage and food companies with mergers and acquisitions.

He also runs a software resale and implementation company that sells Microsoft services. He says the businesses each bring in about a million dollars a year in gross revenue. (During the pandemic, records show, his two businesses received a total of $219,000 in federal COVID relief dollars.)

He coached youth soccer on and off as his kids grew up (he has three, including twin girls in high school). Danielle Mackey’s daughter grew up playing soccer with Gonzalez’s daughters. He was her kid’s soccer coach in third grade, when the pinnacle of success was kicking the ball in the right general direction.

“He’d send us emails we’d get at 12:30 in the morning, two pages of his thoughts and plans and aspirations. It was a lot,” Mackey recalls. “It’s that piece of him where he has an idea and can see it through to fruition.”

Portland’s youth soccer world was where Gonzalez was best known until the pandemic. He merged two youth soccer clubs in 2018, one on each side of the Willamette River, to create United PDX, the biggest club in the state. And that’s where he entered politics.

Portland Public Schools shut down in early 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By that fall, Gonzalez wanted the district to reopen. To make his case, he tapped into a powerful force: sports parents.

He started small, with a Facebook group specific to Portland called “Opening PDX Schools.”

He widened his scope, brought in three soccer moms as co-founders, and formed ED300—an advocacy group and later a political action committee—to push state agencies, public officials and elected leaders to reopen schools.

As early as October 2020, ED300 and Gonzalez were writing emails asking that schools reopen, despite COVID vaccinations not yet being available.

Via public records requests, WW obtained the emails Gonzalez sent to the governor’s office, Portland Public Schools and the Oregon Department of Education.

In a lengthy, passionate letter to the Oregon Board of Education, Gonzalez wrote that the state wasn’t listening to enough Latino and male voices in discus sions whether to reopen schools. He wrote that it was impacting his business and soccer club and, more im portantly, the mental health of children.

“I think there’s a group of far-left voters who feel Jo Ann is their champion. I think they’ll feel a loss there. But I’m not sure you’re going to hear that from the Black community, the Asian community, the Latino community.”

Board chair Kimberly Howard was cordial but not receptive: “We cannot ignore this pandemic is still very much a reality,” she wrote back. “COVID-19 infection rates are on the rise again across Oregon. In the first week of October, we experienced our highest daily case count.”

Gonzalez thanked Howard for her response and wrote back: “I truly believe our response to COVID is materially imperiling the quality of life in this beautiful city and state. My worry is that those impacts will last longer than the virus haunts us.”

Some parents of color say ED300 was a predom inantly white, middle-class movement that left out communities of color. Rashelle Chase-Miller, a Black

parent, joined ED300 only briefly before leaving.

“Their argument was, the kids were missing soccer and kids were missing prom. But the counter is, the kids in our community risk losing their parents and grandparents,” Chase-Miller says. “They were dismis sive and downplayed that. There was no effort to hear from the Black community. It was always speaking for or over, never speaking to.”

Gonzalez acknowledges the leadership of ED300 was mostly white. But keeping schools closed, he says, “did immense harm to the kids they purport to be protect ing. I think they’re on the wrong side of history as far as the cost-benefit to Black and brown children.”

Last year, ED300 endorsed a slate of school board candidates across the state. More than half were also endorsed by Oregon Right to Life, Oregon Moms Union or Oregon Family Council—groups fundamentally at odds with reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, pro gressive sex education in schools, or all three.

Gonzalez says he and other ED300 leaders focused solely on which candidates wanted to reopen schools.

“I wasn’t doing the calculus that I was running for City Council,” Gonzalez says. “I was completely focused on how to get kids back into school safely. We didn’t get caught up in broader things.”

Whether ED300 successfully pressured Portland Public Schools into reopening of classrooms faster is a matter of debate. But it clearly propelled Gonzalez into politics. (He considered running for Multnomah County chair but felt he lacked the requisite experi ence.)

The passion and organization, including email lists and social media groups, that parents bring to a polit ical race are potent tools. And they may explain why Gonzalez surprised many observers (including this newspaper) when he narrowly bested Vadim Mozyrsky in the primary, despite a nearly $200,000 independent expenditure campaign that Mozyrsky’s supporters—or, more accurately, Hardesty’s critics—funded.

Gonzalez’s ties to parent groups not only provided him a stealth base, they put him in touch with a seething group of voters deeply unhappy with the status quo.

“There was an element of, things were really bad,” he recalls. “And where can you use the ED300 experience to make an impact?”

In some ways, voters this fall have a simple choice between Gonzalez and Hardesty. Their platforms are diametrically opposed on nearly all issues.

Gonzalez wants to enforce city laws against street camping. He thinks unhoused people who refuse shel ter should be issued court citations. Hardesty has long fought against sweeps, calling them inhumane.

Gonzalez wants to hire more police officers to quell crime, whereas Hardesty says the number of police in a city does not correlate to the amount of gun violence.

Hardesty championed street protests following the murder of George Floyd. Gonzalez tells WW the civil unrest of 2020 wasn’t worth it: “It did more harm than good because of the scars it left on downtown.”

Perhaps most telling: Gonzalez says the group least represented by City Council right now are parents of school-aged children.

That’s a very different concept of underrepresented groups than that now discussed at City Hall. “The city has little to no impact on education,” says state Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Portland). “No politician can be all things to all people, and the relative importance of a Black woman’s voice on City Council is the represen tation that I want to see.”

But Gonzalez’s perspective on citizen participation at least shows a consistency in his thinking: To anyone who says he would erase progress, he replies that what’s happened over the past two years wasn’t progress at all—it was chaos. And what Portland really needs is parenting.

“There was no way,” he says, “I would’ve put my family through this in any other moment.”

COURT AND SPARK

Gonzalez wants to bring back an institution that hasn’t existed in Portland for over 50 years: a municipal court.

Perhaps the most substantive policy idea that Rene Gonzalez has floated in this election is that Portland doesn’t just need more cops—it needs another court.

After a pair of meetings, one with Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton and another with Portland’s police union, Gonzalez was convinced Portland’s criminal justice system needed a shakeup.

Crime, by all appearances, is up. But Gonzalez was shocked to learn that prosecutions of misdemeanors in Portland are down. Way down. In 2011, there were 18,828 misdemeanor cases. In 2019, that number had dropped to 8,824. Then the pandemic hit. In 2021, there were 2,840 cases.

“Portlanders aren’t getting justice,” Gonzalez says.

There are many reasons for the lethargy within Portland’s criminal justice system. Police are short-staffed and arrests are down. The county jail lost capacity during the pandemic and refused to accept low-level misdemeanors. The Multnomah County Circuit Court is backlogged and attorney caseloads have skyrocketed.

A lawyer who Gonzalez met at a constituent meeting in East Portland proposed a solution: resurrect an institution that has been extinct for over 50 years, Portland’s municipal court, and task it with addressing low-level crime.

Gonzalez mulled the idea—including running it by his father, a former prosecutor and trial judge—and decided to make it a central plank of his campaign.

There are currently 150 municipal courts across the state, including several in Multnomah County. Sam Erskine, the contract prosecutor for Troutdale’s municipal court, says such courts are “much more a reflection of the city” they represent. When well managed and funded, he says, they can work well—particularly given the challenges faced by circuit courts still reeling from pandemic-related backlogs.

Prior to 1970, many crimes, including misdemeanors, were under the jurisdiction of Portland’s municipal court. It was the subject of frequent critiques. Former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, then a City Council candidate, told an Oregonian reporter in 1970 that it dispensed “bargain basement justice.” In an effort to boost efficiency and eliminate unequal sentencing, the municipal court was scrapped and its jurisdiction handed over to the Multnomah County Circuit Court.

The decision lives in on law, which shifts jurisdiction over “all violations of [Portland’s] charter and ordinances” from the municipal court to the circuit court, as well as in the city charter, where a section devoted to the municipal court has been scrubbed.

Gonzalez says he wants to spend $1 million on a pilot project, with legal work done by law students. In theory, Gonzalez says, the court could pay for itself. But that has its own complications. In an investigation in the wake of the Ferguson, Mo., unrest, the U.S. Department of Justice pointed to exploitative practices, including excessive fees, in the city’s municipal court system.

Gonzalez’s “initial take” is that he can get a pilot running without changes to state law— although he admits he might need changes to the city charter to do it.

He isn’t the first to float the idea. The last person to do it, City Com missioner Dan Saltzman, held the seat Gonzalez is now fighting for. Saltzman’s proposal to reinstate the municipal court to crack down on traffic violations was quickly batted down after a feasibility study found it would lose the city money.

Now, the bigger challenge might be rallying support from a city that has been more eager in recent years to contract rather than expand its judicial system. Gonzalez says he’s ready for pushback: “This is funda mentally questioning the status quo.” LUCAS MANFIELD.

Knight Moves

Oregon’s wealthiest man has caused Tina Kotek to take campaign finance limits seriously—or at least claim she does.

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

Tina Kotek, the Democratic nominee locked in a dead heat in the Oregon governor’s race, took time out from campaigning Oct. 10 to hold a “roundtable on campaign finance reform.” The event was occasioned by Nike co-founder Phil Knight writing Kotek’s Republican opponent, Christine Drazan, a check for $1 million on Oct. 6.

“Oregon is in danger of flipping red due to the influx of large donations from billionaires and corporate special interests looking to influence the election,” Kotek’s campaign wrote in an email publicizing the roundtable.

There’s some irony in Kotek’s newfound interest in limiting campaign contributions.

First, despite Knight’s check, Kotek led Drazan as of Oct. 10 in total fundraising: $16 million to $14.5 million.

Second, as the longest-serving House speaker in Oregon history (nine years, ending in January 2022), Kotek demonstrated a steely efficiency at passing difficult bills—except ones that would limit campaign contributions.

Democrats have professed interest in such limits for years, certainly since they took control of the Oregon Legislature in 2007. Yet, to cite just one example, the good-government watchdog group Common Cause took the unusual step in 2019 of launching a petition to put pressure on Kotek.

“The Oregon Legislature is SO close to passing real campaign finance reform—but with the session winding down to a close, House Speaker Tina Kotek refuses to move the bill,” the petition read, late in the 2019 session.

That bill, Senate Joint Resolution 18, passed on the final day of session and became Ballot Measure 107. (A companion bill that would have imposed contribution limits passed the House but

died without a vote in the Senate.) Measure 107, which amend ed the Oregon Constitution to allow campaign contribution and spending limits, passed in 2020 with more than 78% of the vote. But since then, the Legislature has failed to pass any bills enacting the contribution limits the constitution now allows.

Oregon remains one of just five states, according to the Na tional Conference of State Legislatures, that have no statewide contribution limits.

That has meant ever-escalating spending: In 2010, candidates for governor spent a combined $20 million; by 2018, that num ber had doubled. This year, Kotek, Drazan and the unaffiliated candidate, former state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose), have already raised more than $45 million, with nearly a month to go until Election Day.

Not all of that money has come from billionaires like Knight. Kotek has outraised her two opponents thanks to the largesse of organized labor, whose giving isn’t subject to limits either—and has poured $3 million into her campaign.

Unions have been leery of restrictions on their ability to make contributions, which has stalled progress on limits.

Kotek, who has built her career on strong relationships with unions, has never shown much enthusiasm for curbing their power. Kotek’s campaign spokeswoman, Katie Wertheimer, says if Kotek wins, however, she’ll push for limits.

“She has elevated this issue in her campaign because it’s a priority that she will bring forward as governor,” Wertheimer says. “In the meantime, the laws are what they are, and Tina is building a campaign to win.”

But Patrick Starnes, a cabinetmaker from Brownsville, Ore., who has twice run for governor on a one-issue platform—cam paign finance reform—says Kotek may finally have come to understand the importance of limits.

“Protecting your caucus as speaker in a safe Portland district is way different than running for statewide office in all 36 coun ties,” Starnes tells WW. “The former speaker didn’t plan on Phil Knight financing a signature-gathering spoiler,” referring to Johnson, whom Knight bankrolled earlier in the race.

Knight, 84, is clearly living rent-free in Democrats’ minds.

Once a supporter of Democratic candidates for governor—he backed former Govs. Neil Goldschmidt, John Kitzhaber and Ted Kulongoski—Knight dabbled with GOP nominee Chris Dudley in 2010 ($400,000) and went big for Republican Knute Buehler in 2018 ($2.5 million).

In the current cycle, Knight has given $2 million to GOP leg islative PACs, $3.75 million to Johnson, and now $1 million to Drazan.

Knight’s abrupt shift from Johnson to Drazan followed polling showing Johnson had almost no chance for victory. But it still sparked accusations that Knight never really supported Johnson and gave her money only to strip malleable voters away from Kotek.

On Oct. 5, Melissa Unger, executive director of the state’s largest labor organization, Service Employees International Union 503, voiced that theory on Twitter in a post that quickly gained traction.

“ Why would Phil Knight give $2 million to a candidate that can’t get over 20% in the polls and is not going to win?” Unger tweeted after Johnson disclosed that contribution on Oct. 3. “It is easy, he is working to make Republican Leader Christine Drazan governor.”

Then on Oct. 6, when Knight gave Drazan $1 million, Unger pounced: “This proves my point, Phil Knight wants Christine Drazan to be governor and he will give to her and Betsy Johnson to make it possible.”

But people familiar with Knight dispute the theory that he was playing games when he initially threw his support behind Johnson.

“They are thinking in petty political terms, and he doesn’t think that way,” says GOP political consultant Jim Pasero, who interviewed Knight for his newsletter in 2017, a rare instance in which Knight publicly discussed politics.

Pasero and others say Knight has relied on Buehler, the for mer orthopedic surgeon who lost to Gov. Kate Brown in 2018, for political advice. Buehler left the GOP after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and was an early supporter of the Johnson campaign, helping her raise money from many of his former supporters.

Buehler declined to comment on his relationship with Knight, but he says he believes Knight’s support for Johnson was genuine.

“Without a doubt,” Buehler says, adding that the suggestion that Knight gave money to Johnson to help Drazan is “preposterous.”

Knight gave Johnson $250,000 in January and then turned up at one of Johnson’s house parties, a phenomenon as rare as his granting an interview.

It was a couple of weeks after the Portland polling firm DHM Research released numbers showing that, if Johnson could get her message to voters, she had a decent chance to become only the second unaffiliated Oregon governor ever. “If I were Johnson,” DHM pollster John Horvick told WW on Feb. 1, “I’d be encouraged.”

On Feb. 17, dozens of Oregonians escaping the winter weather in Palm Springs, Calif., crowded into the vacation home of Susie Papé, whose family’s Eugene-based heavy equipment company traditionally supports Republicans. But like many of Oregon’s corporate elite, Papé was a longtime friend of Johnson’s.

People who attended the standing-room-only event say John son sold the audience, including Knight, on her vision for Oregon. From that day until Oct. 6, he would give her an additional $3.5 million. (The Papé Group has given Johnson $1 million.)

“Betsy Johnson has known Phil Knight for many years and considers him a friend,” says Jennifer Sitton, Johnson’s campaign manager. “This conspiracy theory is preposterous and utter nonsense—the Democrats are moving into left-wing QAnon territory.”

What’s clear is that Knight is willing to finance anyone who can defeat Kotek. If she wins, she has now promised to return the favor.

If elected, Wertheimer says, Kotek will put a damper on gath erings like the ones in Palm Springs—she’ll push for limits of $2,000 per individual donor.

MONEY MAN: Nike co-founder Phil Knight has shifted his seven-figure largesse in the Oregon governor’s race from Betsy Johnson to Christine Drazan.

PHOTOS BY DANNY FULGENCIO AND TIM TROUTMAN

P ortland has long been a city that is what it eats.

About a decade ago, we had such a strong reputation as farm-to-table foodies, Portlandia lam pooned us for caring too much about the quality of life our chickens had before they wound up on our dinner plates. Around the same time, a local chef made headlines for getting into a brawl over a pig’s out-of-state origins.

Portland also became known as a city that was early to embrace the pop-up, allowing ambitious chefs to ditch the dining room and take their skills to unusual surroundings—from wine shops to butcher blocks to private homes.

Then there is our love for food trucks, a culture that has lured immigrants and other entrepreneurs, who have formed delight ful, grub-based villages.

In other words, we’re fiercely loyal, wildly experimental, and endlessly adventurous when it comes to food.

But for the past two years, Portland’s culinary identity has been violently upended, first by the pandemic, then a catastrophic labor shortage, and most recently by soaring prices the likes of which haven’t been seen in 40 years.

Despite those challenges, it’s clear that we’re ready to return to the rituals of dining out, and the city’s eateries—both new and well established—are more than happy to save us a seat.

Sure, we’re not back to normal just yet. Customers continue to shuttle their meals home in takeout boxes at higher rates (16%) than they did pre-COVID, according to the National Restaurant Association. But the trade group also found that the percentage of people it surveyed who said they ate on the premises rath er than ordering food to go has continued an upward (though fitful) trajectory since spring 2021. What’s more, another poll conducted in September revealed that nearly one-half of adults would actually like to sit down at a restaurant more often.

Given this optimism, we thought it time to take the tempera ture of Portland’s food scene and get a sense of how a new iden

tity might be emerging on the other side of the pandemic. Our discovery: There’s not any single dominant theme, but a rich and diverse dining culture that’s sure to suit any taste.

We’ve had writers devouring their way through the city for weeks, developing their ultimate eating day itineraries—from breakfast to after-dinner dessert, including sips, snacks and happy-hour specials in between.

One is an ode to Old Portland, classics that haven’t changed much over the years because you don’t need to tinker with a proven entity (page 20).

Another celebrates dishes at some of the newest, buzziest spots—places gutsy enough to open during one of the most tu multuous periods the industry has ever experienced (page 27).

There’s a playful romp through restaurants serving elevated takes on childhood favorites—think mozzarella sticks, chips and

dip, soft serve (page 18); but also a roundup of the area’s more urbane offerings—tea houses, prix fixe destinations, and wine bars (page 22).

Don’t think that we’ve forgotten about food carts: A whole section is dedicated to kitchens on wheels east of 82nd Avenue (page 21).

If you’re vegan, we’ve got you covered. The city has a wealth of plant-based proprietors, too (page 25).

And we even dare you to have a meal in a part of the city many have written off entirely: downtown (page 16).

Whether you work your way through each list or select only a few new-to-you dishes to try, we hope this issue will guide you to something delicious and filling. The tables have been set; now all you have to do is grab a chair.

—Andi Prewitt, Arts & Culture Editor

From morning to night, here´s how to eat in our city.

Downtown Dining Isn’t Dead

BY ANDI PREWITT aprewitt@wweek.com

Some say it’s scary. Others call it disgusting. Many, though, have agreed on one term to de scribe downtown Portland: dead.

T he past two years have taken a toll on our central city, to be sure. But a lot has changed since 2020, when empty offices, theaters and hotels turned that area into a ghost town. Downtown is coming back, along with what was always its most beloved feature: dining. You can hardly stroll a few blocks without running into a restaurant that’s opened within the past year filled with people drawn by either good word of mouth, Instagram or both. In fact, some spots are teeming with new life: Southwest 12th Avenue and the Portland State University campus are hot spots right now, and you may have had no idea if you’ve steered clear of these neighborhoods.

I n addition to the exciting newcomers are classics that stuck it out through COVID—insti tutions you probably visited in the past to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries or just a Friday night out on the town. This list includes some of both—established brands and those that just made their debut. Dig in. It’s fun to be part of a comeback.

Country Boy Breakfast at Grits N’ Gravy 215 SW 6th Ave., 503-227-3903, grits-n-gravy.com. 7 am-3 pm daily.

“With a name like Grits N’ Gravy, you’ve got to do two things right,” says owner Brandon Stevens. “You’ve got ta get your grits right and you better have your gravies right.” The diner does, in fact, nail its marquee items: four scratch-made sauces and grains prepared creamy and buttered or fried. But every single Southern break fast staple on the sizable menu will not only fill you up for the better part of a day; you’ll leave satisfied and half convinced you somehow strolled to Louisiana for your meal. Stevens, founder of the popular Mumbo Gumbo Cajun-Creole food carts, modeled his first brick-andmortar after his family’s long-standing Sacramento, Calif., breakfast restaurant Stagecoach, estimating that 75% of the menu took its inspiration from there. That includes the Country Boy Breakfast, an 8-ounce sweet pork sausage patty laid atop two softball-sized buttermilk drop biscuits (the primary vehicle for your country gravy, which wouldn’t be out of place on the Thanksgiving dinner table), three eggs (cooked to your liking), and grits. While contemplating porridge or fried with my server, a customer one table over couldn’t help but share his enthusiasm for the version that is bathed in hot oil. Never one to ignore the advice of an obvious regular, I went with fried and was rewarded with golden hashbrown-like squares, perhaps my new favorite apparatus for sopping up egg yolk.

The Nacho Bag at Teote Outpost

Pine Street Market, 126 SW 2nd Ave., 503-206-6224, teotepdx.com. 11 am-8 pm Wednesday-Sunday. Growing up, I always marveled at my dad’s wide variety of interesting jobs: public school teacher/magician, painter, graphic designer, salesman. But to my young eyes, his most exciting entrepreneurial turn happened the summer he purchased an old hot dog stand and set up shop. That was also the year I became acquainted with the Frito pie, which Dad added to the menu to help move the daily supply of chili. Crunchy, salty, spicy and meaty, it was a textural delight with layers of deep, savory flavors you wouldn’t expect to find in food from a sidewalk vendor. Plus, using a fork to eat out of a variety pack chip bag was simply fun. Since then, I’ve rarely spotted the Frito pie, so you can imagine my delight when I wandered into Pine Street Market and discovered Teote Outpost was advertising a “Nacho Bag.” Here, original-flavor Doritos—dangerously ad dictive all on their own—are dosed with more cheese in the form of a smoky queso dip and crumbly queso fresco. To truly elevate the snack, add one of the five proteins. I went with El Diablo, bits of pork belly, roasted poblanos and a glaze made with reserved pork fat, maple syrup and ground California chile pepper. It is the Frito Pie 2.0.

Pork Loin Katsu Sando at Tanaka 678 SW 12th Ave., 503-914-3326, tanakakatsusando. com. 10 am-7 pm Sunday-Thursday, 10 am-8 pm Fri day-Saturday.

I pity the noses of the hardworking employees at Tana ka. That may sound strange, but while bussing my table, I remarked how wonderful the shop smelled to a worker collecting plates. “I am immune to it,” he responded, “except when I walk in first thing in the morning.” What those poor sniffers are missing out on is the intoxicating, slightly sweet and slightly funky yeasty aroma of baking milk bread. The feathery loaves with just a whisper of crust are the foundation of Tanaka’s sandos—a twist on Osakan comfort food. Open since June, the shop is a spinoff of Japanese-based chain Kushikatsu Tanaka, which specializes in skewers (kushi) of bite-sized, breaded cutlets (katsu) served

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS: Grits N’ Gravy serves super-sized portions of Southern classics.

CHRIS NESSETH

with a dipping sauce whose recipe has remained a well-guarded family secret for 70 years. While our Tanaka doesn’t serve meat on a stick, you will find panko-coated proteins, like a tender, walnut-brown slab of twice-cooked pork loin, along with that highly classified condiment in sandwiches. As you bite in, take an extra big whiff and savor the scent of that milk bread again for all of the workers who cannot.

Hot & Spicy Housemade, Hand-Shaven Noodle at Tasty Corner Chinese Restaurant

624 SW Hall St., 503-954-1835, tastycornerpdx.com. 11 am-2:30 pm and 4:30-9pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-2:30 pm and 4:30-9:30 pm Friday, 11 am-9:30 pm Saturday, 11 am-9 pm Sunday.

Every noodle in the Hot & Spicy dish at Tasty Corner is a snowflake. And, no, that’s not a MAGA-style insult. Quite the opposite, really. These noodles are incredibly firm, delightfully chewy yet super slurpable. To achieve that superior texture, Tasty Corner hand-shaves the staple in this boisterous assembly of Szechuan pepper corns, dried red chile peppers, vegetables and protein of your choice. It’s a multistep process that takes incredible knife skills, resulting in jagged-edged rib bons, and no two are exactly alike—tes tament to the hard work of people in a kitchen rather than a machine. Owner Daniel Chen explains that his noodles begin with a wheat-based dough that’s sheared with a special blade, resulting in strips that range in thickness from one-half to three-quarters of an inch. After boiling, the noodles are immediately chilled with ice so they don’t get too soft or sticky. And it works. There’s not another bite in town that is as springy and supple as these bands, which soak up a sauce made of pepper corns, garlic, onion and ginger. For tender tongues like mine, the heat level is a pleasant sweat—like enjoying the challenge of lingering in a sauna. And for fans of Hillsboro’s Szechuan Garden, the June opening of Tasty Corner on the Portland State University campus should be welcome news—that’s also Chen’s shop, so you no longer have to fight Highway 26 traffic to get those lovely, hand-shaven noodles.

Bird in Hand and Empanadas at LeChon 113 SW Naito Parkway, 503-219-9000, lechonpdx.com. 4-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 4-10 pm Friday-Saturday. By now, it should be time for happy hour—a ritual dropped by many restaurants during the pandemic— but LeChon has (happily) maintained the tradition of offering late-afternoon discounts. Perhaps that’s why there was a line out the door when it opened on a recent Saturday. Don’t worry—the crowd moves quickly, and you should be able to snag a seat at the bar for a view of one of the most stunning behind-the-counter displays in town: two aquariums totaling 1,300 gallons holding jellyfish, tropical fish, and a coral reef. Keep the vaca tion vibes going with a Bird in Hand cocktail—a spin on the Jungle Bird that was the traditional welcome drink for Kuala Lumpur Hilton guests in the ’70s. The blend of pineapple rum, coriander- and coconut oil-washed Cynar, lime and housemade blackstrap molasses was concocted by one of LeChon’s bartenders who “likes to mess with tiki drinks, because they’re fun.” It’s per fect for sipping alongside an order of piquillo pepper empanadas, two hot pockets of sturdy, flaky dough holding a lava flow of queso. Pro tip: When you finish that drink, a pineapple- and coriander-flavored ice cube awaits at the bottom.

Tagliatelle al Burro and Focaccia of the Day at Dolly Olive

527 SW 12th Ave., 503-719-6921, dollyolivepdx.com. 5-9 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

When Sesame Collective announced in June its newest

restaurant would focus on dishes made from simple ingredients, the team wasn’t kidding. My favorite plate at Dolly Olive so far has a handful of components: ta gliatelle, Parmigiano extravecchio, French butter and cracked pepper. It’s a combination of Rome’s two most iconic pastas: fettuccine Alfredo and cacio e pepe, mak ing it one of those creations that’s better than the sum of its parts, which were already pretty great to begin with. The gift-wrapping ribbonwide noodles have an inviting sheen, and as you work your way through the silky tangle covered in cheese shavings, the sauce becomes thicker and thicker. While the ingredient list may be uncomplicated, the same can’t be said of the dish’s execution. Sesame Collective culinary director Natalie Gullish learned how to roll and hand-cut the pasta while living in Rome, and it’s prepared the same way in Dolly Olive’s kitchen. I’m typically stuffed after what’s truly a lick-the-bowl-empty meal, but always make room for the focaccia of the day. The spongy bread can assist with the dish-cleaning process, plus it’s always exciting to see what new produce has been baked into the lofty brick. During a recent visit, it was purple potatoes and caramelized onion, which made the crispy top, coated in shredded Pecorino Romano, look as pretty as a stained-glass window.

Korean-Fried Chicken Wing Flight at Toki

580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, tokipdx.com. 5-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 9:30 am-2:30 pm and 5-9 pm Friday, 9:30 am-2:30 pm and 5-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. Your new favorite late-night drinking snack is currently being served at Toki. Well, that’s if you consider 10 pm or earlier “late night,” because that’s when this Han Oak sister property closes. But the Korean-fried chicken wing flight really is the perfect “before you summon an Uber home” snack, because it’s not too large or filling, the flavors veer from savory to sweet to spicy—enough to wake up a palate that’s been drowned in alcohol, and it helps to be a little buzzed to muster the courage to eat these in public, because you will make a mess. Some of the featured sauces and spices are a nod to celebrated chef Peter Cho’s Northeast Portland flagship, including the Essence of Instant Ramen, which was an experiment with kimchi and onion powders that originated at Han Oak in order to re-create the flavor of those little seasoning pouches in packaged noodles. And fans of the original restau rant’s fried cauliflower Romesco will recognize the sweet-and-spicy gochujang tamarind sauce. It’s the most complex flavorwise and messiest of the bunch.

By the time you’re staring at a plate of chicken bones, your white, cloth napkin will look like it was used to wipe down a crime scene. Toki knows it’s just a sign that you really enjoyed your wings.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie Sundae at Mother’s Bistro & Bar

121 SW 3rd Ave., 503-464-1122, mothersbistro.com. 5-9 pm Wednesday, 9 am-2 pm and 5-10 pm Thursday-Sat urday, 9 am-2 pm and 5-9 pm Sunday.

When you’re downtown and in the mood for a dessert that is rich, comforting and served with classic flair (dainty paper doilies and syrup art are a must), Moth er’s awaits with cans of whipped cream at the ready. Owner-chef Lisa Schroeder moved her bistro three years ago to its current, larger home, making room for a bakery that whips up cakes and pies for a display case as well as smaller-portioned treats on the daily specials menu. When available, order the chocolate peanut butter brownie sundae. The base is actually several layers—sandwiching the fudge brownie is a shortbread crust and a peanut butter mousse made with cream cheese and marshmallow fluff. The bar alone would be a satisfying ending to an epic day of eating extrava gantly, but Mother’s kicks things up another notch by plopping a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream (also made in-house) onto the brownie. Finished with a drizzling of caramel and dark chocolate sauces and a sprinkling of candied chocolate peanuts, the dessert looks like a Christmas present with a giant powdery snowball instead of a bow. Don’t stare too long. Put your spoon to work before this masterpiece melts.

Grown-Up Kid Food

BY ALEXANDER BASEK alexander.basek@gmail.com

There are days when eating like an adult sounds like an absolute chore. In those moments, the only thing that appeals is a direct injection of comfort-food dopamine. These are the kind of things you may have eaten years ago at a mall food court, on a road trip, or after soccer prac tice. No judgment—our list is designed to help you achieve exactly the kind of joy you experi enced then, but as an adult with access to your own modes of transportation and income.

T hese menu items far outstrip the quality of the originals you may remember in terms of ingredients and execution, yet still bring a big grin to your face at the end of a long day. Or days. Right now, the city is filled with new flavors served with a dash of style to appeal to your adult sensibilities as well as cool colors and limited nutrition value for your inner, gourmet child.

T hink of them as foods that appeal to both sides of the proverbial Frosted Mini-Wheats.

THE COLOR PURPLE: Cà Phê’s ube latte gets its stunning color from its namesake root.

Walla Walla French Onion Dip With Ruffles at Pacific Standard

100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., kexhotels.com/ eat-drink/pacificstandard. 3 pm-midnight daily.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler and Benjamin “Banjo” Amberg’s bar with bites on Kex’s ground floor hits plenty of fa miliar notes. It’s in a hotel, just like you remember from their time at Clyde Common, and the décor here is still “Most Interesting Man in the World” chic, with tall bookshelves, leather chairs and lamps atop the bar. It adds up to a vibe that feels stylish but unfussy. On their food menu, the duo add a touch of unexpected whimsy in the form of Ruffles potato chips paired with a housemade Walla Walla onion dip. Presented simply in a ramekin with the aforementioned Ruffles on the side and a kiss of scallions on top, it’s a great value at $8. During happy hour, when all menu items are $2 off, the dip’s optional upgrade of osetra caviar drops to a price of $98—a steal! Caviar or no, it’s a high-low pairing designed for even the pickiest of eaters, with the tangy-sweet dip balancing atop the engineered saltiness of the Ruffles.

Fried Mozzarella Shots at Gabbiano’s 5411 NE 30th Ave., 503-719-4373, gabbianospdx.com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Sunday. They’re ooey, gooey, saucy and cheesy—what’s not to like? “The Fried Mozzarella” (the menu takes pains to include the definite article, Ohio State style) is Gab biano’s galaxy brain take on the humble mozzarella stick served with a side of marinara. Eschewing the traditional cheese torpedo shape, the red sauce wizards at Gabbiano’s chose to invert the entire prop osition. Their sticks are transmuted into a shooter by shaping the mozzarella around an actual shot glass. After it’s breaded and fried, the cheese becomes a load-bearing vessel for the marinara. The sauce goes on top and in the empty middle of the “shotzarella” before it’s all dusted with Parme san and parsley. It’s no longer a finger food, but still the main event the moment it’s set on the table. The mozz arrives on mismatched dish ware with silverware that appears to have been pilfered from Nonna’s during Sunday supper. Gabbiano’s homey back garden is the perfect place to debate whether to order another round of mozzarella shots for the table. Let’s hope they choose to reinvent garlic knots next.

Soft Serve With a Chocolate Shell at Bluto’s 2838 SE Belmont St., 971-383-1619, blutospdx.com. 11 am-10 pm daily.

Anyone who’s spent time at an East Coast Greek diner will be familiar with the “Greek-inspired” playbook at Bluto’s, while anyone who’s eaten at Lardo or Grassa will be familiar with Rick Gencarelli’s emphasis on a pared-down menu featuring only the hits. His fast-ca sual spot slings souvlaki from a wood-fired grill, supple mented with dips, pitas, and “ranchziki” in a light-filled space decorated with houseplants and anchored by a stack of wood in front of the register. The soft serve, available in any flavors as long as they’re chocolate or vanilla, comes with two optional—which is to say, abso lutely necessary—toppings. Our go-to is the chocolate

tahini magic shell with pistachios; the chocolate goes on first and cools, but is studded with the pistachios crumbled on top. It’s creamy, chocolaty and crunchy, the essential three C’s of any well-balanced soft serve. While not served in a baseball helmet, it’s still delicious.

Ube Latte at Portland Cà Phê

2815 SE Holgate Blvd., 2601 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (opening soon); portlandcaphe.com. 7:30 am-4 pm Monday-Friday, 8 am-4 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Cà Phê is a remix of Portland’s coffee culture, featuring both arabica and robusta beans grown in the high lands of Central Vietnam and roasted here in town.

Not exactly familiar with the East Asian country’s geography? There’s a helpful mural of Vietnam on the wall, the most noticeable piece of art in a space that’s utilitarian enough to use stacks of baguettes destined to become banh mi later that day as part of the ambi ence. Owner Kim Dam’s robusta bean rehabilitation is commendable, but it wouldn’t have nearly the same impact if the drinks weren’t so darn good. Arriving in a shade of Tinky Winky purple, the ube latte at Cà Phê is more than a social media phenomenon. The ube root extract lends the latte its signature color, though it’s less sweet than it looks, simply because the shade suggests a flavor profile targeting an overstimulated 6-year-old.

The lactose intolerant can sub in alternative milks, while lactophiles may want to add a pillowy cloud of cheese foam on top for bonus style and dairy points.

Fried Chicken Torito Salad at OK Omens 1758 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-9959, okomens. com. 5-10 pm daily.

While not all salads are inherently good for you, they are quite improved by the presence of sliced fried chicken and a bottle of Crystal Hot Sauce. Sitting in the dining room while eating OK Omens’ spin on a Mexican Caesar salad—complete with chopped ro maine, creamy cilantro dressing, cotija and corn nuts, another crucial component to any salad—is one of Portland’s great pleasures. Think of it as the platonic ideal of a Cheesecake Factory-style entree. Chef Justin Woodward, who has run the kitchen since OK Omens replaced Cafe Castagna in 2018, targets all those plea sure receptors in your brain with ruthless efficiency. He’s perfected a combination of hot chicken and cool cilantro dressing with the crispy skin of the poultry and the corn nuts for crunch, while the hot sauce imparts a Portland-appropriate level of spice. See, Mom? It’s a salad, it’s totally healthy.

Lime Pepper Wings at Sunshine Noodles 2175 NW Raleigh St., Suite 105, 971-220-1997, sunshine noodlespdx.com. 5-9 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Some might argue the relative merits of big box chick en wing purveyors in our fine city—your Wingstops, your Fires on the Mountain—Portland’s best wings since the departure of Pok Pok emerge from the fryer at a Cambodian noodle shop in Northwest Portland. Diane Lam’s Sunshine Noodles, which rose from the Pray + Tell pop-up during the thick of the pandemic to become a brick-and-mortar earlier this year, still slings its OG lime-and-pepper wings alongside more classical Cambodian dishes. The gluten-free dredge gives the wings a level of crispiness that saucier wings cannot achieve, supplemented by spice from the pepper, zip from the lime, and juiciness from the chicken itself. It’s intensely, almost painfully flavorful. Paired with a “Hello Kitty from the Year 3000” aesthetic (Dan Flavin-esque lighting, candy-colored chopsticks, ice cubes branded with the restaurant’s mascot), it sure beats watching the Seahawks lose with a dozen wings as your only companion. Drumettes only, please.

Jam on Hawthorne

Thank you for 20 years of laughs, friendship, kindness, delicious food, patience, dedication, hustle, overall good times, and your ongoing support. We are thrilled to still be going strong because of all of you!

Revisiting Old Northwest Portland

BY THOM HILTON

I grew up “on top of the hill” in Sylvan Heights and went to high school at Lincoln—now torn down and rebuilt, resembling a giant, cardinal-red puzzle box. I spent childhood days blowing bubbles and swing ing with my dad in Washington Park, and worked summers at Salt & Straw when I got older. Northwest Portland—Uptown—is where my heart feels most at home. An ideal October day involves trekking across this neighborhood’s tree-lined streets and indulging in dishes that are nostalgic and legitimately great—one of life’s rare combinations.

A warning for the curious: Other than one slice of tomato and two appearances made by avocados, no fresh fruits or vegetables will be found in this collection. It’s fall, we’re going into hibernation mode, and that’s OK. It’s hard to feel sentimental about a salad. And so, I present to you, a joyful day of eating old school in Northwest Portland.

Cinnamon Twists and a Breakfast Sandwich at Fehrenbacher Hof

1225 SW 19th Ave., 503-223-4493, fehrenbacherhof.com. 7 am-3 pm daily.

Start the day at my favorite remaining OG place in Portland now that The Roxy has closed. Fehrenbacher Hof, the little sister coffee shop to Goose Hollow Inn, has weathered not only the pandemic, but also the loss of the inn’s patriarch, former Portland Mayor Bud Clark. The Hof’s cinnamon twist is the single-best baked good in Portland, forever and ever, amen. When do they have it? Not every day. So…what days, then? Unclear. It’s a game of chance, of luck. But if you luck out, your day changes for the better. It tastes like it’s made from the heart, rather than reliant on precise technique, even though it’s a technical marvel. The pastry itself is slightly yeasty, while a thick slab of cinnamon caramel on the outside lends it a crispy crunch. The breakfast sandwiches are equally great. There are many ways to mix and match the toppings, and I’ve tried them all. The pro move involves veggie sausage, sliced tomato, cheddar and subbing avocado for egg on an English muffin slathered with Goose Hollow Inn’s signature Reuben sauce. It is wildly rich and delicious. I once took an ex-boyfriend to the Hof and he didn’t like it; now you know why he’s an ex-boyfriend.

Pepperoni Slice at Escape From New York Pizza 622 NW 23rd Ave., 503-227-5423, efnypizza.net. 11:30 am-11 pm daily.

It’s been open just shy of 40 years. I’ve been coming here since I was 2; my dad has been a customer since he was a student at Portland State University in the ’80s. Escape From New York is forever the best slice shop in town. It can never close. It can never die. Slices chill on the counter, then come alive in the reheat oven.

A great New York slice is not gooey, but slightly charred with a bit of bite. The sauce is sweet and spicy and herbaceous, the pepperoni tender and wide—no tough li’l ’roni cups here. The crust is thin and flaky, almost like a Ritz cracker. Sprinkle with room-temperature Parm, but do not ask for ranch dressing. Instead, laugh when someone else

does, despite the fact there are multiple signs that say “Ranch free since ’83.” I like it when a business openly shows its dis dain for stupid people. If you’re stupid, people should tell you.

Passion Fruit Green Tea at Tea Chai Té 734 NW 23rd Ave., B, 503-228-0900, teachaite.com. 10 am-9 pm daily.

Tea Chai Té is a vibe. I went on a Wednesday and it was out of boba until Friday. Instead of being annoyed, I was just like…OK. Everything’s chill here. This is a place of peace and serenity after you spend $75 on patchouli body spray and cucumber eye masks at Lush. This is a place where if you get a phone call, it’s time to pack up and go. Don’t you dare speak. It’s essentially a library. Anyway, the passion fruit green tea is absolutely the GOAT of tea-based beverages, with boba or without. Green tea is famously green, but passion fruit green tea is electrified Kool-Aid orange. It’s sour, it’s sweet, I could have one every single day. This is my Portland.

Onion Rings at RingSide Steakhouse 2165 W Burnside St., 503-223-1513, ringsidesteakhouse.com. 5-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 4:30-9:30 pm Friday, 4-9:30 Sat urday, 4-9 pm Sunday.

Coming to RingSide solo for a snack is…ironic? Sadistic? Incredibly romantic? I sat at the bar next to a woman named Pam, who told me I have an amazing voice (I’m gay). I ordered a Manhattan from Jimmy, who’s been making drinks behind the bar longer than I’ve existed on this planet. Surrounded by dark wood accents near a cozy fire amid lighting so dim it might as well be a haunted house, my enormous half-order of onion rings arrived. James Beard called them the best he ever tasted. He wasn’t wrong. They’re still as light and crispy as you remember and served with a house dressing that’s es sentially Thousand Island but with blue cheese in it. Genius.

Ahi Tuna Tower at Yama Sushi & Sake Bar 926 NW 10th Ave., 503-841-5463, yamasushiandsakebar.com. 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 4:30-9 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 4:30-9:30 pm Friday-Saturday.

Yama is another dramatic place to visit alone to slow down for a moment and experience Zen while digging into a dish that is as stunning as it is delicious. The Ahi Tuna Tower is a stacked cylinder of sushi rice, spicy tuna, crab salad, chopped ahi tuna, three types of tobiko, and sliced avocado on a fire work-patterned splash of wasabi mayo and eel sauce. It’s so gorgeous you just have to sit and look at it for a while. Then you mash it up and eat it with a spoon. There’s something about spooning sushi into your mouth that feels so wrong yet so right. Essentially, it’s a poke bowl, but it’s also a work of art. Creamy, salty, spicy and sweet—an always lovely dinner.

Espresso Martini and Passion Cake at Papa Haydn 701 NW 23rd Ave., 503-228-7317, papahaydn.com. 11:30 am10 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Thought “it’s a cylinder so pretty it feels like a crime to have to crush it to eat it” would apply to only one dish on this list? Think again! You’re in for a can-shaped food dou bleheader. Time for the Passion at Papa Haydn, Portland’s seminal dessert spot. This specific dessert was so good, after I ate one at the restaurant, I had to go to Zupan’s two days later and get another one. Butter milk chocolate cake is topped with passion fruit and hot pink raspberry mousses as well as passion fruit curd, and the entire thing is surrounded by a wall of white choco late. It’s an interactive dish—you’ve really got ta thwack that candy collar to get in there, and once you’re in, you’ll never want to leave. Partner it with an oh-so-trendy espresso martini. Papa Haydn’s is strong, smooth and, most importantly, drinkable, with no trace of the heavy cream sweetness that often flaws this drink. Expect a jolt of bitterness, like a crisp slap across the face, as you work through the gooey cake and tart curd. God-tier pairing.

MICHAEL RAINES

COURTESY

Food Truck Crawl East of 82nd Avenue

BY EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH @samuraiartist

When tasked with writing about a perfect day of eating in Portland, the first things that typically come to mind are the elevated dining experiences at top restaurants, maybe a hidden gem or two. Simple pleasures for the casual eater are overlooked in favor of resplendent dishes that most people only enjoy a couple of times a year. Instead, I wanted to focus on the foods the average Portlander eats on a daily basis in one underappreciated area of town.

S ince ownership of a 7-mile stretch of the often-maligned Southeast 82nd Avenue transferred from the Oregon Department of Transportation to the Portland Bureau of Transportation last June, now is the time to reevaluate what this neighborhood has to offer. A deeper inspection shows a rich tapestry of food carts that may be more diverse than the trucks in more affluent locations that unfairly get more attention in the media.

Rip City Wrap at The Good & Evil Wrap Co. 8145 SE 82nd Ave., 503-707-4695, goodandevilwraps.com. Noon-8 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a wrap or a burrito, when eating any thing rolled in a tortilla there are three things to consider.

No. 1: Is it wider than your wrist and at least the length of the bottom of your palm to the end of your extended fingers? No. 2: Are the corners perfectly tucked in and the ingredients nestled safely inside, like a mother cradling an infant? And No. 3: When you bite into it are the components stacked like a seven-layer dip? The wrap artists at Good & Evil are masters at turning a flat flour circle into a fat, folded cylinder and meet all three of these criteria. Outside of breakfast hours, the Rip City Wrap is the most popular and it’s easy to see why: The

roll contains blackened steak, crispy bacon, sautéed onions, tomatoes, romaine lettuce and heaps of shredded cheddar jack. It’s like a gringo taco, only more portable (fitting nicely into the pocket of a hoodie), and leftovers taste just as good the next day.

PDX Sampler at Birrieria PDX 82nd 5420 SE 82nd Ave., 971-533-2378, birriapdxportland.com. 8 am-10 pm daily.

The PDX Sampler is a litmus test for personality types and the ultimate speed-dating tool. By offering four different ways to devour top-notch, beefy, cheese-crusted consommé tacos, you can learn a lot about a person based on what method they choose. For instance, if you prefer mulitas—a crispy,

double quesadilla that shatters with each bite—it means you have good taste, but need some time to work on yourself. If you’re into the sharp edges of a fried machete taco, you are sexy but also a little bit dangerous. Anyone who reaches for the vampiro, the taco equivalent of an open-faced sandwich, enjoys life’s simple pleasures and isn’t afraid to get a little dirty. And those who instinctively grab the quesataco with its double-wrapped corn tortillas fried in a shell of caramelized cheese blanketing slow-cooked brisket should be your perfect match. Immediately swipe right and dig in.

Bartender’s Pick at Lents Draft and Bottle

8530 SE Foster Road, 503-720-6693, lents-draft-and-bottle. business.site. 3:30-11 pm Tuesday-Friday, 2-11 pm Saturday, 2-9 pm Sunday.

Looking for a place to sit down and enjoy some juicy birrieria that isn’t in a parking lot shared by a Big 5 Sporting Goods and a bank? Head a few blocks up the road to Lents Draft and Bottle, which welcomes outside food. This is a hidden gem for beer, wine and cider nerds on the outer eastside with a garage-style speakeasy vibe. In contrast to the many metro-area taprooms that tend to have 20 to 30 draft lines, Lents Draft focuses on a handful of beers, though there is a wide variety—from Czech-style lagers to spontaneously fermented wild ales and, of course, an IPA or two. I recom mend sitting at the bar, but during swift season, take a seat outdoors to catch the FoPo equivalent of the famed Chapman birds darting like street racers through the sky.

Newport Nightmare at Gnarlys 3612 SE 82nd Ave., 971-500-1649. Noon-7 pm Tuesday-Thurs day, noon-8 pm Friday-Saturday, noon-4 pm Sunday. I am not a vegan, and rarely do I even eat vegetarian. But upon the urging of social media commenters, foodie friends, and even my own brother, I finally broke down and tried a Newport Nightmare burger from the 100% vegan Gnarlys at the Collective Oregon Eateries, or CORE, food cart pod. The hybrid patty (a blend of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat) and very crispy faux bacon are salty and moist enough to sim ulate a hand-flipped burger from the local diner. Shredded lettuce, grilled onions and jalapeños are barely contained by the oversized sesame seed bun—the kind you would stock up on at the grocery store for a backyard barbecue. All of that is fused together by a spicy yellow provolone “cheese” from Violife Foods and a slightly tangy housemade ranch. The result took me back to high school, when I would often get a chicken cordon bleu from the Wendy’s drive-thru—a comforting tradition I would happily pick back up at Gnarlys.

Breakside Pilsner at The Breaksider

3612 SE 82nd Ave., breakside.com. 1-8 pm Thursday-Sunday. It’s hard to beat a beer-and-burger combo, and you don’t have to go far to find one at the CORE. Portland’s award-winning Breakside Brewery operates a refurbished 1972 Winnebago that pours draft beer and sells cans to go just a few dozen feet from Gnarlys. Known for its immaculate taprooms and beers, “The Breaksider” feels like a kitschy uncle in the Breakside family, but it’s actually right at home along 82nd parked near other campers, and this one just happens to hold the best beer. Go for the Breakside Pilsner from a 16-ounce can; it’s more bang for your buck than a plastic cup and features the Winnebeergo on the label. It also pairs up incredibly well with a Gnarlys burger as a refreshing side in lieu of the vegan cart’s incredible (but indulgent) fries.

Sensei Poke Bowl at FreshFish Poke 3905 SE 82nd Ave. 11 am-8 pm daily.

After pounding the pavement along 82nd, passing by its strip malls, strip clubs and strip steak joints, you probably need something refreshing. FreshFish Poke in the popular Eastport Food Carts pod is the perfect place to take a breather between the Springwater Corridor and the nearest MAX sta tion. The Sensei Bowl is my go-to: It’s a light yet filling bowl of meaty tuna and buttery salmon on a bed of rice topped with slippery seaweed, pungent red onion, radish, chives, crunchy cooling cucumbers, creamy avocado, briny flakes of nori, jellylike tobiko, and a housemade ginger-soy poke sauce punctuated with a dash of furikake and a sprinkle of toasty fried garlic. Like the area itself, the Sensei Bowl offers an array of shapes and colors that you’re sure to like if you give it a chance.

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND: The pies at Escape From New York have a pleasingly thin and flaky crust.

It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

BY MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN

Endurance is a useful trait in many endeavors. Food and restaurant writing is one of them. You never know when you might be called upon to write about a half-dozen plac es under a tight deadline. Being full is no excuse when you have only made it halfway through the required comple ment of meals. Of course, there are far worse problems to have. But try telling that to your groaning gut.

S o, you slog on: Eat, taste, take notes, repeat. Training and experience helps. So does a love of food and writing.

I have been at it for 20 years or so. I know the drill, and I never get tired of it. This list is a reflection of my culinary peregrinations in and around town over the past year. You don’t need to get to them all in one day, but by all means, give them all a try.

Cortado at Push X Pull

821 SE Stark St., pushxpullcoffee.com. 8 am-3 pm daily.

A morning cortado at Push X Pull is how I start just about every day. If you have not heard about this special spot already, let me clue you in: It buys and roasts almost exclusively natural-process and similarly treated beans. Without getting too technical, naturals are not removed from the coffee cherry during the post-harvest fermentation process, which imparts flavor, unlike the more common washed coffees, where the fruit is removed immediately. The cortado, with equal proportions of espresso and steamed milk, is my favorite here, but the nitrogen-charged cold brew offers clean fla vors and is perfect when the weather is warm.

The bright, high-ceilinged, airy cafe has plenty of indoor and outdoor seating, along with in credibly friendly staff. So, feel free to linger (there’s a Wi-Fi password, too) and maybe buy a bag of beans to take home for the days when you can’t make it in.

Cheese Medley at Cowbell

231 SE Alder St., 503-946-8485, cowbellpdx.com. Noon-6 pm Wednes day-Sunday.

Just a short stroll from Push X Pull is one of Portland’s best spots to buy cheese. Cowbell is fairly under the radar, located in the Produce Row area, and began primarily as a wholesale distributor to Portland restaurants, but ramped up retail sales as the pandemic mushroomed. It is not a restaurant, but let’s face it: There are still those who prefer to minimize their time among crowds, and times when it makes more sense to gather supplies for a nice spread at home or in a park. Cowbell will set you up. Though the selection changes according to season, there will reliably be six dozen or so cheeses to choose from. And sampling is allowed. Perhaps go with a chestnut leaf-wrapped disk of O’Banon, a gooey goat from Capriole creamery of Greenville, Ind.; a classic, aged Italian Parmesano-Reggiano; and the rich, sweet wine-injected French blue called fourme au moelleux. Add some cured meat and bread or crackers and you have a fine meal.

Afternoon Tea at Skywater Tea House

1601B SE River Road, Hillsboro, 971-427-4576, skywaterteahouse.com.

11 am-3 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

After coffee and a cheese board brunch, it’s time to make a jaunt to the former hinterlands of Hillsboro. That is where Skywater Tea House is located, and its afternoon tea service is testament to the city’s evolution. The business is the passion project of Hans Ramos, a first-time restau rant owner with vision as well as a knowledgeable, doting spouse, Neil Thompson, who owns a nearby wine shop also named Skywater. The tea house setting is like wandering into your favorite auntie’s living room, decorated with intricately painted teapots and porcelain plates, only the couch and overstuffed easy chairs have been replaced with tables.

Afternoon tea is a simple affair—not to be confused with high tea, which is more like a full meal. Ramos begins service by making recommenda tions, from subtle whites to bold pu’ers to infusions in an assortment of flavors. Tea arrives along with a three-tiered tower holding crustless

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Leila Mottley Taylor Jenkins Reid

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sandwiches, scones and petite pastries. Side plates of condiments and fresh fruit complete the experience. What a perfect spot for a day date or to catch up with old friends.

A Multicourse Dinner at okta

618 NE 3rd St., McMinnville, 503-376-5353, oktaoregon.com. 5-10 pm Wednesday-Saturday, Noon-3 pm Sunday.

A festive dinner at okta awaits those willing to wander nearly an hour south to downtown McMinnville in the heart of Willamette Valley wine country. This is Matt Lightner’s roost, and a meal here is a multicourse stunner. The weekend array might include a dozen and a half intricately conceived dishes that combine perfectly calibrated flavors, textures and presentations. If you didn’t already know about Lightner’s internation ally recognized culinary wizardry from his days in New York City, his preternatural skill and creativity will become more evident with the arrival of each succeeding course. It’s difficult to pin down a favorite; the menu changes frequently. But a late September opening bowl of luxuri ous, buttery custard topped with delicately blistered corn kernels and a colorful array of botanicals practically shouted, “Welcome to Oregon autumn!” A glistening slab of amber beet also impressed. The root was cut lengthwise and presented over a pool of frothed Dungeness crab sabayon with nasturtium leaf and petals alongside. These were most impressive to me. You might get something completely different. Either way, okta is an island of elegant abandon to be savored in any season.

Pasta at Dame or the Duck Platter at Arden 2930 NE Killingsworth St., 503-227-2669, damerestaurant.com. 5-10 pm Thursday-Sunday. 417 NW 10th Ave., 503-206-6097, ardenpdx.com. 5 pm-close Tuesday-Saturday.

MAKING MO∏NINGS BETTE∏ SINCE 1993

Unwilling to drive to McMinnville? That’s all right. In Portland prop er, I have twin dinner recommendations. Both Dame and Arden are wine bars with food that may make you forget about the wine. If you remember one word about Dame, let it be “pasta.” Though the menu is replete with hard-to-skip items, after a day of dining, perk up your palate with a plate of the spicy squid ink bucatini. The noodles are like thick, hollow spaghetti and black as a long winter night. The heat in the brilliantly complex broth, from Fresno chiles, is no joke. And plump, perfectly cooked shrimp complete the plate. If you can still manage another morsel, or you prefer the west side of the Willamette to Dame’s location in Northeast, you could nosh on one of Erik Van Kley’s wildly creative opening plates at Arden, or finish strong with an entree that has anchored the menu mostly unchanged: the duck platter, with confit leg and thigh, pan-seared breast, plus mushroom vol-au-vent with miso creamed kale. Knowing dessert is still ahead, you might want to bring reinforcements.

Fresh Fruit Sorbet at Pinolo Gelato

3707 SE Division St., 503-719-8686, pinologelato.com. Noon-9 pm Sun day-Thursday, noon-10 pm Friday-Saturday.

Pinolo Gelato remains at the pinnacle of Portland frozen confection parlors for good reason. Sandro Paolini, Pinolo’s lanky Italian operator, is a flavor master. His compact range of uncomplicated offerings is pitch perfect in taste and texture. After a daylong dining trek, a cup of Pinolo fresh fruit sorbet is the ideal finish. These sorbets tend to taste more like fresh fruit than the fruit itself. It is uncanny. But Paolini has been doing this for years now. The only problem is that the fruits he uses—no purees or other gross stuff—arrive and depart with frightening frequency. Often the fruit comes in small quantities from friends’ gardens. Lemon is a near-constant, but the seasonal standouts from various species of berry, stone fruit and melon can be maddeningly difficult to pin down. Of course, you could do what I do and drop by Pinolo every day from July through September, or simply stalk the Pinolo Instagram feed, @pinologelato.

A CASUAL DINING EXPERIENCE WITH A TWIST.

The Diner Vancouver encourages intergenerational social interaction by welcoming a diverse crowd of people – business professionals, families, individuals and older adults alike. It also supports the mission of Meals on Wheels People by providing financial accessibility to restaurant dining for Clark County adults ages 60 and older through a donation-based program.

Join us for breakfast or lunch Wednesday-Sunday as each delicious meal goes to help support older adults in our community.

Explore Our Plant-Based Paradise

BY ANDREA DAMEWOOD

We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to eating vegan in Portland. Just about any type or region of cuisine is likely to have its own plant-based restaurant here, and you’ll normally find at least one or two animal-free options at omnivorous places.

From a deeply rich soup with umami to spare, a worker-owned Sri Lankan feast to share, and a dairy less ice cream that frankly outshines most of its cow’s milk competitors, it’s easy to stuff yourself silly in one day. Below are some favorites to try; we chose dishes from just vegan restaurants so no matter what you end up ordering, you’ll know it’s Lisa Simpson-approved.

Banana Pancakes at Vertical Diner 8124 SW Barbur Blvd., 503-206-6150, verticaldiner.com/ portland. Noon-8 pm Monday-Friday, 10 am-8 pm Satur day-Sunday.

Opened in 2019, Vertical Diner survived the pandemic with panache, churning out an all meat-free menu from the heart of a 1969 diner in Capitol Hill. It’s a retro diner that says, “Sunny-side up eggs and sizzling bacon, who?” Instead, you’re all about that tofu scramble heaped alongside biscuits with gravy, or chewy, hearty slices of tempeh bacon with your hashbrowns. Breakfast is served all day, which means you can do everyone a solid and order banana pancakes for the table at any time. Moist, dense, packed with caramelized slices of banana and still crispy at the edges, they arrive with melted vegan butter and maple syrup on the side. Perfect, no notes.

Tempura Udon at Obon Shokudo

720 SE Grand Ave., 503-206-7967, obonpdx.com. 11:30 am-9 pm Wednesday-Monday.

Lunch time is soup time at Obon Shokudo. The only vegan homestyle Japanese restaurant in town, this former farmers market staple opened up on Southeast Grand in the former

Kachinka space last year and expanded its menu gloriously. There’s so much to love, from the white miso and garlic packed onigiri, made with sprouted brown rice, to a homey curry accompanied by crispy breaded-and-fried local Ota tofu. I don’t have enough stomachs to eat everything I want each time I walk through the noren curtains that owners Humiko Hozumi and Jason Duffany hung in the doorway.

Despite this, more times than not, I return to the tempu ra udon—thick handmade noodles that contain the right amount of satisfying spring, in an umami-packed, soy-mush room broth. On top is fried tofu, scallions and a raft of kakiage, a deep-fried fritter and traditional udon topping with onions and cabbage that softens in the broth while still offering some surprise crunch down to the bottom of the bowl. It’s soup season, so now’s your call to service.

Bianca Pizza at Boxcar Pizza

2701 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-954-2836, boxcarpizzapdx.com.

4-9 pm Monday-Friday, noon-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

I’m gonna come out and say it: A lot of vegan pizza just ain’t great. But Boxcar Pizza? It’s very good. Located in side The Zipper on Northeast Sandy, Boxcar specializes

in Detroit-style square pies, many of which can be made gluten free. Split an 8-by-10-inch pizza for an afternoon pick-me-up. Any option is great, but the Bianca, made with vegan mozzarella, ricotta and sausage, is a white pie rounded out with sliced garlic, fresh basil, grated Parmesan, and red pepper flakes for a little kick. The dough stands up nicely to the creamy toppings, and somehow, there’s even a bit of that classic Detroit crispy cheese baked on the edges. Order marinara sauce on the side and dollop it over the top to truly level up your pizza game.

Rice and Curry Platter at Mirisata 2420 SE Belmont St., 503-233-4675, mirisata.com. Noon-9 pm Monday-Saturday, 10 am-9 pm Sunday.

Before dinner, pick through some of the great shops on Southeast Belmont: Planet X and Mix Tape Vintage, Belmont Books, the snack aisle at H Mart. Just make sure to end your walk at the door of Mirisata. The 2-year-old vegan Sri Lankan restaurant is worker-owned, and offers abundant outdoor covered seating. Sri Lankan cuisine isn’t well represented in Portland, and the best way to immerse yourself is to commit to the rice and curry platter, the traditional way of eating in the Indian Ocean island nation.

Offered as a meal for one or two, or scaled up to serve four or five, several different combinations are served on a platter with yellow savory saffron rice and rice flour papadam. The offerings rotate, but a recent visit included bright shredded beetroot stir-fried in coconut oil with onions, green chil es, mustard seeds, curry leaves, rampe, and coconut milk; masoor dal tempered with onion, curry leaves, cumin, and mustard seed; and deviled potatoes stir-fried in coconut oil with onions, curry leaves, garlic, green chiles, mustard seeds, and cumin. Add a flaky roti flatbread or two to help sop things up, and you’ll leave satisfied.

A Scoop of Kate’s Ice Cream 3713 N Mississippi Ave., 503-249-9640, katesicecream.com. Noon-10 pm daily.

It’s time for dessert, and there’s no better choice than a big ol’ scoop of triple chocolate brownie ice cream on a gluten-free waffle cone. It’s unclear to me how owner Katelyn Williams manages to get her vegan ice cream so dang creamy, and also so unadulterated by its nut milk bases. Many dairy-free ice creams wind up having a strong hit of whatever is used to make it—walnut, coconut, almond— but here, you get nothing but the pure flavors of marionberry cobbler with Oregon berries or smooth cafe au lait. Somehow, the menu is also all gluten free along with being vegan, so this cute-as-a-button shop on Mis sissippi is a sure hit for most with dietary restrictions. And if you’re nearby around Christmas, just buy multiple pints of the chocolate peppermint seasonal release and hoard them through to July.

BBQ Brussels Bowl at Bye and Bye 1011 NE Alberta St., thebyeandbye.com. Noon-midnight Mon day-Thursday, noon-2:30 am Friday, 10 am-2:30 am Saturday, 10 am-midnight Sunday.

This is a sentimental pick. It is perhaps the first vegan dish that made an imprint on me when I moved to Portland so very many years ago. Get it late at night with drinks (last call is at 2 am on weekends here) and feel nourished for sleep. I’ve spent many a night and dollar trying to re-create the simple blend of barbecue tofu and Brussels sprouts over brown rice, but there’s something Bye and Bye nails when it comes to the firm, crispy texture of the tofu that I’ve never been able to quite replicate. Fortunately, it’s the perfect healthy coun terpoint to the Mason jar of peach vodka and bourbon with cranberry I’m sure to suck down on the side. Lots of vegan food tries to replicate meats and bar food; this bowl at Bye and Bye just lets its elements sing, while still being hearty enough to stand up to whatever shots you chase it with.

ALLISON BARR

WHAT’S THE SCOOP? The entire menu at Kate’s Ice Cream is not only vegan, it’s also gluten-free.

Hello, Goodbye: The City’s Newest Dishes a Portlander Will Miss After Moving to the East Coast

BY JASON COHEN @cohenesque

I don’t ever really move away from Portland.

S ince 2003, my wife (fellow WW contributor Susan Elizabeth Shepard) and I have come and gone six or seven times, usually for work-related reasons. Now we’re heading to Philadelphia to be closer to family, which means we’re already looking forward to the next time we’re back in town as visitors. Inevitably, we’ll return to stalwart faves like Apizza Scholls, Bunk Sandwiches, Nong’s Khao Man Gai and Ken’s Artisan Bakery, while also lamenting the fact that we can’t go to Cacao, Clyde Common, Tails & Trotters or Tasty n Sons.

B ut in the meantime, as our mid-October move approached, we tried to hit as many newer Portland restau rants as we could, whether they’d been open for a few weeks or a few months, or at least got started during the pandemic. After all, we’re gonna need more places to go back to. Here are some of the standout dishes from those places that I will miss the most.

Savory Danish at St. Beatrix

3907 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-206-4643, stbeatrix. com. 8 am-2 pm Thursday-Sunday. If you’re the sort of person who can’t decide between breakfast or lunch food, St. Beatrix is the answer. Consider, for instance, a recent savory Danish made with “wee beef franks,” bright orange cheddar crème pâtissière, sauerkraut and everything spice. Yes, in this case, a hot dog is not only a sandwich, but a pastry, with the rich, buttery laminated dough—made with Eugene’s Camas Country Mill flour—taking on an almost biscuitlike quality, and the pastry crème adding so much more than if it had just been shreds of cheddar. Owner-baker Jessie Smith, who took over the former Bushel & Peck in 2020 and officially reopened it as St. Beatrix earlier this year, has also combined that cheddar crème pâtissière with black pepper and buttered popcorn in a Danish, and gone all in with umami in a nori croissant (nori and soy butter with fish sauce caramel and furikake glaze). And if you still prefer your morning (or early afternoon) pastry on the fully sweet side, not to worry. There are always sugary options, too.

Huevos Divorciados at La Fondita 422 NW 8th Ave., republicapdx.com. 11 am-3 pm Monday-Thurs day, 9 am-3 pm Friday-Sunday.

Before Republica was a prix fixe dinner spot and Bon Appetit “Best New Restaurant,” it was as much a daytime desayuno and almuerzo place as anything, with huevos, chilaquiles, quesadillas and guisados, all built around—or, rather, inside or on top of— the beautiful, Gemini-like yellow-and-blue masa handiwork of tortilla maker Doña Chapis. La Fondita, which opened this past spring as part of an ever-expanding Republica empire (or, should I say, “restoration”) is now that concept, and will also soon do its own dinners. Huevos divorciados are practically a standing order for me over huevos rancheros because why would you get the latter when the former gives you both roja and verde? The split salsas blanket perfectly fried eggs—lacy-edged and yolky—and a luxurious black bean purée, with crispy corn tortillas at the bottom. Once the yolks and whites were gone, I had to order an additional side of tender tortillas (i.e., not fried) to keep sopping; when those were also gone, I drank the rest like soup.

Chicken Soup at Rotigo 1514 NW 23rd Ave., 503-477-9533, rotigopdx.com. 11:30 am- 9 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 11:30 am-7 pm Sunday. Rotigo’s name accurately tells you that it’s one of Portland’s many bougie-casual roasted chicken restaurants, with a menu top-lined by its quarter, half and whole Cooks Venture birds. But the bistro is actually a chicken utilization restaurant. We first tried Rotigo via DoorDash delivery because my wife had COVID, and it had chicken soup. But oh, what richly satisfying chicken soup! Almost as dark as French onion, with so much gelatin in the stock it was almost creamy. Laced with carrots and herbs and packed with both white and dark meat, the just-onthe-right-side-of-salty broth is strong and savory enough that you could easily extend your takeout bowl into two full servings at home—just add water. When we placed a second order—this time just for pleasure—we also experienced the chicken in a

sandwich (the Seville, with manchego, orange marmalade mayo, serrano ham, spinach, and sherry vinegar) and a spectacularly presented chicken liver mousse—possibly the best thing that we ever had delivered during the entire pandemic. Just days before this went to press, Rotigo announced it would temporarily close and reopen later this month with a new concept. So, we hope that chicken soup sticks around.

Smash Burger at Pleasure Burger

Pine Street Market, 126 SW 2nd Ave., pleasure-burger.business. site. 11 am-8 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Over the past three years, I’ve written about burgers for Willa mette Week nearly a dozen times, but hey, there’s always room for one more. Especially since Pleasure Burger is in the same Pine Street Market location as the original Bless Your Heart Burgers, which was ahead of everyone not named Peter Bro (owner of downtown’s short-lived All-Way) when it came to slinging highend, high-fat, fast food-style burgers, smashed or otherwise. There’s nothing sui generis about the Pleasure Burger: It’s just a messy, perfect greasy exemplar of the form—two crispy-thin griddled patties, double American cheese, caramelized onion, shredded lettuce and smash sauce—that would easily slide into my top three or five if I went back over all those other burgers. With a side of waffle fries and drinks from Pine Street Taproom, it made for a perfect quick bite before the Spoon concert at Pioneer Courthouse Square, as well as a “Hello again/goodbye/see you next time” to a favorite pre-pandemic dining spot.

Brisket Burger at Holy Trinity Barbecue Check Instagram for hours and pop-up locations, instagram.com/ holytrinitybarbecue.

Make that two more burgers (yup, I am a burger person). I had

previously enjoyed Holy Trinity Barbecue’s, well…holy trinity of Texas barbecue (brisket, sausage and ribs) when it was still a full-time cart, which owner Kyle Rensmeyer closed in October 2021. But he soon returned in pop-up form, including a fancy sit-down collaboration dinner at Renata (where he also regularly fires up the smoker with a classic menu) and frequent stints at Ruse Brewing as well as bar and bottle shop Mayfly. A longtime special at the cart that I had previously missed, the burgers are a half-pound of coarse-ground brisket, seasoned with salt and pepper and smoked to a pink medium-rare for about 45 minutes, before getting seared on the flat top to order. This is a big, beefy, drippy pub burger—the very opposite of smashed. It’s served on a house-baked bun with American cheese, mayo, mustard, pickle and onion, though you can sometimes also get it as a Frito pie burger, with chili, Fritos, cheddar cheese, onions and mustard.

Vampires Hate Her at Jojo

902 NW 13th Ave., 971-331-4284, jojopdx.com. 11 am-10 pm daily.

Jojo’s exemplary eponymous potatoes and fried chicken? Been there, done that, followed @jojo_pdx on Twitter. So we were pret ty darn excited that Southeast food truck owner Justin Hintze finally opened his first brick-and-mortar restaurant while we still called Portland home. Our fortuitous going-away present included a manageable Wednesday night crowd (there have been

hour waits on weekends), available outdoor tables and, for me, A Milli Tru Fashions cocktail (“an old fashioned for those born in the late 1900s,” says the menu, made with Jojo’s own over proofed whiskey blend, Burlesque bitters and housemade cola syrup). Then, this current special: garlic oil dipped-and-dusted fried chicken on an An Xuyên butter bun with garlic confit mayo, Tillamook cheddar, barbecue sauce, white onion, shredded let tuce and a side of spearmint gum—though do you really want to eat at Jojo with somebody who’s that afraid of garlic breath? (A wet nap, on the other hand, is both required and available.) The oversized sandwich is pungent and perfect and surprisingly good as a right-out-of-the-fridge leftover.

Lan Roc Pork Chop at Phuket Cafe 1818 NW 23rd Place, 503-781-2997, phuketcafepdx.com. 5-10 pm Monday-Friday, 10 am-2 pm and 5-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. Add a new one to the list for next time a friend texts, “What should I eat in Portland?”—a list that Earl Ninsom and Eric Nelson’s other restaurant, Eem, was already on. And on the night we went, Nelson himself was there to break down the restaurant’s already-famous pork chop, 18 ounces of sliced meat—plus a bone to gnaw on—accompanied by both tomato relish and a do-ityourself mix of lime juice with other seasonings and alliums. It’s as fun to eat as it is delicious, and also went great with two side orders: carrots (coconut crème fraîche, lotus, spiced peanuts, Thai chile, shiso, mint and pluot) and potato (with a yellow curry glaze, Thai basil and fried garlic). On top of that, the Sunday night dinner soundtrack included the likes of Pulp, Belle and Sebastian, and Orange Juice, all personal faves. I was thinking that might be the work of bartender and well-traveled DJ Chazz Madrigal (who has since departed), but Nelson confessed it was merely “Belle and Sebastian Radio.”

AARON LEE

ROLLING IN DOUGH: St. Beatrix serves pastries both savory and sweet in the former Bushel & Peck space.

Wednesday, Oct. 12

 GO: Mahjong Happy Hour

That clinking you hear inside The Hoxton’s velvet-clad, first-floor restaurant may not be craft cocktail glasses; if it’s Mahjong Happy Hour, the likely origin of that sound is tiles. The hotel has partnered with Lan Su Chinese Garden and mahjong expert Nicole Hudson Rhoads for a game night that takes its inspiration from the neigh borhood’s cultural roots. First-time players will benefit from free instruction, but those with experience will also have an enjoy able time. Lovely Rita, 15 NW 4th Ave., 503-770-0500, thehoxton.com/portland. 5-7 pm Wednesday, Oct. 12. Free.

Thursday, Oct. 13

WATCH: The Last White Man Bag&Baggage is marking the return of founding artistic director Scott Palmer with this love letter to writers and actors and everything else that makes theater great. The Last White Man is a fast-paced romp that explores the extremes per formers go to when cast in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Palmer guest directs this play along with Apples in Winter later in the season. The Vault Theater, 350 E Main St., Hillsboro, 503-345-9590, bagnbaggage. org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Oct. 13-30. $20-$35.

LISTEN: Live Wire Radio Presents Nabil Ayers, Aubrey Gordon, Margo Cilker, and Chris Mejia!

Noteworthy writers, documentary film

makers, musical guests and other prom inent minds join Emmy Award-winning host Luke Burbank every week for Live Wire Radio. And sometimes, the variety show opens the tapings to an audience at the Alberta Rose Theatre. This week’s queue includes Rolling Stone writer and sometimes drummer Nabil Ayers, podcaster Aubrey Gordon (aka Your Fat Friend), singer-songwriter and Eastern Or egonian Margo Cilker, and comedian Chris Mejia. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Al berta St., 503-719-6055, livewireradio.org. 7:30 pm Thursday, Oct. 13. $30 general admission, $45 preferred seating.

Friday, Oct. 14

LAUGH: Love, Shakespeare

For an even more unconventional take on Shakespeare, Curious Comedy presents the semi-regular show Love, Shakespeare. Performers craft a fresh and totally improvised take on a classic Elizabethan tale. Will Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make an appearance? Will everyone get married? Will there be a donkey? The possibilities are endless and usually very funny. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-477-9477, curiouscomedy.org. 7:30-9:15 pm Friday, Oct. 14. $15.

XWATCH: Bolero+

Exquisitely chiseled abdomens and a sense of otherworldliness are at the center of NW Dance Project’s Season 19 opener, Bolero+. Really, it’s three shows in suc cession, including a refreshed production of Bolero, a beguiling quartet by Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti; a world

premiere composition by founding artistic director Sarah Slipper called Down the Garden Path; and Ensemble for Somnam bulists—a spellbinding production that combines dance and spoken word that makes sleepwalking look beautiful instead of creepy. Come for dreamlike interpre tations of raw emotion, stay for the Lycra bodysuits. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 503-421-7434, nwdanceproject. org. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Oct. 14-15. $29-$68.

 GO: Glitterfest IV

Can an alcohol-free music event actually attract a crowd in Portland? Given the fact that Glitterfest is now in its fourth year, it must! Expect performances from seasoned local musicians, like Grammy winner Rizo, as well as newcomers, such as Wood Butcher and RainEzra. And while there may not be any booze, this fami ly-friendly festival will have food carts, art and craft vendors, and plenty of good vibes. Green Anchors, 8940 N Bradford St., eventbrite.com/e/glitterfest-iv-tick ets-426613892637. 8 pm Friday, 4 pm Saturday, Oct. 14-15. $20, children under 12 free.

Saturday, Oct. 15

 EAT: Western Whiskey & BBQ

Suppose you’re looking for a reason to pull that Stetson out of the closet (who isn’t?). In that case, mosey on over to Stevenson, Wash., for Skamania Lodge’s inaugural celebration of the cowboy spirit and Portland-distilled Westward Whiskey. Come hungry: The menu includes queso fresco-stuffed chiles wrapped in bacon,

Southwest chopped salad with cilantro lime dressing, and coffee-rubbed flank steak. Each dish comes paired with a dif ferent whiskey. Americana duo Barefoot & Bonafide and Oregon’s award-winning cowboy poet Tom Swearingen will per form, ensuring the Old West theme ex tends beyond the food. Skamania Lodge, 1131 SW Skamania Lodge Way, Stevenson, Wash., 509-314-4177, skamania.com. 5-7 pm Saturday, Oct. 15. $55 adults, $21 chil dren under 12.

Sunday, Oct. 16

GO: Forty Years: Connecting Art and Audience

A staple of the Portland art scene, Elizabeth Leach Gallery celebrates four decades of operations, and to mark that milestone it’s releasing a detailed mono graph of its hundreds of exhibitions during that time titled Forty Years. Channel your inner sophistication (it’s in there some where!) and head to the book launch for a discussion between Leach, who was just 24 years old when she founded the venue, and former Portland Art Museum curator Bruce Guenther to learn more about how the small gallery rose to regional prominence. Pacific Northwest College of Art, 511 NW Broadway, 503-224-0521, elizabethleach.com. 11 am Sunday, Oct. 16. Free.

ALL THAT GLITTERS: Grammy Award-winning musician Rizo performs at the booze-free Glitterfest on Oct. 14 and 15.

You Down With HHC?

The hydrogenated version of THC is starting to get a lot of hype for its distinctive qualities, so we tried three different products ourselves.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

New cannabinoids are being discovered all the time. Whether they’re synthesized or isolated, cannabinoid discoveries seem to pop up faster than we can wrap our heads around what they may or may not do to our bodies.

Take, for example, HHC, a novel addition to the hemp-de rived, alternative cannabinoid lineup. Like delta-8, THC-O and delta-10, HHC is another form of THC that delivers effects that are distinct from its more popular recreational cousin, delta-9 (for the uninitiated, delta-9 THC is what’s measured by percentage points on the packaging of your favorite dispensary products).

HHC may not have the cachet of more familiar cannabi noids, but it may offer some very specific value not found in recreational cannabis—especially for low-tolerance smokers who tend to let their stashes molder.

HHC is not only shelf-stable and resistant to the UV rays and heat that degrades delta-9 THC, its effects are reportedly 50% to 80% as strong as medium-potency weed, which is to say, it’s a low-stakes cannabinoid that leads to a mellower high.

To learn more about this new(ish) variation of THC, we took a deep dive into its source, effects and manufacturing processes to find out whether it’s worthy of space in our stash box.

What is HHC?

Hexahydrocannabinol, or HHC, is a naturally occurring, trace element of cannabis first synthesized in the late 1940s by chem ist Roger Adams. Because of its natural scarcity, commercial HHC must be synthesized in a lab. Essentially, HHC is a hy drogenated, semi-synthetic form of THC, kind of like what

margarine is to butter.

HHC is basically THC without its double-bond chemical structure. In HHC, all the double bonds have been broken and replaced with hydrogen (aka hydrogenation). The difference between the two comes down, primarily, to how they degrade. THC may be the most abundant cannabinoid, but it is also the most fragile. HHC on the other hand, could be stored long term since it is far less affected by UV exposure.

Is HHC safe?

Despite the creepy and/or snake-oily reputations of synthet ic and alternative cannabinoids, HHC is, in fact, a naturally occurring phytocannabinoid. It appears as THCA degrades, albeit in very small quantities.

Since HHC is so naturally scant, it must for manufacturing purposes be created via hydrogenation. This process involves THC that’s been converted from hemp CBD or extracted in its natural form, concentrated, then subjected to high-pressure hydrogen and an inert metal catalyst. The reactions break THC’s double bonds, then restablize them with hydrogen. It’s a volatile process that can only be executed in very specific conditions. And like many other concentrates, there is concern that lingering solvent or unwanted chemical byproducts may be present in the resulting product.

However, there is not yet evidence to suggest HHC itself is harmful. So far, the synthetic cannabinoid has shown promise as a painkiller and stress reliever without causing an unman ageable heady high.

Since I’m a professional, I was eager to audition HHC myself, so I sampled a variety of products, including gummies, a tonic and a vape. Here are the results:

Bites HHC Fruit Punch Gummies

Eating the recommended dose of 30 mg felt like, for my high-tolerance self, an overportioned microdose of THC. I could compare the effects to what I would have felt from a 5 to 7 mg square of medicated candy: a gentle mood lift, calm clarity, patience and some everyday pain relief. This smoothly evaporated within about an hour. There was a lasting hint of psychotropic sparkle that might leave lower-tolerance users slightly swooning, but the high lacked the dimension of THC, which could attract users who are intimidated by its potency.

30 mg Cherry Tonic

About five minutes after swishing this syrupy-sweet, cher ry-flavored potion between my cheeks, I experienced a light flush of euphoria. Again, the effects were like a superpowered microdose: very manageable, but still a bit glittery. On the downside, the tonic was too sweet for even my sweet tooth, which may negate any therapeutic benefits. One of my side effects was a sugar headache.

Hard Hitting Cannabinoids Girl Scout Cookies Vape

Girl Scout Cookies is a perennial fave because of its balanced, relaxing high, but the HHC version is a faint reflection of the full-spectrum flower. I did experience some slight muscle pain relief and a mild mood boost, but overall the cookie-sweet vape lacked the familiar chest-expanding euphoria of its namesake. It might have a place in the stash box of someone who would benefit from low-stakes, on-the-go medication.

SHOWS WEEK

THURSDAY, OCT. 13:

Earth and Iceage might seem like a curious pairing—North west doom-metal pioneers and a punk band from Copenha gen? Yet both bands are defined by their restlessness. After pairing the distortion and feedback of heavy metal with the centering calm of drone music, Earth became beloved on the internet for their more atmospheric later records. And as for Iceage, their early brashness has gradually given way to gothic grandeur not unlike Nick Cave’s. This should be a good show to pair with a glass of red wine. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-234-9694, aladdin-theater.com. 8 pm. $25. All ages.

THURSDAY, OCT. 13:

The push-pull between Saturday night and Sunday morning has been crucial to pop music for its entire history—especially in genres rooted in gospel, like R&B and soul. Perhaps no con temporary artist captures that dichotomy like serpentwith feet , the project of singer Josiah Wise, whose passionate, rapturous, idiosyncratically produced songs about queer sex and love are couched in the language of sacrament, worship and revelation. If you wish Kanye’s Jesus Is King were better and gayer, look no further. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., 971-808-5094, 971-808-5094, revolutionhall.com. 8 pm. $20. 21+ floor, all ages balcony.

MONDAY, OCT. 17:

Alex G is at his peak. The singer-songwriter born Alex Gianna scoli became cultishly beloved with early albums like Race and Trick, recorded in his teens, which were astonishing in their emotional range even as their ramshackle production gave away their origin as do-it-yourself bedroom recordings. Now almost 30, Giannascoli is at the intersection of creativity and budgetary freedom that some artists can only dream about—yet he’s not above a jokey cover of “Life Is a Highway” every now and then. Crystal Ballroom, 1332

Burnside

The Sound of the Unexplained

Strategy’s new album, Unexplained Sky Burners, illuminates the mysterious science of dance music.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

While DJ’ing at long-running Old Town barcade Ground Kontrol, Paul Dickow noticed something about the “unknown, silly, fun, outrageous, cheap dance music” he was spinning.

“I noticed that the same samples would appear across all these different types of dance music,” Dickow says. “And it just led me to think: Why was this so sticky for all these different people, all these different audiences, these different genres, and different producers coming from different countries and cities? So I started to think: Maybe there’s something really elemental about those samples.”

Unexplained Sky Burners, Dickow’s new album under his Strategy mon iker, is his attempt at a sort of anthropological study of these samples. Though the music Dickow makes as Strategy is often beatless, ambient and abstract, Sky Burners is dance music. More specifically, it’s breakbeat house, which combines the pulse of house music with vintage drum samples known as breakbeats.

Though it’s appropriate that Dickow’s most dance-oriented release should come when clubs are back in full swing, these tracks were made between 2012 and 2015. Dickow put out an EP of similar material in 2014 called Pressure Wassure, and Sky Burners came from the same sessions.

It’s also coming out on the same label: Peak Oil, the L.A. label home to some of Dickow’s clubbier work that celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

In making the nine long tracks on Sky Burners, Dickow identified some of the most commonly used samples in dance music, most of them by ’60s and ’70s funk and soul artists both well known (James Brown) and obscure (the Winstons, whose “Amen, Brother” is one of the most sampled songs in history).

“I’d always start with the sample and then build something around it,” Dickow says. “It was really cool to pull that thread and feel like I could understand the journey of producers who came before, or be able to step into their experience of whatever inspired them in the moment.”

The rhythmic language is a little more jagged than on most conventional dance records. Rather than maintaining a danceable groove or building to ecstatic, climactic moments, the drums on Sky Burners engage in so many rhythmic detours that the album plays as much like a jazz album as a dance album at times.

While making this music, Dickow was drawn to “simple, bold, brash sounds that sound like something that we recognize from life.” Many of the samples Dickow identified feature some kind of spontaneous-sounding exhortation: a peal of laughter from Yaz’s “Situation,” a shout of excitement from Lyn Collins’ “Think (About It).” Others, such as an electronic beep from Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” evoke the machinery of everyday life: cellphones, elevators, checkout scanners.

“People were interpreting the noises that were prevalent in their envi ronment and putting them in the music,” Dickow says. “When you hear old dance records, there’s a lot of dial-up modem samples. They’re trying to say, ‘Hey, this song is about your world,’ and so there’s literally sounds from the world in it.”

It’s tough to pinpoint any of those sounds amid the percussive blur of Unexplained Sky Burners—and, unless you’ve been going to raves for a long time, it might be hard to identify some of the samples Dickow uses. This is the easiest Strategy release to recommend to a newcomer, but the more you know about the history of electronic dance music, the more you’re likely to get from it.

“I don’t think it’s so mutated that people can’t relate to it,” Dickow says. “I think it satisfies some of that hunger for the past that people have. But others don’t want to hear the same thing they’ve heard in the past, espe cially people that have lived through the rave culture already.”

Given the alien contexts of these familiar sounds, it’s appropriate that Dickow named the record after an aerial phenomenon that occurred on Nov. 20, 2013, when what appeared to be a fireball soared over the Willa mette Valley and disappeared into the rising sun.

Dickow considers himself a “skeptic,” and indeed it’s likely the fireball was simply a dramatically illuminated jet contrail, but it fits in both with electronic music’s history of sci-fi kitsch (“there’s like four rave versions of the X-Files theme”) and the record’s mix of the familiar and unfamiliar.

“I was in this process of trying to probe these mysteries of music, and I was just kind of entertained by this mystery happening right here in our own world,” Dickow says. “We should never get so jaded that we can’t enjoy a mystery.”

GET IT: Unexplained Sky Burners is available on digital and cassette at strategy.bandcamp.com. $8-$12.

thrilling and evocative.”

The Berkshire Edge

SUNSHINE RENAISSANCE MAN

Nabil Ayers’ memoir My Life in the Sunshine recalls Seattle, the music business, and his enigmatic father: jazz and soul great Roy Ayers.

BY JASON COHEN @cohenesque

Nabil Ayers has lived in New York City since 2008, but he still answers a phone number that starts with Seattle area code 206.

The former owner of Easy Street Records (as well as the drummer in such Seattle bands as The Lemons and The Long Winters), he’s now a music business guy, having run his own indie labels, The Control Group and Valley of Search, before serving as the longtime U.S. general manager of storied British indie 4AD Records (known for Cocteau Twins back in the day but, more recently, The National and Big Thief).

Earlier this year, Ayers became president of the entire Beggars Group USA, which includes 4AD, Rough Trade Records, XL Recordings, Matador Records, and Young. He’s also written for The Stranger, Pitchfork and The New York Times (and is on the board of Seattle radio station KEXP).

But none that brings Ayers to Portland this week. Rather, it’s his remarkable life story, which he’s turned into a remarkable book: My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Dis covering My Family (Viking, 320 pages, $26). It’s an eminently readable coming-of-age memoir, the story of one man’s life in music and the music business—but that’s just the backdrop to a larger story about family and race and masculinity and nature vs. nurture.

Ayers was conceived under unusual circumstances—a planned

pregnancy by his mother with no expectation of involvement from his father, the Black jazz and soul composer and vibra phonist Roy Ayers (the book’s title is a play on Ayers’ biggest hit, the oft-sampled “Everybody Loves the Sunshine’’). Nabil was raised by his mother, Louise Braufman, and his uncle, jazz saxophonist Alan Braufman, both of whom are white, and for most of his life, he was pretty much OK with that.

Until he wasn’t—or at least was ready to process his feelings about it and ponder his own creative, racial and family identity. Ayers will be in Portland to promote and discuss the book at multiple events this week; he spoke to WW by phone from New York City.

WW: It seems like the events of your life, and also some of your other writing, were kind of pointing toward this book. But when did you realize you had one?

Nabil Ayers: I started writing about six years ago. I was in my 40s and had a lot of fun stories about the record store and the bands I used to play in, and thought it would be really fun to write that stuff. Not for anyone to see or to publish. But then I did, and it reminded me of being in a band. I liked putting it out there. And my wife—whom I’d probably just met around then—was the one who was like, “Well, this is all fun, but you need to write about your race and your father.”

Your mom and your uncle were very hands-on about exposing you to music, but you’ve obvious ly asked yourself: How much of it was them? How much of it was Roy? Or how much of it was the fact that they were people who were drawn to Roy?

My mother played me records constantly. She’s a dancer, she doesn’t play anything, but [she’s] so musical. And then my uncle didn’t even have to try. He would play the saxophone five or six hours a day some days, and I would just be there playing with Legos while he was doing it. It was so natural. And then my father,

whom I only met a couple of times as a kid, that’s the DNA thing. So I’ll never know, probably!

You are probably getting this question a lot: Did you send Roy a book?

I’m in touch, as I write in the book, with my half-brother Mtume, the son who actually grew up with him. I emailed him and said, “I wrote this book. Here’s what it’s about. I’m not in touch with Roy or Ayana [Mtume’s sister]. So if you want to tell them about it, you should. If you want me to send you a book, I will!” And he just replied like, “Wow, cool, congrats!”

So to me, that was my due diligence. I didn’t want to do anything that makes me feel like I’m waiting for a response [from Roy], because that’s the whole problem. There’s no part of me that wanted to put myself in a position to do something that might make him feel better but certainly wouldn’t make me feel better.

Any specific Portland memories from your Seattle music days?

[In] bands, my favorite memory is Bill Stevenson, the drummer from Black Flag and Descendents. Wonderful guy. A monster on stage. An incredible, like, idol/mentor. This was when he was in All and I was in Lemons. I was like 23 or something at the time. We did a tour with them, we played the Portland show, and at La Luna, he was like, “Hey, my drum tech is sick. Can you be my drum tech? I’m gonna pay you 50 bucks.”

And I remember thinking: 50 bucks to be someplace I already was, that’s great! But I was also like, Jesus, I don’t want to do that! I was crouched down beneath him at his drum kit, and I would try to tighten his snare drum between every song, but they would play six songs in a row and he never stopped! I’m getting hit with drumsticks, I’m getting sweaty, his pedal broke, and I had to climb under and fix the pedal. It was one of the most weird, stressful hours of my life. But really fun!

SEE IT: Nabil Ayers appears in conversation with Alicia J. Rose at Powell’s Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-228-4651, powells.com. 7 pm Friday, Oct. 14. Free. Earlier that day, Ayers does an in-store book signing and DJ set at Music Millennium, 3158 E Burnside St., 503-231-8926, musicmil lennium.com. 4-6 pm. Free. He also appears on Live Wire Radio at Alberta Rose Theater, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 7:30 pm Thursday, Oct. 13. $30-$45.

“ I l iked putting it out there. And my wife was the one who was like, ‘Well, this is all fun, but you need to write about your race and your father.”

MOVIES

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

Short Cuts, Deep Cuts

Karina Lomelin Ripper seeks the essence of fandom and artistry in her short films Superfan and Visions.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

There are distinct differences among the three Portland artists profiled in Karina Lomelin Ripper’s new short documentary Visions.

Vietnamese textile artist Vo Vo is seen dyeing fabric and discussing their family’s history in sweatshops. Naomi Likayi, a painter and illustrator, speaks about her Con golese parents’ perceptions of her graphic art. And Papi Fimbres, the prolific Chicanx drummer from Portland bands like Sávila and Orquestra Pacifico Tropical, reflects on gaining an appreciation of his parents’ old-school taste in music.

Then, through symmetry and style, Lomelin Ripper brings the artist profiles to a rapturous confluence, as all three are seen working in ethereal art arenas (namely Portland Center Stage and the Center for Native Arts and Cultures), illuminated by spacey, eye-catching tube light ing, as though they’ve ascended to otherworldly creative planes.

“ When you’re an artist, you just have to be an artist,” says Lomelin Ripper of her subjects but also herself.

Playing at the Portland Film Festival, Visions is a tes tament to how artists’ roots shape their work, through both inspiration and conflict. It’s no accident that all three subjects are first-generation Americans, as is Lomelin Rip per, who was raised in Texas by Mexican parents (and has spent the past decade in Portland, building a filmmaking career writing, directing and producing).

After filming two Portland-based Chilean letterpress printers in her 2021 short La Tienda, Lomelin Ripper says she was hooked on exploring how artists’ stories vary and harmonize with her own. That’s partly why Visions starts by discussing how immigrant families have assessed their children’s artistic aspirations—a point of interest for the director, who knew she wanted to make films after first picking up a camera at her Dallas high school.

If Visions portrays creativity as an organic, near-mystical force, Lomelin Ripper’s second film screening at the Portland Film Festival, Superfan, takes on the notion of artist as celeb rity. It’s a prickly character study about a tense sleepover gone nuclear, focusing on two friends—Jeannie (Addisen Titus) and Selena (Keylee Milania Hoberock)—who begin to fall out when Jeannie, the slumber party’s host, shares her contest-entry letter to the girls’ favorite pop star only to learn that Selena won’t reciprocate by sharing hers. Superfan marks the second time Karina has written and directed a film with her husband, Marc Ripper (who’s

worked as an editor and colorist on Oregon-connected films like Clementine and Rehab Cabin). The couple previ ously collaborated on The Child and the Dead (2015), and Superfan finds them returning to that film’s restrained psychological dread.

The film began as many of the couple’s ideas do: with a chat at home. One night after a social gathering where the conversation touched on celebrity crushes, Lomelin Ripper says she confessed a preteen obsession with Jon athan Taylor Thomas (Home Improvement) to Marc—and revealed that her infatuation once caused a fight with a friend.

In Superfan, JTT is replaced by fictional teen idol Jesse Mitchell Scott (played by Kain Dracula Ashford, who is seen on magazine tear-outs plastered across both Jean nie’s and Selena’s bedrooms), but tension is generated by more than competing meet-a-celeb sweepstakes entries. Unlike the seemingly more middle-class Selena, Jeannie lives basically unparented in a sterile mansion (shot in Washougal, Wash.), highlighting an unspoken class and culture clash.

“I don’t blame each girl for the way she feels,” Lomelin Ripper says. “We’re definitely the puppeteers making the perfect storm.”

The particular vulnerability of a sleepover gone sour has struck a chord with some festivalgoers, who’ve ap proached the filmmakers to share stories of fraught child hood friendships and celebrity crushes that curdled.

“ We’ve been at some festivals with Superfan just holding hands in the back of the theater, vibing on the reaction,” Marc Ripper says. “It’s fodder for saying we need to do this again as soon as possible.”

While the couple has kicked around feature-length ideas, Lomelin Ripper remains intriguied by documen taries, expressing an interest in films that blend fact with stylistic flourishes. But regardless of the precise form, she could carry the lessons of Visions into whatever she wants to make next.

“There are all these ideas percolating forever in my brain,” she says, “these visions of things that I want to see on screen.”

SEE IT: Superfan and Visions screen at the Portland Film Festival, Lloyd Center, 1405 Lloyd Center, 503208-4757, portlandfilm.org. Superfan: noon Sunday, Oct. 16; 7 pm Tuesday, Oct. 18; 7:15 pm Sunday, Oct. 23. Visions: 7 pm Tuesday, Oct. 18; 7:15 pm Sunday, Oct. 23. Streaming also available. $7-$15.

STREAMING HORRORS

YOUR SPOOKY FILM QUEUE

BY ALEX BARR

SPOOKY PICK 1:

“I’ve done so much wrong to perform this miracle.” A trail blazing plastic surgeon, Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), attempts to save his daughter’s disfigured face following a near-fatal car crash in surrealist French auteur Georges Franju’s time-transcending Eyes Without a Face (1960). Costuming, set design, and surprisingly convincing prac tical effects combine to create a film inspired by classical German expressionist horror, but with a future-focused central scare. Dr. Génessier’s ambition knows no bounds as he and his female accomplice, Louise (Alida Valli), trick unknowing young women into taking part in their Fran kenstein experiments. HBO Max.

SPOOKY PICK 2:

With writer-director Rose Glass’ latest film, Love Lies Bleeding (which stars Kristen Stewart, Jena Malone and Ed Harris), in post-production, there’s no time like the present to experience her feature filmmaking debut, the cult classic Saint Maud (2019). Maud (Morfydd Clark) wants to lead her dying patient, Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), to salvation, but quickly unravels as her plans refuse to go accordingly. Religiously devoted, Maud will stop at noth ing to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Amazon Prime, Paramount+.

SPOOKY PICK 3:

Taysa Voss (Andrea Riseborough) possesses the bodies of strangers through the use of brain-implanted nano chips, executing hits for the highest bidder. Opening with a brutal stabbing scene, Possessor (2020) marches through scenes of violence with a no-holds-barred atti tude. Writer-director Brandon Cronenberg (son of David Cronenberg) delivers stunning visuals alongside disori enting, spaced-out shots, exploring questions of morality, capitalism and biotechnology that seize your attention from beginning to agonizing end. Hulu.

SPOOKY PICK 4:

Ari Aster’s first feature, Hereditary (2018), deeply horrifies without relying on typical generic tropes. Annie (Toni Collette) is grieving the loss of her mother while trying to maintain her relationships with her husband and her children, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that something sinister is lurking between the fractures in this family. Hereditary unnerves as it marinates in every second of each scare—and Collette gives an awe-inspiring performance that stuns with both its reality and its sur realism. Simply put, this movie will keep you up at night. Paramount+, Showtime.

COURTESY OF FORT RIPPER

BROS

From meeting cute to racing through the streets of New York in search of a climactic kiss, romantic comedies are rife with rituals. These moments can feel stale and obligatory, but in Bros, the sting of truth is expressed through the grandeur of fiction. Billy Eichner (who wrote the film with director Nicholas Stoller) stars as Bobby Lieber, a gay, single podcaster numbly living his life one monosyllabic Grindr hookup at a time. Despite his jaded posturing, Bobby is drawn to Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a dashing stranger whom he first sees bathed in beatific blue light at a club. In temperament, they couldn’t be more different—Bobby relishes being the director of a soon-toopen LGBTQ+ history museum, whereas Aaron resists his dream of being a chocolatier because he fears it’s too “faggy.” Can true love transcend insecurity? Just because the answer is familiar doesn’t mean it isn’t moving. While Bros has fine broad-comedy flourishes—including Bobby raging at a bust of Pete Buttigieg in a moment of romantic anguish—it is at its best when it is at its most tender. “Vulnerability is not a boner killer,” a friend tells Bobby. Bros takes those words to heart, embracing the emotional rawness that defines When Harry Met Sally… and You’ve Got Mail, both of which Bobby references. Eichner and Stoller simultaneously carry on and transcend the legacy of those films—theirs is the first rom-com from a major studio with an all-LGTQ principal cast—but they wear the mantle of importance lightly. At a time when hope is a limited resource, the most radical thing about Bros is that it’s a joy. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Progress Ridge, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.

AMSTERDAM

In 1933, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler testified to Con gress about an attempted coup orchestrated by fascism-ador ing industrialists who sought to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Butler’s account was dismissed by many, a special House committee confirmed parts of his story, which has been skillfully stitched into Amsterdam, a poignant and witty historical remix from director David O. Russell (American Hustle). Rather than start at the corrosive heart of what is now known as the Business Plot, Russell shows the conspiracy taking shape through the eyes of Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washing ton), two World War I veterans falsely accused of murder. Valerie (Margot Robbie), a former nurse who saved their lives during the war, helps them enlist Maj. Gen. Dillenbeck (Robert De Niro, playing a Smedley Butler analog) to catch the culprit, but Russell is in no rush to solve a mystery. Leisurely and lovingly, he wraps us in the fabric of Burt, Harold and Valerie’s lives, dwelling on details that are both unnerving and beautiful, like the tea set that Valerie fashions from shrapnel. If Amsterdam believes anything, it’s that democracy is defined by the seemingly small things that make a human being an individu al, absurd as they may be. That’s why the climax offers a rousing tribute to radical niceness and the gloriously silly spectacle of Burt singing, getting high, and teaming up with a British secret agent played by Austin Powers himself, Mike Myers. “You gotta fight to protect kindness,” Burt declares. He’s right, but he and Amsterdam are also fighting to protect something else: the liberating, life-giving power of

ridiculousness. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bagdad, Cinemagic, City Center, Clack amas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.

HOLD ME TIGHT

In the soft morning light, a mother named Clarisse (Vicky Krieps) packs a bag and ghosts her family, like the setup to a French Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Here, there’s more ennui and chain-smoking, along with Krieps expertly suggesting volumes of conflicted imagina tion behind a soft smile (as she did equally well in last year’s Bergman Island ). Cut back to the abandoned family; they’re trying to survive without Clarisse. Back to Clarisse; she’s unwell, drinking too much without them. Her daughter’s prodigious piano playing emanates through the home and simultaneously from the tape deck of Clarisse’s getaway car. Editor Francois Ge digier works furiously to establish this mirroring, and director Mathieu Amalric (best known for his performances in Munich and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) shows us split worlds, each with a great absence that generates something new. Though it owes a debt to Memento Hold Me Tight trades more in near-telepathic visions than puzzle pieces. Krieps brilliantly employs her preternat ural normalcy to ground a char acter whose new life on the road seems fueled by emotion alone. While none of the other perfor mances in the film equals Krieps’, the dense illusion of a broken family rewards your attention. Is Clarisse running, or running to stand still? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

THE WOMAN KING

The Woman King rejects the notion that its responsibility is to teach African history in two hours. Instead, it tells a tale of pride, dignity and agency against the backdrop of the fascinating Kingdom of Dahomey. In short, filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythe wood (who wrote for A Different World and directed Love & Bas ketball and The Old Guard ) and a stellar cast bring the legendary Agoji warrior women to life. Davis does an amazing job of playing Davis, without ever seeming to embody the persona of a stoic African warrior. Luckily for the film, this hardly matters. The sheer force she brings as an actor provides the essential emotion al beats that a more authentic portrayal might have asked her to sacrifice. Set in 1823, the film finds the Dahomey in a cyclical conflict with a neighboring tribe, enriching themselves with the sale of each other’s prisoners to the international slave trade—and King Ghezo (John Boyega) of the Dahomey is being pressured to abandon the practice. The Woman King is directed at a Black audience, but it’s a movie for everybody, despite prere lease critics’ assumption it was an inaccurate depiction of the “noble” Africans murdering their “evil” white oppressors. And if the mere existence of the film causes those with racial animus to inadvertently study some African history? Cool. PG-13. RAY GILL JR. Bridgeport, Cascade, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

This interactive screening of the English comedy troupe’s medieval satire features a costume contest with prizes (every ticket comes with a pair of coconuts with twine, a Holy Grail sticker, and a glow stick to hold up when you see the titular Grail). Quoting along, singing and clapping your coconuts together are encouraged! Cinema 21, Oct. 14.

The Handmaiden (2016)

Another week, another chance to catch up on Park Chan-wook’s filmography (before his already acclaimed Decision to Leave is released). In this seductive film set in 1930s Korea, a handmaiden is assigned to secretly scam a Japanese heiress. When the two develop feelings for each other, the plan takes a cunning turn. Cinema 21, Oct. 14.

Torso (1973)

After scads of coeds start turning up dead at the University of Perugia in Italy, an American exchange student and her gal pals flee to a villa in the countryside. Unfortunately, a serial killer has followed them with his trademark weapon: a classy black-and-red scarf. One of director Sergio Martino’s most renowned gialli! Acade my, Oct. 14-20.

Three the Band Way! (1986)

Wyrd War’s special triple creature feature incorporates a slew of gruesome 1986 horror classics: Troll, TerrorVision, and From Beyond. Legendary composer Richard Band will attend to discuss the impact of music on horror and fantasy cinema with visual artist Dennis Dread between films. Hollywood, Oct. 15.

Paprika (2006)

Step inside the ingenious mind of anime master Satoshi Kon with his final feature, a swirling sensory trip cen tered on a special device that allows users to view oth ers’ dreams. When it’s stolen by a terrorist hell-bent on using it to induce nightmares, a research psychologist must enter the dream world (as her alter ego, Paprika) and get it back. Hollywood, Oct. 16.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Beetlejuice (1988), Oct. 12-14. The Invisible Man (1933), Oct. 12-13. Freaks (1932), Oct. 12-13. Casper (1995), Oct. 14-20. Cinema 21: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Oct. 15. Clinton: Poison for the Fair ies (1986), Oct. 12. The Exorcist Director’s Cut (1973), Oct. 13. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), Oct. 15. The Love Witch (2016), Oct. 16. The Cell (2000), Oct. 16. The Host (2006), Oct. 17. 5th Avenue: The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013) and The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), Oct. 14-16. Hollywood: The Old Dark House (1932), Oct. 13. Poltergeist (1982), Oct. 14-16 and 19-20. Little Shop of Horrors Director’s Cut (1986), Oct. 14. Island of Lost Souls (1932), Oct. 15-16. Infernal Affairs (2002), Oct. 1718. Hocus Pocus (1993), Oct. 17. Night of the Living Dead (1968), Oct. 18.

by Jack Kent

JONES

(March 21-April 19):

must be willing

let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." Aries mythologist

Campbell said that, and now I'm passing it on to you just in time for the Sacred Surrender

of your astrological cycle. Make sage use of Campbell's wisdom, Aries! You will generate good fortune for yourself as you work to release

that may be interfering with the arrival of new stories and adventures. Be brave, my dear, as you relinquish outdated attachments and shed defunct hopes.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes before being discarded. Then they languish in our soil or oceans, degrading slowly as they cause mayhem for animals and ecosystems. In alignment with current cosmic rhythms, I'm encouraging you to be extra discerning in your relationship with plastic bags—as well as with all other unproduc tive, impractical, wasteful things and people. In the coming weeks, you will thrive by focusing on what will serve you with high integrity for a long time.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Achilleas Frangakis is a professor of electron microscopy. He studies the biochemistry of cells. In one of his research projects, he investigated how cells interact with the outside world. He didn't learn much about that question, but as he experimented, he inad vertently uncovered fascinating new information about another subject: how cells interact with each other when they heal a wound. His "success ful failure" was an example of what scientists sometimes do: They miss what they looked for, but find unexpected data and make serendipitous discoveries. I suspect you will experience com parable luck sometime soon, Gemini. Be alert for goodies you weren't in quest of.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Renowned Brazilian novelist Osman Lins was born under the sign of Cancer the Crab. He wrote, "I will now live my life with the inventiveness of an engineer who drives his locomotive off the tracks. No more beaten paths: improvisation is the rule." In the coming weeks, I am all in favor of you, my fellow Cancerian, being an inventive adventurer who improvises liberally and departs from well-worn routes. However, I don't recommend you do the equivalent of running your train off the tracks. Let's instead imagine you as piloting a fourwheel-drive, all-terrain vehicle. Go off-road to explore. Improvise enthusiastically as you recon noiter the unknown. But do so with scrupulous attention to what's healthy and inspiring.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In recent years, art histori ans have recovered numerous masterpieces that had been missing for years. They include a sculp ture by Bernini, a sketch by Picasso, a drawing by Albrecht Dürer, and a painting by Titian. I'm a big fan of efforts like these: searching for and finding lost treasures. And I think you should make that a fun project in the coming weeks. Are there any beautiful creations that have been lost or forgotten? Useful resources that have been neglected? Wild truths that have been buried or underestimated? In accordance with astrological potentials, I hope you will explore such possibili ties.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The most important experience for you to seek in the coming months is to be seen and respected for who you really are. Who are the allies best able to give you that bless ing? Make vigorous efforts to keep them close and treat them well. To inspire your mission, I of fer you three quotes. 1. Franz Kafka said, "All the love in the world is useless if there is a total lack of understanding." 2. Anais Nin wrote, "I don't want worship. I want understanding." 3. George Orwell: "Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libra poet Wallace Stevens said that the great poems of heaven and hell have already been written, and now it is time

to generate the great poems of earth. I'd love to invite all Libras, including non-writers, to apply that perspective in their own sphere. Just forget about heaven and hell for now. Turn your attention away from perfection and fantasylands and lofty heights. Disregard pathologies and muck and misery. Instead, explore and celebrate the precious mysteries of the world as it is. Be a connoisseur of the beauty and small miracles embedded in life's little details. Find glory in the routine.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Here are two top Scor pio pastimes: 1. exploring and deploying your intense, fertile creativity; 2. spiraling gleefully down into deep dark voids in pursuit of deep dark riches. Sometimes those two hobbies dovetail quite well; you can satisfy both pursuits simul taneously. One of my favorite variations on this scenario is when the deep dark void you leap into turns out to actually be a lush wonderland that stimulates your intense, fertile creativity. Ac cording to my analysis of the astrological omens, that's likely to happen soon.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): "I don't want to be made pacified or made comfortable. I like stuff that gets your adrenaline going." Sagittarian filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow said that. With the help of this attitude, she became the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Director. Her film was The Hurt Locker, about American soldiers in Iraq who dispose of unexploded bombs while being harassed by enemies. Any way, Bigelow's approach is usually too hard-ass for me. I'm a sensitive Cancer the Crab, not a bold Sagittarius the Centaur like Bigelow and you. But I don't want to assume you're in the mood for her approach. If you are, though, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to deploy it. Some marvelous epiphanies and healing changes will be available if you forswear stuff that makes you pacified or comfortable.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Author Jan Rich ardson tells us we can't return home by taking the same route we used when we departed. This will be wise advice for you to keep in mind dur ing the next nine months. I expect you will be attempting at least two kinds of homecomings. For best results, plan to travel by different routes than those that might seem natural and obvious. The most direct path—the successful passage— may be circuitous.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the coming days, maintain strict boundaries between yourself and anyone or anything that's not healthy for you. Be ultra-discerning as you decide which influences you will allow to affect you and which you won't. And rather than getting sour and tense as you do this, I recommend you proceed with wicked humor and sly irony. Here are three saucy self-protective statements you can use to ward off threats and remain inviolable. 1. "The current ambiance does not align sweetly with my vital soul energy; I must go track down some more harmonious karma." 2. "This atmosphere is out of sync with my deep precious selfness; I am compelled to take my deep precious selfness elsewhere." 3. "The undertones here are agitating my undercurrents; it behooves me to track down groovier overtones."

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): While asleep, have you ever dreamt of discovering new rooms in a house or other building you know well? I bet you will have at least one such dream soon. What does it mean? It suggests you want and need to get in touch with parts of yourself that have been dormant or unavailable. You may uncover evoca tive secrets about your past and present that had been unknown to you. You will learn about new resources you can access and provocative pos sibilities you had never imagined.

Homework: What do you pretty well that you could ultimately learn to do with brilliance and mastery? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

Steve Greenberg Tree Service

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