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Market Watch

Creamy Fresh and Light

Rich but light? Creamy but low-cal? Asparagus soup makes it all possible – and quick, too.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 24, 2012 at 10:15AM 0 Comments

Rich but light? Creamy but not heavy with calories? Can such opposites be reconciled in one dish? It is possible, and not even difficult. “Cream” soups made with low-fat milk, a touch of butter and bit of flour can still have the luscious silky “mouthfeel” that makes a creamy soup especially satisfying – but without the heaviness you regret later.

Asparagus is what made me want to explore this happy meeting of opposites recently. Or, to be more precise, asparagus I’d badly overcooked. I didn’t want to waste it, so making it into a pureed soup was a logical next step.

Most vegetable based pureed soups are creamy, and thus not the healthiest of options (especially in spring, when heavy, fatty soups seem less appealing). But that reliable friend of healthy alternatives, Cooking Light, has a version that provides a lovely compromise. Leeks or carrots work, too, but I’ve only just used up the forlornly mushy asparagus and haven’t tried the other versions.

I loosely followed the Cooking Light recipe below (linked here), and came up with a delicious, delightfully easy soup. Searching in vain for nutmeg, I substituted allspice. I used dried thyme instead of fresh (accidentally – it still wasn’t my most careful cooking day). And the milk I had was 2% instead of 1%. Given that I was so off in my cooking that day, the success of the soup proves anyone can do it, easily.

Cream of Asparagus Soup
3 cups (1/2-inch) sliced asparagus (about 1 pound)
2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
3/4 teaspoon fresh thyme, divided
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups 1% low-fat milk
Dash of ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Combine asparagus, broth, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, bay leaf, and garlic in a large saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Discard bay leaf.
Place asparagus mixture in a blender; process until smooth. (I used an immersion blender, which makes it even easier.)
Place flour in pan. Gradually add the milk, stirring with a whisk until blended.
Add puréed asparagus and ground nutmeg; stir to combine. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat, and stir in 1/4 teaspoon thyme, butter, salt, and lemon rind.

Variations:
Cream of Carrot Soup: Substitute 2 cups baby carrots for asparagus. Omit bay leaf. Yield 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup).
Cream of Leek Soup: Substitute 3 cups sliced leek for asparagus. Substitute 3/4 teaspoon rosemary for thyme. Omit bay leaf.

For a less creamy asparagus soup experience, try the recipe Higgins restaurant’s Greg Higgins shared with Edible Portland magazine. His Potato, Morel and Asparagus Soup uses a miso broth as its base and pureed potato to add the creamy texture; the asparagus (joined by kale) floats in one-inch chunks. Here’s the link.

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Desirables

Furniture with an Edge

Denali brings natural and industrial edges together at its Central Eastside workshop showroom.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 23, 2012 at 02:00PM 3 Comments

Living on the edge can mean many things; to some furniture makers, it might mean letting the irregular natural edge of a piece of wood shine through in the finished product. This style is becoming popular these days. You’ve seen it if you’ve been to Grain & Gristle in Northeast Portland.

Their remarkable and unique wooden bar is the focus of the popular gourmet pub grub spot. Built by Brendan Alvistur, the bar has smooth yet rough edges that provide nooks and crannies to sidle up to as you order another craft beer from Upright Brewing, the house brewery.

At home, you might not go so large scale, but you can get a similar effect, not just by drinking craft beer but by using natural edged wood. Such pieces are often called “live edge,” and Denali Furniture in the Central Eastside is crafting its own tables, desks and shelves in this fashion.

Denali combines the live edge wood with industrial metal for most of its pieces. The look is an appealing, eclectic mash-up. Store owner Benjamin York grew up in a furniture family, starting in his teens helping his parents Mike and Mary with their shabby chic and then Chinese antique import businesses.

The family moved to Portland from Santa Rosa, CA about seven years ago and settled their business in the Central Eastside. And for the past four years or so, the main enterprise has been Denali, with the boss being Benjamin. His Denali store and workspace takes up the corner of SE Grand and Main, right at the entrance to the Hawthorne Bridge.

It’s a great retail location, with so much drive-by, bike-by, Tri-met bus and walking traffic zipping (or moseying) past the intersection. Plus, it’s in the Central Eastside Design District, the ad hoc confluence of home design-oriented stores in the unpretentious warehouse-filled blocks just across from downtown Portland.

Rejuvenation is right up the street; the more recent Bamboo Revolution shares the block with Denali – and Coava Coffee shares space with Bamboo Revolution; good neighbors, all, and all the more reason to make the area a destination.

Denali is happy to sell items ready made out of the showroom studio, but mostly they work to custom make what you need, how you’d like it. The shop is filled with slabs of tulipwood, redwood, walnut, maple and other woods waiting to be discovered and transformed into an heirloom dining table, desk, bench or other unique piece of functional art.

The size of some of the timbers is tremendous – how about an 8-foot-long table made from a single piece of apricot? And the studio space is fun to wander through, imagining what you might make of one beautiful slab after another and looking at what they have in process to get ideas.

The industrial metal bases on Denali’s pieces tend to be solid and substantial counterpoints to the rugged wood slabs. Not all the work is live edge, but those pieces are most captivating. Prices are relatively affordable. A bench would be in the $400 range; a custom-made single slab table could be a few thousand, depending on the wood and many other factors.

The work being produced by Denali and others doing live edge furniture (another local is the Natural Edge company in Bend) is a new take on what George Nakashima started back in the 1940s with his rough-edged organic modernist furniture for Knoll. Nakashima became famous for his sternly simple yet romantically natural wooden chairs and tables produced in the 1950s and beyond.

Though his studio was located in Bucks County, PA, Nakashima himself was a product of the Pacific Northwest, born in Spokane and raised on the Olympic Peninsula – and like so many Japanese Americans, imprisoned during World War II in an Idaho internment camp, with his wife and young daughter.

Now, Nakashima’s daughter Mira runs the company (still in Bucks County), and designs a legacy line of furniture. The York family business at Denali is nowhere near that level, but they are a young company; who knows what they’ll come up with, especially with creative Portland customers coming in with new ideas. And with all that beautiful wood around…

Denali Furniture
1338 SE Grand Ave
Portland, OR 97214
Phone:(503) 233-2900
Monday – Sat 10:30AM to 4:00PM

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Gift Giving

Prints of the City

Indulge in affordable art as graduation and wedding gifts this spring.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 22, 2012 at 04:00PM 0 Comments

Are you one of those people who, despite an obvious lack of wall space, still falls in love with new works of art for the wall? I can’t be the only one; after all, the visual appeal of what people create doesn’t wane once our own walls are covered.

All the more reason to be glad that wedding and graduation season is upon us. Such celebrations are a perfect excuse to purchase affordable, fun art like the city-inspired graphics from local company Albie Designs.

Kim Sly is the artist behind Albie. She’s created a series of city prints with a simple graphic style that evokes 1950s and ‘60s-style color-blocked advertisements or children’s books. Her work reminds me especially of Miroslav Sasek; he’s the Czech born illustrator of a series of now-classic children’s books about cities. You probably don’t know his name (and he signed his books as “M. Sasek”), but you may know the images.

Sasek’s series began in 1959 with Paris, and grew to a list of 18 places including London, Rome and New York. He never got to Portland, so perhaps Sly is picking up where Sasek left off. If so, it’s a good thing.

A Portland native who now lives in Lake Oswego, Sly has explored beyond Portland to depict Eugene and Bend as well as San Francisco, Seattle and L.A. (but no L.O. so far?). Further from home, she’s illustrated London, Paris, Pittsburgh, Boston, New Orleans, New York City and several other favorite places.

Sly draws first and then adds color on the computer to create the whimsical, abstracted city scenes, capturing the character of each place with concise lines and blocks of pleasingly flat color. The drawings are based on research or first hand experiences, and would be perfect as mementos of time spent somewhere or visual wish lists of places to go.

The prices are equally appealing, with 11” x 14” prints going for $30-35. Smaller and larger sizes are also available, as are a cute series of smaller (and $12) foodie prints with phrases like “unwind” alongside a corkscrew and “all heart” accompanying an artichoke. There’s plenty to like, and probably enough cities and food items to match the likes of any of the soon to be grads or honeymooners you’ll be congratulating this spring.

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Desirables

Maximum Remote Control

How to be away from home, but still very much in control.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 22, 2012 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

Have you ever been out of town for a few days, or a few weeks, and wondered what was happening on the home front? Not just how much rain you were missing (or worse still, if you were missing April sunshine in Portland while it was raining where you were in, say, Spain)? Well, a home security remote control system won’t control the weather, but it can make you fully comfortable that nothing’s gone awry chez vous.

“Smart home” systems can be operated via your smart phone; put the two together, and they’re likely to be smarter than all the members of your household combined. Once you’ve programmed the system, you barely have to use your brain. Control 4 is one such electronic “home automation” system that’ll do the work for you, day in and day out, whether you’re home or on location in Italy.

Opening garage doors with the touch of a remote? That’s passé – but now you can do it from your iPhone as part of a choreographed “welcome home scene.” Yes, each time you come home, you can star in your own dramatic video. Paparazzi probably cost extra, but interior lights can be set to come on, and the security cameras can see it’s you and not an intruder; your house can already have been heated or cooled to the temperature of your preference.

I’ve not heard yet of an automated system that has done the vacuuming and combed through the fridge to fix up a healthy ‘n’ tasty meal, but I imagine that’s in the works. There are features in the Control 4 system that can tell if the fridge has gone off, for example, or detect water leaks. No more coming home to the water heater having flooded the basement, as I experienced recently (or worse still, water heater flooding the entire first floor for a week, as my neighbors experienced. We were all watching out for each other, but no one on the street knew what had happened inside while Jim and Kim were on holiday.)

Remote control home systems can be operated via smart phone over wifi from anywhere. You can program locks to be opened with temporary access codes that only work for a set point of time, like when you’re expecting a guest or service worker, for instance; or the system can unlock a door only at the time your children will be getting home. You can even set the TV so that the kids can’t watch it, or can only watch certain stations.

It’s enough to get me imagining I’m the Wizard of Oz – and not worrying about home when I’m away. Plus, Control 4 lets you DJ the music in different rooms in your house, set the lighting for your home theater atmosphere, and change the thermostat from bed… the Wizard of Oz only wished he had so much power.

Control 4 systems are available in the Portland area through Harvey Simmons at Encore Audio/Video.

Encore Audio/Video
1605 NW Glisan St.
Portland,OR 97209
503.224.9400

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Market Watch

More than a Croque, Madame

The classic French grilled sandwich takes us from National Grilled Cheese Month to Mother’s Day.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 17, 2012 at 10:15AM 2 Comments

April may be the cruelest month, in T.S. Eliot’s view, but it’s also National Grilled Cheese Month – and if that doesn’t perk up your spirits, I don’t know what will. The penultimate, National Grilled Cheese Day, passed a few days ago (April 12; you probably sensed something special was happening), but we’ve still got some days left to celebrate melted cheese marvels – and get ready for Mother’s Day at the same time. The Croque Madame sandwich fits both bills.

The Croque Madame is that step up from the regular grilled cheese that will make Mom know she’s really special when you serve it to her at brunch on May 13. It’s a bistro and cafe society invention of the French, circa 1910, the feminine companion to the Croque Monsieur popularized at the same time. Essentially a buttery concoction of grilled ham and cheese on white bread, the two Croques, Monsieur and Madame, get their names from the French verb croquer, to crunch.

Croque Madame takes on Monsieur and outdoes him as only a woman can outdo a man, by putting an egg on top of it all. The open-faced poached or fried egg sandwich thus gives a perfect excuse to show off those gorgeous farm fresh eggs you pick up at the spring farmers market.

For the Croque Madame recipe, we turn to The Joy of Cooking, which instructs us to “prepare Croque Monsieur” and then execute a few more steps. Here is my version, starting with the mister:

Croque Madame (and Monsieur)
To make 6 Croque Madame sandwiches, first get the Croque Monsieur started:
Lay out on a work surface:
12 slices home-style white sandwich bread
Spread one side of six of the slices with:
Unsalted butter, softened (3 T. total)
Grainy or smooth French-style mustard (optional)
Place on the buttered sides:
6 thin slices good-quality ham (about 12 ounces total)
Cover with the remaining slices of bread. Place the sandwiches under the broiler and grill until golden. Remove the sandwiches, turn, and cover each with:
4 ½ ounces Gruyere cheese, grated
Return to the broiler and grill until the cheese is not quite bubbling and golden. Remove from broiler and cut a small round out of the top piece of the cheese-covered bread, exposing the ham. Reserve the round. Break a small egg into the hole and place under the broiler until the egg is set, 2 to 3 minutes. To serve, top the egg with the cheese-covered round.

If your culinary skills aren’t ready for such a gourmet sandwich, start with something simpler: the Grilled Cheese Sandwiches recipe on page 88 of Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two Cook Book, from 1958. It’s the book my own mother learned to cook from, and the recipe is a scant paragraph:

Betty Crocker’s Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Toast bread slices on one side. Butter untoasted side of bread slices; cover with slices of American cheese. Place under broiler until cheese melts. Sprinkle with paprika. Serve at once.

Here’s to the everlasting greatness of grilled cheese, and Croque Madame, and Mother!

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Inspirations

Tour Stories

Learning from your neighbors beats going back to school for lessons in renovation, preservation and decorating a beautiful home.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 16, 2012 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

In Portland, house and garden tours are frequent enough that too often they come and go and I’ve missed them. I take it for granted that there’s always another interesting, informative and inspiring tour coming up soon. But this past weekend I was smart enough to get out on a gorgeous Saturday and see several of the old houses on the Architectural Heritage Center’s (AHC) annual Kitchen Revival tour. I was reminded of what a great resource and how much fun these open house tours are.

For getting ideas of how to decorate, or how to build, remodel, preserve or renovate, nothing beats seeing what others have done. Open house tours are a chance to peak inside the doors of folks you don’t even know – or in some cases people you do know but had no idea they lived in such a fabulous house.

The recent AHC tour featured several craftsman style homes from the early 20th century, typical of Portland’s single-family homes of the era and lovingly restored. One of the nice things about these self-guided tours is that you can pick and choose which to visit and in what order. That said, Saturday’s tour was an easy Eastside lesson in restoring and respectfully modernizing five kitchens from 1910 to 1916. Lessons included multiple examples of “how to hide the fridge” and “refurbished gas ranges that gleam.” The 1898 farmhouse Victorian in Sunnyside and the 1961 Alameda Ridge modernist were the outliers, as was the 1926 apartment on the Westside.

The Alameda house was built by architect John Schneider for himself, with some healthy inspiration from Pietro Belluschi and the prevalent Northwest Regional modernist style of the time. Arciform did the recent renovation, and principal Anne DeWolfe was on site to answer questions. That’s another fine thing about open house tours: they’re a chance to talk to owners, architects, designers and contractors and see what certain materials and solutions look like up close and personal. (The new cement-based countertops from Fuez were simple and lovely.)

The tours are also a reminder of how fun design can be, and how worthwhile it is to make changes to where you live so that you really love your home. Hearing owners enthusiastically describe their design and construction process (whether it was DIY or high-end design) inspires me with appreciation for the admittedly hard work of making a place fit just right.

Future open house events include a June 2 tour of several Rummer Houses in the Garden Home area of metro Portland. The tour is sponsored by the Historic Preservation League of Oregon and includes the builder’s own home.

Or perhaps you’re feeling generous and house-proud yourself – and you have a green, sustainable residential project to share? Consider applying for the 2012 Build It Green! Tour. The annual tour isn’t until September, and projects can be complete or in process at that time; applications are online and are due Monday, May 14th, 2012. Call Valerie Garrett at the city’s Green Buildings Hotline 503-823-5431 if you have questions.

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Free for All

Brits Bring the Green

English architect/academics Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till guest star this week in two free lectures at PSU.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 15, 2012 at 05:00PM 0 Comments

Here’s a question: might it be just a teeny bit possible that we Portlanders are sometimes somewhat self-congratulatory about our fabulous quality of life and how green and sustainable we are? A little, teeny, weeny bit? If so, it’s good to remember that we can learn a lot from knowledgable outsiders. The Architecture Department at Portland State University is sponsoring some upcoming events to help us do just that.

This week, a couple (literally) of British architect/educators, Jeremy Till and Sarah Wigglesworth, will be at PSU to provoke some thoughts (we hope) at two free lectures the evenings of Thursday April 19 and Friday April 20th.

Till will lecture the first night, giving a talk with the intriguing title, "First Impressions: Escaping the Fountainhead.” Have you read The Fountainhead, or seen the movie starring Gary Cooper? That image of the fiercely independent architect is still with us; it should be interesting to hear the British academic Till’s reaction to it. He’ll be drawing from his from his 2009 book Architecture Depends, and will, we are promised, “call attention to the gap between what architecture actually is—contingent on many outside forces—and what architects seem to want it to be—autonomous and pure.”

Friday night will be Wiggleworth’s turn at the podium. She’s run a firm bearing her own name since 1994, and specializes in “low energy and sustainable building(s) that inventively use readily-available materials.” Her work runs the gamut in scale from “tiny” to “medium” (inventive and beautiful renovation/additions like the Siobhan Davies Dance Studios) to “large” master plans and urban riverside revitalization schemes.

In May, PSU will again have on campus an outsider we can hope will bring us some new perspective and not just pat us on the back for the successes we planned in the 1970s and ‘80s. This time the free lecture is by Thomas Auer, a German building engineer and visiting professor at Yale.

Auer’s talk (Thursday May 10 at 7 p.m.) kicks off PSU’s symposium Measuring Up, which intends to discuss some important questions: “Are green buildings in use measuring up to their targets? What role do building occupants play in the discussion of performance? How can research in buildings inform and improve design practice? And how can successful strategies be replicated at a larger scale?”

These questions are especially relevant at this point in the development of our city and in light of recent news that the ambitious Oregon Sustainability Center project appears to be entering the realm of past dreams rather than future realities. We’ll see what some eminent out-of-towners have to offer the discussion.

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Out and About

BEST Businesses in Town

See who is talking the talk and walking the walk of sustainability at the BEST awards April 25. Get your tickets now!

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 15, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Our town is famously green – and darn proud of it. But we also know that there’s always room for improvement. We’re nowhere near reaching the reduction in carbon emissions and other lofty green goals the City government has proclaimed we shall attain by various points in the future.

So, if you’re like most of us Portlanders, you do what you can, and try to keep learning how to live more environmentally efficiently and responsibly. Which brings us to the city’s annual BEST awards, taking place Wednesday, April 25 at the Nines Hotel in downtown Portland. For 20 years now the City has been recognizing local businesses whose operations are as green as it gets.

The BEST awards are put on by Sustainability at Work (formerly the Best Business Center), a partnership of several City bureaus, Metro, Energy Trust of Oregon and Pacific Power. Past winners have included everybody from Timber Pro UV Natural Wood Finishes to Bamboo Sushi to the Rose Quarter/Trail Blazers organization.

This year’s awards, celebrating their 20th birthday, have gone posh and moved from a breakfast meeting to an evening event complete with champagne. Some of the applicants are Purdy (the painting supplies company that began in a Portland garage in 1925 and still employs more than 100 people handcrafting paintbrushes here in town), Green Hammer, Hammer and Hand, and GoBox, a new service providing reusable to-go containers for food carts.

Attending the awards reception is a great way to learn about who is doing what best green business practices here in Puddletown. You’ll even get a mobile Chinook book for your smart phone as a thank you.

But even if you can’t make it, check out the Sustainability at Work website for a list of certifiably green local businesses. And if you have a business (home based or not, small or large), get in touch with the Sustainability at Work staff for advice on financial incentives and tips on how to improve your own green profile.

BEST Awards
The Nines
525 SW Morrison St., Portland, Oregon 97204
April 25, 2012
4:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Tickets $25, available online (through Friday) via the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability

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Market Watch

To Market, to Market

Summer hours at the big downtown Portland Farmers Market herald the true coming of spring!

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 10, 2012 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

Sure signs that the seasons are changing: spring break is behind us in both Oregon and Washington, there aren’t any holidays on the horizon, and we’ve moved into the summer schedule for the Saturday Portland Farmers Market at Portland State! That last one most of us can get excited about, so let’s focus on it.

The bountiful farmers market scene in the Portland metro area continues to bloom. Maybe this year it’ll be filled out in all the right places. As with food carts or microbreweries, there must be a point at which the market is saturated, as they say. Not every parking lot can support an artisan sausage or gourmet taco stand. But in the right location, such additions to the neighborhood can work wonders.

The Portland Farmers Market (PFM) group coordinates several markets across the city and on different days of the week; the idea is that times, days and locations are complementary. And for the most part the system works fabulously. The market held Saturdays on the Park Blocks of Portland State University (PSU) – not to be confused with the “Saturday Market” that takes place Saturdays and Sundays near Skidmore Fountain in Old Town – is the honored elder of the family. And for good reasons: it’s centrally located in the metro area, easy to get to on transit, and convenient for downtown tourists soaking up the Portland atmosphere. Moreover, it’s a lovely physical environment.

By contrast, some of the other markets have less going for them. Not just any flat surface can host a successful farmers market. Case in point: last year the local market system grew to include a North Portland market at the old Kenton Elementary School parking lot near the Lombard station of the Interstate MAX line. The location was a detriment: the immediate environment was unpleasant (asphalt and chain link fencing) and the connection to more walkable, pleasant surroundings was tenuous. The site was marginally in Kenton, but far from the neighborhood’s main street retail area, the old downtown on Denver Avenue that dates back to when Kenton was its own city in the 19th century.

But this year, the PFM folks are trying again in an extremely promising location: downtown Kenton at North Denver Avenue and North McClellan. The two blocks of McClellan flanking the intersection at Denver will be closed off to car traffic so that the market can take over the pleasantly scaled tree-lined streets in the heart of Kenton. The local restaurants and shops will be open. And the timing should be perfect: Fridays from 3 to 7 pm. After a long work week, stop by the market, listen to music, meet neighbors or new friends, pick up dinner items or wander off to one of the local restaurants right there.

The Kenton market will open June 1 (and run through September 28). The MAX station (Kenton stop) is only a single (pleasant-to-walk) block away – as is that beacon of Kentoniana, the Paul Bunyan statue. With Paul presiding over it all, I’m sure the new market will be a success.

Keep up to date with the PFM goings on by checking out their blog. The PFM website also has a good listing of other local markets not directly part of their system.

Details for the downtown PSU farmers market:
Saturdays, March 17th through December 15th
8:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – March thru October
Location: Portland State University in the South Park Blocks between SW Hall & SW Montgomery

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Desirables

Stereo Totale

Perfect sound forever (or at least for today), with the latest technology.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 09, 2012 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

It’s an understatement to say that audio and visual home entertainment has come a long way in a short time. There was the Victrola. There were wood-encased cabinet radios. There was the dawning of the age of television – black and white, then color. There were musical marvels like close and play record players, hi-fi stereo cabinets and consoles, eight-tracks and cassette players, VHS and Beta…

Landfills have filled because of advances in audio and visual technology. Transistor radios and boomboxes, Walkmen and compact disc players have all come and, to one degree or another, gone. What remains now? What grows in the current landscape of sound and vision?

Home audio and visual offerings these days are a mash-up of high and low, miniscule and ginormous – from itty-bitty iPod to 65" flat screen HD-TV, boggling the mind but delighting the eyes and ears. The implications for home decor are significant.

It’s been a long, long, long time (to quote George Harrison and the Beatles, that ancient band) since all your music was etched on vinyl platters encased in colorful cardboard and stacked on shelves within reach of a turntable. Now, your home music might not even be at home – it could be in “the Cloud.”
A chat with Harvey Simmons of Encore Audio/Video assures that for pretty much any audio and visual home entertainment need, there is a good solution – invisible or not, small or large, sleek metal or dark wood.

Speakers can be nearly (or completely) invisible – set flush into a wall, for instance, and painted – or even hidden behind sheetrock. Or they can be encased in beautiful woods like cherry. Not everything has to have an Apple aesthetic, but there’s plenty out there that does. Some companies combine warm wood with sleek style (beautiful example: the Peachtree Audio iNova integrated amp, pictured above).

Even with the Cloud and wi-fi, if you want to listen to recorded music at home, wires will be required. The sound source may be the Cloud, accessed via your laptop or I-phone, but for that you need wi-fi, which of course means a physical cord connecting to electricity to power your Internet router. Once you’ve got the wi-fi, the extent to which the sound can stretch is fairly endless. It depends on your budget for how many speakers you want to install, inside and out.

Sonos makes an all-around audio system that falls solidly on the sleek and simple end of the design spectrum. Components are boxes of various sizes depending on what they need to do. A small box is the bridge to your router (connecting with a standard Ethernet cable). A slightly larger box can connect to your stereo for streaming audio through whatever speakers you already have. Larger boxes are all-in-one speakers you can put in different rooms or bring outside to blast music for neighbors, wirelessly connecting to the wi-fi system – though still needing electrical power, of course.

The remote to control these (you didn’t think you were going to have to get up off the couch, did you?) can be an iPhone, Android or iPad. You can sync all the speakers or play a different song in every room. Imagine the stereo wars one family could wage. But all for the sake of music, beautiful music.

Encore Audio/Video
1605 NW Glisan St.
Portland,OR 97209
503.224.9400
Mon-Sat 10 AM to 6 PM
Sunday 11 AM to 5 PM

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Out and About

Artists Show and Sell

It’s time for Buckman-ia, the 22nd annual Buckman arts magnet school’s fundraiser and festival of artists young and old.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 08, 2012 at 11:00AM 2 Comments

Stock up on garden art, paintings and ceramics, photography, jewelry and other “wearable art” at this annual sale of local artists’ creations. With more than 140 artists showing and selling this year at the Buckman Arts Focus Elementary School’s festival Friday-Saturday April 13-14, you’ll probably make some new discoveries and find plenty to like.

The Buckman Show and Sell (a play on children’s “show and tell,” in case you don’t have young kids or don’t keep in close touch with your inner child) has been going on long enough to have graduated from college. But though it’s grown, it hasn’t moved on.

The fundraiser began in 1989 when the school became an arts magnet. It has since expanded from about a dozen fine artists showing in the cafeteria to a two-day extravaganza covering the whole ground floor of Buckman, gym and hallways included, and featuring music, artist demos, a silent auction, and a host of food and beverage delights.

From the beginning, the Buckman show has been a bit unusual in that it gives both buyers and sellers a bonus. To sellers, it offers a bigger cut of the sale price, asking for a commission as donation to the school rather than the full value of the art to be donated. They also let an artist sell older works, so he or she can “‘clean house’ and price their work fairly low, as they would at an artists’ studio sale.” A classic win-win situation for artists and supporters alike.

Some of the participating artists have children attending the school, so you never know which local luminaries will show up as parent-artists. (A few years ago, the Shins’ James Mercer and Stephen Malkmus of the Jicks sang a few tunes in a special musical bash, presumably as parents, not just indie rock legends.)

The list of artists exhibiting is online. This year, some of the discoveries include Jill Bliss, illustrator and teacher; prints from printmaker/painter-collage artist Marcy Baker; and paintings by Christopher Bibby.

Details:
Friday, April 13th, 5:00pm – 9:00pm
General Public: $5
Children 4 and Under: Free!

Saturday, April 14th, 10:00am – 5:00pm
General Public: $2 (suggested donation)
Children 4 and Under: Free!

Buckman Arts Focus Elementary School
320 SE 16th Avenue (at Stark)
Portland, OR
503. 936. 2197

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Desirables

West Elm Summer

Refreshments for the home front as the season slips into spring and summer.

Posted by: Kristin Belz on Apr 07, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Savvy retailers are always refreshing their stock – or at least they do so once a season. With each refresh, they’re hoping we’ll feel the urge to do the same. Whether its our wardrobe, furniture or housewares, they know it’s human nature to get a bit tired of what we have and start hankering to throw something new in the mix.

And now that we’ve had a stretch of gorgeous weather (it’s been at least three straight days with a good amount of sun, according to my records!), it’s a good time to venture out and check what’s on display this season in snazzy Pearl District storefronts like West Elm.

West Elm is the Brooklyn, NY-born cousin of the Williams-Sonoma family of home-oriented retail powerhouses (which now includes Portland’s own Rejuvenation), and they are ready to get the spring and summer party started. Refreshers for warm weather run the gamut from minor touches (a serving platter, table linens) to major (outdoor sofas), but my favorite is the Montauk Nest Chair. It’s the return of a best seller, and a splurge ($799) I’ll be saving up for.

The Nest Chair is outdoor furniture that makes a statement combining creativity, comfort and practicality. Woven of chunky greyish brown all-weather wicker over a lightweight, rust-resistant frame, the chair evidently can live outside without withering. And that’s good to know, since its ample rounded shape (it measures 48" high x 44” deep x 32” wide) is not something I’d want to be hauling around a lot. But sitting in it, out on the deck or by the pool, for hours? That I can see. The Montauk chair has siblings – a boxy lounge chair and a luxuriously reclining chaise lounge.

If weather resistant wicker doesn’t float your boat, there’s plenty more to refresh the home for spring and summer. Warm red and coral colors, watery blues and turquoises, and neutral, natural shell shades of white and grey were in abundance. Well-priced soft white porcelain vases and other tabletop objects by sculptor Maria Moyer are inspired by ocean critters and seashells (with 5% of the proceeds of sales go to Oceana, a non-profit).

Called the Plankton Series, it “reflects my appreciation for the beauty and exquisite weirdness of nature,” as she puts it. Not a bad way to go about refreshing home and garden as the weather warms.

West Elm
located in the Brewery Blocks
1201 NW Couch Street
(Corner of Couch St. and 12th Ave)
Portland, OR 97209
503.224.4480
Mon-Fri:10am – 8pm
Saturday:10am – 8pm
Sunday:11am – 6pm

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