During the winter as kids my brother and I would make little pine cone feeders so the birds would have some fat to tide them over until spring. We’d have already collected and dried the cones. Mom would give us a jar of peanut butter and a bunch of bird seed. We’d rub peanut butter in the little crevices of the cones. Smelling of roasted nuts and dripping all over the place, I’d want to lick them. Then we’d sprinkle them all over with sunflowers seeds and maybe some cracked corn, tie them with little ribbons and hang the cones around in the yard. The chickadees would invariably come. With their melodic chicka-dee-dee-dee singsong, little black heads and puffed out bellies, the chickadees were a family favorite. While everyone else was blanketed in a snowstorm, the chickadees would happily hop around, foraging and taking advantage of the quiet. They’d hop right along on those ice-coated tree branches to visit our cone feeders.

I grew up in a family that still made good of our leftovers. We pan-fried leftover grilled corn, made meatloaf, stuffed all sorts of vegetables, made soup with bits and bobs of meats and leftover rinds and things. At times I thought it was amazing and at times a cruel joke. Do they really think I’m not going to notice that the corn in my fritter is from the half cob I refused to finish yesterday?! My attitude towards leftovers depended on age, and whether at that age I saw my parents as gods or messengers of evil, plotting against me. Reinventing foods to make something new and possibly more satiating is no laughing matter. It requires gusto which my mother has in spades. Many of the soups, stews, loafs, and stuffings we revere come from these humble roots.

Rocky Durham said in a cooking class we took with him back in Santa Fe, if you put grilled in front of just about anything, people will buy it. Seeing as this Santa Fean chef launched a series of successful restaurants, all called Santa Fe with exactly this premise in mind, let’s humor him and give it a try. Salad. Grilled salad. Watermelon. Grilled watermelon. Pizza. Grilled pizza. Springer spaniel. Grilled springer spaniel. Well, you get the idea.

The other day it was easy and breezy in Portland and I was missing steamy NY. This is the yin and yang of the journey. As I get farther away from where I’ve been, I am closer to realizing what matters to me. This Portland summer is altogether wonderfully mild… and sometimes that makes me feel complacent and underwhelmed. We’re about to take a plunge and attempt to live in the woods OFF THE GRID for a few months by ourselves. While this is something I have been dreaming about, here I am missing the most urban place on the planet.

A couple months ago Matt and I stopped ingesting large sums of caffeine. For people who spend a lot of time at their computers – writing and programming respectively – this is sort of professional suicide. We cut out basically everything except chocolate. And I’m not saying we swapped it out for some English Breakfast or Mate, which. BTW, is NOT coffee, but a bitter tonic that makes you feel like your chest is in a vice grip. For people who know us, this was a huge red flag – not the first indication that we’d gone off the deep end. They assumed we were half way to converting to Jainism and wearing bug nets in front of faces so we didn’t, perchance, swallow an unsuspecting fly, and that our cussing had been reduced to references to sweet snacks. Naaah, we’re still us, just not artificially pepped up like jackhammers. Really, my body needed a break. The caffeine wasn’t working anymore. Part of me also assumed I’d be like all the other 20-somethings out there who look back fondly and sheepishly at that one glorious year after college when they attempted to get off the juice. Or that it would be like the time we went on THE MASTER CLEANSE. We subjected ourselves to a few days of eating lemons, grade A maple syrup and cayenne pepper before we broke down, partially because we could barely concentrate enough to remember to drink the stuff, and raced around Manhattan looking for maple sugar candy leaves or a maple tree to tap. This is before we realized Manhattan is not in New England.

Ok ok, so I didn’t make this pizza. It’s from HUB (that’s Hopworks Urban Brewery) here in Portland. They have good beers, burgers, and pizza. Amen. This one was topped with feta, mozzarella, spinach, black olives, and garlic. I can’t make any claims to its deliciousness other than the fact we had the foresight to pack up after 4 slices last night and bring the rest home to reheat for lunch today in the toaster oven. Oh, and I may have slipped a few sardines in there. This was an excellent pizza yesterday. But today, that feta toasted beautifully, all golden and bubbling; those black olives developed little crispy edges and oh… let’s just say I closed my eyes while eating this slice. But the real secret is that almost burnt outer crust with its earthy goodness (and obviously carcinogenic badness, so don’t eat the totally charred bits) and golden, flaky layers which give way to a decidedly chewy center. I think the following day it’s more pie than pizza. Anything good about a pizza pie can only be enhanced in the toaster oven. Few foods can lay claim to being reborn. Pizza, well, few foods are pizza for sure.

Is there anything sexier than a perfectly fried egg? Is there anything more arousing than that shockingly orange and plumped yolk, quivering and barely peeking through the white as you prick it ever so lightly with your fork? I think not. The delicious mess of ooey, gooey sunny yolk spilling forth all over your dinner is just about the best thing that could happen to anything. So why can’t restaurants, or diners for that matter, see the egg as anything other than a cheap, rubbery substitute for dinner?

PDX, Stumptown, Beertown. In broad strokes (ahem, I’ve been here for a week and a half) Portland feels like Brooklyn on half-time. In place of Manhattan you have monstrous sequoias, pine trees, rivers, bikes, b*tches and beer. The people here are very vocal about putting their money where their mouth is. The city has become a nexus for organic eateries, gluten-free bakeries, and vegan and vegetarian everything (cookies, condoms, leather and lollipops). I’m not particularly prone to labels and imitations – on my food or otherwise, but it’s damn refreshing to be in a place where quality and conscientiousness are part of the baseline.

I wanted to share with you a delicious little secret that has been keeping me happy and healthy for the last few months. Matt and I have been on the move a lot lately. We were in India in March, spent some time on the Ayurvedic detox treatment Panchakarma, then two incredible weeks at Tom Brown Jr’s Tracker School learning tracking and survival skills, and a lot of time going here and there and everywhere. 2010 has been an amazing journey. This spring has been about getting back to the roots of our heritage, nature, and bodies as physical beings.

Oatmeal has been making my morning. Yes, just oatmeal. The simplest foods are the best without fail. This is oatmeal that has been soaked overnight in water with raisins so that it cooks as quick as the quickest oatmeal and turns a velvety smooth texture from the added acid. The soaking also neutralizes the phytic acid in the oats, making the oats more easily digestible and preventing the acid from robbing your body of minerals. It’s oatmeal that’s brought to a boil and simmers softly for five minutes or so while I stretch and wake my body up with a morning yoga. It’s oatmeal studded with plump raisins, sweetened with a glug of Connecticut maple syrup, and dressed up with a good dose of cardamom and cinnamon. Nestled in a bowl surrounded in a moat of hot milk, it is just oatmeal, inspired by Mom and made by Matt. I couldn’t imagine a better way to wake up.