Cook Stoves and Winter Warmers

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Ah, the holiday season is upon us, or overtaken us, I’d say. My career search continues to move along a three-pronged attack: beer and wine, networking and writing. Despite the frightful weather we’ve been having, I feel some progress has been made.

I’ve been behind the bar at several holiday parties and events, which has given me a chance to sort of “network” behind the scenes. It’s sort of like undercover information interviews. They don’t even know it’s happening. In the past week, I’ve worked a wine tasting in Forest Grove at the Friendly Vine, operations support at Uptown Market’s first anniversary party, and played bartender at Second Story‘s holiday party.

I’ve continued my work at Mercy Corps, and another one of my posts has been shared at The Christian Science monitor. The article concerned clean cookstoves in Mozambique. Check it out here. I’m very pleased with the work I’ve done there, and I’ve received great feedback and positive criticism from the content and writing coaches, Kyla Springer and Michael Andersen. As the Global Envision team transitions to winter, Kyla asked me to continue on as a “seasoned” writer to tackle some of the more complex topics. I said I’d gladly continue the work, even when I find more stable and gainful employment.

Oregon Winter Warmers

I’ve also continued my beer knowledge with my duties at Uptown Market, and I still write posts for the Oregon Live beer blog. Check out a sampling of Oregon’s winter warmer brews here. 

Throughout these experiences, I’ve had a few more informational interviews and interviews for jobs that haven’t exactly been the right fit for me. But I’m grateful to be speaking with people and finding out more about potential jobs out there. This must mean that my resume and cover letter writing skills are hitting the mark a little bit better. So while it’s getting colder outside, my career search is getting warmer.

 

First Thursday: Brewpublic Mention

Was it me or Southern Oregon Brewing (S.O.B.)? Hey, who cares? Check out my mention at Brewpublic.

My welding art work began its month long display on First Thursday at Uptown Market. I’m so proud. This is actually my first showing since college. While S.O.B. won’t be there all month; I will.

Fat Bead Welding display at Uptown Market First Thursday

Uptown Girl Living in a Fresh Hop World

Now I will be behind the bar or inside the cooler

Come on, you know the words.

However, I’m not living in a high class world, that’s for sure! In fact, I’m refilling growlers, pouring pints, stocking shelves and getting beer sloshed in my face a few days a week at Uptown Market. I’m surrounded by a bunch of dudes that love beer. There’s a little wine on the side, but so far my few shifts at UM have been very malty and hoppy indeed.

My hands-on beer knowledge is growing exponentially, as yesterday I changed a tap to a keg for the first time. Today I finished up another post about three of Oregon’s finest Fresh Hop Beers. Check it out here. I do enjoy the actual physical labor of some of my “unskilled labor” jobs at Left Coast and Uptown, and I’d like to find a way to search for a job that includes getting sweaty and dirty in addition to my mad brainy skills.

Wine, Welding and Weird

Portland and her wonderful weirdness

I definitely did my part in keeping Portland weird on First Thursday at Gallery 135. Weird in an awesome way. Weird in an uncanny moment of puzzle pieces clicking together way. Weird in a shared glance of, “people are so weird” way.

My path to finding my parachute continues to delight and inspire me. I am reading The Art of Happiness by HH Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, and it has provided me with many little nuggets of wisdom that have made this search incredibly rich. I have been applying the following quote to my own life and daily interactions with people, and it’s definitely colored my recent experiences in a rosy (Rose City?) way.

Whenever I meet people, I always have the feeling that I am encountering another human being, just like myself. I find it much easier to communicate with others on that level.

My friend at Uptown Market, asked me to bartend the First Thursday event at Gallery 135. He provides the alcohol to this event, and I would be pouring several wines and Walking Man’s double IPA “Homo Erectus.” He got me set up and then returned to Uptown to host his own First Thursday event, which was going to be a big deal. I was a bit apprehensive to be left alone, because I heard that this event could be quite crowded and I felt like an outsider. But I thought about the Dalai Lama’s perception of meeting new people, and it calmed and relaxed me. This would be fun.

 

This was the first time I had ever been inside Gallery 135, although I had seen their neon sign out front that would flash Working

A symbol in “The Great Butler” life story.

or Playing depending on what was happening inside. I didn’t actually understand what this space was. AJ told me to come to IDL, but when I did some research on where the location actually was, it was also called Gallery 135. I wasn’t the only person confused, because the majority of the guests asked me that exact question. It wasn’t until the end of the night that I had clarification.

Jake Pacheco is the associate curator of the gallery, which is home to Satori Engine, Crack and IDL Worldwide. He explains that this space is devoted to both work and play. The “work” is in the form of retail design and installation for very successful brands, such as Nike, Target, Starbucks and Disney. Their gallery space is where they “play,” so I was participating in fun time. It struck me that if my life were a Fitzgerald story, this sign would play a significant role in the symbolism of my career search. I want my work to feel like play, and I want my playing to be like work—in the sense that it’s meaningful and not frivolous.

Towards the end of the evening, some interesting characters slipped in. Whether they were there for art, for free alcohol, looking to make some money or just for companionship, they came up to my bar and thought I was important and affiliated with the Gallery. This was when the Dalai Lama’s thought really came into play. First there was a “famous” beat poet who wrote a “published” poem about a mind-altering experience that occurred underneath the building’s awning. Even though I told him I was just there to tend bar, he looked directly into my eyes and recited the poem. It was pretty intense and quite Jack Kerouac. He soon went around the corner to find Mr. Pacheco, and I heard his incantations drift over the room divider. New friends sidled up to the bar. At one point, I was surrounded by Slim, a ukelele toting, self described “Google Face,” who knew arcane bits of information; a homeless man telling me dirty jokes; and a young girl who announced non-sequiter comments and behaved in a generally socially awkward way. She strummed the ukelele, I was told the one about a parrot from the brothel, and Slim asked for another glass of Chardonnay.

Without the Dalai Lama’s perspective in my head, I might have felt uncomfortable and tried to get rid of these characters. It was after 9, they weren’t tipping and the jokes weren’t funny, but I just decided to see these people as human beings, albeit very special beings. Without me getting uptight, the homeless man (last one left) said, “you’ve heard enough jokes haven’t you?” When I said, yes, he handed me his cup, gave me a heartfelt “thank you” and walked out. Jake was ushering some other people out and came back to the bar. We just looked at each other, and he said, “People are so weird.” I laughed.

This was when he explained the space. I commented that digital art, which was on display for this event, wasn’t really my favorite, but that I thought the ambiance and the work/play dynamic were amazing. I was really grateful that AJ asked me to do this event, and that I was even going to do a show up at Uptown Market for First Thursday in December. Jake was keen to know what my work was like, and I rustled up some photos from Pintrest. In some way, I felt my role from the previous moment with the homeless man was reversed. Now I was the supplicant, but Jake treated me and my art with respect. From somebody with so much professional art experience, I was incredibly grateful. Who knows if it will pan out, but there was some discussion of getting on their calendar for next year’s First Thursdays.

If that happens, I’ll need to get my welding on! The full story of how I met Mike Hendrickson and was able to use his welding facilities at his southeast Portland shop is a tale for another day. The short version is that wine brought me to beer which brought me to Mike which brought me to art and welding which brought me back to beer which brought me to wine which brought me back to art and welding. Wine and welding: weird.

Welded Canvass: heavy metal

 

 

Fresh Hopping Zwickle Style

Fresh Hop Brewing

I’ve enjoyed a succession of serendipitous moments this summer and early fall, but one of the most memorable has to be a chance encounter at Full Sail’s River Place pilot brewery last Wednesday, September 26.

Portland has tossed her golden Indian Summer mane in our direction, and I hopped at the chance to go boating with my friend AJ, an owner at Uptown Market, a beer specialty store. On my way to the Marina, he told me to stop by the brewery behind McCormack and Schmidt’s as he was speaking with some friends.

Little did I know these “friends” turned out to be Jamie Emmerson and Irene Firmat, owners of Full Sail. Not only were they sampling their fresh hop beer, they were also pre-partying for their 25^th Anniversary that they would celebrate the following day.

I had recently written a post for the Oregon Live beer blog about Full Sail’s fresh hop tour that had taken place on September 10^th, and I marveled that the beer gods had given me an opportunity to taste the fruits of the fresh hop harvest.

Hops are picked in the morning and can be used the same evening, but to make a fresh hop beer, they must be used within 2-4 days to reap the benefits of all the delightful floral and

herbal flavors. Brewing takes 8 hours and then it ferments in 4-5 weeks. So these hops were harvested towards the end of August or early September.

Sterilizing the zwickle

Barney Brennan, the brewer at River Place, explained that for a fresh hop beer, the hops are not dried; i.e. wet hops. They literally pull the hop flowers right off the vine and use about five pounds of hops per keg and ten pounds per barrel.

Jamie pulled out a propane torch to sterilize the Zwickle before pouring the beer. I commented to Irene that this was some fresh brew! We then entered a discussion about the inextricable connection between true craft beer and the land. Irene made an impassioned case that beer was an agricultural product and at the mercy of changing seasons and weather patterns. Because I have been researching for an article on pumpkin beers, I asked if Full Sail would have one of those. I might even go so far as to say that she scoffed at such a notion. While I do not wholly spurn flavored beers, I admire this line of purity in the Full Sail brewing mission.

Jamie pouring some seriously fresh hops

I’m not sure I could get fresh hop beer any fresher. Crisp, refreshing and authentic—much like the Full Sail vanguard of craft of beer I was honored to meet.

Lagering on the Beer Blog

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My latest edition for Uptown Market’s beer blog covers a few lagers; check it out on Oregon Live. Next on the  menu is Pumpkin Ales.

I corresponded with AJ this morning, and he has some ideas for the Beer Growler Magazine as well as Brewpublic, a Portland Beer blog. I’m definitely feeling more comfortable and knowledgable about beer with each blog I write. The BREWVANA tour was incredibly illuminating as well.

All this exploration in beer and wine has really opened me up to some of the issues the industries have with the OLCC. My friend Brooke called me this morning to tell me to check out part one of a series on Oregon’s liquor laws.

Beer Blogging: Barley Wine-Style Ales

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I’m continuing to work on the beer blog for Uptown Market, and I just picked up some copies of Northwest Brewing News and Oregon Beer Growler. Time to put away Mark Twain’s autobiography (volume I) and start reading about beer. While I don’t want to lose my fresh perspective, I would like to get more knowledgeable about vocabulary and beer processes.

Please visit Oregon Live Beer blog to read about Barley Wine-Style Ales!

Fruits of Networking

William Faulkner wrote in Absalom! Absalom! that “Maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished.” Maybe that’s the shortest sentence he ever wrote, but it packs a long punch. Of course, he returns to his natural style in the one immediately following, but I feel that it gets at the heart of networking in a most positive way:

Maybe happen is never once but like ripples maybe on water after the pebble sinks, the ripples moving on, spreading, the pool attached by a narrow umbilical water-cord to the next pool which the first pool feeds, has fed, did feed, let this second pool contain a different temperature of water, a different molecularity of having seen, felt, remembered, reflect in a different tone the infinite unchanging sky, it doesn’t matter: that pebble’s watery echo whose fall it did not even see moves across its surface too at the original ripple-space, to the old ineradicable rhythm…

And so once we become that pebble, and we begin our networking search and talking with people, our watery echo goes on and on. I guest blogged for Alison Wiley on her blog Diamond-Cut Life about rebranding networking, and her friend, Maren Sauders, read and was inspired by it. Maren has been working in her own practice of active listening, which seeks to help people in our busy, hectic world have access to an empathetic ear. At Happy to Listen

We do not have enough time in today’s world to listen to each other and be heard. We are bombarded with information, stressed out from work, and living in a near-constant state of activity. When we do find time to connect with friends and family, we still may not get all we need: time is short; there may be distractions such as ringing phones; our words may trigger unexpected feelings in the listener, leading to disconnects, arguments, or tangents …

This lack of listening and empathy takes its toll on our relationships, our sense of connection to ourselves, and our ability to live at our highest, most joyful potential.

 After reading my Rebranding Networking post, Maren contacted me through Alison and offered a session for her new enterprise Dream Into Change. This practice seeks to help people reconcile their values and passions with their day jobs. Maren knows first hand the sometimes disparate feeling between a person’s passions and what they get paid to do everyday. Her focus was perfect for me, because I’m just figuring out what I want to get paid to do, and now I just need to figure out how to do it. Keeping my passion and joys in mind as I network and talk with people is key.

As I left Maren, feeling ebullient, I got an invitation to go boating on the Willamette from my friend at Uptown Market, AJ. Do I want to go boating on a hot Wednesday afternoon? Yes, yes I do. While I’ve done some epic boating on the east coast, I have not once been out on a private boating vehicle on the west side. Once all members of the party arrived and everyone was introduced, I realized that the whole crew were some how associated with beer and wine, myself included. I’m not quite on their level, but everyone was happy to encourage and make suggestions to me. Ali and AJ are two people who have been a wealth of optimism and ideas in my search; it was great to spend the day with them.

Ali set me up with an interview with Oregon Wine Sales on Thursday with Craig to be a wine rep. I’d start off slow, learn the ropes, but eventually it could turn into more. I’m all for learning more about wine and talking to people in the industry. As a representative of her family’s winery, Dumas Station Wines, Ali has a huge wine network.

Just getting my feet wet.

AJ and I have collaborated on writing blog posts for the Oregon Live beer blog. He provides the beer from Uptown Market, and I write the story. Sounds fun to me. AJ has put me into contact with Ashley of Brewvana, a company that shares and embraces the history and culture of the Craft Beer Industry  in Portland, Oregon. Conducting tours around beer hotspots in Portland? Educating and engaging beer lovers? Sign me up!

Thursday is a big day: head to Left Coast Cellars for a day of pouring wine, drive to Salem to talk about being a wine rep with Oregon Wine Sales, continue on to Portland to meet up with Ivy at the Wine Bloggers Conference. Beerandwinevana!

Beer Blogging: Farmhouse Ales

Select Farmhouse Ales from Common Market

After some logistics and set up, I’m finally live beer blogging via AJ Shepard and Uptown Market. Please see my first beer post at Oregon Live.

Oregon Beer and Wine

Finding a Career can be a cornundrum

It’s been an eventful day in my career search and exploration. For one, I had an interview at Left Coast Cellars for a hospitality associate position. Going into it, I knew it was just 1-2 days a week, but it seems like the perfect amount for someone who doesn’t exactly know what’s happening next. I had actually met Molly and Maija last week at a Dobbes Estate industry wine event, and it is told in a previous blog post, “Networking in Wine Country.”  To say the least, they were both amazing women that I enjoyed talking with very much. When my friend Ali informed me that they might have an ad-hoc person needed, I jumped at the chance. Naturally, I did a little more research on this wine operation.

Turns out, Left Coast takes land stewardship very seriously. Their winery is carbon neutral, aided by solar panels and gravity fed irrigation. In addition, they consider biodiversity and indigenous flora on their 306 acres, 100 of which are dedicated to grapes. You can read more about their push for sustainability here. All this talk of sustainability reminded me of my search for potential blog posts for NWEI; I have an email to Carolyn now, to see if sustainable viticulture is an intriguing topic. Even as I drove up, I noticed the attention to detail in the landscaping, which leads me to believe it’s some form of xeriscaping. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take a picture, but I’ll get one the next time I’m out there—next week!

It’s true! My conversation with Molly went really well, and I’ll need to renew my food handler’s card and send in my application for my OLCC. Left Coast has more of a bistro than most other wineries, so I’ll be assisting with that in addition to pouring in the tasting room. I’m really looking forward to dorking out and studying up on Left Coast Wines. Oh boy!

Unchartered Wine Country – Rickreall, OR

On my way out, I asked Molly if she could suggest a winery for me to try on my way back to Portland. It was only around 10:45, and other wineries would be opening up at 11. After many suggestions, I finally settled on a yet unvisited location: Torii Mor.

Torii Mor is actually quite close to Lange Estates, which I had visited last year, due to an influence from the book The Grail. TM has a bit of an Asian influence, but it’s serenity might also have had something to do with the fact that it was 11:05 when I walked through the door. I won the first visitor of the day award. Trevor Smith was manning the tasting room this morning, and we had a convoluted chat about wine. It’s really fun getting to say that I’m “in the industry,” because I feel like people noticeably relax and just get into the groove of talking about wine. If you’re a Hemingway fan at all, maybe it’s a little bit like his aficion. You just talk because, “It was simply the pleasure of discovering what we each felt.”

Torii Mor

Trevor and I covered Texas, the army, ACC, SEC, pinot noir, chardonnay, LIVE, Oregon wine culture —the gamut. I learned that Torii Mor is a LEED platinum gold and LIVE operation, giving me more material for my marinating blog post. Hopefully I’ll have a link to that in the near future. I ended up purchasing the 2010 Pinot Noir for my parents’ upcoming visit.

All too soon, it was time to go, but I had and still have so much to think about. The cloud cover was rolling back, and it was turning into a beautiful day. I still had a meeting with a friend I’d made through networking, Allison Miller, who was stopping by to pick up her copy of Finding a Job Worth Having.  Maybe it’s the Great Recession or maybe it’s the Mayan’s 2012, but a lot of people are looking for change and fulfillment in their professional life. I’m definitely at the party.

After a brief chat with Allison, it was time to head out to Uptown Market and converse with AJ Shephard. We had met at the same gathering as the Left Coast Cellars folks. He had started adding blog posts for Oregon Live, which is the online version of The Oregonian, but had fallen off as of late. This is where a potential partnership could come into play. I enjoy writing and beer, he needs someone to write—about Uptown Market and beer. The idea is to educate the public to try different beer, and try it at Uptown. Sounds good to me.

While I rarely venture to the frontier of southwest Portland, I was heartily glad I did today. For you Charlotte  readers, Uptown Market is in a similar vein as Brawley’s or Common Market. One major difference is the bar and home brewing supplies that can be purchased. Ah, Portland. You always have the way to make drinking more awesome. This purveyor of fine, and  often local, beer has been open for about 7 months. It is owned by Chris and AJ Shephard and Stuart Faris. They offer over 800 types of beers and often host various local brewing operations. Today was Burnside Brewing. While we  chatted, I sampled Sweet Heat from Burnside, which had a ginger snap flavor to me, apparently due to apricots. I also tasted the Kolsch from Occidental Brewing Co. Both got solid thumbs up.

Bar at Uptown Market

So where do I come into this? AJ had me check out some of the blogs he’d written previously, to get a sense of what he was after. I read a cheerily informative piece about the history of IPA. I asked if local brewers would be good topics, such as Commons Brewery, which just so happens to be housed across the street from me. Not only did he think this was an excellent idea, he gave me several wine-bottle sized sampling to take home with me. These are of the Farmhouse nature, which we decided would be an excellent topic of my first blog post. Please stay tuned! I have to admit, I’m stoked about this venture.

Tomorrow, it’s off for Montpelier, Idaho and a thorough study on the road trip. Next week, it’s time to get down to the business of wine and beer. Cheers!

Farmhouse Style, Commons Brewing—Southeast Portland