I just got done watching, Body of Lies. Yes, I know, I meant to stop going to the movies but I am on the road. The story is about an undercover CIA agent who (along with his US-based CIA colleague - Russel Crowe) is struggling to effectively navigate the war on terror. Anyways, it’s a good movie and once it comes out on DVD, you should watch it. After Titanic I promised myself to never praise Leonardo Di Caprio’s acting skills, but I have to admit that he’s a pretty brilliant actor and did well in this flick.

Cooking it up at the Smith Berry Barn

On Saturday, Jen and I went to an event called Plate & Pitchfork together with our friends Ben and Maria. What’s Plate & Pitchfork? It’s very much a Portland thing. A bunch of Portlanders (7,000 over the course of this summer) come together on one of our local farms (literally in the midst of berry fields in our case), where one gets served gourmet meals by the area’s top chefs all made with local ingredients and accompanied by a number of different wines from one of our resident vineyards.

In our case, the host was the Smith Berry Barn, our chefs were from Nick’s Italian Cafe and the Dundee Bistro and the produce came from the Gaining Ground Farm. Wine was supplied by The Eyrie Vineyards.

A few thoughts.

1. The Berries were excellent. The dessert dish was “Triple Crown Blackberries in Vincotto with Absinthe Zabaglione.” I don’t know what Zabaglione is but this dessert made me forget chocolate cake.

2. We got to meet some really interesting people. Interesting in a good way.

3. They didn’t quite serve enough wine or food. I would have expected there to be plenty of both.

4. You can volunteer at these events, which seems like a fun way to spend, eat and drink on a Saturday evening.

5. At some point during the dinner, a cat jumped on the table next to ours. I probably still wouldn’t bring Otto to one of these things.

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This is the single best Mexican restaurant where my mother could be the chef. Note to readers, my mother is German and can’t cook.

Jen and I went to Acapulco’s Gold on Friday night due to the good reviews on Yelp.com - all of which must have been written by people under the influence of their margaritas.

So let’s start with the positives.

…

Moving on to what made it bearable.

Strong margaritas, fresh salsa and the beans didn’t make me sick.

Onto the bad stuff.
We should have walked out when they presented us with Friday’s special. A hamburger.

Oh, I almost forgot. I thought of another positive. If you love Costco, then you’re going to love their chicken burrito. Everything is made fresh straight out of Costco’s freezers. If you can’t finish your chicken burrito, just save the bird and re-use it in a Chicken Caesar’s salad the next day. That is what it was originally made for.

I am sure some guests love the bowls of chips placed all over the restaurant. Just not if you don’t enjoy stale chips.

Anyhow, their staff was very friendly and I am glad we went. Otherwise, I’d be blogging about Sunday’s trip to Nordstrom Rack and Otto’s dandruff.

Jen, her parents and I went and saw the play Sometimes a Great Notion at the Gerding Theatre tonight. Opening day isn’t until Friday, so we got to pay little man’s prices. Lesson #1. It’s never a bad idea to go (and invite others) to the theatre when you can choose the best seats at highly reduced prices. Lesson #2. When inviting your lady’s parents, you might want to double-check if there’s going to be any full-fledged nudity or extended periods of cussing in the play.

Otherwise, the play was great.

And if you live in Portland, then you need to go and see it. It plays in Oregon sometime after World War II and before Germany won the 1974 World Cup, and tells the story of two very unalike brothers and their struggles to keep their lumber business afloat with a flurry of upset union lumberjacks weighing in every step along the way. I give it 4 out 5.

Jen and I spent the weekend in Seattle with Jerry and Gail. Yeah I know…couples weekend, no big deal. This will be followed by a two days of holiday time with Jen’s family. That is a big deal. Anyways, last night we watched a pretty amazing movie called Strike. Well, I watched it. Everybody else slept.

The movie is about the story of a female shipyard worker and her impact on Polish labor reform over the past half century. While this might seem like a fairly niche plot, it’s a beautiful story which left me with two important thoughts.

1. There are heroic stories in every part and corner of this world. While the Polish solidarity movement hasn’t been high up on my list of groundbreaking events of the 20th century, it probably is no less important than the fall of the Berlin Wall or the American civil rights movement.

2. Sometimes the true impact of our actions doesn’t become apparent until many days, weeks and years later. And most importantly, anybody can make a big difference. You don’t need to be a politician, famous actor or money-laden business leader to change the world.

You really should watch the movie Strike.

On Friday night, Jen and I had the fortune of dining at one of downtown Portland’s soon to be finest restaurants. It’s called RPalate, and was founded by a veteran chef, a recent culinary school graduate and a waiter unlike no other I’ve ever met in my life.

The restaurant was recommended to me by my friend Jay, who called its happy hour simply amazing. And since the happy hour lasted from 4-7pm, it made for a perfect dinner date. Jen is cheap that way.

We arrived at 6:30. Our friendly waiter brought out the dinner menu. When I asked him whether he could also bring us the happy hour menu, he informed us that sadly happy hour ended at 7pm. But he’d go check in the kitchen.

Our friendly waiter came back to our table just a couple of minutes later and said: Yeah, I am very sorry…we ended the happy hour at 7pm.

According to Jen my facial expressions turned rather uneasy when I informed our friendly waiter that it was 6:30pm.  I am fairly certain that my facial expressions were rather dull compared to our waiter’s facial expressions when he looked at my watch.

His words were as follows:
“F..k. Seriously??? Only 6:30. It feels like nine. We’ve been here all day long, three of us, the other front guy got fired and I had a full lunchroom today. ”

He then started to apologize profusely before completely cracking up. Our dinner ended up being fantastic, I made a new friend and found my new favorite restaurant.

The evening ended with our waiter putting two glasses of Whiskey onto the table and the words “That’s for 6:30.”

Go to RPalate. The food is great and very reasonably priced and you won’t find a funnier waiter anywhere. Sometimes inexperience is beautiful.

Jen and I tried a new place for dinner last night. Actually, we probably try a new place for dinner at least once a week, but Justa Pasta stood out. It’s a little Italian restaurant in industrial NW Portland. We placed our order at the counter, at which point we also picked up a bottle of wine, and then sat down on their outdoor patio. The food was served in just a few minutes, by a friendly waiter who I enlightened with my you can’t spill the wine by swirling if the bottom of the glass never leaves the table theory.

Anyways, my chicken parmesan and Jen’s veggie lasagna turned out to be spectacular and the portion sizes were healthy as well. We’ll definitely go back to Justa Pasta at some point, and you should try it as well. Overall, Justa Pasta might just be my favorite Italian restaurant for now.  Btw, they update their specials on their website on a daily basis which is really cool for a guy who’s brain activity is almost evenly split between thinking about the Internet and thinking about food.

Over the past week I had the chance to see two different movies in theater, both of which have widely discussed by the critics and viewers.
Here’s my take:

Oceans 13
Don’t see this movie. It’s terrible. Quite frankly, I am flabbergasted how you can throw so many good actors into the mix and end up with a bad  movie. The film consists of a number of unneeded cuts and shots, strung together with the assumption that looking at Brad Pitt’s different outfits is interesting.

Knocked Up
This is a funny movie. Not as funny as I had expected it to be, but very funny. It’s also one of the most vulgar movies out there, which despite its romantic storyline disqualifies Knocked Up from being a good first date movie. Other than of course, your date cusses like a sailor.

I am not one to review or advertise a lot of movies on my blog, which is mostly because I don’t watch a lot of movies. The other day my Netflix mailer surprised me with a German movie called Der Tunnel (translated…The Tunnel). It’s a true story about a professional German swim champion and a group of comrades who dig a tunnel from underneath the Berlin Wall to rescue friends and family caught in the more ever-more-restrictive nation of East Germany.

Having grown up in West Germany in a family broken up and scattered across the region by World War II, a number of my relatives lost their lives trying to re-unite with the people they love by fleeing a country that wasn’t theirs. Der Tunnel is a story of friendship and courage,  describing recent history very close to my heart.

I just arrived in Seattle,  on my way to apply for my work permit in Canada. My return to the US is probable but definitely not definite. I love the fact that I have to apply at a US consulate in a foreign country which makes things very efficient.

Anyways, I saw a movie called Flyboys on the train ride up here. A flick about World War one and everybody’s heroic efforts of fighting evil Germany. What was really special about this movie is the fact that the French and Americans actually fought in unity against Deutschland. Everybody gets along when it comes to fighting them Germans. Oddly enough one never sees movies of countries/causes/people combining their forces after one was evaded by the US.

The movie did remind me of my time as an exchange student in France and my romantic outing with a French fille called Sandrine. Gosh, 8th grade ruled.