Salvage Heart

Here in the Northwest, our mild climate allows us to maintain some semblance of garden year-round. Except, in my case, during the spring. Or early summer, for that matter. I mean, we put plants in, but they just didn't take. Is it a garden when you have two cilantro plants and one six-foot purple fennel that wintered over? So, here we are, green tomatoes in mid-August, the cilantro gone, the...

A piece on corner groceries that I spent a few months researching finally ran on the cover of The Oregonian's weekly inPortland section, with lots of nice photos. If anyone can actually find the photos online...Pinkerton awaits your call. The article looks at new ownership of a couple older stores...Cherry Sprout Produce Market, owned by two former employees of Big City Produce, and e.moreland...

A long-delayed piece on the food cart lot in Sellwood finally ran in today's Oregonian. The article (attempts) to address some of the regulations that food carts have to deal with, and complaints that the rules are unclear, unevenly applied, and unfairly enforced. Essentially, enforcement happens as a response to a complaint. Meanwhile, vendors can get the go-ahead to open and run their carts,...

Miss Anita Smith, proprietress of Hannah Bea's Poundcake and More, has earned a fair share of media coverage in the seven-plus years she ran her business on Northeast Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, here in Portland. It will close this weekend, in debt. But in the past several days, what might have been a swan-song round of coverage instead turned ugly. S. Renee Mitchell, a Metro columnist...

Staff at Salvage Heart have been pursuing solo projects recently, including scrambling to make the mortgage, spending our way out of recession, trying to beat the heat, and trying balance caffeine and alcohol intake with OTC allergy meds. Also, wondering who might like to purchase a travel article on Clatskanie/Cathlamet (note: need to update LinkedIn status). Also, being pulled slowly but...

I've been a reluctant fan of Delta Airlines in recent years, mostly because they can get me from Portland to Cincinnati faster and cheaper than anyone else (and my parents get Delta miles, which they occasionally use to fly [one of] their deadbeat son and [mostly] lovely grandchildren in on). And I have something nice to say about my recent PDX-CVG-PDX trip last week. But first, something not so...

A weekend trip to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) is best attempted at the opening bell. By 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the building is teeming with parents and children, some drawn today to the dinosaurs exhibit. Lots of dads (or men with cameras at least) snapping pictures of their kids. It's an occurrence that generates some tension in our household...why am I not at OMSI with the kids...