The Road Trip Book Tour: Portland to Seattle and back!

Before heading out of Portland on Thursday we stopped at the Portland Art Museum to see their Samurai exhibit. Zoe has become really interested in Asian culture, and Andy has enjoyed reading about the history of feudal Japan.

Amazingly well-crafted samurai helmet. Uh-oh, I think that’s wheat behind the dragonflies.

As an artist, I thought the craftsmanship of the armor and objects on display was just amazing! I was especially impressed by the variety of materials. The samurai wore an elegant mix of metal, silk, wood, lacquer, antler, leather, and even yak hair imported from Nepal. Zoe says it was interesting how, “they wore creepy armor to freak out their opponents.” The samurai exhibit is open until January 12, 2014.

A monstrous samurai helmet!

We reached Seattle at the kids’ bedtime. On Friday morning we went to fantastic Portage Bay Cafe, then chilled out in the hotel room while Andy visited the office of the The University of Washington Press. All along our trip Andy has been happily meeting with other book designers. Since he works from home it isn’t often that he gets to “talk shop” in person.

Book Larder in Seattle.

Friday afternoon we all drove over to Book Larder in Fremont so I could prepare for my cooking demo. Lara Hamilton’s store is the cutest! She opened her cookbook store in 2011 after fifteen years of working for Microsoft. You can read an article about Lara and her store in this The Seattle Times article. She has a fantastic in-store kitchen that I used to bake the White Chocolate Chai Cookies from my book (page 86).

Preparing cookies for the follow day’s demonstration.

For dinner we grabbed some lettuce-wrapped burgers from Uneeda Burger (they offer a gluten-free bun too).  That evening we had a little trouble getting to sleep at the kids’ regular bedtime. Around 8 o’clock we heard what sounded like a marching band. We thought maybe there was a parade or something (we were right near the university). Andy went downstairs to check it out and saw it was a marching band with cheerleaders. There was some kind of U. of WA event going on in the hotel—directly below our room! I had requested a room on the second floor because I get uncomfortable with heights. Woops!

My food demo at Book Larder.

The morning of Saturday the 26th was my cooking demo and book signing at Book Larder. Thank you so much to everyone who attended! Seeing the store packed full of people really made for a fantastic last stop of the road trip. I was so grateful!

Tom couldn’t be in this shot because he was taking the picture!

After the book event we met with Ali, Tom and family for lunch. (The last time we met was in 2010 when they were visiting Boulder!) We all went to Thrive Cafe, which has a 100% gluten-free and raw food menu. The food there was crazy good. And I love how they use fresh coconut!

Zoe and me walking down to the market.

After that we drove down to the Pike Place Market. Ginger was most impressed by the fish market where as she puts it, “Throw fish! Hand!” She was taking a nap in her sling and woke up just in time to see the Pikes Place Fish guys throwing their fish right in front of her.

All the kids wanted to ride the ferris wheel down on the waterfront. Andy hates amusement park rides, but Tom was more than happy to take them for a ride. After spending a lovely afternoon with our friends we started our drive south. We arrived back in Portland at 7:50 pm, just in time to have one last dinner at the Cultured Caveman cart. We got to meet with both owners, who are such inspiring, open-hearted people.

Heather and Joe of Cultured Caveman with me and Ginger.