We have a serious eating disorder called ClydeCommonitus. We don’t want to eat anywhere else. Chris DiMinno is just a totally fucked up genius. We stopped in the other day for a sampling of some new things on the menu beginning with smoked trout chowder and a salad of seared braised bacon, frisée, fingerling potatoes and sauce gribiche, followed by porchetta, shelling beans, pickle relish, and poached eggs. A pair of dishes that cast every other dish you’ve eaten in your life in a very unflattering light. We devoured a quiche of Calabrian chili, rosemary, blue cheese and caramelized onion followed by a beef tongue omelette with horseradish, romesco, grilled onion and potato croutons. As in, crispy croutons made of potato. You do the math.

After we loosened our belts a bit, we wept with joy into a chef’s board of brûléed french toast with spiced apples and an almond butter parfait topped with roasted almonds. We died, and then we started counting the days until we could go back.

Stay tuned for more from Chris and his team here — we’ll be posting recipes, good ideas and food porn on the regular.

Jeremy and Sabrina came to Portland, stayed with us and ate like kings, and they have the pictures to prove it.

Modou Dieng presents an interactive collaboration with Devon A. VanHouten-Maldonado at Linfield Gallery in Portland, drawing inspiration from a history of heroes and antiheroes in Mexico and Senegal and examines the way that history is represented in the information age amidst a clash of digital and analog cultures and a resulting hybrid aesthetic of history and ethnicity. The artists will also be talking about their work on February 27 and the show is up through March 13.

To inspire a good Valentine’s weekend for everyone, a shot from Ace Hotel Portland room 215, found on the interwebs. We’re assuming this photographer wants to stay anonymous, but if not, by all means, step forward, young stud.

Update: the stud has stepped forward, and her name is Miranda Lehman.

In honor of Ace Hotel Portland’s 6th birthday, which also happens to be the State of Oregon’s 154th birthday, we gathered up a few of our favorite old Portland buildings — some of which are now extinct. Last but not least, one building we were able to hang on to: the Clyde Hotel, now your friendly local Ace Hotel Portland, and Gloria’s too.

All photos via Dead Memories Portland except for the Clyde Hotel which is by Chris Clay

Quiescence, exploration and introspection at Ace Hotel Portland, photographed by Ida of Far West Logbook. You can get in on this too while it’s still foggy and wet in Portland — the perfect time for burrowing, gazing and reading — our rooms start at $95 during the month of February, and you have full run of our library, and your bed.

This is Eddie Huang, a young Jedi of the world of comestibles (see Fig. 1). He’ll be reading from his new memoir, Fresh Off the Boat, Wednesday February 6 at Powell’s City of Books in Portland. We’ll see you there.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon was scheduled at an American Legion convention in Portland, Oregon, in order to promote the continuation of the Vietnam War. A Portland-based anti-Vietnam War group, called the People’s Army Jamboree, planned a series of demonstrations to be held at the same time as the convention. Law enforcement, expecting massive numbers of protesters on both sides, were concerned about large-scale violence—an FBI report estimated a potential crowd of 25,000 Legionnaires and 50,000 anti-war protestors, and suggested that the result could be worse than the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In order to keep the peace, Republican Oregon Governor Tom McCall made an agreement with representatives of local anti-war factions to permit a rock festival to be held in a state park at the same time as Nixon’s scheduled visit, and to turn a blind eye toward behavior that had been widespread at the Woodstock Festival, like nudity and use of marijuana. McCall has been heard to remark that by making this agreement—less than three months before the upcoming November vote, in which he was running for re-election—he had “committed political suicide.” The festival was often called “The Governor’s Pot Party” by many Oregonians. McCall won re-election that November, defeating opponent Robert W. Straub handily.

- Mike Meacham, barefooted attendee of Vortex I

Our neighbor in Portland, the Dill Pickle Club —- Oregon’s most esteemed grassroots cultural history crew — is creating a comic about this strange and hardly believable tale of a Republican Governor, a bunch of hippies and the complicated sculpting of Oregon’s liberal reputation. The comic will be distributed for free at Tom McCall’s 100th birthday party in Portland this spring — help make it happen on their Kickstarter.

Behold the Peace Speaker.

Linda Gerard: Fabulous Selections is a retrospective album by one of our favorite human beings on earth — now up on our online shop. You may know Linda as the singing hostess of Sissy Bingo at our Palm Springs roadside diner, King’s Highway. She’s the kind of person who inspires awe by the sheer magnitude of her persona and still makes you feel right at home. We’ve compiled an eclectic mix of show-stoppers from her original debut and some 45s and pressed them on vinyl. From the strangely catchy funk of See the Cheetah to her soaring empowerment anthem A Woman Starting Out All Over Again to the Broadway rager I’ll Always Be Your Friend, Fabulous Selections is pure unforgettable Linda, just like you know and love her. When you get an LP, it comes with code for one digital download. First thirty copies of this beauty are signed by Linda Gerard herself…