Eating our way through Portland

As I might have mentioned before, most opera singers I know are slightly obsessed with food. I don't mean that as a euphemism suggesting that we're all overweight (as many people erroneously assume), but we do seem to have a healthy relationship with the appreciation of great food. And Portland is a fantastic town in which to find yourself if you happen to be a foodie, because not only do they have a lot of really great restaurants, but they have several food traditions which have developed, and which seem to be unique to Portland. The first tradition, which my colleagues and I have become slightly obsessed with is "Happy Hour", where almost every single fabulous restaurant has a deeply discounted menu (ranging from Burgers to Foie Gras) which they serve every evening for a few hours. My colleagues have been joking that I treat my Happy Hour guidebook like the bible, scouring it at every opportunity I get in order to find a fantastic new place to try.

So, Nick Phan, Danny Belcher and I were pleased as punch when the PR department at the opera suggested that we meet up with a prominent Portland food blogger named Brett Burmeister at the famous Portland Food Carts for a lovely lunch. Brett has a website; www.foodcartsportland.com devoted completely to this unique Portland phenomenon of small, portable trailers that serve fresh, fast, well made foods from around the world. I'm not sure how this began, but it has become a very important and interesting facet of Portland's food landscape, and one in which we were happy to partake. And I couldn't help it, I had to video Danny, Nick, and I gorging ourselves on Portland's finest offerings. Huge Thanks go out to the Portland Opera for suggesting and sponsoring this fabulous outing for us, to my friends Nick and Danny for always being patient AND funny in all my videos, and to Brett for showing us the ropes. Go Portland!!!



And on a completely unrelated note, I'm happy to announce that tomorrow evening, at 8:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, I will be a guest on the OperaNow! Podcast, which will stream live via the OperaNow! website (see link above) at that hour (7:30 Central and 5:30 Pacific), and will be available via itunes and on the OperaNow! website the following day. If you've never listened to the podcast, Michael Rice, Oliver Camacho, and various guests (tomorrow night will be myself and Matthew Garrett) discuss the news of the week in the world of opera. Michael has sent me the stories we'll be discussing, and I'm already excited to talk about what's happening this week in the wild and cuh-razy world of Opera. So check it out!