Travel day.

Here’s a fun thing for this weekend, should you be free. Buick has teamed up with Food & Wine to host a Buick Discovery Tour in the Philly area. Those with tickets will have the opportunity to view a variety of cooking demonstrations, sample tidbits from those demos and test drive vehicles from Buick’s 2012 line-up. Celebrity Chef Ming Tsai will there, along with Food & Wine 2010 Best New Chef Jonathan Sawyer.

Should you be interested in attending, simply follow @GMNortheast on Twitter and direct a tweet at them saying you want to go.

A canning class at Kitchen Cru. Thirteen Portlanders came out to make jam and talk canning with me. It was a total treat. Many thanks to Sasha who helped me connect with the space and bought those gorgeous, locally grown Bartlett pears.

Freshly picked from my parents’ garden. Though it’s October, they still have tomatoes, basil, tender kale and string beans. Because I don’t have a garden myself, I sometimes forget what a miracle it is to be able to grow food with seeds, soil, sunlight and water.

After brunch with our third roommate Meghan (and her partner, Beth), we drove back to Portland. I had a full-fledged head cold by this point (damn air travel) and so Andrea did the bulk of the driving. It was a treat to sit in the passenger seat and point my camera out the window at the Pacific Northwest landscape.

The main day of the reunion. As we were driving into Walla Walla yesterday, Andrea and I found ourselves repeating, “This is so weird!” However, once we arrived in town, it stopped being weird and, despite the fairly major changes to campus, started feeling so totally normal. I guess spending four formative years in a place imprints into the soul in a way that is impossible to totally forget or remove. I’m really glad of that, actually.

In Walla Walla with Andrea, for our ten year college reunion (how did we ever get so old?). The first order of business was dinner from The Ice-Burg, a greasy drive-in diner on the outskirts of town. It was entirely unchanged, which made it impossibly perfect in every way.

Walking around a Northeast Portland park with my mom. I forget how perfect, kind and lovely a place it is until I return. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in exile from paradise.

In Portland for a visit and my college reunion. I showed my Dad the wonder that is Angry Birds on the iPad. He was entranced.

Another Serious Eats outtake. Quick pickled red radishes. They are so good.