Manic Monday

For today’s Manic Monday, I’d like to tell you about a wonderful Portland-based walking tour and the local artisanal and craftsman products featured in this tour.

First, a disclaimer: Culture Craft is set to formally launch in May, and is the brain-child of the wonderfully talented and wickedly funny Shauna Noah, who I am lucky to count as among my good friends. This connected lady has pulled together some of the most interesting emerging artisans located in the inner southeast area of Portland, and I got to be part of her test run this last weekend. I also helped her in designing her logo.

Here’s a little glimpse at the fun we got up to:

Culture Craft PDX Walking Tour - Hey Hey Erin May

Culture Craft’s website isn’t launched quite yet, so for more information, I’d encourage you to visit the Facebook Page. And here are links to each stop we were able to visit in our tour:

BaseCamp Brewing.
- Favorite thing: The s’more stout.
- What I learned: the fiberoptic cables on the ceiling make up the constellations!
Jacobsen Salt:
- Favorite thing: The smoked salt.
- What I learned: making salt is more involved than you would think, and produces a lot of calcium!
Ancient Heritage Dairy:
- Unfortunately not open during this first run tour, but I am extremely enthusiastic to learn more about them.
EastSide Distilling:
- Favorite thing: The Burnside Bourbon-what else??
- What I learned: the (very delicious) marionberry whiskey will feature prominently at this year’s Rose Festival.
Potato Champion Food Cart:
- Favorite thing: Poutine!
- What I learned: a sample size of poutine but whets the appetite for more.
Woodblock Chocolate:
- Favorite thing: this is a tough one, it was all so good! I guess the toasted sesame, it was surprising and satisfying.
- What I learned: basically, what makes for real chocolate. I had no idea how chocolate was made, and what it could mean to tie the process so completely together with the agriculture. Informative and tasty.