This is our last Paper Chef in this house.

In two and a half weeks, we’ll be moving back to Portland after 20 months of camping out and caregiving on an island we only occasionally called home. I can’t say that we’ll miss this disastrously tiny and ill-equipped kitchen, but we will have fond memories of a few small miracles we were able to pull out of the chaos.

At long last, this Fall, we’ll be back in our own home sweet home and our own kitchen. Sure it’s in serious need of updating — the linoleum floor has divots you could hide a mouse in, the drawer faces have a habit of falling off at inconvenient times, and there’s no dishwasher — but it’s ours, ALL ours, and that’s what counts!

But, because we’re here and because it’s Paper Chef time once again, we had to create just one last bit of chaos before we ramble on, and this time we had a grand bit of help from the annals of Paper Chef history and our bloggy neighbors from Down Under.

This month’s ingredients? Peaches, cherries, something hot & spicy, and a “new herb.” Now, by “new,” our Paper Chef host, Owen (welcome back, Owen!) means something we’ve not tried before. Not an easy command for Chopper to follow, as he’s used just about every herb on the island and then some.

But wait! What about that scrumptious and heady prize we received from Noodle Cook for Paper Chef 13? Aussie herbs and spices, the likes of which we’d never seen before? Perfect!

For this challenge we bent the rules a tiny bit to include spices (though by strict definition, two out of our three selections are ground leaves and should be considered herbs) and chose one for each of Chopper’s dishes. For his Tandoori Style Chicken with Stone Fruit Chutney, Chopper used Mountain Pepper Leaf, for the Chile Rellenos with Stone Fruit Salsa, Lemon Myrtle, and for the Spicy Braised Short Ribs with Dueling Gastriques, Wattle Seed. All three of these spices came from the Oz Tukka “A Taste of Australia” gift pack, part of our wonderful gift from Noodle Cook and his fellow Paper Chef 13 judges.

The gift pack includes five spices (ours has Mountain Pepper Berries and Bush Tomatoes in addition to the three we used for this adventure), and a helpful flyer with spice information on one side and recipes on the other. Not that Chopper used any of those recipes. For him it’s all about sample and invent first, read what others do later.

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MizD is off-island on family business, but she knows the proper way to entertain in her absence: kittens! These particular three date back almost to my childhood, over 90 cat years ago. Of course that’s my porch they’re on. I’m so generous.

–The Cat

It’s moving day. See you all on the flip side!

So here we are in our strange little cave, surrounded by the glories of the big city.

(Big city dwellers, stop laughing now, dammit. Portland is big. She is a fierce and feisty corgi next to your fussy whippets and poodles. Heart the size of a mountain, this corgi has.)

Chopper’s in front of me on our foam pad bed watching tennis (Agassi!) on the telly while I’m typing on my tiny Visor, foldable Stowaway keyboard atop a banker box on the floor. We’ve got a cooler across the room for vodka, beer, wine, juice (in that order of priority), and open cans of food for the cat. Poor Cat has hairball issues and is on a special diet these days.

Next door (cave part two), Platelicker’s sprawled on the cool cement just beyond my mini-office: one table, one chair, one file cabinet, computer, scanner, printer, and the most important purchase since our arrival: a hotplate for emergency tea.

What’s this? We moved from an island to a basement?

No worries. It’s just temporary. In a month or so, we’ll have our old house back (and our own kitchen at long last!), but in the interim we’re staying with friends, just a short hop away and still in our old neighborhood.

And what a neighborhood!

New restaurants, new shops, even a new weekly farmers market, and all within walking distance! We are ready for some serious exploration and re-discovery. I mean, dude, there’s a cheese shop that’s goat and sheep central, and damn that espresso across the street hit the happy caffeine spot.

Not that we’re leaving the island behind for good, mind you. See, time up there was always at a premium; frantic bits of freedom jammed between long hours at work and long hours of caregiving, and so we’ve got quite the backlog of adventures (and photos) to blog. And, on top of that, we’ll be back for visits. Can’t keep these two barflies away from the pub forever, you know.

(Brief pause for a wave hello to the boys at the pub.)

Meanwhile, we’re taking it easy these first days, getting our bearings, organizing our small collection of unpacked belongings, reconnecting with old friends.

Oh, and lounging. We are all about the lounging. In fact, our goal (after this exhausting and quite annoyingly busy summer) is to perfect the fine art of productive lounging.

Cooler full of tasty beverages just five feet away from the bed and me with a keyboard? I think we’re off to a good start.

What was it I said yesterday about lounging? Ah, yes. We are in a loungy state of mind these days. And deservedly so (thanks, Cookiecrumb!).

Not that I didn’t have every intention of rising bright and early this morning (that’s 9 am west coast time), and industriously tackling my BlogDay 2006 post, but see, there was this cat.

I mean what are you supposed to do when you’ve got a cat perched so lovingly on your tummy? You just can’t bear to move her, right? So you scritch behind her ears. And then under her chin. And then you do that thing where you curl your hand into a loose claw and she slides her jaw across your fingertips, teeth behind slightly retracted gums, scritching your nails, your fingers catching on her ears as she tilts her head and shifts sides…

…and she’s so damn purringly content that the next thing you know it’s two hours later and you’ve just finished giving a full body deep tissue Swedish massage (plus Rolfing session) to your cat.

Well, I’ve had worse mornings. And possibly even lazier mornings.

But seeing as the day is now passing by and it is indeed BlogDay, it’s high time I get to my BlogDay post.

First a brief official bit about BlogDay:

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. In this way, all Blog web surfers will find themselves leaving around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

The BlogDay site archives are down at the moment, but I’ve got the full instructions posted over at Food Blog S’cool, so check ‘em out. If you join in, don’t forget your Technorati tag so you’re part of the official blog exploration route!

Now, for my five, I didn’t exactly pick “new” blogs, but, as Paz points out on her BlogDay is coming soon post, new means “blogs that you’ve recently discovered or blogs which are new to you.” I’ll add to that (because I’m all about bending the rules): newly discovered bloggers within larger, well-known group blogs.

So, without any further ado (or feline interruptions):

1. Gastronautical Gastronomicon: So here we are in Portland and I’m thinking: where are all the local food bloggers? I’ve run across two or three of them, but is there such a thing as a food blogging community around here? Surely those lucky Bay Area kids can’t be the only ones having fun, right? Well, after dipping my toes into the Portland Food forum, what do I discover but Gastronaut’s tasty (and deliciously snarky) blog and — lookie! — he’s just started a Carnival of PDX Food Blogs! With baseball references! We are so all over this.

2. Pacific Northwest Cheese Project: I’d heard about this bloggy love letter to the great artisan cheese makers of the Pacific Northwest some time ago from my friend Jay Lake (author, baker of fantastic ginger chocolate chip cookies, and occasional cheese blogger), but for the longest time I resisted checking it out. Why? Because I was trapped on an island that was almost entirely bereft of affordable goat and sheep cheeses for my poor, lactose intolerant tummy. But now that I’m in the big city (where I can hardly swing a cat without hitting a damn fine piece of non-cow cheese), I can read and salivate and rejoice.

(The Cat objects strenuously to that last parenthetical statement and though she too adores the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project, she would be much happier if her captors were to accidentally leave a portion of their recently-purchased Black Sheep Creamery Pale Blue Ewe in an accessible location.)

3. Global Voices Online: I only just discovered Global Voices Online, and there’s much there to explore, but for today’s five I want to single out one contributor who’s a familiar face in the food blogging community: Melissa, the Cooking Diva. I’ve dropped by Melissa’s blog on a number of occasions to check out her delectable Latin American recipes, but here’s my new discovery: she’s got an amazing collection of global food blog reports over on Global Voices Online. Seriously, if you’re looking for one-stop global culinary inspiration, this is the place, hands down.

4.Now we take brief detour from Gastroblogia and head over to Daily Kos where I offer up three diarists well worth a read. First up is OrangeClouds115, who writes eloquently and passionately about organics, pesticides, family farms, and the politics of food in her series Vegetables of Mass Destruction. Second is bonddad a hard-hitting economic writer who isn’t afraid to use the term “Class War.” Third is nyceve. She writes about the shambled, killing state of health care in the U.S. and oh, you’ve got to have a heart of Halliburton steel to not be moved by her stories from the trenches.

Now, why these three with the latter two stepping outside the realm of culinary blogging? Because it’s all so sadly and horrifyingly connected: lack of access to healthcare, to decent employment, to healthy and affordable organic, locally produced food — how many millions in this country have hit this ugly trifecta? It’s a national disgrace and it deserves our attention.

(The Cat is now horribly depressed and would like me to choose something of a more cheerful nature for my final slot. So…)

5. Teapots Teapots Teapots: The other day, on a whim, I decided to search for tea blogs. I found several lovely ones, but the one that most appealed to my sense of whimsy was Andy Titcomb’s UK blog about teapots. Not only does Andy blog about unusual teapots (and teapot collectors, and newsworthy moments in teapot history), he also makes teapots and has quite a nice gallery on his main website. The Cat has asked me to point out this one as her personal favorite.

Well, there you have it — my list of five many blogs to visit on BlogDay 2006, and hereafter. I’m told you can still join in even if it’s just turned September in your time zone, just so long as it’s still August 31st somewhere in the world! Okay, I made that last bit up, but it sounds good to me!

Finally, if I may kidnap a grand suggestion from Sam, leave a link in my comments if you’ve got your own list of five (or more) to share!

BlogDay2006