Dave Knows Portland

11/29-12/2: Pickled herring, winter ales and glühwein

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Festivals are few and far between in late fall and winter, but this weekend is one of the exceptions. Fight the holiday cheer and cold: imbibe copious amounts of alcohol, sausage, and pickled herring.

Thursday-Sunday

Holiday Ale Festival 2007Pioneer Square hosts the Holiday Ale Festival once again. Stay warm and dry and claustrophobic under the big tent. Take the Max home (if you must drive, rot your teeth with root beer) after you enjoy too many beers with too high an alcohol content and too much cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Actually, there are lots of other choices besides spiced winter ales, but be careful: almost everything is strong.

You know the drill: admission is free, but the plastic mugs are $5 and the samples are a $1 each. No kids at this festival, must be over 21 to enter the tent. Go Thursday for some special beers.

(My favorite part of the Holiday Ale Festival tradition is heading to the Virginia Cafe afterwards for a Cajun Jack Gardenburger and fries.)

Saturday-Sunday

scanfair.jpgThe Scandinavian Heritage Foundation has been putting on the ScanFair for 23 years. Besides the typical xmas bazaar crap, dancers and musicians perform on two stages, there will be various how-to demonstrations of traditional crafts, Oregon’s 52nd Lucia Queen of Light will be crowned and the highlight: a pickled herring eating contest noon on Saturday!

The fair is held at PSU, on the 3rd floor of the Smith Memorial Center (1825 SW Broadway). Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, $3 for children 6 to 12 years, and 5 and under get in free.

germanholidaymarket.jpgMeanwhile out in Beaverton the German American School of Portland (located in the old Nike headquarters across from Kmart: 3900 SW Murray Blvd) is hosting the 8th annual German Holiday Market. This is another xmas bazaar-type thing, but with German foods, sweets, and glühwein! I have only recently become acquainted with the German mulled wine (available at Amnesia Brewing this fall and winter when their electric kettle isn’t on the fritz), but it’s fast becoming my favorite winter drink.

Being a native Portlander of German and Norwegian descent I feel obligated to attend all three of this weekend’s festivals – see you there!

August 10-12: Crawdads, The Bite, and Bridge Pedal

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The smart set will be watching soccer, but if you get hungry, or need some exercise, there are some options this weekend.

Crawfish FestFriday and Saturday Tualatin is hosting the 57th annual Crawfish Festival.

This event has been on my must-do list for years, but since I am carfree, and Tualatin is miles from nowhere, I have yet to attend. If I *do* somehow get a ride, I hope to be there Saturday by 2:45pm to witness the Crawfish Eating Contest. The record, set in 1970, is an impressive 170 crawfish (tails and claws) in 15 minutes!

There are lots of other things going on at the festival: a pancake breakfast, the Crawfish Festival Criterium, a 5k run, a parade. You can’t go wrong.
Bit of OregonFriday through Sunday the Bite of Oregon will be “celebrating Oregon’s bounty” at Waterfront Park. In years past I’ve not enjoyed this event, but there will be wine and beer, and the Bend restaurant La Rosa Authentic Mexican will be serving up lobster quesadillas. Some of the other items on the menu look good too. There also several stages with live music throughout the weekend.

Sunday morning don’t try to drive through downtown, as it’s the annual Bridge Pedal! If you’ve spent your weekend eating at the festivals above, you’ll need to burn off those extra calories. This is the one day each year you can bike across the Marquam Bridge without breaking your neck or the law.

Division/Clinton Street Fair details

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Check out the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Development Association website for all the details. Here are the basics and some highlights:

  • The street fair extends from 12th to 60th on Division and 21st to 27th on Clinton Street and runs from 11am until 10pm.
  • Pizza eating contest! Yes, Hammy’s (2114 SE Clinton) is holding a pizza eating contest at 1pm.
  • Music at all of these locations: 12th, 21st, 35th Place, 41st, 57th and 60th.
  • Some sort of free “trolley” will be traversing the fair, so you won’t have to bring your Segway!

Hot dog champ Chestnut visits Lincoln City, eats obscene amount of ribs

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RibsChinook Winds Casino hosted the 2007 World Rib Eating Championship Sunday. Barely two weeks after establishing a new world record of 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut successfully defended his title in Lincoln City; eating over 7 1/2 pounds of pork ribs in 12 minutes.

Oregonlive.com has most of the disgusting details.

The Chinook Winds Casino website has the video.