Day 4 on the Portland Pilgrimage

Wow, I didn't really have enough material yesterday to post a blog (we were on the road), but I've made up for it today! I awoke this morning in the basement bedroom of the Turrentine's home in Fairfax, CA. I heard Mom and Pat chatting upstairs and when I finally got dressed and went up, I was met by the wonderful smell of Pat's Finnish Pancakes. Hmmmm....served with peaches...Don, you know what I mean. After a lovely breakfast with Bill, Joe, John, and Pat, Mom and I unhooked the trailer and set off for a good time in the big city. We followed Lee's distinct directions, up and over the very impressive Golden Gate Bridge (it cost five dollars, but we still cheered) and to the Boudin Sourdough Bread Factory. We quickly went upstairs to the museum entrance and paid admission for the factory tour. This setup was really amazing, and as someone who tried to make my own bread and failed miserably, I was transfixed. So, there are probably way more pictures here than anyone but me cares about, but this was a one-time-opportunity!

This is part of the museum upstairs. In this display, you answered questions about food, then it decided which type of bread fit you personality. I was an Olive Loaf and Mom was a Long French Loaf. We're not really sure what those results mean, but there you go....

Here is the "formulation room" up on the mezzanine of the bakery. This gentlemen is in charge of dough formation and refilling the hoppers downstairs (which he does by cutting off a chunk off dough and dropping on a scale below).

This photo is for Brent because I noticed that with each measurement this man documented it on what else? QA Paperwork!!! I did notice that the pens he was using had caps on them, however.....


After dough is dropped from the mezzanine, it's put into a hopper that meters it out automatically into the loaf shaping machine. The raw loaves then get placed in the proofer, which is the long conveyor belt seen below.

After a rest in the conveyor, the dough balls get shaped again, then placed on the baking sheets by hand. Off to the oven!

Here are a couple of shots of the fragrant finished product.

Some of the loaves are packaged for shipping and some are placed in these overhead baskets to stock the factory store thirty feet away.

A Sourdough Sea Turtle!

Here is Mom and I in the Boudin Bistro after our tour, enjoying our first course of French Onion Soup (which was fantastic).

After the soup, it was an Heirloom Tomato Salad for Mom and Garlic Mussels for me!

(she's watching dramas unfold in the parking lot below)

Here is the very posh bar in the Boudin Bistro

After a wonderful late lunch, we walked back to the famous Ghirardelli Square for some shopping and sightseeing. Here is the lighted advertising sign on Larkin Street.

A quick shot of Alcatraz in the distance. It really doesn't seem that far away, no wonder all those prisoners tried to swim across....

Ah, now we get to the important stuff, SWEETS!! Mom and I couldn't go to Ghirardelli Square without buying some chocolate! Brent, these pictures are for Ron, so please make sure he sees them....

Ron, this is Intense Dark Chocolate....which you can buy on the internet....and get shipped overnight.....right to your house.....

Bars and bars and bars of the stuff. The place was packed with people, you should have seen the line for ice cream!

This was the most upscale (and expensive) cupcake bakery I had ever seen. It's called Kara's Cupcakes. Since we were in charge of bringing home dessert (also known as The "D" Thing in the Turrentine house), we wanted to make it something good. This shop looked more like a jewlery store than a sweet shop, but we were not to be intimidated and actually the girls inside were very nice. All the cupcakes are made from organic and local ingredients. We ordered a dozen that included such flavors as: Passion Fruit, Chocolate Ganache, Meyer's Lemony Lemon, Vanilla Buttercream, and Pumpkin Spice, just to name a few. They were a BIG hit with Joe, John, Grandma Turrentine (Babs), and Uncle Denny.


Ah, the trip home after a long day of fun. I made Mom take these pictures out the window of a speeding vehicle while telling her to put the wristband on! God, how touristy is that...


After dinner, Mom decided it was time to do a little skeining (that we had been putting off) and discovered that the green suitcase that held all the necessary items had gotten soaking wet. Apparently, the door on my truck's shell leaks. It would've have been so bad, but all the green skein sleeves got wet, too. Always a rock in a crisis, Pat immediately started issuing orders: "John, bring me some towels! Joe, go get the hairdryer! Trish, stop loading the dishwasher, that's Joe's job! Becky, keep trying the iron, I'm going to see how the hairdryer works!" Under Pat's expert supervision, we managed to dry out the sleeves and finish all the necessary skeining without too much more excitment.

Haha....excellent...Pat is now a cog is the great Tanglewood Fiber Creations machine!!! (actually, I think she was tired of seeing Mom struggle with the swift. It wouldn't stay clamped to the table and kept crashing onto the hardwood floor. Finally, Pat very nicely suggested she just hold it)