Rain and Samantha's Excellent Adventure: Getting tipsy with Gram

Samantha: Grants Pass! We've been acclimating here for a few days, and now there's time to catch you all up on what we've done so far in Southwestern Oregon. We're house/cat sitting for my Gram (my mom's mom) while she is in NYC helping to care for her newest great-grandchild. First off, I want to say that Gram is a phenomenal woman! She'll have as much or more energy than me at any given time, is wonderfully generous, and can party. Yes, my gram can party. Any where in the world. Gram has traveled a lot, to China, Ireland, Italy, the Czech Republic, and I'm missing a few, I know. She has a huge family, mainly because she loves and cares for so many good people. She can cook too, and has a great way with plants and feral cats, quite impressive really. We arrived ten minutes early on the 13th, to many hugs and kisses, sat down to a yummy supper, and spent the next 48 hours decompressing. On Wednesday, she took us around downtown to show us shops of interest, then out to Medford for dinner at a Thai restaurant called My Plate. This place is beautiful! Gram is quite "in" with the lovely young people who work there. She dishes it out, and can certainly take it back. "Her boy," Henry, is a fantastic mixologist. He introduced us to some house-made Thai chili infused Vodka, along with ginger infused and lemon grass infused. Henry is a real bartender, with plenty to talk about and a great smile! The first drink we tried was an creation of his called the Asian Manggo Bass. This had some of that super spicy Thai chili vodka in it, basal, along with lime and mango juice. A real drink, from a real bartender. It was delicious. After that we had a whole variety of house specials, and then dinner, prepared by Nat. She was ever so sweet, and an outstanding chef! Rain had pineapple duck curry, I had stuffed avocado and some sushi (salmon, tuna, yellowtail, with flying fish roe), and Gram had yellow curry with shrimp - all very, very good. And with so many delicious drinks to try, it was inevitable that we would wind up getting a little tipsy. Henry was on top of keeping us hydrated though, what a professional. From Henry, we learned that wine bottles have a bubble in the bottom not only for pressure purposes, but for displaying the bottle with out covering the label - your thumb goes in the indent and you hold the back of the bottle with the rest of your fingers and your other hand. I had no idea (I also don't often find myself in establishments were that method of presentation is mandatory...). I also learned that if you're fancy and you're dining somewhere just as fancy as you are, you place your napkin over the back of the chair if you're getting up for a moment, and across the seat if you are done with your meal and are leaving. He also confirmed for me that when you are using chopsticks, you place them across the plate edge to edge like a bridge when you are done eating (I was pleased to have known that at least!). After dinner, Gram took us into the other half of the restaurant and showed us where all her watercolors are hanging and for sale. Of course, Gram is a very talented painter, too. Thanks for a fabulous night out, Gram!

Rain: So I should start off by saying that Oregon is a lot different than I thought it would be. I was under the impression that Oregon is all low-lying green lushness, but apparently there are quite a few high desert plateaus as well. A fine old farmer at a farm stand we stopped by today told me that the state is basically split into two different climates, one in the east and the other in the west. The eastern one is very high and dry, which explains why there are so many wildfires around here. Grant's Pass seems to be right around where the climate switches from drier to wetter. I've seen signs in every town with a movable arrow depicting how likely the conditions are to foster fires, and since we've been here almost every single one has been pointed toward "extreme". As Samantha said we actually managed to get here a bit early on Monday evening, which I think was a first for us this trip.

Samantha's Gram didn't leave for her trip until Thursday night, so she spent the first few days that we were here showing us around. She was also very kind and bought us tickets for a few local sites, which we'll write about in one of the next posts. The Wednesday night trip to My Plate was a ton of fun... it calls itself an Asian Fusion restaurant and left me inspired to try my hand at making some new drinks and dishes next time I get a chance. The restaurant was brand new and we got there a bit before the regular dinner time, so we got a bit spoiled and had the bartender all to ourselves for a while. He let us try a few flavored vodkas that he had been infusing over the last month, and they were delicious. Also, I finally tried raw oysters for the first time! I loved them and can't wait to have them again.

By the time she left, Gram adopted me by saying that I was her newest grand-daughter. That made me very happy and I agree with Samantha- she's one hell of a woman. I hope I have as much fire in the decades to come.