Early in November I went out to Oregon for a short visit, to hang out with my family and help my mom with house stuff. Obviously, since what my family does is talk/think/obsess about and consume food, we….ate.

The first night, Mom made pizza bianca (from the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, I think), and a lovely cassoulet-sort-of-thing with sausages and beans and bread crumbs, as well as lentils and some other things. Lots of vegetables. Witness:

Since it was a house-decorating trip, Mom and I spent a wonderful day in Portland, where we visited the chains that Eugene doesn’t have (West Elm, Crate & Barrel). Then we headed across the river to The Hawthorne, where we had a killer lunch at Cafe Castagna. Oh man. We had their famous frisée salad, which replaces the usual poached egg with, I kid you not, a deep-friend one. When we saw that on the menu Mom laughed; I famously love anything fried, but to add it to one of the greatest salads of all time? Consider yourself lucky that I snuck a photo while there were still some shards on my plate:

(Oh, their burger was one of the best I’ve ever had, seriously. It comes with waaaay too many delicious fries.)

After lunch I dragged tired Mom around to a few indie shops that I thought would be up her alley. She has very modern, streamlined taste, and we had good luck at Life + Limb and Canoe.

Tom drove me to the airport on my last day, and we had just enough time for a stop at Burrito Boy, a Eugene classic where I have to go every time I’m in town. No visit home is complete without an order of beef tacquitos, served with the smoothest guacamole and a nice sprinkling of cheese.

Now *that* is good pre-flight fortification. I was in a good mood all the way to Salt Lake City.