Rats!
by Steve, April 9th, 2008
I used to be a produce guy. For around ten years, I worked at co-ops and natural foods stores, including the predecessor to New Seasons Markets, Nature’s fresh! Northwest.
While at Nature’s, I agitated for the union, of course, and had a run-in with current New Seasons president Brian Rohter. But I’m not here to talk about anti-union grocery store magnates today.
Back in ‘96, Nature’s had a different kind of rat.
The Nature’s store I worked at was in an ancient, poorly maintained building on SW Corbett St. in John’s Landing. There was a crawl space under the wavy fir floors, with ready access to the great outdoors. Combine access to lots of high quality food with the great flood of 1996, which drove herds of river rats off of nearby Ross Island and into the neighborhoods, and you get a serious infestation.
The exterminator placed traps (but no poison), and insisted that staff keep a sighting log (162KB PDF), detailing every sighting, as well as every kill. Kills were denoted with Mickey Mouse ears. At its best, the log, spanning nearly three months, reads like black comedy. At its worst, it’s a shocking expose of the rats I once worked with.
Here’s a transcription of the log:
Sighting Log
4/2 puffed ceral eaten
4/4 puffed cereal eaten, Great Harvest white bread, too
4/5 Abiqua Rye bread eaten
4/7 Bean sprout mix attacked produce walkin
4/9 Puffed cereal again
4/10 Rice cake attack
4/11 one culprit D.O.A.! Bulk
4/13 another one apprehended! and another one too!
4/14 nectar nuggets were re-discovered
4/15 puffed corn eaten
4/17 puffed rice eaten and 10 grain cereal
4-21 Hole located between produce rack & plactic recycling literally smelled a rat
4-19 Polenta tube found by customer eaten out
4-23 Arborio Rice Bag Chewed Open
4-23 Caught two Broom Closet Many more to go!
4-23 Abiqua bread eaten
4-23 potato in produce eaten
4-23 scared one that was absconding w/ cliff bar by candy rack
4-24 another one bites it in the broom closet
4-24 abiqua bread eaten
4-24 Ate through lids on yogurt in free box in produce cooler
4-25 another casualty in the broom closet and another loaf of abiqua bread
4/26 cuke tasted on top left shelf of produce cooler
4-27 Cliff bars keep disappearing
4-28,29 + 5-1 abiqua breads hit
5-3 caught one by candy rack
5-6 two caught — one by candy rack — back half of bady was missing!? one by bulk Peanut Butter machine — it was huge! Moby Rat!
5-12 Happy Mother’s day! Caught one behind bulk honey the trap ended up on the other side of the pnt btr machine Good size one too!! (Threw this trap away — messy, messy)
5-25-96
5-28-96 Corner of Lundberg Rice bag eaten & nibbled on, in addition to the one eaten sat, 5-25
6-9 Large (8″ body, 7″ tail) Rat found mired in a sticky trap behind Weinhard beer stacks, next to cheese case very much alive! Killed by a totally traumatized pg manager with a shovel. Couldn’t find the valium in the medicine cabinet either.
6-13-96 il riso Berretta arborio rice — eaten by one of our furry friends with good taste — un tolpo grande!
6-20 4 (yes, 4) Rats caught under candy rack need more sticky traps
Burrito Loco #1, RIP
by Steve, August 1st, 2007It’s a sad, sad day for my neighborhood. The original Burrito Loco has closed. I wonder what will happen to the Cuckoo’s Nest next door….
Raspberries for Fathers’ Day
by Steve, June 17th, 2007
Happy fathers’ day; our raspberries are ripe!India Direct, My Workplace Cafeteria
by Steve, June 8th, 2007I guess I’ve never done a food review on this blog (judging by the fact that I just had to add a “Food” category). But my coworker this morning pointed out that maybe I was born on the wrong continent when we were discussing where to go for lunch.
“I was thinking India Direct. Or maybe Lentil Garden,” I said. That’s when he made his comment. I responded that no, maybe I just chose the wrong continent to be vegetarian on. But luckily the Indians came and saved me from baked potatoes and salad bars.
I work in the “Silicon Forest”, the western suburbs of Portland, Ore., home to major Intel and IBM plants and offices. There is a pretty good-sized South Asian population here, and a handful of Indian restaurants. Some great, some okay, some, eh, not so great. India Direct is my default lunch destination, for reasons I will describe below. If you’re ever in Beaverton, be sure to stop by and check it out. India Direct is actually a grocery store with a lunch counter in the back.
I describe it as a lunch counter, but it specializes in vegetarian “chaat”, or snack foods. Don’t be put off by that, though; these are some serious snack plates, different from what most Americans think of when they think of Indian food.
My favorite is aloo tikki cholle, potato patties fried on a griddle, smothered in cholle (garbonzo bean curry), two kinds of chutney and topped with shredded daikon radish and cilantro. An alternate version of this is available, samosa cholle, which has two samosas (deep fried pastries filled with potatoes and peas), smashed and smothered in the same manner.
Another favorite of mine is the Masala Dosa, a crepe-like roll-up of spicy potatoes and onions served with chutney and a bowl of sanbar (soup). They also do a special “crazy chaat”, a cold dish with chips, potatoes and garbonzos smothered with yogurt and chutneys.
Hungry yet? I’ll keep going. A favorite quick meal after playing lunch-hour hockey is the cholle batura, which is basically fry-bread served up with cholle and Indian pickle.
If you’re really hungry (and you’d have to be to not be satisfied by the samosa cholle), you can get one of three thali plates. The all-India thali includes cholle, dal, the vegetable of the day, roti (bread), rice, raita (yogurt) pickle and desert. The regular thali has dal, veg of the day, raita and pickle. The sadhu thali is just dal, rice and yogurt.
Sounds good, eh? But the real treat is the price. All of the “chaat” items are under $4.00. Add a cup of chai (tea), and you’re well-fed for under $5.00. That’s unheard of these days, unless you’re talking fast food. And this is some quality stuff, cooked up before your eyes by Lisa, a very talented and friendly Mexican woman.
She doesn’t speak much English (or Hindi, from what I’ve heard), but she speaks Indian food just fine. Some days she makes an extra spicy sauce, and will add it to your dish. Be careful of this. I love spicy food, but she’s got a hidden sadistic streak. “Spicy?” she asks, smiling innocently. Spicy is an understatement. (We’ve had some awkward conversations in Spanglish about Mexico and the fact that her special red “chutney” is really a Mexican style red sauce.)
The proprietor knows me by name, and is always friendly and welcoming, which just adds to the list of reasons India Direct is my workplace cafeteria. Wacky Mommy gets jealous of me always eating this yummy food, so I bring it home for dinner quite a bit. The only thing I don’t like about India Direct is that they’re closed on Monday. Monday’s are tough.
