ASEV Portland

At the end of June I attended the 63rd annual ASEV Conference.  This year the conference was held in Portland, Oregon at the Waterfront Marriott.  ASEV draws wine people from all over the country.  It's a technical conference where a lot of professors and indutry leaders present their research and talk about what's going on in the industry.

The conference was interesting, but since it involved multiple days of sitting in air conditioned rooms, I didn't take any pictures.  

Except this one of a poster of the schedule.  I know, very lame.

A more fun hotel (and the one where I stayed) was the Hotel Lucia.  It wasn't terribly fancy but it was centrally located in downtown Portland.  And it allowed me the opportunity to steal many pens and stationary with the "Lucia" logo.  Also, why is the accent on the "c"?  It doesn't make sense.

Here I am pointing to the location of Hotel Lucia on a giant map of Portland. And drinking delicious beet-carrot-ginger juice.  From my new favorite place to eat: Prasad.

It's a combination restaurant-yoga studio.  Living in Napa I am used to this format.  We have a combination restaurant-yoga studio called Ubuntu with delicious (but pricey) food.  Incidentally, this is only my second favorite type of culinary combination.

Ubuntu is beautiful but  . . . 

This is a $13 asparagus salad.

Prasad impressed me with their incredibly affordable large portions: 

My salad was quinoa, kale, see weed, avocado, cabbage and carrot shavings with a lemon ginger dressing.  In Napa this would likely be a $14 salad and half the size, but in Portland it was $7.

I also had some vibrant juice drinks.

And then I went there again the next day for some more.

This time we took our green juice drinks to go.

I didn't have much free time, and the only times I got to see Portland were my daily walks to and from the Marriott to Prasad and back.

I visited Portland a few years ago, but I went during the winter and didn't get to appreciate the beauty of downtown.

I'm a fan of the architecture.

Also, water and bridges.

Once I walked up close to this bridge it started to open to let a ship pass, but I was late to the seminar so I couldn't stay to watch the ship pass.

My few days in Portland were awesome.  I got to see many of my favorite people (one who lives there) and other wine people that I rarely get to see in Napa but all traveled to Oregon.

-L