Culture: Page 189

Can’t Touch This

Magic Men Live in Eugene

Culture

I spent a half hour of my life watching YouTube videos of nearly naked men wiggling and worming around on stages illuminated by flashy lights — for research purposes, of course. Magic Men Live is coming to town and there’s something hypnotic about the performers’ abdominal capabilities.   Magic Men Live is a simulation of the 2012 Steven Soderbergh film Magic Mike but omits plot development and Channing Tatum. Each set of dancers in the performance is dressed according to a theme, so you can expect impractical firefighter uniforms and cowboy hats galore.    Continue reading →

Summer’s End

And the virtues of escarole

Gardening

August went by in flash, as usual. Daily watering chores. Jam making. An ocean of applesauce. After a week’s vacation in a cabin by the Metolius, I somehow carved out time to think about the fall and winter vegetable garden. Space must be carved out, too, and I’m grateful for any crops that can go in after the pole beans and tomatoes are torn out in October. But starts of red Russian kale, my favorite for winter eating, need to go in as soon as possible. By October what you see is more or less what you get until growth starts up again in March.   Continue reading →

It’s About Time

September is the month of hiking

About Time

September is the month that hikers in western Oregon look forward to more than any month. Rainless days are almost guaranteed, mosquito levels drop off quickly and tourists thin out after Labor Day. This year there are a few qualifications to what is typically our best month for backpacking. Mosquito levels may be slow to disappear in the high country because there haven’t been enough freezing nights. Continue reading →

Pretzels with a Twist

The Pretzel Wagon opens at LTD's downtown station

Chow

“I can ramble,” Jim Evangelista warns me with a twinkle in his eye as we sit down in his bakery off River Road. “And I’ve got lots to talk about.” Evangelista does have lots to talk about — mostly words of praise for all the people, organizations and institutions that came together to make the nonprofit Eugene bakery Reality Kitchen and its brand-new pretzel food cart a rollicking success. On Aug. 18, Lane Transit District finalized an agreement with Evangelista to place Reality Kitchen’s Pinocchio-inspired food cart at the LTD bus station in downtown Eugene. Continue reading →

Glazed & Confused

Fancy doughnuts for fancy people

Chow
Illustration by Ben Ricker

Food journalists at respected culinary magazines venture that doughnuts are “having a moment” right now. Frenchified boutique pastries made with cage- and hormone-free ingredients at places like Blue Star — first in Portland then L.A. and Tokyo — masquerade as doughnuts and telegraph the coming of a revolution similar to the obnoxious cupcake uprising of yesteryear. Continue reading →