A couple months back we took a trip down I-5 to Napa, California for my wife’s 20th high school reunion. While there we spotted the above Kara’s Cupcakes in the Oxbow Market. Cupcake shops have sprouted up all over the country, but none have made it to Ashland yet. You can see the menu details by clicking on the above picture for a much more enlarged view. The prices seem more than a bit ridiculous to me. $80 for two dozen cupcakes and a bottle of milk?!? I don’t think I’ll be a customer even if they make it to my hometown.

Posted on October 3rd, 2009 under places. Tags: california, food. Comments: 1

On our way back from Chico I purchased about eight baskets of freshly picked strawberries from this field. We were north of Chico on Highway 99, probably near Los Molinos. They were amazingly good.

Posted on June 1st, 2009 under nature, places. Tags: california, food. Comments: 1

Our friends have hosted a potluck Easter brunch for all of us heathens each of the past five or six years. The kids do a big Easter Egg hunt in the backyard. When the brunch/hunt first started the children were all in the right egg-hunting age category. Now many of them are teenagers or almost getting to teenage years. But they still have fun.

The food gets better every year it seems. Believe it or not, the brunch tasted even better than it looks.

Posted on April 17th, 2009 under only in ashland. Tags: food, spring. Comments: 3

We were starving, getting rained heavily on, and asked only one person what the best Chinese food in town was. She pointed us to House of Louie across the street. We were disappointed. The food was mediocre at best.

We made up for it the next day with a great meal at Mother’s.

Posted on April 3rd, 2009 under people, places. Tags: ellie, food, portland. Comments: 2

At long last you get to see the donuts we ate. I ordered the “Mango Tango” (lower left). I didn’t realize it when I ordered but the icing was actually fondant. The insides were a mangoish jelly.

My daughter had the one covered in Oreos. I think it is on yesterday’s menu and called “Dirt Doughnut.” My son had the “No Name” donut which had chocolate, rice krispies, and peanut butter on it.

Needless to say, unless you hate donuts, you will want to check out Voodoo Doughnut the next time you visit Portland.

Posted on April 2nd, 2009 under places. Tags: food, portland. Comments: 6

As far as I could tell there were about three or four times as many donuts on display as there were donuts listed on the menu. We thought about just having them pick a dozen for us as the price wasn’t much more than us picking four donuts, but in the end we made our selections. You’ll get to see them tomorrow.

Posted on April 1st, 2009 under places. Tags: food, portland, signs. Comments: 1

Since I can tell you didn’t get your fill of Voodoo Doughnuts yesterday, I’ve added some more in today’s entry. Click on this photograph to make it bigger and then look closely. What do you see? A pentagram donut perhaps? There were so many crazy ones. The whole place was crazy really. One wall was wallpapered with random obituaries–a first in restaurant decor I’m sure.

Posted on March 31st, 2009 under places. Tags: food, portland. Comments: 3

Last week we spent several days in Portland. So for the next week or so on Ashland Daily Photo you will get to see the other city on the far extreme of the state.

Today’s picture is of the lovely bacon donut we didn’t purchase at Voodoo Doughnut. The giant, glazed donut behind the bacon donut doesn’t look that large in this picture for some reason, but it is actually huge. I would estimate it to have at least 5X the calories of a regular glazed donut. It goes by the name Tex-Ass donut, and it is free if you can eat it in under 80 seconds.

For more pictures of my trip to Portland see my other blog.

Posted on March 30th, 2009 under places. Tags: food, portland. Comments: 5

The other day on my way to work I slipped my camera into my pocket as I headed out the door. My wife asked, “What are you taking that for?” My response was, “Because I can.” I smiled as did she. You see, previous to my LX3 purchase I only took my old, large camera places on “special” occasions. It was simply too big and too much of a hassle to haul around. Not so anymore.

Later in the day, the clouds started going crazy so I had opportunities to take several pictures that would never have been captured in my old S3 days. The above is one of them. Omars is an Ashland landmark, but I’ve never had a reason to take a picture of Omars before. Nor have I ever had a camera on me when in the vicinity of Omars. But while waiting to cross the street, Omars looked rather marvelous with the sky doing its thing so I whipped out my LX3 for a quick picture.

Omars has been around for more than 60 years, something few restaurants/bars can say–especially on the west coast. The name is a fluke of sorts. The original owner’s name was Omer. But when he ordered this sign the company made a mistake and spelled his name Omar, and the rest is history. Have yourself a great steak, fine seafood, or just grab a beer at Omars the next time you are passing through Ashland.

Posted on March 9th, 2009 under only in ashland, places. Tags: buildings, clouds, food, lx3, skywatch. Comments: 2