Sure, we all like to complain about the twee and offbeat image of this city so often beamed to the rest of the country. When that image descends on your place of business on a lackluster Monday afternoon, though, you've no choice but to embrace it.
And so it was that bow-tied Congressman Earl Blumenauer and the folks behind Portland ice cream behemoth Salt & Straw stopped by the Mercury offices a moment ago with a bunch of fruitcake, ice cream, and fruitcake ice cream.
(I have just gorged myself on five types of holiday-flavored ice cream, so the somber shaking of your head means nothing.)
Backing up: Blumenauer goes about town distributing homemade fruitcakes each holiday season. Has for 25 years or so.
Last year, he came 'round on December 18th and, bewildered at the fruitcake that had fallen into my lap, I wrote about it. This set off a series of events that led to the Mercury being Blumenauer's first stop this year, when not only is he bringing fruitcake, but his very own fruitcake-flavored ice cream from Salt & Straw.
It's coming out for public consumption Friday. If you buy some, proceeds will go to the nonprofit Community Cycling Center. Here are your details.
That red shirt, green bow tie combo Blumenauer's got in the video is the very same he donned today. As Mercury staff shamelessly skirmished over ice cream in front of a sitting congressman, Blumenauer gushed over the new flavor—"Earl Blumenauer Fruitcake" is an anonymous sweetness stuffed with some of your go-to fruitcake chunks, and fairly tasty—and also, seemingly sincere, said ice cream could heal our deeply fractured political system.
He even suggested Salt & Straw should whip up a flavor called "Cooperation" for the folks in DC, which co-owner and ice cream maker Tyler Malek theorized would have to contain sedatives. It's intuitive ingredient choices like that that earn Salt & Straw lines down the block. First they're putting bone marrow in ice cream, next they're slipping an entire congressional body a Mickey.
Anyway, we've got a freezer full of various flavors. And while I've got no problem with the Community Cycling Center, if you're going to wait in the rain for holiday-themed ice cream, I say go all out with the Mincemeat Pie (this is an unpopular opinion in these offices).
