Happy Birthday K-Pants, You Wild, Wonderful Thing

This guy is six.

He’s intense. I’m exhausted by and incredibly grateful for his wild and creative personality… and his pink shoes.

For his birthday, K-Pants was adamant about the cake: It needed to be chocolate cake, with white and dark chocolate chips and Voodoo donuts baked in, white frosting on top, with a rainbow, and Star Wars figures.

Sure. I’m along for the ride.

So we got in line with the tourists behind the pink prison bars…

And we carefully selected the sugar bombs we needed for the cake.

And K-Pants was ready to get to work when we got home.

This guy, man.

I never would have concocted a plan like this, and that’s a huge part of his gift to us. Six years ago he unlocked the box to my writing muses; he painted our rainbow in much brighter colors; and he took our lives like taffy and stretched them out.

Happy birthday, Mr. Pants.

Blue Star Donuts Knocks Voodoo Doughnuts Off the Pedestal

Voodoo Doughnut in Portland has been all over the Food Network and all kinds of lists of the best eats in America.

But it’s just not all that.

Voodoo’s bacon-maple bar is delicious, and I will never turn one away should it arrive on my passenger seat after a night of dancing.

But I’m not psyched by Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops on a doughnut. And Voodoo’s super-saccharine icings taste more like medicine flavors than real food.

Make way for local craft doughnut shop Blue Star Donuts.

Blue Star has everything an obsessive foodie wants in a donut:

1. Dozens of all-natural ingredients you can see (vanilla beans, nut pieces, coconut shreds…).
2. Pastry chefs who hand-make your doughnuts (while you stand to the side nonchalantly pretending you are totally friends).
3. A classic buttermilk cake doughnut that is so dense and delicious it may have just come from the apple-cider doughnut people at your favorite farmers market.
4. Flavor combos that make you feel smart: basil blueberry, coffee & coconut cheesecake, Meyer lemon and key lime curd… you get the idea.

I’m sure the coffee is kickin’, too, but I stick to tea, which–of course–is locally made about a mile away by Steven Smith Teamaker. And Steven Smith tea is divine.

Plus, what foodie doesn’t love some coy signage?

So what are you waiting for? The line at Blue Star (SW Washington & 13th) is totally manageable, and there’s probably even a lovely seat at the bright and airy bar waiting for you.

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