Part 3 of 3 in the Oregon 2009 travelogue, and the first in an occasional “Eat, Play, Love” series* of quick notes and reviews from our family’s favorite places.

The past several years our trips to Oregon have included jaunts to the Coast, but limited time this year sent us east of Portland, instead, for a day-trip up the Columbia Gorge. It’s too gorgeous (haha) to do it justice in a short post, but here are a couple highlights. The most well-known of the Gorge’s incredible waterfalls is Multnomah, but there are about a dozen in total along the Historic Columbia River Highway scenic route, several visible from the road and others you’ll have to hike in to see.

EAT: Pack a picnic to eat at the base of Multnomah Falls, where you can watch salmon smolts swimming and get up close and personal with passing freight trains. (Keep an eye out for roadside stands on the scenic route by Crown Point offering fresh berries or other seasonal produce.) There is a restaurant if you don’t want to pack your own food, and you can reward hungry little hikers with soft-serve ice cream and/or fudge at the base of the falls. If you time your day to end, as we did, in Hood River, mom and dad will enjoy the libations at independently-owned Full Sail Brewing Co., where they do have a verbal children’s menu if you ask, and kids and parents alike will enjoy the view of tug boats, barges and kitesurfers in the river below.

PLAY: Swimming is no longer allowed in the pool beneath Multnomah Falls after a large chunk of rock broke off several years ago. But you can continue a little further down the road to Horsetail Falls and splash or swim at will in the refreshingly cool pool. Water shoes recommended as the bottom is rocky. Kids who can hike at greater than a .25 mile per hour pace will enjoy the loop behind upper Horsetail, where you can actually walk behind the fall. Out at Hood River, beaches provide ample playing space for smaller kids, and the adventurous can sign up for windsurfing or kitesurfing lessons.

LOVE: It’s been 14 years since I lived in Oregon, so I rely on NW Kids and several Oregonians I follow on Twitter for new ideas or reminders of old favorites when we head back: some faves, @magazinemama (of NW Kids), @LizEBoz, @designmama, @pdxmama, @lelonopo, @sarahgilbert, and @thiskat.

* I thought I was being clever with my “Eat, Play, Love” theme riff on the best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, but it turns out someone else beat me to it. Check out her fun blog, too – especially this awesome kitchen sink salad on a waffle.

Part 2 of 3 in our Oregon travelogue. Read about our farmers market visit, or skip to the end for some Maryland local food events this weekend!

As I mentioned previously, it is berry season in Oregon and the food theme of our trip can be summed up in three words: berries, berries, and berries. We found more than a few at our market destination of choice this trip. The Beaverton Farmers Market, one of Oregon’s largest markets, is located in a western suburb of Portland and has a distinctly family-friendly vibe. From the balloon man to the kettle corn to the live music, kids have plenty to tempt their eyes and taste buds, not to mention the fountain to cool off in and adjacent playground.

Have you ever met a Superfood in person? We did, the charming Super Blueberry who handed out recipe pamphlets courtesy of the Oregon Blueberry Commission. (Really, blueberries need marketing? How do I sign my kid up for that gig? They could pay him in berries.) My son was thrilled to receive a bookmark “with smiling blueberries because blueberries make me happy!”

I could go on all day about the wonderful produce – artichokes, sweet sugar snap peas, Walla Walla onions, Rainier cherries, apricots, dried cherries – meats and seafood, bread and baked goods, wine (yes, wine tasting at market), flavored vinegars and of course some of my favorite cheeses, not to mention the coffee truck (Pony Espresso) and cold drinks served in compostible cups — or the fact that I didn’t even make a complete pass through the market and still left green with envy — but I’ll just point you towards two favorites to wrap up your shopping trip with a satisfying brunch: Zest crepes and Hot Lips local berry sodas.

You might be surprised to hear such a ringing endorsement from me for a soda, but Hot Lips Soda is truly a special treat that kids will love and you can feel good about. Hot Lips is a Portland pizza chain I had more than a few pies from during my high school years, but since I’ve left town they’ve branched out to create their own line of all-natural, locally-sourced fruit and berry sodas. The ingredients are simply carbonated water, fruit, cane sugar and organic lemon juice. In that order. While sweet, they taste of pure, ripe fruit, without that chemically-sweet aftertaste of conventional sodas. Strawberry is so fruit-laden it is almost as thick as a smoothie, and the strawberry flavor is so intense you may have a hard time settling for a plain old berry after drinking this. My favorite is the boysenberry, the heady, fragrant berry just tastes of summer. Pear is crisp and clean, and you can get a few limited-edition flavors, like currant or loganberry, on tap at their stores. And not only are the ingredients local, but the bottles are manufactured from recycled glass in Portland.

Zest crepes are made to order from market-fresh ingredients, fun for the kids to watch and of course they have their own menu options to choose from. The boy enjoyed the “Cheese Louise,” naturally, and I had the “Sweet Basil” with basil, tomato, feta and mozzarella. Delicious. If only I had had room to try a sweet version as well, with flavor combinations including berries and mascarpone, berries and Nutella, and lemon curd and ricotta. Zest debuted at the market this year and plans to open a stand-alone shop in the near future, but for now you can find them at the market on Saturdays, 8am-1:30pm, May through October. (The market is also open Wednesday afternoons, June through August.) See more pictures of our market finds here.

Note for DC-area local food lovers: Maryland’s Buy Local Week is wrapping up this weekend, and you can celebrate the best of the Old Line State close to town with the Montgomery County Farm Tour or venture further afield to St. Michaels for the 2nd annual Chesapeake Folk Festival on Saturday — my favorite local foods event of the year. And if these crepes have you drooling, visit Farm Fresh Chef up at the Clarksburg Md. farmers market on Sunday (or make your own).

And, save the dates for National Farmers Market Week, August 2-9, which will be observed in Virginia with a Virginia Grown recipe competition.

On last year’s trip to the Oregon coast, my mom and I visited the Lincoln City Farmers Market and came across the largest zucchini I’d ever seen. This year, we headed to the source, Barking Dog Farms, just south of Lincoln City at the base of the Siletz River. This was perhaps the greenest, lushest little farm I’ve ever seen, clearly benefiting from the cool, damp climate. The toddlers snacked on watermelon and picked dandelions while the rest of us checked out the offerings.

My sister-in-law chatted with the owner about their heirloom seed supplier as we drooled over the beautiful tomatoes, zucchini, and cut-to-order herbs and greens. I brought back a large, freshly harvested leek, garlic chives, romanesco zucchini, black russian tomato, pluots and some local goatzarella cheese from Fraga Farm. The leek and chives were used in my oven-roasted salmon, and I made a roasted zucchini, tomato and goatzarella salad to serve on the side. Just two of those hearty zucchini fed the entire family of 10!

Hitting the road soon? Check out Culinate’s “Local 50: Good things to eat in every state.”

This week I had the opportunity to be in the audience for Martha Stewart’s blogging show. I wasn’t one of the cool kids live blogging in the laptop section, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. One of the guests, Eddie Ross (also a Martha employee and Top Design contestant), blogged from backstage, for a different perspective. Matt Armendariz of Matt Bites was the featured foodblogger, who cooked up a batch of cookies with Martha.

I made the most of my day in New York with a foodie tour of the city. I keep a running list on del.icio.us of places I need to visit in NYC, and since I only had a couple hours after the show, I had to narrow it down to a few highlights. In the spirit of Martha, here are my “Foodie Good Things, NYC.”

1. The Martha Stewart set. The kitchen is even more drool-worthy in person. And then there’s the prep kitchen to the side, which I would love to actually get inside of one day.

2. Hot dogs. I have far too many restaurants on my must-visit list, but with limited time I figured I’d stick with a classic fast food option, the hot dog. Little did I know we were going to have to sit through Martha tasting 27 hot dogs for a hot dog competition to air next week! Some of them were pretty spectacular (macaroni and cheese on top?!) and others Martha and her judging partner literally gagged on. I was vicariously hot dogged out by the end, but as I walked through Chelsea in search of a lunch spot, F&B Gudtfood caught my eye with a “healthy hot dog” claim. I settled on the Farm Dog, a chicken sausage on whole wheat bun topped with sweet corn salsa. Yum. Of course I countered the healthy selection with a helping of truffle fries. Can’t wait to see who wins Martha’s hot dog challenge next week, to add to my list for our next trip up.

3. Cupcakes. This is the city that started the cupcake craze, after all. I headed to batch nyc to check out their offerings. I was tempted by the chocolate matcha green tea, but couldn’t resist the salted caramel carrot cake. It’s hard to judge a cupcakery on a carrot cupcake, rather than something light and fluffy like basic vanilla, but this one was outstanding. Moist, dense, and full of fresh carrot without seeming overly healthy. The salted caramel frosting was scrumptious.

4. Cheese. Now that we have a cheese/gourmet shop in our neighborhood and an Italian store not far away, my pantry-stocking list is a little shorter when visiting NY. But that wasn’t going to deter me from visiting the cheese mecca, Murray’s, in the Village. They claimed to carry more of the Wine Spectator 100 Great Cheeses than anyone else, but I failed to count them to see how Cheesetique measures up. I found one of those 100 that I don’t believe my shop carries to bring home, La Serena, which was excellent.

5. Cookbooks. Bonnie Slotnick’s vintage cookbook shop is a treasure trove of food history, and if it were a little roomier, I could easily move in. The friendly owner hands out chocolates of the day, making the shop even more irresistible. I picked up a Peter Rabbit cookbook I’ve been searching for for years, for my kids’ cookbook collection.

6. Kids shops. Of course I couldn’t spend 24 hours away from home and not pick up a little something for the toddler. Doodle Doo’s is a hair salon-slash-boutique with cute toys, onesies, books and games. What’s the food connection? The 1, 2, 3 New York counting book has apples, pizza and hot dogs, of course.

7. Gelato. Another NY must eat, my gelateria of choice was Grom. I had the flavor of the month, Noce, made from walnut oil from Sorrento. Grom uses all-natural ingredients, many from Italy, and supports the Slow Food Presidia project. And it was tasty, too. Rich, creamy and flavorful.

8. Greenmarket. Union Square’s Greenmarket is one of the largest in the country. I love seeing what’s in season in other parts of the country, though New York’s crops are fairly similar to ours. A couple vendors still had strawberries though, and there’s some definite NYC sticker-shock when stumbling across $5 per pound heirloom tomatoes. My $3 brandywine a couple weeks ago seems like a bargain now! I picked up a couple New Jersey peaches to snack on on my drive home, and to add a seventh state to my list of peaches sampled this year. (MD, VA, WV, PA, OR, WA and NJ.)

9. Bialys. We love the bialys from Slim’s over in Queens, and my in-laws were kind enough to pick them up for me to have ready for breakfast.

10. Pizza. Okay, it would be wildly inappropriate to write a Good Things NY list and not include pizza. We usually just eat at one of the perfectly acceptable places in Queens, where my in-laws live, but my personal favorite is in Brooklyn. I’m only a New Yorker by marriage, so please consult the experts before choosing a pizza joint for your own visit.

My biggest foodie craving left unsatisfied this visit was brunch at Balthazar. Would love to hear your NYC cravings or suggestions to add to my must-visit list!

I grew up in the hills northwest of Portland, Oregon, just up the river from Sauvie Island. This 33 square mile island is a quiet retreat just 20 minutes from Portland and split between farmland and Sturgeon Lake’s bird sanctuary. My family still fishes and kayaks on the island, and the sandy north shore made for an easy “beach” trip when I was a kid. The tug boats, barges and cargo ships were added entertainment, making their way up the Columbia’s ship channel to the ocean.

My brother spent a few summers working the peach stand at Sauvie Island Farms, and the sweet, dusty smell of the orchard is still the essence of summer for me. This year, we took my son and niece peach picking on a beautiful August day that started with a drizzle, but turned sunny as we walked through the orchard.

The kids had a blast pulling each other in the wagons and the toddler was mesmerized by the massive peaches that somehow kept finding their way into his hands.

These incredible peaches were the Veteran variety, about the size of a softball and oh so sweet and juicy.

We were lucky to also catch the tail end of blueberry season, but as the kids seemed to be putting far fewer into the box than they were picking, we had to drag them out of the bushes and restrain them back in the wagon

Now, if you aren’t from the Northwest you may not appreciate the depth of the rivalry between Oregon and Washington (go Ducks!) … but if you do find yourself out that way and venture on to the Island, beware of the big red barn farmstand at the foot of the bridge. We sent my brother and sister-in-law over to get some peaches for Sunday dinner, and they stopped there since the usual place was closed. And brought home Washington peaches. Now, it is a nice farmstand and has some local produce, but it also has the same things you could find at Fred Meyer. I bought some lovely California avocados there last year. So if you’re looking for a more authentic experience, continue down the road following the “u-pick” signs to Sauvie Island Farms. (You can consult the farmer’s wife to see what’s in season.)

Oh, and what to make with fresh picked peaches and berries? Peach Blackberry Cobbler, of course!