#145 - port traits - hey jerky!

in the first part of our four-part series on portland, oregon, i spoke to a bunch of reasons why i envision it as such a dreamy city, but i'm not kidding myself. i know just like with every other city in the world, it's no utopia. last year, business week rated it "america's unhappiest city." in fact, there’s a whole blog devoted to things about portland that suck..."wannabe suicide girls," street kids with pets/the people in pioneer square, panda express. according to the blog that is apparently the authority on all things sucky in portland, these are all things that suck about portland.

in addition, in portland's 150 years of existence it's definitely been home to a handful of jerks, folks who deserve a good caning or something. the most infamous resident from the last few decades is america's favorite kneecap-breaking figure skater, tonya harding, who was born there. same for nike's phil knight, whose company is the king of the sneaker industry & the king of labor abuses. rocker hag courtney love is a one-time oregonian & portland resident too, but don't even get me started on her.

speaking of jerks, there's portland property owner greg goodman. according to my "sources," he's sort of a dick. his family, who owns a parking business, is the largest property owner in the downtown area. since he owns a lot of parking, his properties are home to a number of the city's food carts. i've constantly praised the portland food cart scene, but apparently the man who controls the property that many of them park on is the sort of guy who would ask the city if he could demolish a historic building so he could build a hotel or some shit even though he has a thousand lame ass parking lots that he could build on instead.

if it was five years ago, i'd be including the nba's portland trail blazers amongst the portland jerks, but they've recently cleaned up their image after years of being dubbed the "jail blazers." during the fifteen or so years leading up to the end of the last decade, they had five players arrested for weed possession & those five also managed to get involved with gun possession, dog fighting & threatening to kill an nba referee. after that stream of idiocy, i guess the team had nowhere to go but up. granted, on tuesday nude photos of center greg oden leaked onto the internet, but we've seen nude photos of disney stars leak onto the web, so his slip up pales in comparison. plus, nobody’s going to arrest him for it. not a jerk.

maybe you're the sort of person who embraces both the portland & the jerk. if so, there's a festival for you--the portland jerk festival--which takes place every summer & celebrates the wonders of the jerk. unfortunately, it’s held in jamaica. that's totally not in oregon, mon. maybe you embrace portland but you don't embrace the jerk. if so, "dump your significant jerk week" is less than ten days away. if you've got a significant jerk in your life, it's time to DTMFA. if you do it soon enough, you'll have just enough time to prepare for some random rebound sex on valentine's day! either that or you can just DTMFA & sit at home crying & jerking it on VD. it's your choice, i suppose.

#145 - port traits - hey jerky!
snacks: tofurky peppered jurky /perfected foods cajun soy jerky / primal strips hot & spicy jerky / stonewall's hot "pastrami" jerquee



i'm an ardent supporter of jerky & jerky products & there were four vegan jerkys amongst the bounty of snacks my portland chum chris brought with him when he visited, jerkys that he chose because they were either from the portland area or a product found at portland’s punk & hippie grocers—food fight! & food front coop. vegan jerky's a strange thing considering that by definition it's "meat cured by jerking" but regardless, i'm totally down with the vegan jerky. after all, i'm a believer that it's possible to cure all sorts of things by jerking.

tofurky peppered jurky - a decade back, when my sister first became a practicing vegetarian & thanksgiving came around, she decided to get herself a tofurky. since we're all meat eaters, we were all like "what the f is that?" she was all, "it's a tofurky" & we were all like "bah!" then we made fun of it for the rest of the day. we were very supportive of each other back then. anyway…tofurky products are made by turtle island foods, which is based in hood river, a community near the mountain about an hour east of portland. their pepper jerky comes in these shaped discs that have a subtle smoky flavor. like their faux turkey, it's a tad bit unnatural, but it's still pretty tasty...plus it has that mountain man on the front of the packaging. that dude's totally inspirational.

perfected foods cajun soy jerky - all i can say about perfected foods cajun soy jerky is that from my experience, they haven't even come close to perfecting it, specifically in its freshness. this was the first jerky i tried out of the four, testing it out when chris was still here visiting. it had a spicy, cajun flavor to it, but it also had a strange aftertaste & was crunchy. chris tried some of it & was all "dude. i think something's wrong with this. it's gone bad or something. seriously...don't eat it." it seemed like it had potential, but i'm not down with the crunchy jerky. ya know?

primal strips hot & spicy jerky - i'm a big fan of primal strips' work. their thai peanut jerky was my #6 snack of 2009 & over the past few weeks, since one of my local bodegas started stocking primal strips, i've sampled the teriyaki & hickory smoked flavors. they were both good but neither one lived up to the awesomeness of the thai peanut flavor. they didn't match up to the hot & spicy flavor one either, which IMHO gives the thai peanut one a serious run for its money. it's a dark strip of jerky made with shitake mushrooms (which is my current veggie ingredient obsession) & soy sauce & when you bite into it, it's slightly sweet & slightly spicy...a great flavor. also, it's definitely the firmest of the primal strip jerkys...too bad i've yet to see it at a store here in nyc.

stonewall's hot "pastrami" jerquee - over the last few years, i've tried a few different flavors of stonewall's jerquee, but this was the first time their hot "pastrami" has passed my lips. their jerky comes in the form of quarter-sized soy nuggets & what makes them cool is that when you bite into them, they're juicy & chewy. it's been ages since i've eaten actual pastrami, but i'm pretty sure the lil nuggets didn't taste like pastrami. regardless, it's a darn tasty jerky with a flavor & texture that's the meatiest of the four that i sampled...& in the end isn't that meaty flavor really what a good vegan jerky's all about?  

fave vegan jerky: stonewall's hot "pastrami" jerquee