Experiencing a different culture

Our favorite breakfast restaurant has a new owner and it's just not the same any more.  How can you honestly have a breakfast without ANY pork products?  Turkey bacon is not what I consider a treat.

So DH and I have been searching for a new breakfast place.  Today, we tried the Delta Cafe and Bar.  It's in a collegiate neighborhood which might account for the "artistic" leanings.  I don't know if you have to be tattooed to work there, or if you have to work there a certain period of time before they give you a tattoo, but the waitresses show more ink than many bikers I know. And our fellow patrons - if you need colorful characters for your next work of fiction, well come on down!  The woman with the echoing, glass-shattering laugh and the hairdo that looks like it might have baby birds in it.  Or the skinny young woman in the short shorts and the long sweater who evidently  suffered from a severe case of snake-leg.  She was sitting on her left foot, and had her right foot tucked up next to her meatless cheek on the chair.  I thought of asking her what she would do if she ever stepped in gum, but she was displaying for her young man, and probably wouldn't have known what I was talking about.  There was a dishwasher - blonde, 6ft2 or so.  Maybe 120lbs, with a beard about 18 inches long and braided.
There was the guy sitting right across from us who came in, slammed down a bloody Mary with celery stick, asparagus, lime wedge and salt on the rim, ate everything, including the lime rind, and left.  Breakfast of champions.

Anyhow, the food was quite good.  If I ever hit my goal weight, I'm going to go there and have a basket of beignets - fried dough with LOTS of powdered sugar.  DH had chicken-fried steak.  Good steak, but too much rosemary in the chicken gravy, and too much vinegar in the collard greens.  I had the "SE Standard." One egg, two slices of bacon, and a slice of toast.  It came with grits. I think I kind of like grits.  The bacon was crisp, not greasy, not burned.  And the egg was a perfectly acceptable poached egg.

Prices were good, service was pleasant and attentive, though the food took a long time to show up.  We'll probably go back for another try.  I like collard greens for breakfast.

I've finished another sweater.  This one done with Lorna's Laces wonderful wool.  All garter stitch, so it was easy to pick up the center panel knit sideways.  I may add pockets.  Oh, heck, who am I kidding? I have to add pockets.  What's the point of having a sweater without pockets?  It's many shades of purple,violet, and plum, and just cozy enough for outer wear on July the first in rainy Portland.

In fact, while the rest of the nation swelters and burns, we had the kind of day that makes you want to stay inside and bake peanut butter cookies.  So I did.  It makes the house so warm and cozy.