EPISODE #104 -
SATURDAY MARCH 31, 2012
Spring is
here and we are in the middle of a huge storm! Talk about being
disappointed! The weather is putting a cramp on our celebration
of spring and all our spring cleaning chores. Still there is
plenty to do inside the home. This week we talk about
remodeling the kitchen. It is a good time to tackle a
remodeling project, so by the time the summer is here you will
be done and you can enjoy the summer. It is also a good time to
organize and we have a great story on pulling together your
accessories to give you a little more room in your closet!
Those are just a couple of the great stories we have for you in
this week’s show.
Antique Silver
In a down
economy the price of commodities like gold and silver generally
rise. That means people will run to the china cabinets to pull
out the family silver to melt down for money! We are seeing all
kinds of ads where places are guaranteeing cash for silver and
gold. To see if melting down the family silver was a good idea
or not we stopped by and chatted with Gary Germer a local
antique and collectable expert.
Gary Germer and
Associates (503-235-0946) is known around the Northwest for
handling the appraisal and handling of antiques, fine art and
collectables. Gary gave us some tips for deciding when to keep
and when to sell.
With silver
you know you have a certain amount of money involved because you
can weigh it and, knowing the weight, you can know how much per
pound you can get. A lot of items are worth more melted down
than they are as collectables. An example is candelabras. A
lot of them were mass produced 50 or 60 years ago and are not
very collectable. They are better to be sold for the cash,
unless they have a special meaning to you or your family. If
you are thinking of keeping some thing collectable, you may look
for some of the hot items that collectors want. Small bar and
cocktail items like stirrers and spoons, little egg cups and
anything that is hand made. You should also look for designer
names like George Jensen and Sanborn. Designers always are a
good investment. The type of silver makes a difference too.
Sterling silver has the number .925 on the back. It is nearly
pure silver. Anything listed as .800 is not as pure but still is
worth money. Gary had one more tip. If you are looking to sell
your silver, look for an established local business and not one
that has a ‘one-day only’ event at the local hotel. The
established business will treat you better and you will probably
get a better price since they want you back as a customer. If
you have questions you can contact Gary. Check out Gary’s new
retail space on 17th, just off Lovejoy in the west
pearl district. He is selling selected pieces from his clients
and even will do appraisals.
Portland Bourbon
The
distilling community is growing in the Northwest. It is on par
to rival the microbrew industry if it keeps on growing. We
heard about one of the newest distillers and stopped by to pay a
visit. We met with Lenny Gotter at
Eastside Distilling (503-926-7060) where they specialize in
making rum. All you need to make rum is water, molasses and
yeast. You boil water to kill all the bacteria and then you add
the molasses and the yeast. Once the yeast does its stuff (in 4
or 5 days) and eats the sugar in the molasses to make alcohol,
then is distilled and bottled. Even though it seems easy it is
against the law unless you are licensed by the federal
government, so don’t try this at home! Eastside uses this
method to make 4 different kinds of rum. This includes coffee,
ginger, silver and gold rum. Plus they now have a new product,
Burnside Bourbon, which is a 4 year barrel aged whiskey. To
celebrate the Fusion story we were joined by master mixologist,
Andre, to see what he came up with for a mixed cocktail. His
creation was called the Andre Fusion! It was 2 ounces of
Burnside Bourbon, an ounce of cinnamon syrup from local producer
B. G. Reynolds and some lemon juice.
You'll find the recipe here.
If you would like to taste some of their wares you can stop by
their tasting room from Friday through Sunday. Check out their
website for their hours.
If you are
interested in distilled spirits in the Portland area you can
attend the Toast event happening in downtown Portland on April
28-29 on the sky bridge level of the World Trade Center. Over
50 local, national and international artisan producers will be
pouring over 100 different spirits. You can get your tickets
now at
www.showclix.com/event/TOAST.
Portland Roasting
Did you know
we have an award winning coffee roaster right here in Portland?
Recently
Portland Roasting (800-949-3898) was named the Roaster of
the Year by Roast Magazine. To learn more about this honored
business we stopped by and talked to Mark Stell, the owner of
Portland Roasting. This is the top award that you can receive
as a roaster, and they had been close before. They came in
second place for the last 5 years, they are that good! Locally
roasted coffee is very important if you are a coffee lover.
Just like a bakery, you want to have fresh roasted coffee near
the consumer. It will get stale if you wait too long or ship
too far. They roast and deliver within 48 hours which is pretty
fast!
A lot of
times roasting is about consistency. Roasters are looking for
the same characteristics in their coffee blends. If they find
something special they will offer that as a special blend, but
most of the time they want to have the same blend for their
customers. To ensure that consistency they have to constantly
test, or do a ‘cupping’, to check the flavor.
Robin
learned more about cupping from Andy Davis, one of the coffee
experts at Portland Roasting. They start with a sample of the
different raw, or green, beans. They are usually roasted to
various different levels so they can determine the best roast
for that bean. For our demonstration Andy roasted a light blend
to bring out more of the characteristics of the coffee. After
roasting the beans you smell the fresh ground coffee to check
the aroma. Then they add hot water to the ground coffee for
about 3 minutes to release the coffee. They will scrape off the
top layer of foam to get to the real coffee below. Then you
slurp a tiny bit of coffee into your mouth, loudly! This was
very surprising to us. This allows the coffee to spray around
the inside of your mouth to give you the full coffee flavor.
Then you spit it out. If you are dong a lot of tasting you
could get a big caffeine buzz if you drank it every time. Andy
also recommended that you brew you coffee in a French press and
that you use about 2 tablespoons of coffee to 6 ounces of
water. You also are to use water boiled to about 205 degrees.
Neil Kelly Kitchens
The kitchen
is one of the most popular places in the home for a remodel.
Since we spend so much time in the kitchen (cooking, visiting,
etc.) we want it to be comfortable and functional at the same
time. It is also one of the places in a home where a remodel
can increase the value of your home as well. But where do you
start when you are planning a remodel? To get the answer to
that question we stopped by the
Neil Kelly
Design Center (866-691-2719) in North Portland to talk to
Karen. Karen is a designer and she has helped hundreds of
people design and remodel kitchens without all the pain and
mistakes of doing it themselves. The first thing she recommends
is to make a list of priorities and goals you want to
accomplish. What do you want the kitchen to be? If you are an
entertainer you will need a different space than if you are a
foodie and spend a lot of time cooking. You should also have a
time frame, knowing when you want the project to be completed,
and an idea of a budget, what you would like to spend on the
remodel. The budget may be the most difficult. You have to
look at the sum of the parts from the large appliances down to
the knobs on the cabinets. A designer can be a big help here!
The designer will help you figure out your goals and they can
give you an idea of price because they know the different
materials and costs for installation. Karen told us about some
of the major remodeling styles that they consult on. Your
project can be a ‘cosmetic’ remodel where you are just re-facing
cabinets and countertops. Or you could be doing a ‘pull and
replace’ type of remodel where you are pulling out the
appliances and cabinets and putting in new. The most intensive
remodel is the ‘custom’ remodel where you are moving walls or
changing the structure of the room itself. You can help your
designer by bringing in some pictures of what you want from
magazines and pictures of your current kitchen taken from
different angles so they can get an idea of your tastes and the
scope of the work. If you are interested in learning more,
without committing to a designer, Neil Kelly has seminars
happening all the time. Check out their website for a complete
schedule. You can attend and get all your questions answered
before you get started and avoid some of the pitfalls that
others had.
Organizing Accessories
Nearly every
house has small items lying around. To get those accessories
organized is sometimes a chore. To get some organizing tips we
stopped by The
Container Store (503-620-5700) at Bridgeport near Lake
Oswego and talked to Natalie Lamar. She showed us how you can
use some everyday items to help organize your stuff. The first
items she showed us were a couple of simple plastic see-through
boxes. These are normally used to store office supplies like
paper clips, but she used it to store socks or tights. You can
keep them organized and the box lets you see what you have
stored. Next we saw how she used a normal paper towel holder to
store bracelets. Since they are all upright you can see all the
ones you have in your collection. Natalie then moved to a small
filing cabinet. This cabinet was designed to hold papers and
files, but she had added a couple of dividers in one of the
drawers and it became an earring holder. Very cool! The next
stop was a message board. But this time it wasn’t just a
message board, it was a necklace holder. This one was designed
to hold messages with little magnets and you could write on it,
but Natalie showed us how you can use it to store those
necklaces and even leave notes on what to wear the necklace
with. The final stop was another office organizer that had
found a dual purpose. This cabinet is meant to hold larger
files and office supplies, but it had been transformed into a
shoe and purse organizer. So you can see how many of these
office ‘tools’ could find another purpose as organizers for all
your personal and household items. For more ideas, you can stop
by the Container Store and talk to their staff. |
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