My husband and I made our annual pilgrimage to Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Powell’s may well be the best bookstore in the United States, and maybe even in the entire world – a statement I came make with a tiny bit of authority, since I visit bookstores everywhere I go. New York has the Strand, and that’s a great bookstore; Denver has The Tattered Cover, another great place (and the main store has a gourmet restaurant on the top level, which makes it even more fun); Chicago has Barbara’s Bookstore, and I used to haunt the store on Broadway when I lived in the Windy City all those years ago. But none of those can hold a candle to The City of Books – a bookstore that takes up an entire city block on multiple levels, selling used and new books side by side, with lots of signed first editions, an incredibly knowledgeable staff, a great coffee shop, and the best collection of just about every type of book you might care to read.

We arrived in Portland last week Tuesday, and because I’d been up until 4:00 a.m. the night before (a combination of getting a legal assignment done and subsequent insomnia), we did not immediately repair to Powell’s. Instead, we wandered around downtown Portland until our hotel room was ready, eating lunch at The Flying Elephant deli, a place we always enjoy our first lunch upon arriving in town. It’s a very green restaurant, recycling everything in sight and using organic ingredients for all the various soups, salads, sandwiches and desserts on offer. It’s on Park, sort of behind Nordstrom’s, in case you’re ever in town and looking for a good bite to eat. Dinner was at Andina, a Peruvian restaurant in the Pearl District – a district full of old warehouses converted to offices and lofts, a place where I’d really love to live; maybe in another life, when I’m rich in things besides books, friends and spouse. Again, if you’re ever in Portland, do try this restaurant. I’d never eaten Peruvian food before, and found it inventive and delicious, from the (deliberately) cold, lime-infused mashed purple potatoes with corn and avocado we had for an appetizer, to the passion fruit, pesto and peanut sauces served with the bread, to the trio of crème brulees in five spice, chocolate and passion fruit with which we finished our meal. Wow! If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was reading an extraordinarily good book – and had had a cup of strong coffee with the crème brulee – I’d have been asleep the minute we got back to the hotel. But Kat Richardson’s Labyrinth (reviewed here) kept me going until after midnight.

Wednesday began with brunch at Mother’s, a downtown restaurant we discovered on our last trip and that we really enjoy. It’s home cooking in a jazzed-up coffee shop atmosphere, sure to fill you up with whatever gourmet oatmeal, frittata or pancake you want – Fred’s pumpkin pancakes, a seasonal special, were delicious. Suitably stoked, we headed for our own version of heaven, book want lists in hand and baskets slung over our arms. I immediately headed for the Gold Room, as is my wont, to browse through the science fiction, fantasy and horror. (Powell’s is color-coded throughout; the Gold Room contains genre fiction, while the Blue Room contains literary fiction and the Pearl Room contains rare books and the Orange Room is where you’ll find cookbooks. I never made it to the Rose or Purple or other-colored rooms; SF is where my heart is, and that’s where I spent most of my time.)

I found a great many books I’d been seeking for some time, like Bruce Holland Rogers’s The Keyhole Opera – and that was not only bargain-priced, but signed and dated. It’s from Wheatland Press, one of those small publishers I’m always praising on this blog. A lovely little book that I can’t wait to get my hands on (we shipped everything home -- $12.95 for as many books as you can ship, up to thousands, apparently, though we didn’t test the limit – and just as I typed that, two big boxes showed up in the mail! Hooray!). There’s another small publisher I always keep a lookout for – Golden Gryphon Press – and I snagged one in prime condition, Michael Bishop’s Brighten to Incandescence.

I found some horror I’d had on my list for a long time, including Commitment Hour by James Alan Gardner and Use Once, Then Destroy by Conrad Williams. I made myself put down a number of books I’d have loved to have – a signed Lois McMaster Bujold, for instance, and almost everything I’m quite certain I could get from the public library – gotta watch the pocketbook! But we still managed to buy 34 books in about 4-1/2 hours of great browsing fun.

Dinner that night was at a restaurant we chose mostly because of its wonderful name: Veritable Quandary. How could we resist? The restaurant was described as offering gourmet comfort food, and my pan-fried chicken showed that the description was accurate. We didn’t feast quite as we had the night before – too full for dessert – but we enjoyed both the ambiance (the restaurant has a number of alcoves, and we were tucked into a small one with just two other tables) and the food.

Powell’s was open on Thanksgiving, so, as you might have already guessed, we returned for more fun. I started with the food books this time, and snagged a new Moosewood cookbook. I concentrated on the Blue Room, and found some literary criticism, including David Lodge’s Consciousness and the Novel, as well as a couple of bits of slipstream fiction, Oyster by Janet Turner Hospital and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado. Ten more books between the two of us, which we carried home with us in suitcases deliberately brought half-empty.

Thanksgiving Dinner at Higgins was a farm-to-table extravaganza, with free-range turkey with all the fixings. Once again, we skipped dessert, even though we hadn’t eaten any lunch. It was a yummy way to end our trip, because we headed home early the next morning, escaping the downtown area just before the parade began.

There are many good things about living on the West Coast. The proximity of great cities is one of the biggest to me, and Portland is a great city. We’ve explored it in greater depth on previous visits, including the art museum, the Columbia Gorge, and some of the wonderful hiking trails that are within a short drive. There are waterfalls all along the Gorge, some of really incredible beauty; and the zoo is quite wonderful (one year they had an insect handler out, and Fred had crazy-looking bugs crawling all over his arms under the handler’s watchful eye; not me, thanks very much, but Fred loves insects of all sorts). I’d love to live in Portland, but alas, that doesn’t seem to be in my future – and given how cold it was there on this trip, perhaps that’s all to the good! Still, I hope that we continue to travel there frequently, and to remain among Powell’s best customers.