Top 10 Travel Essentials :: Fall Weekend Edition

[trip style = weekend getaway]

Shopping for fall hasn't been this fun since back-to-school, when my list of essentials included a Club Monaco logo sweatshirt {which they should really bring back for nostalgia}, a mini tee and a lace choker {proof that some trends should stay in the past}.

Our fall 2014 travel essentials are less trend and more casual-sophisticate. This list takes all the guesswork out of packing for a weekend getaway. We selected staples that never lose their luster, like a classic trench, white sneakers and this season's all-star denim pick—the cropped, relaxed-fit boyfriend jean you can carry with you from Montreal to Miami.

GUYS :: Your fall essentials include all of the same items, save the dress and the skirt {sorry Scotland and Marc Jacobs—despite your bravest efforts, the man skirt is still not happening}.

Top 10 Travel Essentials :: Fall Weekend Edition
1/ 90s denim skirt 
2/ Shirt dress 
3/ Bucket bag 
4/ Versatile trench 
5/ Cropped jeans
6/ Loafers 
7/ White shirt 
8/ White sneakers 
9/ Oversized sweater 
10/ Light blanket scarf

From top left: 1/ Mother high waisted patchie skirt, 2/ Acne Studios lash poplin dress, 3/ Mansur Gavriel bucket bag, 4/ Zara flowy trenchcoat with camo lining, 5/ Point Sur vintage cropped jean, 6/ Dieppa Restrepo penny loafer, 7/ Equipment margaux blouse, 8/ Converse chuck taylors, 9/ Apiece Apart anni fisherman sweater, 10/ Humanoid pop woz scarf, Bonus/ Want Les Essentiels de la Vie hartsfield weekender

This post is written by Trip Styler's Assistant Wayfarer/Editor Heather.

Related
Jetset Style :: Scandinavia-Inspired Jackets
Top 10 Travel Essentials :: Summer Weekend Edition 
Homeward Bound :: Weekender Bags

[photo collage by @heatherlovesit]

Oregon Travel Diary :: Cannon Beach

[trip style = beach + weekend getaway + food + wine]

Long ago, Cannon Beach surpassed drive-by beach town. Punctuated by the 235-foot Haystack Rock, a sandbar long enough to run a 100-meter dash and wispy grasses separating sand from land, it's become Oregon's most iconic—and photographed—coastline.

It's also conquerable, reaching 6.4 km {4 miles} from end-to-end. Pan the waterfront and you'll see dogs romping around like they're on a highway to heaven, surfers trying their hand at wave-riding, runners burning off last night's calories, walkers getting a beach-wind blow-out, horseback riders galloping on the sandbar and reclined beach trikes zipping past. Somehow, this chaos works {and feels far from congested because the beach is so big, there's an imaginary "track" for every sand-lover}. 

When I visited with Mr. Trip Styler and Mr. Nacho King in late-August, we traded our regular repertoire of surfing and running for picnics and bonfires. Here are the on- and off-the-shore treasures I suggest you add to your beach-combing basket. 

Trip Styler Tip: Cannon Beach is warmest in summer, but moonlights as a four-season destination {if you can handle bundling up}! Visit in the off-season to find fewer crowds and cheaper rates.

Cannon Beach from above. 

Mr. Nacho King posing for his Instagram. 

Never-ending sandbar.

Our top-pick coffee and breakfast stop: Sea Level Bakery + Coffee {serving Stumptown Coffee!}. 

Sea Level from the roadside. Walk 50 meters West toward the ocean and you can sip your coffee on the beach. 

Our beach set-up, complete with a windbreaker, arranged by the cabana team at the Surfsand Resort {where we stayed}.  

A "Goonies" crepe from Crêpe Neptune. Basically s'mores ingredients wrapped in a crepe. 

Stopping for a tipple at the Cannon Beach Distillery {Yelp link}. 

Dinner MUST: Attending an interactive cooking show at EVOO Cannon Beach Cooking School. {More on this soon!}

Joining the Cannon Beach bonfire tradition thanks to the beach cabana team at the Surfsand Resort. Not shown here: roasting marshmallows {obviously}!

Stay: The Surfsand Resort, a prime perch with crazy-comfortable Tempur-Pedic beds and service that extends beyond welcome and departure niceties offering daily fresh-baked cookies and chocolate milk at 3 p.m., seasonal cabana service {ie - beach chair and bonfire set-up}, WiFi, in-town shuttle service, Saturday ice cream socials and Sunday weenie roasts, in addition to a pool, hot tub, sauna and fitness area. Recommendation: Request an ocean-facing room. Pet-friendly, bark-woof!

Picnic from EVOO Cannon Beach's take-away shop featuring local cheese and meats, plus bread from Sea Level Bakery.

I did not construct this masterpiece, but I thought you should see its craftsmanship up close! 

More Oregon
Oregon Travel Diary :: Feasting on Portland
That Travel Meal :: Best-in-Class Burrata at Ava Gene's

[photos by @tripstyler (except Surfsand) taken while exploring OR as a guest of Tourism Oregon]

That Travel Meal :: Best-in-Show Burrata at Ava Gene's

[trip style = food + wine]

Last month we started a series called "That Travel Meal," a taste of the delicioso dishes I savor while trip styling and tasting around the globe. The plates that make it into this series are the cream of the crop, the ones I must recreate—either through the acquired recipe or hours of  trial and error—and share with you as the travel souvenir that keeps on giving. 

That Travel Meal dishes won't keep you in the kitchen {or driving all over town to source ingredients} for hours; they're pretty easy to recreate. For example, I'm OB-sessed with Parisienne croissants, but that's something I'll leave to Le Cordon Bleu alumni.  

The latest fare I'm adding to the TS menu is a burrata appetizer I ordered last month from Ava Gene's, one of my go-to restaurants in Portland. As a burrata lover, I've tested a lot of the melt-in-your-mouth mozza, but this rendition is the best—ideal for a petite dinner paired with rosé, or as a dinner party starter.  

Ava Gene's Burrata {serves 2}
- 6" square of focaccia, sliced into 6 fingers
- 4 oz burrata 
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp jalapeno, minced
- 1 tsp shallot, minced
- 3 tbsp fresh corn 
- 2 tomatillos, sliced
- 7 gooseberries,  halved {or nectarine if gooseberries are hard to find}
- 2 tbsp chopped walnuts
- 6 mint leaves, slapped {to release flavor} and sliced
- salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
Warm and crisp sliced focaccia in the oven at 200 F for 12 minutes. Mix 1 tbsp of olive oil with jalapeno, shallot, corn, tomatillos, gooseberries, walnuts and mint in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Take burrata out of the fridge, place on your serving dish and top with contents from your mixing bowl. Pour remaining olive oil over the burrata and mint mixture. Remove focaccia from the oven, place on your plate and serve. 

Trip Styler Tip: Ava Gene's changes their burrata weekly depending on what's in season. Use this recipe as a guide, but feel free to take a cue from Portland's obsession with local bounty and add or subtract what's currently growing in your backyard.

Related
That Travel Meal :: Goat Cheese-Prociutto-Pear-Arugula Pizza

[photos by @tripstyler]

Oregon Travel Diary :: Feasting on Portland

[trip style = food + drink + urban]

Editor's Note: While TS Sis was recently investigating Scandinavia, I was exploring the Oregon Coast's Northern beaches and tasting what's new in Portland's food scene. Here's the first of a few dispatches from that late-August city-to-beach jaunt.

I chose to write about the restaurants I frequent and drool over in Portland's food scene today for a buffet of reasons: 

1/ This weekend is Feast Portland, one of North America's prime-cut food festivals, and something I've reported on for Trip Styler and Fodor's for the past two years. Sadly, I'm not able to make it this year, but pl-ease go in my absence, K?  
2/ When I visited The City of Roses {which I'd like to rename "The Center of Taste"} in August, a bunch of restaurants had just been named by Bon Appétit Magazine to their prestigious list of 50 Best New Restaurants in America. Not surprisingly, one little luncheonette made the Hot 10 {more on this below}. 
3/ I make a point to visit Portland a few times a year to keep up with the latest dish and drink, so here's the complete menu of TS musts.

Eat
MÅURICE - I dined at MÅURICE, a pastry luncheonette, a few hours before they found out they'd been crowned one of the Hot 10 new restaurants in America by Bon Appétit Magazine. From the first bite of my current-rosemary scone, I knew they were a strong contender. As I ordered more, it was settled; this French-forward pastry kitchen was catapulted into the "always visit" realm in my Portland restaurant repertoire.

Ava Gene's - Pair rustic Italian fare sourced from the surrounding foothills, a brasserie-style setting {and Grappa}, and you've got Portland's Italian stallion of restaurants. Don't visit without trying the burrata, topped with an eclectic mix of what's in season {in late-August: corn, jalapeño, mint, fig, walnuts and olive oil}.

Olympic Provisions - Aside from the word "bounty," which would be a weird name for a restaurant, there are two buzzwords which accurately describe Portland's obsession with local and meat, combine them and you've got Olympic Provisions, the embodiment of Oregon cuisine in the form of fresh food and local wine.  

Luce - If Luce's black and white vinyl floor, wood tables topped with tiny vases of in-season flowers or shelves stocked with Italian cooking basics aren't enough to entice you to try everything on the menu, then the collection US$2 appetizers or US$5 tumblers of house wine should do the trick. From there you'll transition into the pasta and more tumblers of wine until you lose track of time and the stars light your way home.

*There are a bazillion restaurants I could write love letters to in PDX. Other not-to-miss picks include: St. Jack, The Woodsman Tavern, Ned Ludd, Grüner, Pok Pok 

Drink
Pépé Le Moko - One of the most anticipated speakeasy openings in the past few years, Pépé Le Moko is a throwback to the drinks your parents would have sipped at happy hour—hello Amaretto Sour and Grasshopper Milkshake—in a subterranean space rimmed by black vinyl booths and lit by vintage task lights.   

Clyde Common - ...Because I don't visit Portland without stopping by this Euro-meets-West-Coast food gem. Plus, they employ one of the best bartenders in the USA, and their happy hour is my happy place. 

Driftwood Room - I first discovered the Driftwood Room when I was writing the Jetsetter hotel review for the Hotel deLuxe, and immediately fell in love with the retro landmark that's remained frozen in time since 1954.

Breakfast
Tasty n Sons - A neighborhood bistro with a menu that's anything but. Think breakfast tapas like griddled bacon-wrapped dates with maple syrup and almond, or sweet biscuits with warm blueberry compote and crème anglaise.

Broder -  Where Nordic and PNW cuisine harmonize in a pitch-perfect breakfast. Whatever you do, make sure you sample a potato pancake.

Blue Star Donuts - In case you're still basking in 2010's trends, know this: Blue Star is the new Voodoo, so stop by to satisfy your carb craving with flavah-flavs such as Hard Apple Cider Fritter or Blueberry Bourbon Basil. And in case there was ever a feel-good donut, it's from Blue Star where the scratch and locally-sourced dough is made from certified sustainable bread flour, cage-free eggs, whole milk and European-style butter. Bonus: They serve dog donuts for US$0.25.  

Coffee
Stumptown Coffee Roasters - As the West Coast's most popular indie roaster and bar, Stumptown takes coffee as seriously as Portland takes food—see the website's detailed brewing guides as evidence. Find five locations in Portland, plus a bevy of others in buzzed cities like Seattle, LA and New York. 

Heart Coffee Roasters - When I go into Heart, I long to linger and be that coffee devotee who stays for two-hour stints while listening to a self-made mix of ambient beats and planning their next terrarium design. With two locations in Portland and a number of shops around the US who carry Heart's brew, this sip is to coffee as craft is to cocktail. 

Coava - For serious java aficionados with a proclivity for minimalism—both in design and coffee culture—Coava's craftsmen are dedicated to making balanced and sweet espresso, perfect milk drinks and brewed coffee so good, nothing needs to be added. 

Treat
Salt & Straw - Raised in Portland and now expanding to LA, Salt & Straw is an ice cream institution {in the summer, line-ups can run 150 people long; in this case, buy a pint to skip the line] made famous by its farm-to-cone connection, creamy texture and inventive flavors (think: Bone Marrow Cherry or Black Olive Brittle and Goat Cheese). While I love to try these haute takes on crème glacée, it's Salt & Straw's classic tastes such as Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons or Salted, Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough that make my eyes flutter when I scoop them from my cup to my mouth.  

Trip Styler Tip: Not all of Portland's restaurants congregate downtown. Be prepared to drive or bike to most of these hot-to-trot eateries. 

[photos: a mix of my own and restaurant website snaps]

Spotlight :: Copenhagen {Part 2}

[trip style = urban]

As soon as I arrived in Copenhagen, I noticed the bicycles—hundreds of them leaned up against fences, seemingly free from cumbersome locks. I wondered: does no one lock their bike because of the sheer volume of bikes in the city? Have I stumbled upon the safest and friendliest city in the world, where people don't just greet you with a single "Hi" but with a twice-as-nice "Hi hi"?

Upon closer inspection, I noticed a small round lock built into the frame above the rear wheel. This genius device allows Copenhageners to park their bikes anywhere, so it's not uncommon to constantly step around bikes perched on the sidewalk in front of shops.

All their cycling must make the healthy, beautiful and fashion-forward locals hungry, so it's a good thing they live in a city known for its food. Last week I covered where to drink and shop and today I'll recommend what to eat and do. I already can't wait to go back for more than a weekend; perhaps in the winter if only to verify that the Danes really do ride their bikes in the snow like they say they do.

Eat

Copenhagen is the epicenter of New Nordic cuisine, and their most hallowed ground is Noma, recently named the best restaurant in the world for the third consecutive year. At this prix-fixe restaurant, fine dining meets foraging and you have to call months ahead to get a table. If you haven't planned ahead, or reindeer moss and sea urchin toast isn't your thing, try one of the city's other adventurous restaurants—Radio, Relae, Geist, Host—whose chefs often come from Noma.

Trip Styler Tip: Copenhageners eat on the early side, so expect most restaurants to stop serving food between 9-10pm.

Torvehallerne
Try traditional Danish foods like smørrebrød {open-faced sandwiches}, pickled herring and rye bread, or go for modern options like cold-pressed juice, pour-over coffee and a Paleo omelette wrap at Torvehallerne, Copenhagen's vibrant market hall. More than 60 shops and food stands crowd the upscale market complex, made up of modern glass sheds on a cobblestone square. Prefer organic food? You're in the right place; Copenhagen is Europe's largest consumer of organic produce.

Trip Styler Tip: Expect everything to cost 1.5-2x as much as you're accustomed to at home.

Grød
Porridge probably isn't the first food that comes to mind when you think about eating out. But this porridge is less Orange is the New Black and more gourmet comfort food. Their goal is to redefine the concept of porridge and prove that it can be delicious, healthy and cheap. Porridge options include oatmeal with dulce de leche, apple and toasted almond for breakfast; risotto with tomato, parmesan and basil for lunch; and congee with chicken, ginger, peanuts and scallions for dinner. This is the type of restaurant I wish I had in my own neighborhood. Get ready New York—Grød is coming for you in 2015.

Do

Superkilen
A kilometer-long park in Copenhagen's Nørrebro neighbourhood, Superkilen's design was a collaboration between Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group, art group Superflex and Berlin landscape architects Topotek1. Three zones—red, black and green {shown above}—form the urban park, which was created to unify a socially and ethnically diverse community. This park was the most pleasant surprise of my trip {and only a 10-minute walk from Jaegersborggade, one of the hippest streets in Copenhagen and home to Grød and The Coffee Collective}.

Christianshavn on two wheels
If you're brave enough to ride alongside the locals, rent a bike and cross the bridge from Copenhagen K {downtown} to Christianshavn and begin your cycle tour in "freetown" Christiania, founded in the early 70s as an alternative society with its own set of rules. In an episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, he called it a "well-established enclave of hippie anarchist squatters [which] sounds about as attractive as being sentenced to life at a Phish concert." Ride past creative ramshackle homes, galleries and world-famous Pusher Street a.k.a. the green light district.

From Christiania, ride along the water to the Copenhagen Opera House, a striking glass and steel building that locals—and apparently architect Henning Larsen himself—call the toaster. Stop at nearby Paper Island for coffee or lunch before finishing at Church of Our Saviour, where for a small fee you can climb 400 steps to its corkscrew spire for the best view in town.

On my next visit, I plan to visit Tivoli, the second-oldest amusement park in the world, which is said to have inspired Walt Disney's vision for Disneyland, as well as Ordrupgaard Museum and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Related
Spotlight :: Copenhagen {Part 1}
Jetset Style :: Scandinavia-Inspired Jackets

[images by @heatherlovesit & @graceyvr except top-right torvehallerne images via food republic and bottom-left superkilen image via superflex]