Half and Half Cafe (Downtown)

It's Spring Break for me this week (yay, Spring Break, boo, genuinely egregious faux-Spring Weather!) and since I needed a break from sitting bundled in quilts at my Mac in my freezing living room blogging about what I eat (too much) and drink (also too much), I decided to reply to my friend Brian of PICA's call for volunteers today. Walking down to his (heated) office in the Pearl, in the span of 10 short blocks I basked in bright sunlight, sloshed my way through a rainstorm, and struggled through a mini-blizzard. Ridiculous.

After a couple of hours of using Photoshop to painstakingly scan slides of pieces by artists Kay French, Jenny Rideout, and Christine Bourdette for PICA's exciting upcoming event TADA (www.pica.org/programs/detail.aspx?eventid=316), I was sort of cross-eyed and ready for lunch, so Brian and I headed down the street to cozy Half and Half, a groovy teeny weeny cafe on SW Oak Street that sits plunked between alternative media hotspots Reading Frenzy and Counter Media. After some lengthy discussion, Brian and I decided to share the spicy muffalata sandwich--soppressata (you know how I feel about soppressata), hot copa ham, provolone and olive salad on a ciabatta roll. We also ordered two deviled eggs and two homemade sugar cookies with cheerful pastel purple and yellow icing. The super nice girl behind the counter was kind enough to heat up our sandwich and she must have heard our deliberations about sharing because she brought the muffalata sandwich split onto two plates with an egg on each plate and a few pickles as well. Lovely little lunch! we cried. I neglected to see the homemade soup until we'd already ordered, so I will certainly try that next time I am taking refuge from a faux-Spring blizzard. I wanted to order coffee because everyone raves about Half and Half's french-pressed coffee but I was already a little hyper, so it was water from the self-serve jug for me. Maybe next time I can upgrade to a fruit soda or something.

We scanned the eclectic reading selections hanging on a long wall rack above the bar and read a book called "Sad Poems" while we watched it snow outside. I wrote my own sad poem. Like most of my greatest work, it was penned in under 45 seconds. Oh yes, I know, hard to believe.

Death to a Heartless Spring
I cannot feel my hands, she moaned.
How will I grasp this toothsome deviled egg with these brittle claws?
Away foul chilblains!
Will faux-Spring ever die?!
Is it not cruel fate enough that I have been rendered cross-eyed by Adobe Scan?
I do not also want to be the color of an un-iced sugar cookie for-ever.

Thank you, thank you. I am sure PICA is going to ask me to present this fall at TBA 08! Anyhow, definitely wander into Half and Half someday soon (Half & Half's sister cafe, Acorn, is located at 539 NW 13th Ave in the Pearl) and have a sandwich and a deviled egg and a homemade cookie and perhaps even some soup and french-pressed coffee, and try to forget that all this talk of Spring having arrived is obviously just a cruel joke.


-J

Half and Half Cafe * 923 SW Oak St. * www.urbanhonking.com/halfandhalf/ * (503) 222-4495 * M-F 7:30-7:30, Sat 9-7:30, Sun 9-6