Federal Wildfire Cuts Leave Oregon Vulnerable, Top Astoria Food Picks, and a Bumper Sticker Showdown

This is CityCast Portland. I'm Claudia Meza, and this is what Portland's talking about. Today on CityCast Portland, we're talking about why the federal government's wildfire response might not be enough this year, plus the best places to visit in Astoria. Also, we need your help voting for your favorite CityCast Portland bumper sticker, so I've got a few to share, and we have a poll going in the show notes. Joining me, our Food Intrigue reporter, Alex Frayne, and our very own senior producer, Rachel Monaghan. Welcome on the show, you two. What's up? Hi, Claudia. Hello. Hello. Now, before we jump into the news, I usually ask an opening question so any new listeners can get to know our guests a little better. And today's is related to a story K2 reported on that earlier this week, a 21-year-old man was arrested at PDX after trying to fly with more than 40 pounds of marijuana. His big plan was to take two full suitcases of weed to Chicago and make... Bank. But here's what's hilarious, you guys, that the story doesn't cover. Marijuana is perfectly legal in Illinois. So Chicago doesn't need Portland Escobar over here peddling his wares. I mean, I get West Coast, and particularly Northwest Buds are considered elite. But what the hell? Like what the hell? I like Portland Escobar a lot. That's really good. You like that? Yeah, I do. Thank you. I do think maybe our weed is good enough. that it would have sold in Chicago. But I don't know. It's not good enough to risk getting arrested for drug trafficking between two legal states. But I got a shout out, K2's headline was like Flight 420. So that was pretty good too. Oh, okay. I mean, come on. Everyone's just. rolling out bangers on this one. I really are. So my question to you both is, what is the most memorable TSA experience you've ever had? Or have you ever been caught trying to smuggle something? It doesn't have to be at PDX. Like, for example, I have had a nice bottle of Pinot Noir taken from me at PDX from a carry-on because I accidentally got away with it once and so assumed it was allowed. Like someone just didn't. notice. And the second time, they were just like, no, you can't do this. Are you new here? You've got to store that stuff. You've got to, it's over, you know, 10 ounces or whatever it is. That's the legal limit. It's three ounces, Alex.

I don't carry liquid on my carry-on. It's so clear we always fly out of Portland, because I've got to be honest, PDX is always just like, well, you know, it's fine. For a while, I would always travel with tea, and my favorite tea shop, Fly Awake, puts things in these like... metallic little baggies and somehow those got flagged always going somehow so that I would rip open my suitcase which I never pack neatly to show them the tea the tea was okay It was not illicit drugs. It was not a bomb. It was cosplaying as illicit drugs. You know, I do think tea is a gateway drug, but we can talk about that another time. You know, I used to fly often. Back in the day, I used to go on media trips to different countries and I really miss it. But I... I was trying to think of like a really memorable TSA experience that I had and I had very few that stand out. The only thing I can really remember that's relevant was one day I had the easiest boarding of my life because they basically skipped security for like all the flights and just had a dog. make its way. A really cute pup just made its way through the line, sniffed everybody. And then we were like, all okay to board. It was the fastest I've ever gone through security. And I think that we should just do that every time. If you can do that once, just have a bunch of pups from running around PDX, sniffing people. Just a Pino noir sniffing dog. I think that sounds like a Portland sort of thing. They're like, ah, she's at it again. She hates Cabernet. She's a Pino gal. Oh, my God. I love it. Thank you both for your answers. On to the new. Rachel, what is going on with our wildfire response? I'm a little nervous. This is all signs point to shitty wildfire year. Yeah, so it's not looking good. So we have this story from Alex Baumhart of Oregon Capital Chronicle. The story is about four members of Oregon's congressional delegation. including both our senators, warning about what the federal response to wildfires will be like this summer. They're saying it could be lacking. Shocking. Yeah. So what happened is on Wednesday of last week, these elected officials attended a wildfire season briefing that the feds put on. And then it wasn't something that went well because they turned around and talked to the press after this, like to raise their concerns. And I think part of the context for this is I think we all know we had a really mild winter. That means we have less snow around in our mountains. We have a bunch of the state already in drought. I think it's up to 70% of the state is now experiencing drought conditions.

to figure that out with the federal government because it's federal. Does that mean, that's what's so annoying. That's like the catch 22 on all this. Absolutely. Yeah. And again, like I'm not saying everything has to be. legal you know what I mean like where it's I mean really like I mean pack our suitcases full of firefighting equipment and go through TSA that's what we're doing PDX I'm sorry what is what are you guys doing we're like nothing we're going to Ben yeah when the federal government decides that they should abandon their own citizens you've lost stewardship of the land if you are refusing to agreed to obligate yourself to stewardship of the land so I like I was looking at how much the feds actually own of Oregon. And it's bigger than the state of Pennsylvania, which my East Coast brain kind of breaks over, because that's a pretty big state, you know? But Oregon is the 10th largest state overall by landmass. So, yeah, there's a lot of land out there. That's federally owned. It's almost like they should give it back. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. But to people who might actually want to take care of it and have the, you know, centuries or millennia of understanding of how to take care of it. Yeah. Well, I don't know. There's an idea. A couple more things are interesting to me here. Like, we in Portland have been through some bad wildfire seasons, but. What that means for Portland is really bad air quality. Yeah. And what it means for other parts of the state is real danger. Yeah. And, you know, Portland isn't that friendly to Trump, but this is going to impact some parts of the state that are more friendly to the administration who voted for them. So like that always does. Yep. Yeah. The find out part of this is going to hit potentially more Trump voters, not that we all won't suffer. from it. Fingers crossed that like it's going to be just like last year. Fingers crossed, you know, that it's a big drum roll to hopefully nothing. But cleaner air filters, cleaner air filters. Yeah, there we go. All right, well, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, Alex has some picks for where to go in Astoria.

Alex, I don't know if I've shared this, but I have a deep, deep love for our coast. And Astoria is one of my favorite day trips. I even have a hat. Look at it. Did a wardrobe change. That's a great hat. I don't think I have any Astoria swag. I should get some. Yeah. But your father retired there. So you kind of have an insider in. I have like my places that I go to, but I'm ready to learn about new spots to check out. Yeah, I wanted to get away a little bit from the more kind of mainstream places that people know. And everyone knows Bow Picker at this point. So I just wanted to talk about some of my favorite restaurants that I go out to. Now, my dad's lived out there for just over a decade now. He actually moved out there the summer of the Goonies 30th anniversary. So it's pretty easy to keep track. We just celebrated their 40th last year. But we found some pretty fun spots out there. So like I said, I think a lot of people know Bow Picker, which is a pretty famous fish and ship shop. that's in an old boat. But one of my actual favorite places for fishing ships on the coast in general, especially the North Coast, is a spot called Ship Out. And that's on the other side of the Young's Bay from Astoria. So it feels like you're going into Warrington, but you're technically still in Astoria. And it's a food cart that's parked outside of this incredibly kitchy garden store. So you can take your fried halibut or your fried cod or your fried tuna or whatever and your really excellent fries that they make there and a nice... slaw and bring it inside this like kitchy shop and sit amongst all of this garden paraphernalia like not like gnomes but like wire structures and and fake flowers and all sorts of stuff it's it's kind of a riot and it's in this greenhouse like space uh or you can take it to go obviously but a really great spot i feel like it gets overshadowed by some of the other fish and ships places um on the north coast bow picker love the fish I'm not a big fan of the tricks. Mixed on the fries. Yeah. I mean, it could have been an off day, but I feel like every time I get them, they're a little stale. And so I don't see the hype on the, but again, it could just be that for some reason. They're just like, give this one the stale ones. You know what I mean? I'm sure that's what it is. It's targeted. And you see. Bo Picker, and I say bow picker, and I don't know which one's correct. I'm sure it's bow picker. I'm guessing bow. Incredible. Now I want us to talk about a place that no one has ever heard of, which is a Fort George Brewery. I'm joking, of course. Everyone knows Fort George Brewery. It's one of the two biggest breweries in Astoria. People go there for beer, obviously, live music. You know, it's right in the center of town. It says they have multiple buildings now that are attached to it. But the thing that I want to specifically shout it out for is their pizza. Because I've gone to basically every pizza shop in Astoria. I know we talk about. pizza on the podcast quite a bit. People have strong opinions on it. I have not found a better pie in Astoria than at Fort George. And it actually took me a while to discover that. But like, you can go there and get a sandwich or whatever. But my thing,

Go and get like a takeout pizza from Fort Chards. It's going to be better than any place on the North Coast. Huh. Which pizza shop in Portland makes the most similar pizza? Oh. Great question. It's, I don't think it's sourdough. It's not really like a Portland style, but it's not really like a strict New York pizza. I feel like, um. It's just regular pizza. It kind of fits that model with like a brewery pizza. Like I think the closest thing that you would find in Portland is probably another brewery, to be honest. And you're not talking. Bahman's on Oak or however you say that restaurant. No, that's so funny. I was just about to say, I think balance on oak might come closest, which is really good. I really like their pizza. I think that's a little bit slept on right now. Yeah, their pizza is kind of considered some of the best. But okay. Yeah. So I've been to Fort George. I've not had the pizza. Where else? One of my other favorite places to drink, speaking much. I know people, you know, think of Astoria as a brewery town, which it definitely is. But they also have a really fantastic wine bar, which is called Brute Wine Bar, which is also located downtown. Just a few blocks away from the riverfront. It's owned by this woman named Lisa Parks, who travels to Europe all the time to find really awesome wines and post really envy-inspiring posts on Instagram when she's over there. You know, beautiful French vineyards and everything. everything. And I don't think of people think of Astoria as being like a wine town. And she has a really nice, one, one, it's just a great environment. It's this kind of cozy little wine shop. It's pretty small. But she has all these regulars that are always visiting because, you know, it's Astoria. There's not so many people who live there. She's super knowledgeable, but she's also really friendly and welcoming. There's always something fun. It's incredibly well-priced, especially compared to Portland wine bars. And you can find a really nice mix of Old World and then, well, I'm at Valley wines and some California. But from the most part, it's like, Oregon, France, Germany, Italy. And then if I have time for one last shout out, right around the corner from Brut Wine Bar is Gaitano's Italian Market. And one of the reasons I love... Gaetano so much is that that was when my dad moved there 10 years ago, it was a really smaller town that it is even today. In the past 10 years, it's really kind of exploded. And Gaetanos was sort of the earlier part of that wave. And it was this thing that was like bringing an Italian market to a city that had nothing like that. And, you know, it's not that unusual in Portland, but even still, it stands up to a lot of the Italian markets we have here. Really, really killer sandwiches. We want to get like a cold cut sandwich or like any sort of like Italian subs. You know, those are really fantastic. They've got a great deli section. And then, of course, they've got wines and tomato sauces and pastas. They make a really great seafood lasagna. Whoa. That you can take home to bake. They also make a great meat lasagna. these grab and go items in their fridges. And I'm pretty sure you can actually grab a sandwich and take it around the corner and have it uproot if you want because they don't really do like so much of a food menu. You know, a lot of wine bars you can take other meals into. Nice. Could I quickly give you two spots that I'm into? Absolutely. I would love that. Okay, cool. Okay. So shortwave is a clothing and gift boutique store. And every time I go up, I usually pick up something. That's where I got this hat. Oh, yeah. I've gotten like little oyster accessories there. There's such a cute place. The other is.

Right next to Fort George is the blue scorcher bakery. And they're known for their cardam braided bread, which they only make on Saturday. And it's so popular that now you have to order it ahead of time. And like for some reason, if you just want to plan ahead, go on their website, order this bread, go get your bread on a Saturday. It is life-changing bread. It is so good. I have literally lady in the tramp that bread with a friend. Incredible. And if you can't get the bread, you can always try their cardatrim rolls at least. Yeah. Though I think the braided bread is like a little better than the rolls just because it's a different texture. I haven't yet. Next time I'm out there. You haven't tried at the bread? No, I actually didn't know about the cardamom bread. I thought you were going to say cardamom rolls. I was ready to be like, yeah, the cardamom and oranges with the rolls because it's a different texture. It's like a milk bread. It's so good. Okay. Next time out there, absolutely a priority. You got to do it. You got to do it. Alex. Thank you so much for these picks. I want to hear from other people like, where do you like to go in Astoria? We're hitting prime coastal visiting time and you have to go. If you have not been to Astoria, if you just moved to town, you've got to go check out our coast. It's freaking amazing and it's such a lovely day trip. But one thing I do want to say, Astoria is not directly on the coast. It is separated from the coast by Warrington. It's coastal. You get coastal air and everything, but you're not going to be looking at waves crashing on beaches. That is a good point. But you do get to see, and this is, I think, even cooler sometimes, is you get to see the mouth of the Columbia River. Which is huge. Yes. It's staggering. The first time you see the Columbia, how wide it truly is at that point. Yeah. And it is literally what is called the graveyard of the Pacific Ocean because it's one of the most dangerous sandbars. And I just think that's pretty cool, too. Sure is. That's a metal. I haven't been to a historian in like decades. And I really want to go back. It's a two-hour drive, Rachel. Yeah. And side note. I super recommend the book called Astoria. It's a history of the Northwest. So it's on my bookshelf. Nice. All right. Well, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, y'all are going to help us narrow down our new CityCast Portland bumper sticker.

All right, guys. So I feel like Portland has a few cultural markers that make us distinct from other cities. And I believe that one of them is how strong our bumper sticker game is. We love absurd, ridiculous, sometimes politically smug messages that we share passively with our neighbors while sitting in traffic. That is just... a thing that Portlanders love to do. And we've been sharing some of our favorites on the show and on the newsletter and on our Instagram page. So we decided that one of the added pieces of merch that we're going to introduce will be bumper stickers. And we've come up with a pretty good list, we think, but we need some help narrowing it down because I don't think that headquarters is going to pay for like 10 different bumper stickers. I think they might they might pay for one. And a lot of these are like, listener inside jokes, but we have to like also think about people maybe outside of our circle looking at it and going, maybe I will check it out. But to me, this is more like fun for us. Okay. That being said, here we are. First one, I'd rather be eating tater tots and listening to CityCast Portland. All right, got one. I only know our mayor's name because I listen to CityCast Portland. I think that was particularly for Alex, actually. I was going to say, that feels targeted. Oh, did we? But I feel like, oh, man, it's too bad because I feel like we cut out that whole thing where Alex could not remember our mayor's name. For a minute, for a, like, maybe a minute. It was like. Five seconds. It was like two seconds. It was a blank. It was a mind blank for a moment. Keith Wilson is his name. He rides bikes. Well, we could give you this. We could make one special just for you. I also can't remember our mayor's name because like it's such a boring name. Sorry, Mayor Wilson, but it's like almost too bland to remember. I'm going to continue with our bumper stickers here. The other is my other car is a tater tot. Cool pick of a tater on wheels and our logo. So that's that's kind of a winner for me right there. Oh, really? I just think we have failed to find a way of accurately representing a tater tot. I love the tater tot. obsession, but no, no, we cannot have something that looks like a marshmallow again. Okay, I'm going to continue. We do unfortunately, we do have like maybe one more tater tot and it is, I'll just say it now. Don't honk. I'll drop my tater tots. City cast Portland logo. I don't know why. I love that one just because it's so stupid. I love the visual of someone be like, ah, and then like eating tater tots in their car, just like a flip, like. A plate of it. Yeah, absolutely. So dumb. So dumb. Catch up and everything on there. Yeah, totally. Just like, oh, my tater tots. All right. Here's the rest.

I'm super smart, sexy, and informed. I listen to CityCast Portland. Here's another play on that. Listening to podcasts is sexy. And then like a dash, like someone said this, you know, CityCast Portland probably. And then I learned how to properly pronounce Cooch Street on CityCast Portland. That's a good one. Yeah, I like that one. Because it's a visual one. No pronouncer. Yeah. Right, right. So you would have to be in the know if you know. Yeah. Here's another one. If we're at a four-way stop, check out CityCast Portland. You have time. The last three here. The Crows told me to listen to Citicast Portland. Ooh. Strong one? Like that one. I know a guy in parentheses. It's CityCast Portland. I know. That one's pretty good. All right. Here's the last one. Please be patient. I'm microdosing to CityCast Portland. Do you have any favorites, Alex? I like the crows one just because, you know, we're such a crow city. You have a crow tattoo, don't you? I'm going to have a crow tattoo. You're going to have a crow tattoo. I love that you remembered my crow tattoo random chat. We've discussed offline. I remember people's confusion over that where they were like, why would a crow represent Portland? Like, because we've been completely, I believe our city governance is now a murder of crows. Yeah. Was it on the show? I can't tell. It was an opening question, I think. What Portland tattoo would you get? Yeah, I was upset on your behalf. I remember. So I like the tater tot references that drop my tater top one. It's just so dumb that it's kind of amazing. My question for you, though, Julia, is this a, is there a. Julia? Wow. I'll be able to take that one, please. No, we're keeping that in. You can't remember. our mayor's name. You can't remember the host of this fucking show. You know what? This is just another segment of let's watch Alex get abused by post Claudia Metza. That's Claudia and I'm Rachel. Just saying it says my name under me. Yes, thank you for the reminder. But to be fair, it doesn't say Claudia's name and it says all of our others. It does just say CityCast Portland. That's what I think of you as. Now, is there like a legal reason or just like contractual or just like a kind of an understanding reason why there's no Slims reference in any of these bumper stickers? Ooh, good point. Because it is an actual business. I don't know if that would be like infringing on their brand. They would love it. For one, they would love it. Well, that's the thing, right? But I also feel like. I don't know, like, see you at Slims. Not that I don't want to, like, take away from that, but part of me is like, we would be making a bumper sticker for Slims. Yeah, not for Citigast. People wouldn't know it's a podcast or though, see you with Slims. I mean, yeah, for sure. I don't know if I told you guys this, but Ahmed, who owns Slims was like, what have we made T-shirts? Like, we'll put your logo on it. But like, what if I sold them here? And I was like, you can do whatever you like with that, buddy, because we're not going to do anything with it. So I think we could if we wanted to. I did poll newsletter readers this morning with some of these. Do you have any guesses as to which was most popular with them? I'm microdosing. No. Two people voted for that. We have 27 responses. Okay.

It's not a lot. Let's get those numbers that people. Because I mean like, can I just put over 20,000 people subscribe to that newsletter and the fact that only 27 of you hit that poll is pretty funny. Oh, I think it's over 30,000, but yes. Oh, I'm sorry, Rachel. I'm sorry. I think that's less than 10% of our listeners. I think that's funny. All right. Did you want to guess what's most popular right now? Is it tater tot related? Tater tot is number two. I only put one of the tater tot ones in, and it was I'd rather be eating tater tots and listening to CityCast Portland. See, I thought that was going to be the Slims one. I thought you were going to be eating tater tots at Slims and listening to CityCast. Okay. Well, I thought you were going there with that. Rachel, give us the number one. And the most popular one is the crows. The crows told me to listen to CityCast. You guessed it. I think, well, can I tell you that we try. this segment yesterday with two very, very serious reporters. And it was like they were annoyed at me for talking. There was no response. We actually cut the segment, one, because we were going long, but two, because they were just like, why are you sharing these bumper stickers with this? And so, like, Sophie Peel and Leland Manjo Hughes are like such amazing haters, and I love them. I love them. But they're just like, girl, get out of here. But the only thing, the only one that they were like, this is good, was the crow one. So I'm like, look, if two seasoned-jaded haters, you know what I mean? And I need you to know that it's their job to be seasoned haters. Like, they are called. constantly looking for bullshit. And so that is what they do. And I respect it. They were just discussing serious subjects. I'm sure they can get silly sometimes. Yeah. Of course. Some people just aren't into the bumper stickers. Oh, well. But so many people are. Hit up our show notes. We're going to have a list of these. Pick your favorites. We want to hear it. I mean, we have over 20,000 listeners, a little bit more or so. And if only two of you get back to us, we're going to, I'm going to be upset. I said it. I'm going to be mad. Julia's going to be mad. But before we head out, I want to give a special, turn this podcast around. Before we head out, I want to give a special thanks to our newest members. These are the people that joined the City Cast Portland Neighbors Program when we were begging for members last two weeks. I don't know if you guys heard it. We were given an impossible goal of signing up 200. We signed enough to beat pretty much every city but Salt Lake. So thank you to Steve W., Rebecca F, Stephen S, Karen R. Teneri H, Beth G, Mark H, Eric W. Adam Z, and Lori D. Thank you for helping us. us say suck it to Denver, though Eric E wrote in and was trying to drum up some support and he just wrote, because it was Salt Lake City, by the way, Alex, that beat us. He wants to beat the Mormons and so he became a member.

to beat the Mormons. And I need you to know since we did not hit our 200 goal, we still have gifts. So if you, for some reason, did want to join, I'm like, for some reason. Like, I'm really selling this. You get at re-listening, you get invites to member-only events. It's only $10 a month or 100 a year. If you'd like to join and maybe help us beat the Mormons, membership.com.fm. That's membership.citycast.fm. That was my inspiring. That was my speech. I feel inspired, Claudia. Thank you. Cool. Well, you guys appreciate you both. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Alex, always a pleasure. Thank you. Yeah. Hopefully, maybe I'll see you in a story. Yeah. Yeah. That's all for today here on CityCast Portland. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend. Leave us an amazing review. And don't forget, you can support the show and also get great perks by becoming the citycast Portland neighbor. You can join at membership.citycast.fm. That's membership.citycast.fm. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more from around the city. Until then, see you with Slims. or at the bow picker, bow picker, we'll figure out which one.