North Mississippi Street

Long ago North Mississippi Street, in North Portland, was part of the thriving community of Albina, Oregon. Albina became part of Portland and as the years went by it got more and more grungy and rundown. When we moved to Portland in 1993 this part of town was crime-ridden, tawdry and not a place you wanted to find yourself in, especially at night. Over the past 10 or 12 years the area has once again become a thriving community, with many of the old houses and commercial buildings refurbished and finding new life as small shops and restaurants.

Today a group I am part of took a walking tour of N. Mississippi. We met at the Fresh Pot coffee shop, once a Rexall Drug store, then walked up and down, looking into the wonderful small shops along the way.

The Meadow is the shop I wrote about a couple weeks ago, that sells "artisan salt". I tasted some of the salts they sell. The hickory smoked salt was very smoky. The gray salt tasted like salt with a slight essence of dirt and the volcanic salt I tried was very sulphur-y. Ick. I was not won over to the charms of artisan salt, but I thought the slabs and bowls made from pinkish salt were interesting. They suggested cooking on the slabs and/or chilling the slabs or bowls for serving cheeses or dips, that would pick up a bit of salt flavor.

Many of the old buildings have been beautifully restored and painted wonderful clear, bright colors.

This shop sells all kinds of light bulbs.

I was really attracted to this display of blown glass Christmas ornaments that looked like big, shiny beetles. They were really quite beautiful, but hard to imagine on a Christmas tree.

Beautiful detail on the old buildings.

It was a crisp, white sky Portland day—no rain, but not much sun to speak of either. A good day for an outing. After our walk, we ended the tour at a lot full of food carts and picnic tables for lunch. My bowl of steaming, spicy pozole was delicious. I enjoyed being a tourist in my own city.