SeeingGreen ™

Pinch me, I must be dreaming. Three of my favorite things - beer, pizza and green building - have come together in a perfect storm named “Hopworks Urban Brewery.”

HUB is located in a revamped concrete building that was a former fuel distributor’s headquarters. Although I’m usually a fan of the […]

Last week I went on a tour of Burnside Rocket, Portland’s newest (and reddest) green building. Situated on the eponymous thoroughfare that divides Portland into north and south, Burnside Rocket is the latest brainchild of Kevin Cavenaugh, an architect and developer whose portfolio includes other favorites of mine - Ode to Roses and Box […]

When I was a younger, there was one fast food restaurant that my health conscious parents would take my sister and me - Eat-A-Pita of Long Island, New York. There I could order anything off the menu, my favorite being the whole-wheat pita pizza or the cream cheese and cucumber pita sandwich. So when […]

If you consider yourself a “vegan,” and don’t follow that statement with “but I eat eggs and fish,” then you are in luck. Portland is home to the mothership of vegan outposts, Food Fight, a compact grocery store hidden in the base of a retro office building on the less traveled half of SE […]

On a recent bike ride through St. John’s, there was a glimmer that things are starting to change in one of Portland’s last frontiers. Proper Eats, a vegan/vegetarian inspired market and café has sprouted in a storefront on the corner of N. Alma and Lombard. With a small, but meaningful selection of organic/locally grown […]

If the thought of vegan food makes you want to run for the nearest Big Mac, stop for a moment, take a breath and open your mind and mouth to a bowl of delicious tasting quinoa with steamed vegetables and sweet ginger sauce. Even if you aren’t a flag toting, bumper sticker having, fake leather […]

According to pizzaware.com, “Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza EACH DAY, or about 350 slices per second.” Imagine what it would mean then, if all the ingredients needed to make a pie were local, fresh and organic? Hundreds of dairy and vegetable farmers could be supported by the pizza industry alone. […]

At most corner stores, beer, cigarettes, and pornography are what keep the doors open. Not so at Big City Produce, a neighborhood store that puts a different spin on seediness. Even in its modestly sized space, Big City Produce stocks typical grocery items such as eggs and milk, and all the supplies you would […]

Every neighborhood deserves a cafe where you can fuel up on your choice of caffeinated beverage and a sweet treat. For many years, North Portland was void of any such place, except for the only beacon of life for miles around, Beaterville Cafe. Now facing competition from all sides, Beaterville is not the […]

It’s happened. Sustainability and its tenets have hit mainstream. How do I know this? When a swanky new sushi bar named “MASU” proclaims that it “supports local farms that practice environmentally sound agriculture and sustainable farming” on its equally swanky menu, the staff here at seeing:green proclaim victory (at least for the […]

As a vegetarian, I eat a lot of burritos. The protein-rich mixture of beans, rice and cheese is a filling, easy and affordable way to subsist. Although Portland has a lot of opportunities to gorge on these rolled up food cartridges, few make it a healthy experience. Not the case at Laughing […]

I was craving a Reuben sandwich the other day and being that I am a vegetarian, there are very few places to find these messy, but delicious creations when outside the home. Enter Veganopolis, a cafeteria-style eatery where no animal product rears its fluffy head on the menu. Yes, Veganopolis is entirely meat […]