Samantha Brown's Places to Love

-I'm in a city that absolutely sparks with creativity, an urban hub with an envious access to the great outdoors that, combined, has created a bastion of self-expression.

It's a city that influences an entire nation on trends of food and beverages, craft and design, and always with a high quality and artisanal approach.

It's a city that was forged by a pioneering spirit that carries through to this day.

I'm in Portland, Oregon.

I'm Samantha Brown, and I've traveled all over this world.

And I'm always looking to find the destinations, the experiences, and most importantly, the people who make us feel like we're really a part of a place.

That's why I have a love of travel and why these are my places to love.

"Samantha Brown's Places to Love" is made possible by... [ Birds chirping ] -Oceania Cruises is a proud sponsor of public TV and "Samantha Brown's Places to Love."

Sailing to more than 600 destinations around the globe, from Europe to Asia and Alaska to the South Pacific.

Oceania Cruises offers gourmet dining and curated travel experiences aboard boutique, hotel-style ships that carry no more than 1,250 guests.

Oceania Cruises.

Your world, your way.

-Oh.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, it's divine.

Portland is known as the City of Roses, mainly because, well, they can't get enough of the climate here, and there's no better place to see roses shine than at the International Rose Test Garden.

And this is more than a garden.

And things are happening here.

-Absolutely.

They're more than just a pretty face here.

We are actually testing them, because plants and roses are consumer goods.

-And like all consumer goods, these go through trials.

What are they being evaluated for?

Bloom, formation, color, fragrance, disease, and insect resistance.

But for a rose to get a perfect 10, there are even more factors to consider.

-We're looking at the blooms, but another thing we look at is the foliage.

-The foliage, okay.

So the greenery.

-Yes, that greenery.

And just look how shiny that is.

Doesn't this nice, shiny foliage create a great contrast to this beautiful color?

-Yes.

It really pops the red.

-Exactly.

So... -Okay.

So you don't want a dull green.

-Yes, if you -- Yeah.

-Or one that's, like, matte.

-I'd give this a 10, yes.

Really great foliage.

-Yes.

-Another cool characteristic -- These canes -- -Mm-hmm?

-Rose stems are called canes.

They're nice and purple.

-So you're just looking at everything, from the stem to the leaf to the actual bloom.

-Exactly.

So we have over 10,000 individual plants and 625 different varieties.

-Whoa!

-And they do different things.

We have ones that climb.

We have ones in the garden.

We have one that -- ones that, you know, are in raised beds.

-These are roses?

-These are roses.

I know.

Isn't it kind of amazing?

I love it.

-What decides what new roses come in for the year?

-The best way to say it is all roses are provisional and auditioning for a permanent status in the rose garden.

-Okay.

Uh-huh.

-As they become less commercially available or their performance is lacking, we take it out, and then we get a new crop in.

-Wow.

This is competitive.

-I know.

Absolutely.

It's very, very less dramatic.

But, yes, there's a lot of competition here.

-Can I just stand here in awe of these two colors side by side?

-Mm.

Oh, yes.

-This beautiful purple.

Twilight Zone.

And then this sort of creamy pinky yellow.

Oh, my gosh, they're gorgeous.

-Yeah.

You just have a crescendo of color over here to look at.

I mean, except for blue roses.

We're not quite there yet.

We have a Gold Medal award that the rose garden gives out.

And if, let's say Twilight Zone wins, it goes into the Gold Medal section and is permanently planted there.

-So these roses know, "I got to perform here."

-Yeah.

Exactly.

That's right.

Yeah.

-"I'm on the chopping block.

I want to get to the garden up there."

-Exactly.

-There's even the rose that made Portland the City of Roses -- Madame Caroline Testout.

Good info to have for a trivia quiz.

Portland may be the City of Roses, but it's increasingly becoming a city of coffee.

It especially embraces the concept of cafes offering coffee exclusively grown in a home country.

Case in point, the Guatemala-based Caf Zamora.

Yeah, I've always heard of direct trade, fair trade coffee.

But this is as direct as it gets.

You own the farm in Guatemala.

-Yes.

Yeah.

-Hector is part of a pioneering concept in Portland, where the coffee shop does more than trade directly with farmers.

They're actually owned by farmers.

-I'm working with a co-operative.

We do everything from the very beginning to the very end, from planting the coffee, taking care of the coffee, processing the coffee.

And then we bring the coffee here, and we roast the coffee every week and distribute and sell coffee to people here in Portland, Oregon.

My name is Hector Mejia Zamora.

I'm the owner of Caf Zamora.

All our coffee here comes directly from my village in Guatemala.

-To open up a coffee shop in Portland is no small feat.

There's quite a few of you here, as you know.

-Yes.

Very saturated market here.

-Yes, but the cost of your coffee is extremely reasonable.

-Yeah.

I think that that's also the other reason why we have been able to engage and build our community here, because they know that I care about our people back home, but I care about them here, too.

-It is a phenomenal cup of coffee.

This is so smooth and just -- just beautiful.

-Thank you.

So the co-operative, we are about 40 members.

All of them are small farmers.

We have between 5 to 20 acres of land.

So no one is really wealthy, and we all work together.

So that's one of the things that I definitely like to highlight to people, that it's not about just being the farmer.

It's actually being the part and a member of the community that is making meaningful changes not for just one farmer, but an actual community.

The co-operative that I'm part of was able to build a school, a clinic, their own mill, and we have now two mills, one wet and one dry, for the processing.

And something that was before exclusive for wealthier farmers now is available for small farmers that, individually, could not do it but collectively are proving to be strong.

-I'm Jasper Shen.

-I'm Linh Tran, and we're the founders of the Lil' America food cart pod.

-What is really the definition of a pod?

-Just a collection of different food carts together.

But here, it's intentionally BIPOC and LGBTQ owned.

-We've run a restaurant for a little over six years now and been in the industry even longer.

And some of these carts are brand-new, like they've never owned anything before, they've never run anything themselves.

So we try to be available -- as much available as we can to, like, just talk about any issues that come up and things they don't know, like how to run a payroll, like how much money you should make at the end of the month.

Are you saving for taxes?

Like, just basic business knowledge we really try to be available to just help them out with.

-The barriers to entry are really tough.

You have to go through a lot of hoops in order to even start thinking about owning your own concept.

-Oh, oh.

Oh.

That means food's ready.

All right.

-My name is Andy with Hawker Station.

We do Cantonese-style chicken and rice.

-I'm from L.A.

There's chicken and rice everywhere in L.A. Once I moved here, then I couldn't find it anywhere.

So I brought it here to Portland.

-So the way this dish works is you poach the chicken, and then the liquid, the broth that comes off of it, you cook the rice in the broth rather than with just plain water.

So you get, like, a chicken-flavored rice.

-Oh, my gosh, that melts in your mouth.

-Yeah.

It's great.

-Hi, my name is Michael.

This is Bake on the Run, the only spot for Guyanese food West of New York City, North America, and the only spot that I'm aware of on the West Coast from Chile to Alaska.

And today we're going to serve you potato chicken curry, one of Guyana's three national dishes.

-So, yeah, Guyana, very small country, tons of, like, Indian spices, a lot of those flavors in there.

-And it's his mom back there cooking every single dish.

-Me and my mom, Chef Bibi.

She's the most important part of the operation.

She can always have another son.

I can't have another mother.

-Hi, I'm Xrysto.

-I'm Mike.

-And we're co-owners of Makulit.

Makulit is a Tagalog term used for children that are being a little stubborn, a little too extra.

-And today we're cooking our Big Bunso.

That is our take on a classic burger.

-Both those guys love fast-food.

They are both Filipino, but they both kind of grew up in the States.

And it's interesting to see how being raised in America changes your concept of your traditional food.

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

They nailed the sauce.

-It's not only the food, it's the story, it's the background, but also the intention and like kind of, yeah, what are they trying to do in Portland?

-Mm-hmm.

Have you been surprised by the people who are here and who are enjoying this... -Yeah.

-...and the, you know, response you've gotten in a good way?

-Yeah.

We opened up just a few months ago.

And I think that everybody is having record-breaking weeks.

They're busy every day.

And this is a really good practice for them to kind of try to figure out what they want to do for the future and how to make this work for them.

-Being in Portland, one of its greatest assets is just its proximity to the great outdoors.

This is what, 20 minutes from the city.

But that really doesn't mean it's that accessible, right?

-No.

-And so, this organization really seeks to change that.

-Yeah.

We try to get people that have any kind of barrier to accessing the outdoors outside.

I'm Emma Flynn, and I'm a guide with Adventures Without Limits.

Adventures Without Limits is an inclusive and adaptive outdoor outfitter, and our goal is to get everyone outside regardless of ability level, socioeconomic status, or any other barriers that might cause them to not be able to go outside.

-The organization leads outdoor adventures year-round on land, water, and snow.

-We do a lot of whitewater rafting.

-Oh, that's a fun one.

-It's awesome.

And then we do a lot of camping trips in the summer.

And then in the winters, we actually do cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, as well.

Part of what we like to do is set people up so that if they were to go and kayak somewhere else and not just with us, that they would know what they need to do to keep themselves in the boat, what they need to do to keep themselves safe, things like that, yeah.

-So what are some of the things you can do to a kayak to make it more adaptive?

-We have things called outriggers that are like a mini kayak, pretty much, that can extend on the outside of the back of a kayak, and it will provide a lot of stability.

And then we have a lot of different, like, seat pieces we could put together to provide different levels of support for people.

We work with students from low-income schools.

We work with different affinity groups across Portland that serve different types of populations.

We work a lot with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as individuals with physical disabilities.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

-So the whole spectrum of the human experience.

-Anyone who wants to go outside, we want to get you there.

Yeah.

I've been involved with the inclusive and adaptive outdoors world for a really long time.

I've done it since I was in seventh grade, so that's probably about 13 years now, if not longer.

Wait.

Longer.

And I've always been really into the outdoors.

I grew up with a family that had a lot of access to the outdoors, so we've done rafting my whole life, and I decided to join my two passions together by joining Adventures Without Limits and the team.

-What do you enjoy most about what you get to do?

-I think for me, it's the connections that I get to have with people.

I really enjoy building rapport and getting to see, you know, how excited someone gets when it's their first time doing something.

And so, when people have that realization of like, "Oh, I can do this and I already kind of know -- at least I've seen what it looks like, or I've done something similar in my everyday life," then it's a really cool experience to be the guide who gets to, like, walk alongside someone in that moment.

-The leather craft began about 1933 with my great-grandfather, and it didn't really begin with leather.

It began with baseball.

He was very passionate about baseball.

His biggest goal was to own his own baseball team and sponsor it, and he was able to do that through leather work.

So he started working and making the leather mitts, the guards, and all of the leather gear that they needed, all the way down to the shoes, and then quickly started selling it all the way until he was able to own his own team.

My name is Levi Martinez.

I am a production crafter here at Orox Leather as part of our family business.

-Levi is fourth generation.

His dad, Jose, is third and is credited with mixing functional leather goods with a lot of style.

-When I was growing up, my dad taught me how to do the leather work, and I think at first, I helped out with a lot of the sales portion of it.

But then as I grew older and I could handle the tools, I started working on the production floor and helping them out, too.

-People were actually seeking, like, things that were handmade, that were made to last.

And we felt that we very much fit that description because of, one, the leather material that we were using -- it's very durable -- and also, like, the way that we, you know, kind of construct and design things.

-Are all those items that I see in your beautiful store made right here?

-That's right.

Yeah.

-Nothing is made anywhere else?

That's incredible.

-No.

We hand make all of our items here in Portland.

-So when you come up with new products, is it still your dad who does that?

-Yeah.

-Jose, you're still the designer?

-Yeah.

-All right.

I've noticed around town that these aprons are everywhere.

How does this begin?

-We come to find out that all the trades really needed a nice heavy-duty apron, because they're constantly, year after year, they're having to buy another one and another one.

So our aprons were made the old-school way, which my great-grandfather made and grandfather made.

And they were made to, like, be used for the rest of your life, not just, you know, one year and then you toss it and get a new one.

-And then it's in a landfill somewhere.

-Exactly.

-And they're your aprons.

People love you.

And I've seen chefs wear them.

I've seen -- I was just at Steelport, which makes knives, and they wear them.

-There are 130-something steps to our process, but these are the major life cycles of a steel-point knife.

-Wow!

-Eytan Zias is co-founder and bladesmith of Steelport Knife Co., where each one of their knives is created by hand.

So you actually take this piece like this... -So we take that piece.

-...and shape it into that?

-Correct.

This is the best way to construct a knife.

It is one solid piece.

There's no welds, no soldering, no pins.

-Mm-hmm.

-So we get from this to that.

And then we do a differential heat treatment.

-And that's what you can see right now on the knife?

-You can see the two different tones on there, right?

-Yes.

-You need a hard steel for the edge.

But we left the spine soft.

So the overall blade is more durable, and then the actual performance part of it is going to be hard.

So this you only find in custom knives because it's a one-at-a-time process.

-So it's one person taking one knife and heat-treating it.

-One at a time.

-One at a time.

-Correct.

Then we can get a knife that's very hard so it holds an edge, but it's also tough and it's very sharpenable.

Then we grind it.

-I'm game.

Who doesn't have knives to grind?

-And let's have a look.

-Pick it up?

-Yeah.

Pick it up.

See?

-That's nice.

-That looks great.

-After grinding comes polishing and another step that feels very Portland.

They force a coffee patina using spent grounds from a local roaster.

-And that's also just to make it more user-friendly.

And you can see exactly what happened to the knife.

So you can see our heat treat.

You can see some steel banding.

Our goal is to make an heirloom-style knife that will last you for, you know, a few generations.

So that is what we're trying to achieve here.

-Lovely.

And as with any knife, heirloom or not, knowing how to take care of it is its first step towards sustainability.

And Steelport offers knife-sharpening classes to teach you just that.

Can you make a cheaper knife better by a good sharpening?

-Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

-Okay.

-Nothing is gonna treat your edge better than actual stone sharpening.

Yeah.

-Okay.

So this is the best way, the stone.

It's not that thing that you draw your knife through.

-Absolutely not.

It's not just bad for a quality knife.

It's bad for any knife.

And we'll start at the tip.

And right now, we're just going to do full strokes.

Yep.

And then back.

-And just this angle here, from, like, point A to point B?

-Yep.

So once you're more comfortable with that, then we're going to do kind of shorter strokes and maybe put, like -- put, like, maybe two or three fingers right above the edge there.

-Okay.

-And then you're going to do kind of a scrubbing motion.

And then, the longer the stroke, the more efficient you are.

-Okay.

I just never realized that that was the steel coming off.

I thought it was the stone giving that.

These intensive classes typically last four hours, so I'm looking forward to something else that'll take the edge off.

-My specialty is research and development.

I really like to put things together, and I also like to figure out the chemical structure behind why things work.

-Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Molly Troupe is master distiller and partner at Freeland Spirits, one of the few women-owned-and-operated distilleries in the world.

Are these ingredients that you can find in Oregon?

-Yeah.

So a lot of these are found in Oregon.

Some of them are not.

But we try to use as fresh of ingredients as we can.

-So what do you do to make sure that freshness is in that bottle?

-We use a cold distillation apparatus.

You can use really fresh ingredients, capture them without translation.

So cucumber, instead of running it through Hellbitch, which is steam, things get really hot, and it kind of tastes like cooked cucumber.

You can keep the temperature low, and it tastes like a cucumber you want to bite into.

Let's just do the cherry blossom.

This is this wonderful project that we coordinated with the Portland Japanese Gardens.

-Are you using real cherry blossoms in here?

-Yes.

Yes.

-Oh, my goodness.

-They were very gracious.

And they actually put down tarps themselves, allowed us to come and get those cherry blossoms every morning, and then we immediately put them on alcohol.

-Okay.

-We do that distillation basically the next day, and we get this flavor that comes across as very floral with a hint of almond.

-Oh, it's beautiful.

-The trick with anything that's floral is that it's very delicate.

-Mm-hmm.

-And it has an interesting -- still a translatable flavor.

-Freeland Spirits is making a name for its special releases, and the next one is a walk in the woods, literally.

-So this is called Forest Gin.

We've always wanted to work with, like, some foraged ingredients.

We've always really loved Forest, and we figured, "Why not turn our little business into a foraging opportunity?"

And Forest Gin is kind of the result of those conversations, where we wanted to put as many ingredients that we could find that come from Forest Park.

-Forest Park is the largest urban park in the United States?

-That's right.

We have Doug Fir.

We use some salal berries, as well.

And then chanterelle mushrooms.

And all of them kind of come together to make something that is supposed to feel like a forest walk.

-Mm-hmm.

-And, of course, it's, like, so new, it hasn't even really been put into a bottle.

-Wow.

What a smell.

That is beautiful.

It's just -- It's the forest, and then it disappears.

It's just so warming.

-Just like a whisper.

-Yes.

That's really lovely.

-I think that a lot of, like, humanity would be better if we took a forest walk every day, right?

It's something that just brings you kind of to a place of peace.

And that's really what we wanted to, like, bring people to with this.

-Thirty minutes outside of Portland is Oregon City, which marks the terminus of the Oregon Trail, a 2,000-mile route that brought settlers to the West Coast and firmly established a pioneering identity that still thrives today.

How many people used the Oregon Trail to move out West?

-It's probably between 50,000 and 70,000.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Yeah, tens of thousands.

-John Jarvie has been a guide at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center for 15 years.

-It's a unique and important story in American history, for visitors to see the hardships that our predecessors had to go through to make their way out here to the West Coast.

-What did these pioneers have along the way to resupply their efforts?

-From the Missouri River to here, the Willamette and Columbia rivers, there's no towns.

And so, when you head out on the journey, you have to leave with the expectation that you're bringing what you need.

-These pioneers who sold their homes, businesses, and possessions now had to survive with whatever supplies could fit in a 6x12-foot prairie schooner.

And the center gives you a chance to see what that meant.

This is my suitcase, and what goes in the suitcase has got to keep me alive for the next five to six months as I traverse through terrain I've never been through, right?

Definitely some oats.

[ Grunting ] Definitely rice.

Oh, no, lard.

Definitely need onions.

[ Straining ] Oh, these are gonna make me cry.

Chicken feet?

Will I take chickens?

Okay.

[ Sighs ] [ Clattering ] I'm a pioneer.

I will never complain about a cross-country flight again.

So knowing what you know, what would you do?

What would you put in your wagon so you could survive?

-I wouldn't have gone, number one.

I would have waited till 1869.

You have the Transcontinental rail line.

-Yeah.

-You would have taken the train.

-Absolutely.

We're making an effort to try to tell different stories, not just the stories of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants that came out.

I meet people all the time that have moved out to the Northwest for reasons that have nothing to do with their work.

They've decided on their own that they want a certain lifestyle that they associate with the Pacific Northwest, the desire to get a better lifestyle that's not so dissimilar from the motivations for a lot of those Oregon Trail pioneers.

-Portland's a great place to live and visit because it's a place where you can just be your true self and everybody will accept you for it.

-Its proximity to the mountains, to the coast, skiing, to hiking, a great food scene, very open and welcoming with everybody.

-Everyone should know, when they come to Portland, that they should not just go to the malls and, you know, visit the same places that they can visit at home.

There's so much more richer culture here.

-There are rivers and lakes and forests and mountains all around us, and there's so much opportunity to do so many fun things in all of those areas.

-People here are really friendly and really welcoming.

That's what makes so unique and special this place, that no matter where you are from, as soon as you get to talk to someone, you will feel like you were their friend since childhood.

-When a destination is a pioneer of self-expression, when the great outdoors is accessible to all, when a place shows you how human creativity has no limits, that is when we share a love of travel.

And that's why Portland, Oregon, is a place to love.

For more information about this and other episodes, destination guides, or links to follow me on social media, log on to placestolove.com.

"Samantha Brown's Places to Love" was made possible by... [ Birds chirping ] -Oceania Cruises is a proud sponsor of public TV and "Samantha Brown's Places to Love."

Sailing to more than 600 destinations around the globe, from Europe to Asia and Alaska to the South Pacific.

Oceania Cruises offers gourmet dining and curated travel experiences aboard boutique, hotel-style ships that carry no more than 1,250 guests.

Oceania Cruises.

Your world, your way.