Jason Notte

‘You all show up’: Cascade’s arrival a testament to Portland’s love of women’s sports "I know that our people show up and they love women’s sports," said Sis Bates, one of the Cascade's star players.

The message was clear on Thursday morning in Hillsboro: the Portland metro area is the epicenter of women's sports.
www.oregonlive.com/sports/2026/...

He could've just said he prefers Astoria.

The fact that it appeared a week before yet another New Yorker Dimes Square feature—this time, why we ignore its spinoff venues at our peril—suggests that the folks who let the holiday issues languish in the mail pile until recycling them on Jan. 2 have it right.

Portland has a shocking number of new Italian restaurants. What we learned after trying them all Portlanders can’t seem to get enough Italian — or Italian American, to be specific.

Loving Michael Russell's roundup of the new Italian places in Portland for @oregonian.com . Does throw around the "Red Sauce" slur with impunity, but takes its cues from Montelupo's ownership... who built it right into the name of the Sellwood place. www.oregonlive.com/dining/2025/...

Wm. Steven Humphrey's Adventures in Newspapering [What follows is one of the many merry articles in the Mercury's Winter Guide 2025. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you're feeling generous this holiday seas...

Best read of the day, by @wmstevenhumphrey.bsky.social . The @portlandmercury.com kept receipts on those who tossed up billboards telling people how shit Portland was and the "former alt weeklies" who had ex-WaPo and Bloomberg writers endorse them. www.portlandmercury.com/opinion/2025...

It is Nov. 4. If you're still actively complaining about how your bowl of full candy bars was taken from your porch by a kid you saw on a Ring camera, let's just accept that the bowl—and likely your story—are bait. It costs so much less to just turn the light off.

Functionally the end of linear MTV. The sheer amount of real estate this show took up on the channel during the last, ugly days of cable was overwhelming: www.mtv.com/tv-schedule/...

The best sports feature I've read this year. Just amazing reporting, and was always curious what happened to Jerry Izenberg. Wrote about his Project Pride and the Pride Bowl in Newark as a Star-Ledger intern a long time ago.

Just Born will send all of the Mike and Ike's and Peeps it can to the western states. I'm convinced Goldenberg's Peanut Chews don't make it past Ohio.

The Halloween holy grail.

You can learn a lot about where a child without peanut allergies will end up in life by how they value Goldenberg's Peanut Chews.

So, in your view, demeaning the cuisine of an entire people as low or lesser-than somehow earns a pass because I imply that known criminal associates of the local basketball coach may not like hearing the term?

A New Italian American Restaurant is Opening in NE Portland The upcoming New Jersey–style pasta shop comes from the team behind Normandie.

As the Portland Monthly story points out, Sunday Sauce was a Hoboken family's preference away from being named "Sunday Gravy" (a whole other discussion). Also, while the writer uses the term "red sauce" once, the place itself never uses that term. www.pdxmonthly.com/eat-and-drin...

As I mentioned a few days ago, the recent influx of Italian-American eateries pairing with this NBA market's ties to organized crime back east is little more than an interesting coincidence. Funny, but coincidental nonetheless: bsky.app/profile/nott...

The quote from the DA in that release is... something.

Also, ONE guy asks "what do you call this thing you put on meat and noodles" and someone answers "gravy"—because brown gravy went on beef and egg noodles at the time—and suddenly an entire region ends up calling it this.

Jersey Italian Gravy: 100% Natural, Authentic, Italian Gravy An authentic, pure, wholesome, delicious tomato gravy. Made with only 5 ingredients, yet packed with flavor. Slow-cooked in small batches for hours, our sauces have the perfect balance of sweetness, a...

Woe to the person who pays $12 for this when Costco sends a 3-pack of 32-ounce Classico out for $15, but I love that the New Jersey Italian Gravy folks are getting theirs: jerseyitaliangravy.com

While far from the salsas they're meant to emulate, the marinara, bolognese, ragu, pomodoro, arrabiata, amatricana and other sauces are distinct and have their own backstories. And while chain restaurants have done a number on alfredo, carbonara, and pesto sauces, they're decidedly non-red staples

If you believe Marcella Hazen invented the one tomato sauce you'll ever need and that Trader Joe's birthed cacio e pepe, I'm sure letting "red-sauce Italian" fly derisively from your lips comes naturally. But generations of families who tweaked recipes to work with what was on hand? Not so much.

Yes, the Italian-American restaurants in question make staple dishes not commonly found in Italy that often use tomato-based sauces. But descended from the recipes of 19th Century Italian immigrants they also contain recipes that are not only tied back, but use no tomato at all.

And I know: West of, oh, St. Louis, the term "red-sauce Italian" covers a very specific group of Italian-American restaurants with one big red-and-white gingham tablecloth. Nevermind that it's both inaccurate and wildly offensive.

I don't have to ask why the Portland Business Journal's social team used that term. This is a town that slapped "red sauce" on a pizza place and regularly uses the term to distinguish Italian-American restaurants from "authentic" (often Northern) Italian establishments.

Listen, if Portland is going to start making friends in certain places who run certain celebrity gambling rings, it's going to have to drop its use of "red-sauce Italian." It's not just pejorative, it's reductive and ignorant. In this case, the writer didn't use it: www.facebook.com/PortlandBizJ...

A McMenamins out here had chicken parm and calzone as its menu specials last night...

64. The Absurdity There are two Portland, Oregons. I live in the real one.

Last, but not least, I published an essay on Substack, "The Absurdity," about living in Portland and grappling with our doppelganger — what I call "Internet Portland." leahsottile.substack.com/p/64-the-abs...

Gone since 2013, sadly. One of those things that I did not think would be almost immediately over when I moved here. Meanwhile, without Portland Underground Tour/Old Town Pizza I never would've found the far better versions in Astoria and Pendleton.

Related: The Portland Underground Tour is THE worst.

Wait a minute... Snappy's went from a little Central Eastside concept to full-on NW 23rd "thing" really quickly. Keeping an eye on youse guys.

But I'll just mention it here: If this whole incident starts giving people ideas, Portland should make its choice between Wawa and QuickChek now. No, Sheetz and Cumberland Farms aren't options, yes Krauser's is an acceptable IYKYK answer, and, no, Plaid wouldn't last a day competing with any of 'em.