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Liz Crain

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  • Food Lover's Guide to Portland
  • People & Places I Love

Food Lover's Guide to Portland Blog...

began as a collection of some of the research, recipes, images and culinary adventures that went into the making of Food Lover’s Guide to Portland. The first edition came out in 2010 and I started the blog in February 2009 as a companion piece to it and to help organize my thoughts while researching and writing it. The second edition came out in September 2014 from Hawthorne Books. The blog is now home to all different food, drink and beyond things I want to show and tell.

I’m also co-author of Fermenter: DIY Fermentation for Vegan Fare, author of Dumplings Equal Love, co-author of Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull from McSweeney’s, as well as Hello! My Name is Tasty: Global Diner Favorites from Portland’s Tasty Restaurants from Sasquatch Books and Grow Your Own: Understanding, Cultivating, and Enjoying Cannabis from Tin House Books.

I didn’t think I’d like blogging when I first started this, but it turns out I really do, mostly because I get to shout out people and things that I love.


Featured posts:

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Oct 18, 2024
Portland Fermentation Festival 2024 Redux
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Oct 25, 2023
Portland Fermentation Festival 2023 Redux
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Jan 31, 2023
Deb Perelman's Smitten Kitchen Keepers Powell’s Books Event
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Oct 31, 2019
Portland Fermentation Festival 2019 Redux
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Tenth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival -- Three Weeks Away!
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Portland Fermentation Festival 2018 Exhibitors, Vendors and Demo Leaders
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Portland Fermentation Festival 2018 Redux
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Ninth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival 2018 -- Two Months Away!
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Aug 21, 2018
Essential Pepin by Jacques Pepin is a great comprehensive cookbook for the home cook.

Essential Pepin by Jacques Pepin is a great comprehensive cookbook for the home cook.

Essential Pepin

April 08, 2013 in Cookbooks, Essential Pepin, Homemade Food, Jacques Pepin, Portland DIY, Uncategorized

This is an enormous cookbook as it should be since Jacques Pepin has aimed to cook down and encapsulate his entire career with it. I've been a fan of Pepin's for years. I first got to know him as many did -- through his televised PBS cooking series with Julia Child -- Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. I love how at ease they are with one another. Jacques prefers black pepper, Julia prefers white and they bicker about it on camera. You get their character and humor unlike a lot of today's highly groomed food television folks. I also really enjoyed reading Pepin's The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. If you're looking for an engaging read that takes you through the learning and becoming of a chef read it. It's such a good book.

I'd been talking about how I wanted Essential Pepin, which came out in fall 2011, for awhile and then one day out of the blue my ex-boyfriend's mom sent it to me in the mail. Love her. Here are some of the things that I've cooked from it...

The first dish I made from Essential Pepin is the chicken diable and it turned out great -- pan seared chicken with a red wine vinegary tomato sauce. Served it with sauteed sprouts, hazelnuts and white rice.

The first dish I made from Essential Pepin is the chicken diable and it turned out great -- pan seared chicken with a red wine vinegary tomato sauce. Served it with sauteed sprouts, hazelnuts and white rice.

I often give scraps and trimmings to my dog but I made cracklings out of some of the skin since there was so much. Yum.

I often give scraps and trimmings to my dog but I made cracklings out of some of the skin since there was so much. Yum.

Really good breakfast the next morning with the leftovers.

Really good breakfast the next morning with the leftovers.

I cooked up a big batch of Pepin's kidney bean and beef chili and got a lot of use out of it mixed with rice and coconut milk for dinner and sauteed up with eggs here for breakfast.

I cooked up a big batch of Pepin's kidney bean and beef chili and got a lot of use out of it mixed with rice and coconut milk for dinner and sauteed up with eggs here for breakfast.

Pepin's not so pretty but very tasty lentil bulgur soup.

Pepin's not so pretty but very tasty lentil bulgur soup.

Essential Pepin by Jacques Pepin Pub. date October, 2011 704 pages $40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Tags: Essential Pepin, Home Cooked, Jacques Pepin, Portland DIY
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