Me and the very charming Mr. Bittman after the Powell's event.

Dana Cowin, Mark Bittman and Liz Crain Walk into a Bar errrr Powell's

October 31, 2014 in Dana Cowin, Mark Bittman, Powell's, Uncategorized

I've been very lucky lately. So lucky, in fact, that I recently got to be "in conversation" with two of my food heroes at my favorite bookseller -- Mark Bittman AND Dana Cowin at Powell's Books. Dream come true. They both have new cookbooks out and we talked all about their books and then some in front of very happy audiences -- Dana's Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen and Mark's How to Cook Everything Fast. I've cooked from them both already and love them so much. Get 'em!

I may or may not have called Mark Bittman a prostitute (tune in to the audio recording below at 12 minutes 30 seconds) and I may or may not have called Dana Cowin a lush (ditto at 7 minutes). We drank rye from lucky flasks that my friend Loly made at both events and laughed a lot. Intimate, engaging, inspiring and a wee bit revealing -- as all great book events should be.

For those who couldn't make one or both I embedded the audio here so you can get an earful. I forgot to start recording Mark's until 10 minutes in unfortunately.

And here are some local media bits for both events: Oregonian Cowin, KATU Cowin, Oregonian Bittman, KATU Bittman.

Below is a show and tell of photos from both October Powell's events starting with Mark Bittman's followed by Dana Cowin's. Dream a little dream. There aren't any photos from the meals I got to have with Mark or Dana while they were in town but we managed to go to Tasty n Sons, Olympic Provisions and Du Kuh Bee. Not too shabby.

Picking up my advanced copy of Bittman's book from the Wonkaland of books -- Powell's.

Mark signing my books after he'd signed everyone's in the loooooong line after our conversation -- including my filthy aka well-loved copy of How to Cook Everything.

Gifted flour sack towels can be turned into skirts!

Getting cozy with my advance copy of Dana Cowin's Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen before the Powell's event.

Day of the event lucky hot dog flask shed pick-up! This one is now MINE. Thank you Loly!

Dana and I telling Lena to lay off our lucky flask. Bulleit Rye. Again.

After Dana talked with folks and signed allllll the audience copies Renee from Powell's asked her to sign a bunch of store copies. Finger cramps!

Thank you so very much Mark, Dana & Powell's! I am the luckiest.

Purchase How to Cook Everything Fast Purchase Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen

The dapper foodists -- ferment fest co-organizers George Winborn, Liz Crain and David Barber.

Portland Fermentation Festival 2014 Redux

October 20, 2014 in Ecotrust, Edible Portland, Food Fermentation, Keep Portland Weird, Portland Fermentation ..., Uncategorized

Thank you to everyone who came out last week and made this year's FIFTH annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust such a stinky great time. It's unanimous amongst David, George and I (festival co-organizers/founders) that this year was the most fun for us and I hope for you.

Every year has been fantastic but the three of us got to enjoy ourselves a lot more this year. I got to sample everything! In years past I always find myself running around too much to sample the ferments. I made a pact to try everything this year and I did and it was deeeeeelicious. Thanks in no small part to all of the festival's awesome volunteers, participants and attendees. We've hit our stride. I guess five years has taught us a thing or two about throwing a big fermenty Portland party.

We put the Portland Fermentation Festival together every year with a shoestring budget + heaps of volunteered hours and as always we're so grateful that Ecotrust puts up with us year after year. Thank you again Ecotrust! We love you.

We had some great coverage this year including this spot on KGW News PDX Tonight with Drew Carney, as well as the KBOO Food Show with Chris Seigel, this Portland Monthly story by Kelly Clarke, Portland Tribune story by Jennifer Anderson, Portland Mercury coverage, Willamette Week and moooooore. I guess Portland is ok with us. Happy.

If you'd like to keep up with local fermenty goings-on please check out our website, Facebook and Twitter.

Below are a whole bunch of photos from Stinkfest! If you have some great ones too please post them to the Facebook page or Twitter them with the hashtag #pdxfermentfest.

Thank you, thank you, thank you and see you all again next year we hope! Stay stinky!

We kicked off the night with a fermentation experts panel with left to right: moderator George Winborn, Josh Grgas of Commons Brewery, David Barber of Picklopolis and Bingo Sandwiches, Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cidery and Eric Finley of Chop B… — We kicked off the night with a fermentation experts panel with left to right: moderator George Winborn, Josh Grgas of Commons Brewery, David Barber of Picklopolis and Bingo Sandwiches, Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cidery and Eric Finley of Chop Butchery & Charcuterie.

Expert Panel 2The panel sold out weeks before and folks asked a lot of great questions. Most importantly we all learned that size does really matter especially in regard to fermenting cucumbers for sour pickles ;)

And then the madness of the first tasting ensued.

Perennial festival favorite -- Matt Choi of Choi's Kimchi.

OlyKraut brought all kinds of awesomeness including super tasty krauts and sour pickles and...

Thank you Sash! She recommends using it in Bloody Marys and I am definitely going to.

Sweet Honey Farm's Lil and Jme serving up yummy krauts.

Cute shot of Lil right before the doors opened.

Out on the mezzanine the lovely Claudia Lucero did a fresh cheese demo with recipes from her hot off the presses rad book One-Hour Cheeses. Love her.

And on the other side of the mezzanine another perennial festival fave Heidi Nestler (heidinestler.com) and her husband Daisuke did a natto demo.

KGW News' Drew Carney came and shot the beginning of the fest for PDX Tonight. "Bow ties and beards right there. Surrounded."

Snapped this one during set up of my friends Teresa and Rich of Pitch Dark Chocolate. Kind of wild how many folks don't know that chocolate is fermented.

My boots photobombed their chocolate. So yummy.

Jon Westdahl getting cozy with one of his crocks.

The awesome salame spread from Chop Butchery & Charcuterie.

Connie and Brian Shaw of Oregon Brineworks with all kinds of super tasty ferments including fermented hot sauce and ketchup, beet kvass, ginger gold kvass and more. Love these guys.

My friends Jess Bull and Jemma Stromwick at ticketing in the lobby. Couldn't do it without all of our amazing volunteers. Thank you!

It was a beautiful night and on the rooftop we had food and drink from Bingo Sandwiches, Reverend Nat's Hard Cider and Commons Brewery and...

Music from DJ Pickle Barrel! The first time I got up to the roof he was playing Screamin' Jay Hawkins' I Put a Spell on You. So good.

Ecotrust/Edible Portland superstar and part of the fest dream team Lola Milholland having a tasty Bingo Sandwich with Patrick Barber. We took some swigs from my flask and talked about soy sauce. Geeky goodness.

Cute Colin Franger of Blue Bus Cultured Foods before the flood of people.

Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cidery's favorite ferment of the night -- the Blue Bus Kraut-chi. Pretty stinking tasty.

Definitely the craziest ferment of the night -- Nat's LAMB hard cider.

David Barber's friend Patrick Barber setting up Picklopolis samples. David was probably putting on his NASA socks when this photo was taken.

Love festival moments like this -- Gabe Rosen chef-owner of Biwa, Alem Gebrehiwot owner of Queen of Sheba and Eric Finley of Chop Butchery & Charcuterie shooting the shit and drinking hard cider on the mezzanine.

Biwa's Gabe and Ed demo'ing miso. They brought three of theirs and made a miso soup. Biwa is one of my very favorite Portland restaurants and they always come to the festival.

Careen Stoli's beautiful handmade crocks.

Brad's Bread -- soooo many awesome sourdoughs.

Cute depot -- Tim Root's daughter Lil and Adelaide and David Barber's tiny lil Junior. Kids 12 and under get in for free.

Tim Root's incredible poster. We are so lucky to have him as our festival poster artist. Yes!

The cuteness doesn't stop -- David and Junior.

Tasty jun and all kinds of yummy kombuchas -- coffee kombucha?! -- from Symple Foods.

Festival fave and veteran Tress Yelig of Salt, Fire & Time. I had seconds of her rose kombucha ;)

Portland Kraut Cooperative filling up samples.

Regular Portland Bread. They got a little newsy love on KGW.

Allison Kirley and Cathy right before the panel. Their kombucha was great.

George, me and David before we did our news spot. I love these two so much -- brothers from another mother.

Always my favorite closing shot -- George with his jet pack vacuum cleaner. All cleaned up and ready for cocktails!

Thank you everyone for making this year's fest one of the very best. We love you!

Tim Root's sweeeeeet ass poster for this year's Portland Fermentation Festival

Fifth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival 2014

September 30, 2014 in Ecotrust, Food Fermentation, Portland Fermentation ..., Portland Food/Drink Event, Uncategorized

Since 2009 my friends David Barber, George Winborn and I have put on the annual Portland Fermentation Festival with/at Ecotrust and every year it gets bigger and better. We're only two weeks out from this year's festival -- Thursday, Oct. 16th from 6-9:30pm at Ecotrust -- so I'm taking a moment to let you know all the stiiiiinky details in one place.

Most importantly, online tickets are on sale now ($10, $20) and you can purchase them here. Secondly, you can still apply to be an exhibitor -- more info. here. Beyond that I'm pasting the press release below and some recent media links. Here's the Facebook event page.

This year we're having a panel of experts kick of the fest rather than one guest speaker. The inaugural Portland Fermentation Festival was in 2009 with Sandor Ellix Katz as guest speaker and we were lucky enough to get him back to speak at last year's fest. Sandor is one of our heroes and favorite people so we asked him to speak again at this year's fest, knowing full well he'd probably be too busy for it, and that we were being a little greedy. Just want to share these words that Sandor wrote back to us in response:

"sorry can't make it this year. have fun and keep me posted on future festivals. i'm heading to the boston fermentation festival next month and austin (tx) festival in november. you were the pioneer fermentation festival and they keep spreading....."

Let's all be super proud to be a part of "THE PIONEER FERMENTATION FESTIVAL"! We can't wait to see you all in just over two weeks at the STIIIINK!

PRESS RELEASE Fifth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival Thursday, October 16th 6-9:30pm Ecotrust’s Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center Rooftop food and drink sales and music from DJ Pickle Barrel 721 NW 9th Ave. Portland, OR All ages, open to the public, $10-$20 Children 12 and younger attend for free www.portlandfermentationfestival.com

Open-to-the-public, all ages celebration of fermented food and drink. Bring kraut, try kraut. Bring miso, try miso. Come out for Portland's fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing, and tasting event of the year. We are very pleased to announce that this year's special pre-tasting event (special ticket must be purchased to attend this panel) will be a panel of fermentation experts. Nat West of Reverend Nat's Hard Cidery, David Barber of Picklopolis, Eric Finley of Chop Butchery & Charcuterie and Josh Grgas from Commons Brewery will answer questions and talk all things food/drink fermentation. Bring questions!

Come celebrate pickling season at the Fifth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival at Ecotrust. Taste and share live, fermented food and drinks made by professionals and home fermentation enthusiasts at the annual event that brought out more than 500 attendees in 2013.

Talk to fellow fermenters, exchange cultures and recipes, get advice from local food fermentation enthusiasts, and sample everything from sour pickles, miso and kefir to cheese, hard cider, and mead. Enjoy rooftop food and beverage sales from Reverend Nat's Hard Cider, Commons Brewery and Bingo Sandwiches and music from DJ Pickle Barrel as well as fermentation demos from Claudia Lucero author of One-Hour Cheese, Gabe Rosen chef-owner of Biwa, Eric Finley butcher-owner of Chop Butchery & Charcuterie and Heidi Nestler teacher of Heidi Nestler Cooking Classes.

Tickets will be available online at portlandfermentationfestival.com on September 30th! Admission for the 7 or 8pm Thursday tasting sessions is $10. For $20 you get to attend the 7 pm tasting as well as fermentation demos and the 6pm panel of experts on all things food/drink fermentation.

Visit the website above for more information on how to enter your fermented goods and cultures for the event.

MEDIA COVERAGE THIS YEARBuzzFeed Portland Monthly KBOO Food Show Portland Tribune

MEDIA COVERAGE OF FESTIVALS PASTCooking Up A Story My redux on this blog with photos OPB Willamette Week KBOO Food Show

CONNECT WITH THE PORTLAND FERMENTATION FESTIVALportlandfermentationfestival.com Facebook Twitter

I laughed A LOT while putting this BuzzFeed list together.

BuzzFeed Portlandia PDX Foods

September 26, 2014 in Uncategorized

As Mr. Mark Twain wrote: Truth is stranger than fiction. Indeed. This was such a crazy fun assignment for BuzzFeed! I hope you like it. Please read it and share the SHIT out of it. Spread the laughs and love. Thank you!!

Click here: 8 Portland Dishes That Should Be Spoofed on Portlandia

This shit never gets old. Cover of my book near the entrance of Powell's City of Books. I must be dreaming.

Coverage of Food Lover's Guide to Portland 2.0

September 22, 2014 in Book Event, Book News, Food Lover's Guide to ..., Portland food, Uncategorized

Well, it's been three weeks since the second edition of my book launched and it's been a wild ride of press and events. All of both have been great which is something I'm definitely not taking for granted. Nothing but gratitude these days for the big bear hug that Portland -- particularly Powell's Books -- has given me. And all of the folks who came out for my book launch party. Nothing but love there too.

I'm including links here to all of the coverage for the book so far. Next step is adding all these links to my website buuuut this is as much as I can muster at the moment so this step will help when I get around to that. My favorite coverage so far has been all of the radio interviews. I love radio (especially this new Portland station -- XRAY.FM) and it's really fun for me to be on the airwaves. I've put the radio links at the top of the heap.

I hope that you're doing well and enjoying the seasonal shift. I really am. I'm happy things are settling down a bit now starting this week and I can do things like stay at home on a Monday -- today -- and can tomato sauce from the garden before I set to work. Life is pretty fucking great these days. Without further ado...

Radio interview, KBOO Food Show

Radio interview, Carl in the Morning on XRAY.FM Get Lit

Tasty Tuesday radio interview, Portland Radio Project

Guest essay, Powell’s Books

Signing books at Powell’s, Powell's Books Tumblr

Q&A With Liz Crain On Portland's Food Scene, Zester Daily

Feature and review, Portland Tribune

Get Outside and Eat Before Summer's End, Portland Monthly

Portland Fermentation Festival, Portland Monthly

Launch party photo gallery, Hawthorne Books

Book review, The Register-Guard

Book review, Portland Mercury

Book review, Cooking Up A Story

Book review, Portland Food and Drink

Book launch party video, YouTube

Mini review, Booklist

Book review, Food Carts Portland

Book review, Good Stuff NW

Book teaser, Rose City Reader

So much fun at last week's book launch party at Reverend Nat's Cidery!

Thank You Portland! Food Lover's Guide to Portland 2.0 Launch Party

September 08, 2014 in Book Event, Book News, Food Lover's Guide to ..., Hawthorne Books, Uncategorized

For the past five years, in addition to food writing ++ I've worked as editor and publicity director at Hawthorne Books. Hawthorne published the second edition of my book Food Lover's Guide to Portland so I wrote a blog post over there all about last week's book launch party. It seems like a big old waste of time to do the same thing here so here's the link to all kinds of photos and words about the night. CLICK HERE!

Oh, just me and me checking out my gigantic book cover in the window at Powell's City of Books. That's all. Thanks Buddy Bodin for twinning me!

Food Lover's Guide to Portland 2.0 Launch Party ++

August 06, 2014 in Book Event, Book News, Food Lover's Guide to ..., Portland Food Products, Portland Food/Drink Event, Uncategorized

I went camping on Memorial Day weekend this year and during that trip I made a pact with myself to spend as much of this summer outside as possible. I succeeded! It's been an incredible and very lucky summer for me filled with trips back and forth to the coast, day trips to rivers, lots of barbecues, camping and long hot summer nights spent around campfires, on beaches, in backyards. It's been amazing. And now I've been reeling it in and getting back to the business of books and writing and food -- all of which I love. Wish summer could last just a little bit longer though.

The second edition of my book Food Lover's Guide to Portland comes out in less than a month and the day that it launches Hawthorne Books is throwing a big launch party for it at my friend's Reverend Nat's Cidery & Public Taproom -- Monday, Sept. 1st 6-10pm. It's going to be a whole heck of a lot of fun with Nat's hard ciders for sale, food donated from folks featured in the book, music from DJ Jimbo of XRAY.fm and more. I really hope that you can come out for it and help me and Hawthorne Books celebrate.

So far, you can look forward to tasty treats from Boke Bowl, Cheese Bar, Toro Bravo, Ken's Artisan Bakery, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Ruby Jewel Ice Cream, Fleur de Lis Bakery, Full Circle Creamery, Hotlips Soda, Slow Food Portland, Berry Good Produce, Bowery Bagels and Remedy Wine Bar. AND there will be a cake with an icing-based cover of my book courtesy of Hawthorne Books from Helen Bernhard Bakery. If you have something tasty you'd like to donate to the party spread please contact me at info at liz crain dot com. Thank you!

Three other events to quickly mention that I also hope you might make it out for:

Powell's Books Food Lover's Guide to Portland panel with me, Gabe Rosen, Nick Zukin, Nat West and Brett Burmeister Thursday, September 11th 7:30pm @ Powell's City of Books

People's Co-op Harvest Festival fermentation demo with me, David Barber and George Winborn in promotion of the upcoming Portland Fermentation Festival Wednesday, September 17th demo 3-5pm @ People's Food Co-op

Fifth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival Thursday, October 16th 6-9:30pm @ Ecotrust

See you soon at one or more of these events I hope!

Oh, just hanging out in the Swiss Alps. Rachel Smith, world traveler and on her DOWN TIME editorial assistant for Food Lover's Guide to Portland 2.0.

Rachel Smith: Editorial Assistant Extraordinaire 2nd edition Food Lover's Guide to Portland

June 25, 2014 in Food Lover's Guide to ..., Hawthorne Books, Oregon Wine, Portland Beer, Portland Cheese, Portland food, Rachel Smith, Uncategorized

I just want to quickly introduce the lovely lady pictured above. I first met Rachel when she interviewed for the fall 2012 internship at Hawthorne Books -- the publisher of Food Lover's Guide to Portland and where I've been publicity director and an editor since 2009. Right away, Hawthorne publisher, Rhonda, and I knew that Rachel was in. She's bright, passionate, always curious, has a great sense of humor and is just a genuine pleasure to be around.

Rachel kicked ass during the 10-week internship and we were sad to see her go. When we decided to do a second edition of Food Lover's Guide to Portland I was in the thick of completing Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull. and felt a little overwhelmed but knew that the time was ripe and that the book needed an update. I thought about how to best manage my time, how to lessen the stress of another book project as much as possible and then I had the bright idea to hire an editorial assistant. Rachel was my number one choice and she said YES!

During the insanity of updating Rachel did everything from fine-tooth combing all of the contact info. throughout the book and making sure addresses, hours etc. were up to date to interviewing new subjects and writing the respective listings. I couldn't have done the second edition without her. She was on top of every project every step of the way, and most importantly, she was really fun to work with. Love you Rachel! Without further ado...

Sweet, sweet Rachel Smith on food, travel and working on the second edition of Food Lover's Guide to Portland:

When I was 6 years old, I used to pretend I was allergic to pizza and spaghetti sauce—not tomatoes—just pizza and spaghetti sauce. I disliked mushrooms, melted cheese, and loathed mustard. Strange textures and peculiar flavors were a no-no. I could barely choke down cooked vegetables. Sausage, meat on the bone, and meat cooked rare made me gag.

Eventually, as it happens for most of us, my taste buds and I began to grow up. Traveling became a priority in my life, and being a picky eater doesn’t go along well with it. I came to learn that one of the best parts of going abroad is experiencing the food. I also realize, when I travel, I desperately miss the food at home, and when I’m home, I crave the food from abroad.

Portland is a food-obsessed city. We know it, we love it, we partake in it. My head could explode thinking of the incredible variety of restaurants we have, the locally sourced vegetables and meats, the microbreweries and markets. As Portlanders, it’s in our veins. Outside of Portland, this isn’t as common—no news flash here. Yet every time I travel, I notice I have forgotten this. What, your bar doesn’t serve food? Your grocery store closes at 6? You don’t have any Mexican restaurants, because I could kill for a burrito right now.

I don’t mean this out of ignorance; I mean it is as a fantastic appreciation of what we have at home. It wasn’t until assisting Liz that I came to understand this even more.

As I write this, I’m on the brink of my third month visiting Switzerland. I’ve been eating melted cheese on the regular, devouring pizzas the size of my face, and obsessively ordering sausage. I recently tried horsemeat (and though it’s a horrendous thought to many people, and I vowed I would only try it once, it was quite good). But my stomach is rumbling at the thought of eating chorizo tacos from Uno Más or fresh sashimi from Bamboo Sushi. The idea of a Painted Hills burger with blue cheese and applewood-smoked bacon is enough to make me weak in the knees. Whining is not part of my intention here—I’m thoroughly enjoying the food and the experience, yet I do miss the access to variety.

Working on the second edition of Food Lover’s Guide to Portland was a reminder of our access and diversity. We have the ability to go straight to the source and pick fruit on Sauvie Island, go crabbing at the coast, or take a drive into wine country. We can feast on Vietnamese, Thai, Cuban, African, or Japanese food any day of the week. And we’re really lucky to have that—not only in restaurants, but in our grocery stores too. Did you know how many ethnic grocery stores we have? Or that Cheese Bar sells raclette so I can get my fix when I’m missing Switzerland?

My point is: the delicious world of food is at our fingertips right here in Portland. We can find just about anything we’re after. And when I’m home in 3 weeks, the first thing I will be doing is hunting down and demolishing the tortilla-wrapped goodness of a marinated pork burrito.

Pre-order the 2nd edition of Food Lover's Guide to Portland from Powell's Pub. date September 1, 2014 $17.95

Alec serving up the Toro Moorish Meatballs that he and Sarah made.

Cooking the Toro Bravo Book Party Pt. 3

June 19, 2014 in Book Event, Homemade Food, Toro Bravo, Toro Bravo Cookbook, Toro Bravo: Stories- R..., Uncategorized

We've now officially cooked through half of Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull and we've only had three dinners so far -- the first one at Loly's, the second at Tom's and this last one at Dana and Oliver's. The dinners have all been a lot of fun and I'm really grateful that my friend Chris Damcke came up with idea. Thank you Chris!

Last weekend's dinner at Dana and Oliver's was the lightest of them all in terms of what we ate/drank but that's pretty absurd because we all consumed so much that we felt super sleepy at 9pm on a Saturday night. So much good food.

The next Toro book dinner will be at my house later in the summer once my kitchen is remodeled. I'm really looking forward to having a fire in the backyard for that one and putting my new gas Dynasty range to good use for it. Yes! I'm also looking forward to doing this cook the book thing with the next book when the time comes too -- the Tasty Brunch Book that John and I are working on now. I see a lot of day drinking in our future.

Here's what we cooked and ate from the book this time around. Really tasty as always.

Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull. dinner party menu

Casa Rita White Wine Sangria (with plum wine) Halibut Cheeks Grilled Corn with Cilantro Pesto Sauteed Spinach with Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins Hazelnut Ice Cream (with strawberry rhubarb compote) Olive Oil Cake (with balsamic vinegar reduction) Hand-Cut Noodles with Pimenton Dulce Moorish Meatballs

Future Toro grilled corn and sauteed halibut cheeks...

Sara has nice cheeks! Toro's Halibut Cheeks with oil-cured Calabrian chiles and marinated olives.

My Toro Grilled Corn with Cilantro Pesto.

Loly and Faulkner's Hand-cut Noodles with Pimenton Dulce.

They also made this gluten-free version.

Dana and Oliver's Sauteed Spinach with Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins and mugolio that they bought at Pastaworks.

Sarah and Alec's Hazelnut Ice Cream with a balsamic reduction.

Every dog has its day. Thank you Boscoe for the great dinner party.

My kitchen is being remodeled by my friends at St. Johns Design Build. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Yard Fresh Pt. 30

May 15, 2014 in Foraged Food, Portland Gardening, Portland Yard, Uncategorized

I haven't done one of these since last summer! Holy shit time flies. Lately I've been wishing that there were a way to expand time to fit more of the best of life in. I don't necessarily want the days to be longer I just want to be writing, sailing, cooking, loving, swimming, travelling and on and on and on contemporaneously somehow/someway. So that each would be enjoyed fully but a different part of me would be present for each. I'll go do some more drugs now. Sorry.

So, I'm getting my kitchen remodeled! Finally. My super talented friends at St. Johns Design Build (they don't have a website yet but once they do I'll shout it out here) -- Brian McVay, Clarence Jacobs and Rude Graves -- are kicking ass doing a complete overhaul. Things that I'm really looking forward to: the original fir floor being sanded and finished, my new-to-me kick-ass professional-style Dynasty gas stove, sweet-ass tiling by Rude, old bleachers made into beautiful new cabinets and drawers and shelves by Clarence, a bar, maple chopping block peninsula, paperstone counters and all sorts of other magic by Brian and crew. Life is sweet. I'll put up some photos of the progress in the next several weeks.

In the meantime, near and dear friends in the neighborhood are happy because I've been using their kitchens more and I also have a funky little interim kitchen in the back of my house in the utility room with a hotpot, rice steamer and toaster. It works and it's actually been fun to have some cooking restraints. It's like camp cooking, boat cooking etc. -- pushes you to be creative and work in new ways with what you've got.

It's been a really fun spring so far and I hope you've been doing well too. I just finished writing the Tasty Brunch Book proposal with John (now it's with our agent, next to the designer), I'm working on all sorts of food-plus projects at Hawthorne Books, working on a still secret book project, little here and there on my novel and Food Lover's Guide to Portland 2.0 review copies go out NEXT WEEK and it publishes in three short months. Madness. In the very best sense of the word.

Here's what I've been eating. What have you been cooking and eating?