Portland

cjr and I spent about 10 hours total in Portland. But while we were there, we had some delicious food!!

Our Portland-native friend gave us some great off-the-beaten-path recommendations.

For breakfast we visited Pambiche.

Pambiche is a technicolor Cuban restaurant. We went for breakfast. I had an omelet/spanish tortilla. cjr had some sort of assortment breakfast and what he describes as the best coffee of the trip (a Cuban version of cafe con leche).

We also stumbled upon a really neat vegan deli: Papa G's Organic Vegan Deli

A really sort of punk rock vibe of a place. Salad bars and inventive substitutions abound. We had the tempeh burger (not my speed) and some FABULOUS faux-enchilada type stuff. It was really really great. Not too expensive either. It's the kind of place I wish we had around here. Oh well. If you're in Portland, I don't think you can go wrong here.

Vancouver

cjr and I were up in Seattle/Vancouver/Portland in July and we ate at some pretty fabulous places. So I'd like to highlight some of them.

The two places we really enjoyed in Vancouver were

Patisserie Lebeau and Foundation

Patisserie Lebeau

This is a great waffle place tucked away from some of the touristyness of Granville Island. The Orange waffle was FANTASTIC. I had to go back to get more for our drive home, they were that awesome. If I go back to Vancouver, I think I will eat here very day. Delightful, and inexpensive.

The Foundation

This is a great hipster/dive-y vegetarian place full of young people. The thing that was cool about this place is that the recipes were not made by people who knew anything about the 'rules' of cooking. Clearly, just a labor of experimentation and it was fabulous. Lots of fusion type food that you wouldn't expect to be as delicious as it is. Also, we tried the sugar pie (think pecan pie minus the pecans) and it was like a sugar overload. I couldn't eat more than a few bites, but cjr really enjoyed it.

One more cookbook.

First of all, I would like to throw my hat in for "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World". As a non-vegan, I too find these cupcakes to be the best cupcakes I've ever made. I particularly like the "Peanut Butter Bomb" cupcakes. (Which are very similar to a cake I used to eat at Teany in New York). Basically it's a chocolate cupcakes + peanut butter buttercream + ganache. Delicious!

One note, if you're making mini cupcakes 12 big cupcakes do not equal one tray (24) mini cupcakes. They make more like 40 of them. Just something to keep in mind.

Now I'd like to throw my hat in for one more vegetarian cookbook:

How to Cook Everything Vegeterian by Mark Bittman

It's kind of biblical in nature and a great reference book. It includes not just recipes but tons of guides to different types of ingredients (like a list of chiles and their relative heat) as well as instructions on technique. It's a great deal and a great reference book! Also, I greatly enjoy Mark Bittman's philosphy on cooking. He's not a true vegeterian, but he tries to eat very little meat because he doesn't believe in the meat industry as it exists today and the envirmental impact. You can read more by him in his NY Times Column (The Minimalist) and his NY Times blog, Bitten.

Cookbooks!

I've been cooking lately, but I haven't had much time to post! jdc & i recently bought a stack of new cookbooks, so here's a list and a few comments about where my cooking has come from in the last month or two. Basically I've been buying whatever produce is fresh and/or what I am craving, then I return home and see what the various cookbooks suggest I do with it. Then I pick the best of the 5 options (these 4 cookbooks + the Bittman book), prepare, and enjoy!

Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

So far this cookbook seems to have the most promise. Despite the fact I'm not vegan, this was purchased based on the COMPLETE AWESOMENESS of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, and it seems to be living up to expectations so far! Since I've been cooking primarily from pantry items plus a bit of fresh fruit/veggies for the last two weeks, I've mostly stuck to their simpler recipes for pilafs, beans and vegetable preparations. As soon as I can sit down and pick a few of the more substantial and interesting recipes, I need to make a shopping list and head to Rainbow for more vegan-y special ingredients.

The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook by Peggy Knickerbocker and Christopher Hirsheimer

The structure behind this book is perfect for my farmer's market approach: don't plan ahead at all, and purchase whatever random produce catches my eye. Usually this means I end up with all sorts of impractical produce that I don't know how to cook (ie stinging nettles, green garlic.) But the cookbook is set up by season, and contains a few recipes for each item. Perfect! The downside is that there's usually only two recipes per fruit or veggie, and for some of the more common produce I'd rather have more creative recipes than what I can already whip up without cookbook assistance. But at least now I know what to do with my stinging nettles.


The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

Back to basics! This is the cookbook that everyone recommends but has only recently joined my collection. I've been including it in my ingredient-searching meal hunts, but I haven't cooked anything from it yet. So far recipes in the other new cookbooks (mostly Veganomicon & the Deborah Madison book) have won out for every single ingredient I look for. I don't really like illustrations in cookbooks (they're often kind of creepy), so those are putting me off a bit. I did, however, read and enjoy the beginning sections about basics and how to stock a pantry etc.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

This is the OTHER vegetarian cookbook staple that I put off buying for no good reason. Like The Art of Simple Food, the illustrations in this book bothered me. BUT, during my ingredient-based recipe hunting, this one (like Veganomicon) had recipes that got used the most often. I like the book quite a bit so far, and I look forward to trying more recipes.