Books

What I Get Out Of Baking

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Good evening, friends and neighbors.

I’ve been looking back over my last few entries here and, frankly, it seems like I’ve been a bit down recently. Especially after that last one. One of my old poetry teachers, Peter Murphy, would often tell us that if what we were writing wasn’t surprising or scaring us about ourselves, we weren’t doing it right. If that’s the case, after this past week I suppose my Pulitzer is lost in the mail.

In general the past few weeks have been a bit of a bumpy road emotionally, and while I stand by everything I’ve written, it can’t rain all the time. Yes, I am WELL aware of the usual winter weather in Portland by now.

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Finding Your “Why” Where You Are

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Good evening, friends and neighbors! Happy New Year! I hope everyone is starting 2018 off well. I’ve been starting mine off with getting a bit more reading in- and now I’m starting to look up more regarding Kabbalah.

No, not that fashionable, Madonna, celebrity bullshit. The real deal- and I started off learning about it with a book about a group of rabbis sitting down with the Dalai Lama.

No, that’s not a joke.

Cover of The Jew In The Lotus by Rodger Kamenetz

“Ok, so 6 Rabbis and a poet walk into India…”

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Eating Healthy, Part II- 5 Tips for Going Shopping and Beating Your Food Budget

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Good evening, friends and neighbors.

No matter where you are on Earth, certain things drive food culture forward- geography, climate, population, social mores, and so on. Right at the heart of it though, from the salt-of-the-earth origins of cuisines all over the world- from the Soul Food of the Southeastern United States to the multifaceted mosaic of Chinese food- is economics, and the single question every cook asks:

“HOW DO I TAKE WHAT’S CHEAP, MAKE IT TASTE GOOD, AND FEED EVERYONE?”

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Review of the Week #4- The Liquor Store

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Where: The Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont Ave. Portland, OR

 

“Oh hey, Matt! You just finish? Wanna come down to the Liq for a beer?”

In this neighborhood, everyone in the industry knows everyone. Restaurant workers finish their day, they go down the to bar their buddy works at for a post-shift. After two years, I can only say I’m a “regular” at a few bars- places where they know my face, and what drink I’m about to order. It’s a good feeling, and if I’m honest I hit the bars up in a rotation just so no one feels slighted.
If you know Victor, though- you find yourself a regular EVERYWHERE.

In every restaurant, there is (or should be) “a guy.” A man of means. Possibly crazy, possibly criminal, but with a good heart who’s been known to make things “appear” from time to time. A guy who can talk his way into and out of anything- and who has been thrown out of more places than you knew existed.
Victor the barista is our “guy” at the cafe. He’s the one that just recognized me on my bike after work.

Beer o’clock, it is.
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