Experiencing busy streets full of construction work, trash bins overflowing after a happy weekend, and political stickers on every other lamppost are part of the process of rediscovering beauty – the beauty of a story, like an old kitchen cutting board where each line carved by the chef’s knife adds to the value of the wood, like exploring the nature that surrounds you and bringing back the local and rustic ingredients into the kitchen. It’s rediscovering the beauty of what’s right in front of you.
Thus begins the chic, full-color guidebook …

Famed chef Mario Batali has announced that in order to bring more awareness to the cuts looming over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, he’s launched a campaign called the Food Stamp Challenge Friday. According to Crain’s New York, participants in the challenge will live within the constraints of $31 for an entire week of meals – the average “food stamp” weekly allotment. Thus far, nearly 200 people have signed up, including New York meat man Pat LaFrieda and Food Bank for New York City CEO Margarette Purvis.
“While a one-week food …

I was beyond excited for this year’s Taste of the Nation. My experience at last year’s event proved quite memorable, demonstrating that it was, quite possibly, the best food and wine event in Portland. All the top restaurants from across the city, many of the top wineries and breweries in the area, and a handful of shining spirits on hand to ensure that guests didn’t leave dissatisfied – and all for a good cause.
This year was no different. Taking place at Jeld-Wen field – curiously in the halls, rather than …

Three competitors in, an ebullient Emily Baker stepped up to the bar at last summer’s Northwest Spirits and Mixology Show as the newbiest of newbie bartenders. A bit nervous, she worked to create her Mexican Circus Tiger for our panel of judges – some of the finest spirits folks in the country – regaling us with the tale behind the drink’s name. Only a few months into her bartending career, she was competing against four other mixers from Portland to Vegas, but it only took one sip of her cocktail …

Chef Aaron Barnett’s French-inspired restaurant, St. Jack, is what I like to imagine as the connection where Portland and Lyon meet. The menu is produce-heavy, the decor a delicate interior design, yet the kitchen isn’t afraid of hearty meat dishes (fried tripe, escargot and bone marrow, without shame, thank you). It’s a welcome combination of elegance inside the restaurant, with a careful, homestyle-cooking style, ensuring precision without the air of pretension.
So it didn’t surprise me at all that behind the restaurant’s graceful charm is a chef with similar qualities – …

The stage was most certainly perched on an angle when I took my seat at the judging table during the Maui County Agricultural Festival. After participating as a judge in a dozen or so food and drink competitions, it was my first experience doing so from a proper “stage” – even a slightly precarious one.
On the grounds of the beautiful Maui Plantation, nestled at the base of the green mountains so familiar to the Hawaiian countryside, the day began as most on the islands do – a little overcast, a …

When Maui calls, you have to answer. Since my last magical visit to the island, I’ve dreamed of nothing but palm trees and the warm breeze that greets when you when arrive. The solitude of cruising down a sunny two-lane, oceanside highway. The welcoming ‘aloha’, the thoughtful ‘mahalo’.
So when I received the call (or the email, rather) inviting me to participate as a judge at this year’s Maui County Agricultural Festival, there was little hesitation. Would I return to that beautiful island – and its people, food, historic Hawaiian culture …

The food scene in Los Angeles is a bit overwhelming. On a recent visit, I had a huge list of recommended and researched restaurants and didn’t even know where to start. Early into the trip, my traveling companion (a very knowledgeable taco connoisseur), our hosts and I were all trudging through the rain near Abbot Kinney Boulevard and as we were waiting in line at a restaurant, the Taco Connoisseur shouted, “Look! Kogi!”. An unscheduled stop, the pure act of coincidence harmonizing with our grumbling stomachs and the time-crawling fourty-five minute restaurant …

I was nearly through my meal at Staple and Fancy in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood when I met chef Ethan Stowell for the first time last fall.  Friends with my dining companion, spirits man Rocky Yeh, Stowell stopped by our table that evening after returning from a catering, weary but friendly. General chitchat commenced, shifting from off-site events to restaurant to-dos, when Rocky inquired as to how Ethan and his wife, Angela, were faring. “We’re doing ok,” Stowell replied with a sigh. “We’re coming up on the due date, so we’re going …

I really hadn’t given Indianapolis much thought, particularly on the food and drink front. Growing up in Michigan, I had visited Indy, and a few of its ‘burbs, a handful of times throughout high school and college. The downtown space, with its steakhouses and sports bars, wasn’t much more than a conference-friendly corridor, and certainly not a place where someone wanting a craft cocktail or a bite of less-than-fried food could find respite. I may have even scoffed a little when I was invited out for a ‘Tour de Indianapolis.’
However, …

In Portland, there are two major players in the food playground,  the vegetable – buzzing farmer’s markets, inspired vegan restaurants and dedicated gardening – and the almighty meat, with nose-to-tail cooking, butchery classes and charcuterie found in nearly every corner of the city. Chef Ken Gordon is, and has been, a colossal part of the carnivorous scene in Portland, with his restaurant Kenny & Zuke’s, a New York-style Jewish deli known for “sandwiches as big as your head”, a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. While the thick cut, …

The gregarious ginger-haired Sarah Simmons sat two rows in front of me on the airport shuttle to the 2010 Cayman Cookout, her wide-brimmed white sun hat resting comfortably on her head as she chatted with her accompanying friend. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Simmons was there as a guest of Food & Wine that weekend, enjoying the perks and posing for pictures as winner of the magazine’s Home Cook Superstar contest. She introduced herself somewhere along the way, her true Southern charm shining through, and we became …