in defense of nitrates

Last fall I had the opportunity to meet Armandino Batali at an event here in Portland. He was teaching a class on how to make cooked salami at home and offering tastes of his delicious creations (go out of your way to get your hands on Salumi's mole salami).

I loved listening to Armandino talk about how in Italy, no one would dream of steralizing things like well-worn butcher blocks with bleach, which I was I was surprised when he started discussing the importance of nitrates. If you go to any upscale market these days, you're bound to see some "nitrate free" meats, which has led me, and many consumers, to believe that nitrates should be avoided.

But Armandino thinks consumers have been mislead. Read about his perspective on nitrates and meat curing in this piece I wrote for Culinate.

minor obsessions

It's springtime here in Portland. I know this because I've been obsessing over numbers throughout the winter: average temperatures, minutes of daylight, amounts of precipitation. It started out as a curiosity, but became a minor obsession, and I can tell you that on February 11, the average daily temperature here registers above 50 degrees. And here we are, five whole balmy days later.

In typical Portland style, the high temperature doesn't usually happen until 3 or 4 p.m., which means that this morning, when I left the house for a run, I wore my winter wear to brave 34 degree F. But there was something fantastically unoffensive about today's 34 degrees--I knew it was temporary, a fleeting chill that couldn't stop the crocuses or the hot pink teacup flowers that like to be the first bloomers on every block (I'm forgetting their name) from pushing through soil and shivering open.

In case you're wondering, tomorrow comes with a bit over 3 minutes more of daylight than today did, just one more number that makes me feel hope.

public announcements

When I went to sit down at the coffeeshop at Powell's Books today, the guy next to me was thrilled to see that I'd grabbed the illustrated Strunk & White (which is beautifully executed, by the way). He said he'd been carrying around the nonillustrated version for the past month, meditating on the ultimate goal of any piece of writing: to have the reader understand exactly what you meant.

Anyway, this guy really wanted to chat, and I really wanted to read an essay in the new Tin House about following poet Richard Hugo's footsteps (good fodder for Montana nostalgia), so I politely withdrew from conversation. But a bit later he persisted.

"Look around," he said. "Don't you want to know what everyone here is reading?" I scanned the room and understood exactly what he meant. Like a NYC subway car, the coffeeshop at Powell's always has an amazing number of people who are completely engrossed in printed materials. If I'm in the right mood, I do wonder.

"I'm gonna find out," he said. He stood on his chair and cleared his throat. "I've never done anything like this before," he announced, "but I'm reading a really good book, and I want to tell all of you about it. And I'm wondering what you're reading. I'm going to sit right here at this table and if you want to come find out what I'm reading, and tell me about what you're reading, I'll be right here."

I was instantly transported to Ecuador, to the public buses, platforms for salespeople (who many times were under the age of 10) who would give speeches about amazing new products--juices for energy, candy that captured the flavors of jungle fruit, hair loss solutions--and everyone would ignore them. But the guy in Powell's had better luck than those salespeople in Ecuador. When I left, he was discussing a book about teaching writing with a curious stranger.

undiscovered in downtown P-town

Travel writers use the word "undiscovered" all too frequently, but in this case, the label seems to fit. I came across the Fiber Arts District while wandering around downtown last winter, and when I mention the name to locals, they look at me with blank stares. I can't take credit for the name. A bizarre concentration of independently-owned stores that sell uber high-end crafty materials ended up opening within a few blocks of each other, and they decided to make themselves an unofficial hood.

And there's no way you can go to that part of the city and not stop into the Central Library. This summer I was accepted to use the Sterling Room for Writers and have spent many quiet, productive afternoons there.

Check out my round up of the area in this month's Sunset magazine.

a juicy review

As part of my fascination with food-related microhistories (which some
argue have become less popular with the general reader in the past few
years), I recently wrote two book reviews for the online publication Culinate.

Check out the most recent piece, Orange Crush,
which takes a look at one of John McPhee's classics.