THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT! Thanks to everyone for your incredible support. We’ll be having a December benefit for doggies so check back soon.

Join me at Sweetpea Bakery for a 4 course dinner to benefit Portland?s House of Dreams, an awesome no-kill kitty shelter going through some tough times.

These are my kitties, not shelter kitties, but kitties are kitties, right?

A few Sweetpea, Herbivore and Food Fight staffers and I will be transforming the bakery into a candlelit bistro for the evening and serving a seasonal, organic, intimate, four course vegan dinner for 40. Please see all the info below the menu for ticket purchasing info, and I bet any other questions you have will be answered. If not, then email me at postpunkkitchen@gmail.com. Thanks everyone, I?m excited to cook for you and I hope to see you there.

Menu
Soup
White Bean And Roasted Garlic
A puree of navy beans and sweet smoky roasted garlic with leeks and fresh herbs

Salad
Golden Beet And Shallot
Warm roasted golden beets and baby greens in a creamy vinaigrette with caramelized shallots and a handful of toasted walnuts

Main
Autumn Plate
Cornbread and homemade sausage stuffed acorn squash, smoky grilled tempeh in a wild mushroom ragout served with garlicky purple kale

Dessert
Caramelized Apples
Warm apples in a caramelized maple sauce, served with crisp gingerbread shortbread and topped with homemade coconut based vanilla bean ice cream

Housemade hot chai will be served. Please bring your own beer and wine.

When:
Friday, October 24th. Please arrive between 8pm and 8:30 for a reception with House Of Dreams volunteers. Dinner will be served at 9pm.

Where:
Sweetpea Bakery
1205 SE Stark off SE 12th Ave
Google Map

Ticket Prices
Since seating limited, you must buy tickets in advance to attend the night?s festivities. Tickets are a sliding scale, from 40 to 100 dollars. Diners who pay 60 dollars or more will also be receiving a House Of Dreams 2009 calendar and a discount coupon for Herbivore. 100% of the proceeds go to the House Of Dreams shelter.

To Purchase Tickets
To purchase tickets, paypal 40 to 100 dollars to postpunkkitchen@gmail.com. Print out your thank you email, this will be your ticket when you arrive to the dinner.

Seating
If you are buying tickets for more than yourself, please put their names in the paypal comments and a table will be arranged for you. If you would like to sit with people in addition to the ones you are purchasing tickets for, please put their names in the comments as well, and let me know that you want to sit with them. If you are flying solo, you may end up sitting with strangers. But we promise that they will be fascinating strangers.

Allergies And Substitutions
If you require a gluten free dinner, your entree will come with tempeh instead of sausage and your baked ingredients will be made gluten free. If you have any other allergies please email me at postpunkkitchen@gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do. You must put your dietary concerns in the paypal comments in order to be accommodated.

Alcohol
Please bring your own beer and wine.

Any other questions? Just email me! postpunkkitchen@gmail.com. Thanks!

Let’s just get the rain out of the way. The weather here is like a three year old tap dancing; completely spastic, rain falls in jerks and starts, the temperature drops ten degrees, you pull down your hoodie, then five minutes later you need to take it off completely, it dries out wrapped around your waist. Then comes the hail. And my feet have been consistently freezing since I arrived. But there’s a reason everyone lies to you and tells you it’s not that bad, something that makes Portland worth it. And that reason, dear reader, is unicorns. The unicorns here in Portland are phenomenal. And everyone gets one.

I don’t know if it’s the unicorn magic (we’re not supposed to talk about it) or the chilly weather, but my cooking has gotten a new lease on life. In Brooklyn I was feeling cramped physically and mentally, unable to roll out a dough or a new recipe. I was relying on my stand-bys, which often included Chinese food from the number on my kitchen calendar. But since I’ve arrived in Portland I’ve cooked every night, and not just to blog about it (which is why you’ll find no recipes or overly staged photos) but to cook. Just to cook! That was something I had lost in the mix. And the last thing I need is for this thing I love to become a source of stress, or worse yet, a chore.

Everything changes when you are cooking to make a recipe, and since I started with this cookbook business I realize how naive I was to not see the difference immediately. There’s an art to recipe writing that isn’t necessarily apparent when you are merely cooking. When you cook you can rely wholly on your senses. A steamy inhale, blowing down a spoon for a taste. A little of this, a splash, a sprinkle, a shake. The music’s on, the window is open, the cats are at your feet and you can smell the garlic two flights down when you walk into the building. “What’s in it?” My friends used to make fun of me when I would answer, “Spices and things.” But that’s how it was, who knows? Why talk about it? Why ruin things with the mundane drabbery of this earthly plane? Just eat. Who wants to break the magic by bringing in modern technology like teaspoons, blenders and google searches? No, just eat.

Enter Amazon stats and kiss it all goodbye. A scrapped piece of printer paper taped to the fridge, a sharpie that seems to never hold enough ink, and an ever watchful eye on the kitchen timer: that’s recipe writing. Gone is “a little of this” and in comes “how the hell many tablespoons was that?” Forget plopping everything onto a plate with a serving spoon and a come and get it. Now it’s straight to the photo set up, pastel backdrop in place. Then to the computer to type it all out, lest you forget just how long you left the lid on and a recipe is lost. And there is fun in that, there is satisfaction and of course, it’s a small price to pay for, god, all your dreams coming true. But.

It hurts your cooking. It changes everything. It tames you. It makes your already tiny kitchen tinier still. And (I’ll switch from second person narration into first now) I need to be free. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Mel Gibson didn’t completely kill freedom, did he?

A completely unstaged photo of a white lasagna I made, with gingered lime sweet potatoes and a cashew cream sauce. Garnished in a completely realistic manner with cilantro.

An inside shot and a side of garlicky kale, it’s easy to eat local in Portland.

About the big news I mentioned last week. I’m moving to Portland, OR. It was somewhere between a spur of the moment and a many years in the making decision. The short story is that I simply can’t afford to do the things I want to do in Brooklyn. It will always be my home but it’s become quite unlivable for me. It became a constant struggle, not just to make ends meet but also to reconcile the Brooklyn that I grew up in with this new Brooklyn; she of the bizarre glass buildings, 2500 dollar studios and 300 dollar haircuts. And god help me, I was not about to move back to Sheepshead Bay!

Besides which, Portland is beautiful, vegan friendly and a great place for small independent business. It’s also close to things that I love, like mountains! And redwoods! And the Goonies beach! Not to mention so many awesome people. I have high hopes for a new life there. And, most importantly, a big kitchen.

Now stop rubbing it in everyone else’s face! The fair and beautiful Katie, who just transplanted her fine self from Chicago to Portland, has been posting the most tempting confections from her new workplace - SweetPea Bakery in the famed Portland mini-mall.

Not to mention one off color cake:

And to add insult to injury, she has announced that SweetPea is offering all you can eat vegan brunch. Okay, Portland. We get it. You win. Now stop showing off, already. It’s tacky.

Details from Lisa SweetPea

“Hi Friends!

xoxo
-lisa”

Some jerks smashed the glass in their front door yesterday. It wasn’t me! I was in Brooklyn!

Why not go buy a couple of cookbooks? Doesn’t the Rabbit Food cookbook look good?

Or perhaps a totebag?