Posts Tagged ‘Portland’

By Jane and Micheal Stern Originally Published 2007 Gourmet Magazine On a beautiful Portland, Oregon, spring day, Gretchen Eichentopf described the scene at Otto’s Sausage Kitchen just a few months earlier. In mid-January, snow and ice had paralyzed the city, but Gretchen’s husband, Jerry (Otto’s grandson), lit coals in the sidewalk grill and cooked hot dogs as … Continue reading In Hog Heaven

By Jane and Michael Stern Originally Published 2006 Gourmet Magazine We’ve never met a cooked potato we didn’t like. Baked with butter, salt-boiled, fire-roasted, puréed with cream, au gratin, dauphinois, frittered, and french fried—all are surefire transformations of the homely starch into supertuber. But shallow-fried on a grill or in a skillet is the pinnacle of … Continue reading Monster Hash

By Jane and Michael Stern Originally Published 2005 Gourmet Magazine Thirty years ago, when we started writing about the colorful, cheap, and unpretentious restaurants that anchored communities across the country, we suspected we were documenting the end of an era. Most of them had been around forever, and they served exemplary local specialties. But American … Continue reading Fast Food Future

By Jane and Michael Stern Originally Published 2005 Gourmet Magazine We love hoagies, heroes, grinders, blimps, zepps, wedges, po’ boys, and submarines. But until recently, we were ignorant of one of the genre’s best regional variants, the Italian, which was invented in Portland, Maine. We’d never run across this Down East sandwich because Italians tend … Continue reading Now That’s An Italian

By Jane and Michael Stern Originally Published 1999 Gourmet Magazine To say Becky’s is a friendly place only hints at its sociability. If you are a newcomer and walk in the door after 5 A.M., by which time the long counter is packed and most of the old green-upholstered booths along the wall are occupied, … Continue reading A Slice of Diner Heaven

By Jane and Michael Stern Originally Published 1999 Gourmet Magazine Pancakes make people happy. Arriving at the table in the form of short stacks or lofty towers, or fanned out like a haul of soft gold medallions, they are a simple indulgence that demands sweet syrup and defies seriousness. In a too-complicated world, a plate … Continue reading Pancakes