It is only recently since reading a biography of the famed chef and father of the quintessential American cuisine, James Beard, in The Man Who Ate Too Much, that revealed to me he was born and raised in Portland, Ore. It was, however, his English mother, Elizabeth, who had informed his passion for food and, what would be, his defining simplicity yet elegant industry in the kitchen. Portland had been my homebase for a good amount of years (pre-NYC), and the Pacific Northwest, given this culinary legacy, had also been kind of a springboard for some of my most exciting, if not, sentimental world travels in search of the perfect food. It is fair to say that, artistically, I am a cook with a pen in hand. Sometimes I travel for the sole goal of writing, and the amazing food finds I discover purposely become the fuel for my brain. Poetry is always hungry, so to speak, because thinking never stops in the act of eating for the experience of gastronomical notes. And books make me hungry for beautiful letters and postcards to write. Poetry is the cause, and voyages are the effect on the romantic stamp of my letters. Food and words to me, after all these trips, find their home.
Chef James lived on Salmon St. southeast of the Willamette River, and from downtown Portland you could take the Hawthorne Bridge. My house was in the same leafy neighborhood, literally a few blocks away. His iconic history having roots in Portland didn't surprise me. This great city is, arguably, the best food town in the States, with Michelin-rated restaurants and sustainable farming practices which directly supply the local community with the awesomest raw ingredients, not to mention a world class wine region. The other great American chef, Anthony Bourdain, the transcendent subject in this series of blogposts/homage to his name, definitely had visited Portland on a few occasions and had "food noted" nothing short of inspiring, over-the-top delicious impressions. Then off he went to Port-au-Prince or Madagascar...
I met Karen V. in the Philippines, and our deep friendship there (entwined in poetry and forestry studies) turned out to be the platonic love of my life. We spoke the "same language," that's why we're so close, and that language was the language at the convergence of understanding the art of science - when rigorous methodology, process and materiality hit a synthetic conclusion at face value, but the burning curiosity of a scientist searching for more truths, asking more questions, was satisfied only when the imperical facts exhausted became sublime. On break from teaching at the arts high school, she would visit me on the farm where I had stayed and I would cook for her with pleasure. She had always loved the pea tips and sweet potato leaves salad I made (with onions and garbanzos, dressed in tamarind vinaigrette), and the simple garlic pasta dish I paired with it topped with fried edible flowers. Sometimes I don't know whether she had loved more the chef in the cook, or the poet in the cook. Sometimes her silent gaze was almost enough to know. We have kept in touch, though on and off, through the past decade since. When, again, I travel I never forget to send her a postcard. In Xinbei City, Sindian District, Taiwan, feasting at the night market food stalls and soaking in natural hot springs in Beitou, I couldn't help (my words) long for her.
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