Angela Allen

Food and art, art and food

"Food can be art. It can be messy, sensual, sexual, intoxicating and comforting. Inspired. Much like art … it should dance in your memory."

Originally Published in Oregon ArtsWatch May 2020

The meaning of art has been fiercely debated and never settled.

American photographer Norman Mauskopf gave the definition a whirl when recently judging portraits for Santa Fe Photographic. For anything to be art, there must be some element of tragedy, comedy, beauty, irony, or mystery. Read More

Plating Perfection

Whistler's much lauded James Walt and other accomplished British Columbia chefs let Sooke Harbour House's tutelage stay under their cooking skins. Check it out Northwest Palate's Spring 2011 issue, pages 44-47. Read More

Explore the Pearl soup cover

Food for the Soul

Keep winter's chill at bay with a hot bowl of soup

Originally published in Explore the Pearl, January-February 2009

How better to thaw Portland's January chill than with a bowl of belly-warming, high-flavor soup?

In the Pearl District, you can sit down to steaming bisques, broths, purees and chowders. Soups come fragrant with winter vegetables and cool-season herbs. Others are thick with beans or pumped up with peppery heat. Read More

Sushi and saki pairing.

Pairings

Sushi and Asian Pear Sake

Originally published in Home & Lifestyle, The Columbian

Sushi translates roughly as “it’s sour.”

Made with vinegary rice, the artful morsels exude a tang. But because sugar, salt and, occasionally, sake, go into the rice mixture, a sweet saltiness is expressed as well. Read More

Andy Zalman: Wine Steward and More

The wine steward from Higgins shares his story

Originally published in Fresh Ideas

Andy Zalman walked into Higgins’ kitchen with bottle of Warre’s Quinta do Cavadinha Vintage Port 1989.

As wine-savvy as Higgins’ staff is, several peppered Zalman with questions about the single-vineyard port. Port is not your everyday wine: Vintages occur every three years. Read More

Fresh ideas bakery scene cover

Portland’s Bread Bakers

Fresh and Hot

Originally published in Fresh Ideas

Loaf after loaf, Portland bakeries’ chewy, crunchy, crusty breads continue to charm us. Several venerable bakeries, pieced together by forward-thinking family owners, have rolled dough for 25 years or more. Some, like Grand Central Bakery and NatureBake, makers of Dave’s Killer Breads, are passing their legacies on to the next generation whose members are deciding the direction of today’s next loaf. Read More