I’m Adrian. Quite simply, I love food. I know, I know. Who doesn’t love food? And that’s what I love about it. Food has the uncanny ability to bring people together, and yet, through culture and tradition, it also sets people apart. My favorite thing in life is creating a meal for people and watching their eyes get all glassy when they eat. It is their personal moment and I have handed it to them.
My first love in the kitchen began with a chocolate mousse recipe lifted from my dad’s tattered, old French cookbook. This recipe, which I made hundreds of times, provided my earliest cooking education. Mistake after mistake—curdled eggs, lumpy chocolate, cloying cheap ingredients—taught me the art and science of kitchen affairs. Eventually, I learned how to separate eggs, coax chocolate into a silky ganache, and whip up velvety meringue. My formal culinary education took place years later in New York City when I attended French Culinary Institute for a degree in classic culinary arts. After graduation, while spending an 8-hour shift plopping stilton & apple chutney into fussy little pastry bundles, I quickly decided I’d rather eat in restaurants than cook in them. I prefer cooking at home with the kitchen a province of everyday creativity. At home, you can take your time. You can stir a creamy risotto into being without shortcuts. You can wake up and decide to make bread, watching the morning crows while the aroma-filled household breathes slowly to life. Instead of standing at a “station” all day, playing one instrument over and over, I would rather be a maestro, touching every part of a meal, and infusing my passion into the menu that I turn out. I just feel more connected to food this way. And to the people sitting down at my table to eat.
Professionally, I have worked in restaurants, catered weddings and banquets, developed and tested recipes, and critiqued restaurants. Pervasive in my writing is a love of adventure (I move around a lot with my filmmaker husband and two kids) and my willingness to try absolutely anything. I am especially interested in the story that food tells about us, and the stories we tell about our food. I am currently researching a project that explores home bread baking by chronicling the history of bread through a linear narration of one sourdough strain from ancient times. I am also reviewing the Portland food scene through Craving PDX, a guidebook of real places to eat that is imbedded in a fictional story arc.
Here are the three people I get to share most meals with:
I have them to thank for the heart and soul of my life. I hope my table provides them with a sense of belonging while they are out in the world discovering their unique passions. Currrently, we are eating a lot of cannellinis, clams and farm fresh eggs.