Last weekend Jon and I joined some friends for an eating, drinking, bike riding exploration of Portland, Oregon. We stayed at the Kennedy School, a historic elementary school turned quirky hotel, in Northeast Portland that has a community garden in its parking lot.

We stopped by the Oregon Brewers Fest, ate donuts at the infamous Voodoo Doughnut, and stumbled upon Powell’s Books for Home and Garden. This outpost of the independent bookstore Powell’s (whose cavernous new and used bookshop is located in downtown Portland) rubs shoulders with an eclectic mix of shops, cafes, and bars on SE Hawthorne Boulevard.  The shop only carries books on gardening, cooking, and home projects and it has a smattering of wacky gifts. Need a chicken figurine made from pinecones? They’ve got it, along with pretty much every cookbook or gardening guide you’ve ever dreamed of.

Gifts for chicken lovers

If you happen to find yourself in Portland, definitely take an hour or so to explore this shop. They have whole sections dedicated to Sustainable Eating, Organic Gardening and Vegetable Gardening, and a collection of mismatched chairs are scattered around the store, practically inviting you to plop down and read.

I wish this was my personal library

I decided to treat myself by buying Heidi Swanson’s delightful cookbook Super Natural Cooking. Swanson writes one of my favorite recipe journals, 101 Cookbooks, and her book is a beautiful, inspiring, and imminently readable guide to cooking with whole foods. My ‘Purple Majesty’ potatoes are ready to harvest, so I’m going to try out her Quinoa and Corn Flour Crepes recipe this weekend, because the crepes are stuffed with purple potatoes and Gruyere cheese. Mmm! Can’t wait!

Garden gnomes!

A collection of cute cloches