Karen Brooks brings the Portland dining scene to life
The rumor that I moved to Portland, Ore., solely because of the restaurants is only slightly exaggerated. But boy, do these people know how to eat.
So I found Karen Brooks’ new book, The Mighty Gastropolis, delicious on several counts: Not only did I gobble up the juicy back story on Portland’s restaurant scene, but I also devoured Brooks’ delectable metaphors.
Here are some highlights to amuse your brain as well as your bouche:
On butchery at Simpatica Dining Hall:
“It began with the sudden appearance
of an outsized leg of prosciutto
swinging from a ceiling pipe
like a shout-out from a Francis Bacon painting.”
On Portland’s dining scene:
“For years, Portland was a backwater,
its food scene relegated to the kids’ table
while rival sister Seattle sat with the big boys.”
On the 2011 James Beard Award nominations, held in Portland:
“Inside the Oregon Culinary Institute,
the air was tighter than the stock market floor
during President Obama’s
‘let’s get tough on Wall Street’ speech.”
On dining at Evoe:
“Scan the wall-size blackboard menu,
every inch crammed with possibility,
call out your order, and Kevin Gibson begins performing
like a biology professor on Restaurant: Impossible.”
On Oregon’s natural bounty:
“Enterprising pickers and pluckers
wheel up to the back doors of restaurants,
scales in hand, to peddle wild porcini
the size of small purses
or twenty kinds of heirloom tomatoes.”
On Xocolatl de David Raleigh Bars:
“… the thinking person’s Snickers:
one bite, and there’s no going back.”
On Laurelhurst Market:
“Dyer calls it ‘a reaction
to where the meat industry failed itself,
a response to cutlets on foam trays
wrapped in plastic with a diaper underneath.'”
On a dish at Castagna:
“No one seems to notice
that the famed steak and haystack fries
have been replaced by halibut
cloaked like a Christo installation
in an outsized cabbage leaf.”
On pizzas at Tastebud:
“The pizzas are back, and, on Saturdays,
the oven spits out the original flatbread
in salty flaps as big as a queen-size pillow.”
How can you cook up metaphors like Brooks does
to make your readers devour your messages?
How can you tell better business stories?
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There, you’ll learn how to find the aha! moment that’s the gateway to every anecdote. How to start an anecdote with a bang — instead of a whimper. And how to use “the most powerful form of human communication” to grab attention, boost credibility, make messages more memorable and communicate better.
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