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Winter in Portland means plenty of indoor time—perhaps a crackling fire or a cozy candle, warm socks, and a big mug of your favorite hot beverage. For a lot of us, it involves more soup simmering, bread baking, and meats and veggies roasting. It’s the perfect time to learn a new recipe or two.
Ah, so many recipes, so little time. If you’re getting sick of hunting online and having to scroll through all those awful “stories” to get to the actual recipe itself, we’ve got just the ticket.
Vivienne Culinary Books, which moved to Northeast Alberta Street at the beginning of 2024, has got the most primo selection of cookbooks in town. As the only culinary bookstore in the state, and one of only 16 in the country as of 2022, it is the spot to find the flavorful recipes you seek. Not sure exactly what kind of cuisine to start digging into? Owner Robin Wheelright has lots of ideas.
If the name “Vivienne” sounds familiar, that’s probably because its former rendition was a popular breakfast and brunch spot, Vivienne Kitchen & Pantry, on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. In 2021, Wheelright reimagined the cafe into a culinary bookstore, which features cooking classes, several reading events each month, both vintage and contemporary cookware on consignment, and a “secret bar,” which offers natural wines from small producers. Bottles are served to go (ask Wheelright for the right pairing with whatever recipe you’re excited to try first) or by the glass while you peruse the cookbook selection, listen to an author talk, or just enjoy the back patio, which feels like the backyard of a Provincial cottage.
Back in the store’s cute makeshift kitchen, which looks like the set of a Food Network show—think of a large island students can gather around—Wheelright teaches a variety of cooking classes. A recent favorite is a pasta-making class, where she teaches students how to make pasta by intuition, without needing to follow a recipe. Participants practice making their own pasta by hand, then they enjoy their work with the perfect glass of wine or imported bubbly N/A beverages.
Participants can purchase copies of each class’s recommended cookbook, or they can peruse the carefully curated selection of culinary books, including food-related memoirs and books centered on Portland-specific eateries. Recents include Diane Morgan’s Roots, Gregory Gourdet’s Everyone’s Table and Lola Milholland’s memoir Group Living and Other Recipes. Many of the cookbooks in the shop have a strong storytelling component sans the silly fluff (see ya, online recipes); their recipes start with beautiful and succinct headnotes (a short intro to a recipe that teaches the reader about the origins and intricacies of the dish they’re about to make). A recent favorite for Wheelright is Yasmin Khan’s Ripe Figs, whose opening pages read: “It’s a book about the recipes that travel with us on the great journeys our species have always taken, and how these recipes comfort us and nourish us through times of great celebration or terrible calamity…our capacity to endure the most unimaginable challenges and still find happiness in the smell of warm bread baking in an oven, a scoop of pistachio ice cream on a hot summer’s day, or a bowl of roasted pumpkin soup eaten by a roaring fire.”
Wheelright’s favorite thing about cookbooks is how you might just find the recipe you didn’t know you needed—or even existed—till you’ve flipped through the book for a while. Maybe you open it to look for a goulash recipe but wind up landing on one for a warm winter squash that calls for sweet drizzles of sauce and a delicate walnut garnish.
Wheelright admits that using a printed cookbook rather than an online recipe appeals to a particular style of cook, but when you’ve got cookbooks as beautiful as the ones at Vivienne Culinary Books, your kitchen will thank you for adding to the decorum.
GO: Vivienne Culinary Books, 2724 NE Alberta St., 503-575-2866, viviennepdx.com. Noon–6 pm Thursday–Monday.
This story is a part of Oregon Winter, Willamette Week’s annual winter activity magazine. It is free and can be found all over Portland beginning Friday, December 13, 2024. Find your free copy at one of the locations noted here or at our online store, before they all get picked up!