This episode is a conversation from the 2023 Portland Book Festival on food, cooking, family, traditions, and storytelling. And like some of the best meals, it just happens to be … vegetarian. 

Portland’s superstar chef Gregory Gourdet, chef/owner at kann, which was awarded “Best New Restaurant 2023” from multiple outlets, including the James Beard Awards, is also the author of a wonderful cookbook, Everyone’s Table. Gourdet led a conversation between fellow Portland chef and restauranteur Aaron Adams of Fermenter, which last year published a Fermenter cookbook co-authored by Portland’s own Liz Crain (Dumplings Equal Love) about vegan fermentation. 

Joining our Portlanders is recipe developer Hetty Lui McKinnon, frequent contributor to New York Times Cooking and author of To Asia, with Love and, most recently, the cookbook Tenderheart. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, McKinnon is now based in Brooklyn, New York. 

So why are we talking about cookbooks on a literary show? Food is storytelling, and this conversation reveals the rich stories in our recipes, in what we cook and what we eat. Food connects us to our ancestry and personal food traditions, and can open our world to new tastes, much like we can find both reflections of ourselves in stories and doors to new worlds. Food tells a story, and the group talks about how our food connects us not only to the past but to our present community, and even to the future, in creating new traditions. 

“Everything I do has this kind of nostalgia, a kind of homesickness, a longing for what I had growing up.” – Hetty Lui McKinnon

Aaron Adams: Forever curious about all things culinary, Aaron started venturing into fermentation when seeking to expand his repertoire after switching to a vegan diet. Years later, you can find house fermented and cultured foods, from tempeh and koji to sauerkraut and kombucha, finding center focus at his restaurants. Wanting to share his fermentation knowledge in an easy-to-understand way, Aaron worked to create his first book, Fermenter: DIY Fermentation for Vegan Fare. Come say “Hi” to Chef Aaron while he’s working service at Workshop or Fermenter when you’re in Portland, Oregon.

Liz Crain is the author of Food Lover’s Guide to Portland and Dumplings Equal Love, and coauthor of the cookbooks Toro Bravo and Hello! My Name Is Tasty, as well as Grow Your Own: Understanding, Cultivating, and Enjoying Cannabis. Her latest cookbook is Fermenter: DIY Fermentation for Vegan Fare coauthored with chef Aaron Adams. She is a longtime writer on Pacific Northwest food and drink, and her writing has appeared in Lucky Peach, Food & Wine, the Sun magazine, the Progressive, and the Guardian. She is also a seasoned copywriter, fiction writer, as well as co-organizer of the annual Portland Fermentation Festival.

Hetty Lui McKinnon is a Chinese Australian cook and food writer. A James Beard Foundation finalist, she is the author of four other cookbooks, including the much-loved To Asia, With Love (2021), the award-winning Family: New Vegetarian Comfort Food to Nourish Every Day (2019), Neighbourhood: Hearty Salads and Plant-Based Recipes from Home and Abroad (2017), and Community: Salad Recipes from Arthur Street Kitchen (2014). Hetty is also the editor and publisher of multicultural food journal Peddler and the host of the magazine’s podcast The House Specials. She is a regular recipe contributor to The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Epicurious.com, and ABC Everyday; and her recipes have appeared in Food52, the Guardian, The Washington Post and more. Born and raised in Sydney, she now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Gregory Gourdet is a celebrated chef, best-selling author, and television personality. He is best known for his award-winning cuisine, bevy of TV appearances, and trendsetting role in the culinary boom of Portland. A native of Queens, NY, Gregory ran the kitchen at Portland’s Departure Restaurant + Lounge for 10 years, leaving in 2019 to focus on opening kann. An avid traveler and lifelong student of food and culture, Gregory has made a name for himself by infusing methods and ingredients from all over the world, balanced together with his own Haitian heritage, and creating signature flavors adored for their seasonality, boldness, complexity, and spice. He was named “Chef of the Year” by both Eater Portland and the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and is a James Beard Award nominee and two-time Bravo Top Chef finalist. In 2021, Gregory released his first cookbook, Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health, the ultimate guide to cooking globally-inspired dishes free of gluten, dairy, soy, legumes, and grains.