An egg salad sandwich is an egg salad sandwich is an egg salad sandwich, ad infinitum, right? I don’t think so. An egg salad sandwich is one of life’s most fundamentally satisfying taste experiences and even when done carelessly, it often satisfies nonetheless. But when done thoughtfully, it is one of the greatest dishes in the world.

So you can imagine my excitement when a number of years ago I happened upon a tiny guidebook that mentioned an obscure hole-in-the-wall in Old Town, Portland, Oregon and stated matter of factly that this joint made the BEST egg salad sandwich in the universe. Guess where I went for lunch that day?

A few weeks ago, I posted a story on Metrovino’s Parmesan Pound Cake (Portland, Oregon), which I hope you had a chance to read. It’s all about my adventures with this extraordinary cake (the creation of Metrovino Executive Chef Gregory Denton and Chef de Cuisine Gabrielle Quiñónez), both in the restaurant and in the OtherWorldly testing kitchen.

If you head to Cantinetta soon, while Northwest field-grown rhubarb season is still in full swing, you may be lucky enough to score the Rhubarb Zeppole with Orange Rhubarb Marmaletta. One word of advice here: DO NOT offer to share this dessert with your table mates. The order consists of four zeppole, and you will want four more when you’ve eaten those.

But as good as the zeppole certainly are, it’s the Marmaletta that has taken up residence in my cranium. And what, pray tell, is Marmaletta (or Marmellata, which seems to be the most official of the various spellings)? Well, to be completely prosaic, it’s jam. Yup, jam. The best darned jam you’ve ever tasted.

You are looking at perhaps the most delectable pork belly in the world. No, the universe. According to one of the amiable chefs behind the kitchen bar from which MauiJim and I were watching the action, it was cooked sous-vide at 145 degrees–for TWO DAYS.

You won’t, however, find this mentioned on the menu. I only suspected it after the fatty portion of the pork belly melted on my palate like warm butter. Then I asked. If I had been paying better attention, the plastic pouch from which the chef removed the portion of pork belly would have been an immediate give-away.

Nearly a year ago, at the newly opened Metrovino restaurant in Portland, Oregon’s Pearl district, I spied a dessert on the menu that sounded so implausible that I was honestly expecting NOT to like it. I mean seriously, parmesan cheese in a pound cake? I had never heard of, much less tasted, such a combination–even though I have a library full of dessert cookbooks and am always on the lookout for creative, out of the ordinary flavor combinations.

The idea of pairing strawberries with tomatoes originally came to me while perusing one of my favorite culinary sites, FoodPairing, which features dozens of potentially harmonious and sometimes very odd sounding ingredient pairings. (Another great site for this type of exploration is Khymos. Or check out the most comprehensive book ever written on the topic: The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. It lists thousands of ingredient pairings favored by some of the world’s most acclaimed chefs.)

The freshly dug sunchokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes) look so tender and crisp in Northwest farmers markets right now, I couldn’t resist buying several pounds last week–even though I wasn’t sure what I would do with them. My cookbook, Pacific Northwest Palate, Four Seasons of Great Cooking, features a sunchoke pancake, but other than that, I really haven’t given this vegetable its fair due over the years.

Is there anything in the world of food more appealing than a gloriously fresh pesto, with its vivid green color and bright, bold flavor? I can’t think of anything more wonderful in early spring than this sometimes chunky, sometimes smooth sauce with its heady aroma and visceral connection to the earth and all things leafy green.

I’m intrigued and inspired by the creative ways in which Pacific Rim and Northwest chefs are incorporating spaetzle into their dishes these days. This Old World noodle-dumpling is suddenly being elevated to lofty heights, for the following compelling reasons:

• It’s much easier to make spaetzle than fresh pasta, and yet they have similar characteristics.
• Spaetzle lends itself to partnership with a wide range of companion flavors–from subtle to bold.
• When made with care, spaetzle is soul satisfying.
• Spaetzle has a wonderful chewiness.
• Spaetzle has an endearing homey quality. It’s the ultimate comfort food.

I grew up eating spaetzle. But I thought it was pasta. To be even more specific, I though it was NOODLES. It took a curious turn of events to clear this confusion in my mind.

Grandma Mary loaded her Divine Chicken Noodle Soup with these super chewy, squiggly noodles she pushed through a large holed, wire mesh device. They were completely addictive, and I loved them beyond measure. She later gave me the device, but because I had never actually seen her make these noodles (they were always in the soup when I arrived), I tried for years to push regular pasta dough through the mesh, cursing the whole while. It was nigh impossible. And the noodles made in this way were tougher than I remembered hers to be.