Recipes We'd Like to See in the "Portlandia" Cookbook
Photo credit: Getty Images
We squealed with delight upon learning that the fine folks behind “Portlandia” are putting together a cookbook. According to Publisher’s Marketplace, it will "present the characters in the show and 50 related recipes."
The show’s co-creators, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, have done a fine job of skewering the ubiquitous artisanal foods trend. And sure, we’d love to see a recipe for that fantastic all-purpose pickling brine they use—ideal for everything from CD jewel cases to dropped ice cream cones!—on the famous “We can pickle that!” sketch.
Here are the recipes beyond the brine we’d like to see, too:
Chicken Recipes Based on the Chicken’s Name
Perhaps the most famous of the show’s sketches is one in which two diners demand information about the provenance of the chicken they consider ordering for dinner. The waitress reels off data including its farm, its heritage breed status, and its name, Colin, which she provides in a manila folder along with his snapshot. We’d like to see an index of chicken recipes based on chicken names. We’re OK with it being a little broad (26 recipes, for example, one for a name beginning with each letter of the alphabet).
Not only does this movie theater sell artisanal popcorn sold in newspaper cones (which “infuses the food with the grittiness of the paper”), it also offers The Original Sprite. It’s brown and looks like Coca-Cola, because “like, back in the day, when they would have coloring in it for the flavor.”
In this day and age, most of us have encountered the super freakin’ fancy cocktail. This one, as a mixologist informs Brownstein’s character, is a “ginger-based bourbon drink infused with honey, lemon and charred ice…we’ve got cherry tomato, lime zest, I actually made the bitters myself at home, we’ve got egg whites, egg shell, egg yellows, rotten banana, secret of the pros.” How good does that sound? OK, not so good. But still.
Armisen and Brownstein try to get accreditation for their B&B, and the Portland Bed and Breakfast Bureau Inspector who shows up has a very specific list of what they need in order to pass inspection: Are their stairs creaky enough? Is the smell of the B&B sufficiently musty? They almost fail inspection due to an insufficient number of cookies on the premises, but save themselves in the nick of the time by pointing out that one of the tiny seashell-shaped bathroom soaps is also, incredibly, a cookie.
Marionberry Pancakes from Brunch Village
In this epic sketch featuring cameos by Tim Robbins (as a grizzled brunch line enforcer) and Kyle MacLachlan (as the mayor), Armisen and Brownstein’s characters wait in line for brunch. And wait. And wait. Things take a turn for the chaotic when Carrie leaves the line to get her jacket, but what we’d really like to know is what the hell is in those marionberry pancakes everyone’s eagerly awaiting. Seriously.
