November 2021

Apple Pandowdy: An Easy Addition to Your Apple Pie Repertoire For Thanksgiving

November 23, 2025 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

The big difference between a pandowdy and traditional apple pie is that it uses only a top crust. Use any style crust that you like though I think an all-butter flaky crust works best.

You slice up your apples in the traditional way but the pie is topped with the rolled out dough cut into squares put over the apples in a triangle pattern so it looks sort of haphazard. But it’s anything but. Make sure there is a bit of space between the pie squares so as to allow the juices to bubble up freely over the crust. In some versions of pandowdy you gently push down the pastry into the filling halfway through the baking time so that the juices come about one-quarter of the way over the pastry. Sometimes I do this and other times I just leave it as it is, pushing the pastry dough just a touch when you pull the pie out of the oven. Experiment and see which way you like since I think you’ll make this over and over again.

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Sweet Potato Pie Is the Best Alternative to Pumpkin

November 20, 2025 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

Though I featured this pie last year, I think it’s worth repeating as the main pie for your Thanksgiving desserts. Sweet potato pie puts the standard pumpkin pie in its place. I admit I’m not a pumpkin pie fan. I like it but it has never sent me wild.

On Thanksgiving pasts I’ve always prepared at least three pies plus one cake for the dessert table at Thanksgiving: Apple, Pumpkin and Pecan sometimes adding lemon meringue for “lightness .” For the cake, something like a towering yellow layer cake (at least two layers) topped with a very rich ganache.

But ever since I discovered a recipe for sweet potato pie in a 2018 issue of Garden and Gun Magazine by Birmingham, Alabama pastry chef Dolester Miles, I’ve been hooked ever since. The secret to success-flavor and texture-is to bake the sweet potatoes until soft and oozing slightly and when cool slip of the skins . The flesh is put into a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until very smooth. In Dolester’s recipe she says to beat until there are no more strings. I didn’t have that issue and the puree comes out perfectly with regular beating.

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Cong Tu Bot 2 Bad

November 1, 2025 / / Restaurants

I used to like Cong Tu Bot pre pandemic before the Big Renovation. Now with its only daytime hours I’m not necessarily in the mood for spicy Thai food at breakfast or lunch. One of a few dishes available since everything else was sold out at 11:45AM, I waited some 30 minutes for my single dish of cold chicken. (How long does it take to cook cold chicken?) But what really turned me off is how the restaurant operates. Staff is abrupt. And god forbid if you walk in not wearing a mask (75% of Portlanders are fully vaxxed and if you’re old enough, boostered too) you’re figuratively slapped across the face like you’ve committed some venal act. A simple request to don a mask would have been more appropriate rather than barking an order. Plus the actual dining (outside only) is very uncomfortable with only a few tables and a few lean-against dining shelves. Twenty dollars for a cereal-bowl size of food ( it was delicious, however) seemed excessive. Thankfully the free ice water from a self serve cooler inside (mask required) was free and very cold.

Cold chicken

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