Angela Dawn

about me

I'm a bartender living in Portland, Oregon. I work part time in a dive bar on W Burnside. My Husband is a kitchen manager/head pitt chef at a BBQ restaurant and fishes constantly in his spare time, so I get lots of fresh salmon and steelhead.
I'm originally from Michigan so I have a lot of good midwestern comfort food experience. I've also lived in New Orleans twice in the past 6 years (for a total of 2 years) and learned lots about Cajun Creole from the locals and the Restaurants I bartended and served in.
I've been cooking since I was about 6 years old. My very first baking experience consisted of short cakes my mom had baked, chocolate sprinkles and a microwave..lol. I guess I started out being creative. I knew I was destine for great things when my mom yelled at me for taking her avon lotion to make my mud pies outside.
My favorite cookbook growing up was the classic fanny farmer. It had everything from dinner to dessert. Over the years I started not using recipes as much though. I'm what they call a pinch here and a pinch there.
I like lush velvets and lacey things. I wouldn't call myself "gothic" because I don't deal well with whiney socially retarded people in those "groups". I do like rich dark colors and older classic styles though. I'm an 80's child so I listen to a lot of The Cure, Depechemode and Concrete blonde. But I also like Jeff Buckley, Pj Harvey, Nick Cave and Tom Waits. Dinner parties or eating dinner with nice wine requires some Vivaldi, Enya or Delerium. I like a lot of different music, but more into relaxing stuff these days.

Favorite Foods:

I love spicey food. I'm not talking burn your mouth off stuff per say. I'm talking about stuff with flavor. I like to use hot sauces and different peppers to infuse flavor. A lot of the stuff I make isn't the quick and easy short cut way. I believe that you can make things the short cut way, but I like to mix and match. So I'll make baked chicken stuffed with Lemons and herbs and bake upside down, but I'll make a boxed rice medley to go with it and frozen veggies or bagged salad.
My most famous dish is my seafood stuffed pork chops. It's a complete stunner.
I'd have to say my favorite restaurant(s) are both in New Orleans. I love Italian Pie on Magazine St and The Acme Oyster House. They may not be the most expensive, fancy or "best" in that city. I just adore the charbroiled oysters at Acme and the Italian baked chicken wings at Italian Pie. Still trying to create my own version of those wings! Mmmmmm
In Portland I'd have to say Jake's Crawfish hands down. Everything there is AMAZING!

Recipe disclaimer:
Because I eye ball most of my recipe ingredients there will be times when I have been afraid to put down more or less creole/cajun seasoning than needed mainly because some creole/cajun seasoning have more or less salt in them. So try and eye ball things and if there is a lacking of salt or a large amount of salt in the seasoning that you use, than you might want to add more or less salt based on that. I also like things pretty spicy and am afraid to list as much cayenne pepper, garlic or hot sauce as I personally use, so remember that too. I try my best, but we ALL have different tastes and opinions on heat and spice.

Side note: Rachel Ray bugs the @#&^$@^&*@&* out of me. She's too chipper and half the things she says are completely nonsensical in my opinion. I think she has some decent ideas, but she just crawls under my skin and makes me twitch. No offence to any of her fans here, I just wanted to express my feelings. lol

http://www.myspace.com/angeladb