Krista Garcia

Aromatic pandan leaves have found a place in kitchens across Portland, from pop-up bakeries to Indonesian restaurants. Even if diners might not recognize pandan by sight, they might be familiar with the distinctive scent that’s like a cross between fragrant jasmine rice and an herbal vanilla.

There’s no question that fishing can be grueling, dangerous, sometimes even terrifying work. Even so, Kristen Penner characterizes it as the most rewarding job she’s ever had.

For years — decades, if I’m being honest — I always dreaded summer, aka grilling season. Of course, kebabs and fajitas are perfectly harmless, but America’s obsession with cooking outdoors screwed up my light reading.

With its food carts, hand-crafted condiments, and home-brewed kombucha, Portland’s love for small businesses runs strong. In this city, a “mom-and-pop place” could be anything from a Mexican grocery store selling tacos in the back to a Vietnamese-American couple recreating old family recipes. Even the rare tasting menus here tend to be approachable, given we’re a town where dressing up means wearing your best polar fleece and taking off your beanie.

Made in Oregon is more than just a gift store selling myrtlewood cutting boards, chocolate-covered hazelnuts, and “Keep Portland Weird!” stickers — It’s a culinary heritage that tends to go unnoticed in national food debates. At first, it might seem like Oregon imports more than it exports — Portland and its environs have branches of Afuri, Din Tai Fung, and Mikkeller. And though it’s been argued otherwise (we see you, totchos), Oregon doesn’t exactly have a famous regional calling card like ...

Pumpkin spice gets all the love, but autumn is really for apples.
Thankfully, Trader Joe’s got the message and recently launched an apple cider jam. This seasonal product joins the established ranks of apple cider doughnuts, apple cider cookies and even apple cider hand soap.
For anyone who ever wished that apple cider came in condiment form, this jam, filled with chunks of real apple and cider spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, is coziness in a jar.
Don’t forget to pick up these award-winning ...

Now you can have all the fun of eating raw cookie dough without the risk!

Online returns are on the rise, thanks to skyrocketing eCommerce sales, one-click subscriptions, and “try before you buy” purchasing behaviors. Although there are more options to return items now than in the past, it’s imperative for retailers to get the returns experience right, or risk churning customers.

Big sales and holidays make for the most wonderful times of the year — unless a consumer is sending a gift that doesn’t reach its recipient on schedule.

Digital platforms facilitate everything from online shopping to ridesharing to booking a hotel. These platforms promise fast, seamless transactions, which most deliver – but when platforms focus on reducing friction for users, it can backfire and create new vulnerabilities to fraud.

Mobile devices have enabled monitoring and management to a degree once thought impossible. Consumers can now get alerted to someone ringing their doorbell miles away and view video of the visitor, and can measure heart rate and steps taken daily through smartwatches. They can also see where a child or partner is using a shared credit card in real time and can even restrict usage at establishments deemed off-limits.
The latter is the power of mobile card services (MCS) which allow users to tur...

Finding a cream soda is not hard in Tokyo. Finding a cigarette and spaghetti-filled kissaten to drink it in is another thing.

Most cities in the United States now have Mexican restaurants galore, but not all are blessed with a plethora of food from other Latin American countries. Portland doesn’t have a “Little Havana” or a concentration of immigrants from Colombia, Chile, or Peru, so you have to look a little harder to try regional specialities.

Portland is home to a lot of food and drinks you might expect: vegan barbecue, food carts serving cuisine that spans the globe, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it seasonal produce, niche breweries. Yet there are also plenty of unexpected delights lurking behind closed doors, up hidden stairs, and at fly-by-night pop-ups if you know where to look. Here are sugg...