I had some time to kill on a recent Saturday afternoon in Portland, Oregon, so I popped into Vivienne Culinary Books, a pint-sized culinary book and kitchenware consignment shop on a wedge-shaped corner in the Hollywood District.
Ten minutes melted into 45, as I got absorbed in a lovely cookbook by Judith Jones, “The Pleasures of Cooking for One.” I mentally filed away a crispy, layered potato side dish with garlic (I’d add more, I decided) and ample butter that Jones made once for Julia Child; Jones was Child’s longtime publisher at Knopf. Then I examined the mandu technique illustrated in Hugh Amano and Sara Becan’s comic book cookbook, “Let’s Make Dumplings!”: Make half moons and pinch the ends together to form “plump little belly buttons.”
