Miss Dish
The Good Book

by CARYN B. BROOKS
cbrooks@wweek.com

GENTLE READERS,

By now you know Miss Dish is on the receiving end of many interesting pieces of mail. When she dives into her postal satchel, she's always pleased when it's time again to receive a copy of Food Words, a catalog of old cookbooks put together by local dealer Johan Mathiesen. This is a labor of love so pure you almost want to can it in sweet syrup. The 47-page booklet is put together at home à la Kinko's and looks and reads like a 'zine published by some possessed cookbook fiend, which, of course, it is. Here's a taste:

The 59-year-old Mathiesen has been collecting cookbooks since high school, when his father, himself a cook, gave him Samuel Chamberlain's Italian Bouquet: An Epicurean Tour of Italy. After stints as a baker, chef and product supplier, Mathiesen began working at the Powell's cookbook store on Hawthorne, where he spent a good chunk of the '90s perfecting his catalog-ese. Currently, he has 7,000 to 8,000 books tucked away in the basement of his home off Powell Boulevard. His biggest catch? A first-edition (1931) Joy of Cooking that fetched $2,500. Why would someone plunk down that kind of change for a cookbook you can get new (albeit modernized) for $25? "Recipes are some of the lesser reasons,"
he says. "This is anthropology. I've learned everything I've needed to know from cookbooks and dictionaries." Mathiesen has about 300 people on his mailing list and sells internationally. But don't think he's living large. "If my wife wasn't working at the post office, I wouldn't be able to do it," he says.

Other dispatches from the Dish Desk:

Item! In case you've had your head in the mousse lately and haven't heard: The folks who own the US Bancorp Tower have done the right thing and signed on the dotted line for another restaurant to replace Atwater's. The yet-to-be-named fine dineteria will open in 2002.

Item! Mr. Bluehour Bruce Carey is never one to rest on his laurels: Bruce, Chef Kenny Giambalvo and another partner are thinking about opening a taqueria-style restaurant in the Pearl. Right now it's mostly in the dreaming stages.

Item! The original Northwest 21st hotspot, McMenamins Blue Moon Tavern & Grill, was felled by arson last September. After oodles of repair work, the Blue Moon reopens Tuesday, March 13, just in time for its 16th birthday.