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Note: Makini Howell will talk about her journey and new book at Powell's City of Books on April 27 at 4 p.m.

Grains, grains, grains. I have fallen in love with grain bowls and it shows here. Faro and Israeli couscous combined make for a nutty, hearty, but somehow still light, dish. The grape almond dressing makes this dish an amazing accompaniment for anything you whip up for dinner, or it's simply great on its own. Feel free to mix and match any veggie you have in your fridge to make this a truly seasonal salad. The grown-up charred fava bean salad is everything late spring needs. It makes use of early plums and sweetens them up a bit on the gill. The fennel adds an aromatic flavor burst that is very unexpected — and of course the charred flavor and protein-packed beans make it simply delicious.

Miner's Lettuce and Fava Bean Bowl with Faro and Toasted Israeli Couscous

This tasty seasonal bridge salad is rich, nutty, and protein-packed.

Serves 2 to 4

2 cups shelled unpeeled fava beans (about 2 pounds whole pods)
Salt
½ cup Israeli couscous
½ cup uncooked ...

1.5 oz. House Spirits Aviation gin

.5 oz. Clear Creek Distillery loganberry liqueur

.5 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice

.5 oz. simple syrup

1-2 oz. IPA (your choice — I'm not going to tell a Portlander what beer to drink)

Shake the first four ingredients over ice and strain into a short tumbler filled with ice. Top with IPA to taste, and give it a good stir.

This cocktail, like Powell's, is seriously committed to Portland and offers something for everyone. I happen to think it's a lovely drink, light and fizzy, the perfect balance of tart, sweet, and bitter. But when I make it for friends, everybody wants to tinker with the ingredients, adding a little more fruit liqueur, dialing back the lemon juice, or adjusting the ratio of gin to beer.

So go ahead — customize it. Just as a certain enormous bookstore on Burnside caters to everyone's unique needs, this drink does, too. If you can't stand the thought of even an ounce or two of beer in your cocktail, use soda water instead. And if you're one of those beer aficionados ...

Over the years, we've had a lot of dinner parties. I've made mussels and fries and red pepper soup; I've made meatballs and spaghetti repeatedly; brisket and noodles were on repeat until I got the kinks ironed out of the recipe in this chapter, and there was this one time when I decided to make nothing but delicate flatbreads for dinner. It was a terrible idea. Don't do this unless you want to spend three days making doughs and mincing vegetables, only to have everyone leave hungry.

I'm pretty sure if you asked my friends what the very best thing I've ever served them was, they'd still go on about chicken pot pies I made from an Ina Garten recipe all those years ago. People, it turns out, go berserk for comfort ...

I'll wager that many of us could use a little extra sweetness to wrap up the events of this intense week. With Thanksgiving a few weeks away (on my blog, Vegan Latina, I'll be gathering together a few of my go-to recipes plus a few unconventional new favorites soon), the daily enjoyment of pumpkin sweets is practically a ritual. I've been making vegan flan for years, so practicing pumpkin vegan flan has been on my mind.

Practicing flan? Indeed. Both traditional and vegan flan radiate elegance and sophistication that clouds the simplicity behind the caramel curtain. Simmer an easy caramel and the flan; pour and chill for a few hours or overnight. But flan may require a little practice. Once you've done it a few times, however, it's so easy to prepare, it can be made while house guests are napping (as I made mine). Or you can get up a little early, simmer, and pour before leaving for work to have flan later that night.

This recipe can be made even richer by replacing a cup of almond milk with more coconut milk or made very light ...

I'm a fan of marrow beans — an intriguingly named, old-fashioned bean I found on a recent trip to Kalustyan's and couldn't pass up. Some say marrow beans taste like bacon or even fatty bone marrow. In a world where pumpkin may just overthrow the gastric tyranny of bacon worship, these beans could be the tipping point toward regaining some sanity.

These little, round white beans add creamy richness and thicken up (without a touch of dairy) pumpkin bisque, the little black dress of cool-weather soups. I wouldn't call the flavor "meaty," but it's soothing and just the thing for rapidly cooling fall nights. Leeks add further body, and a touch of smoked salt (found mine at Trader Joe's — it's that trendy) brings home the almost-bacon. No smoked salt in your pantry? Try adding ½ teaspoon of liquid smoke.

This is a lazy soup because I didn't feel like browning the vegetables before adding the liquid; I just threw (almost) everything into the pot and let it go to town. I'm crazy about the aroma of simmering beans with plenty of garlic and bay leaves, the ideal ...

Hello Powell's blog readers! What an honor to be here. And to celebrate, I thought I would start with a recipe for wombat poop fudge. (Note: there is no actual wombat poop in this recipe.)

Last Thursday was the release party for my new book Unusual Creatures, and as a party favor, I thought it would be fun to supply the guests with wombat poop fudge. You see, wombats poop cubes — a fact I'm so fascinated by that I've even included a diagram of the poop in the book. Why does the wombat poop cubes? Simple: it uses its poop as a trail marker, and it doesn't want the marker to roll away. Duh!

So, here I set off to make a tasty treat that looks like the fecal matter of this short-legged Australian marsupial. Actually, I started with the idea to make wombat poop brownies. My first recipe was derived from Karen DeMasco's book The Craft of Baking. Unfortunately, as delicious as those brownies were, they didn't have the right consistency to mold into small cubes. Also, I'm not sure what sort of oven ...