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2 Recipes by Naomi Pomeroy

• Hanger Steak with Herb-Nut Salsa
• Smoky Tomato Soup with Maple-Candied Bacon

Why she won Because her cooking style is what she calls “refined French grandmother”: simultaneously exquisite and accessible, with a major focus on local ingredients.

Born 1974 Raised Corvallis, OR

How she learned to cook meat Cookbooks. “I was a vegetarian for seven years. But you have to do what people want. So when I launched my catering business, everything came from books. Richard Olney, Larousse, Harold McGee. It can’t be overstated, the influence of Alice Waters.”

Favorite cheap eat Portland’s Pho Oregon. “I eat pho [Vietnamese soup] twice a week. I don’t eat the meat in it. I need to know the meat I eat is sustainably raised, and at $5 a bowl, I doubt it.”

Guilty pleasure “I love mayonnaise— remember, it’s a French sauce!”

Obsession Food history. “I found a 1913 copy of The Portland Woman’s Exchange Cookbook on a friend’s bookshelf. All the contributors now have streets named for them. It inspired me to do dinners with the Oregon Historical Society.”

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