Adriana Janovich

Patricia Bart’s husband loves pepper pot soup, specifically the Campbell’s kind. He remembers eating the spicy broth stippled with honeycomb tripe and root vegetables as a young teen in the early 1960s. When he couldn’t find the iconic cans of his favorite flavor as a 20-something, stationed with the Navy, he had his dad ship them to him.

A boutique coffee roaster in Spokane has been nationally recognized for supporting sustainability and social good – as well as being “exceptionally delicious.” Roast House won a 2014 Good Food Award. Owner Deborah Di Bernardo received the award in San Francisco Thursday night.

Jeff Koehler grew up on the water north of Seattle. But he went to college here in Spokane. The travel writer and cookbook author majored in English, minored in philosophy and spent happy hour at the Ridpath Hotel.

Quick look: Lush photographs lure novice and veteran cooks alike into this sumptuous exploration of Spain’s culture and diverse regional cuisine. Some of the richly hued images come from the author, a Gonzaga University graduate who’s been living in Barcelona for 18 years and whose wife is Catalan. What’s inside: Food and travel writer Jeff Koehler pays homage to his adopted homeland in this colorful compilation of more than 150 traditional recipes. “Traditional Spanish cooking is flavorful but frugal, and many of its finest dishes originated not in palace kitchens, but as country fare,” he writes. These humble origins are evident in the rustic and sometimes surprising simplicity of the recipes, some of which feature as few as four ingredients. For example, the Basque Walnut Pudding is made only with walnuts, milk, sugar and a cinnamon stick. Similarly, the Baked Figs blend fresh fruit, sugar, lemon and sweet dessert wine.

Quick look: There’s a little bit of a lot of worldly things in this spiral-bound cookbook, a collection of recipes from local Master Chef Steve Geving and a fundraiser for Mammas on a Mission. Formed in 2009, the small group raises money for organizations and projects that benefit children in the Blanchard community, particularly students at Idaho Hill Elementary School. What’s inside: Some of the recipes sound fancy: chicken liver pâté, catfish with almond and pecan dust and spicy rémoulade, or escargot with pepper bacon, wild mushrooms and glace de viande. But Geving writes in the introduction that he aims to provide user-friendly recipes that make it easy to switch out meats or herbs as desired. There are appetizers, sides, mains, desserts and a “This & That” chapter featuring three items: stuffed French toast with maple bourbon peach syrup, Peking scallion pancakes with soy sauce and pickled jalapeño, and “Redneck Eggs” on biscuits with bacon and sausage gravy.

It might be a one-man show. But baritone Aaron St. Clair Nicholson will be performing with some “old friends” Saturday night. They’re classical and contemporary, a mix of popular opera arias and Americana, a few of his favorites, songs to which he always returns.

When my 20-something cousin brought this holiday spread to Christmas dinner a few years back, no one could stop eating it. The mixture was so simple – dried cranberries, diced jalapeno peppers and cilantro atop a mound of cream cheese – and, at the same time, so memorable.

Karen Jean Matsko Hood has never been to the Old Country. But she carries on its culinary traditions at Christmas, baking sweet poppy seed rolls and walnut rolls like her mother and aunts, who learned from their mother, an immigrant from Slovenia.

Mashed potatoes are creamy and comforting. So are whipped sweet potatoes topped with a velvety crust of toasted marshmallows. This time of year, the root vegetables are readily available. In fact, you might even have some in your pantry right now. They can easily be turned into simple yet satisfying sides, if you’re still in need of another dish to round out your holiday dinner.

Cozy up to the counter at The Onion Bar and Grill on an ice-cold evening, ask the lead bartender for a winter warmer, and he’ll probably recommend two particular cups of holiday cheer: one with coffee, one with cocoa, both with a little kick. The Oatmeal Cookie – a mix of butterscotch schnapps, Baileys Irish Cream, Jägermeister, Goldschläger and hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and cinnamon – is rich, decadent and one of the downtown restaurant’s most popular holiday drinks.

Nectar’s New Food Flights Nectar Tasting Room has debuted an expanded menu.