Following up the debut of their food-writing quarterly, Lucky Peach, McSweeney's has just released the first in their new line of Insatiables Cookbooks, Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant. As tough to define as its namesake restaurant/charitable organization, this hybrid cookbook/memoir/manifesto seems like a perfect project for its never-easy-to-define publisher. From McSweeney's:

...it’s a cookbook featuring step-by-step photography and sly commentary, but it’s also the memoir of a madcap project that redefined the authors’ marriage and a city’s food scene. Along with stories and recipes, you’ll find an idealistic business plan, a cheeky manifesto, and thoughtful essays on issues ranging from food pantries to fried chicken. Plus, a comic.



Authors/Chefs Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz will be at Powell's on Burnside this Sunday (7:30) to celebrate, and they'll be joined by Portland's own Nate Tilden (Clyde Common, Olympic Provisions, Spirit of '77). For any bookish food lovers, this is kind of a can't miss.