Thursday morning No. 9.

A few days ago while waiting for my flight home from my other home in Portland, Ore., I bought a few novels at Powell's Books. Powell's is a Portland mainstay, a great "City of Books" within a slightly larger world of artists, baristas, beer lovers, bicycle commuters, chefs, dee-jays, fashion designers, foodies, musicians, outdoorsmen and women, strippers, revolutionaries and wine makers (to name a few). Growing up in the Portland-area, I used to relish my trips to Powell's, and when I was old enough to drive and later lived downtown, I'd go there several times a week -- to read, to see what other people were reading, to stockpile books for winter. At the airport location, I was drawn to a section devoted to literature of the Pacific Northwest. Sherman Alexie, David James Duncan, Stepahnie Kallos's Broken For You, which I devoured in a long day and night years ago. I picked up A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (I passed, reluctantly, on Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter). I've wanted to read Robinson since she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005, and I thought her first novel was a proper start. Barnes I knew nothing about, but the cover description of a pair of young lovers heading west in search of a simple life tugged at something in me good. So it was A Country Called Home that I reached for as my plane lifted east, and I didn't set it down until it was finished.

The novel is set in rural Idaho and is largely about relationships -- mostly familial, some platonic, a few romantic -- and I found them engaging. But it's the landscape that really drew me in. The vast potential of the land, and the meals that it inspired: coffee brewed over campfires, foraged berries and bitter greens, newly-caught fish gutted and roasted alongside rivers, tasting of earth and muck and salt. There were less-rustic meals, too: simple omelettes, steaming bowls of oatmeal, roast chickens and pies. In one chapter, a character inventories the various gravies cooked for him over the course of his childhood: "Redeye gravy stained with ham drippings and spiced with coffee grounds. White gravy thick with flour; brown gravy made rich with Floral Bouquet. Bacon gravy, sausage gravy, turkey gravy -- any bone would do, any carcass stripped, simmered, the broth set to cool, the fat rising and skimmed." Never have I craved biscuits so badly. The mention of fried apples made me weak in the knees.

It was no surprise, then, that I woke this morning craving something hearty, a camping meal. I thought again of fried apples and a bowl of farina, before remembering something better. I've been saving this recipe for curried oats with caramelized onions, waiting for the right day, the perfect mood, enough time. Caramelizing onions takes a good deal of it (mine took more than an hour), so I made a large pot of coffee to keep me company. And while I watched the segments turn from white to golden to brown then black, I reflected on my recent trip to Oregon, artisan coffee, the smell of wet leaves after a good rain, leisurely drives out to Dundee, toast. I was so entranced by memories and onions, I nearly forgot the accompanying grains. Instead of oats, I opted for farina, which I spiced with cinnamon, coriander, cumin and turmeric. A little salt. Then, at last, a heaping spoonful of caramelized onions. Crunchy and sweet, they bound to the farina for perfect savory bites. It was a special meal, and it left me warm, happy, thankful.