At the heart of Portland’s red-hot food scene is Toro Bravo, a Spanish-inspired restaurant whose small plates have attracted a fiercely loyal fan base. But to call Toro Bravo a Spanish restaurant doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. For chef John Gorham, each dish reflects a time, a place, a moment. For Gorham, food is more than mere sustenance. The Toro Bravo cookbook is an honest look behind the scenes: from Gorham’s birth to a teenage mother who struggled with drug addiction, to time spent in his grandfather’s crab-shack dance club, to formative visits to Spain, to becoming a father and opening a restaurant. Toro Bravo also includes 95 of the restaurant’s recipes, from simple salads to homemade chorizo, along with an array of techniques that will appeal to both the home cook and the most seasoned, forearm-burned chef.

Shares uplifting advice about the virtues of forgiveness, offering strategic and biblically based advice on how to achieve peace and personal fulfillment by letting go of past wrongs.

"I traveled over the course of almost two years with photographer Estanis Núñez, an old friend of mine, just like we used to in our rock'n'roll days, taking photos, eating and drinking together. This book contains 14 profiles of vignerons, each of them different, spanning most of the wine-producing regions of Spain. There are others, but this is my personal selection. Their profiles talk about the history, landscape, vineyards, cuisine, passion and tradition of their region. You won't find tannins, anthocyanins, vintages, points or tasting notes here. I am hardly going to talk about wine at all. But you will find the often-forgotten human side and the context of what is in the bottle, including local cuisine (where wine plays an important role) as well as each winegrower's personal take on it. . Their main aim in life is to portray the uniqueness of their vineyards, villages and landscapes through a bottle of wine. Wine that can transport you back to the time and place it was produced the moment you drink it. These are the new vignerons. A new generation of Spanish winegrowers."