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Katherine Deumling serves breakfast to Kris Beck. (Street Roots photo)

Kaia Sand | ‘Creative, Scrappy Cooking’: A Street Roots tribute to Katherine Deumling (1973-2022)

Street Roots
Director’s Desk | Katherine’s legacy and passion for food are cherished
by Kaia Sand | 20 Jul 2022

One time it was biscuits and gravy, and another, crepes and Greek yogurt. Along the way, Katherine Deumling developed a signature Street Roots breakfast: vegetable frittata, pumpkin bread and fruit.

“My list of requests from vendors of dishes they’d like me to make is a mile long, and I so enjoy our rousing discussions about food and everything else,” Deumling wrote.

Director's Desk logo
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. This column represents her views.

She strove to accommodate many requests, biking to the Old Town office to share her “creative, scrappy cooking,” as she described it, with Street Roots vendors.

Katherine Deumling died July 12 from metastasized breast cancer.

Deumling was a cooking legend. She credited her childhood in Germany, her mother, and her fellowship years studying cooking in Italy and Mexico with laying the groundwork for her cook-with-what-you-have philosophy based on joy and justice.

Deeply involved with the international and local Slow Food movement, she served as Slow Food U.S.A. board chair. For nearly a decade and a half, she also ran Cook With What You Have, a business offering classes (I attended my fair share), employee wellness programs, and an innovative cooking site helping people use farmer’s market produce to cook seasonally.

She urged people to be kind to themselves about food.

Six people are standing shoulder to shoulder smiling and posing for a photo. In front of them is a table with a hot plate and pot to serve food.
Randy Humphreys, Katherine Deumling, Daniel Cox, Chris and Shaggy pose for a photo.
Street Roots photo

Deumling and Street Roots were a perfect match. An active reader of the paper, she would often email me about articles. She had lively conversations with vendors, discussing everything from planning barbecues to discussing how to set up a kitchen with a vendor who was moving from the street to an apartment. She worked on another project with Tina Drake — a staff member who was a vendor at the time — to create a zine of cooking tips while living on the streets. She was sometimes joined by her husband, Brian Detman and their son, Ellis.


FURTHER READING: "The moment she walked in and those smells wafted through the air, it was a 180"


“Some of the vendors are amused at my love of vegetables and vegetables for breakfast that I relentlessly serve in one form or another — often savory bread puddings or frittatas or simply roasted with a sauce,” Deumling wrote. “Even the unfamiliar dishes I serve up are usually enjoyed by most, if not all. However, crepes, pancakes, pumpkin bread and biscuits and gravy have been favorites so far.”


FURTHER READING: "As she flipped pancakes on the griddle"



 

“Everyone loved the pumpkin bread so much,” Deumling said. “I could always tell you who’s going to want three slices.”

And, oh, that pumpkin bread!

As a tribute to Deumling, we are publishing that pumpkin bread recipe here so you might bake a loaf — and raise your slice to the legacy of food, justice and kindness of Katherine Deumling. 

correction: An earlier version stated Deumling's birth year as 1973.


Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.

© 2022 Street Roots. All rights reserved.  | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404

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Street Roots Pumpkin Bread

Adapted from Smittenkitchen.com

So simple, so delicious!

  • 1 15-ounce can (1 3/4 cups) pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable or another neutral cooking oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 2/3 (330 grams) cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Heaped 1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 2 1/4 cups (295 grams) all-purpose flour

To finish:

  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

 1. Butter a 6-cup loaf pan or coat it with nonstick spray. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs and sugar until smooth. Sprinkle baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves over batter and whisk until well-combined. Add flour and stir with a spoon, just until mixed. Scrape into prepared pan and smooth the top.

2. In a small bowl, stir sugar and cinnamon together. Sprinkle over top of batter. Bake bread for 65 to 75 minutes until a tester poked into all parts of cake come out batter-free. You can cool it in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove it, or cool it completely in there.

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