A Bit of Spice in Greenwood

We're Not Here!

2010-01-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, ignore the title of the last post. Given all the changes that have gone on in our life, we're now going to be blogging at: A Bucket of Spice in Greenwood

So change your links and head on over. We'll keep this page up for a while so people can find their way to our new location, but we won't be updating here anymore.

We are still here!

2009-09-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

I disappeared for a while. This blogging is even more difficult to find time for when you are planning a wedding. I've been working 5-6 days a week, plus we are usually working on wedding stuff in the off time. This week I have my first dress fitting and a meeting with our florist. We also are sending off the invitations, finding a reading for Susan and hopefully finalizing the list for the DJ. Honestly, I don't think this will all get done this week, but we will try. If I didn't work until 8:30pm, more would get done--still, I really like my work schedule right now and I absolutely love my new job at Spa Scotta. I am starting my new, fewer hours this week, it's a good thing I am.

I like work, I love life, I adore my soon to be hubby and I've got this amazing family and group of friends to spend time with. There's so much to do in so little time and I want to do it all. I'm so blessed and so lucky! Still I am realizing I need to take more time to be still and just relax and I'm starting to see the effects of being busy ALL THE TIME. So even when I'm over the top busy, I'm approaching it a bit calmer. And I really will try hard to let go of some things, especially after our wedding. We just hired a gardener and that helps, what a relief! Can't wait to get back to walking as well, that always gives me peace of mind. It will be good to have our free time back to do what we used to do, even though this wedding planning has it's own sweet moments.

Here's some of the things we've been up to:

All my girls jumping on Lee at our End of Summer BBQ.

Fresh grilled corn, tomato and avacado salad.
Our wedding invite address party--we watched 'Bride Wars' and 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'. Hehe.
I picked at least 5 pounds of italian plums from our tree. Blanched them, peeled them, pitted them and made the best plum crumble ever!
Little apps we brought to April's house with dill chicken salad, tomatoes and gruyere.
The only thing we got from our garden this year--these two tomatoes. I'll still try again next year, it can only go up from here.
Me and a couple of co-workers at Tamara's wedding.
Caprese salad with local cheese curds and arugula.
Lee's homemade gazpacho with sour cream and avacado beads. Along with a sourdough panini filled with honey mustard, sharp white cheddar and granny smith apples. I loved dinner this evening.
Spa Scotta annual float trip in Leavenworth.

Seattle has got some of that global warming

2009-07-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

It's been warm here, for way too long. I'm not really complaining, but I also don't live here because I am a sun worshiper. I live here because I am a rain worshiper and currently we are way over the normal limit of sun that Seattle can handle in one summer. My veggie and herb garden started out the year with vigor, drinking in the sun and heat and growing by leaps and bounds. Now it's stunted, dried out (despite the fact that I water it every day) and seems to have stopped all forming life. I got out of it what I could when I could do it, now I just wait and watch it, hoping the tomatoes will turn red someday. Due to all this weather, we've been out nearly every night for a few months now so there are lot's of pictures to show you. My goal is to stay in as much as I can the next few months, or until our wedding. I need a rest. Still, I cherish all the great memories we've been making with eachother and with friends and family. Here's just a few......Lee staking our place at the Fremont Solstice Parade.
Cypress at her first dance recital.
Gabe showing me his porcine palace on the 4th of July.

The extremely large quantity of trail mix I've concocted for my road trip to Wyoming with Kimberly and the girls. I'm gonna need some help eating this.
West Seattle Street Fair.
Gabe and Katie getting ready to sell Swinery T-Shirts at the Gay Pride Parade.
Sarah came over for dinner and some wine, of course.
Lee and I at the Burning Beast in Arlington, WA.
Nice little after dinner romantic walk one warm summer evening at Golden Gardens.
Breakfast at Senor Moose with Lee's parents--always a good time.
Lot's of raw food at Anchovies and Olives.
Sarah's birthday at Harvest Vine, a favorite restaurant of Lee and I.
Katie and I eating vegetarian for the evening at Carmelita, near our house.

Weekend in San Francisco

2009-06-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

There hasn't been much cooking going on around here. I've just started a new job and Lee has his testing period at Boeing where he works crazy hours, plus May was one of the busiest months we've had in quite a while. Tonight we had KFC and Cozy Shack Rice Pudding for dinner--it's not always healthy, but it sounded kind of good. I'm excited our garden is growing by leaps and bounds, which means I'll be eating lots of vegetables this summer and from our own garden. It looks better this year than last and I've got lots of ideas for next years garden to make it better, such as an irrigation system and different varieties of veggies. Maybe I'll grow that green thumb yet.

Lee and I haven't been away from Seattle since la

st October and I don't remember the last time I haven't gone anywhere for that long. So what is close, a big city and some place I've never been before? San Francisco! We took a quick trip down there last weekend and it was just what I needed. To get away, relax, be alone with my honey, eat lots of seafood, see some new things and feel very excited to come back home. We really liked it for the most part, not sure we'd go back since there are so many places we love and more we'd like to see. I think we saw

the majority of that huge city in 2 days, but we are a good team and seem to like doing similar things, so it makes traveling easy.

I don't know if Lee and I have this amazing good luck angel hanging above us when it comes to food, but we had another great experience. We dined at the 2 star Michael Mina restaurant and had an incredible meal, probably the second best meal next to Joel Robuchon. Lee asked for a copy of the menu when we were done eating, which he usually does at fine restaurants where we have a memorable meal--it's like a little picture of our evening that we will ne

ver forget. Very romantic I think. Well, this evening in San Francisco Michael Mina himself happened to be cooking in the kitchen. This is very rare for such a well known chef who has several other restaurants and is somewhat of a celebrity in the chef-y world to be cooking in their own kitchen. Our waiter asked us if we'd like our menu signe

d and of course we said yes, then asked if we'd like to meet him! So we went back to the kitchen, yes we did, and met Michael Mina and made small talk-found out he is from Ellensburg and found he's a really nice guy. Most people look up to athletes or actors or whatnot, but my guilty pleasur

e is following well known chefs. I do watch Top Chef, and way too much of the Food Network, so this was a fun experience for me.

My new job at Spa Scotta is so great! It's so great that it d

oesn't feel like I'm working. I can actually talk to my friends and have lunch with them on breaks, we can go for coffee (!!), I have input in all the decisions that are made and no one watches over my shoulder, I get to listen to and dance to every fabulous 80's song, plus I still touch tootsies and love on people all day. I realize these things are normal for most people, but I've been working for a large corporation for many years now and laughing and

hanging out and having large amounts of input in the company weren't possible. It's incredibly refreshing and I am happier than ever at work.

Some of the places we went to eat in San Fran were John's Grill, Boudin, R@G Lounge, Michael Mina, Quince, Buena Vista, Ghiradelli Chocolate Shop and the crab vendors at Fisherman's Wharf.

Best Memorial Day Weekend Ever

2009-05-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a great one of Katie modeling my Mom's Roberto Cavalli jeans with Swarovski Crystals that she bought in Europe. I think they are very Eurotrash so I had a lot of fun making people try them on--now I'm selling them on Ebay!

Lee and David BBQing.

This is the kitchen storage unit Lee built so we can make room for cooking. It has rollers so we can move our cooking station around the kitchen.This is Lee and I at the University District Street Fair-the official weekend start to every summer.

This past weekend was awesome. The weather was so amazing and I think Lee and I got more done in one weekend than we ever thought was possible. We went to the Abney Park concert on Friday night--a steampunk band that we love. Lee was being an assistant DJ at 89.5 last Sunday since he made a donation to them last year and Abney Park ended up showing up at the studio for an interview, which made the concert even more cool. On Saturday we went to a BBQ at our friends house on Capitol Hill, we really like that neighborhood. Sunday was our day to landscape our front parking space, and 33 bags of beauty bark later, we were finally done. On Monday we had a huge BBQ ourselves, complete with both beef and dork (duck and pork) sliders, handmade lumpia (Filipino eggrolls) and Mexican Coca-Cola (no high fructose corn syrup). We also did a little retail therapy this weekend for a few things we've been wanting for quite a while since we have now sold the condo. We bought a new TV for the bedroom, a BBQ and a Playstation 3. In addition, we got a wine fridge from my Dad-it's our first wedding gift.

I've also found my second favorite restaurant in Seattle--Quinn's. It's up on Cap Hill as well. Harvest Vine is my number one restaurant so far. There are so many to choose from and many that I really like, but for some reason I really like the food at Quinn's. It's unique, but it's pub food (well, high end pub food) and I crave it all the time. This last time we went we had the foie gras terrine (while the foie gras protesters were right outside the window!), the pork belly cobb salad, the oyster po boy, the poutine with veal demi glace, fonduata and 3 oz of foie gras on top, the meatballs with polenta and the asparagus with poached duck egg. Yum!

Pictures from our big auction dinner

2009-05-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

Goat Cheese Quenelle with a Black Pepper Strawberry Sauce and an Almond Tuile
Short Ribs Braised in Coffee and Wine served over Polenta with Frizzled Leeks. A Salad of Fennel, Pecorino and Grapefruit on the side.
Cube of Watermelon with Aged Balsamic and Kosher Salt.
Tomato Tartar with a Gruyere Chip, Basil Oil and Shallot Dressing.
Our Send Home Mignardise of a Caramel Salt, Chocolate and Sea Salt Covered Pretzel.
Tempura Fried Shiso Leaf with Tuna Tartar.
Fried Pork Belly with a Garlic Herb Coulis.
Gougeres Stuffed with Crab, Avacado and Chives.
Our Menu Printed By Kimberly.

The dinner was great! We had so much fun planning and are excited to do it again next year. I'm thinking miniature comfort foods, hmmm.

Practice Makes Perfect

2009-04-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

A gougere, stuffed with crab, avacado and a mixture of heavenly things.

Roasting tomatoes for the Tomato Tartar from 'Happy In The Kitchen'. A beautiful book by Michel Richard.

Lee and I did a test run for the charity dinner we will be cooking for in a couple of weeks. I don't like to go into things blindly, at least when I'm serving a bunch of people that paid good money for a fabulous dinner. Thankfully, Lee feels the same way, plus it's really fun for us to plan these dinners out and cook together. I'll post more pictures and the official menu after the actual dinner on May 2nd, but for now, here are a few of them to let you know how it all went the 'first time around'. We did a good job, but it took a lot of prep and hard work. And love of course.

The colorful Le Creuset pots on our stove. We made a special trip up to the Marysville outlet mall to get another of the shallow yellow pans that April let us borrow.

I picked fresh flowers from our garden and put them above our new wine cabinet. On the wall is our personalized menu from Joel Robuchon, the first and only 3 star restaurant we've been to. I plan on going to another on our honeymoon!

This is the mignardise I made, hoping I'll get to make these for our wedding favors if I can perfec them. It's a salt caramel chocolate covered pretzel, a bit savory since I don't like super sweet things.

In the food processor, a mixture of herbs to be added to some olive oil. This will be served alongside the deep fried pork belly amuse bouche.

I'm a slacker

2009-04-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

My posts are getting fewer and far between, but I'm still here, still busy and still doing VERY well. Consider busy as being good for me, because it really is. I might be looking forward to writing my novel when I'm 70 and therefore not writing so much at 34, or that's how I like to think of it.

The place that Lee and I met through, Culinary Communion, closed a few weeks ago. It was really sad to see them end, but they had a great run and my culinary skills have flourished. I've made friends upon friends and traveled through France. And of course, I was introduced to Lee by these friends, so they will forever have a special place in my heart. They ended up having a sale in order to move on with a lighter load of cooking supplies and I scored a fabulous omelet pan that I've been using nearly every day with fresh eggs from April's chickens. I had the most incredible breakfast this morning! A still warm croissant from Cafe Besalu, in my opinion they have the best croissants I've ever sunk my teeth into. Some Oikos Greek Yogurt with honey on the bottom. And to top it off, a fried egg from April's chickens. I think it was the perfect breakfast, I love eggs for breakfast!

We celebrated Easter with Dad and Step-mom who came to visit from Michigan. I made up a scalloped potato dish with goat cheese, sauteed criminis, herbs and roasted garlic. Turned out really well (very rich though). We also went on a wine tour of Oregon, and since I've never been on a wine tour before, it was a learning experience. The food and restaurants in the Willamette Valley were so good, very fresh and local. The wine?? Well, I'm not so sure I like Oregon, or for that much, any New World wines. At all. I'm sticking with my French and Italian reds until I find something just as good. I also have a suggestion for the wineries offering tastings--serve some water and snacks. That might help with the headaches and drunkedness. It's good we did this trip--I did feel a little weird about being a food lover from Seattle that had never been on a wine tasting trip.

We are hoping to sell the condo, so keep your fingers crossed. We've got a wedding to pay for! :) I'll post some pictures of the big charity dinner Lee and I are doing for Schmitz Park Elementary. Should be really fun.

Spring Cleaning

2009-03-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

Hi guys. I know I don't blog much anymore and I'm sorry about that, but I really just haven't felt like sitting down at the computer lately. That's what happens when the weather gets better and your computer decides to die, making every move extremely slow--and I have to admit I don't have much patience for slow technology. If I have to wait 5 minutes for my computer to get online, I'm already off and doing something else around the house and when it does finally function, I'm just not feeling it anymore. Someday I will get myself a pretty Mac laptop, but that will take some saving on my part. So until then, I'll spend time reading, watching movies and enjoying life.

This past month I've accomplished quite a bit--got a beautiful wedding dress for myself, fitted all my bridesmaids in cute 50's style black dresses, spring cleaned the whole house, worked in the yard, started training for my job tending suites for the Sounders games at Qwest (yes, I'll have two jobs now), spent lots of time cooking and planning for our big auction dinner in May and did lot's of pedicures outside of work. I'd also like to add that although I'm kind of exhausted from the time change, I haven't been sick since October of '08. This is big for me because I get sick every time someone around me is sick, and I've been around sick kids and sick co-workers, and yet, I've been super healthy. I have this wacko idea that someone told me once to put vaseline in your nose to prevent colds since we get many colds through the cracked veins in our nostrils. I've been doing this and it seems to have worked. I know Lee is laughing at me right now. It's cooky.

I had my first attempt at homemade pasta this month and it was.....chewy. It was really good and I could eat it every day, but it wasn't delicate or light as some pasta is. I did roll it out thin, but I don't think I know how to get it lighter, so I'll have to keep trying. I made a mexican coleslaw with cabbage, onion, cilantro, avacado, mango, jalepeno and a yogurt dressing. Very tasty, but after eating it for leftovers 4 days in a row, I don't think I'll be eating that again any time soon. I tend to make too much, but I try not to, and I simply can't throw food away until I can't stand to look at it anymore. And even then, I might make something else out of it. I made a whole wheat crust pizza with kale, mushrooms and goat cheese. I like the Trader Joe's whole wheat crust best. And I made paninis with turkey, sundried tomatoes, arugula and swiss. I could eat like 10 of those.

Yesterday I finally made it to Pies and Pints--I've always wanted to go so I was super excited. The ads in the Stranger, my favorite local paper, show ladies all tattooed and pierced presenting you with lovely pies in their hands. It's an Irish that serves beer and pies, but pies as in chicken pot pie, and lamb potato pie and beef curry pie. With optional beer cheese smothered on top. And it comes with homemade soup, which was corn jalepeno. They also serve mini reubens in puff pastry with a side of Russian dressing and mustard. And for dessert?? Yes, it's Guinness cake. I was in heaven. You've got to go if you come up our way--I'm drooling now.

What's in Our Bellys

2009-02-19T22:28:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's another installment of Kelley's Food Photography because it seems that we've had a lot of parties to go to lately at other peoples houses, or we are just cooking at home. I've been doing some spring cleaning since the weather has been so beautiful and I even saw some flowers out today and new bulbs coming up. Yay for spring!

Avgolemono soup I made from Food and Wine Magazine. It's very easy and one of Lee's favorite soups. Also, there is no cream, milk or oil in here, yet it's a creamy looking soup because I pureed the brown rice I put into it. Interesting way to thicken soups or not use milk.

This is a pasta I made based on one we had at Sitka and Spruce. It's one of my favorite I've ever made or had out--it's got red cabbage, shitake mushrooms and goat cheese. This isn't the best picture, but the combo is really excellent.

This is the box of chocolates Lee got me for Valentine's, along with a very sweet love letter in the Stranger. I think it's the prettiest box of chocolates I've ever seen!

Nutella tart I made for April's Valentine's Day party. It was an organ meat party with lots of pate and foie gras. So good!

A huge platter of chocolate covered strawberries--I think eating these says Valentine's Day to me. Even if strawberries aren't in season.Jello shots that Lee made in strawberry, rasberry and mixed berry--made with Vampire Vodka.

This perfectly crusty, chewy and soft bread is not from France or from a local bakery--it's from April's oven. I was shocked, but I gues if you bake the bread in a dutch oven and do it correctly, it really can turn out like this.
Foie Gras on a rosemary waffle with Calvados ice cream. Yum.

Super Bowl Munchies

2009-02-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

I had the glorious goal of making a fabulous goat cheese cheesecake with a cherry balsamic glaze for our Super Bowl party, but the best part of that ended up being the lovely picture. Yes, it looks good, but don't be decieved--it tasted like cardboard. Very dry, overcooked and pretty awful. The cherry balsamic glaze was very good, but without the cheesecake to go with it, I got frustrated and ended up throwing it out this morning. I WILL try again!! I also never received the cheese curds from Wisconsin. I failed to read the shipping rules and apparently it only takes 2 days to get them if you live in Wisconsin. So we are still waiting on them and I've prepped for poutine, possibly the worst thing you can ingest, but definitely one of the tastiest. And you can only get the good stuff in Canada, unless you are willing to make it yourself, so that's what I do. Sounds illegal, but it's not.

We had other excellent hits, like pigs in a blanket, Lee's guacamole, old family recipe of artichoke dip and April's famous pulled pork mini sliders. I had a good time watching the commercials and I'm fairly sure that was the highlight for most people, although it was a good game. We also had a great salad the other night with roasted chili chicken, granny smith apples, some really stinky blue cheese, lemon and arugula. I really love warm chicken fresh out of the oven on a cold salad.

Tonight I'm going to work and then a party at Culinary Communion that showcases their trips to France, Italy and Germany, plus they will be serving local foods from those regions. I'm going as 'one that has already been on the France trip' with CC, so I guess I'll tell people how much I loved it. Should I leave out the fact that you can meet the love of your life through these sorts of adventures?? That would be quite the pitch and I'm not sure Gabe and Katie want to travel with ten single women looking for love. Could make an interesting reality TV show though.

Issues with Eggplant

2009-01-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

I just have to tell you that right now I'm roasting vegetables. This is supposed to be a level one, easy culinary task and yet I can't seem to get it right. One of my favorite veggies is eggplant and the reason why I only eat it when I'm at a restaurant is because I can't seem to cook it correctly. Right now the majority of my veggies are roasting well, but the eggplant has turned to mush and not only that, but it's sticking so badly to the pan that there is no way to salvage it anyway. And yes, I coated it in oil before baking. So frustrating! So once again, I'll have to order eggplant at all Chinese and Indian restaurants until I get it correct.

Lee's Dad, Terry, had his birthday this week so we invited the family over for a really simple, but tasty dinner. I had just gotten off work so the dinner had to be quick, and I found a great way to throw dinner together quickly while still having a homemade meal with a few courses. Now I couldn't do it without Lee prepping everything before and helping out, but together we can whip out dinner in a minute. This should come in handy in the future. We had traditional swiss fondue with apples and bread, green beans with shallots and pinenuts, endive 'bowls' with beet and blue cheese salad inside and Lee's famous bananas foster for dessert. I tried to get a picture of him lighting it on fire, but I must have been caught up in the moment, so I just got a picture of him after the fact. It was very French and I always love being with Lee's family, my soon to be in-laws. I'm very lucky.

We had an excellent cheese plate this week, you all know this is my favorite food. I also went to the How How shopping center on 12th and Jackson--it's the less expensive version of Uwajimaya. I got a ton of things I haven't tried before (like fresh water chesnuts) and came out with two full bags of food for $18, which is pretty good these days.....but, it took me an hour to get through the line and there were so many people pushing me and staring at me that I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon. It was sort a big ordeal, but it was definitely a good way to save a buck-and I made some amazing chow mein and stir frys out of it. That's one thing I've always wanted to do checked off my list.

This weekend we are having a Super Bowl party and I wasn't planning on making anything at all, but instead have a potluck, and well, I'm sure you all know how that is turning out. I can't help myself--I really do love cooking. My friend, Kyleen, and I got on this goat cheese kick and now I'm attempting to make a goat cheese cheesecake with a cherry balsamic sauce. I'm making up the recipe, so we shall see how this goes. Then I started thinking about other things and now I've got this whole menu of stuff I want to make--I even lost my mind temporarily and am having some fresh Wisconsin cheese curds sent to me by mail. They better get here before the super bowl!

I am now guest blogging for a Greenwood blog and my first entry was a review of Gainsbourg, one of our favorite new places. Check it out here: http://www.greenwoodblog.com/archives/213

A Walk Around Greenwood

2009-01-15T14:43:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite things to do on my day off is to take a walk around my neighborhood. Lately I've been working nights and the weather has been nice, so I've gotten to do my walks more often. I walked out the door this morning with a light hoodie and a knit hat, and after a couple blocks of slow jogging I was so warm that the rest of my walk was nearly balmy. Winter in Seattle is the absolute best time to walk!

There were a lot of things I wanted in a neighborhood when we were looking for homes and one of the most important was to be within walking distance to parks, grocery stores, the library, restaurants and anything I might need to visit doing everyday errands. And when I say walking distance, I mean within a couple of blocks. I like knowing that if I need a cup of coffee or a late night drink and happy hour, that I can walk there and back within 10 minutes. In a weird way this has always made me feel safe, which is probably why I never felt at home or why I thought that I was the crazy lady in town when I lived in more rural areas. My Mom always felt safer living in the boonies and having a car to get away, or perhaps a gas mask or two (love ya, Mom). I feel safe knowing that if something really awful happens and our world is going down quickly, I can head down the street to buy some groceries and die surrounded by others. Maybe we'll sing songs and and reminisce about when the earth had humans on it, but at least we won't be alone. So it may be sort of morbid, but I'm not one to be afraid of death, and living in the urban core of a city makes me feel safest. I know, I know, you are all wondering how I lasted so long in Montana and Wyoming. Honestly, humans can adapt to anything, but I'm just really happy I found where I belong in my 30's. Could be worse.

I took pictures of some of the cutest homes I walked by and Sandel Park, which is a great local park with lots of swings. Then I headed to the store to pick up some tortillas and onions for making enchiladas this afternoon. Headed over to the library to get a book they had on hold for me. I took my time to notice how pretty it is here in the winter--almost like spring is in the air. Then I came home to see that there was a plane that went down in the Hudson River, and it truly is a miracle that everyone survived. Now I'm done with those enchiladas, which happen to be low carb and low fat--we shall see how that goes. You all know I'm not into that kind of stuff, but I've got our wedding coming up and I'm not paying the photographer that kind of money to take pictures of me busting out of my dress. Wait a minute, even if I do lose a few pounds, I'll still be busting out of my dress. Anyway, I'm just trying to eat a little healthier, no big changes and if Lee takes me out to a wonderful restaurant, I'm still eating something fabulous. And if I go on vacation, then I'm going to enjoy myself to the fullest. But I'm trying, a bit. I even made a no sugar, whole wheat pumpkin cake yesterday and everyone at work said it was amazing and ate it up quickly. I think I have a talent for cooking healthy, but I also know how good things can taste, so I'm always comparing it to the best of the best. Just don't make me eat light yogurt with that fake sugar--soooo gross.

The Planning Has Begun

2009-01-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

I thought you might like this picture of Lee. Last night he babysat my godchild, Ryan, and I met him when I got off work just in case he needed me to help out (aka diaper changing). As usual, he found a way to entertain himself by writing no less than 25 phrases on Ryan's Magna-doodle. I am so thankful she's not able to read yet, to say the least. I chose the tamest of the words he wrote---but he did crack me up all night.
We went to the University District Farmers Market on Saturday and found quite a bit more than I had thought was growing in the winter, this is typically the 'chef's' weekly market because of the abundance of local fruits and veggies. There are even two mushroom stands with beautiful black trumpets out this week. And today we went to the Ballard Sunday Market, which is typically the one we go to, and checked out the colorful potatoes and kale (one of my favorite veggies, by far). And the newest and best arrival to the markets?? There is this lady who makes fried egg sandwiches with local eggs, cheese and fresh bread--this is possibly the perfect breakfast, so I'm happy she set up shop.

I edited and added a few links to the right of here as well. The Slog is the Capital Hill and alternative news source that I've been getting plenty of my news lately. Nancy Matthews Blog is a personal blog of a high school friend of mine who recently had a double lung transplant due to cystic fibrosis--it's just amazing to see the progress she is making. The New York Times, All Recipes and Epicurious are some of my favorite websites.

And wedding planning well underway, thanks to all the help I've got from sisters and mom's and Lee and friends and so on. We've got the reception and ceremony site, the photographer, the florist and the honeymoon place. Oh, and I've got the groom. That's the most important part.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and everything else that has happened in the last month.

2009-01-05T11:48:00.001-08:00

I had the perfect opportunity and plenty of time to blog for a good week during the Seattle winter storm of '08, but some horrible alien invaded my computer and I got my first virus. I found out quickly that I can live without TV and movies and music, but living without a computer is much harder than I had imagined. So instead of blogging or just looking up every question I ever wanted answered, I hung out at home with Lee and watched movies, played games, talked a whole lot. I don't like the snow at all, but I must say that being snowed in with Lee made it much better and aside from simply getting cabin fever, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Being stuck with your best friend isn't so bad, and we laughed a lot. I heart Lee.

So Christmas was very laid back, even with home made gifts since we couldn't get out to go shopping. And New Year's was at El Gaucho with friends and then off to a party at Culinary Communion. Now we are off to a new year--which always puts me in a good mood-and I'll be celebrating my 34th birthday in a few days. I think we are going out for sushi at Maschiko, which I haven't had in soooo long.

We've been doing quite a bit of cooking and also Lee surprised me after work one evening and took me to Poppy. I've been wanting to go there for quite a while. Jerry Traunfeld is the chef and he used to be the chef at the Herb Farm, probably the best place to eat in this area during the 90's and early 2000's. Anyway, I always wanted to try his food or at least meet him. To my surprise, since chefs of his caliber don't actually cook at their own restaurants, he was cooking the night we went to Poppy. I compare this to going to the French Laundry and having Thomas Keller actually behind the line that evening (this kind of thing never happens). Although Jerry is not Thomas Keller, but anyway. I got a shot of him in the kitchen on the sly then he came out to talk to us and signed our menu for me. He's a very small guy, tiny, and I asked all the questions--Lee and Kyleen just sat there and didn't know what to say. My review? Well, it was really unique. Odd pickles and relishes, a very bitter endive salad, excellent short ribs and a grapefruit/avacado/shrimp salad that stole the show. It all had an Indian flavor undertone, and the best thing there are the appetizers and the desserts by Dana Cree. I really liked it, but it was so interesting that you wouldn't necessarily crave those flavors often. Next up for Lee and I? A special trip to Rover's for the Grand Degustation--my Christmas gift from him.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the past few weeks. My adorable niece Cypress, some friends from CC at a party, apps we made in class and a dark pic of Jerry Traunfeld.

Stuffing Stockings

2008-12-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

My future Mother-in-law, Ginny, invited us all to stuff stockings yesterday for the local shelters and homeless kids around Seattle. She had the largest division with over 500 stockings filled! We had so much fun and of course it felt good to give back as well. Last year I volunteered to tutor kids in low income housing projects and I loved it, but it became too difficult for me to do once a week with my own work schedule, taking classes and having a new home so I had to stop doing it after a year. I am now looking for some volunteering activity that is perhaps once a month or I can sign up on days I know I'm free, so that's one of my goals for this next year. Remember, New Year's Resolutions are coming up soon. I've always like New Years Resolutions, it's a time to re-evaluate and see if there are things you can do better in the year to come--it makes me feel good to know I'm actively working on myself and making note of it.

We've got our spa Christmas party at our house tonight so I made my very first gingerbread cake with cream cheese frosting. We'll see how that tastes tonight. I also made one of my favorite pasta salads with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and arugula, but this time I added some salami and extra basil as well. We like it because it's so tangy. I made truffles this week with Sarah and Morgan--Caramel salt, oreo, toffee, kahlua and peanut butter. I'm terrible at making them, despite them tasting good, and I will never make them again. What a pain in the butt!! They are ugly too. Really ugly. The lasagna recipe I promised to report on turned out to be incredible and now my current favorite lasagna and the one I will use from now on. Some of the secrets to it were less noodles, both beef and pork, three kinds of cheese, fresh herbs, red wine and lots of good tomatoes. I also simmered the sauce for 3 hours before I even got started on the assembly of it--it was so good!

I'll be student assisting in a couple of CC classes this week so I'll take pictures and report on what we make. That is if I can get through the snow to get over to Beacon Hill. Happy Holidays!

Celia's Gingerbread House

2008-12-08T11:29:00.001-08:00

Celia and I made a date to build a Gingerbread house this week. For a kid that can't buy all the candy in the world she wants, this is a time where she can pick out all the candy she's ever wanted to try and not have to then go and eat it all. Which is why there isn't much of the actual gingerbread part of the house you can actually see. Still, it's very cute. Celia and Cypress went to see Santa this week as well and although Cypress doesn't cry anymore, she still looks terrified of Santa. I can see that--I mean he's sort of strange and he gets all up in your face and he might have terrible breath. So glad I'm an adult and my Santa sitting days are over. And I know my hair is pink, for those of you that haven't seen me in a while, it's supposed to be that way.

We had a great dinner this week of steaks and arugula with some excellent blue cheese from PFI. I'll be making a new lasagne recipe tomorrow night and give pics and and update. This is also a pic of the beautiful sunsets we've been having lately.

Also, we've made it to the dodgeball showdown -not sure how that happened-but that will be tonight on KBUTT Channel 5. Don't bother looking for it.

Marathons, tattoos and carbonara!! Oh my!

2008-12-04T11:47:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving went smoothly this year, not too much work and pretty relaxing if you ask me. Lee and I made the majority of food for dinner, but family members brought things like pies and wine and salads which helped a ton. We made two turkeys, seared duck, spanish scalloped potatoes, kale with bacon, mushroom and sausage stuffing and mushroom soup. Everything was so good--aside from the fact that I'm not a big fan of turkey unless it comes on a sandwich, so I didn't eat much of that. I did, however, eat my weight in pumpkin pie, caramel apple pie, cherry pie, pumpkin cheesecake, creamy jello yumminess that doesn't have a name and pecan pie. Then, I snacked on those things and more carbs before the Seattle Half Marathon, you know to do the carbo load thing. Which gave me the energy to finish the half marathon, Yay! I did it in under 4 hours and that included waiting in line 20 minutes for the porta potty. Horrible. Yuck. I am proud of myself and for me, it was harder than the triathalon I did a few years ago. The constant pounding on the pavement with no stopping or stretching and going as fast as you can was pretty rough on me. Apparently the banana and protein bars I ate weren't enough because later that day (after a tasty Guinness) I nearly passed out from low blood sugar and thank goodness Lee was there to take care of me for the rest of the day. I was pretty much out of it for a good 24 hours. Live and learn, I guess. So I'd like to say the half marathon was successful, but I wish I hadn't gotten sick.

Lee got his second tattoo from Josh at Slave to the Needle, best tattoo shop in Seattle! It's the Douglas crest and it looks so good-- Josh is a great artist. And I've finally figured out what I want for my next one as well-took me a while. Don't ask--you'll see pics when I get it done.

We've been making some really good pasta dishes lately. Katie came over and made us spaghetti with a traditional meat sauce. I never ate spaghetti or red sauces growing up-my Mom didn't really like them and so I never knew how good they could be--now I crave red sauce all the time. I also made the best carbonara I've ever had, better than any restaurant and even what I had in Italy. I took some spaghetti we got at the Ballard market, imported from Italy, and added fresh local eggs, parmesan, cream, pepper, Gabe's guanciale cut into lardons, criminis sauteed in white wine and peas. Now I know traditionally it doesn't have peas or mushrooms, but that's how I like it. And fresh eggs and pancetta or guanciale make all the difference. It's a hearty meal, but I can't stand ordering it when we go out because it's always got that awful, pasty, heavy, no taste cream sauce and old eggs and oscar meyer bacon. I pretty much stay away from cream sauces in restaurants--they don't do a very good job at making it.

Merry Christmas!

2008-11-19T22:57:00.001-08:00

Check it out! The decorating begins the day after Halloween in this household. That may change in the future because Lee thinks it's a little insane. Like he said, I'm on Nordstrom time. How can you not like the twinkly lights of the Christmas tree? Putting it up the day after Thanksgiving simply wouldn't give me enough time to enjoy it. Lee and I buy a new ornament every year to add to the memories--we already got this years. From the game store, of course!

Something to Blog About

2008-11-12T17:45:00.000-08:00

I've got big news this week...... Lee asked me to marry him! And I said 'Yes'! I feel like there's been a party going on around me ever since it happened. It's fun, and it only happens once in a lifetime, so I'm enjoying it. Mostly, I want to marry that boy. Sometimes people grab my hand before I can tell them I'm engaged, I'm sure they mean well, but it's a little frightening.

He was very romantic about it all--we went to one of my favorite restaurants, The Harvest Vine, and probably had the best meal I've had there. There was this wonderful white albacore with a tangy sauce and little peppers, a great bottle of Rioja, some seared foie gras and a wonderful sweet and savory desert with little bits of brunoised cheese on it, amongst other dishes. After dinner we went to get coffee at our favorite coffee place, Victrola. Then we took a little walk around Capital Hill, the neighborhood where we spend a lot of time when we met. On our way home, we went for a drive, something we typically do after date nights, so I wasn't thinking anything big was going to happen. Lee took me up to Kerry Park which overlooks the whole city of Seattle and began saying the sweetest things, but still, Lee is wonderful about saying sweet things so I still didn't have a clue even though I was teary eyed. I really didn't know he was asking me to marry him until he got down on one knee and actually proposed. It was wonderful. One of the best days of my life.

We are working out wedding details, but it should be a big party, a celebration and something we are gonna have a ton of fun at. My new ring got a workout this week with me cooking for a full Gypsy dinner, playing dodgeball and doing pedicures at work. I worked my very first Gypsy--a multi course, very formal dinner over at Culinary Communion. I have no desire to be a chef after seeing what they go through, but still love being the cook and having my little projects.

Also, on election night (Yay Obama!!) we made a meal of frites, aiolli, pumpkin soup and a beet and arugula salad--yum. Made the night even better.

Halloween

2008-11-02T16:28:00.000-08:00

This year since we've got this new home we love, we decided to have a Halloween party. A pirate Halloween party, that is. Lee was the Dread Pirate Robert from 'Princess Bride' and I was your everyday Wench. We had tons of candles and a net strung over the bathroom, cobwebs everywhere and rats and scary cats--the best decoration of all was Kimberly's pirate ship pumpkin. She's so talented! Halloween is my second favorite holiday, Christmas is my first, so you can guarantee that I'm smiling almost all of November and December. I love the twinkly lights, the smell of baking, the brisk weather, the cheer, the mistletoe, the Christmas music, the mushroom season, the festivities downtown, the family gatherings, the cooking, the cuddling, and I could name 100 other reasons I love this season. And I'm one of those crazy people that start decorating for
Christmas right after the Halloween decorations come down.

Pumpkin Everything

2008-10-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well, this weeks food theme was pumpkin. Now that I know how easy it is to cut a pumpkin in half, bake it, puree it and make a tasty pumpkin mess that is ten times better than that stuff you buy in a can in the store, now I'm totally into doing anything and everything with it. Sarah and I made pumpkin ravioli this week with a brown butter sage sauce and toasted hazelnuts, and a side of broccolini fresh from the Ballard Sunday market. Then I made toasted pumpkin seeds--the key to a good pumpkin seed is to boil them in salted water before baking them. Now I'm on to making pumpkin soup for our Halloween party on Friday. And if I get a chance, pumpkin bread will be this week as well. I guess I'm surprised at how inexpensive sugar pumpkins are and how much pulp I get from one pumpkin. Tasty, nutritious, cheap and easy to prepare. And now I can do this with ALL squash--very exciting in my world.

Work has been very slow for me lately, turns out being in a luxury business isn't so good when the economy is bad. And on the other hand, Lee has been working a ton of overtime, not that it's his choice. Therefore, I haven't seen much of him lately which makes me a little lonely. So I'm filling my time with walking and friends and cooking, getting lots of errands done and working in the yard. Today I bought a new pair of running shoes for when I walk the half marathon. They tested me on the treadmill, then tested where I place pressure on my feet and then filmed the way I walk to show me how I walk like a duck. Apparently my feet are all messed up, pronated and need serious repair. I could have told you this because I always get blisters and currently have plantar faciatis, but I just work through it and walk even more and eventually it gets better. I mean what else am I going to do?! Sit down all day and prop my feet up and watch soaps? I don't think so. So I got these shoes, and the insoles are more expensive than an average pair of shoes in my closet. But....I'm telling you, it's worth it. I could already tell I'm walking better, any pain is completely gone and they feel like heaven. So worth it, considering I will be walking a long, long way.

This is a picture of the last performance Lee had playing Rock Band with his loyal fan Sarah beside him. His X Box died the next day. Very sad day for him, and I never even got to play one song on the new Rock Band list.

Crab Feed

2008-10-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

Every year I look forward to my Mom's crab feed. It's the only time I can eat as much dungeness crab as my heart desires, enjoy it as long as I want and get as messy as I possibly can doing it. Hopefully since I'm my Mom's daughter I always get invited, but there is usually a different crowd every year, which is possibly why I eat like this could be the last time I will ever have crab. I was in charge of making the salad this year, my Mom always bakes fresh bread with lots of garlic butter and we chow down. Apparently my salad was a hit this year--probably because it's somewhat seasonal and goes well with crab. I started with a layer of butter lettuce, topped by some arugula, grapefruit, avocado and homemade honey poppyseed dressing. I'm thinking it could use some pistachios, or pomegranate seeds when winter really kicks in.

I was jealous of Lee's huge crab pile. He spent a good hour on all the hard work of getting it all out and I thought I should take a picture of his masterpiece. And no casualties either, unlike clumsy me who sliced her finger open.

As for dinner this evening? It's a trip to Mr. Gyros for us. Tasty, quick and cheap--plus it's supporting our 'hood.

Joel Robuchon

2008-10-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we went to Vegas and of course we had a ton of fun gambling and seeing shows and laying by the pool, but the highlight for me was dining at Joel Robuchon, my first 3 Michelin Star restaurant experience. It was worth every penny and I think I have a new addiction, or at least a goal in mind for every few years. This is something that everyone who loves food should do at least once in their lifetime--it's really an experience you won't forget. There is no need for more than once glass of wine because you feel drunk and high from being so happy and well taken care of. We did the tasting menu and although every course was unique and wonderful, my favorite was the caviar course. I never liked caviar before this and now I will seek out the best. There was also a beautiful pumpkin gnocchi that was amazing. I would say Joel had a theme of gold and foam, which doesn't sound appetizing, but was really quite tasty. The decor was a combination of masculine and feminine with black and pink being the primary colors. We were treated like kings and queens, with about 6 waiters to our table. The man, or I should say my man, was the only one who got the menu with the prices and when we left all the ladies recieved a gift of lemon pound cake to take home. I'm still enjoying this and thinking of the experience with each slice of cake. Yumm. And what a great way to make the experience last!Aside from dining well, we barely slept and Lee seems to have a knack for gambling. Although I knew this was the case--he's not only lucky, but extremely intelligent and good with numbers. So I would go lose the money and he'd spend all night making it back, therefore the poor guy didn't get a wink all weekend. But we did come out even and got a lot of game playing in. He made all my lost money back and rubbed my sore feet every night--he really is the best guy on earth. We were starving when we got off the plane and into Seattle, so we took the comfort food route and headed to Senor Moose in Ballard for some homemade chilequiles. Lee fellfast asleep on the table.

And in other news, since going to Maschiko gets expensive, we made sushi last week. It's so easy, even the tempura roll. And aside from perfecting the sushi rice, which I have yet to do, I got my sushi craving fixed. For under $25, and serving at least 4 people stuffing themselves silly. Yay!

So glad fall is here

2008-10-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite time of the year. It's perfect walking weather, all of the great veggies are being harvested, Halloween decorations come out and the sun looks amazing on the city of Seattle. It's also the time when I want to cook more, spend less time and money eating out and watch all the movies I haven't seen for the last 6 months. This week I made a potato gratin from white potatoes and several cheeses I had remnants of from our fridge, amongst other goodies. We also had some haricots verts with tomato, garlic, walnuts and basil. Both really good. And in the interest of saving money, we are making sushi this evening. We love going to Maschiko over in West Seattle, but inevitably come out a couple hundred dollars in the hole (yes, I know that's expensive for a regular sushi habit, but it's the best sushi around). So I learned how to make Hajime's (the chef/owner of Maschiko) sushi rice and will be making my favorite rolls this evening with Sarah and Lee. I have a lovely hunk of sashimi grade ahi and some excellent crab. My favorite roll? It's called The Red Violin. Ahi, Siracha, Cilantro and avacado. I crave this probably more than anything I've ever had cravings for.

Meghan and Andy's wedding was this past week and it was beautiful. She looked unreal and we are so happy for them. Now they get to go to Italy and France and live it up as newlyweds-- so romantic.

Cypress's 4th birthday party is also this week. She had a Zoo theme and got all toys. You know, those first few years of life you get a lot of educational gifts and clothes and things you perhaps need more than want. Maybe because you don't really know what you want the first few years of your life. But this year she got all toys, and it was so fun to see her open all those cool things that I would have been so excited to get and play with as a kid. There isn't much sense to any of it, but it's just so much fun to play. Hey, Lee still get's Transformers. It's really kind of adorable.

Just a few more days until Vegas. It's 85 degrees there so I plan on reading a book poolside, gambling, exploring and eating well. I also signed up officially for the half marathon today. Looks like the route is from Seattle Center to the U District. I'm a little nervous, but also excited.

Breakfast slider

2008-09-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

We hosted a wedding shower for Meghan yesterday and had a few leftovers so I decided to play like it was the day after Thanksgiving today. Yesterday we had goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in proscuitto, roasted chicken, fennel and apple salad with gorgonzola, tomato pie, freshly baked rolls and russian cream with berries. So...today I took those great little rolls and made myself the best breakfast ever. A 2 1/2 inch slider with a fried egg (from A&J Meats on Queen Anne, they've got the freshest eggs around), Dutch goat cheese and soy sausage (Morningstar Farms sausage patties, they are spicy and good). Then I used the leftover chicken to make a chicken salad with walnuts and dried cherries to put on the rolls for lunch. Food is always better the day after. Well, some food.

We also took Celia and Cypress to the zoo last week and saw the most adorable gorillas. They are similar to humans in so many ways that when I see them, I feel like they feel even more trapped than the other animals and they must want to come home with me. I think in my own crazy head that I'd get in their cage, ask them over for dinner (perhaps some duck and eggplant curry?), and they'd say 'Of course we'll come over'. Then we'd have a great time watching a comedy and they'd snuggle down in our guest room for a good nights sleep. I know it's strange, but they seem so much like a near cousin to our species and they must have some of the same wants?

And in personal overall happiness news, I helped cook for my first Vagabond. There were about 5 of us cooking for Paulette's Vagabond dinner, and 36 guests, including Lee and other friends. I was on a high and after 12 hours of cooking and standing up, I felt like I could do it all over again. It really was everything I thought it would be and hopefully I get invited to cook for more Vagabond's in the future. I made the Irish Brown Bread which turned out to be wonderful, even though I was terrified because I'm not a baker. And I assisted making everything else. I really thought I could go on forever, until we sat down at the end of the night for family meal and I quickly faded and went home and passed out. You just can't sit down. Then it's all over.

By the way...17 days til Vegas. I'm counting.

The week in pictures

2008-09-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

I don't have much time to do a full blog this week--Lee and I are taking care of Celia and Cypress this weekend and I'm trying to spend time just with them. I suppose someday when I am a Mom, I'll relax about this kind of thing and do some things I want to do, but not when I only have my nieces for one weekend. It's all rainy and cold today, but I think we will still go to the zoo and look at the monkeys.

Here is a picture of the bounty from my first garden. I now have tomatoes, onions, jalepenos and corn from our Norweigan neighbors.

We went to the Fremont Oktoberfest on Friday night and had so much fun! I did Meghan's makeup and then we all went and sampled one too many beers. After that we went to Beth's Cafe and checked out the local 'wildlife' and had 6 egg omelets. Yum.

A week of cooking

2008-09-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

I had some down time this week, mostly during the day, due to a future schedule change. So I took full advantage of it and helped out with a couple of cooking classes and did some at home as well. Katie is a CIA trained chef from South Carolina and I never say 'no' when she wants to come over and cook for us, so that's what we did on Monday. She made us BLT panzanella salad with shrimp and a lovely peach pie with caramel salt ice cream.

Then, I took the pie further, by taking a pie class at CC. I finally got over my fear of making pie crust, it's so easy. My favorites were the savory pies, as I'm much more a salt lover than a sweet lover. The tomato pie was incredible, as was the swiss chard pie.

Today I took Thai cooking class and it was definitely one of my top three classes so far. The flavors in Thai food are amazing, there just isn't anything like them. The best? Green curry with eggplant and duck.

Sarah also came over this last week and we had this salad I really liked. I made it with arugula, mangoes, chicken, goat cheese and avocado--with a balsamic dressing. I have to have cheese on my salads, I'd rather have cheese than dressing any day of the week. Then add a little fruit to that, you've got salty and sweet and the perfect combo.

Yes, we eat well around here.

The Omnivore's 100 List

2008-09-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

There's this thing going around called the Omnivore's 100. It's a list of 100 foods that every omnivore should eat, and the more you have already eaten, the more praise you get from other foodies. I was reading the blog post about the 'scores' of others and I'm so very impressed with myself! Apparently I have really tried some new things in the past year or so. Only I, Kelley Elizabeth Ramee, could be proud of eating head cheese. Or other crazy people like me might think highly of themselves for these sorts of things. The one's that are in italics and larger sized are the foods I haven't tried......yet.

81/100 My Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn or head cheese

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted Cream Tea

38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects

43. Phaal

44. Goat's milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. Mcdonald's Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine (you all know I've had this!!!)

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77.Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang Souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom Yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu [Will be doing this very soon, at Joel Robuchon in Vegas!!)

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

Gardening With Kelley

2008-09-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

I dread gardening. I'm trying really hard to like it and look forward to it, but there are so many other things to do at this time in life. Lee and I are active and young and we are almost always busy with exciting new things to do, so working in the garden is the last thing on our list. We contemplated hiring a gardener, but I figured with a little work we could do the weeding and the removal of the grass ourselves. I've been saying this since we bought the house and we did choose a home with the most minimal outdoor upkeep we could find, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Still, I'd rather read a book, take a walk, watch a movie, write or have our friends over for dinner than pull weeds. You'd think with a grandmother, mother and Lee's mom being excellent gardeners, I'd catch some of the gardening fever, but I guess not. Although I can see me doing more of it as I get older and my social life isn't going strong 7 days a week.

This morning, yes, Sunday morning, Lee and I woke up at 6:30 and did some weeding and yardwork. I was sweating up a storm by 7:30 and we had filled up both yard waste bins, so that was my signal to call it a day. This is when Lee felt the need to have a beer at 8:30am, due to the stress of weeding and the many spiders and bugs we encountered. I still feel itchy.

Then, continuing on with my gardening day, we did the Phinney Garden Tour. Despite my adversity to gardening myself, I truly appreciate other people's work and gardens. I love flowers and I marvel at how they can, and actually want to, spend most of their time planting and pruning and weeding. Good for them! I'm glad I get to enjoy all their hard work.

All About Bacon

2008-09-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

So, I thought I'd take some pictures of the fabulous food I've been munching on this week and tell you a few of my favs. I took the 'All About Bacon' Class at Culinary Communion on Tuesday, so you can imagine how good that can be. If I was ever a vegetarian, which I was once for a year in college, it would be bacon or cured pork that would make me go back to eating meat. We did a blind bacon taste test of about 10 different kinds of the lovely pig and I found out that not all bacon is made equally. In fact, most of it is kind of yucky, or chemical tasting (especially Oscar Meyer, no surprise there.) The good stuff is really good though, and we used bacon from the pig that we saw slaughtered in January-- a very big, healthy, free range, organic piggy.

I made BLT panzanella with grilled shrimp and I will definitely be making this again. It's a great salad to have at a BBQ or for a potluck. It's got a few grilled baguettes, grilled shrimp, bacon lardons, heirloom tomatoes, arugula and some goat cheese. We used warm bacon fat for the dressing, which was awesome, and also useful since it's a by product of cooking up some good bacon or pancetta. Of course it has some vinegar for tang, and seasoned.

I also made grilled collard greens. Katie showed me a wonderful way to grill greens, which is one thing I have yet to throw on the grill. Basically you take your greens, de-stem them, and blanch them in very salty boiling water with a few tablespoons of fat added to the water (in this case we used bacon fat, or course). So after a few minutes of boiling, you take them out and shock them in ice water. Now they have this lovely layer of filmy fat on each leaf so you can stack them up neatly like a stack of paper and throw them on the grill in stacks of 10 or so. They get all charred on the outside and soft and tasy on the inside. Take them inside, salt them again if needed and sprinkle a little sherry vinegar on them, then cut into triangles. These are so good.

For desert we had a spicy chocolate bacon pecan pie and bacon baklava. SO MUCH BETTER than regular baklava. The salty bacon really makes that sweet, sticky baklava taste like heaven.

In addition, I went to Cafe Besalu this morning. A place I've been wanting to go for years and in our neighborhood as well! After waiting 15 minutes in line (which I don't ever do) for a nectarine croissant and a ham and cheese one as well, it was well worth it. This is officially the best French pastry shop in Seattle, ever better than Bakery Nouveau. Amazing. Like flaky butter, but not too flaky, somewhat substansial, with some of the best flavor and texture I've ever had in a croissant. I can't wait to go back.

Yes, I know I told you I was going to walk the half marathon. I am still going to do that. I also still like bacon and croissants from time to time.

PAX

2008-09-01T19:17:00.001-07:00

No, not Angelina and Brad's kid. This is what Lee and I did this weekend-we went to PAX 2008, the Penny Arcade Convention that is held in downtown Seattle every year. Penny Arcade is a web comic and I would say the expo is mostly about gaming. We checked out the MC Frontalot movie, 'Nercore Rising', which I liked so much that we went and got MCF's CD's and I had him sign a t-shirt for me. Nerdcore hip hop, check it out, it's very addictive. It's in my head right now, in fact. We also went to the 'How to Get Your Girlfriend Into Gaming' forum which was way more informative than I would have thought, and also made me feel a little better about my lack of gaming skills, or the fact that I like 'girly' games. Lee went out and got me my own pink D S plus two games that appeal to me--one called 'Harvest Moon' that's about starting your own civilization and one called 'Cooking Mama' in which you have to cook really well to unlock new recipes. I'm already so addicted, and this is possibly why I shouldn't be into gaming, but it's something Lee and I can do together and I'm pretty excited to use it on the bus and on trips and such. Right now I'm just using it all the time. I'm sure you will all get a big laugh out of this picture of Lee and I in a D&D book cover. Awesome.

Last night I did Katie's makeup for the evening and we all went out to Heidi's birthday party. It was a dance party and I do like to dance, but it needs to be a little bit of hip hop, booty shaking stuff. I can do that much better than formal dancing, although I would like to learn some more structured dance moves. Katie and I went tuxedo style, me in black and her in white. Makes a good picture!

I'm feeling a little guilty and giddy about going out way too much this week. We went to Maschiko for the best sushi on earth, Lark (one that is on the list of places I've always wanted go go), Entre Nous (French tapas and my craving for cheese fondue is satisfied), Sambar (another great French place with amazing mussels and drinks) and Dragonfish, cause there wasn't anywhere else we could think of going while at PAX. Then we went out to the Original Pancake House this morning to sop up the week of alcohol, and then off to Rob's birthday BBQ where Dannie made the most incredible Phillipino food. Lumpia is yummy.

I'm saying it here, so hopefully this will keep me honest and give me the motivation to train--I really am going to walk the Seattle half marathon this year! I'm not just sayin it, really. I walk everyday, but not 13 miles, more like 3 or 4 if I'm lucky. I know I can do this, it's mostly just the intimidation of walking next to people running a marathon that freaks me out, but I'm doing it anyway. Walking is one of my favorite hobbies, so this will give me a little time for myself this fall and a chance to see every adorable little city street and quaint home in our hood.

Evergreen State Fair

2008-08-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

During the sunny part of the day, Lee, Susan, Celia, Cypress and I went to the fair. The scary clown just came up to us when we were enjoying our onion burgers and elephant ears and corn dogs--I don't know about clowns and neither does Cypress. We had the best time and Susan put it in better words than I could have, so here's her blog entry. www.suzqueue.com -- check it out. Thanks Sus!

During the buckets of rain part of the day, Lee took me to an outdoor festival of food, the Incredible Feast. We still enjoyed ourselves just like true Seattlites even though we got soaked to the bone, and had some excellent food. I think I liked the sliders, bacon and cheese toasted sammie, beet salad with pistachios, peach gelato and goat on corn cakes the best. I got to see all the locally famous chefs in person, instead of just on paper, and see them in action. I'll definitely be going again next year, it was well worth it, and maybe the weather will even be warm. You never know here in Seattle.

It's been too long!

2008-08-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

I just have to blog. It's been forever since I last did so and I'm starting to feel a bit depressed about it. I still don't really have time to do this, it's late and I've got to get up early, but I figured I could give you all a quick update as to what's been happening around here. Lee and I have had a busy and stressful week, it seems that it just isn't a good week for most people I've spoken to. I like to think it's the waning moon. Both of our jobs are particularly awful this week, our friends and family seem to have tragedies happening and we are as usual, very busy just doing our normal stuff. Tonight we went out for a drink and dinner at the Pig N Whistle, then met up with Dannie and Rob for some beer. Already I feel better, and I'm looking forward to a couple of days off. We are taking my nieces to the Evergreen State Fair, then going to this big chef food function at the Phinney Market. On Monday I am going to play Bingo with my Mom and Lee's Mom up at Tulalip--I think we are going to win!

We did the Gumshoe Walk last week, it's a mystery type of scavenger hunt throughout Greenwood and Phinney. It took us hours and hours to finish, it was really hard and I don't think we won the prize of restaurant gift certificates. I'm so not doing this again next year and if it weren't for Lee and Susan, I probably wouldn't have gotten the answers to the clues. We did, however, see a wonderful sunset due to the large amount of pollution in the air that day, and a couple of cute houses and streets. I know this is strange, but I love those beautiful smoggy sunsets--it reminds me that I am in the city, the best city in the world. Not the country, where I was at for way too long. I'm such an urban girl.

We had a salad with the few ripe cherry tomatoes I got from my garden last night. The rest of them are green, but plentiful, and I've narrowed down what I want to grow in my garden for years to come. Definitely tomatoes, even though they don't really ripen until September, and onions, herbs and peppers. Look at my beautiful, really hot, pepper I have grown!

Lee was working even later than I was this Saturday and sometimes when that happens I eat the things I crave that Lee just doesn't like. So I either eat eggs or spicy food. Sometimes I dream of eggs, they are the perfect food. So here's picture of the best omelet I've had in some time. Fresh eggs, gruyere, arugula and wild mushrooms sauteed in white wine. I broke the top of my lovely eggs, but it was still amazing.

Golden Gardens Vagabond

2008-08-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Golden Gardens for a special Vagabond dinner with friends. There were a ton of people I haven't seen in a while and it turned out to be a pretty mellow night. Chef Katie demonstrated her shag dance, Lee and I walked along the beach during the sunset and we had plenty of good food. A crab and shrimp boil, pulled pork, slaw, mac n cheese and peach cobbler--a very southern bbq.

Lee's kickball team, the Sofa King's (ya, I know), needed another girl team member, so I'll be playing kickball on Wednesdays now. We practiced this evening and apparently I'm not a good runner, although I knew that. I'm just not built for running. We shall see how it goes tomorrow.

Also, I'm without a car. I got in my first car accident last week (yay?, cause it took me so long to get in one and I'm alive!), but our new car that I previously blogged about is about to be in the shop for 3 weeks. This is why I live in the city, near a bus line, 2 blocks from the grocery store and restaurants and coffee shops. When things like this happen, it really isn't so bad if you can walk everywhere, or at least take the bus. So I'm kinda enjoying it, this life without a car. Lee drives me if I need to go far and even takes me to work most of the time. It's kind of a pain in the butt to get in an accident due to the fact that I've had to run around trying to get estimates and insurance claims made, but that's really the worst part. And remember, I'm alive. That's the best part of this first accident of mine.

Cruefest!

2008-08-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

We (Dannie, Lee, Tammi and I) all headed down south to Auburn to the Motley Crue concert at the White River Amphitheatre. All in all, it was pretty cool. Not as many mullets as I would have liked to see, but plenty of Tommy Lee and his boobie camera. Definitely not a child friendly show. And I have to say there is a completely different crowd in Auburn, which the Crue referred to as Seattle one too many times. I was kinda like, ummm, we are definitely not in Seattle anymore. Dannie and I actually saw a Ted Nugent look-alike and when we told him about his likeness he acted like he was gonna cry he was so happy. He was just beaming and saying how this was the best part of his week. Then Dannie said something about Anthony Bourdain, and he thought we were saying he looks like a cross between Anthony Bourdain and Ted Nugent and oh my god, he was in heaven. He was also drunk. And don't ever go to the beer garden at a butt rock concert and order a glass of wine--I almost threw up, really. Still, it was a good experience and something we all have to do at least once in life. Rock on.

Lazy Sunday

2008-08-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you the last time I did not much of anything on a Sunday. It's sooo nice. I had a good friend from college visit me this weekend and so I blocked out some time for her, which actually ended being some time for me as well. We had our own little Ballard pub crawl on Friday night and a BBQ with lots of Guitar Hero on Saturday night. I found out the drinks at Matador are really strong and that Lee can host a fairly big party without my help. He's incredible and sometimes I don't know how I got so lucky. But I just did, and it's pretty awesome, dude. We had some incredible grilled shrimp last night and I also made some blueberry sausages in puff pastry that were really good. Today we went to the Ballard Farmers Market, Senor Moose for chiliquiles (so yummy!) and then to Golden Gardens to stroll along the beach for a bit. I'm going to get some actual house stuff done today and celebrate with a bottle of beer, considering we had so much left over from last night. Thanks for visiting me, Maya!

Caprese Salad

2008-07-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

Last night we went out with a few friends to Il Capretto D'Oro, the Golden Goat, in Woodinville. I never make it over to the Eastside--seems like yuppy country to me--but of course I'll get over there for good food, or possibly a shopping spree at Bellevue Square. I was raised mostly on Mercer Island and lived in Bellevue and Redmond at points in my life, but I definitely prefer the city and living in Seattle to being on the Eastside. I'm such an urban girl at heart. The restaurant was very authentic and wonderful and I told Lee we needed to go back just to take a tour of all the little wineries around there, so I guess I will be back to the place I never go. I had no idea we had our own Napa just half hour from our house!

One of the many things I've already done today was make yet another version of caprese salad. It's on every menu in America and has become so mainstream- it can be terrible and it can be the best tasting thing summer has to offer. I'm always experimenting with different ways to do it since I like it so much and recently found a way to have it in the winter months (AKA : October through June if you live up here in the Northwest). Lee got me the Molto Mario cookbook by Mario Batali and it's got a great way to fix this salad so that it still tastes good despite the main ingredients being out of season. It basically roasts the tomatoes for a couple of hours so their sweetness comes out and uses pesto that was made and frozen in the summer, so all is fresh and yummy. The version I made today was with red and yellow organic grape tomatoes, basil from the Phinney Market and buffalo mozzerella. The difference this time was that I marinated and salted the tomatoes for a few hours before adding the rest of the ingredients in order to get some of the moisture out of the tomatoes--I let it sit in a colander in the sink and they drained. Then right before serving I tossed the drained tomatoes with the basil, mozzerella, olive oil, balsamic and pepper (no extra salt needed) and it was a much better salad to bring to a party or BBQ (which I did). It still had a dressing of sorts due to the olive oil and vinegar, but it was much less 'soupy' overall and tasted great. It was also good for all those people that don't like tomato innards--that juicy, seedy stuff that sometimes makes people not like the wonderful tomato.

Lee and I are headed for a long evening of crazy with drinking and the Nine Inch Nails concert, should be a good time.

Chicken with Wild Mushroom and Herb Pasta

2008-07-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

I writing to say that today I have done nothing but been a complete homebody. This kind of day is extremely rare and I can't tell you the last time I got to spend my day like this. I made myself iced Victrola coffee this morning, went for a long walk down Phinney Ave, walked to the store to pick up items for dinner, surfed the net, trimmed all my hedges outside, weeded, made homemade yogurt, harvested my veggies from the garden, washed them and stored them, read a book and made dinner for Lee and I that had lots of stuff from my garden.

At this point I'm normally still out with Lee and friends, dining out or doing something with them all, and I come home later and get a few things done and pass out. It's 8:30 and I don't know what to do! I guess I could watch a movie. Or take a bath. You know what?? I'm going to do something totally self indulgent and unnecessary and make myself a Facebook profile while drinking a glass of wine. I do have to get up way too early tomorrow morning to bring the car in for an oil change, so maybe I'll get to bed before midnight as well. I'll let you know when I get my new Facebook profile and then I'll have yet one more place to display my life for everyone to see. This is what happens when people are bored. They spend too much time online and get a Facebook profile. Geez, I can't believe this is happening to me. I'm becoming one of 'those' people. Hehe.

Dinner tonight was my first that had many garden ingredients--my onions, thyme, parsley. Morels and lobster mushrooms from the market. Local free range chicken and summer squash. I've worked out a sweet deal with my friend and neighbor, April, to trade a pedicure for her wonderful bounty coming from her garden, which is significantly larger than mine. She's even got chickens!

I'm enjoying this quietness and time to do the things I rarely get to do. This weekend will be packed full of dinner with friends out in Woodinville at Il Capretto D'Oro, my godchild's 2nd birthday bbq, Nine Inch Nails concert at Key Arena and working extra hours on Sunday. Monday I've got a cooking class focused on duck and peaches, yummmm.

Changing My Perspective

2008-07-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed I took the subtitle of my blog off that I had initially intended on writing about....'making Greenwood the other Cap Hill of Seattle'. Yea, that's just not going to happen. I still love Capital Hill and all of it quirks and it will never be Greenwood. That being said, I really like it here, I really love our home and my life is one that I could never complain about. In fact, I don't know how I got so damn lucky. So I'm continuing to blog about my food related activities and all the wine I currently drink ( I think it's a summer thing), but I also write about my life and the love of my life, Lee, and our family and friends. I'm back to the beginning of this outlet being a journal, sometimes personal and sometimes not, but something that gives me a way to tell people what's going on around here and talk about who I am.

So what exactly has been happening? Well, turns out summer is even busier than winter was, but in a more 'sure, I'll have a margarita with lunch'!, kind of way. It's hot and sticky and I need to stay hydrated, and my mind needs to be a little more laid back on these kinds of days. So we started our vacation to Michigan with this in mind and have been enjoying our summer to the fullest. All of my siblings and my Dad and Step-Mom were in Michigan and we don't get together all at once very often, so we had a really good time. We laid in the hammock, picked cherries, lit fireworks, had a bonfire, ate Moose Tracks ice cream every day, went to Chef Charles every other day, went pirate mini golfing, swam in Lake Michigan and read a bunch. Chef Charles has the best pizza on earth and I have to fly across the country to get there, therefore I go as much as possible when I'm there. Also, we don't have Moose Tracks ice cream here. It's vanilla with little peanut butter cups and Macinac Island Fudge all throughout the whole thing. It's the best! I think Lee's highlight was finding that you could buy fireworks, alcohol and junk food all at one grocery store. You just don't find that in Seattle.

Since we've been home, we have been going out almost every night and enjoying summer while we can. My old friend from high school came to visit and we caught up on all the things I forgot about, apparently my memory isn't so good, but we had fun and I hope we can visit her in Sonoma, California soon. We also went to Molly Moon's again, the new ice cream place with funky flavors--still think that caramel salt is the best. We had dinner at Palace Kitchen and went to see 'The Dark Knight' last weekend, I recommend you go out and see it. There were many other things that went on, but most recent in my memory since I just ate the leftovers, is the fabulous dinner that Lee cooked for us last night. And Katie, our own personal CIA chef, helped out as well. I just like to say that cause it makes me feel like Oprah. Well, not really just like Oprah. Anyway, we went to the Ballard Market twice yesterday to fill up on the things we missed the last few weeks (Seattle dogs, Veraci Pizza, Buckwheat Crepes), and also picked up some dinner items for an impromptu party.

Here's our menu for our Sunday dinner, much of which includes herbs from our garden:
Caprese salad on a stick with balsamic jelly
Green beans with shallots and pinenuts
Broccoli
BBQed shrimp with garlic and herbs
Gnocchi with morel sauce
Chocolate cherry malts (honoring our trip to Michigan)

I love morels. They are heaven in my mouth. I'm out.

Back Home Again

2008-07-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

We've been on vacation in Michigan for about two weeks, which is why I haven't blogged. All is well and more to come tomorrow....Stay tuned.

Stumbling Goat Bistro

2008-06-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

The highlight of this week was definitely Lee's 27th birthday party at the Stumbling Goat Bistro up here in our neighborhood, Greenwood. We had nearly all of our dear friends and family around us at one time--something that rarely happens in life. We drank and ate and laughed and had the most amazing time, and I'll never forget it. The food is mostly local and very tasty, I think Lee and I will go back soon and just have a little romantic dinner a deux. They've got a great wine list too, which I appreciate more and more as I get a little older and need better wine for less hangovers.

Speaking of great wine, I forgot to mention that we went to Beato in West Seattle for Sarah's 27th birthday the other week and had some of the best wine I've ever had. I felt great, like running a marathon or something, after having 3 plus glasses. Is this what really good wine does to people?? They had a nice cheese plate as well and I'd love to go back there as well. That evening I got to spend with my siblings, minus Christopher who is getting his Masters Degree in Education in Michigan-- and it was really special to me. Even though we all live in the same city, we are extremely busy and don't get to spend much quality time together. Sometimes living closer makes it more difficult to really spend time together because we see eachother in passing so much that we forget to enjoy eachother.

Also, hallelujah, I've found really good Italian food in Seattle. Or really good pasta is what I'm trying to say. My friend Carrie and I went to Tavolata this week and it was amazing. I had a buffalo mozzarella and proscuitto salad, both ingredients were so fresh and quality. They even make the mozzarella there. Then I had gnocchi, they have three (!!!) different kinds! I chose the freshly made potato gnocchi with asparagus and morels. Everything comes with the lightest mound of shaved parm on top and very simple ingredients. Not too saucy or overdone, just right. I want this to be my new place I go to every week, like my regular place, because it was so incredible.

I was officially on vacation as of 8pm last night and I'm loving it! We are going to take care of my nieces for a couple of days, then we are off to Michigan to see my Dad and family. I plan on relaxing on the hammock, picking berries, drinking wine, eating Chef Charles pizza, reading on the beach, golfing, having a bonfire, sea dooing and being with family. Yay!!!

Chorizo and Kale Lasagne

2008-06-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

So hey there, the lasagne I made up turned out quite well so I told you I'd give you the recipe if it was tasty. I don't really do recipes, or exact numbers, which is why I'm not a baker. I like to be creative even when I'm supposed to follow the recipe card--a little more of this and a little less of that. I'll tell you how I made it and you can go from there.

I got a ton of fresh herbs from my garden and veggies from the farmers market, which makes everything better. Start by carmelizing some garlic, onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Deglaze the pot with red wine. Then add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste and hearty herbs (I used thyme, oregano and chives). Add your browned chorizo and simmer for an hour or so. Add your delicate herbs (I used flat leaf parsley and basil) and season, cook for a few more minutes and turn off the stove. Then, saute a big batch of kale in olive oil and add a splash of vinegar and season. All you have to do now is assemble--a bit of sauce on the bottom so the noodles don't stick to the pan, then noodles, sauce, kale and cheese. Repeat. Bake covered at 350 for 1/2 hour, don't forget to take the foil off the top and cook for another 15 minutes or until it's bubbly. Pretty darn easy.

I'd like to thank our chef and friend, Katie, for coming over last night and forcing me to make pate instead of buying it. It's so much less expensive and incredibly easy to make when you use a food processor instead of trying to press it through a tami, which is how I made it in France and I swore I'd never make it again. Pate is like cheese, I can't stop eating it--it's so good.

Lot's O Naked People

2008-06-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Lee, Sarah, Kelly and I all met up at the Fremont Solstice Parade today and saw more than most of you see on an average Saturday. You see, us Seattle-ites really have to celebrate the first day of summer because we don't get much of it and we like to thank the 'sun' gods. We saw naked bikers, naked rollerbladers and just plain naked people marching down the parade.

We saw pirates and bellydancers and monkeys and things I can't explain, but I absolutely loved it all. I like people watching and I like to know there are people as strange or stranger than I am out there, so this was my kind of thing. I also chuckled at the people that looked like they were simply out with there mate for a lovely weekend bike ride when they happened to end up in the middle of the naked biking festival. One lady just opened her jacket and let her chest bare while her hubby rode next to her--I'm sure she feels very liberated right now. By the way, no need to thank me for these super sexy, completely free pictures that I took of what could very likely be your next door neighbor. Especially the the guy that's abiding by the law by wearing his helmet.

The fair section was so crowded that is was nearly impossible to get food or check out the vendors, although Lee managed to work his way into this great tent that had handmade hanging planters and carried it all the way home for me. Aww. Getting a coffee, a clean bathroom or anything we really needed wasn't going to happen in Fremont amongst the thousands of people so we headed over to Ballard and got the last seat at La Carta De Oaxaca. It's so difficult to get into this place, but we thought we'd give it a shot and it all worked out. They have wonderful sangria and traditional mexican dishes--I think the chile rejeno was my favorite today.

This week we went out to eat quite a bit mostly because we were out doing other things at night. We went to Blue C on kickball night, Purple when we went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Luau's when I went for girl's night out, and Lombardi's when we went to see "Get Smart". Can you tell summer is in full swing?? It's the movie going thing.

Today I'm making a chorizo and kale lasagne. I have these things in the fridge, I need to use them and they seem to go well together. If it's amazing, I'll post my 'on the fly' recipe. Stay tuned.

Pictures of the Week

2008-06-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

A few pictures to tell you how my week has been going. My gardens flowery, English looking stepping stones. Lee and I with a fresh egg from our neighbor and good friends chickens. Our new knife magnet and 2 gorgeous new knives, courtesy of my Mom's Christmas gift certificate to Epicurian Edge. The beautiful Le Creuset teapot Lee gave me for our 1 year anniversary.

An Evening With Anthony Bourdain

2008-06-10T16:45:00.001-07:00

Being the foodies that we are, Lee and I get some unique offers and wind up in places I only dreamed we'd be someday. For instance, on Friday we were asked to cook for the after party for Anthony Bourdain at the Moore theatre. Now Anthony Bourdain is HUGE for me. I liked him..... really liked him if you know what I mean.... long ago before I ever knew any foodies or got involved with Lee and Culinary Communion. The fact that I eventually found out that he had gone to one of the Gypsy dinners for our little group, or that Lee had cooked for him before, was exciting enough for me. But now he was coming to town and not only did I get to meet him, but I got to cook for him and have him sign my books. Lee and I watched his lecture from the side of the theatre where it was dark and cozy and we could see Anthony up close. He talked about his travels and what he thought of the cuisine of the countries he had visited, much like his books speak of, and looked exactly like he does on TV. I'm sure he's a nice enough guy, but he seemed kink of aloof and jerky to me--I was very happy that the 'fantasy' of AB is nothing compared to the reality of canoodling with my honey while watching the show. Being cold and tough works much better for TV than reality for Mr. Bourdain. I do think getting married and having a baby has softened him though, and I didn't even see him smoking a cigarette once.

We served head cheese corndogs, bone marrow on toast, duck fat popcorn, raw beef tataki and pig trotter spring rolls. Not for the faint of heart. My favorite thing was the orange and kalamata olive ice cream sandwiches. I still can't seem to enjoy pig trotters--they are so chewy and fatty, yuck. After all was said and done, we had the 'Farwell to Gypsy' party at CC where I saw more local chefs and had a lime and anchovy jello shot, gross again. I was exhausted and when we got home around 1:30am I passed out and slept like a baby. Then we went to the Ballard Farmers Market the next morning for some street grub. Speaking of which, they have a new Mexican stand that has the best tamales I've ever eaten, at least the jalepeno and cheese one was!

Last night we had our Master's Class Dinner at CC. I chose something simple, but something I love, which your not really supposed to do for this event considering your supposed to showcase your culinary talent. I already know I'm talented and I'd never made cheese fondue before so that's what I made! Secretly, I think people may have been put off by my choice, but I wanted to make something good that I've never made before and Lee got me this gorgeous fondue pot that I wanted to try out. Well, after buying all these wonderful ingredients and following the directions to the 'T', my gruyere fondue failed miserably. It seized, or coagulated, or whatever you want to call it when your cheese ends up as a hard ball on the bottom of the pot. It tasted good, but it certainly wasn't fondue and I threw away the brick of cheese that finally loosened from the bottom of the pot this afternoon. Maybe I should have made something really fancy that took me 3 days, but I wanted fondue-what can I say? Now I'm going to be obsessed with making it correctly and won't stop until I get it right.

Oh, the annoying cold....again.

2008-06-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, I seem to be sick a lot. Nothing is wrong with me. No need to be worried. I have come to the conclusion that it is a lack of sleep, since I need more than most people, combined with an over-scheduling of social functions. It's fun, fun, fun, then I hit a wall and I've got three more things planned for the day. I'll be fine though and I've taken a couple of resting days after the weekend to get back to normal, plus TheraFlu at night works wonders. It's still a bit slow at work, so they aren't too upset with me if I go home early. See, sometimes it's good when summer doesn't hit Seattle 'til July--well, it's good when you do pedicures and your not feeling so well.

We had another excellent weekend with BBQ's, Celia's 6th birthday party and a concert I'll never forget. Lee has the job of being a 'monster' most of the time Celia and Cypress see him, but it was extra hilarious seeing 7 girls freak out and lose it when he chased them down. I hear they built a monster trap for him after we left and Kimberly found it in the yard. hehe.

I went to a new gyro place the other day and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It's 2 blocks away and it's called 'King Falafel', I had the chicken schwarma and it was so incredible. So I run home and tell Lee that it's even better than 'Mr. Gyros', our old standby. He doesn't believe me. So a week goes by and we get 'King Falafel' so I can prove my newfound love for chicken schwarma to him, and it's not good at all! I mean it's okay, but not like it was the first time. This happens to me all too often. I go somewhere new and it's awesome, I go back and it's terrible, only when I go back the second time I always take someone with me to show them how amazing the food is, then end up feeling like a shmuck that doesn't know what she's talking about. This is why McDonald's is running the world--consistency. You know you are going to get the same fries every time, and they are good without fail. I guess we are headed back to Mr. Gyros for the summer.

Big Grey Whale

2008-05-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

Hey there! This was an extremely full Memorial Day Weekend.

Starting on Friday we went to Assaggio's with Meghan and Andy--that place is always really yummy. Then we went to the Cinerama that evening to see 'Indiana Jones'. Not so good, really bad ending, don't go. I managed to work on Saturday after a good 4 hours of sleep, then came home and passed out before starting on my short ribs.

Sunday morning we got up early, went to the gym to work out and then walked over to the Ballard Sunday Farmer's Market to pick up fresh bread for the HITK party. Of course we got a crepe and a couple of Seattle Dog's as well, gotta love that street food grazing. Then we cooked all day and had our dinner party, which turned out to be very grown up. Or I guess you could say I kinda felt like an adult, with a nicely set table and all the pretty stuff--fancy. The next get together will be a BBQ with greasy burgers, you know, paper plates and such. Much more casual.

Monday we got up early again to go car shopping--isn't our new used car adorable?? My old Honda was falling apart and quickly, so the CRV seemed like a great choice. We laughed so hard throughout the process of buying a car that I think the car salesman got a complex, but we crack eachother up, what can I say. In the afternoon we went to Wingdome with Dannie, Rob, Devin and Ryan, then had them over for a little Wii Mario Kart. Oh, and I dared Lee to eat a super hot wing, which he did and survived. See picture above...still alive.

Tomorrow I'm holding Heidi's hand while she gets her nosed pierced, just like the one I've got. She wants to surprise her chef hubby, Gabe, with the fancy jewel when he arrives home from France. Then I'm finally planting my basil since I think it's warm enough and picking up Sarah and Sean from the airport (they took a trip to North and South Carolina). Then it's back to work and next weekend is already full, whew.

Happy In The Kitchen Club

2008-05-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

It's our first, and who knows, maybe our last, Happy In the Kitchen Club dinner. The lineup of cooks are as follows: Me, Lee, Suzanne, Jennifer and guest chef Susan. Plus we have, Wendy, our own sommelier who is providing lovely wine pairings. We started this club because we wanted to cook difficult, but tasty recipes, so we chose a book that seemed to match our needs--Happy In The Kitchen, by Michel Richard. I did a quick search and found there is another HITK Club out there as well. Copy cats! Although I see they were the first, it still makes me want to show them up. The lady that wrote about her club said she started with the Syrah Braised Short Ribs, the same thing I'm making, and now I can't stand her. I guess I am competetive about some things, as long as it's not sports.

It takes about 3 days to make this recipe. One day to shop, one day to prep and do the initial cooking and the next day to finish it off. The shopping is extensive, I went to at least 5 places in the market to gather various ingredients, mainly Don and Joe's Meat Shoppe, Dilaurentis Specialty Store, Market Spice and various produce stands. I actually battled the tourists carrying at least 40 pounds of stuff through Pike Place and when each seller asked what I was making and how they could help me, they then proceeded to ask me if they could come to our party. I was very flattered--I guess the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I chose this recipe because it looked good and I didn't really pay much attention to the ingredients, but once I saw how many ingredients this called for, I realized this is a once a year kind of treat. It takes applewood smoked slab bacon, the best short ribs you can get, two bottles of syrah and a bottle of port--not cheap. Plus if you spend all that money on wine and such you are certainly going to get the best organic produce available which makes this whole thing add up. I read there will be plenty of leftovers, so I guess this makes it more worth while--short ribs for a week.

Fast forward to a few hours later after the HITK party---no leftovers. Another term for short ribs would be really good pot roast that takes tons of time and money. I'd order them in a restaurant anyday and appreciate all the work that went into them, but not so sure I'd be into making them for the heck of it again.

The garden!

2008-05-18T20:06:00.001-07:00

I did it! With the help of my Mom, Lee's Mom and many others, I finally put my first veggie and herb garden together. Now, I'm going to shout for joy if these things actually grow and produce something I can cook with, but for now I'm just glad I did something I've always wanted to do. So far I've got 5 varieties of tomatoes, a spicy red pepper plant, garlic, chives, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, thyme, sage, dill and basil. I have friends that are planting the other herbs in a sort of neighborhood co-op so we can give and take what we want. I also added a hanging plant to our front porch, blue for Lee and red for me. Let's hope I don't kill that one too, I have a black thumb.

This was an extremely busy, but fun weekend--filled with lot's of beginning of summer festivities. We spent our first 85 degree day of the year at the University Farmer's Market, eating our first round of fair food (aka, Biringer Farms Strawberry Shortcake) and drinking way too much beer in the heat. Then we went out to eat at a wonderful Argentinian restaurant, the Buenos Aires Grill, with friends later that evening. We've been to three bbq's and I've worked in the yard quite a bit, plus listened to a lot of Lee's new favorite song, Booty Man. It's pretty funny if you want to check it out.

We also went to the Phinney Farmer's Market, the one that is in our neighborhood. Karen and I got off the bus after a long day of work and walked around, all sweaty in our black work clothes, and thank goodness Lee came to pick us up so we didn't have to walk home, which was my intention. It was just too hot! We found some asparagus that we grilled, some fresh herbed cheese curds that are now gone and two beautiful local steaks. Plus the pizza guy was there and once again I want my own pizza oven in our back yard--it's the only way to have real, Italian style, thin crust, yummy pizza.

Summer Salad

2008-05-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've kinda been 'off' cooking for a few months. Between moving and all the new stuff that has happened lately, I just haven't had the time to do that. Lee and I eat late and I look forward to our evenings together, but sometimes we fill them with movies and friends and walking--it ends up that cooking is the last option. I'm really determined to get back into it this summer, plus I've started the 'Happy In the Kitchen' Club and since I'm hosting the first one, I've got to do the main course. Why couldn't I do the appetizer??!! They are always much tastier and more interesting to concoct. I did find the time to make a salad that I think I'll make again. Mixed greens, strawberries, chicken, gorgonzola, tomato and avacado--very tasty and it's even seasonal right now.

Mother's Day is tomorrow and we are headed to Salty's on Alki with all the Mom's. I even got a Mom's Day card myself for being a God Mom! We are planning on working out in the morning, then getting eye exams, then having dinner with the family--if all goes accordingly. Things are always changing around here. Well, I'm off to watch a movie with my man--have a wonderful Mother's Day to all you Mother's!

A Crimp in My Blog Style

2008-05-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of our new dining room table and chairs, it even has a hutch to go with it. Lee and his Dad put it together and it fits perfectly into our dining room. This is the first time I've had a table to eat on in so many years, I'm not sure what to do about it, but right now the cats like to sleep on it and I put a couple of paintings from my nieces on top of it. It's got many uses!

I'm finding that life interferes with blogging quite a bit. I'd like to say I have time to blog at least once a week, but that is simply not proving to be true. Maybe it's just that the flowers are blooming and the weather is getting better and when I do get a chance, I'm outside or dreaming about something.

Moving has been a challenge for us. All these changes in so little time are scary and they take some mental time to wrap our heads around them. I'm kind of a schedule-type girl in some ways and I like having a routine, and right now we just haven't found much of a routine. We still hang out with friends a lot, but most of the time I just have so much house stuff to do, I'm not quite sure where to start. Then I sort of give up and watch 'Family Guy' because I can't figure out which to do first. This is when I realized that we've only been here for a month, so of course I still haven't completely settled in yet. We've accomplished more than most would have this month and seen and used nearly all of our new hood. Some of it isn't so great, like the sushi I had for lunch at Mori that is 2 blocks away. Don't Go. Ever. And the fact that restaurants close around 10pm, a little early for our taste. On the flip side, there's lots of good coffee. I like my bus better-- there aren't any crazies that sit next to me. And I live with Lee, so I'm the luckiest girl on earth.

Still, having a routine is boring to some, but for me it allows me to do things like blog more. And to feel better. To walk more, and to be more authentic when I do see people because I won't be so scattered. So I guess this is where we are at in the moving process. We've moved, but not really adjusted, and I guess that takes much longer. Until then, we keep our heads high and take one step at a time.

Better Late Than Never

2008-05-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I've been back from Maui for a while and still haven't blogged. People are noticing, both a nice surprise and a bit of guilt on my part have surfaced. What can I say? Life is truly busy, and in a good way. Vacation was wonderful and I came home ready for the onslaught of what the next couple of months will bring. It's about this time every year that I remember all the things I want to do in the summer and how there simply isn't enough time to do them all--summer just isn't long enough in Seattle. I've decided I'd like to start doing some anti-social things in the evenings since Lee and I are like the social King and Queen of Seattle, or it seems like that sometimes. I'd like to go to the gym or go for a walk. I'd like to cook more, especially from my new 'Happy In The Kitchen' Cookbook. I'd like to do more volunteering, or walks for good causes. I'd like to hit some of the farmers markets in the evenings. I'd like to take more baths. And I'd really like to grow herbs and veggies, and become more of a gardener.

Speaking of gardening, with the help of Lee's Mom and my own, I've started doing some things in our yard. I know nothing about plants and I have a black thumb, but I look like I really know what I'm doing now that we've moved into a house that is completely landscaped--it even has a sprinkler system. So every day is a new surprise in the garden. Most of the plants I've never seen and I've got flowers popping up everywhere. This sudden beauty really gives me the inspiration to keep it going and I've even decided to attempt a veggie and herb garden, something I've always wanted to do. I took pictures of our yard and all the things that are blooming, it's so pretty.

We've also been a on a Mexican binge this week and have gone to two local restaurants, Taqueria Tequila and El Chupacabra. They are both authentic and tasty, especially the margaritas at El Chupacabra. You should definitely try them if you are in our neighborhood--order the carnitas or carne asada tacos at both places, yumm. Tonight is also the last Gypsy dinner and we decided to go at the last minute. I'm grateful that with every ending, there is a new beginning just around the corner, so I'm not too sad about this. We have great memories of friends and food and drinks at many Gypsy's, and we will have great ones in the future as well. There we go, being all social again.

Melekeliki Maka

2008-04-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

That's 'Merry Christmas' in Hawaiian--I may have butchered the spelling. Anyway, I've always loved that Hawaiian Christmas song from 'Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation', so even though it's April, I keep singing it in my head over here.

This morning Kimberly and I went for a walk to the farmers market, one of my favorite things to do at home and just as fun in Maui. We got some banana bread, guacamole and honey bananas--it's so great to have local, fresh food again. I'm tired of winter veggies in Seattle, but I still miss it there. The weather in Hawaii really isn't that difficult to adjust to when you wear a bathing suit most of the time and your hair is pulled back and there really is no reason to wear makeup because it just melts off. Very beachy, I guess. I'm an island girl at heart when it comes to wearing flip flops and just hanging out and eating fresh fruit, but that's about as far as it goes.

Last night we stayed out late on a sunset cruise where we saw some whales, then we went back to Whaler's Village and watched Kimberly try on 100 bikinis. The sales clerk loved us since we were being funny and we were tired and sweaty. Also, a bird pooped on Kimberly twice in one day--that was a highlight of mine. Well, I'm off to the pool and then the beach for snorkeling. Pray I don't get eaten by a shark.

Aloha!

2008-04-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

Here I am with Kimberly and Mom in beautiful Maui. It's really much nicer than I thought it would be--I know you are all thinking, 'Umm, of course it's nice'. But I am the whitest girl on earth and I don't tan, therefore I'm not a big fan of the sun, which is why I love Seattle!! I also don't do well in the heat, it sort of puts me in an instant bad mood. So Hawaii is generally not my favorite place. I'd prefer Ireland or London or even our home back in Seattle. This time in Hawaii is different though (I've been here several times and haven't seen the draw)-- I actually like it. Last night I couldn't stop saying how romantic and breezy and cool and beautiful it looked. I even think Lee would like it when it's cooler like this--now I've got visions of us coming here as well as every other place we dream of, the list is getting bigger. We took a quick flight where I got a movie and a nap in, plus marveled at the amount my seat-mate could drink. I've never seen a man drink that much, that fast, on land, much less on a plane. Then we did some local shopping for papayas and pineapples and snacks, arrived at the condo and had mahi mahi and a blue hawaiian under the bright moon with the palm trees and waves right in front of us. Just like the movies.

Today we are renting a cabana next to the pool and going to a nice restaurant for dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to do yoga in the morning and mostly the same schedule for the rest of the week. There are lots of foo foo drinks here, so I plan on drinking those as well. In the shade of course.

2008-04-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

I think we are finally settling into our new home and really, a new lifestyle. I caught a mild cold again, strangely enough, so I still haven't been walking around every day or going out and blogging about Greenwood life. I was supposed to walk around Greenlake tonight with my sister, Sarah, but it's raining and I can't get to my rain jacket yet (it's deep in the closet behinds 6 feet of boxes of books). Good excuse though, eh? Most everything is unpacked and I'm very proud to say that we've taken about five Suburban full loads to the Goodwill--I refuse to be a pack rat anymore! Lee and I are starting fresh and have many things we've meshed nicely together plus we have furnishings to get for our house which makes each weekend a little more exciting. Our first purchases were a new flat screen LCD TV and a wall hanging Lee found that we fell in love with. I have a picture of it above--it's a wrought iron framed chalk board that says 'Bon Apetit' where we can write quotes that inspire us or what we will be having for dinner when guests come over. Every time I look at it, it makes me smile.

Tonight we are ordering in from a local Chinese place, Chef Liao. The first one we tried before we had anything unpacked was Greenwood Mandarin Chinese, which was that old school kind of Chinese food that's good for hangovers. I will definitely be ordering from there again, but we have to test out the other two that deliver to see what the final verdict is. I am so fascinated with delivery after living in Montana and Wyoming for way too long. Most people take this for granted, but growing up, I never had a pizza guy come to my door. Even in college, we had to drive to some chain restaurant before 8pm to get some grub. I was always an urban girl at heart and I'd watched many shows where the hip city girl had chinese food delivered while she watched movies with her man, or the group of guys that had their favorite pizza delivered when the big game was on. I longed to be one of those people. I just like knowing there are people around me, awake, living, eating and hanging out with their loved ones. I don't like feeling like I'm out in the middle of nowhere and everyone falls asleep before 9pm-- freaky and weird. Then someone comes out of the woods and kills you with their ax. Hate that!

Today is also our 10 month anniversary and Lee brought me home a lovely bouquet of pink roses. I have met the sweetest, funniest guy on earth and he's all mine! I'm leaving for Hawaii next week for a girls trip with my Mom and Kimberly, so I'm getting all the hugs and kisses I can from him since I know I'll miss him like crazy. I know he will be thoroughly entertained by all of our friends plus busy with house stuff. Like cleaning the closet out. And taking the garbage out. And changing the cat litter. (Hint, hint).

Greenwood is my hood

2008-04-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted one of these t-shirts! You know, the ones they have for all the 'hot' neighborhoods around Seattle. Well, they have one for Greenwood and Lee came home and surprised me with a little gift--a Greenwood tee. Pretty cute, ya? It's sort of a busty picture, sorry.

In the thick of it

2008-04-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm so exhausted, but I have internet now and therefore I have at least one thing that reminds me a normal life. I'm not going to make this a depressing blog entry because I'm pretty darn happy, I'm just trying to figure out how to get settled in this new place and new neighborhood. We've unpacked the kitchen stuff and most things we use on a daily basis, other than that we are kinda just looking at stuff and thinking of putting it somewhere at some point. I'm sure it will get done, after all, I've made a list of 'things to do' so they will be done! I am going to Maui with my Mom and Kimberly in a week and I'm going to try to make this place comfortable and homey for Lee by then. We've gone walking around the neighborhood a bit, visiting coffee shops and grocery stores and eating gyros. Oh, and drinking malts from Red Mill. It's been pretty wild this first week and I know things are looking up now that I've caught up on sleep and I'm not sick anymore.

The cats are all out of sorts as well. They sleep on several different spots on the couches and beds every day, just to make sure any free time I have is spent cleaning cat hair off things. And Puzzo makes this satanic noise that scared our friend last night because he's still not used to his surroundings. They don't even want to go outside yet, so their litter box is full by the end of every day. It's a lovely treat that I get to clean the litter before going to bed. And to think we are going to get another one of these soon! They are awfully cute though.

I made our first dinner the other night and the sight of my sandwiches ready to be put into the panini press was such a happy one for me--it definitely made me feel more at home. We walked to the store and also went to the Ballard Market this past Sunday, so I decided to make panini's with mozzerella, tomato, basil, avacado and peppery salami. Kind of pretty and spring-y. We also picked up fresh local feta cheese and some homemade fennel pasta for a traditional spaghetti dinner we had last night. It was very tasty.

By the way, I do love our home. I'm excited for a garden, for dinner parties with friends and family, to explore and take walks around our neighborhood and to build all these new things together with Lee. Plus just coming home every day is so wonderful, this place is starting to shape up quite well.

Update!

2008-04-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'm currently hiding out in my car, stealing internet from our neighbor at our old condo. You see, we don't have internet connected yet at our new place and I don't have time at this point to hang out leisurely at a cafe, so I'm doing this on the sly. Just wanted to let you all know we've moved into our new place, everything went amazingly well (aside from still being a bit sick) and I finally found the bag with my underwear in it last night. Yay!!

I'm so sick

2008-03-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

There's no picture for this one, I don't think anyone wants to see me right now. I've got some sort of flu and I've literally been in bed for 3 plus days now. It's a really bad week for this, considering my family has come into town and we are moving this weekend, but thanks to the help of Lee I'm not freaking out too much about it and I know all will be okay. Today I actually had the energy to turn the TV on and watch some fabulous daytime madness. I can't believe how the Hogan's, the Kardashian's, the Margera's, the the housewives of NYC live! I really like my life even more after watching them, even though they crack me up a bit. Hopefully I'll have a new entry next week from the comfort of our new home! I'm so excited to move in!!

We're Not Handy

2008-03-20T14:03:00.001-07:00

So Lee and I keep saying how we don't know much about home improvement projects and we are going to have to learn as we go. Well, here's a prime example of that. This is the horribly ugly and bloody wall that we painted to match another lovely burgundy wall in our new house, and obviously that didn't turn out so well. And this is after 3 coats of paint, a painting party, several trips to Home Depot, lot's of take-out, and several of our friends getting up on a very scary ladder.

This morning we called professional painters and begged for their help as soon as possible. Before we move the furniture in, before my family comes into town and before we go crazy. They took pity on us and are at the house right now, saving us. We've learned our lesson--we really suck at painting and it's not as easy as it looks. I must say though, we've been having a really good time playing house. Every mistake is a new experience that Lee and I go through together and we laugh about them all, this is the life.

Master's CC Final Class

2008-03-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

So the final class of my master's cooking series at Culinary Communion was Desserts. I've never felt so ill after a class in my life. Eating 6 desserts for dinner does not make one's tummy feel well. Between all the beer we've had lately and this class, I feel the need for a detox.

The dessert above was my favorite. A lemon souffle with raspberry coulis. Yummmm.

Greenwood Breakfast Hot Spot

2008-03-20T13:52:00.001-07:00

Lee and I took Monday off to paint the house and went for breakfast at Mae's Phinney Ridge Cafe. We had blueberry coffee cake, a spinach and mushroom omelette, a big plate of potatoes with cheese and veggies and some sausage--yah, it was huge and tasty. We didn't finish, but it was a sight to behold. It gets crowded on weekends, but we got right in the other day. A very diner-ish feel to it, and pretty terrible service, but I think that's because the waitresses are so laid back they don't think people actually have stuff to do. She did like my blue hair though, so she's pretty cool in my book.

A Greenwood Night Out!

2008-03-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

I'm keeping these posts short for a while since I seem to only have about 15 minutes maximum of free time these days. We are BUSY. All of a sudden moving has been kicked into high gear and now that we officially have our home, we are getting as much done as possible over there before we move in.

We did get a night out with some of our best friends, Dannie and Rob, who are pictured above. We did the whole thing in Greenwood and had so much fun, aside from the fact that I drank too much Guinness and was kind of silly, but still, it was great.

We started the night off at 74th Street Alehouse and the wait was long, but worth it. Normally, if I have to wait more than a few minutes I'm not interested, mostly because the place is obviously packed and I'm not into crowds plus the service isn't so hot. I ended up having a warm goat cheese salad with pecans and balsamic vinagrette--I make this sort of thing at home and so it wasn't anything new to me, but it was still quite good. Then after dinner we went for dessert at Yanni's, a Greek place next door. I had baklava and ice cream and Lee and Dannie had this yummy cream filled honey thing, forgot the name, but both were super good. We need to go back there for dinner. After that we headed to Cooper's Alehouse, which is somewhat of a sports bar, but they have board games to play (yay!) and a nice laid back feeling. I really liked this place, it reminds me of the bars we used to frequent in our mid-20's--not too crowded, good pub food, good beer on tap and something to play while we drank.

Can't wait for another night like this where we have some time to blow off steam and hang out with Dannie and Rob. So far we have a date to go to the University Street Fair, by far our
favorite street fair of the year, and do some of the same. It's the first day of spring today, and I can tell that laid back feeling of summer will come soon--until then, we are not stopping.

Another Picture of Lee and a Piece of Paper

2008-03-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

We needed to pick up some mail from our new place yesterday, so on our way up we also picked up our neighbor, Susan, and walked to Mr. Gyros for dinner. Turns out we really like that place. I knew there was a neighborhood meeting next door at the Neptune Coffee Shop and I wanted to see what my peeps were up to, so we headed over there after inhaling a plate of falafel and hummus. For some odd reason the city never put sidewalks in Greenwood, at least those streets above 85th, so there is a huge movement to do so as soon as possible, especially since this area is growing by leaps and bounds. We met Seattle's famous angry letter writer (Susan was *very* excited about this, like she was Joan of Arc or something), were impressed with the free Vietnamese bhan mei sammies and signed up with locals to help with the petition for sidewalks. We also each wrote a letter to the City of Seattle saying how desperately we need these sidewalks.

See above: The letter Lee wrote and then proceeded to sign my name at the bottom-isn't he adorable? Ya right! Apparently he wants me to go to jail--little does he know that I have many detailed plans to escape that situation due to my vivid imagination as a child. Or hopefully he'd bail me out if those fell through.

Yoga and Beer

2008-03-10T12:06:00.001-07:00

Lee, Susan and I just started taking a series of beginners yoga classes at Whole Life Yoga and despite my grand intentions of making it seem really cool, I think the coolest part of the night for them was the drinks we had at the Baranof afterwards. Still, we did get some things accomplished. The Baranof is Greenwood's biggest dive bar, so that's checked off the list of places to visit--you know it's a dive when they have free soup in a grimy old crock pot after 9pm. We went over the yoga homework sheet, as Lee is showing, while we had beer and whiskey sours. That always makes homework better. Then after our cocktails, we went to have coffee at Wayward Coffee shop, another neighborhood haunt. At 10pm on a Wednesday it was fairly crowded, with bunches of guys playing board games at tables, good coffee and ploughman sandwiches.

We've got our next yoga class this Wednesday, but the beginner classes are sooo slow and I prefer the more energizing, flow yoga, so we'll see how it goes. At least we are always getting out there and trying new things, which is something I love about Lee and many of my friends. Never a dull moment in this corner of the world.

Big Game of Tetris

2008-03-04T17:03:00.000-08:00

As our official move date of March 31st gets closer I am realizing that I'm going to have to do quite a bit of work just to have a place to put our boxes. I'm not very fond of our condo association--we didn't properly break down a box before we put it into the recycle bin and we found it on our doorstep that evening, like an ominous message saying *we'd* be chopped up into little pieces and put in a box of our own if we didn't do things correctly the next time. And once Lee parked in the guest parking spot and got a note on his windshield, the ink bleeding from the rain and plenty of profanity and threats of what would happen if he did it again. Well, now the association has decided that chimney cleaning day is March 29th, perfect timing guys. So not only do we have to move all the furniture around the living room in some sort of pattern where they can get to the fireplace, but we have to stay at home all day because it's like when they install your cable and they give you the anywhere from 8-5 time slot. Now look at the picture of our living room. This is the biggest space of emptiness we have in the whole place, how are we going to find room to move the couch and put all the boxes in there?! I'm baffled, plus I'm too cheap to buy storage for one month and I'm too stubborn to move everything twice by storing them at my sisters. So I will stack, and use my tetris game playing skills, and strategize and it WILL work! I can't wait to have actual storage closets and room for our kitchen gadgets in our new place. It will seem like a mini-mansion compared to this one!

You're in my heart, You're in my soul

2008-03-03T22:11:00.001-08:00

Ahh, it's that special time of year when the Girl Scouts of America have blessed us with their highly addictive cookies. As I type, I am currently munching on a sleeve of Do-Si-Do's. Such a lovely name they have. So innocent. Except that I'm unable to stop at one, and that is why it's a good thing that the Girl Scout's come once a year and I get only one visit to their enticing little table. When Lee and I went to Thriftway the other day I nearly jumped out of my own pants in excitement to see them sitting outside, then I just perused the table before going into the store to make sure they still had my old favs and of course they sure did! I feel grateful to have Lee in my life for many reasons, but right now I'm feeling particularly grateful that he is helping me eat these cookies and fully understands their mind-numbing draw. You see, Lee's sister, Meghan, was a Girl Scout growing up and had the things laying around the house for a month, constantly within arms reach-- plus wasn't he doing the world and his sis a favor by donating to a great cause? That's what I like to think every time I put a cookie in my mouth. I haven't felt much like writing lately, but the instant I put a Samoa in my mouth, I felt like typing away. They are quite the little miracle. I think they use really sweet girl scouts in those things.

One Step Closer

2008-02-27T21:22:00.000-08:00

I'm exhausted. We signed all the closing paperwork today for our home. I think it was the longest day I've had in recent memory. I'd like to think I handle stress well, but not really so much on this one--not when I'm at work and overbooked and trying to get calls made and papers faxed all at the same time. When it came down to the last few hours before closing, I had many people calling in their 'calm' voices who obviously knew that I was freaking a bit. I'm so glad it's over and tomorrow is a new day. I'm also incredibly grateful for our new home and the fact that we actually got the place!! Thanks to all those that made it possible.

Tonight was Lee and my first class of yoga and after not eating all day and just getting home, we decided to skip it. I made a pact that we must go next week, no matter what! We bought those damn yoga pants, Lee, we are going! I think you can tell how hungry, relieved and stuffed we were by how many Blue C plates we went through. It's supposedly cheap eats when you get a couple of $2 plates of sushi, but we managed to inhale enough for a $60 bill. I think we might need to start that yoga first thing in the morning.

I'm still in that in-between mood, not quite here and not quite there. It's contentment-which my Mom always told me was a good thing to feel, but when you're so used to being extremely busy and not having any down time, it's kind of a weird new way to feel and I'm not sure what to do with it. I think I'm supposed to enjoy it? I'll try my best, but I feel like I need to do something. It's like I can't sit still. Oh well, I'm happy and I do sleep like a baby. Nite, don't let the bed bugs bite!

Mr. Gyros and Me

2008-02-24T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here it is: My first Greenwood restaurant review. It was a gorgeous day yesterday, really much too warm and wonderful for February, but if this is the beginning of spring then I'm even more in love with Seattle weather. Lee and I decided to take a drive and do some typical Saturday errands, most of which are closer to our new hood which will make things more convenient in the future.

We needed our coffee-- in fact I think I've become one of those people I used to make fun of, you know the ones who get a caffeine headache when they skip their morning coffee? Yep, I'm one of them now. So we head on over to Neptune Coffee, right in the middle of Greenwood Ave, and I get my 'tester' order, the coffee I order whenever I try a new place just to see if the beans actually taste good. If I order something too frilly, I can't really taste the coffee so I don't really know if I like it. This system works well at Starbucks where a Frappuccino is great, but order a cup of drip and you'll be sorry. Yuck. Anyway, I got a double short nonfat latte and it was really good--not burnt, not bitter, but strong. What a relief, the more good independent coffee shops within walking distance, the better. Still haven't found my favorite, where they will know my name and ask how my day was, since I have to try them all out first.

Then we headed next door to Mr. Gyros. It's got a very New Yorkish, middle eastern, laid back, take-out place feel to it, complete with sports on the tv and a set of 20-something brothers who run the place. I thought they were twins, but upon *studying* them while they made our gyros, I realized there were some differences between the two (you may want to take a gander and check out the differences yourselves, ladies, if you know what I mean--they just might need a Mrs. Gyros if your lucky). The place was packed, the owners knew everyone's name and we were laughing at how open and well, very New Yorkish the people that came in behaved. I really like that attitude and honesty--I secretly always wanted to be a New Yorker so I'd have a good excuse to tell people off, and do it well. We ordered two lamb gyros, a side of hummus and a lamb kebab. All for under $22.00 and we were stuffed, plus we took some home. Was it the best gyro in the world? No. Would I go back? Yes, yes and hell yeah. It was fresh and tasty and really good, plus I loved the fact that they put hummus on my gyro since I typically end up ordering a side so I can spread it on myself. Plus the ambiance was sooo me. Casual, friendly, local, quick, cheap, and tasty (except I'm not quick and cheap). We are sort of spoiled in Greenwood with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food options, in fact I can name five places off the top of my head that are within walking distance of our new home, so I'm gonna be tough on them and expect the best since this in one of my favorite types of food. All in all, it's a good three and half out of five stars.

When we were leaving I mentioned that we were new to town and that they'll definitely be seeing us again, which probably wasn't the best thing to say since we aren't really new to town, we are new to the neighborhood. So when they asked where we were from and I said Queen Anne, which is a total of nine minutes down the road, all the guys laughed--pretty much at me, not with me. Okay, note to self, start telling people you are new to this neighborhood, not new to town. I still think it's funny though.

BNH and ANH

2008-02-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

I'll refer to most moving notes from now on as BNH (Before New Home) and ANH (After New Home) since every single thing seems to be different between now and then. BNH we are living in a maze of boxes, making dinner most nights, packing lunches, missing our walks to coffee shops and finding cat poop in random places since they know we're leaving and they're pissed off. ANH is much dreamier-- unpacking our boxes like Christmas presents (I don't label them in order to have a complete 'surprise' when I re-open them one month later-- it's the little things that make me happy), going out to local and cheap eats, having plenty of coffee within walking distance and cat poop in the litter box which is in the new utility room where it's supposed to go. Ah, I can *smell* the sweet success of ANH and happy kitties. Happy homeowners too.

Tensions are high these days with the countdown to the ANH upon us and I could definitely tell by the fact that Lee and I nearly took each other out playing the sweet game of 'If Wishes Were Fishes'. Sounds innocent and all, but Lee's quite competitive and my mind wanders and lingers on subjects far too many to begin to discuss, so he kind of wants to pull his hair out by the end of the game. I don't really blame him since I know he takes his gaming seriously and I will be eternally grateful to our friend Kyleen, who comes over every once in a while to indulge Lee's super-intellectual strategy game habit. Currently they are downstairs playing 'Arkham Horror', some 10 hour long game about the 'Call of Cthulu' with 50 pages of instructions and oh, about a million little pieces. I know, I know. Wikipedia it if you must, that's what I did.

As I mentioned, BNH is letting me cook a bit more since there is much to do at home at night and it saves more money than I'd like to admit. Tonight I made fresh artichoke and feta ravioli with a leek-saffrom sauce that we picked up at the Granville Island Market on our trip to Vancouver. Also a wonderful salad I was thinking of making all day with fennel, arugula, blood oranges, toasted pecans and shaved parm--it made me really happy even in my BNH state of mind. I made a small appetizer of cherry heirloom tomatoes stuffed with St. Agur cheese and topped off with this wonderful new balsamic vinegar jelly we bought at our friends cheese shop in Bellingham. Then some roasted broccoli, perhaps my new favorite way of having it. It's good we had Kyleen around tonight since I tend to make too much food and need another mouth to feed, plus she offered to paint the inside of ANH for us. Between the three of us and some Guinness, it will be a quick and easy job--with red paint on more than just the walls I'm certain.

Our New Home

2008-02-19T15:18:00.001-08:00

I've been wanting to do this for quite a while, this blogging thing, but it seems a little intimidating now that I sit down to write my first entry--I guess that's why it's taken me about 4 months to actually do it. This is the modern version of an ancient hobby I used to do daily--writing in my diary by hand with an actual pen, something people rarely do these days now that we've got all of these other ways to get the word out. I used to be terrified to let anyone read my diary, thinking that I was so different from others that if anyone read it, they would certainly banish me to an island all by myself since no one on this earth could possibly understand little old me. Since then, I've come to know many people that are just as nutty as I am and there are thousands of people that might even join me on my wacky island of nuttiness, plus growing up made me realize I'm not really as crazy as I think. So now I'm letting the whole world read my diary and I'm completely okay with that. Wow, full circle.

I had a nickname a few years ago that stuck with many of my friends and I still kind of like it-- Spice. And my new neighborhood that we will be moving into soon is Greenwood, hence the title of my blog, A Bit of Spice in Greenwood. I got the name Spice when I was a waitress at Madison's Cafe, a cool restaurant in West Seattle where they'd have local bands at night and awesome breakfasts in the morning. The chefs were all musicians and we would hang out after every shift and laugh and drink and sing. One day they just started calling me Spice and when I asked them why, they said it's because I tasted like cinnamon. Now, not only is this completely untrue, but I will be the first to tell you that none of them knew what I tasted like. Cinnamon isn't a bad choice though, it's a lot better than 'you taste like epoisses', so I went with it.

Most of my life I've based vacations, general thoughts and yearnings around the quest for amazingly good food. They now call people like me 'foodies'--which was great when I first heard of this since I now had a group of people just like me that thought of breakfast immediately after finishing dinner, but I'm starting to dislike the word altogether. It seems sort of weird, like 'furry' or something. If you don't know what a 'furry' is and you are a family member, please don't look it up and if you do, don't blame me for putting those images in your head. Any way, I digress.

I am deteremined to love this new neighborhood of mine named Greenwood and part of that falling in love with it will be discovering every restaurant and coffee shop and local haunt that calls my name. One thing I love about Capitol Hill is that you can walk to all these amazing restaurants and grocery stores and shops and there are so many cool artists and bohemians around you--I'm really hoping I can make this feeling of home and belonging true for me in my new hood. Most of my blog will be about this, you may even get some fancy pictures now that I'm all hi-tech and stuff. It's like I'm the new Greenwood food critic! Well, for my own little blog... that I can say for sure at least one person will read and that's Lee, because he *has* to read it since I'm his girlfriend and we are doing this moving into a new home thing together. He's the president of my fan club and at this point, the only member. Thanks Babe!

I think this is going to work out well--it's a fantastic creative outlet and it's cheap, a word I really like now that we've purchased our first home. And if I'm really lucky, maybe even someone else will get something out of it. Welcome to my world!