Category Archives: Food

Food, gardening, Nature, Science, Travel, Uncategorized

Verisimilitude

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The 9 course meal we ate on Saturday night  was completely sourced from a 100 mile radius of the restaurant.  Given its location just east of Seattle, it was no surprise that salmon,  geoduck, mussels, and oysters were on the menu. We also ate local lamb and pork. All the veggies like turnips, carrots, greens, cabbage, potatoes, beets, and cucumber came from the restaurant farm, as did all the herbs and flowers used in the dishes.  (Day lilies, Marigolds, and Bachelor Buttons are surprisingly tasty.)  There were lovely local mushrooms. All the wines had been commissioned from local vintners by the restaurant owners last year for the meal.  Cooking fat was either butter, grape seed oil, or hazelnut oil. They grow quinoa locally, and we had that, too.

The restaurant owners went to the extreme, though, to make sure that everything we ate was from within 100 miles.  That meant that they churned their own butter from milk from local cows, and planted a couple of acres of rye and wheat to mill their own flour for the bread. They collected clean local sea water to make their own salt. We had no pepper, but there were so many farm herbs in the food that we didn’t miss it at all. Lemon verbena provided all the citrus we needed. The biggest dilemma was what to use for locally sourced leavening for the hazelnut cakes we had for dessert.

They started out last year collecting mule deer antlers from within a 100 mile radius of the farm  and grinding them to a powder. Horn is apparently a good leavening agent and made some pretty good cakes. It takes a lot of laborious, time consuming grinding, though, and they found an even better leavening agent  in wood ash from the fire place. Who knew?

Plan a meal completely sourced from a 100 mile radius of your house. What would you serve?

 

Food, Stories, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Please Flip Your Wig

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Last Saturday we met a delightful young woman who was visiting the West Coast for the first time. She was a barrister from London, England, someone who argues cases in British courts, either for the prosecution or the defense.

We were  dining at a lovely restaurant and herb farm in Woodinville, WA. The arrangements were such that we were seated with total strangers and were expected to converse with each other for the duration of our 4 hour, 9 course meal. We had a very congenial bunch at our table, and the conversation turned particularly lively when I asked the barrister if she wore a wig to court. “Oh, yes indeed!” she replied, and went on to describe the process of finding just the right wig for her work.

There are apparently several places in London where one can purchase court dress and wigs, all ancient and venerable establishments. The wigs are made from horse hair. She said the first question she was asked was whether she wanted a wig made from the mane or the tail. I gather the mane hair would be finer and more expensive. I don’t know which she chose. Next, they  measured the circumference of her head, and then took her into a rather dark cellar full of cardboard boxes where they found the boxes with wigs in her size.

The next procedure sounds quite similar to purchasing a magic wand in the Harry Potter books.  Clothed in her court robes, complete with her white collar and tie, she tried on one wig at a time. I don’t know how concerned she was with the particular look or style.  It seemed that the distinguishing characteristic of the right wig was that it had to be one that did not slip or fall off when she bowed as low as she could bow. She said she got quite dizzy bowing repeatedly. She assured us that there were sparks and lightning flashes when she found just the right wig. She said hers was a short advocate’s wig with a  slight widows peak.

What are  the distinguishing characteristics of your work clothes?  What costumes would you like to wear to work?

 

Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

In Vino Veritas

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We are travelling home today from our vacation to Washington State.  We ended our trip in Kirkland, in  Washington wine country. Wine is big business here.

We sampled quite a few wines we can’t get at home, and delighted in the descriptions of wine in the restaurants we ate at. This was our favorite:

Fanti Brunello di Montalcio: A big powerful red with dense tannins and black cherry flavors. Balanced in a muscular way, this remains tight and brooding despite the long, fresh, finish.

We had fun crafting personal descriptors for each other. Husband came up with this for me:

RENEE: Sweet, German dessert wine. Full bodied and robust.  Good for long cellaring.

Daughter, perhaps more accurate, came up with this for me:

Mom: Effervescent and fruity with an occasional sharp finish. Needs to chill.

What kind of wine are you? How would you be described on a restaurant menu?

Family, Food, Kids, The Future, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Working Vacation

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Since we left on vacation on Wednesday, I have replied to about 30 emails from the regulatory board of which I am the chairperson. Husband has had phone calls and emails  from tribal court and from the addiction treatment center on the reservation where he works. Daughter is somewhat annoyed with us. I can’t blame her.  Really, vacation should be more like this:

I do not plan to work after I retire.  I need to keep telling myself this so that I don’t work after I retire. I need to spend retirement having  photo ops with enormous, two-legged garlic bulbs.

If you are retired, is retirement what you imagined? If you are not retired, what do you imagine retirement will be like?

Food, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Words

Silence of the Canes

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I’m a chatter – I freely admit it. No life stories, but a comment for the cashier, a quick quip for others waiting in line with me, hello to the librarian. Normally I pick raspberries with my BFF Sara.  We chat away while we pick and if there are folks on the other side of the canes, we usually talk with them a bit.

This year schedules just didn’t coincide so I ended up at the raspberry patch on my own. I was sent down a long row of canes with just one lone gentleman on the other side.  He had just started as well and we were picking at about the same speed.  We even, by unspoken agreement, shared the “in between” space.  Sometimes he would pick berries from the middle and sometimes he left them for me.

But he didn’t chat. I asked just a few questions to see if we could find some common ground:

VS: What do you do with all your berries?
H:   We spread them on cookies sheets and freeze them?
VS: Me too.  After I make some jam.

Silence

VS: Where are you from?
H: Northfield
VS: That’s convenient.  (berry patch is in Northfield)
H:

Silence

VS: Are you here alone today?
H: No, my wife is here.

Silence

Three hints are enough for me. Clearly he didn’t feel the need to chat, so I left him alone and we continued to pick silently.  His wife eventually showed up and they outpaced me although even as they got farther away from me I could hear that they weren’t speaking to each other either. So at least it wasn’t me.

Did your folks tell you never to talk to strangers?

 

 

 

 

Food, gardening, home, Seasons, Uncategorized

Chili Madness

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Last weekend a local grocery store had a special on Hatch Chilies. Those are New Mexico chilies that are traditionally fire roasted in Hatch, New Mexico in large, round, rotating, propane-fueled roasters.

The store brought in 1500 lbs of New Mexico chilies. They are an Anaheim variety, long and green, of varying heat levels.  There was a roaster set up outside the store.  Roasting was scheduled from 4 pm to 7 pm on Friday,  and 11-2 on Saturday.  Husband and I were serendipitously at the store at 3:30 on Friday, and we bought about 10 lbs of mild/medium chilies to have roasted.  The skins get charred in the roaster but the pepper flesh isn’t.  After they cooled and steamed in plastic bags we took the skins off and froze them in baggies. They will make nice additions to lots of dishes this winter.

The response to the promotion was amazing. Perhaps events like this are common in the Cities, but this was the first of its kind here, and people went crazy for the chilies. As we were having ours roasted, a woman from Watford City, a community about 80 miles northwest of us,  came with 200 lbs of chilies to roast. She said the grocery store’s sister city in Watford was rationing how much she could get, but she could purchase as much here as she wanted.  She figured 200 lbs would be enough for her and her friends. She said she used to live in New Mexico and couldn’t believe that she could have roasted Hatch chilies here. We talked to several former New Mexicans while we stood in line, and all said the same thing. They said that nothing reminded them of autumn than the smell of roasting chilies.  They were so grateful to get these peppers.

By 7:00 pm, the store had sold 1400 lbs of the chilies, leaving a paltry 100 lbs for the next day.  The store plans to get another shipment of Hatch chilies in for next weekend.

What smells are evocative for you?  What gives you a sense of home?

books, Food, Nature, The Baboon Congress, Weather

Attack of the Acorns

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It was a hot day, sunny with a bit of a breeze. The big pavilion next to Sea Salt was blocked for a family gathering and all the nearby tables, even the ones with no shade, were filled up.  We had a tablecloth that we could have spread out on the ground but we thought it would end up being a re-telling of The Princess & the Pea.  A little ways off we could see what looked like some empty picnic tables, in the shade no less, so we trooped over.

Minnehaha Park is heavily forested with oak trees. None of them are famous (although there are plenty of famous oak trees if you believe the internet) but they provided a nice, cool bit of shade.  We settled in and then fairly quickly realized why no one else had claimed the spot.

Acorns are oak nuts; they usually contain just one seed and can take between 6 to 24 months to mature before they can sprout into an oak tree. All I can say is that the acorns in the oak trees above us were ready to go.  The terminal velocity of a falling acorn from a tall 40-foot tree is 22 miles per hour.  Most of the acorns didn’t hit us directly, but they made a whooping loud noise when they hit books, plates, phones and the tables themselves.  Even though we stayed for a couple of hours, when we got up to leave we felt like we were fleeing from a dangerous situation.

When did you first fall in love?

Art, Fifty Words, Food, History, Uncategorized

Bread and Circuses

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August 4 has been pretty busy through the centuries, so I am leaving this blog post pretty open for the weekend for Baboons to comment on three pretty fun things.

In 1693, Dom Perignon is said to have invented Champagne.

In 1777,  Retired British cavalry officer Philip Astley established his riding school with performances in London,  a precursor of the circus.

in 1919,  The Rodin Museum opens in Paris in The Hôtel Biron containing works left to the state by the sculptor Auguste Rodin.

Say what you will about Champagne, circuses, and sculpture.

Family, Food, Kids, Travel

Haute Eats

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In three weeks we are flying to Tacoma to see our daughter and celebrate the successful completion of her first semester of graduate school. She is aiming for a Master’s Degree in Social Work from USC.  She has done very well thus far. If all goes according to plan, she will be done in May.

Daughter decided that the Washington wine country around Woodinville was the place to spend the bulk of our visit.  She booked a dinner there for us (at our expense, but we don’t mind) at a place called the Herb Farm for a nine course dinner lasting four hours, with foods and local wines sourced within 100 miles of Woodinville. She says we are taking Uber so we don’t need a designated driver. We will dine, in an intimate group,  with other people we have never met. I think it sounds fun, and possibly alarming.

Daughter hates fish, but is willing to try Geoduck with turnip, Dungeness crab with shiso, purslane, and cucumber, along with Fried oyster with spicy egg yolk sauce, not to mention Lummi Island Tribal Reef-netted sockeye salmon in Zucchini blossom and green coriander sauce. She says she can tolerate it because the portions are small, and she will be brave.

We are to dine on 7-year old, pastured Snohomish Valley Black Angus (I think that means tough, chewy cow) with black currants, bone marrow, beets, and bachelor buttons.  Let us not forget the marigold buttermilk sherbet, Skagit Valley purple barley malt Ice cream, Gravenstein apples, cabbage with crispy duck confit, green field-burned rye berries with mushroom sauce,  house-churned Holstein butter,  and sourdough loaf.  I have left out many other things we will be served, but you get the picture.

We never eat  like this, and I don’t expect we will do it again, but what fun!

What is the hautest of cuisines you have eaten? What makes for good food in your book?

 

 

Business, Family, Food, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Over the Hill, Not Over the Thrill

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I’m all set for my birthday week. As an adult, I don’t expect everybody to get all worked up about my birthday.  In fact, when I came home from China with Baby, my mother said to me “You know, it’s not about you anymore.”

Several years ago I started cultivating companies that will help me celebrate. If you sign up online, they’ll send you a coupon on your birthday.  This year I have coupons from Panera, Jamba Juice, Ben & Jerry’s, Brueggers, Nothing Bundt Cake, Noodles, Caribou and Dairy Queen. Except for Caribou which needs to be used on my actual birthday, I have planned to spread the others out over the upcoming few days.

I don’t give myself a card; it seems a little overkill to make a card and then give it to myself. However some years I do bake myself a birthday cake or a birthday pie; some years I even throw myself a party.  No party this year and the jury is still out about the cake/pie.  I gave my BFF theatre tickets for her birthday and turns out that the date that was good for her was my actual birthday, so I guess technically I gifted myself with theatre tickets this year!

What’s a great gift you’ve received?