kiliki

I ordered the fig pizza the other night and it was fantastic. The only trouble was that the figs don't stick to the pizza, and they kept falling off and getting snapped up by the vigilant dog, but that was my own fault for not using a plate.

Oh...this made me laugh. Totem Lake-that is just harsh. I grew up a mile past there and even as a kid I knew that Totem Lake was a sorry place. At least you have a Trader Joe's. Don't let any co-workers talk you into Cafe Veloce. It is, inexplicably, my dad's favorite "Italian" place and it is just terrible. It has been YEARS since I've been to the Golden Goat but I used to like lunch there (they HAD two granita machines and made amazing seasonal fruit granitas, but that was a long time ago). Going via 132nd and then down the hill past Chateau St. Michelle, the traffic might be light enough to make it on your lunch hour.

I love Cowgirl Creamery's cheeses, especially the Mt. Tam, which are indeed available at the Seattle WF.

All of the soapstone sold here comes from Brazil. I'd called around early in the summer looking for samples and was told by 5 different places they were waiting for the container from Brazil. Ours were installed today (there's a soapstone backsplash and bar, too) and they are so beautiful. I am in love.

I've concocted elaborate theories about this, most of which involve a granite mafia or Corian racketeers, plus bribes, threats and payoffs. I could be wrong, though.

I would think that would scratch it. My friend with the soapstone counters showed us the spot that he always opens wine bottles in-the bottom of the bottle has worn scratches on the counters. He could sand them out, but he doesn't mind the way it looks.

Is it really tougher than anywhere else? As I was taking the bus up 45th the other day I was noticing how many places have been there for quite a long time. How is Postmark Gelato? Is that the place by Lenin?

I've had two bad meals-beef kebabs that were almost unrecognizable as beef, and a gyros so laden with raw onions (but little else) that it was almost inedible-at the PS location. I've never had the falafel or tried the 3rd Ave location.

Lol...I guess that's a bright side to having a small home-though the kitchen is now the largest room in the house (it now includes what was the back porch), we only needed one slab for the countertops.

Our soapstone countertops are being installed next week. We chose them because they fit in well in our little 100 year old Seattle house, because they are so beautiful when oiled almost to black, and because soapstone is a dense, durable material. They're pretty unusual here in the PNW, and we had a lot of people-from salesmen in countertop showrooms (usually these guys specialized in granite) to our remodeler-try to talk us out of them. Just about every bad thing these people told us about them turned out to be untrue, we discovered after finding some people that had soapstone counters. One co-worker who dearly loves his even let us come over and spill red wine on them (we had been told they stain easily). The stone wholesaler gave us a small sample that we took home and abused as well. They will scratch, but the scratches sort of fit in with the rustic look of the counters, so we're willing to live with that. If we hadn't gotten the soapstone, the only other material we considered was Richlite, a recycled product that is made locally and is fairly popular here. The black Richlite looks a bit like soapstone, but it costs about the same and isn't as pretty. I don't know when you are planning on purchasing your counters, but feel free to pm me in the future to ask how we're liking the soapstone.

Pike Place Chowder.

Those are some good looking hash browns. Did they taste good, too? Could you tell if they precooked the potatoes, or if they started with raw potatoes (the preferred way)?

That cannot be real. Dear lord. I can't even wrap my mind around the possibility that that cake exists.

I bought some at the vendor with the "Donut Peaches" awning on wednesday at the Market that were good, but not fabulous. I looked for Rama two weeks ago and found only an unmanned, un-peached booth with their name on it, and last wednesday they weren't there at all. If you're heading to the market you might ask the folks at Frank's what's best. They're often samplling out some peach or another that's especially good that day.

Last night I had my first perfect experience there. We scored a great table on the waterfall patio, had fabulous service (we got someone new who very obviously is a "pro" waitress), got water as soon as we sat down, and all of our food and drinks came promptly and in the correct order!!! We even got our entrees at the exact same time.

Will do. In my continuing quest (yet not wanting to venture far outside the neighborhood before caffeine first thing in the morning) we went to The Original Pancake House on 15th in Crown Hill. I'd previously ignored it since I knew it was a chain and family oriented (snobby, I know) but what the hell, I wanted pancakes. The Swedish pancakes I had really hit the spot; the regular buttermilk cakes were pretty good and I was impressed at how well run the place was. There was coffee, water and slices of apple pancake set up in the waiting area, the wait was short despite the long line, and service was great. The coffee cups were extra big so my quick-drinking boyfriend didn't drain his then sit around fidgeting for more like usual, and my tea order came as a big pot of water with 2 tea bags and two lemon wedges. Sometimes its the thoughful little things. I will go back and try the Dutch Baby next time.

I think I could eat here every day and not get sick of it. My dream is that they open another one in the north end so I can have the special steamed roll and the fresh prawn spring rolls anytime I want, not just on weekends when the drive from Phinney Ridge to the ID is bearable.

Her fans have time to play on message boards but not time to cook real food?

Thanks. I actually had terrific blueberry buttermilk pancakes on the way home from camping this weekend in Greenwater (north of Mt. Rainier on Hwy 410) at Buzzy's Greenwater Cafe. Geraldine's is definitely closer, though.

This is what we'll have, too. One of the happy surprises during demo was that we actually have 10' ceilings, so instead of having cabinets that go to the ceiling, as planned, we're now going to have a foot and a half of extra space to store the same kind of things you do.

Any suggestions for terrific pancakes-the kind where your fork cuts through them like butter, rather than the kind that you have to really saw through? I've long given up finding good ones in a restaurant (with one northern California exception) but with 4 weeks left on our kitchen remodel, I'm really dying for a 'cake.

Floors: Have you considered Marmoleum? That's what we are having installed-it's natural linoleum (made from flaxseeds, so it's a "green" product) and comes in beautiful pattens and colors (we got a lovely swirly blue). It's warm and soft underfoot and doesn't dent, fade or scratch (well, you can't see scratches anyway, since it's solid color throughout). We have 100 y.o. fir floors in the rest of the house but the Marmoluem works with it. Looking at it online it doesn't look very special but go see samples in a showroom-it's really cool. Counters: My boyfriend, too, loved soapstone for its old time science room look, and I loved its matte finish (I hate shiny countertops). It's pretty rare stuff here in the PNW but even with that it was not more expensive than any other stone, wood, or even the recycled Richlite product, which was our second choice. We don't have miles of countertops but it cost a lot less than we'd expected to spend. It seemed like laminate was the only surface that offered significant savings. Stoves: We considered dropping a chunk of money on a pro-style stove before actually investigating what you get for your money. After reading Consumer Reports articles (the repair frequency of some of the high end ranges is abysmal) and doing quite a bit of other research, it just didn't seem worth the extra thousands of dollars. A salesman at the highest-end appliance store in town, after I pressed him, admitted that I wouldn't get much more out of the ranges that were $4000+ than I would out of the ranges that cost half that. Before buying this home, I had rented probably 15 different homes and apartments, all with cheap crappy appliances, and you know what? I still cooked, and even baked, well. The pro-style sure are pretty but I just couldn't justify the extra cost. Also, I find it interesting that your designer told you that installing a wall oven/stovetop would cost more than a range. The cost difference was insignificant with our remodeler (we chose a range just for space reasons). Which brings me to my next point... We are in week 5 (of 9) of our kitchen remodel-a gut job including pushing the kitchen out onto the back porch and reconfiguring an interior wall. I wish I'd seen this thread sooner so I could have shared the best thing that I've found in this process: using a design/build firm. We'd already had one experience hiring a architect/desgner to help us remodel the attic, and it turns out that she had a very bad sense of what things would actually cost and what, in fact, what actually possible, since she wasn't a contractor. She designed something that cost about 4 times what she'd estimated, putting it WAY out of our reach. I'm told that this is not uncommon. With a design/build firm, you tell them your budget and they design and build a space within that budget, period. The firms themselves will tell you that they are more expensive than doing it the "regular" way (with a contractor and separate designer or architect) but we don't feel we're spending more than most people do on a kitchen remodel. The whole project has been stress-free-zero headaches and hassles, on-time and on-budget. We did do extensive interviews and reference checks to find our wonderful firm. If you intend to do a fair amount of work yourselves, it might not be the best solution for you (our firm was happy to let us do a couple things ourselves, but we have to keep to their strict schedule), and you have already hired a designer, but I see you so often wondering, can we afford this, how much will it cost to do this, etc etc, and it is so much easier to sit down with people that will both design and construct the space-they know what can be done and how much it will cost right from the get-go.

I just spent almost two weeks in the Hilo/Volcano/Puna areas for work, and I think the best eats I found were at the farmer's markets. Both the Hilo and Puna markets (not the small one in the town of Pahoa, but the big farmer's/craft market alongside Hwy 130 on Sat and Sun) had a lot of prepared foods, such as Vietnamese salad rolls, papaya salads, rice noodle salads, roast chickens, desserts, etc. I was in heaven at the Vietnamese food stalls, and I enjoyed the chance to try unfamilar Asian/South Pacific items from other without breaking the budget (such as the coconut glazed mochi puffs for $1). I also have a thing for roadside stands, and I bought quite a bit of tasty stuff out of the back of people's trucks on the side of the road, ie tamales and spanish rice. I was really happy to find such delicious, inexpensive food in Hawaii.

The buttermilk ranch dry mix, made with half as much mayo as they call for so it's fairly runny, not gloppy...it's my favorite junk food and just about the only time I'll buy something with unrecognizable, unpronouncable ingredients.

Yet another NY Times article about Wa. State-this time, about the Walla Walla food and wine scene. Walla Walla