Placebo

Mm.. congee - I haven't had any since I was in Hong Kong years ago. Made a great start to the day but I think that for Desolation Brunch I'm looking for something a bit richer. That said I'll be checking out the congee situation regardless.

It's Sunday morning. You were up far too late last night, drinking far too much. You're hungry and groggy, your head probably hurts a bit and your stomach is a bit tender. You need comfort food. You need Desolation Brunch. In my four years in Seattle I've not yet really found anywhere satisfactory for this yet. The *big* caveat is that I've not had a car very long so I haven't explored much outside of Cap Hill and am looking for suggestions on places to go. I've been to Glo's and while it's tasty it doesn't quite do it for me. Coastal Kitchen has very tasty food though their omelettes always have a bit of a strange consistency. They do have fantastic hash browns though. I've been to Hattie's Hat ages ago and I recall it being good but not earth-shattering. I guess that for me Desolation Brunch is about comfort food - dairy, carbohydrates and maybe some protein, everything fresh, everything tasty. It should settle a stomach that's recovering from tying a few too many on and leave me contented. To give you an idea of what I'm looking for, when I lived in Brooklyn my favorite spot were the following: Theresa's (Montague St., Brooklyn Heights) - This was our favorite spot for Desolation Brunch -- I'd usually get an order of peppery potato pierogen, a plum butter blintz (light and crispy on the outside and divinely rich on the inside), a bottomless cup of coffee and a tall grlass of incredibly-fresh orange juice. They opened up a branch in Manhattan on 2nd Ave. & 6th St. but we felt it was never quite as good as the Brooklyn one. Le Gamin (Front St in DUMBO very briefly but the more established branch was on... 6th or 7th ave and 13th St or so, though my memory may be off). Fantastically good crepes, big *bowls* fo cafe au lait and some of the worst service I've ever encountered (what sort of French creperie runs out of goat cheese during brunch on sunday?) but so worth it. Greek diners (usually the one right at the exit from the Brookyn Bridge but really any would do) - Some sort of egg or pancake dish and usually disco fries (or at least gravy fries. Nothing was ever excellent but the menus were huge and pretty much everything was pretty decent. So, where do you go for recovery of body and soul? [edited for spelling]

Beef (sliced thin for sukiyaki) with string beans in a sauce of ginger, garlic, chili, vinegar, mirin and soy over white rice.

I find that I like thickening my pan sauces with arrowroot starch. It's powdered extremely finely (nearly to the texture of confectioner's sugar), mixes in rapidly and doesn't lump. I just give a quick dusting of it, stir it in and then repeat as needed.

If you're packing garlic in olive oil make sure, upon using, that you cook them thoroughly upon using as the mix can harbor botulism. The risk is reduced if you refrigerate it for storage but it's still something to keep in mind. The same is true for preserving any other low-acid foods and herbs in olive oil.

Are they sealed packages (like machine-wrapped)? I have some goat cheese in my fridge that is fairly plasticky but it's pretty typical supermarket goat cheese. Clearly mass-produced and such and it tastes it, plasticky in texture and flavor. Better is very fresh goat cheese wrapped in plain clear plastic -- hopefully the clear plastic is a proper cheese wrap and not just regular plastic wrap as cheese plastic allows the cheese to breathe a little bit. Around here (Seattle) there are a bunch of good local producers. Otherwise you might look for a cheese where your portion is cut from a larger piece when you ask for it (like getting a slive cut off a "log" of Boucheron) so that the cheese hasn't really been in contact with the plastic for long. Also small individual mold-ripened (or otherwise rind-encrusted) cheeses are good or those that otherwise have their surfaces seperated fromt he plastic (like a goat cheese wrapped in hazelnut leaves) -- the plastic never touches the cheese. You may need to find a higher-grade cheese-purveyor to get these sorts of cheeses -- they're not likely to be at the regular supermarket (though the Whole Foods here has perhaps the best cheese selection I've found in the city). Generally anywhere with a cheese counter that lets you tsate as you like is a good bet,bothe in terms of the quality of the cheeses and the quality of the wrapping materials. If possible, please find out what you've been trying and post it - I'll see if I can find it here and give it a try.

Yeah, Udupi was recommended by a South Indian coworker of mine and I realy like South Indian food so I'm willin gto give it a go.

I'm resurrecting this thread as I'm curious if folks have new places to add. I've been really sorely dissappointed by the Indian food in Seattle. For a long time I was told to try Chutney's, Cedars and Bengal Tiger. They are all, IMHO, awful. The flavors are all simplified and everything tastes really sweet. Nearly every other Indian place I've been to, so far, suffers from these problems and often is just plain bland. After four years I finally found one place that I like, called Savoy. It's in Redmond (or maybe it's Bellevue, it's just on the border) on 148th just south of 520, in the same shopping plaza as the big Fred Meyer, next to, of all things, a Chuck E. Cheez. The first good sign was thay they own a pretty massive Indian market next door that I now love shopping at. The menu is divided up by region and everything I've had there has been really excellent. The flavors are rich and layered. When I get lamb it's always tender and juicy. My only complaint is that they go very heavy on the ghee but I'm willing to live with that for how good the food is. They also have, I think, the most extensive (read massive) buffet I've ever seen. The staff appears to be all Indian and a lot of the patrons are as well (fgenerally a good sign). I still need to try Udupi Cafe (formerly Gokanda) at Crossroads as I hear they're good too. I'm still looking for more options (preferably on the west side of the lake).

I've played with ERM on and off and while it's very powerful for managing recipes and customizing how you file them (and has great import features) it's not much for pretty output. Seems lie something database-backed that would let you include pictures would be perfect - especially if it could export the recipes to PDF format for easy printing. I occasionally think about writing such a thing myself just becasue I have yet to find anything I like. I'm downloading the Cook's Palate demo now.

I tend to prep as I go. Usually I'll start by prepping whatever I'll need for the first few steps of the process to carry me till the next break in the cooking action. Things neeed later will be prepped as I go. I'm not a particularly fast cook either but the prep work is definitely therapeutic for me at the end of the day. Pu ton some good music and use the chef's knife to just work some of that stress out. I try and also keep things around that can be used to make a very quick meal as well. For instance I can generally bust out a pretty decent yaki-soba in under about 30 minutes, start to finish, including meat or tofu and 2-4 different veggies and a sauce whipped up from whatever I have on hand that seems tasty. Now that I have a decent wok and gas burner I can probably peel another 5 minutes off that time. [Of course there are also nights where I get some damn-fool cooking idea in my head and end up not eating till 11 so...]

My favorite lamb dish is a Lanb Shahi Korma at a restaraunt here (Seattle) called Savoy (the only Indian place I've found in this town that I like). It's incredibly rich, creamy and spicy with really wonderful nutty base and the sweet notes added from raisins. I would love to learn to make this myself in a way that really captures the depth and complexity of flavor in this dish.

I haven't had tandoori pomfret in almost 6 years. I highly doubt, sadly, that anyplace here in Seattle makes it, as there's such a dearth of decent Indian resaraunts (took me 4 years to find one I was even willing to go back to). I'd love to make it at home but I don't know that I can properly simulate a tandoor (I've thought oven gricks or even clay planting pottery might be a workable start but would need more advice on this). I've also yet to find any fresh pomfret here though I think I may have found a source for passable frozen stuff. I need to go back and recheck.

Mayo or mayo-like products on burgers or deli sandwiches. On burgers it's just nasty (especially when it's piled on and oozes out all oer the place. On a deli sandwich it's an offense against nature. I cannot fathom why anyone would put flavorless glop on something that so clearly requires a spicy brown mustard. It seems to be the default, though west of the Mississippi. Or perhaps west of the Hudson even. I have a particular memory of a friend of myine from Georgia having her first proper pastrami experience at Katz's. She asked for mayo on it and they started sending her from counter to counter to counter to counter. I think they were downright insulted and rightfully so. Needless to say, she never made that mistake again.

One of the most fantastic fish dishes I've ever had was tandoori whole pomfet at a little restaraunt in Goa. Despite having gotten mild food poisening the 2nd or 3rd time I had it I continued to go back for more. Having just found decent-looking pomfret (albeit frozen) for the first time here in Seattle I'm gonna ned to try this recipe out.

A friend just brought me back some Katz's from a trip to NY. It was like a slice of heavem - dear god I miss that stuff so much. I may need to give in and mail-order some. Now if only there was a way to get a Grimaldi's pizza out here to me in Seattle...

Slice red onions 3/4" thick, marinate in balsamic type vinegar and olive oil, frill until soft. Great on sammiches or just straight up on their own. Nummy.

I find that if I just slap the whole stock (after straining) into the fridge all it does is warm my fridge up. My preferred quick-cooling method is as follows: The night before I make the stock I fill a 1-liter water or soda bottle most of the way up with water and put it in the freezer. When I'm ready to cool the stock I put a big metal mixing bowl in the fridge and then put the stock pot intot he bowl (make sure it rests firmly on the bottom and isn't floating). I then run cold water through the mixing bown while stirring the stock with the frozen water bottle. This'll get several quarts of stock down to room temperature in under 10 minutes. You can actually buy stock chiller paddles at restaraunt supply stores that you fill with water and freeze but my experience with them so far has been that the plastic is too thick to have effective heat transfer. When I have a bigger kitchen with more storage space I may actually get a wort chiller from a brew shop and use it as a dedicated stock chiller.

Eggplant with garlic sauce - my first time making it myself. It turned out surprisingly good. Used the resipe from “Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen,” by Grace Young as shown at http://www.thefoodmaven.com/diary/archives...s/00000021.html (minus the pork as I didn't have any onhand). Once again I'm reminded how much I love my wok and portable butane burner.

I'm checking now on the pastry scene with my neighbor who pulls coffee there. I'm not much for the vegan pastries either but on the other hand the savory brioche (filled with spinach, mushrooms and havarti) is positively divine, as is the sweet almond brioche. OK, pastries: Macrina, Empress, Paris Gourmet, Le Forni and Zeitgeist for the good donuts (they might also have mighty-o's) and a few other goodies. They may get vegan stuff from other places as well but I didn't ask. I think they also pull some of the best espresso in town. VIvace pulls it a bit better, Zoka is comperable as well and I hear that there's aplace on Eastlake that has even better espresso than Vivace even.

That's part of why I like Victrola so much (apart from the fact that they pull some of the best espresso in town). Their pastries are a selection of a lot of the best stuff from I think half a dozen or more bakeries around town, the sandwiches are made daily on-site and the art is local and rotates monthly. I'm unfamiliar with the Starbucks pastry lineup as their coffee is so awful that I can't see any reason to go in. Zoka, up in Greenlake, has perhaps the most tantalizingly over-the-top pastry case I think I've ever seen in a coffee shop and they pull a fine fine shot of coffee. How's the coffee at the new Top Pot? I'm not too crazy about what they serve at the Cap Hill one though I go in from time to time as it's nearby and the donuts are damned tasty.

Is there any chance of getting chummy with the owners or cooks at these places to see if you can get them to make you something more traditional and proper? I wonder if they might not even enjoy someone actually caring abotu the quality and authenticity and wanting it done properly. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

Well, I'm not sure about other cities but Seattle's size and density, to my mind, make it only barely more urban than suburban and I often feel that outside a few neighborhoods a lot of the populace are more suburban than urban. Seattle's "dense urban core" is pretty tiny, really, and may not have the force on its own to fight off the rampant suburbanization of the surrounding region. Granted I may be somewhat slanted in my view from 3 years working on the east side which is becoming more and more like Dallas by the day -- i.e. ugly cookie-cutter housing developments interspersed with strip malls and with most of the stores and restaraunts that pop up being chains. I wonder if it isn't in part an influx of bored east-siders that's making downtown more suburban in taste. I'll add, as an additional heap of salt, that before moving here I spent 9 years in New York City so my sense of urban may be somewhat skewed as well.

Oh wow - I'm heading over there Right Now to investigate. Thanks, -Amir

Thank you all for your excellent responses. I have indeed heard good things about Seattle Central and South Seattle from a friend who was looking at going this route a year ago. I'm wondering what sort of resume I can even present, having never worked on a line before. On the other hand, all of my IT knowledge was learned on the job by being handed tasks that needed to be done and learning what was needed on the spot to make it happen. I'm not sure how to present that to people but I suspect I can figure that out as well. I think the first thing I need to do is get my knife skills up to speed - I'm *slow* on the prep now and need to improve that even just for my own cooking, all professional spots aside. o afr all I have to guide me as an old copy of La Technique -- it's helped a lot but does not compare to what I would learn from actually working with someone who could show me and correct me as I go. That or I need to buy a whole mess of veggies and just slice, dice and chop for hours. The other area where my interest lies (perhaps even moreso than cooking outright as far as future work goes) is making beer and cheese. I've only done a little of each so far but am planning to do much more over the fall. The trick for cheese-making is that I need a way to age my cheeses properly and living in an apt in capitol hill this is tricky. I'm looking into digging up a small used refrigerator case and making some changes to the ventilation, temperature and humidity control to get the environment I need. Hopefully when my lease runs out I can find a place with more space and, ideally, a basement or cellar. I'll be calling around next week to beer and cheese makers in the region to see if there are openings or even suggestions. That and I need to source goat milk for less than $12/gallon and sheep milk anywhere I can find it (though ideally I'd like arrangements with a specific farm or two where I know the feeding and milking patterns for the animals in question).

Hi folks - haven't posted in a bit but here it is. I've been thinking for a while about treying to go into food work professionally for a couple of years now. Having been just layed off from my IT job this seems like the perfect opportunity. So, I'm wondering if people have suggestions on how to get this started. I'm an avid home cook (never cooked progfesionally) and I've done menu planning, recipe scaling and head-cooking for parties (of friends) up to 120 people. Hell, as much as I love the summer here I was completely thrilled when the temperature finally dropped enough this weekend for me to start making stocks again. Anyway, I'm wondering if folks have suggestions. I assume I'll start at the bottom and work my way up but I guess as someopne with no actual working experience doing this I'm not sure where to begin. My initial plan is to scan craigslist and the paper for work and then just start walking around town popping by the places I like or that interest me and making inquiries. Any suggestions from seasoned folks out in the field would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, -Amir