Moving to Seattle

[SeaGal]

Welcome! I live nearby, too. It's a great area, as you said, close to U-district, Greenlake, Wallingford, Maple Leaf, and Lake City; all of which have interesting places to shop and eat. Better than the fruit stand are the U-District farmer's market (Saturdays) and the Lake City farmer's market (Thursday afternoons).

[sallysimpleton]

Oh, Shalmanese! I just moved a couple of blocks northeast of the Whole Foods, about six weeks ago. We bought a house and we LOVE being able to walk to several grocery stores (I lived in Fremont before, where choices were slim pickins after the Red Apple left -- PCC was the only option for the "oops, gotta run to the store, I forgot this ingredient!"). We also love having a number of new restaurants to try and parks to visit. We are currently trying out restaurants on 65th that we haven't already visited. Great neighborhood choice!

And it's also great to see that a number of others are practically neighbors as well...

[Shalmanese]

We are currently trying out restaurants on 65th that we haven't already visited. Great neighborhood choice!

And it's also great to see that a number of others are practically neighbors as well...

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Try Salvatore's on Roosevelt. A bit off the main strip but it's pretty decent Italian fare at quite a reasonable price. I had the wild boar fettucini when I went and they make a really good fresh pasta.

edit:

Salvatore Ristorante

6100 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA

(206) 527-9301

Edited September 7, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)

[Shalmanese]

Wow... it feels so GOOD to be cooking again. I've been living off greasy restaurant food for the last month and it's good to detoxify with some nice bacon and butter .

Invited my new landlord to eat with me. Decided to make it a fairly simple meal as I was still unsure of the entire setup of the kitchen. Happened to pass Mrs Cooks on the way there so I went in for a wander and came out with a whole bunch of more esoteric cooking utensils. It happened to be their birthday sale with 20% off everything but even before the discount, prices were competitive with amazon.

Anyway, dinner was really a celebration of local produce. Grilled some Wild Sockeye Salmon, made a potato salad with mustard, home-made mayo, sour cream, green onions, celery seed, S&P and bacon and made a sort of salad/salsa of heirloom & grape tomatos, avocado, sweet corn, basil, lime & EVOO. Finally finished it off with a simple pan sauce of white wine & butter:

Apologies for the not-so-good picture but the food tasted so good after not cooking for so long.

For dessert, I made a Peach & Plum Galette with some custard:

Store bought pie crust as I still don't have a rolling pin. Or, for that matter, flour.

Still have an entire half of salmon left, any suggestions for cooking?

Made friends with the new neighbours as well. They were out on their patio grilling so every 10 minutes or so, I would send out a little plate of something for them to taste. They seemed to appreciate it.

[judiu]

Wow... it feels so GOOD to be cooking again. I've been living off greasy restaurant food for the last month and it's good to detoxify with some nice bacon and butter .

Invited my new landlord to eat with me. Decided to make it a fairly simple meal as I was still unsure of the entire setup of the kitchen. Happened to pass Mrs Cooks on the way there so I went in for a wander and came out with a whole bunch of more esoteric cooking utensils. It happened to be their birthday sale with 20% off everything but even before the discount, prices were competitive with amazon.

Anyway, dinner was really a celebration of local produce. Grilled some Wild Sockeye Salmon, made a potato salad with mustard, home-made mayo, sour cream, green onions, celery seed, S&P and bacon and made a sort of salad/salsa of heirloom & grape tomatos, avocado, sweet corn, basil, lime & EVOO. Finally finished it off with a simple pan sauce of white wine & butter:

Apologies for the not-so-good picture but the food tasted so good after not cooking for so long.

For dessert, I made a Peach & Plum Galette with some custard:

Store bought pie crust as I still don't have a rolling pin. Or, for that matter, flour.

Still have an entire half of salmon left, any suggestions for cooking?

Made friends with the new neighbours as well. They were out on their patio grilling so every 10 minutes or so, I would send out a little plate of something for them to taste. They seemed to appreciate it.

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Gravlax!

[Shalmanese]

Hey! Great minds think alike. I already have Dill on tonights shopping list!

[Eden]

Try Salvatore's on Roosevelt. A bit off the main strip but it's pretty decent Italian fare at quite a reasonable price. I had the wild boar fettucini when I went and they make a really good fresh pasta.

I thought Salvatores had closed about 2 months ago, are they still/back in business? (maybe it was just a remodel, or else a false rumor)

Congrats on the new place!

[Shalmanese]

I thought Salvatores had closed about 2 months ago, are they still/back in business?  (maybe it was just a remodel, or else a false rumor)

Congrats on the new place!

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They seemed pretty open to me .

Still in the process of settling into my new home. I'm experimenting with shopping european style (buy what you cook on the same day) for a while and seeing how that goes. Still getting into the rhythm of the new kitchen and so mainly cooking fairly simple foods with really fresh ingredients. Apologies for the quality of the earlier shots. Finally got the tripod setup tonight.

Yesterday:

Heirloom & Vine Ripened Tomato Salad with Mozarella, Basil and Balsamic

Steamed Salmon with Shallots & Mayo, Balsamic Glazed Green Beans and Leftover Potato Salad

I'm glad I managed to arrive to catch the tail end of Tomato season and Salmon season. Apparently, from Thursday onwards it looks like all rain and dreary skies so I'm desperately taking in the last of the summer produce before the cool weather starts.

Tonight:

Sashimi of Salmon with Tamari and Spring Onions. Still can't get enough of that Wild Salmon, so different from the Tasmanian stuff we get in Australia. This is much more buttery and supple whereas the Tasmanian Salmon has that minerally edge to it.

Vine Ripened Tomatos, Basil, Mozarella, Romaine Lettuce & Bread Salad. I didn't have bread for the last few days so all my salads were very soupy. The addition of bread soaked up those lovely juices wonderfully.

Chicken Pasta with Onions, Bell Peppers, Capers & Sour Cream, Steamed Broccoli with Lemon. I was walking past University Seafood on the way home today and picked up some Chicken for about half the price of what the supermarkets around me are selling it for. Looks like a great place to visit after the weekly farmers markets. Seared some chicken hind quarter pieces and then slowly cooked a tangle of onions, yellow, red & green bell peppers in the chicken fat until they got nice and soft and slightly brown around the edges of the onion. Added the garlic and chicken back into the pot, deglazed with a bit of white wine and let it steam for 10 minutes. Added in a dollop of sour cream, some capers and a squeeze of lemon juice at the end. Ridiculously simple but really good.

Also, I've made some gravlax and some plum/strawberry sorbet but I haven't been taking pictures of those yet. Still not used to portioning food for one person (especially salads which always look so skimpy for 1) so I've been to full after dinner to eat any dessert. I still have 1 1/2 peach/plum galette left which I've been having pieces of for breakfast. Also been making smoothies for breakfast and to take for lunch in a thermos along with leftovers of dinner. You would not believe how good it is to actually have bananas again after 6 months of doing without!

[Ling]

^What kind of bread have you been getting? I'm curious to hear about what you think of Seattle artisinal bread vs. what you were getting in your town.

What is the sauce on the potato salad?

[Shalmanese]

^What kind of bread have you been getting? I'm curious to hear about what you think of Seattle artisinal bread vs. what you were getting in your town.

What is the sauce on the potato salad?

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The bread was a French Loaf from QFC. Nothing special. I haven't found a bakery yet although looking on google maps, there are 3 east of my house which I should check out sometime. I'm hoping I can pick up some decent bread at the farmers market on Saturday.

The sauce on the potato salad was just some leftover homemade mayo.

edit: Boy, they wern't kidding when they said I caught the tail end of summer, it was freezing this morning.

Edited September 13, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)

[Ling]

The bread was a French Loaf from QFC. Nothing special. I haven't found a bakery yet although looking on google maps, there are 3 east of my house which I should check out sometime.

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Best bread, in my humble opinion, is at Columbia City, but it's kind of a drive. You can get it when you go to Union though, so that's a good excuse to drop in and try some of their great $8 Happy Hour items.

Here's my rough ranking based on their baguettes only:

1. Columbia City Bakery (great crust, perfect airy, slightly moist crumb, perfect amount of salt in the dough)

2. Essential Baking Co.

3. Le Panier (crust is thinner and a bit softer and more delicate, but still crisp...so this is our preferred bread for sandwiches)

4. Grand Central (a little undersalted, but a nice crust...still a great baguette)

Henry really likes Tall Grass baguettes, but I'm not really a fan. He also loves the potato bread at Macrina, but nothing tops Columbia City!

Edited September 14, 2006 by Ling (log)

[Shalmanese]

The landlord spotted a 2 for 1 NY Strip Steak deal so I got a free steak. Cool!

Taking a cue from the Dinner thread, I had steak & fried eggs for dinner.

Tomato, Romaine & Bread Salad with a fried egg on top

Steak, potato, broccoli.

My spices came in today from world spice. Quality looks ok but not great. They have some cool stuff though like asfoedita and edible rose petals so I'm looking forward to experimenting with this. After this stuff runs out, I'm going to try an order from penzey and compare the difference. Made a italian herb rub on the beef of bayleaf, rosemary, oregano, and basil.

Found an awesome cast iron pan hidden in the back of the pantry. It must of belonged to the landlord's mother because it's ice slick from use. Removed some crud off it and I'm in love.

Had a bit of the plum/peach sorbet & blackberry honey sorbet for dessert. Wow, it's so soft and supple and the fruit is so intense. This waring pro is just ridiculously more powerful than the breville I had at home. I could never get it to blend this fine at home. I'm definately a convert now.

[Shalmanese]

I'm going to start easing up on the posts after today. I've pretty much settled in and have started cooking like I did at home so theres not going to be too much seattle specific stuff here. I'm semi-systematically moving my way through American seafood and tonight was Pacific Snapper. Very different from the Red Snapper I'm used to which is firm and very savoury. Experimenting with the new spices from world spice, I made a seasoned flour mix with rose petals, anardana (dried pomegranite seeds) and sumac. Fried the filets in lots of butter, added some shallots to the pan and then some frozen peas and tomato. Topped it off with some parsely and the rest of the spice mix.

No pictures as dinner was far too late for me to bother. The snapper was very flaky and moist but very mild. It seems like a great blank slate for sauces and rubs. I got mainly the sumac on the fish but the tomatos have a lovely, redolant aroma of rose which added just that hint of exoticism to quite a plain dish. Having more of the Plum/Peach sorbet for dessert. Man that stuff is good.

edit: I also rinsed off the gravlax today and I have to say I'm not a fan. Never having had gravlax before, I don't know if mine was done right but is it meant to have that wierd, gummy texture?

Edited September 16, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)

[kieran]

The bread was a French Loaf from QFC. Nothing special. I haven't found a bakery yet although looking on google maps, there are 3 east of my house which I should check out sometime. I'm hoping I can pick up some decent bread at the farmers market on Saturday.

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FYI, if you're stuck buying bread at QFC, you may like to know that they carry Essential bread (from Essential Bakery, one of the better artisanal breadmakers in town) in their bakery section.

[LaurieA-B]

The bread was a French Loaf from QFC. Nothing special. I haven't found a bakery yet although looking on google maps, there are 3 east of my house which I should check out sometime. I'm hoping I can pick up some decent bread at the farmers market on Saturday.

←

QFC also carries Grand Central bread, which is quite good. I agree with Lorna that Columbia City is the best right now, but far south from you. At the U-District farmers market I think you'll find a stand from Tall Grass Bakery to try.

[Shalmanese]

Picked up a loaf from the Tall Grass Bakery booth at the farmers market today. Thanks for the tip.

[Shalmanese]

Picked up some mince from whole foods yesterday to make spaghetti sauce and man... your cows are quite possible more obese than your people here. I used to be puzzled with american recipes involving mince that included the step "drain any excess fat"... now I know. Back home, I always picked the "3 star mince" which was the cheapest mince possible and had the highest fat content. Even then, barely any fat pooled at the bottom of the pan once browned. Here, I picked the second leanest mince since it was on special and by the end of the browning, it was swimming it a pool of grease. I had to get the colander out to drain off all the grease which I've NEVER done before.

Beef in the US also seems to be quite a bit blander that in Australia but far more tender. I'm guessing it's just the difference between grass and corn fed. Whats really disconcerting is theres none of that whiff of barnyard funk which I didn't even realise was there until it was missing. I guess I'll have to experiment with some dry aged stuff to try and get back some of that flavour.

People keep on going on about the link between HFCS and obesity. Perhaps the link is really between the rise of corn fed animals and obesity instead and both just happened around the same time. Something to think about.

Anyway, I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce today and froze the leftovers in ziplock bags. Also slow roasted a pork butt for 5 hours. Was going to BBQ it but the weather chose today to turn freezing and rainy. It was tender but not at the shredding consistancy. About 1/3rd of it "accidentally" fell off the roast as I was letting it cool and so I had to eat it before it got cold . About 1/3rd is going to be sliced for sandwiches and the remaining 1/3rd is going to be cubed and slowly simmered tomorrow in some orange & lime juice, cumin, chilli powder and red kidney beans to top some tortillas with homemade guacamole, sour cream, lettuce and some sort of mexican mozarella I found at whole foods. Mmmm...

[MGLloyd]

Generally speaking, most North American food markets stock ground beef with a range of fat content. Depending on the use, I usually buy ground beef with 8-10% fat content. A certain amount of fat is necessary for moistness and a tender mouth feel. If I am buying ground beef to brown off for a sauce, I may buy something with a 15-20% fat content for the price savings and merely drain it as you did.

A friend of mine is fanatical about fat, and when she uses browned ground beef, she puts it into a colander, drains it and then pours simmering water over it to do a hot-water extraction of any remaining fat. After this process, the meat bears a remarkable taste and texture similarity to sawdust.

[mamster]

Shalmanese, the U District farmers market is on Saturday from 9am-2pm, and you can get grass-fed beef from Skagit River Ranch. It may remind you of home. Or it may not; I've never had Australian beef.

I'm having one of their steaks for lunch today.

[Shalmanese]

Went to the pike brewery today with a bunch of Commonwealthers (UK, Aus, NZ, Canada) & Assorted European UW students. Their ruby ale is actually quite decent but I don't know who's bright idea it was that 11:30 pm seemed like a good time for closing. Came home and made this:

Lamb Chop with Cumin & Chilli

[malarkey]

Wow! You've set to cooking right away! As you've noticed, we're having a bit of a respite from the dreary fall weather. I was really hoping this would happen, as this is what a Seattle fall is SUPPOSED to be like. Warm golden sunlight.. the trees turning... Luckily, the farmer's markets all keep going for quite some time, and some even go year round. You'll find more crafts than veggies in the winter, but there is always something interesting going on.

Have you made it to Ballard Farmer's Market yet? A vendor there is making crostini with toppings for small snacks and they are divine! As we get deeper into fall you'll see heavier greens galore: chard, kale, mustard, all wonderful for braising or sautéing. I even had a grilled kale at Vij's once that was killer-good but I have NOT been able to duplicate that one at home!

[Shalmanese]

Brr... decided to embrace what looks like the real start of fall with a huge bowl of warmth:

Sausage & White Bean Soup with Potato, Carrot, Leek & Cabbage

It just totally made my day.

I've pretty much started getting into a regular routine here and theres just a whole bunch of little differences which makes moving into a new town so exciting. Americans seem a lot more in love with smoke, it's rare that you see smoked foods in Australia but here you have smoked salmon, smoked bacon, smoked sausage etc. I love the richness it brings.

The lemons here are much more floral than Aus, I love them, and I'm pretty sure the ones I'm getting are normal lemons. Meyer lemons are meant to be even more fruity.

Berries here are soooo much cheaper it's not funny. The cheapest I've ever seen raspberries in Australia was maybe $10USD a lb and here they are around $2 - 3. I had fresh berries maybe twice a year max. It's odd thinking of fresh berries as just another type of fruit rather than some exotic delicacy.

Bananas, when I left Sydney, Bananas were still $4 a lb. nuff said.

Bag your own cereals and grains: hundreds of choices, get as much as you want, always fresh. I love the concept.

Heirloom tomatos, Decent canned tomatos, Bread Flour, Chilli Peppers, these all seem to be inexplicably hard to find in Australia so it's amazing to have the range over here. Australia gets some great vine ripened tomatos but the whole heirloom fad didn't seem to take root down there. It looks like I've missed the end of the season but I look forward to trying them again in spring. Canned tomatos in Australia were always way too sour and San Marzano tomatos were an impossibility to find. You could only get one type of plain flour, AP. If you wanted bread flour, you had to buy bread mixes with yeast and "improvers" mixed in. Chillis in Aus were limited to mostly thai chillis and one or two fresh mexican ones. Here, you have 8 - 10 fresh chillis and over a dozen dried not to mention canned and the like. I still haven't started to fully explore them yet, I'm just sticking to the jalepeno for the time being.

Two Buck Chuck (actually $3), love it! It's a great cooking wine which you can actually drink. I'm going to stock up

On the other hand, here are some of the things I miss:

Apples: Oddly enough, for a state that grows so many of them, I've yet to sample a decent apple and I've tried the produce store, Whole Foods, the farmers market, everywhere. Maybe it's not yet the right season but none of the apples seemed up to par. Nearly all were too tannic, some were just far too sweet and they were all too mushy without that crisp snap.

Little shops: I loved the individual butchers and greengrocers and fishmongers. The tiny produce shop near us is great and vastly cheaper than the surrounding stores but it doesn't compare to this:

Homemade Stock:I'm just not set up for stockmaking over here so I'm living with the carton stuff and it just doesn't compare. I just finished a carton of Whole Foods chicken stock and it simply just wasn't as aromatic as the homemade stuff. Trying some trader joes next, lets see if that's any better. Luckily, Whole Foods has some frozen, no-salt chicken & veal stock so I can still make demi-glaces at a pinch. Has anyone tried it? Is it any good?

An electric kettle: One is on order but I don't know how Americans can cook without an electric kettle. Stovetop ones just seem so primitive and boiling water on the stove feels like waiting for Fidel Castro to die.

Lamb: I miss Australia lamb sooooo much .

My porch: There is a nice backyard here which should be great in the summer but nothing compares to the ambiance of that porch .

Yogurt: I might be missing something here but is it not possible to buy flavoured yogurt in large tubs instead of individual serving size containers?

I still haven't hit the International District yet. If someone has a car and is willing to play chauffer for the day, I would love to have a shopping buddy. I can show you some of my favourite asian stuff to buy and how to use it and you can save me from having to lug it all home on the bus . PM me if you're interested.

[daves]

I haven't read the whole thread, so these might be elsewhere -- apologies in advance if I'm rehashing previous material...

Grass vs corn fed beef. I think you hit the nail on the head here. Grass fed tends to be more lean and definitely has a gamier taste. You can find grass fed at the local farmer markets. My two favorites are Skagit River Ranch and Thundering Hooves.

Lamb: Costco of all places carries lots of lamb at reasonable prices from Australia or NZ: racks and boneless legs. I've never had lamb in Australia, so I don't know how it compares, but it does have the gamier grass-fed taste.

Stock: we haven't found a decent replacement for homemade. If you find something good, please post...

[Ling]

I'm moving to Seattle at the end of October.

[tsquare]

Okay Lorna - see you 'round the market.

Shal - try Trader Joe's for Aussie lamb. We've had great success.

Lots of 32 oz flavored yogurt - generally on the bottom shelf. Not sure if you can still find 64 oz.

Apples - keep trying. Pink Lady, Honeycrisp...stay away from the red delicious unless they are from someone's yard.

I have two electric kettles at home. Nice simile.