Moving to Seattle

[tighe]

Lamb: I miss Australia lamb sooooo much .

This may sound snotty, but I can't help it.

How can you miss Australian lamb when that's almost all that is available (along w/NZ), at least in grocery stores?

Also, I would be interested in what you believe is better (subjectively or objectively) about Australian vs US lamb.

[Shalmanese]

Lamb: I miss Australia lamb sooooo much .

This may sound snotty, but I can't help it.

How can you miss Australian lamb when that's almost all that is available (along w/NZ), at least in grocery stores?

Also, I would be interested in what you believe is better (subjectively or objectively) about Australian vs US lamb.

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It always seemed slightly obscene to me to move to a different country and then eat food from your old country that had to be shipped halfway across the world to get to your plate, especially when there are passable alternatives.

Man, cooking alone can be tough sometimes. I decided to roast a chicken and I seem to be genetically incapable of roasting a chicken without going all out on the sides. So I had:

Roast Chicken with an Almond & Sage Stuffing and a Red Wine & Sage jus

Roasted Fingerling Potatos

Roasted Cauliflower & Broccoli with Shaved Parmesan

Sauteed Lobster and Chanterelle Mushrooms

Salad of Lettuce, Sorrel, Bacon and Fried Chicken Livers

So much food for one person . Is it bad that the only times I am homesick is when I wish I could share a taste of what I'm cooking with my family?

[Ling]

^The salad with the fried chicken livers sound delicious!

If I may borrow this thread for a moment...

I'm moving soon and I just bought a coffee maker with a built-in grinder. I like the Americanos I've been getting at Zoka and Vivace. Does anyone have a particular favourite roast from these (or any other) companies?

[kiliki]

A vendor there is making crostini with toppings for small snacks and they are divine!

Unfortunately for us Ballard Farmer's Market crostini fans she fell in love with an Italian guy and is moving to Italy.

Try PCC for big sized flavored yogurt if you can't find it at Whole Foods.

[dandelion]

Ling, I'm excited to hear that you're moving to Seattle!

I'm going to have to admit that my favorite beans at the moment are from the grocery store... Metropolitan Market's organic French roast. I first bought it when one night at midnight I didn't have any beans for the next morning, but it's really good. Nice and dark, but not over-roasted, and I love how oily it is.

I use a stovetop espresso maker, so I'm not sure if the result will be different with your electric machine....

My second favorite is the French Sumatra from Lighthouse in Fremont.

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Kiliki are you serious??? Do you know how long until she's gone?

[Shalmanese]

Whew, what a day. Exciting things are afoot, watch this space. Photos will be up soon when I can get my camera to behave.

I went all around Seattle today with the impossibly cheerful and bubbly scarlett and the wonderfully generous heyjude. Scarlett showed me around the U-district farmers market and introduced me to all the cool vendors there and I picked up a bunch of nice stuff. Next, we went over to Wallingford with a short "detour" along the way at the *cough*bakery on 45th St*cough*.

Went over the bottleworks where I picked up some nice stuff, next door to City Cellars where we randomly bumped into David LeClaire, a sommelier who runs a whole bunch of wine shows and tastings and stuff as well as being a really nice guy.

Went down south through Queen Anne to Pike Place. Stopped briefly at Union where she's a PR person there (sorry, I'm afraid I'll get your title wrong so you'll have to say exactly what you are). Visited the kitchen there, had an impromptu vinegar and anchovy tasting and got given a free bag of pasta which I'm going to cook tonight. Phew, even writing this is tiring me out and I'm not even 1/2way done.

Then we went down to the ID and had lunch and the Green Leaf where I was handed off to heyjude.

From there, we headed to PFI which I have to say... without any exaggaration whatsoever, to be the best food store I have EVER set food in by a clear mile. It's simply... I mean, I don't think... You just need to check it out if you haven't already. I was starting to fear that I had been getting bored with shopping and had a decent idea of what foods were available and what their uses were. PFI just blew that notion out of the water, I bought $100 worth of stuff (which is a lot since thier prices are 1/2 - 13/rd the price of everywhere else) and I don't think I came close to 1/10th of the stuff I wanted to buy and experiment with. Among the things I DID get were lingonberry syrup, canned sour cherries, salt cod, 5 pounds of really good dark chocolate for $3 a pound, proscuitto for $13 a pound, orechetti pasta, halvah sesame paste... and I'm not even mentioning the stuff I wanted to buy but didn't. Seriously, go check it out if you haven't already.

From there we went to uwajimaya where I picked up a whole bunch of asian staples, soy sauce (light & dark), oyster sauce, kecap manis, fish sauce, sambal, ponzu, bonito, kombu and a whole bunch of other crap. Plus the requisite goodies like roasted sunflower seeds, roasted peanuts and lychee flavoured white rabbit.

Finally, from there I headed over to heyjude's place to lust over and gawk at her cookbook collection which has not 1 but THREE French Laundry Cookbooks, one of which is a limited edition, only 100 ever printed version (I lust after it soooo much).

Finally headed home after nearly 10 hours straight of solid shopping, what a day. Whew.

[scarlett]

Kiliki are you serious??? Do you know how long until she's gone?

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Hi Dandelion. Here's the scoop on what's up with the Bruschettina lady... Ironically enough, I met her beau, Federico. He's a lovely man and I wish them all the best!

Edited October 15, 2006 by scarlett (log)

[Shalmanese]

Pasta & Clams - In whiche the Hereo narrowly avoides calamite

I know of no way to do this story justice except via anachronistic verse so here we go...

Pasta & Clams, Clams & Pasta:

I bought the clams from "Oyster Bill" at the U-District Farmers Market and I got given the Pasta by the Chefs at Union so I was quite probably holding some of the finest Pasta & Clams in the Greater Seattle Region but they needed to be used posthaste.

Pasta & Clams, "What should I do with Pasta and Clams?" I ask scarlett. "I dunno, you're bright and resourceful, you'll find a way". "What should I do with Pasta and Clams?" I ask heyjude. "Something simple, a bit of oil, a bit of garlic and it's good".

And in my heart of hearts, I knew she was right. We were supposed to "respect our ingredients" and "let their purity shine through" and pay penance to the Lord Alice Waters at least 3 times a day for delivering us from the land Vegetables de Canne and Chicken a la Factorie.

But you know what... fuck Alice Waters and fuck the people who mindlessly parrot her, they've forgot how to cook and learned how to shop and managed to confuse the two. I had a brand new swag of stuff from the Asian Supermarket and I wanted to play with the big boys.

So Clams & Pasta... Bacon is an obvious pairing, bacon works well with shellfish. So if Bacon, why not Proscuitto, surely that would work nicely. So, Clams & Pasta & Proscuitto... how about:

Seaweed Paste! I picked this up because I knew it had to be good for something. It's seaweed, soy sauce, sugar and a bunch of thickeners. Intriguing...

What else? Garlic, obviously! Greek Yogurt for thickening? Ponzu??? Sure, why the hell not all of em, if I'm going to produce an abomination worthy of Dinner II, it should at least be international!

So I go back up and heat up a pan of EVOO and butter. Wait until the butter just about browns and throw in the pancetta to crisp up. Add in the garlic and the clams and clamp on the lid. Let it saute and steam at the same time, all the lovely clam juices leaking out. Once the shells are open, I add in a big dollop of the seaweed paste, and thicken it with some greek yogurt. Toss in the cooked pasta and stir it all together.

I wince, taste and wince again... and then realise I had subconciously shut my tounge off in anticipation of the awfulness. I allow my tounge to resume full operation, taste again and... wow... that tastes... not pretty damn good but amazing. It needs a little grind of pepper and a splash of yuzu turned out to be the wrong direction for it but a dash of balsamic vinegar restored the balance. Holy crap, it's phenomenal now. What the hell?

This, by all laws of foodology, has no rights to taste good. I should be gagging and lamenting the misguided attempt to "fuse" foods and repenting my sins against the Great Waters of Alice but no... it tastes... abso-fucking-ly delicious.

I plate it up, and add some lumpfish caviar I had lying in the fridge that needed to be used up (frank admission, I bought the lumpfish caviar just so I could use the phrase "some lumpfish caviar I had lying in the fridge that needed to be used up" on eGullet) and voila:

It tasted really, really, REALLY good. One of the best meals I've ever made and certainly one of the most unexpected.

Edited October 15, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)

[scarlett]

Shalmanese...I had a great time running around with you today! I'd love to hear what you end up doing with the Taylor Shellfish clams and the house made rigatoni from Union. Sounds like you had an awesome plan for those....

As for your cultural bakery stop....um...let's just say...we were in the neighborhood. Where else...in all your travels...have you ever seen a place like that????

Sorry I couldn't join you and heyjude for PFI...those small kiwi were calling me back to the Farmer's Market. I'm not sure what they did with them, but they ended up on Union's menu tonight!

I'll look forward to hearing more about your Seattle adventures.

Cheers!

[scarlett]

I'd love to hear what you end up doing with the Taylor Shellfish clams and the house made rigatoni from Union. 

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You beat me to it! Wow, that's one combo I never would have thought of!

"I just happened to have some caviar lying around..." Crack me up!

One fun thing to do is visit Seattle Caviar. It's been a while since I've been there for this so you'll have to call them for the latest details, but they used to do caviar and champagne tastings on Saturdays for $5. They have skimpy details about tastings on their website, but it looks like they do definitely still have them.

Anyone else been to Seattle Caviar for their tastings lately?

[Shalmanese]

Sorry I couldn't join you and heyjude for PFI...those small kiwi were calling me back to the Farmer's Market. 

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I believe they're called "New Zealanders of Diminuitve Size" and no kiwi would be so crass as to call, they would at most, politely rebuke.

One fun thing to do is visit Seattle Caviar. It's been a while since I've been there for this so you'll have to call them for the latest details, but they used to do caviar and champagne tastings on Saturdays for $5. They have skimpy details about tastings on their website, but it looks like they do definitely still have them.

Thing is, I genuinely don't much care for caviar. I really DID buy it for the reason I mentioned above.

[Ling]

Omigosh...I don't know what I'm more shocked by--those, those pink cakes on that website, or how you said: "fuck Alice Waters". !!

Your pasta looks good, but it's something I would have to taste before I'm convinced. I am not generally a huge fan of fusion food. I would've done traditional Chinese stir-fried clams with shao xing wine and black bean sauce, and then served a separate pasta course. I wonder what seaweed paste is traditionally used for? I still haven't made it to PFI. That is at the top of my list once I move down. (BTW, thanks, dandelion, for the coffee recommendation!)

Is Oyster Bill the best place to get fresh oysters? I can shuck them myself.

Edited October 15, 2006 by Ling (log)

[prasantrin]

I wonder what seaweed paste is traditionally used for?

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I think it's usually just eaten with rice. The advertisements I've seen for it have some on top of freshly cooked rice. Think of it as furikake, but more pastey than furikake-y.

[scarlett]

Is Oyster Bill the best place to get fresh oysters? I can shuck them myself.

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I believe Oyster Bill from Taylor Shellfish is the best place to get fresh oysters. I bought some clams from him and the pull tag on mine says they were harvested on 10/13 and I bought them the morning of 10/14. I'm sure the dates for oysters would be similar (or at least close, depending on where they came from).

Not only that, if you catch OB without a crowd, he'd be more than happy to talk to you about the oysters--which oysters harvested from which location have the best flavor, what impact seasonality has, etc. He's a great resource.

Edited October 15, 2006 by scarlett (log)

[Shalmanese]

Whew, what a day. Exciting things are afoot, watch this space. Photos will be up soon when I can get my camera to behave.

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The exciting things have been afeeted

[Abra]

Lorna, we use Caffe Vita del Sol beans. Another good one for the moka pot is Peet's Major Dickason's.

[Shalmanese]

Paella, yum! Got the rice from PFI yesterday and picked up bits and pieces today at Whole Foods while looking for inspiration for my dessert tapas. So easy to make and it tastes so good!

[JasonTrue]

I wonder what seaweed paste is traditionally used for?

←

I think it's usually just eaten with rice. The advertisements I've seen for it have some on top of freshly cooked rice. Think of it as furikake, but more pastey than furikake-y.

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I've never seen it used any way other than atop rice.

[Shalmanese]

Here are the pics from Saturday:

Oyster Bill from Taylor Shellfish

Tony from Estrella Family Creamery, their goats cheese won first place this year at the American Cheese Show but I really loved their gruyere:

Some wild kiwis which I bought 2 cartons of. These were the last the vendor was selling for this year so I'm glad I snagged them, excellent flavour:

The Bakery we went to:

Bottleworks in Wallingford, I bought 2 bottles of double chocolate stout and bottle of yuzu wine there:

Union including a view of their walkin:

PFI

heyjude's Mindboggling cool cookbook collection:

including a limited edition, signed copy of the French Laundy Cookbook sandwiched between TWO copies of Bouchon *squee*

Edited October 16, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)

[little ms foodie]

Lorna, we use Caffe Vita del Sol beans.  Another good one for the moka pot is Peet's Major Dickason's.

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we use the same caffe vita beans, dayne likes those best and beans from Lighthouse second

[crouching tyler]

^The salad with the fried chicken livers sound delicious! 

If I may borrow this thread for a moment...

I'm moving soon and I just bought a coffee maker with a built-in grinder. I like the Americanos I've been getting at Zoka and Vivace. Does anyone have a particular favourite roast from these (or any other) companies?

←

I thought I recognized you from your blog at Zoka one day. I am by no means a coffee expert, but I usually get the Ethiopia Yergacheffe from Zoka for home use. It might just be force of habit at this point, though.

[dandelion]

Zoka has Yergacheffe? I had no idea! I'm going to have to go and grab a pound of that.

[bkaplan]

My favorite coffee around here is Cafe Umbria, they do terrific italian roasts. The company is run by the same family who used to do Torrefazione before they were bought by Starbucks.

[Ling]

^Thanks for all the recs. I'm sure I'll make it through all of these brands over the next few months. (btw--dandelion also schooled me on Caffe Umbria history when we had it at Caffe Senso! )

[Shalmanese]

Mmm... The location may change but there are certain universal truths and one of them is it pays to be friends with your butcher. I was at QFC today and they had Choice Sirloin for $4 a lb but the stuff on the display looked rather sorry. I noticed the butcher behind the counter was one I had a 5 minute conversation with about the rain the other day so I asked him if he had some nicer stuff out back. He pulled out some of the sirloin cap which he said was the best bit and I snagged the most marbled bit of that I could find.

Came home and made this with it:

Sirloin Cap Steak with Italian Spices on a bed of Wilted Spinach with a Baked Potato, Brussel Sprouts a la Megan Blocker all topped off with a Brandy & Blue Cheese Sauce and lots of Chives.

edit: blurry bite shot

Yum!

Edited November 11, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)