12 posts tagged “food”
So, I started a buying club for pastured meats a few months ago - this is for a farm we've been buying meat from for about 8 years, and their meats are all excellent. A few other people at my place of work were also interested, et voila! The South Seattle S.O.L.E. Buying Club was hatched. Now, the company I work for is relocating to Mercer Island, and the carnivores in the company were asking if they'd have to give up their monthly fix. So now, I'm the contact person for 2 outlets for Thundering Hooves meats.
Today, in the Pacific Northwest magazine, the cover story featured Thundering Hooves amazing heritage turkeys and I've been swamped with requests for info on how to buy these birds in Seattle. Trouble is, they've been sold out for weeks. They are well worth the year's wait though, and I hope everyone who wants to try one this year tries the beef, pork, lamb, goat, and chicken from Thundering Hooves and gets their order in for a Thanksgiving turkey in August 2008!
I had to be gone to the LA area for 9 days for work, and was so glad to return to cool, damp Seattle. Things I love about our new neighborhood: all kinds of food availability a few steps from our front door and Elliott Bay Books just across the street. We had lunch yesterday at a pho shop (next to Marcus's Martini Heaven) - so terrific having a tasty soup restaurant just down the block, especially in the fall and winter. Good fresh rolls too.
Last night we went to hear Harry Shearer (the voice of Montgomery Burns and others on the Simpsons, and the bass player from Spinal Tap) read from his novel Not Enough Indians downstairs at Elliott Bay Books. His talk was interesting, especially his comments about New Orleans, and the questions that followed from the crowd were lucid and not too gushy-fanboy. I have a feeling the book may be funnier to listen to than to read, but bought a text version anyway. Things were over by 9 pm, and we stood in the signing line for a little while. But I was too hungry to stay, so we bailed and wandered out into the early part of a Pioneer Square Saturday night.
There are huge crowds in our blocks of 1st Avenue South most evenings, but moreso on Friday and Saturday nights. 20-somethings surge out of the J&M and Central Tavern and the dance club south of Washington, jostling, smoking, posturing, playing rough, on the sidewalks. Indian food sounded good, and we walked up to Flavor of India, which worries me because it is almost always empty and I want it to stay in business so I can get my curry fix sated at will. The A-board outside said they were open until 10, but it lied. At 9:15, they decided to be closed. The Longhorn barbecue outpost next door was also closed. The Taco del Mar was open, but well, no. Thanks anyway, not tonight. So we headed to our favorite new old standby, Trattoria Michelli, which is open until 4 am on Friday and Saturdays. Bless them. We shared a hot loaf of bread, drizzled with pesto and filled with thick creamy goat cheese, drank several glasses of the Michelli red (it is just brilliant that we can just stumble walk home!), and some tasty pasta dishes. I had calamari added to my penne puttanesca, and it arrived with a giant pile of battered and fried goodness on top. Mr. Jaq had something creamy and chickeny and sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts on fettucine. Our waitress was dealing with what sounded like a wild crowd from Snohomish county in the next room, who were really whooping it up (they kept yelling at each other "INSIDE VOICE!!! INSIDE VOICE!!!"), at least until their food arrived.
Today, there's a 1 pm Seahawks game, so it will be mayhem outside from 9 am (when the bars open) until about noon. It's quiet in our apartment though, since our windows are on the alley side of the building. We are definitely happy to be here.
I want to do this. Someday, I will.
Mmmm. This bottle's been in the cellar a long time for a white, so I thought we'd best try it. It's a kosher wine. Made from 100% muscat grapes and only 5.5% alcohol, very grapey, and sweet. The simple flavor went well with the shavings of our first air-dried ham - 18 months of waiting and very complex, very tasty.
Don't let the 5.5% fool you - it's sweet and goes down so nicely, it's easy to guzzle and get tipped over the edge.
Mr. Jaq baked up some tollhousers this past weekend. They were all gone last night.
There will be baking this weekend.
A great thing I discovered on our return to Seattle - there are some farmers' markets operating year-'round now, including the U-District market. Used to be when the market season was over, we would trek to the church parking lot behind the Dick's in Wallingford, where on Saturday mornings from around 10 until noon, we could buy some of the best eggs ever, from Growing Things Farm, and sometimes some wild mushrooms and canned fish from others.
Yesterday morning though, we headed to the market. It's much quieter this time of year, maybe a dozen booths. We bought Braeburn apples from Tiny's Organics (who deliver us a box of fruit and veg every Thursday). Growing Things was there with boxes of eggs and racks of wonderfully scented soaps - we bought bars of peppermint, birch, and cinnamon in addition to a dozen large. Two kinds of cheese from Samish Bay (mild herbed gouda and chipotle cheddar). We then wandered over to Sea Breeze Farms booth, where a stack of amazing cheeses and a half-gallon of milk sat out. They had chickens available, so one roaster/fryer will be dinner tonight. While deciding what else to try, I noticed they had pate. The guy manning the booth (I should be better about getting people's names) explained how he prepares the pate - sauteing the chicken livers in garlic and butter, then whipping then up with a touch of cognac, then finishing the top of each package with clarified butter. This sounded so good, so we grabbed a container then headed over to the Tall Grass Bakery booth for a loaf of crusty bread.
Pate, cheese, a crusty loaf of delicious bread, slices of crisp sweet apple - a terrific Saturday lunch.
There was a chili challenge at work, the first of any such thing I've ever participated in, but I leapt to the fore for my department and cooked up two separate types.
The first, a standard meat/bean concoction. 2 lbs of ground pork, browned. 1 white onion, chopped and browned. Mixed with the 2 cups of chili sauce I'd made earlier and two cups of heavy pork stock, and simmered for several hours. In a large separate pot, 2 cups of rinsed and sorted Anasazi beans, 6 cups of water, bay leaves, juniper berries and an allspice berry. Baked for 3-4 hours while the chili simmered away. Cooled the chili and beans overnight, then reheated the chili the next day to a simmer with a large can of diced tomatoes added as well as a handful of chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Herbs and spices added: mexican oregano, epazote, smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne, a tin of chipotles in adobo. At the end, I mixed a few tablespoons of masa with water and dribbled it into the simmering stew, as a thickening agent.
For the second, I decided to make an experimental vegan chili. I wanted something that would approach the meatiness of a standard meat/bean chili, but with no processed soy or fake meat or anything ersatz. I had thought about adding eggplant to my meat chili, and in a moment of inspiration decided to make the base of my vegan dish eggplant and crimini mushroom.
Peeled and cut 1 eggplant into small dice (ended up maybe 2 cups?). Destemmed and chopped the caps of 8 largish crimini mushrooms, also small dice. Sauted eggplant and mushroom in olive oil until browned and eggplant was going mushy. Chopped 3 sundried tomatoes (in olive oil) and added to the mix. Chopped 3 chipotles in adobo small and added to eggplant/mushroom/tomato mixture. Added in a teaspoon of the adobo sauce from the can. Stirred and let simmer for awhile. Added 2 cups of water, 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1/2 tsp. epazote, 1/2 tsp ground cumin. Let simmer for an hour or so, removed from heat and partially whizzed up with an immersion blender - not too smooth. Added 1.5 to 2 cups cooked beans. Brought back up to a simmer and stirred in 1 tbsp masa whisked into 1/3 cup cold water. Brought to a boil, then dropped to a simmer for 30 minutes. Adjusted seasonings and add a dash or two of cayenne.
Thick, meaty texture from the eggplant and mushrooms, smokiness from the chipotles, not a whole lot of beans, and lots of chili heat.
Both were quite delicious, very fiery, and neither one won the cookoff. Lots of people ate the vegan one without knowing what it was, because the sign had fallen off. This pleased me.
I've had chile ristras around as decorative things for years and occasionally would use a random whole dried chile in a dish. But I made chili sauce for use in actual chili last week for the first time ever. What is a little weird is that you have to get the seeds and membranes out of the dried chile. I cut the stems off, shook out seeds, cut them lengthwise (most of them shattered into chunks), pushed out the remaining seeds and what was left of the membranes. 6 big mild chiles (pasilla negro and New Mexican) and about a dozen random chiles from the ristra and one Thai chile of known origin (from a small ristra given me by a friend). I simmered the chile bits in 2 cups of water with a large minced garlic clove for about an hour. The water was nearly black at the end and the chile bits had all reconstituted. When I went to zoom it smooth in the pan with the immersion blender, it started flying everywhere so I poured it in a deeper bowl - still no good, hot pepper stuff flying all over the place. So I covered the top of the bowl with two sheets of plastic wrap with the immersion blender poking through the seam at the center.
If you are chopping up or handling dried chiles, be aware that your fingers will be covered with powerful oil and don't touch your face or any other delicate areas until it has dissipated! Washing multiple times in dish soap didn't do it; neither did soaking in milk (though sipping milk does cool the burn in your mouth).
I had Mr. Jaq taste the final product. He took a big slurp of it, which surprised me 'cause I'd mentioned I thought it was hot. He was all mmmmmm, tastes nice but needs salt, OMG WOW!!!
I grew up in the midwest and had never eaten or cooked fish much until I moved to Seattle. Now, I eat it regularly, often in the guise of sushi and sashimi, but I'm still hesitant about cooking it. Part of our Superbowl Sunday haul from Uwajimaya was a lovely 1/2 pound slab of maguro tuna and a 1" thick halibut steak.
I made the tuna for dinner Sunday night. Got a cast iron skillet nice and hot over medium heat. Sprinkled a tablespoon of black sesame seeds and one of white sesame seeds onto a shallow plate, mixed them up and then pressed both sides of the tuna into them until it was well-covered. Put a little oil into the skillet and then the tuna. It was only 1/2" thick, so 3 minutes per side was plenty. Nice, perfectly seared exterior and rare in the middle, but next time I'll marinate it in something.
For dinner tonight, I mixed a marinade for the halibut of light oil, mirin, sesame oil, grated ginger (about 1 tbsp), and 1/2 tsp of natural wasabi powder. After whisking together, I spread it on both sides of the halibut steak and let it sit for about 15 minutes while the oven heated up to 400 deg F and I thawed some edamame and heated a pan to fry and steam some gyoza. The fish went in the oven for 15 minutes, which was about 3 minutes too long. It still tasted fine, but I am not confident about cooking fish and inevitably over-cook it when I bake it. Served with the edamame, a few gyoza, some wakame seaweed salad (from Uwajimaya's deli section), and an okay sake.
The first time I tried phở was in Portland with a group of people I was working with on a scada project. Probably 2002? I had no idea what it was, but it was amazing. Huge steaming bowl of delicious broth, piles of noodles, slices of meat, various tasty other bits. I hadn't eaten it since, until a few weeks ago. There's a phở place within lunch range of my office. They also do a tasty bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwich: seasoned pork and raw vegetables on a french roll) and fresh rolls.
If you haven't tried it, don't be afraid. Start with the phở tái (steak). Slurp the noodles, or bite off a mouthful and let the rest fall back into the bowl. Sip the heady broth with a spoon. Spice it up with serranos and sriracha, or not. It's so good. Some places offer vegetarian phở, but the broth is traditionally beef. I really like phở with fried tofu as well. The meatballs (bò viên) reminded me more of slices of sausage, and contain crunchy as well as meaty bits because varying texture is also a part of what phở is about.
Last night while poking around on the web, I came across Phở Fever, which is compiling a listing of all the phở places in the US and has silly t-shirts for sale. Mr. Jaq has been jonesing to make a pot a feu since he read about it years ago - I was delighted to read that phở is possibly a corruption of the french feu!
