Link Round-Up: Pacific Northwest-Produced Gift & Souvenir Ideas

I am a knee-jerk contrarian so it’s taking all my self-control to not respond to the current obsession with the (grammatically-suspect) concept of “eating local” by ordering take-out from Antarctica.

However, as I’m currently in one of the food-lovinin’-est places in the whole US of A, the Pacific Northwest, there are a lot of locally-produced items I can enjoy just for their own sake, which makes it much easier to tell my rebellious nature to cool it.

Here’s a link round-up of some Pacific NW food, wine and handicraft ideas in case you need any last-minute gifts or have any out-of-town guests who, like me, feel like a souvenir just isn’t a souvenir unless it was actually made in the place it’s supposed to memorialize.

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Seattle Times’s Wine Guy Paul Gregutt, author of Washington Wines and Wineries: The Essential Guide, offers his 100 top Washington state wines.

They range in price from $8 (#86: Columbia Crest 2006 "Two Vines" Riesling and #98: Covey Run 2005 "Quail Series" Chenin Blanc) to $110 (#1 and Wine of the Year: Leonetti Cellar 2004 Reserve and #16: Matthews Estate 2003 Conner Lee Cabernet Franc Reserve). 

This might also just be a handy list to import into your PDA for the next time you’re shopping for a bottle to take to a dinner party and you find yourself standing in the wine section having a pre-dinner low-blood-sugar moment, unable to figure out what to buy.

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Speaking of shopping confusion, my ADD can go into overtime at Pike Place Market and I get so overstimulated and ergo confused I can’t remember what I was shopping for…or how I got there…or where my car is…

Did you know that you can see a list of vendors, including a photo of some of the wares online before you go?  Just go to the Pike Place Market website, select Shop & Dine from the lower menu bar, and then click Shopping Guide from the center menu.  You can then select different lists from the left-hand menu, including Food and HandMade Crafts.  This will bring up a list of vendors, and those that are hyperlinked will bring up a little blurb about the vendor and a picture of their wares.

Even if you don’t have ADD, this is a rough time of year for leisurely browsing and strolling idly through the market looking for gift ideas, so doing a little pre-planning using the directory seems like a great idea.  And don’t forget today and tomorrow are the last days they are offering free parking with a minimum purchase (see the “Free-ish Parking at Pike Place Market” listing on the Seattle Food Events Calendar for details).

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Tom Douglas is offering a copy of his I Love Crab Cakes book or a three-pack of his rubs free with purchase of a $100 gift card to his restaurants.  My friend Sarah (I think at this point "My Friend Sarah" should be the title of this blog because I seem to reference her is so many posts!) and her partner gave me a gift card for his restaurants right when I first moved to Seattle.  I used it for two lunches (Etta's and Lola) with an out-of-town friend and one trip to the Dahlia bakery for a cookie or two, and it was a really nice way to get introduced to the Seattle food world and yet not be locked into just one restaurant with one kind of food.

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The Chowhound forum currently has a “Great Food Products in Washington” thread going. 

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Happy Shopping!!