Scenes from a Potluck

At the end of the first East African Community Services adult Computer Literacy series, we had a potluck with the students, volunteers (of which I was one) and EACS staff.  It was to share food and watch a series of PowerPoint presentations that were the students’ final projects.  This event is the only recorded time in human history that people have actually been eager to watch a PowerPoint presentation.

I was too harried to bring a camera, but let’s face it: I would have been too shy to take pictures anyway, what with the fit of picture-taking-shyness I’ve had in recent years.

So how else can I communicate what the evening was like?  Can I give you a sense of the evening thru…words?  Like, pictures created in your mind from my words, maybe?  A word picture, if you will? Of course.  I mean, people love interesting writing.

You know what I love?  Interesting nouns.  My friend, the President of the Debate Club, and I have a similar degree, if different styles, of ADD.  One of the ways this manifests itself is that our conversations with each other tend to feature a lot of interesting nouns.  If we don’t have a tale featuring flamboyant gay vampiric bosses getting into near-fistfights outside Manhattan clubs, or the discovery - while on a conference call with Padma Lakshmi - that one’s cat has helpfully deposited his latest freshly-killed rat IN a garbage can, we just don’t feel like we’re really…doing our conversational duty, you know what I mean? 

When we get on the phone and have a bunch of regular nouns to say to one another, it is, quite frankly, a little awkward.  Recently, the Prez started telling me about her husband’s taste in Thai food or something like that and cut herself off with impatience saying, “I’m not going to tell one of those wife stories!”

Anyway, for both of us, though, it’s less of a judgment call than it is what makes our brains hum along happily.

And so, truth be told, that is the main reason why I am one of those card-carrying multi-culti types.  Multiculturalism and diversity are all bound up with the concept of political correctness, which, I know, some people are suspicious of.  (I have always been confused by the furor over being PC. I always thought that not calling people things they don’t want to be called was actually referred to by the word "manners." Then again I know what it means to receive a calling card with the top left corner folded, so I s’pose I am a bit out-of-date with some things, she said primly, picking lint off her white glove.)

I like the idea of being tolerant and inclusive, but the real reason I am a fan of multiculturalism is that it comes with a whole big boatload of new (to me) and interesting nouns.  In usual sensualist fashion, it’s the pleasure I get from it.  All those little pings of new information.  Brain cat nip.

So as you can imagine, my brain was bathed in drooly joy at this event, which not only was attended by a lot of people from a lot of places, but also had those PowerPoint presentations, which featured information about places and things the students were curious about (or were directed to be curious about by Ahmed, the program’s charming and goal-oriented young leader).

It did get off to a bit of a disappointing start, as the student I’d worked with the closest, Sadia, didn’t show up, and I’d wanted her to taste my unattractive but still tasty version of these Candy Bar Cupcakes by Elizabeth Falkner from Demolition Desserts.  I’d made them as Sadia had seemed most excited by the idea of cake when she and I had talked about the potluck.  The cupcakes are supposed to look like this:

Mine did not. 

Mine wound up deflated and flat, and I had trouble prying them out of the mini-muffin tin.  They looked more like muffin tops, only unintentionally.   Then my frosting was so thick it was impossible to spread, so the muffin tops then had an unappealing blob of matte chocolate on top.

However, they did taste good.  Ahmed noted he was a little skeptical about them, but tried them anyway, because, he said, “I have to try everything,” and then regretted not taking more before the children who were also there descended on them.  Children can be both highly forgiving of and greedy about failed desserts.  

My other students, Halima, was there, with her completely adorable children.  Since both she and Sadia had worked on our presentation, it was nice that at least one of them got to see the finished product.  Ours was on henna, which was Ahmed’s suggestion.

Sadia always had her fingernails dyed a dark orange, and so as she and I tried to think of a topic, he pointed to them and said, why not henna?  That was the start of my learning; I’d seen henna hand designs, but despite watching her hands all series long as she learned her way across the keyboard and with the mouse, I’d never thought to wonder what was on her nails. 

I also always thought of it as an Indian cultural thing, and didn’t realize that the North and East African world used it too.  In our image searching, Salima and I also found some Western style henna, and she was tickled when she realized the design in that one was made up of words.

(Left to Right - Indian, African and Western)

There were other students there, too, also presenting.  There was Marjorie, who’s originally from Trinidad, which, she said with humor, often inspires people to ask where in Africa it is.  She also lived in Yorkshire in the UK for a while, but never made it to London.  She brought rice and peas and worried it wasn’t as tasty as it could be, but it was delicious.  She said her mom will make it with exactly the same ingredients, but it doesn’t taste the same when she makes it herself.  We both noted how challenging it is to keep up your cooking skills when you are living alone.

Marjorie did a presentation on Ireland, a subject that I think Ahmed assigned to her mainly because he seems to be very curious about the country himself.  (He assigned it to another, absent, student too.)  He stopped at a few points in the presentation to clarify and elaborate on some interesting points they’d learned through their research. He was especially interested in the IRA and Guinness Book of World Records. We had two natural redheads in the room – one volunteer and Melody, the volunteer wrangler – so as you can imagine, we had good odds that at least one of them could help fill in some Irish info for the questions Ahmed had.

Julia was there, a new tutor I’d never met before.  She is here in Seattle working as an au pair, and came to volunteer because she found herself with extra time, which I found heartening in the way I always find young people’s generosity or selflessness.  I was so self-centered at their age...  She’s from Quebec City and looked very much like Bjork.  I knew her accent was French, but her resemblance to the singer kept making her a Scandinavian in my head.

Another student, Alex, is from Ethiopia, and so of course, I asked him to translate the name of the Ethiopian song I’m obsessed with (the very one featured in my recent post on Ethiopian food).  He did a presentation on Nairobi in partnership with another student who was from there.

Now, I was busy feeling smug talking to Marjorie, because I know Trinidad is in the West Indies but I swear to god all this time I think I thought Nairobi was a country, so that was humbling.  Alex included this picture of Nairobi, and I also realized that while I had not previously had a mental image of it, had I ever bothered to form one, it wouldn’t have looked like this.

When the below photo came up in the presentation, Alex’s tutor Bryson included the tidbit that the absent student said he never saw giraffes on the streets of Nairobi.  I'd only just begun to romanticize Nairobi, and already, a disappointing little reality check.

Another gentleman was there, whose name is escaping me, a student from a different class.  He brought homemade Ethiopian food, a delicious Wot, spiced vegetables and rolls of injera.  I tried grilling him for cooking tips, but it turns out it was his wife’s cooking. It was so delicious: the Wot had a powerful kick, just to the edge of too much without going over, the way I like it.  His wife use to cater, he told me, but now she works with children and it’s a little bit easier on her physically, he said.

In addition to the ugly cupcakes, I also brought some bubbly water and some lemon-ginger syrup to make a nonalcoholic cocktail (since the majority of the folks who come to EACS are Muslim, alcohol was not a good option for the evening).  One of the kids in attendance picked up the squeeze bottle of syrup and asked what it was for.  I explained, “It’s to make a soda.”  She looked at me quizzically for a moment, then explained, “Soda is my name.”

These kids, btw, and their fashion. The girls wear the headscarves and skirts their religion requires, but then top it off with a fleece hoodie.  The way they mix and match patterns and layers…it’s a fashion lesson, I’ll tell you.  I wonder if you have to grow up in a culture influenced by the horror vacui style of art to be able to pull of a hodge-podge and have it look fabulous and not a mess.  Because I would look a mess.

Ahmed, the leader of the program, (who said he thinks he gets the most out of the Computer Literacy Program, even more than the students) brought food too.  He’s a young bachelor guy, but that hasn’t kept him from trying to learn about cooking.  He brought a dish of potatoes with peppers that he said he learned on a “Sunday cooking show with Martha Stewart.  Just five ingredients!” 

He is Somali, and I told him that I had considered and abandoned the idea of making two Somali recipes I’d found online, the Maraq Bilaash (Cherry Tomato Sauce) and Muufo Baraawe (Somali Bread). 

He thought the sauce sounded authentic, but was unsure about my description of the bread, saying it didn't sound like anything he was familiar with. 

He said that Somali cuisine was hard to make without spending a lot of time on it because "it uses a lot of broth" which takes a long time to make.  (I know, right!!)  He also said the stock called for a lot of special ingredients, like bay leaf, and then asked me if I’d ever used that herb. 

Had I?  I told him I’d made bay ice cream, he was once again, skeptical.  However, I can tell, Ahmed likes himself some interesting nouns too.  He might recoil at the theoretical idea of bay ice cream, but I know he would eat it were it in front of him, because, as he’d already told me, “I have to try everything.”

Click links to go to photo sources: Indian henna pic, African henna pic, Western henna pic, Nairobi skyline, Giraffe pic.

Threethiopiques #1

(Your songmelier recommends the below tune by the Sensation Band to accompany this post.)

When it comes to food, my cravings are easily triggered.

In the early oughts, when, as the newscasters always says, tensions ran high between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, I once turned on the radio midway through the newcaster saying the name of the region. Upon hearing "-shmir" I immediately thought, "Hmm. I'd like a bagel."

So as you can probably imagine, since I started volunteering at the East African Community Services, I have been thinking about East African food a LOT. Most of the folks there are Somali, but I don't know much about that cuisine, so instead, my appetite drifts a little to the northeast and lands in Ethiopia.

I first had Ethiopian food on a visit to Cleveland, and ate it in the traditional fashion of sitting around the basket table lined with injera. That was several years ago, before I'd really started learning about food and cooking, so I went in with no expectations.

I loved it, though. Of course I did: many of the dishes are spicy heaps of vegetarian mush eaten with a relatively plain starch. What's not to love?

I've had it a few times since then, and since I started volunteering, find myself thinking about it quite frequently.

So with this Ethiopian food obsession on constant simmer, a couple weekends ago I took a trip down to Amy's Merkato to find a pre-made berbere mixture and just poke around. The store shelves are somewhat bare for most products but well-stocked with what you would probably go there for anyway: Ethiopian spices and injera.

I always feel a sort of conflict when I go into Real Deal ethnic market. On the one hand, I find the lack of familiar products exciting and full of possibilities. On the other, I don't know what the heck I'm doing, and generally go into my usual retail-induced ADD fog, forget everything I know about the cuisine, and find myself wandering around in the hopes I can recognize a word on a label somewhere.

And that's why Amy's was a little tricky: nothing was labeled. Now that's some Real Deal. Luckily, the woman working there that day (maybe the actual Amy? dunno) was very helpful, and we overcame our language barrier enough for her to show me which one was berbere and how to use it.

She then described using another spice mixture, and to be honest, I didn't actually catch it, in good part because I'm just a little deaf anyway, and after the second repetition, I was too shy to ask her again what she was saying. I know it is something you sprinkle into a dish at the end. I've since researched it at home and think it might be Wot Kemem? (That is what is now labeled with in my house, question mark and all).

Now armed with one key spice component, I set out to make another, the clarified spiced butter called Niter Kibbeh that is the base for many dishes.

My cooking has been improving a lot lately. I had one big improvement that came with the Taste-and-Season epiphany of a while back. But the next bump has come from a mental shift that I am calling Investing in Flavor.

My impatience used to make it impossible to consider the idea of infusing butter with spices for an hour before I even got to cooking the dish.

But my beloved Mark Bittman Roasted Vegetable Stock has made so many previously watery and unsatisfying vegetable soups and stews so much richer and more delectable that I no longer balk at spending two hours to make it before I can even start the dish it's going to go into.

And what underscored my own direct experience was reading the stock section of Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking. His impassioned argument that the home cook use veal stock, "one of the most powerful tools in professional kitchens, one of the biggest guns in the professional chef's entire arsenal" made me feel all...wrapped on the knuckles with a ruler for my frequent kitchen laziness (which usually results in culinary dissatisfaction).

I'm not about to start making/using veal stock, but after reading all that, now when I read a recipe that says "6 cups of vegetable stock or water" where I used to feel a sense of relief that I could just use water, now I'm dragging out my roasting pan and pulling my saved up bag of mushrooms stems out of the freezer to make some stock.

So with this new frame of mind, I was happy to make the clarified butter, hoping this would give me a shot at getting a little closer to the delicious I'd had in restaurants. Itwould also allow me to achieve some Cooking Resolution #2: Resourcefulness by using up some underutilized spices like fenugreek and tumeric.

Other than the time, the niter kibbeh process is simple as could be, simply simmer the spices in the butter over the lowest possible heat for an hour or so. Pour through cheesecloth and you are done.

The finished product can be frozen, so you can make a big batch all at once. The recipe can be loosey-goosey with the spices. I saw some with onion, some without, so I opted to not use it. Some include nutmeg, some don't, There is a vegan version using soy margarine.  Basically, don't get too worried if you don't have them all or don't like a spice or two.

Once that was done, I used it to make Yemiser Wat/We't, a lentil dish with brown lentils, tomatoes and peas that are cooked in the flavorful butter, with onions, garlic, ginger and that berbere.

Cooking the onions, ginger, garlic and berbere in the niter kibbeh

There were a couple less-than-ideal issues with this particular version of it that I made. Not enough tomatoes, so it did not have quite the tang I was looking for. But the overall flavor profile was definitely a departure from what I usually cook, and I am looking forward to trying this again with more tomatoes. It was still tasty over some basmati rice.

I just made another batch of the butter today and hope to attempt either it or a spicy red lentil dish called Mesir Wat.

If you are also a fan of Spicy Heaps and haven't ever tried Ethiopian, I'd highly recommend giving some of these recipes a shot. If you don't have access to an Ethiopian market at which to buy some berbere, the pretty-available company India Tree makes a blend, or you could attempt your own.

Fresh-Picked and Delivered to You

Hey you! With the RSS Feed Reader! Yes, you!

There’s a new tidbit on the actual Three-Bowls site that I wanted to alert you to. (Actually, this is also for the regular visitor who might happen to not pore over every inch of the site looking for something different and might have missed the little addition to that column to the left there.)

(Sound trumpets!) Huzzah! The Seattle Food Events Calendar has been spun off into its own kit and caboodle, www.FreshPickedSeattle.com.

The site will incorporate what I used to do here – maintain a food events calendar and occasionally have highlight posts with suggestions for fun activities in the next week – and add some additional resources and tools to be a more comprehensive source of info for the food-loving Seattleite.

Right now, I am doing a soft-open, of sorts, with plans to continue to grow and add.

You can subscribe to the highlights blog, which will feature (fairly) regular weekly updates of upcoming events, as well as anything else that might be time-sensitive.

There are also some other resources on the site that food-lovers might find handy.

• Full calendar with festivals, markets, and special events. As before, you can filter the calendar just to show the free or charitable events or festivals.  I've also introduced a Pac NW category, which will continue to grow to offer you fun day trip options.
  
• Market page with a clickable Google map of the Seattle metro area farmers markets. I will continue to add farmers markets throughout the Puget Sound region (again, in case you want to day trip it) and will be starting a specialty/ethnic market page as well with listings by cuisine.
• Links to seasonal food resources. I also have some fun plans for this section so stay tuned for that. The Giggly Doofus might make a special appearance...
• I will also be adding, eventually, other activities like classes, tours, wine tasting listings, etc.

Right now, with the winter weather, gloomy economy, busy holiday season and tightened budgets, it might be tough to add (or get motivated for) any additional outs-and-abouts. But if you have any family in town and need to get out with (or away from) them, or you are sick of wrapping presents, or you have already watched all the nostalgic holiday specials you can tolerate, you might just find something fun to do.

I am really happy to hear suggestions on how to make the site more useful and helpful, so check it out and feel free to shoot me a message if you have any requests!

Report from the Field: Poppy

Before going to Poppy, I recommend getting clear in your head what kind of eatin’-out folk you are, or at least are for that evening.

Are you the kind of eatin’-out folk who can be excited by a novel taste, even if it turns out to not be one you like very much? Are you open to finding the gestalt of a dining experience utterly satisfying even if the thing at the heart of it – the food – sometimes might have been a little less than?

Once again, I realize I am breaking down the cooking and eating world in terms of having A.D.D. and not having A.D.D. In short, I think if you have actual clinical A.D.D. OR just a high level of need for stimulation, go to Poppy with the friends who do as well, and be prepared to have a little culinary adventure.

If you are not that kind of person, or just find yourself in the mood where you want one perfectly cooked piece of delicious steak or a big plate of really exquisite and hearty pasta, you might find the Poppy experience less than satisfying.

Luckily for me, I have a sky-high need for stimulation and new sensory input (good, bad and all shades in-between), and went to Poppy with four entertaining friends who are up for culinary adventures and overall good sports. So we all had a wonderful time and want to go back again.

Four of us at the table had eaten at The Herbfarm while Poppy’s chef and owner Jerry Traunfeld was there. All of us had a really special and memorable night there on our respective visit. We definitely came to Poppy with high expectations, but also a lot of goodwill towards the chef.

We started off with eggplant fries, little gorgonzola cherry-sage puffs (the puffs were a tiny dark bread with a familiar flavor I couldn’t quite place in the two bites it took to eat), and gravlax remoulade on coriander potato cakes. The fries were the biggest hit at the table, but that’s like saying the supermodel was the most popular with the boys. I mean, anything in fry form is going to be a winner. The little puffs were nice as well.

The gravlax dish was good, but I couldn’t help but compare it to the revelatory gravlax/latke dish I had at Art of the Table, which was one of those dishes that...did something to my head. If you like to cook, sometimes you can taste something that opens up this new world of flavor and flavor combination. It makes you realize there is this heretofore unrealized harmony of taste, and inspires you to try to cook something that is such a delight and surprise when you first taste it. So let’s just say the Poppy gravlax had a tough row to hoe in impressing me after that.

So everyone probably knows this, but for my parents who read this but don’t live in Seattle, I’ll let you know that Poppy’s thing is that rather than individual courses and entrees, the main part of the dining experience is organized into a thali, a collection of little dishes that all come together.

On our night, our thali included the following:

• Carrot coriander soup - simple, spicy and delicious
• Beet and yogurt salad – um, you know how I feel about beets, but actually the table, which included beet-likers (some might question why I would befriend such people, but I try to reach out to these poor souls on a regular basis, hoping my positive influence will put them on the right path eventually), uniformly did not care for this dish.
• Persimmon, huckleberry and fennel salad – I found this nice, some really like it a lot.
• Scallop with a cider sauce and a little I believe parsnip or other root veg puree (forgot) – this was for me the best dish of the night. I think I am falling in love with scallops in general, and these were cooked nicely, with a delicious flavor from the cider sauce.
• Cauliflower with apple and celery – also nice, I think a couple folks said this was their favorite.
• Squash with toasted coconut – this was great, sweet, spicy, and the toasted coconut was an unexpected addition; that flavor and texture made for a beautiful contrast.
• Duck – only Will got this (you can swap out the non-veg dishes) and it was apparently good, didn’t appear to be mind-blowing.
• Fennel-lemon chutney – okay.
• Chestnut, leek and porcini blintz – this was one of the veg swap-out dishes. Kind of underwhelmingly, but not unpleasant. I just sort of forgot about it as I was eating it.
• Chanterelle and borlotti bean gratin – I didn’t have this, but I think it too was decent but not mind-blowing.

So okay, you look at that rundown and it would appear there were only a few dishes got us excited, which could seem kind of negative. That’s why I wanted to position this quasi-review with the caveat that, to me, the dining experience can still be wonderful even if some of the individual pieces might be underwhelming.

For one thing, I recognized that my expectations might have been out of whack. Eating the food of chef with a career and reputation like Jerry Traunfeld, I think I half-expected each thing on the plate to open my mind up to some new world of flavors like that gravlax at Art of the Table. If you’re waiting for revelations, it certainly set you up for being underwhelmed.

That said, the whole thali concept – lots of little bites – means that even if an individual item or dish isn’t the best thing you’ve ever eaten, that’s okay. You still have the fun of bopping around the tray, trying the other items, comparing it to something else, mixing the flavors, etc.

So there were three savory dishes that I really liked a lot, only one of which really made me all swoony from the deliciousness (the scallops). But it was still extremely satisfying because when I wasn’t swooning from deliciousness, I was nevertheless having a positive experience, that of culinary adventure and novelty.

We also had some of their house cocktails. My Turkish Delight (orangey) and 622 (Manhattan-y) were nice, well-crafted, not quite as exciting as I hoped. Carolyn’s Elite on the other hand, made with St. Germain elderflower liqueur, was delicious and floral (my first reaction was it tasted like a sexy cough-drop, in a good way), and the level of inventiveness I was sort of hoping for in my drinks.

And now on to the desserts, which were probably the best part of the evening for me, and not just because of the sugar involved. As noted previously, Dana Cree, who taught at the cooking school when I was working there, is in charge of the sweets at Poppy. She just continues to impress me every time I eat something of hers. She, like Dustin Ronspies, the chef at Art of the Table, always seems to put flavors together in a way that is somehow both familiar and yet new, sophisticated in their restraint and yet wholly satisfying.

I asked my server what the most adventurous dessert was, and he recommended the butternut chiffon with bay cream and hazelnut. The dish is somewhat reminiscent of pumpkin pie, but taken to a level of sophistication and complexity that elevates it way past that comfort food. Carolyn went rhapsodic, saying it had everything you could want in a dessert, and she’s not even a pumpkin pie fan.

Doggie got a malted milk chocolate ice cream, which was delicious. Will and Carolyn got a dessert plate that included the chocolate terrine with ginger (nice), fudge (really nice), plum soup (simple and slightly addictive despite its simplicity), and a cinnamon caramel ice cream that depressed me.

Not because it wasn’t good, it was beyond good, but because since I am now obsessed with making ice cream, it was...it was like going to see Glenn Gould perform after learning to play Chopsticks on the piano. I know what I want to achieve in my ice cream; it’s what’s going on in that cinnamon caramel ice cream, so perfectly cinnamon-y and so perfectly caramel-y, sweet, but not too, simple yet somehow complex and interesting at the same time. What is depressing is I am about one million gallons of ice cream experimentation away from having anything approaching that skill and who knows if I have the natural palate anyway. (Choked sob.)

Our server was excellent, helpful and enthusiastic about answering our many questions. It’s always great to have a server who can see that the table is open to trying new things and wants some direction and who provides the right information to help you make a decision.

We wound up sitting there for over three hours. Okay, not quite the six hour experience of The Herbfarm, but the bill for five with all that food, wine and cocktails was about what it would be for two at The Herbfarm, so you could say it was a bargain.

So, to reiterate, if you are going to go to Poppy, go with an open mind, curious palate, and short attention span, and make sure to bring your most adventurous and good-sport friends. Leave room for dessert, order that sexy cough drop cocktail and while you might not find your favorite savory dish in the whole wide world, I am pretty sure you will still have a great time.

 

Report from the Field: Art of the Table

I never really intended to do any restaurant reviews, for reasons outlined previously, but I am incapable of not shouting at you about something I'm enthusiastic about.  So since my friend's recent visit gave me the opportunity to try out a bunch of new restaurants, most of which I felt very happy with, I figured it wouldn't be entirely against my Post Pretty Positive ethos to tell you about the good stuff.

I gave the President of the Debate Club several restaurant options for her last evening in Seattle.  She wanted something super Pacific Northwestern, but ultimately picked Art of the Table because the chef, Dustin Ronspies, grew up in Florida, the Prez’s home state.

Thursday through Saturday, Art of the Table has their "'Weekend Supper Club', a themed dinner party experience featuring a prix-fixe menu revolving around a specific theme. Dinner begins at 7:30 pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays weekly and is by reservation only."

Mondays are Happy Mondays, where they can use up ingredients from the previous menu with small dishes, and reservations are not available.  The Prez and I headed over on a Monday.

The place is teeny tiny, but set up in such a lovely and simple way that it doesn’t feel crowded.  Our server was new but friendly and appropriately attentive.

We started with a salad that had haricot vert, hazelnuts, shallot compote, feta and vinaigrette.  Very simple, very delicious.  I enjoy a good salad, but rarely do I feel actual disappointment when it’s all over. With this dish, though, when the last sliver of haricot was et, I felt melancholy.

The next course came fast enough that I didn’t have too much time to mourn.  It was a potato latke topped with salmon mousse and house-cured gravlax with lemon cream.  And then I think there was some green pesto type stuff or something around the dish.  I was not excited about ordering this because, I mean, seriously, is anyone every excited about gravlax?  Tolerant of gravlax, pleasantly not disgusted by gravlax, yes, but excited?  I was also worried that gravlax on top of salmon mousse was too much fishiness.

It was not, and I was, again, feeling like I wished I had ordered my own as it disappeared too quickly.  The dish I was most apprehensive about turned out to be my favorite of the evening.  It was the second bit of perfectly balanced, perfectly seasoned perfection we had that evening, and now we couldn’t wait for the next course, which was…

A little fishcake on top of some corn with some roasted tomatoes.  I don’t have anything profound to say about it except that it was awesome.

The Prez then continued with some duck-stuffed quail on top of polenta, which she also thoroughly enjoyed. 

We had some tasty drinks as well.  The Prez had an Elysian Avatar Jasmine IPA.  I had an Ecker Gruner Vetliner and then my new favorite thing, a Vinho Verde.  I'd never had this Portuguese wine before and our server warned me it is lightly effervescent, which actually is perfect because I heart bubbles, large and small.  I don't remember the brand, but I will be looking out for it in the future.

Everything about the evening was beautiful, mellow, delicious and friendly.  I am only concerned about how teeny-tiny the place is because I want to be able to get in easily.

Art of the Table
1054 North 39th Street, Seattle,  WA 98103
206.282.0942

artofthetable.net

Report from the Field: Molly Moon's Ice Cream Shoppe

(Actually, it's just  "Molly Moon's Ice Cream Shop" but I really really want to keep adding that extra "pe".)

I first met Dana Cree when she taught a candy class at the cooking school and was immediately impressed.  First of all, the whole candy-making process is the most magical intersection of deliciousness and science, so it’s hard not to be dazzled by someone who can effortlessly create from scratch the most awesome marshmallow you’ve ever had.  

Additionally, her experience restaurants like WD-50 and The Fat Duck mean that she’s not just making simple, blocky sweets, she is bringing some of that complexity and interest to the dessert realm as well.

So when she noted on her blog that she would be making the toppings for the new ice cream shoppe Molly Moon’s, I put it on the list as a must-go.

The Prez and I hit it up on a Friday night after dinner at Quinn’s.  The line was out the door.  Now, my friend and I met at NYU and she still lives in New York, so we both might not exactly have the most positive associations with the experience of waiting in line at a hot eating establishment.

I suppose by now, though, I should know better in the Pacific Northwest.  First of all, it’s not exactly a hotbed of aggression normally, but especially not at an ice cream shoppe.  Here is a universal truth to live by: Nobody is ever in a bad mood at an ice cream shoppe.

The staff, either.  Despite the line out the door, they were genuinely friendly, patient, happy, with none of the mild franticness the Prez and I find ourselves reflexively expecting in such a place.

We didn’t opt for the freshly-made waffle cones, although the smell of them could probably bring about world peace.  Instead, she got the coffee and I got the salted caramel.  The Prez said hers tasted like her ice cream fell in a coffee filter full of grounds, but this was not intended as a complaint, it was actually a positive.  I would say about 50% of our conversations and activities during her visit were about coffee and coffee procurement, so basically the Prez herself would probably be happy to live in a coffee filter full of grounds.  

My salted caramel was perfection.  Just perfection, the absolutely perfect amount of saltiness.  It reminded me of a grown-up, gourmet ice cream version of a Payday bar.  (Which, by the way, was way ahead of its time for its salty-sweet combo that is now so popular.)  When we went back a second time, I couldn't think of getting anything else but the exact same thing. 

Prez, on the other hand, got maple walnut which I know she liked but I think I was tipsy so I don't remember any specifics about why. 

I was so fixated on the salted caramel, I didn't even get to the reason that brought me there in the first place, Dana's toppings, but I am sure I will rectify that soon.

(Other Dana news - she just became the pastry chef at Jerry Traunfeld's new place Poppy!  Sarah and I have it on the list to try and now I am even more excited to check it out.)

Mini-Report from the Field: West Seattle Farmers Market Tomato Tasting

Today, the West Seattle Farmers Market has a tomato tasting.  Will and Carolyn, last year's apple tasting hosts, go to that market every weekend with their pretty adorable daughters Clara and Annabelle, so I invited myself along as I love both tomatoes and tastings.  A twofer!

But this report is mini because I must have used up all my boldness horning in on their errands.  I had a sudden shyness fit at the tasting and didn't really maximize my picture-taking and question-asking.  I did not, therefore, come away with as much information as I would have liked.  (This is the number one reason why I can't ever be an actual reporter: my inexplicable occassional terror of Being in the Way or Being a Bother.)

I did, though, get the most important thing: some tomato tips.

(This, though, is a totally unhelpful picture of a tomato I am not about to be talking about.)

My overall favorite was a lovely mottled purply one called "Japanese Truffle" from Billy's Organic Produce.  The flavor was the most well-balanced, in my opinion, with both tart brightness and sweet roundness. 

I also liked the Momotaro from Candles Produce, although the flavor was a bit almost ridiculous, like so sassy you couldn't use it as universally as I think you would with the Japanese Truffle. 

Will steered me to the Summer Gem, also from Billy's.  The tomato was so sweet, it actually tasted already cooked.  Carolyn was a fan of the Not Quite Brandywine, although Will and I found that one to be a little too mild.

While it seems like it's getting late in the season, these might be some interesting varieties to look out for when shopping at the farmers market.