EoMEoTE #12: The Halloween Edition
01-Nov-2005
This month’s End of Month Eggs on Toast Extravaganza is being hosted by Moira at Who Wants Seconds. She has provided the general theme of "The Halloween Edition" but left it to us to determine exactly what that means. For the moment, I’m happy just to actually have gotten a picture posted! Maybe later today (or tomorrow or never??) I’ll add something to bring the Halloween theme to the whole thing!
In the meantime let me just tell you about this lovely meal born of weekend leftovers. On Friday night I had a little birthday dinner (more on that later and one of the reason this blog has been eerily quiet….) and I have several things in the fridge that will need to be consumed in short order!
Yesterday, this is what I had for breakfast: toasted rustic bread topped with a little crème fraiche; sautéed shiitake mushrooms mixed into a lovely egg for a savory version of scrambled eggs and then piled on the toast; I topped the whole thing with a bit more crème fraiche, chopped chives and Ikura; added a side of smoked salmon. Eat. Smile!
For right now I"m going to tie into the Halloween theme by saying that the Ikura represent mini-Orange Pumpkins. Weak, but it’ll have to do for now! :-)
The Fool Returns
25-Oct-2005
I’m just back from a quick four day trip to New York City! How can four days fly by so quickly??? Although I did do a few more things than just eat my way around the city, I did manage to check out a few places you might be interested in hearing about.
I tried out two new places – one about 6 months old and one that had just opened last Tuesday; went back to a couple of old favorites – and they are still holding up; tried one place that’s been around a while but was new to me – and I won’t be back again; and did a little browsing around at a couple of markets. I hope to have the first update up this evening but in the meantime it’s time to get caught up on work – back-to-back meetings today, starting at 10:00 and ending at 5:00! Apparently there will be no time to blog! :-)
The Quiet Fool
20-Oct-2005
The Culinary Fool will be taking a bit of a break… Postings and foolish activity will resume around Tuesday next week!
Flying Fish “Oyster Frenzy”
20-Oct-2005
On Saturday, October 29, the Flying Fish kicks off it’s 3rd annual Oyster Frenzy with a $25 all-you-can-eat Oyster Open House.
In the days following the big kick-off event oysters will be featured at the restaurant and they will host an Oyster Happy Hour, with oysters on the half shell available for 25¢.
Tickets for the Oyster Open House must be purchased in advance. Call the restaurant for more information. Details on the following events should be available soon.
Flying Fish
2234 First Ave
Seattle
206.728.8595
Coqktail Club: Daniel’s Broiler
19-Oct-2005
This month’s cocktail club meeting had a bit of a twist. M and I share the same birthday which is coming up in about a week. For the last several years we’ve invited friends to join us at Daniel’s on Lake Union to share a cocktail with us as we start our personal New Years. We also happen to have several friends with birthdays around the same time so this event has become a celebration for several of us. This year since Cocktail Club and this event would fall so close together we decided to roll the two events into one.
We had a great time! I think twenty five or more people showed up throughout the evening! We clustered around the piano bar starting at 5:00 – so that we could get full benefit of the Happy Hour specials! – and the last few of us left about 10:00. It was a full evening indeed. I snapped a few photos throughout the evening but, as you can imagine, my focus was really on visiting with everyone and not so much on documentation. That’s my way of saying there will be no blow by blow of this meeting. :-)
However, I have been to Daniel’s many times and can tell you that their Happy Hour food is some of the best in town! I like nearly everything on the menu but the Spicy BBQ Shrimp and the Fillet Steak Strips have been enduring favorites! And recently they’ve added Bacon Wrapped Scallops that are just amazing. And there’s plenty more! Last night the Salmon and Tuna Ceviche was especially popular…
Drink specials have varied over the years. Right now they just feature Daniel’s signature wines and maybe one tap beer – I’m not positive on that. They have one of the best Lemon Drops around and martinis are a speciality.
So instead of going into great detail I’m just going to leave you with a few photos and suggest you check it out soon!
Daniels Lake Union (and two other locations)
809 Fairview Place North
Seattle
206.621.8262
Happy Hour: 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Dine Around Seattle (25 for $25) – November 2005
17-Oct-2005
It’s time for another dining event/adventure! Dine Around Seattle or 25 for $25 will be starting again in a couple weeks. It’s mostly the same places that have participated in the past but there are three new restaurants to check out – actually new to the list not new, new:
Same rules as usual:
November 1 – 30
Sunday through Thursday (excluding Thanksgiving) only
3-course dinners for $25
Some offer 3-course lunches for $12.50
The full list of restaurants is here. Many of them will post menus on their sites but often the offerings change from week to week, so be a bit flexible in your expectations.
Iron Chef Seattle Round 1: Murphy vs Batali
17-Oct-2005
I am sad to say that while Tamara Murphy did a wonderful job last night on her inaugural Iron Chef battle she was bested by Mario Batali. But not by much.
Final score: Murphy 48 – Batali 50.
The secret ingredient was crawfish (or crayfish, if you prefer…) and both chefs did a lot of really creative things with the little critters! I thought that the presentation and creativity in last night’s show was some of the best I’ve seen to date! As you know these shows will play forever so if you missed it last night try to catch it on one of the upcoming reruns.
You’ll see such interesting items as:
- Crawfish Cappuccino
- Crawfish Manicotti
- Bisteeya with Crawfish and Duck Confit
- Crawfish and Sausage Potstickers
- Crawfish Polenta
Both chefs were extremely calm throughout the event; the one little bit of angst came when Tamara’s Sous Chef, Mary burned the first round of Bisteeya – one of the challenges of cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen!
Hedges Bottle Your Own
17-Oct-2005
Each November Hedges Winery has a "Bottle Your Own" event, held at the Issaquah tasting room. This has become an annual tradition for me and various friends.
On the day of the event you head to the tasting room; check-in and get a tasting glass and tasting tickets; do your tasting OR proceed to the bottling area; grab the number of bottles you’ve requested; fill them; cork them; place the foil cover over the cork; label them with a special "Bottle Your Own" label; have your bottles signed by one or more of the Hedges family.
The blend for the event is one that is not available on the retail market. I think normally they use small batches of grapes that weren’t large enough for their main production. Many of Hedges grapes come from Red Mountain, considered by many to be Washington’s premier wine country, and this blend is usually mostly from this area, however the blend varies from year to year.
The bottles are magnums – the only size available – and are about $40 each. This year’s event is Saturday and Sunday, November 19 and 20. The event will sell out so the sooner you register the better!
To register, go to the Bottle Your Own Reservation page.
Chef’s Night Out
17-Oct-2005
Fremont Public Association sponsors Chef’s Night Out, a fundraiser to fight hunger., This benefit takes a slightly different twist in that your chef for the evening is up to the luck of the draw! Fifteen chefs prepare the meal for fifteen tables of ten, so each table gets their own chef and wines specifically paired to the meal. I just took a look at the site and, so far, there’s no information on which chefs are participating this year but normally they are all heavy hitters, many of them from the Eastside since this event takes place at the Woodmark Hotel.
For more information, check the web page and there’s an email address you can use for questions.
Chef’s Night Out
Sunday, November 6th – 5:00 pm
Woodmark Hotel
1200 Carillon Point
Kirkland
Wine Tasting at OS Winery
16-Oct-2005
Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed a couple hours of wonderful wine tasting thanks to my friends DW and MG! They had purchased a tasting at OS Winery at an auction and what made this extra special is this winery doesn’t do public tastings. I was lucky enough to be included in the group of ten that descended upon the winery at 3:00 pm.
This winery is in an industrial park in South Park. I could have sworn that over my lifetime here in Seattle that I had visited every little nook and cranny but I found that I have missed this little area. Nestled back behind the Boeing plants south of downtown is little 4-block neighborhood center. Just south of this center is the industrial space the folks at OS Winery call home.
DW wanted to make sure we did a proper tasting so he handed out tasting sheets and pens for us to record our notes. And, as incentive, he even brought along "door prizes" – the winners to be selected from the completed tasting notes!
Other than the hosts I had not met any of the others in the group, which seemed to pretty much be the case for all. We all introduced ourselves and it was great to meet such a nice group of people. All had some level of wine knowledge or interest and it was interesting to see which wines different people preferred.
We tasted through OS’s line of wines. To date they have specialized in reds, although it looks like a new white, a Riesling, is in process. All wines we tasted were the 2003 vintage. We started with "Red", a red table wine made with grapes from Klipsun, Champoux and Sheridan vineyards in Eastern Washington. The blend of grapes changes from year to year, of course. This was a nice wine, although I thought the nose was a little off to begin with. I think this wine would benefit from a little air time prior to serving.
We then moved on to "M", a blend that is 70% Merlot with the balance being Cabernet. This wine was big upfront but I thought it tended to fade fairly quickly on the palate. However, people I compared notes with did not necessarily agree with me.
Next up was their Cabernet Franc. A couple people in the group were really looking forward to this one as they have a particular fondness for Cab Franc, which often seems to play a secondary role to Cabernet Sauvignon. I believe the wine met their expectation. I liked the wine but felt it should have been a bit bolder. Next came R3, which turned out to be my favorite wine of the group. R3 is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The color was gorgeous, as was the nose. In the mouth it was full of flavor – lots of berry and cherry – and lingered in a very pleasant manner! Luscious.
Next was their BSH, a blend very similar to R3, but slightly different proportions of each grape. We weren’t positive where or how the vineyards varied for this wine compared to R3 but the difference in taste between this and the R3 was pretty amazing based on just the slight variances in percentages. I found the fruit much more pronounced. I liked this wine a lot but still preferred the R3. Our final finished wine was Ulysses. This was a big, bold, beautiful wine. As I tasted the character of the wine revealed itself in different ways. Sometimes the fruit was taking the lead and then the tobacco and leather notes would push to the front. This really is a gorgeous wine!
Next we moved out into the production area. OS is in the middle of crush at the moment so we got to see tubs of mash, watch as the juice was separated from the must and generally just see wine making in action. This is a very small winery – they released about 2000 cases total for the 2003 vintage – and is basically just a couple person (and some volunteers) operation. While in the production area we also sampled from the barrels – I don’t really remember exactly which red as, by this point I was busy chatting and snapping photos but I do remember we sampled their new Riesling which seemed to have a lot of promise.
This was really quite a lovely afternoon and I recommend that, if you have the opportunity, you sample some of OS Winery’s wines. I would assume that over the next few years their production will be increasing and you should be seeing the wines more readily available and in more places.
