Culinary Fool

A Little Sunshine and Heat

29-Jan-2006

A couple nights ago I found myself with a pound of lean ground beef that I wanted to use for dinner. I also had a beautiful bunch of avocados at their peak of ripeness. Of course, Mexican food comes to mind but I wanted something fresh tasting, too.

I sautéed the ground beef until about 2/3 of the way cooked. Added in a good cup of sliced, sweet onion and a couple minced cloves of garlic. Once the onions were getting soft I added 1 pint of canned tomatoes from my summer garden, and about a tablespoon – more or less according to your taste – of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. (When you open a can of these, dump it all in a blender and blend together for a spicy puree that can easily be mixed into any dish.) I let that simmer until the liquid from the tomatoes had evaporated but the meat was still moist. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper if necessary.

Microwave an enchilada size tortilla, covered with a damp papertowel, for 30 – 40 seconds. Remove the paper towel, spoon on some of the meat, add some sour cream (even fat-free will be fine), and then top with sliced avocado. Fold your tortilla into a little package (bottom up, then roll from left to right). Close your eyes, take a bite and feel the warmth spread out to your limbs. The meat is even better on days 2 – 4!

Another Night at Via Tribunali

29-Jan-2006

Friday night found M, R and me sitting at the bar at Via Tribunali, talking to our favorite bartender Kevin (formerly of Queen City Grill), sharing a couple of pizzas and a bottle of wine, and just generally basking in the warm glow of the place.

It was a good night.

New Year’s Eve Weekend

28-Jan-2006

Before I take off on this Superbowl challenge and all the things that go along with it, I had better take care of some old business. I can’t believe that I haven’t talked about our New Year’s Eve dinner and it’s already January 28th. Where in the world did the month go? I guess I’ve just been a bit discombobulated lately. Well, I resolve to get back on track by February 1!

This New Year’s Eve was such a nice, perfect time. My friends E and BR invited R and I to spend the weekend with them at a family residence on Camano Island. Their house sits near the Southwest end of the island, right on the water (actually on a hill but with a path down to the beach), looking out at Whidbey Island. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place filled with the sounds of wind, waves and birds. The house is both large – with plenty of room for private mediation or napping – and cozy.

Our plan was to arrive early afternoon on New Year’s Eve, spend a leisurely afternoon and evening, take our time getting out and about on New Year’s Day with everyone contributing to either the evening meal or Sunday’s breakfast.

I won’t bore you with the all the relaxing details – there was a lot of time spent reading, gazing out at the water, and napping – instead I’ll jump right to the food portion of the weekend! E and BR were responsible for appetizers. They had arrived earlier in the day and took a trip up to Taylor Shellfish Farms to pick up fresh oysters. To keep us occupied while he was shucking oysters E first put out bowls of his favorite crackers and "dip". The dip is actually mostly grated cheese mixed with a sauce for spreadability. It comes in a hot and not-so-hot version. He also treated us to more of his cheese crackers. Yum!

Then he set about shucking Olympia Oysters; our little native oysters that have recently been brought back from near extinction. These are amazing little, fresh bites of the sea. Sweet, delicate, salty, mineral: all the things you want to taste in these amazing bite-size morsels. We were spoiled with four or five dozen of the beautiful little guys. Add a glass of champagne to the mix and there isn’t much you can do to improve the experience.

After we rested for awhile we set about making the main portion of the meal. I had volunteered for this piece of the celebration and had decided to make what I thought was called Steak Diane, or at least used to be by a place called Henry’s Off Broadway. This was a nice restaurant with a huge fan base but it closed several years ago. I’m not sure why but I miss it. Well, when I looked up Steak Diane recipes they weren’t what I was expecting but the concept was easy enough so I just set about making my own.

Fillet Mignon is wrapped in bacon, grilled and then topped with crab and Bearnaise sauce. I’d decided that garlic mashed potatoes were just the thing to accompany it. And we also had a nice green salad to round out the meal. There are many slight variations on Bearnaise recipes so I chose one that was a bit lighter on eggs but nice and lemony to really complement the crab. I have to say this dish was awfully good!

For out finale E brought out a gorgeous cheesecake! I haven’t had a piece of cheesecake forever and this was an excellent one to remind me just how much I love cheesecake. I forgot where he purchased it but I need to find out. It was rich, dense with that perfect tang that good cheesecakes embody. I really should have had a piece for breakfast, too!

At midnight, after watching fireworks on Whidbey Island while keeping one eye on the TV to see those on the Space Needle, we headed off to our cozy rooms. I was the first one up in the morning (as I think I always am…) and quietly made my way out of the house to start the New Year with a refreshing walk. After about 45 minutes of walking in the rain I was refreshed enough! I returned to the house and others started making their way up and into the living areas. Before you know it we were watching the NFC Champion Seahawks and enjoying Bagels and Lox and all kinds of accompanying trimmings as presented by R. She’d brought all kinds of schmeers and vegetables so we could assemble various combinations of salmon-goodness.

This was really a great way to start the New Year! It was such a completely relaxing and refreshing weekend. There was conversation if you wanted it and quiet when you preferred.

With fires going all weekend, the rain outside the windows was an interesting element that made being inside all that much more pleasant.

The New Year was off to a great start – already I’d done some of my favorite things. Cooking, relaxing, discussing and hanging around with great friends – what more can you ask for?

The Seahawk win was just an added bonus! :-)

Coqktail Club: The Paragon

26-Jan-2006

First published on The Spirit World on January 22, 2006

On February 16th the Cocktail Club met for our first meeting of 2006. It was my turn to pick the place and I chose The Paragon Restaurant and Bar on the top of Queen Anne. The Paragon had been a weekly stop for a friend and I several years ago – it was part of a Thursday night routine which started with wine tasting at Seattle Cellars and ended with appetizers and a cocktail or two at the Paragon. We got away from the routine when the construction around Seattle Cellars made parking too frustrating. I thought it was high time to get back to the top of Queen Anne as we’d always had good food and experiences there.

R and I arrived at 5:30 in time to catch the tail end of Happy Hour. They offer several martini-type cocktails for $4.50 and several appetizers for $5 on their Happy Hour menu. (Sample menu.) We started with a Lemon Drop and a Cosmo. Both drinks were good, if a bit light on the vodka. They are made with fresh fruit juices and have the perfect tang – no sickly sweet mixtures here! To accompany our cocktails we ordered a Rock Shrimp Quesadilla and Crispy Calamari. Both were excellent. The one thing I remember best about The Paragon is the quality of the food and the talent of the chef. These appetizers did not disappoint!

Just after Happy Hour ended, others in the group began arriving. K and N ordered a Manhattan and a Vodka Martini with a twist. The Manhattan was served straight up and N said it was very good, as was K’s tini. They also ordered Sake Mushroom-Soy Seared Ahi and Mongolian Chicken. Both dishes were excellent. The Ahi was grilled to perfection!

JB and JH arrived a bit later and ordered a Gin and Tonic and a Negroni, respectively. JB gave the G&T a thumbs-up. This was JH’s first Negroni but he’ll be ordering more from now on. By this time some of us were ready for our second round. R ordered a Lemon Drop based on the good experience I’d had; I ordered a Kamikaze – a drink I love but hardly ever order since so many bartenders muck them up; N ordered an Old-Fashioned; and JB decided to try a Bloody Mary.

With one exception, the Old-Fashioned, the drinks met all expectations. And, based on Robert’s recent article, I knew exactly what was wrong with the Old-Fashioned – too much soda! Instead of a tiny splash there was a good sized dollop or glug or whatever you’d like to call it in the drink and the balance was off. Somewhere along the line, a dish of Kataifi Prawns and couple of Mandarin and Tonics also made their way to our table and I was happy to see Mandarin and Tonics garnished with orange – too many places use lime, which is just wrong. :-)

Overall we had a great time at The Paragon and I’m happy to find that it still meets or exceeds expectations in so many ways. My one critique (and this is actually rather picky) is that there were a few drinks that we tried to order but they were not able to make because they didn’t have the proper ingredients or the bartender was not familiar with them. In their defense these were cocktails that not many, if any, others would order and they were upfront with telling us that they couldn’t meet the request. They didn’t try to slop together a reasonable facsimile like some places will do.

Based on this experience, we’ll be back again!

The Paragon Restaurant and Bar
2125 Queen Anne North Seattle
206.283.4548
Happy Hour 4:00pm – 6:00pm Monday – Friday

Happy Hour at Home: Chinese New Year

26-Jan-2006

Over on The Spirit World you’ll find my latest Happy Hour at Home post. This week we are celebrating Chinese New Year with a not-so-Chinese drink that’s found at every Chinese restaurant in the U.S., the Mai Tai. Add to that a platter of Springrolls created by Tyler Florence and you have yourself a happy little celebration!

Upcoming Wine Events

24-Jan-2006

In addition to the Boutique Winery Showcase I mentioned a couple days ago there are a couple of other events you may want to get on your calendar.

Make it a romantic pre-Valentine’s Day weekend by heading to Oregon’s Willamette Valley for wine, cheese and chocolate tasting! I just received information from Domain Serene, Domain Drouhin and Archery Summit about a special tasting they will be holding on Saturday, February 11th. Here are some of the details:

Domaine Serene – 866.864.6555

$20 per person: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Rockblock Syrah along with a "bounty of chocolate delights"

Domaine Drouhin – 503.864.2700 for RSVP & Questions

$15 per person: Pinot Noir plus wines from the parent winery, Maison Joseph Drouhin of Burgundy. Wines will be paired with an assortment of artisinal cheeses. As a reminder, it was one of Domaine Drouhin’s Pinot Noirs picked as the class favorite at the Cornucopia Pinot tasting.

Archery Summit – 503.864.4300 or info@archerysummit.com for more information

$20 per person: Single vineyard estate wines, Library Selections with fresh fruits and a cascading Belgian Chocolate fountain.

The (now) annual Sexy Syrah tasting at Salty’s on Alki again benefits the Farestart organization. This year it will be held on Tuesday, March 21st. Over 30 wineries will be participating. For reservations check out the Farestart website. Tickets are $30 per person. This event always sells out.

On April 1st and 2nd the Woodinville wineries will be hosting one of their Passport Weekends. You purchase a passport and use it to gain entry to several wineries in the area, many of which are not normally open to the public. Besides wine tasting, each winery will have some light bites for you to enjoy. Passports cost $45 per person. For a list of participating wineries see the site.

Coming up on Saturday April 8th the huge Taste Washington event will be rolling into town. This event features over 150 wineries and little bites from some of the area’s top dining facilities. Each restaurant is placed between two winery tables and the food has been specifically created to pair with a wine from each winery. You also have the opportunity to participate in seminars. Ticket prices for the Saturday evening Ultimate Wine Tour Grand Tasting are $125 and can be purchased online or at participating wine shops.

Also on the calendar are the following events – more info in the next few weeks:

May 1 Rose Revival at The Islander
May 15 Wine Yakima Valley at the Palace Ballroom

The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown!

23-Jan-2006

Lenn from LennDevours, normally a guy I really like and whose wine opinions I absolutely respect, has gone just a wee bit over the edge. The dang fool is a Steelers’ fan! What in the world is wrong with the man!?!?

Of course, I am a true-blue Seahawk fan – could there be a doubt about that? So, we’ve come up with a little wager for the Superbowl. A Bordeaux-style blend for a Bordeaux-style blend.

I’m putting up my last bottle of Matthew Cellars 2001 Columbia Valley Red and Lenn is wagering his last bottle of Martha Clara Vineyards 6025. I’ve mentioned to him that I’m going to enjoy that bottle of Martha Clara 6025 and, in fact, might just have a little wine tasting with a couple of other Seahawk fans with the two bottles. Sounds like a good plan to me!

So come on all you who make up the 12th Man – let’s show Lenn what he’s really up against!

Seattle Flickr Meetup: The Red Door

22-Jan-2006

When I started this blog a year+ ago it was an experiment. Our dinner club was two years old and we’d been having so much fun that I really wanted to talk about it! I had toyed with the idea of starting a "dinner club in a box" business with resources, instructions and materials for getting started but that didn’t seem quite right. Then, a friend of mine was working on the Spaces project, knew I’d been toying with blogging and asked if I would do a demo site for the Spaces team. Basically, get something up and running, showing off some of the features so that when they wanted a sample of what could be they would have something interesting to show. So I started this site (and I also did a short-term travel site for them).

Well, once I started blogging I loved it! I mostly just liked the opportunity to share information, hoping that at some point someone might find it useful. I didn’t really have any expectations about it leading to anything else. Well, what a pleasant set of surprises this year has held for me!

First, I noticed there were several other Seattle food bloggers and so I started contacting a couple of them to see if they had any interest in getting together. Little did I know that at about the same time Megan (IHeartBacon) was doing the same thing. It was in February we first met as a group. Five bloggers and some friends showed up. We had a fun meal together and a very lively conversation as we tried to learn about each other, rhapsodize about the meal and discuss any/all blogging topics that were on someone’s mind!

Since then we’ve scheduled something every 4 to 8 weeks depending on schedules. We’ve contacted others in hopes they could join us – some have and some politely abstain; Megan is now known as M2 in the cooking club posts; one of the original blogger group recently moved to NY and most of us attended his going away party; and several of us are working together on the Well Fed project.

In addition to my Seattle blogging community, I’ve made blogger friends across the country and across the world. When I started editing The Spirit World I contacted people from many locations to see if they wanted to join me or if they could recommend people. It was an amazing experience to be able to do that. AND, in addition to other food bloggers I’ve discovered many other friends, many of them bloggers but non-food bloggers, who I keep in touch with via email or comments. If I was traveling to one of their locations, they are people I’d hope to meet face-to-face. AND, every now and then I run into someone around town who knows my blog and actually reads it on an ongoing basis – how cool is that?

If you look at my early posts you’ll see that I was using the Spaces photo albums which are extremely limiting. At some point I learned about Flickr and opened an account. I’ve also started trying to improve my food photography. I’m not sure if you can see the difference but I know that I am much more attentive to detail and have tried to learn from others’ examples. This is a journey that I’ve just started but plan to continue.

Although I would occasionally check out other photos on Flickr and had links to a few friends I knew were out there, by and large it was so huge that I never really considered it much more than a repository. I had one interesting experience, though, when one of the people who contacted Well Fed about writing was someone who’s photos I’d been admiring and we had exchanged a few comments. Nika is now one of the occasional writers on The Spirit World and I hope she has a chance to do more as her photos are beautiful and her posts are quite good, too!

Then a couple of weeks ago I (and many others) received an invitation to join a new Flickr group called Seattle Food and Drink from P_D_Gibson. I joined up and posted a bunch of photos and started interacting (just a bit) with some of the others who were posting. Through that group I learned about the Seattle Flickr Meetup group and that they were having a meeting yesterday.

So this has been a very long way of telling you that blogging has introduced me to communities that I didn’t even know about and that R and I decided to join them at The Red Door, even though we could only hang around for the first hour or so. What a nice group of people! There were nearly 30 people in attendance. I really only had the opportunity to speak with a few seated near me but everyone was great! I’m looking forward to the next get together!

And since this is a food blog I thought I would just mention, that The Red Door is still a great place for a burger and beer. In my case, a Blue Cheese and Bacon Burger. In R’s case an ooey-gooey Mushroom Burger. And real fries. Fries that taste like they actually came from potatoes! I also took a couple photos of a Philly Cheesesteak and some sort of Grilled Cheese and Pesto sandwich that looked really good. And since this was a group of photographers no one minded when I asked them to wait before eating! :-) That was just a bonus!

If you are new to Seattle you may not realize that the Red Door is a Seattle institution. Originally located on the corner of 34th and Fremont Ave, the entire building was moved to make way for the condos, Pete’s Coffee and other assorted shops that now perch on that corner. Not only was the building moved a block but it was raised up and placed on top of a parking garage. Some changes were made after the move, but the place has retained its character and added a few nice touches, like the big deck on the south side of the building. Sitting up there on a sunny afternoon, sipping a beer and looking down at the activity below is a very pleasant activity – you need to try it if you haven’t yet.

The Red Door

3401 Evanston Ave N

Fremont – Seattle

206.547.7521

NW Boutique Winery Showcase

21-Jan-2006

The NW Boutique Winery Showcase, benefiting Seattle Works will be held on February 27th from 6:30 – 8:30 at The Canal. For those of you who have been around Seattle a while, you may be more familiar with The Canal as Hiram’s at the Locks.

These wineries generally produce less than 3000 cases per year and many of them are new, so this is a chance to sample wines that are not yet known or are known but not readily available.

Tickets are $30 and can be purchased through the Seattle Works Event Page.

Special Rover’s Dinner Deal!

21-Jan-2006

This is such a great deal that you’ll want to make a reservation as soon as you read this! Rover’s is offering a specially priced five course dinner composed of recipes from Thierry Rautureau’s cookbook, "Rover’s: Recipes from Seattle’s Chef in the Hat".

The price for this dinner is $90 per couple (exclusive of tax and gratuity). Basically this is half-price! Their website indicates there are menus for both "omnivores and herbivores". This great deal is only offered until Feb 3rd so make your reservations now!

Rover’s Restaurant
2808 E. Madison
Seattle

206-325-7442

Reservations also available via Open Table or Savvy Diner.