Posted by Anita on 09.11.06 2:17 PM
This just in from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer… Starbucks’ original logo causes an uproar:
A Kent elementary school principal, according to a local TV station, asked teachers last week that if they were bringing their daily joe to school that they make sure they get a sleeve to cover the image of a topless mermaid on Starbucks cups.
The Seattle-based coffee giant, as part of its 35th anniversary, this month put its original logo with the bare-breasted mermaid on its cups in stores in Washington and Oregon.
Not that Kent is the most progressive of Northwest communities, but do they really think that elementary-school kids have never seen boobies before?
coffee & tea, levity, Seattle
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Posted by Anita on 08.31.06 10:45 AM
In addition to being my dad’s birthday (Happy B-Day, Pops!), August 31 is also BlogDay 2006. What’s that, you ask? I’m so glad you did! Here’s a clip from the BlogDay site (which seems to be overwhelmed with traffic at the moment):
What will happen on BlogDay?
In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.
BlogDay posting instructions:
- Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
- Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending on them on BlogDay 2006
- Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
- Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
- Add the BlogDay tag using this link: BlogDay2006 and a link to BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org
Given that the only blogs I read until recently were Hedonia and SFHomeBlog, I’m basically thinking that any blog is pretty much fair game as “new” in my book.
As most everyone else who’s participating has said, it’s hard to pick just five. But here, in no particular order, are the five new-to-me food blogs I’ve put at the top of the pile, the ones that I read on my Treo on the way in to work.
- Anyone who’s already reading food blogs knows about Becks & Posh. Sam’s a fellow Bay-Area gal (albeit a transplant from England) and those who know tell me that I am rightly very sad that I missed my chance to shake her hand at the Bay Area Food Bloggers’ Picnic last weekend (which we had to back out of attending at the last minute).
- After rekindling our romance with cocktails during the Seattle Experiment, we found ourselves a bit adrift when we moved back to San Francisco: Where were all the decent watering holes? We should have gone trawling for a site like Cocktails with Camper English a long time ago. Love it.
- One of our friends from the Seattle food crew, Matthew Amster-Burton is also a food writer of local reknown. He’s also dad to one of Seattle’s cutest toddlers, Iris. In Roots & Grubs, Mamster chronicles his often hilarious interactions with his budding foodie of a daughter.
- Speaking of Seattlites… during the course of a shared dinner at Union, Molly struck me as someone who I’d be reading about some day. Little surprise to catch up with her, a couple of years later, and find that her Orangette has become one of the stars of the food-blog world.
- I always knew Shuna Fish Lydon was a blogger: her review of Range for the KQED blog got caught up in a (ahem) spirited debate over on MouthfulsFood last fall. But I didn’t know she solo-blogged until I met her at a June Taylor marmalade class earlier this year. When I put out my call for blog recommendations earlier this month, multiple people suggested eggbeater …and I could no longer keep my head in the sand. Now I am hooked on this quirky little slice of Shuna’s brain.
ps: Thanks for the link, Sean. 😀
bar culture, drinks, food boards, geekery, other blogs, Seattle
2 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 08.04.06 7:24 AM
In the process of moving my content off of MouthfulsFood and eGullet, I put a few appropriate snippets onto Yelp — figuring that their Seattle content needs all the help it can get. Much to my amusement, my writeup of La Carta de Oaxaca has been voted Review of the Day in Seattle.
For those of you in Seattle, this is great news: Yelp’s still a wild frontier up there, where even moderately well-written stuff gets noticed and appreciated. Go forth and Yelpify!
food boards, geekery, Seattle
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Posted by Cameron on 08.02.06 4:51 PM
If there’s anything wrong with wandering around in the sun all day and drinking a bunch of different kinds of beer, then I don’t want to be right. I was up in Portland last weekend for a bachelor party, and as part of the festivities our crew spent a lazy Saturday afternoon at the 19th Annual Oregon Brewers Festival.
I’m not sure which was more impressive, the number of brewers in attendance (50+), the number of people in attendance (50,000+ per the Fest organizers), or the number of Grateful Dead cover bands you can safely book in succession without inciting a riot (I lost count).
One of the things that I miss desperately about living in Seattle is the reverence that the Pacific NW has for beer. Two of my favorite brewers and my single favorite beer purveyor are located in the Seattle city limits, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
Now, I’m not knocking the Bay Area beer scene. I felt strongly enough to blog about it way back in the day, when real men wrangled HTML with their bare hands. But my Portland trip was like a return to the promised land of cerveza.
Now if I could just get “Touch of Grey” out of my head.
beer, Portland, Seattle, travel
2 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 04.24.06 4:41 PM
In honor of spring finally springing in my hometown, and also Arbor Day (April 28) and Green Day (no, not the band — Japan’s Midori no hi, April 29), let’s investigate all manner of green soups.
Here are a few I came up with, off the top of my head:
– cucumber gazpacho
– new mexico green chile soup
– avocado soup
– pea soup (fresh spring peas or split peas)
– posole verde
– cream of asparagus
– fava bean & artichoke
– herb soups like sorrel, watercress, etc.
– cream of spinach or broccoli
You could even do a chilled melon dessert soup.
But, in the end, I decided to make my friend Jan’s Creamy
Pea, Lettuce & Leek Soup with Lemon Crème Fraiche and Chive Oil.
Not only did I forget to take a photo, but neither did anyone at the Seattle party where this soup made its debut… so I can’t even poach one! Trust me, it was gorgeous. I’m so glad I was making it for a dinner party, or I might not have bothered with the creme fraiche or the chive oil — and they definitely made the dish much better.
cooking, recipes, Seattle, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 04.22.06 1:44 PM
I started out canning just to see how it was done, mostly dill pickles and pickled beets, and the occasional fruit preserve. Then I started pickling and preserving a few batches of produce from my friends’ gardens, as a way of helping them cope with overabundance — 2 years ago, in Seattle, it was a huge batch of brandied plums, and a batch of pickled serranos and carrots.
Last year was a tough year, as we were moving long distance from Seattle to SF, and living in a furnished apartment without access to our own kitchen gear. I did manage a very small batch of tomato-bourbon jam, and my first batch of nocino (green walnut liqueur).
Now I’m hooked: I preserve at home now mostly to get flavors I can’t get from retail products. And a lot of what I preserve ends up being holiday presents and hostess gifts.
I just took a marmalade class this past weekend with June Taylor, a local preserving maven — unfortunately, the citrus season is almost spent, but I may put up a batch of something simple, just so I don’t forget what I learned.
And we’re about to plant a bunch of fruit-bearing trees and plants with the express intention of preserving and infusing. It was fun coming up with all kinds of different plants, from trees to shrubs to vines to groundcover, that will give us something to eat. Most of our yard will be edible in one form or another.
As far as books go, I like Georgeanne Brennan’s The Glass Pantry, which you can get used online for about $2, and Linda Amendt’s Blue Ribbon Preserves. I just recently purchased Putting Food By, which many consider the bible of preserving, but I found the authors’ writing style horrifically pedantic… it set my teeth on edge and I slogged my way through it wondering what people see in this book. It is remarkably complete, so if you need a recipe for somethings really specific and unusual, it may be the only way to go (as ad-libbing in preserving is a definite no-no — you really want an expert to have sussed out all the biohazard stuff, and changing from one fruit or vegetable to another can throw that all out of whack).
cookbooks, drinks, preserving & infusing, recipes, Seattle
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Posted by Anita on 02.28.06 4:50 PM
Finally got the Fernet Branca we needed to try the Porteño… my oh my, what a lovely cocktail.
It helps that it’s courtesy of my friend Murray, the best bartender in the universe. But I would love it anyway…
drinks, Seattle
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Posted by Anita on 11.11.05 5:45 PM
Rocky and I had a little too much fun visiting Murray last night.
The good news is that I am staying at the Ändra, so the best damned room-service hangover cure ever was only a speed-dial call away: Two eggs (scrambled), housemade pork-maple sausage, smashed garlic-fried potatoes, rustic Dahlia Bakery toast, figs… courtesy of Mr. Douglas at Lola.
breakfast, drinks, restaurants, Seattle, travel
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Posted by Anita on 09.27.05 6:11 PM
Last year, we used Italian-style prune-plums, as they’re abundant (to say the least) in our old Seattle neighborhood; we used to get giant bowls full from neighbors who begged and pleaded with us to take more. This year, we used more typical round plums — both red and black varieties — that came in our CSA produce box.
They’re good right away, but better after a couple of weeks. Honestly, the plums are fine — they make a great substitute for cherries in clafoutis — but the real draw is the plum-infused brandy cordial.
Leftover infused brandy is great in soda water or champagne, or over ice cream.
Madison Valley Brandied Plums
3 pounds plums
1-inch-long stick of cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups brandy
Boil a stockpot of water as deep as the shoulder of your canning jar. (I use a 2-quart hinged-lidded jar for a full recipe — you can always portion into smaller jars for giving away once they’re done.)
Wash and stem plums. Prick several holes around stem ends. Pack plums into the canning jar. Quarter and pit remaining plums and re-pack, placing quartered/halved pieces in gaps that form between whole plums. Add cinnamon stick.
In a 2-quart saucepan, bring sugar, salt, and 1 cup water to a boil, then turn to low and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool for 10 minutes, then stir in brandy. Immediately pour liquid into jar up to 1/2 inch from the rim.
Partly close jar, leaving room for steam to escape, and place in boiling water for 5 minutes. Carefully remove jar with a jar-lifter or 2 sets of tongs, and close the lid. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.
preserving & infusing, recipes, Seattle
1 Comment »
Posted by Anita on 03.26.05 11:04 PM
Originally posted on Mouthfuls’ Perfect Seattle Food Day thread
My perfect day would have to be a weekday (Tue-Fri) because it would involve lunch at Salumi. But if we’re talking about weekend-days, here are two itineraries we’ve done numerous times:
Down to the market, brunch at Cafe Campagne. Spend the middle of the day shopping for dinner fixings, then return to the car and stash the perishables in the cooler (or the chilly car, in winter). Wander around Belltown and the Market area — sorry, I just can’t type ‘West Edge’ with a straight face — browsing and grazing as we go. Perhaps stop by Beecher’s for some mac-n-cheese for late lunch. Wind up for an aperitif at Zig Zag right when they open, then back to the car and home to cook. If we’re having too much fun, they we end up hanging out for another drink (or two), and thn taking a taxi to Palace or walking to a nearby restaurant, and leaving the foraged items for Sunday dinner.
Another variation on this theme: We go to Essential for a great latte and something from the pastry case for a light breakfast, then back home for menu planning, with the entire dining room table buried by cookbooks and magazines. Then we spend mid-day shopping for dinner stuff, and ingredients for the rest of the week’s meals. In the right season, the first stop would be the U District farmers’ market to get the majority of the produce and anything else we can get find there; this time of year, it’s either Whole Paycheck, Uwajimaya, or Central Market, depending on what else we need to get — WF has good cheese, CM has better deli meats, etc. Lunch is grabbed when we start to feel peckish; a recent favorite has been splitting a cheesesteak and an order of fries at Philadelphia Fevre, or each of us going our own way at the Uwajimaya food court. A new find I’m looking forward to adding to this plan: If we’ve got a Mutual Fish (aka ‘Smoochable Fish’) stop planned, I’ll agitate for lunch at the taco bus, El Asadero on Rainier, before heading home to prep dinner.
There’s usually a cheese plate or some other nibbles on the counter while we’re chopping, dicing, fileting, etc. Lately our weekend meals have been big, multi-hour projects: the latest mexican cooking project from the Mexico forum, Cam’s newfound love of wok-frying whole fish on the turkey-fryer burner outside, etc. It’s comforting to me to have a homey project to fill a winter afternoon. I know when summer comes, the meals will be simpler, less constructed… which I am also looking forward to, in its own way.
There aren’t any particularly surprising finds in these ideas, I’m afraid. Still, reading them over pleases me. We’re actually going to do an abridged version of #1 today, so it was fresh in my mind.
bar culture, drinks, farmers markets, restaurants, Seattle, shopping, travel
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