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Not last Friday but the Friday before, I asked C to go to the ballet with me. The Pacific Northwest Ballet was nearing the end of their run of Swan Lake and so off we flew to see swans in formation and daring duels. The ballet was good -- certainly not their best performance, but entertaining nonetheless.
Our deal was that C was to take care of dinner beforehand (though really I made her sit through a stodgy ballet AND made her pay for dinner, so really who got the better end of that deal?). She suggested Andaluca for their small plates (pinxtos/tapas). Tapas is really a perfect pre-show option since its no fun being full in a theater. There are pinxtos/tapas joints sprining up all over Seattle, but Andaluca has been around for a while. (The last time I had tapas, I was in San Francisco with Mrs. Mikey at the legendary Cha Cha Cha and what I mostly remember is not ordering shark but having a lot of fun. About a year later, I was back home in Montana and the horse shoer was talking about visiting San Francisco and going to Cha Cha Cha -- I would never have guessed he had it in him!)
It was quiet at Andaluca early on a Friday night (later we learned that evil road construction was most likely to blame). I had studied the menu intently beforehand and peppered C with my selections which she graciously agreed to. Our first two courses were really interesting and savory. 
The first, a potato croquette, was light and well seasoned with a crisp outside and not too oily. The second was a lamb meatball which was actually an egg coated with lamb mixture. The egg was perfectly cooked and served sliced in half beautifully. The meat was enhanced by the richness of the egg yolk, but since we each got half, it wasn't overwhelming.
Our second round (courses 3 and 4) were both quite yellow (and unfortunately my photography of that course was a little blurry despite only having 2 glasses of Cedar Green Sauvignon Blanc under my belt...thats C's delicious Granacha in the first picture.) During the second course, I first tried a heavily spiced chicken skewer with Marcona almonds which was tender and salty. The second bite was a small serving of the paella alongside a fat prawn. Each of us thought both the chicken and the paella were salty, but since we ate them in the reverse order, neither of us felt the same about the second thing we ate. Saffron and Tumeric were wealthy in the second round and though wonderful, I would say that round was probably our least favorite.
The last 3 dishes came out together and included dolmas, a paquette filled with guava and creamy cheese, and a cauliflower gratin. The dolmas were delicious, though I have never liked dolmas as much as I would like to and this time was no exception. The paquette, however, was a revelation -- rich, salty, and sweet inside a nice crunchy phyllo pastry. The gratin was the surprise of the night. I had been reading about a cauliflower gratin somewhere else that week and thought to myself, "wow, what a waste of ingredients just to eat cauliflower" but seeing it again on the menu made me think that maybe folks were onto something. It was amazing -- perfectly spiced and creamy served with crunchy bread.
Though we ran out of time for dessert, I am sure it would have been fabulous. I am totally sold on the pinxtos way of grazing through a menu and will definitely visit Andaluca again soon.
When I saw this recipe for Moroccan Chicken Pie, I thought I was in heaven. But it seems that Moroccan food might be best left up to the Moraccans. While the pie turned out beautifully, its seems that either recipe or implementation was flawed because it was like being hit in the snoot with salt and spices. At best I would call it over-wraught. At worst, near inedible.
I am the sort of person who can read a list of ingredients and 80% of the time will know if a recipe is going to work for me. The two instances where my instinct routinely fails are Casseroles and ethinic foods whose spices I am not familiar with.
I LOVE Moroccan food. When Chef Beef and I started dating, one of our first vacations was to Calgary, Alberta. We took a beautiful drive up for Labor Day and wended our way about the city. One night, we decided to take advantage of the local casino, located in the Olympic Village. While he opted for the craps tables, I took out a few dollars and played the slots. I happen to be pretty damned lucky at slots and ended up winning about $200. So we decided to go to dinner. How we selected the Sultan's Tent is still a bit fuzzy, but to this day it is still one of the best meals of my life. Since dinner had become essentially free, thanks to my winnings, we opted for a 7 course "Sultan's Feast" featuring everything from Tagines to Briouts (pastries filled with savory filling). It might be time to head back to Canada...
I took this picture while making deviled eggs for a party back in January (are we a little backed up on blog posts? nah...).There are things I didn't know about deviled eggs then that I do now. Let me share those. - Use old eggs. New eggs are harder to peel. In this picture, the white egg is old and the brown eggs are new. The white egg was the only one that was easy to peel.
- Anne Burrell's technique of letting the eggs boil for 1 minute, then sit for 13 minutes exactly, then shocking them in cold water DID result in perfectly cooked eggs; BUT
- Deviled egg recipes do not scale up 1 to 1. Say if you are supposed to use a half a cup of mayo for 6 eggs, that doesn't mean you should use an entire cup for 12. Yours truly didn't know that and for her party had runny icky mayo eggs. And I LIKE mayo. Deviled eggs are just one of those things you have to taste the whole way through adding and adjusting because otherwise, they just aren't worth the work.
I don't have a picture of the finished eggs because they were that bad. The beginning picture is much better to remember them by.
Here in Washington State (and countless other places of course) it is asparagus season. When I was young, my mom and I used to cook up some hard boiled eggs and sizzlean then jump into the car with Bunny the mastiff and drive down to the banks of the river. There we looked for asparagus. It was hard to find with all the other reedy plants around. We stopped to play in the water and even carved our names into a tree. Those days with my mom are still some of my fondest memories (I had a silver coat! Rad!) and I think of her every time I eat asparagus. Which is admittedly a lot.
I found some big fat asparagus at the store this week. Chef Beef and I were in the mood for a quick dinner so I found some lean top loin steak and assigned him to the grill. (That is his fire roasted garlic butter on the steaks -- its a secret process I know nothing about)
I cut the asparagus (2 bunches) on the bias and sauteed it in about 1TB of olive oil for about 4 minutes. I then added minced garlic (4 cloves) and steamed for another 2 minutes, then added pine nuts (1/4 cup) for another 2 minutes browning everything off. Here's how it all turned out. Fast and supremely good.
In March, I flew down to California to throw my friend A's baby shower. I spent a day making food to freeze for her first week home from the hospital -- a gesture that she appreciated but one that her husband was pretty unsure about. As for the shower itself, I decided to have that catered -- both because I was tired of cooking but because I also lack the ability to make tea sandwiches.
See, the last baby shower I went to prior to this one was also in California. I was recruited to help set up and I did so gladly. But sometimes being in other people's homes with other people's tools and other people's rules turns out badly. I actually got fired from making tea sandwiches because they weren't uniform enough. The kicker is, I know how to cook...but I am sure I left a lasting impression otherwise.
The Brownstone Cafe in Fullerton catered A's baby shower and it was very nice. My co-host must have been eating tea sandwiches for a week afterwards, though.
Anyhow, while I was working away in A's kitchen creating frozen lasagna, meatballs and sauce, and enchiladas, I sat down for lunch with a cold Starbucks iced mocha and had a junk salad. For me, junk salads are simply those that contain what I want to eat and nothing else. This one contained heirloom tomatoes, avocado, and cucumber -- in March! Gotta love California.
When I was very little, I was afraid of sleeping alone. My grandparents had a wonderful piece of furniture in their room that I was allowed to sleep on...a cream and green chaise lounge. Naturally, though I don't own one today, it remains one of my favorite pieces of furniture. That is why when we bounced our Friday heels up the stairs to the third floor of the corner Pike Place Market Building...above the butcher and the ice cream shop and several vegetable vendors...I had high hopes for such a cleverly named cafe.Chez Lounge is a pun based derivative of Chez Shea, a longtime market venue previously only available for dinner. In a time when most restaurants are cutting back hours, its nice to see more choices available. C suggested that we take advantage of one of the Thirty for Thirty promotions. G and J met up with us over a raggedy half hour where we sat sipping wine and overlooking the painted pigs on the roof of the main market building. Gradually the intimate space filled up, and though small, the tables aren't particularly crammed together and the high ceilings did not amplify noise as I thought they might. We were
probably the loudest people there. For $15 (not much of a splurge before wine -- which we all had), Chez Lounge offered a 3 course prix fixe menu that catered to meaters and veggies alike. G and I started with a wonderful butter lettuce salad with perfectly candied and slightly salty walnuts (so often nuts are candied to the point of being painful to eat). J tried the creamy broccoli rabe soup and C started with the salmon mousse. The mousse was a tad salmony to be honest, but we helped C finish it anyways, and really that was probably the only low point of the meal. For the second course, we all had something different. I tried the artichoke gratin, G braved the boulliabase, J went for the burger, while C tried the grilled three cheese sandwich with greens. The boulliabase looked delicious, but I just have issues with sea shells in my soup (say that 10 times fast). I parceled out pieces of gratin and tried a hunk of C's delicious cheese sandwich. I think on the right day with a steaming bowl of tomato soup, it would be just the ticket. 
But much like a fairy tale princess, I had to suddenly abandon the pursuit of the third course and high tail it back to the office for a meeting that was suddenly just 10 minutes away. I stuck C with my bill and scurried down the street as fast as my little heels would carry me. Breathlessly I sat down three minutes early onlly to be told that I was late as they wanted to start 5 minutes early....Ahh, the best laid plans. In short, Chez Lounge was delicious and a wonderful space. The service was pleasant, but not overbearing...with just enough eyebrow wagging to keep one in line, but not enough to feel intimidated. This is the way French food -- European lunches, should feel. I may have been late, but as I ran down the street feeling warm and relaxed, I thought to myself, "It was worth it."
Not last Friday but the Friday before, I asked C to go to the ballet with me. The Pacific Northwest Ballet was nearing the end of their run of Swan Lake and so off we flew to see swans in formation and daring duels. The ballet was good -- certainly not their best performance, but entertaining nonetheless.
The first, a potato croquette, was light and well seasoned with a crisp outside and not too oily. The second was a lamb meatball which was actually an egg coated with lamb mixture. The egg was perfectly cooked and served sliced in half beautifully. The meat was enhanced by the richness of the egg yolk, but since we each got half, it wasn't overwhelming.
