On the table

A friend recently formed a book club which combines two of my favorite things in life: reading and fancy food. Each month we choose a book to discuss over dinner at a new restaurant. This month we met at Betty, which was spectacular. I wish I'd gotten a photo of my sweet potato ravioli but I was too blown away by its rich flavor to think of getting out my camera. Luckily I remembered by the time that beauty of a dessert called baked hot chocolate came around. I highly recommend Betty if you get the chance to go.

Betty is located at the top of Queen Anne hill, which is an area I haven't explored too much. My bus dropped me off at the bottom and it was quite a hike to the top which made the night feel like an adventure. The view from Queen Anne is incredible. The Space Needle looks enormous from this angle and towers over the lights of downtown and everything is reflected in Lake Union. Maybe sometime I'll take my tripod out and try to capture it but there's really nothing like seeing it in person.

Winter feasts

One thing I appreciate about winter is all of the delicious food that's still around and how wonderful it feels to eat a warm meal when it's cold outside. Here are a few things I've been enjoying lately.

* lunch at La Carta De Oaxaca, home of Seattle's best guacamole and a fun salsa bar.
* herbed beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, and sunchokes for roasting.
* number 25 off my 25 things list: oatmeal honey bread modified from this recipe (I used half whole wheat flour and only 1/3 cup honey since my farmers market honey is so potent). It was amazing. And I discovered that making bread is not so bad! It was very rewarding to watch it grow from various stages of mush into glorious loaves that tasted like heaven.
* sweet potato soup from my favorite soup recipe book.
* The lunch buffet at Flowers where everything is vegan and almost everything is fantastic.

Indoors

Some food photos from this weekend. Justin and I cooked up some vegetable stir fry with tempeh and served it over rice with peanut sauce. It was awesome. We also baked up this little teeny molten chocolate cake we got from the farmers market which was almost as beautiful as it was delicious. It puffed up inside its little glass bowl and then collapsed into itself to reveal a molten center. Soooooo good.

Also this weekend we met up with Derek at the Crocodile for a free show which paired up Icelandic artists with Seattle musicians, which was a ton of fun. We absolutely loved Lay Low's music (check out By and By) so we went to see her again last night at the Tractor (which also happened to accomplish an item on my list!)

Providence

I had such a blast in Providence! It was so great to hang out with my friend and explore the city with her. We visited some awesome places like Geoff's Superlative Sandwiches (where we quickly stopped when we were racing to catch the train to Boston and we let our sandwiches sit and get soggy which was unfortunate but we think this place is definitely worth another visit), various cemeteries (including Swan Point and one we stopped in at night and scared ourselves silly), Caserta's (for the best pizza ever), Thayer street (for Indian food, crepes, pumpkin soup, and disappointing pumpkin chai) the RISD art museum (where Anna wanted to touch everything and we heard some interesting performance art). And there was so much walking around and marveling at the beautiful fall colors and the gorgeous and huge old homes in Providence. Anna is crazy about this city and now I see why.

We also visited Newport and Boston, more on that later.

Thyme Patch Park

I stumbled on this P-Patch yesterday. I love the idea of community gardens and someday I would love to join one or something similar. I am dying to grow my own food but don't have many options since I live in an apartment building without much gardening space. Do any of you guys participate in community gardens or know how I can get in on this?

On the border

The weather around here's been pretty weird lately. I thought we were moving steadily into fall but now we are getting some heat back and it's just warm and muggy and blah. I am ready for crisp fall days, scarves, hot drinks, the butternut squash bake I have been craving for months, everything pumpkin-flavored, trying new fall rustic desserts, crunching through piles of leaves.

San Fransisco

So, it's been a long time. I was super busy in August with two short California trips and moving to a new place and things like that and somehow I stayed away from this blog for over a month and I've missed it! I've also been slacking on my photo taking and I miss that too. I'm glad I got to spend some quality time with friends and family and got some nice summer time activities in, but I hope to get back into my old routines: taking photos every day, blogging, reading, cooking. Those are constants I like to have in my life.







In early August I took a weekend trip to San Fransisco with three of my favorite people. It was a blast! The weather was all over the place, mostly foggy and windy but we had a few hours of beautiful sunshine. The hills reminded me of nightmares I have about driving, where I am driving up hills so steep I can't see the top and I eventually start rolling backwards. Luckily none of that happened in real life.

My favorite moments of the trip were when we were goofing off and enjoying delicious food together and there was plenty of both on this trip. We had an absolutely amazing meal at Mamacita, which included many margaritas, tamales, and the best tacos I've ever eaten. From their menu: "El Verano --- crispy vegetarian tacos with roasted squash, eggplant, green beans, cherry tomato & red pepper mole". Yum! I don't think I can go back to San Fran without going back to Mamacita.

I also loved wandering around and chowing down in Chinatown, shopping in the Haight Ashbury district, a fascinating photography exhibit at SF Camerawork by Jennifer Karady about Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans' experiences, and my favorite thing of all was the Sutro Baths. More on that later.

Berries, you make me happy

This year I am trying to take full advantage of summer food with lots of trips to the farmers market to stock up on fresh fruits and veggies, especially berries. I've been eating my way through pint after pint of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries and finding new ways to enjoy them.

This weekend a few friends came over to my place and we made lemonade cocktails with raspberries and strawberries that were summer heaven. And I cooked an apricot raspberry cobbler as my first recipe from Rustic Fruit Desserts. I was lucky enough to win this book as a giveaway on Rachel's awesome blog and I intend to make every recipe in the book at some point.

This moment is breakfast

A friend and I got up early for breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe and I took this photo for the New York Times' global mosaic project. I am so excited to see this moment in time all over the world! Did anyone else participate?

You are what you eat, day 7

I was planning on using my final day of this week to reflect on what I eat and why I eat what I do and other things of that nature, but it's Saturday night. And even though my plans only include putting the computer right next to my face to watch United States of Tara, I don't feel like reflecting. It seems silly to even try to plan reflection time. It will happen when it needs to.


* waffle with butter, blueberries, and powdered sugar, waffle with butter and nutella, apple juice
* Blue C sushi: avocado roll, sweet omelette roll, inari
* caramel macchiato
* cheese pizza from Pudge Brothers
* butterfinger ice cream

You are what you eat, day 6

* english muffin: half butter and honey, half peanut butter and jelly, chocolate milk
* pastry and coffee from Zeitgeist
* mac n cheese
* mint dark chocolate
* chipotle black bean veggie burger with cheddar, ketchup, and mustard, salad

You are what you eat, day 5

Today was a little bit rough. I woke up with pain and redness in my left eye and after a few hours I decided I should get it checked for pink eye, which I had once in high school and the eye doctor said it was the third worse case of pink eye he'd ever seen in his life. I was impressed with my bacteria. But I didn't have pink eye this time. I have CLARE, which is an adorable acronym for "contact lens acute red eye" or "you have been leaving your contacts in too long and now your eyes are broken". Bummer. I don't have backup glasses, so I am slightly blind for the next week or so until I can put my contacts back in or my new glasses arrive. I couldn't tell if my photos were in focus as I was taking them, but luckily cameras are pretty smart and I think they came out fine.


* cereal with milk, apple juice
* darjeeling tea
* leftover pasta from the other night, only now it has a mysterious purple tint. Mei Li's leftovers are also turning purple. What's up with that?
* mint dark chocolate (just imagine 6 squares instead of 2)
* bagel with red pepper hummus
* cheese pita pizza, lemon bar, the last of the best ever feta, crackers

You are what you eat, day 4

If you are what you eat, today I am fancy.

I had a lunch worthy of a last meal at Palomino today. A bunch of my coworkers got together for the Seattle Restaurant Week deal of a 3 course lunch for $15. I love this deal. I want to try them all!


* mango, toast with butter, lemon bar
* chai with milk and sugar
* bread with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tomato topping
* an unexpectedly delicious salad -- I don't normally like tomatoes but these were fresh and firm and so so good
* mac n cheese (they tried to get me to call it by its fancy name: Baked Four Cheese Trenne, but I wasn't fooled)
* dessert heaven