When Mystery Meat is meant for you.

2011 is fading into the ether, and before it goes, I want to offer a fond farewell to the year we've all shared. 2012 is coming, as is our possible demise here on this earthly plane, so before we all get washed away and John Cusack holds me in his arms just one last time, let's tackle the simple task of reviewing this last week.

On Christmas Eve, Bill's mom arrived to spend the holidays with us. We were pleased to have Seattle at its best this week, sporting its famous unfailing gloom and some unseasonably heavy rains. Here are the highlights:

The breakfast panini at Odd Fellows Lodge

1. Oddfellows Cafe, a hot spot for off-the-chain quiche du jour and hipster longing.

My box of hom bow hom nom nom

 2.  Mee Sum Pastry at Pike Place Market, serving up a savory array of hom bow that keeps me coming back. We enjoyed our buns after a walk through Discovery Park, fueling up before strolling along the Chittenden Locks in Ballard.

There is an angry jalapeno in here. If you get a mean bite,
don't reach for your beer, dummy. That's just gonna
throw gas on it. Dummy.

3. An evening at Cafe Mox, where we played Incan Gold and Carcassone, enjoyed some happy hour Nightwatch Dark Ales and a plate of wine-braised steak nachos.

Hey lil buddy, you still here?

4. Siam Pura Thai restaurant on Alki, where we ordered a late night spread of pad thai, pot stickers, fresh tofu rolls and tom khah I'm still feasting on 5 days later.

A fine slaw.

A reasonably famous sandwich.

5. Alki Cafe, a popular beach brunch spot that we hit up for lunch. The avocado chicken sandwich has a lot of cred on yelp, so we ordered with confidence,  pairing it with their less-lauded smoked salmon sandwich. With a heavy-handed dollop of "caper aioli' (feebly-flavored mayo) and a disappointing pile of salmon, the best thing about the sandwich was the rye bread, which was actually kind of dry. Sorry, guys. No love here. ...Unless you wanna talk cole slaw. Finely chopped green apples, a steady-handed amount of poppy seeds, clean mayo finish, and what? Is that toasted, finely-pulsed walnuts I hear? Probably just a walnut poppy seed dressing from Costco, but a girl can dream.

6. Wednesday we made the obvious stop at Talaricos for trivia and pizza. Forgoing my usual $2.50 pint of Mac & Jac to make way for a slice of the Coppola, I made a decision to embrace my least favorite cheese this year - I was rewarded with a 14" feast of roasted red bell peppers, garlic and goat cheese. My first public support of goat cheese, which is slowly becoming my best friend. Which I can already tell is a bad idea. I need to meet more people. Noted.

7. A spontaneous celebratory dinner at Mizu Japanese Grill. I've enjoyed hibachi once before with a special friend in Austin, and was thrilled to remember it existed again this week. Our chef was delightful, an Indonesian import with tattoos for days and tricks to match. We started with their onion soup-not much more than water and onion to the naked eye, but we tasted worlds more, and sampled their unagi before our grill got fired up. It was all a hit, fried rice, yakisoba, filet mignon, chicken, shrimp, the works. I even got a tip on how to overcome my shrimp allergy, one small bite at a time.

And that catches us up. This morning we waved goodbye to Bomba (Bill's mom's gambling alter ego) and I set out to decode a strange parcel that arrived yesterday morning.
















Which brings us to
  The Dine of the Week
A 12lb box of beef jerky, boudin cracklins and three industrial sized bottles of cajun seasoning arrived, unmarked, on our doorstep without a clue as who to thank. In a panic, I went into survival mode and decided it was a message. I'm all dried up. I'm gonna end up in a box. I'm gonna suffocate in the process of being vacuum sealed...Who would send such a message? Who has my new address? Who on my Christmas card list have I slighted recently? Ever? What's next? Seafood gumbo? Do they know about my allergy???

Who was the mystery sender then? This morning, I called the vendor, and after a reasonable wait, the lady clumsily spelled out a Filipino name I've known well since the 90's.

My friend's parents. The Lataquins. Thanks guys! When we lose power and have no way of getting through the blizzard, these dried meats will carry us through.
Really. Pounds and pounds of nutrition in here.

Now, I'm off to smoke my eyes out and don the heels, it's the second sluttiest night of the year!
See you next year, dear diners, and remember, when dining out, it's A-OK to feel disgruntled. I always do!

A Christmas List

Cast Iron Christmas Champignons
Prepared by my husband.
An eager, friendly, and patient cook.

Merry Christmas, dear readers. I hope it was memorable and filling. My Christmas morning was filled with the savory smells of mushrooms, garlic and shallots sweating together in a cast iron skillet, under the watchful eye of a handsome man. Thanks, Christmas!














I was perusing I'll Sleep When They're Grown and found 5 Things That Make Christmas Christmas: a listography challenge. It's not a race, or for a grade, but as a nod of respect to list-making, I abandoned making an important, don't-forget-anything Christmas Eve grocery list in favor of this one. Here we go.

5 Things that make Christmas Christmas:




1. Bringing home a fresh, fragrant, tannenbaum, trimming it to a pleasing shape, rubbing the clippings all over my hands, then rubbing my hands all over my body.

Best friends. One of us has sap in our back pockets.

2. Taking in the Christmas light displays. This year we especially enjoyed free admission to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens' "Garden D'Lights". An inviting stroll through a dormant flower garden hosting a bevy of LED flowers and trees and butterflies, and with more whimsy than Lewis Carroll could shake an acid trip at. We also did drive-bys past the homes of high-functioning Christmas fanatics. This year we sought out the Helmstetler Family Christmas Spectacular, which boasts approximately 60,000 lights that are programmed to dance and strobe everyone into epileptic fits of holiday fancy, set to music on a local station.

Still courtesy of West Seattle Blog and someone's debilitating Christmas mania

3. Feasting my ears on tried and true Christmas songs. I find new favorites every year. Kay Starr's "December" really played my song this season. Plans are loosely coming together to produce a White Christmas film sequence next year. With an elaborate camera crew and a tandem bike this dream could become a reality in a matter of hours.

Don't go, Christmas.

4. Christmas card fails. Every year it's always the same. I'll grab a daunting stack of cards, address all the envelopes, and stack them on a pile of good intentions, some of which never get stamped and delivered. I get in over my head with these things.

   5. Building gingerbread real estate. This year, I waited too late to get a team together so I'm the lone architect. Also designer, construction foreman, investor, permit office manager, town mayor, etc. As investment broker, I had to scan the markets for wholesale gingerbread, but as we all know, it's tough out there. I looked at my stock options and ended up investing in graham crackers, frosting and an assortment of sugary accoutrements.

1. Rally your materials

2. Measure, make plans and blueprints you won't use

3. Go. To. Town. 

4. Stick a sold sign in the yard.
 Cuz it just did.

In the spirit of the holidays, we splurged this week on a yelp deal and dined rodizio at the Amazon Grill. The buffalo at this place was A+ amazing delicious, but all the other meats came and went in a haze. We sat down with a large party at a clean table and left it a soiled mess. I was excited by the fried bananas with the first round of meats, but some time came and went between the meat visits, and at a big table of primed eaters, the absence stirred up some ill-will toward our servers. Tongs in hand, the table was growing restless with meat lust. You have never felt less like a hunter/gatherer than when you're snapping air with empty tongs meant to delicately fetch you a slice of meat that's too good to eat every night of the week. There suddenly seems an empty place by your water glass where there should be a little bell. To make them bring more meat. Then more still. It's meat fever and you've got it.
 Presented nicely with an awkward touch of cafeteria pans, the salad bar had plenty to offer, but seemed a little unenthusiastic. I guess it was a Tuesday. Ultimately, there was plenty of dining and whining to be done that night, making Amazon Grill the Dine and Whine of the week. Merry Christmas, you gave us mixed feelings and meat comas.

Dine of the week - Veggie Stew

I'm not famous for consistency, but here's something I really do want to implement weekly: The Dine/Whine of the week.
This Friday, after a long shift at the popcorn factory, (but didn't you know I've taken on seasonal, hair-net-required work?) I came home to a dark apartment with 1. A hungry man 2. an unlit, dormant Christmas tree and 3. a bounty of veggies. I set to work. "Baby, run out to the street and find some rosemary." ("No, wait, where? how am I supposed to see? what if I get hurt?" et al. until the door closed.

Lucky readers will find their very own
handiwork in our tree!
No prizes offered at this time.

I plugged in my tannenbaum to reveal it's gently-twinkling majesty and filled my nose with its woodsy bouquet. Revived, I headed to the kitchen, (and so should you, ) for it was time for veggie stew!

 Please, share in the magic. Here's your grocery list:
1 zucchini, coined and halved
1 yellow summer squash, coined and halved
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stem fresh rosemary (from the street or your unwitting neighbor's garden), stemmed and minced
3 cloves crushed garlic
1 pint cremini (or button, if you must) mushrooms, sliced
1 large can of stewed tomatoes, in puree
1 teaspoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste
a crust of bread, rubbed with garlic and toasted




1. Gently saute the mushrooms in 2 tbl olive oil until tender, add the onion, fry 1 minute, add the garlic, fry 1 minute, season with course salt, fresh ground pepper and cumin, then dump the rest in and bring to a boil. (Add a half cup of water if it's looking a little thick,) and let simmer 10 minutes. Toast up your bread and prepare to sail away on this hearty, simple ship. Serves 2.
Let's break this Dine of the Week down. From 1-10, with 1 being deplorable and 10 being downright distracting for its fabulousness. For ingredients: 10 (most are readily on hand, cheap or free. Especially if rosemary grows on your street.) Effort: 10 (quick, easy, can be prepared while delirious, inebriated or otherwise decommissioned, and clean up's a snap!) This quick, fragrant, flavorful, off the chain recipe came to me back in our NYC days, when we had a pot luck and Daniel Diamond brought this dish to our attention, just before he was never seen again. Thanks, Dan.

This pic brought to you by the nick of time.

Drive Thru! The great American past-time.

Yesssss! Vampire Diaries is coming back from hiatus and so am I! I've been living la vida brokë, restraining my wanderlust, eating from my own kitchen, saving for the holidays, and grumbling on Saturday mornings when all I want is to go try a new breakfast joint. Having just returned from bright, sunny, Texas, where there's cheap gas and a friend on every corner, I'm slowly readjusting to vampire-friendly, dark, midnight-dreary-all-day Seattle.
 I was thinking on my title, The Disgruntled Diner, who dines and then whines to the blogosphere, and found that that's not really my style. Sure, I'm a frequent diner who takes no small pleasure in dressing down the waitstaff after they've walked off, but unless my food came out cold and garnished with human saliva, I'm not taking that experience home. I want to write about fabulous finds, hot waiters, cheap eats, espresso milkshakes, you know, happy things. If a server senses my displeasure, it's highly irregular, because I've been practicing unconditional niceness in customer service environments for over 10 years. I shared my feelings with my sister, who found this ludicrous.
We were going through the drive-thru at that greasy southern gem you know as Whataburger, and I was tooting my own horn about how sensitive and sympathetic I am toward industry workers. She was quick to correct me, and basically said I'm on par with my mother's unpredictable level of impatience. So apparently, here's what's actually happening when I roll up in the drive thru lane:

Driving and whining since 1994

1. The speaker asks if I would like to try a...."No. NO. No thank you. I need JUST A MINUTE. PLEASE!"
2. When I'm ready, I bleat out my order, tack on a friendly, "YOU GOT THAT? HELLO?"and, disgusted,
3. Complete my performance by snickering at whatever desert-of-the-month is offered to me and drive on ahead. Who has time to wait for their total?
Now, you saw all the please and thank you's in that replay, right? I know. My sister's such a Johnny Drama.

In summation, I'm more likely to whine while dining. Now. Let's dish. Individual links forward to my yelp review. Mostly.


For the two weeks I spent in Austin, I was always on the go, so I drove thru a lot for meals. Sure, I was treated to sit down fancy feasts at Another Broken Egg Cafe, Snack Bar, Chuy's and Outback Steakhouse, but if I was paying, I drove thru. When I started driving back in 1997, my favorite thing to do was to swing thru McDonalds and get a soft-serve cone. Remember when they used to have chocolate soft-serve? The golden days of my youth. It was so tough to decide on chocolate or vanilla, so I'd often get a twist. These days, the option is gone, so in protest I quit Mickey D's. Amongst other reasons.
Austin kept dangling Chik Fil-A in my face, and eventually I folded. Closed on Sundays for spiritual gay-bashing and bigotry, (family time?) they serve up the best, most expensive pickle and chicken sandwich I've ever had. Not to mention those waffle fries, did they invent those? Maybe they're under the impression that they've done the world a favor with those fries (true) so of course they can tell you who to marry. All hate aside, they are open to serving gays at every location, but don't you ladies go in there holding hands and talking about curtains, cuz now you're offending their sensibilities. I guess it's time to let Chik Fil-A go too.
 

In the southern states bordering Mexico there thrives a 24-hr tex-mex chain called Taco Cabana. I'd been off the plane a good 30 minutes before I was treated to Taco C. During my first few days, I naturally fell prey to some friendly drinking and had to call my sister the next day to deliver some Tex-Mex of the gods. Last week, Bill and I drove thru the Riverside location that was curiously dark. The sparkle of one of my old favorites alive in my mind, I ordered some sopapillas to snack on before hitting up Bingo. Driving off, I opened the bag to find some cold, crusty tortilla quarters dusted with cinnsugar. Whoa. The worst Taco C experience of my life. Judge that book by its cover dear readers; if the lights are off, so are the heat lamps, so proceed with caution.  My favorite Taco C combination from way back in my veg. days is a black bean taco ($1.09) and a small chips and queso ($1.99). I open my taco, drizzle a little queso on top and chip dip that black bean bargain till it's dry. Then I roll up that soft, manteca masterpiece and dunk it in the queso till it can't dunk no more. A purveyor of many fine tex-mex platters, what they're famous for is fresh cilantro, tomatoes, an array of fresh salsas and queso so runny you want to hook it up to a hose and spray it on your enemies in a food fight. Food fight? Yes.

Coach and Aunt Vicky, 2009

 One evening around 2am  in 2009, my associates and I were enjoying some Taco C on the patio when a trio of hardened ne'er-do-wells started to attract attention a few tables away. We did our best to mind our own business, but things quickly rose to a fever pitch and it was hard not to stare. Two of their party went inside to retrieve their food, leaving the third asleep on the table. Having had a rousing night ourselves, Coach went over to her and posed for a photo, but got caught as the other two returned. At this point, the ringleader, ("Magnum" to her friends,) took umbrage with poor Coach and set to threatening him. "Leave it, Magnum!" her cohort advised, "be cool!" but Magnum couldn't be contained. Freeing herself, she leaped at Coach and the whole patio went crackers. We had just come from 80s night at Elysium so we were already sweaty and ready for a dance-off. I couldn't tell you what song was playing, but with every power chord a seemingly-choreographed punch was thrown in slo-motion and flaming Corona bottles were somersaulting through the air - giving the whole number some sweet pyrotechnic cred. We took it to the bridge and flipped their table over, just in time for our 3-in-one air guitar solo that backed them into the parking lot and sent 'em running for their Ford Explorer. Shredded lettuce fluttering to the ground all around us, we resumed our meal, having stood firm and held our turf on a hot Tuesday night at the MLK Taco C.

You know you won the food fight if you danced so hard and fast you dodged all the  ballistic edibles.

Thanks for the memories, Austin. You are missed.

A Belated Birthday Gift

It comes to our attention here that we are late putting this out into the world. This past Friday one of the most steadfast followers of this blog, Bill's dad, turned 54, so over the weekend we put this little ditty together. It also comes to my attention that another dear, Maru, reader turned 30 that day, and is just as deserving of this love poem.  Happy Birthday Kids.
 Love,
Amber and Bill.

Everyone else, enjoy the photo montage of photos you've already seen.

The Liebster Award, not to be confused with anything about Lobster

My first award, and thanks, to Jellybear, author of I'll Sleep When They're Grown.
Here's how it works:

“What  is the Liebster Award?”, you may ask. It’s an award that’s meant to be passed along to blogs with fewer than 200 followers. The purpose is to help give awesome blogs a bit of a nudge in the way of followers and fans.

By accepting this award what we need to do is:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to us.
3. Reveal our top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
4. Hope that our followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

Here are my choices:

1. I'll Sleep When They're Grown

2. The Dola Diaries

3. Life in the Land of Wa

4. Message from the Mainland

5. I'm holding this spot open. (Until I start reading and appreciating more blogs)

When carbs are no object.

You know, whenever someone comes to visit. Or you're on vacation. Or it's Wednesday.

Since coming out of my bread phase years ago, (not unscathed), I've worked hard at balancing my meals with protein, complex carbs and fresh, green roughage.  This is not to say I've overcome my bread lust, but come on guys, it's fall. The harvest! Plenty to splurge on, plenty to run an extra mile for. And there's that chill in the air, advising our internal appetites to crave more carbs in order to survive our impending hibernation. Your very climate is pushing you toward more buttered rolls.

The hardest part of the holidays, of course, is peer pressure. Friends and family create a jolly atmosphere, the fire's crackling, and you do seem to feel warmer while chewing. People lose their resolve during these times, and if they like the good ol' American pastime of eating past the point of reason, you're going down with them.

Like last weekend.
Though all I remember are big breakfasts, baked goods and noodle soups, I'm pretty sure our friends Bianca and Micah were staying with us. Just a few blocks from our house, and hosting a pretty great view of the water, is Christo's, the Greek underdog of Alki Beach dining. A pizza joint by day and night, in the early hours they put on a spectacular morning meal. We ordered the french toast, the salmon omelet, the salmon benedict, coffee, pancakes, hash brownes. Sampling the whole menu is absolutely recommended, and you order your eggs exactly how you want them (over medium and broken!), cuz they can handle it. Our server, a grown-up delivery boy who was probably fighting with his mother in the kitchen, had the perfect amount of nonsense and efficiency; earning the Best Server So Far accolade - an award I don't hastily bestow.

You don't know.

We chose to do Vancouver in a day - a rainy, rainy cold day - and after wandering around the districts, we settled down at Wangs Taiwanese noodle house. We ordered the sweet steamed bun, the beef and green onion pancake (victory!), and a salted vegetable and pork noodle soup, but we should've all ordered their star dish, the beef noodle soup. It's the house specialty at Wangs, and all it takes is a taste of the broth to figure it out. The beef, oh, the beef, is tender, soft and yielding, with hours of flavor and a definite pro behind the work. The noodles are huge, and would get in the way if they weren't so utterly soaked in the broth, creating yet another way to savor this dish. Thank you Canada.

Tiny park folk

Back in the Emerald City, we hit up Bakery Nouveau so I could show off the twice-baked almond croissant, then headed to Lincoln Park. In the summer, it's a rich array of greens and texture. In the fall, this place loses its mind. We were enjoying the gentle sloping paths leading down to the beach, when Bill drew our eyes to a wash of yellow beyond some trees. We thought it was a big yellow tarp. Here's the real story:

My tree makes your tree look like crusty turd with hair.

From there it was time to head back to the homestead and put on our party clothes. Bill and I didn't get too many chances to sell our act that evening, (as the birds and the bees we wanted to spread love and awareness) because we went to Card Kingdom, where costume parties go to die. We left that graveyard to hit up The Monkey Bridge for dinner, which turned out to be just as tame. The only ones in costume in a packed little restaurant, we sat unattended for about 10 minutes. When we did get to order, they were out of half of what we wanted. Our pho was pretty decent though, and at the end of our meal, when we knew we'd f'd up and drank our weight in broth, our waitress brought out a 5lb. plate of coconut ice cream, and guess what? We ate it. *Shudder.

Complimentary dairy coma

Miserable, delirious, and past the point of reviving our good spirits, we sloshed back to the orgy of nerds to catch the costume contest. Bianca won the raffle and we got a good round of lively gaming in, but we couldn't undo our gluttony. Beaten, we went home.

You kids get back here!

Fast forward to Sunday, damp and shivering and browsing a farm store waiting for the Haunted Maze to open at Carlton Farm. There's beautiful jonagold apples and hot pork sammiches and apple cider and crumbly little tiny little baby pumpkin donuts. In the haunted maze, where I stepped far outside my usual daring, I learned a lesson. My everyday hallucinations in the dark are leagues more threatening than actors and chainsaws. The gimmicks they've got they push a little too hard. Please readers, get to a straight, un-haunted corn maze this season. Pay whatever they want and go wandering through the stalks at dusk. Go psych yourself out in there, have tiny existential panics and contemplate what's behind you until your socks are soaked through and you have to pee. You'll probably come out unmolested and refreshed, having led yourself through a dark time into the light.

Hoping for a little fright without all the fuss? Turn your lights down low and try watching a ghost show. Always works for me, and they're good for any occasion. As year-round as UFOs.

Raarrrr

Don't fritter your life away without the right equipment...

Breakfast again, at Pancake Chef, a throw-back to the golden age of dining with the creepiest slogan ever. Before our meal arrived, we were served this obnoxious plateful of butter. No one touched it, but with all its ceremonious presentation I'm guessing that we may have missed out one of their other signature dishes. Their crepes were average, their compote heavy and sweet, their corned beef hash a little spammy, but their straight pancakes were perfect. They also made some slammin apple fritters, served with applesauce. (?)

















And now, the creature of the week. It's local, hailing from a nearby farm in our region, boasting 9" in length and 2" in girth, it's my last jumbo carrot. I bought a bunch, and with tops so bushy and verdant, they were the envy of all my friends.

And that's the biggest knife we have. 

IKEA for breakfast

Ah, moving. For the first time in our history, Bill had full charge of our move and about 3% of packing while I was out of town in Idaho. My planning was extensive, of course, but nothing short of a me-shaped, talking chalkboard with itemized tasks could've managed his actual execution. All told, he did pretty well, and though a few things didn't make it, two carloads were dragged upstairs and barfed onto the floor of our new home without a single drop of my own sweat. Unless you count my fastidious, space-defying and efficient week-long packfest.

If you're looking for the other half it's schmeered on my face.

Still looking for my peanut butter, I ventured out for breakfast today to Zatz-A-Better-Bagel. Don't dwell on that incorrigible phrase, stay with me, we're talking about an important meal. Back in Brooklyn, bagels were everywhere and my favorite combination was plain schmear, tomato and pepper on a toasted egg bagel, for about $2. Here in West Seattle, there's only one shop, and they do a pretty good job, working with the city water they've been given and charging you accordingly. I ordered a "scrambagel", a sandwich they have suggestions for. I had to do a little convincing to get some garlic herb "shmeer" (slightly less yiddish?) on my bagel with scrambled egg (eggbeaters poured in a round tupperware and nuked), (perfect circle eggs? I'm into that), and tomato, as I was warned it would be too messy. From behind my glasses and bedraggled bedtime 'do I was complemented. Then I thought, "you mean in addition to all (gesturing) this?" I admonished the girl with a deadpan "let's do it." Though I refused the bacon and onions, I still paid $6 for the thing. Paired with a stiff cup of coffee and the IKEA catalog, it was delicious.

One of my bargain finds on our
latest Ikea installation, "Desk" in green.

Getting installed in a new home is usually a drag for me. I have to unpack all of my old things and arrange them in a new fashion. Not until now, with virtually no things, have I been able to unpack in one day and look around to still find barren rooms with empty walls and probably 10 items total in the kitchen. This. Is. Exhilarating. We haven't been over this yet, but I'm a highly-functioning hoarder. In high school it was all posters and worthless crap, which traveled with me to college and gradually transformed into framed pictures of colorful clippings, vintage celebrity, and handsome breakables. Then came Pottery Barn, where I worked and scavenged for a year, and my hoarding developed a slightly more mature, signature style, with patterns and textures I hadn't been attracted to before. Luckily, like my mother, I'm also a fierce deleter, erasing the evidence from an unsavory past collection and building it back anew through each transition.  All of my dearest knic knacs are now thousands of miles away, still happily installed in their nooks in my apartment there, blissfully ignorant that I'm rabidly replacing them one thrift store trip at a time.

I've added a widget to my brain laid
out in this fashion. Just choose your
favorite color and eat it. Or go there.

Enter IKEA. Priced and laid out in terms I can understand and agree with, I was introduced to the Swedish Shangri-La in the summer of my 14th year. I went for an afternoon with my friend and her dad, grabbed at a few small items and tacked them to my walls for years and years to come. Many summers passed. Not until now, 14 years later, did I enter one again. There's an IKEA down the street from Bill's office, so the last few evenings we've been taking dreamy strolls through the show room, picking out a sofabed (our new friend "Beddinge" - pronounced Bed-ding-gah) and a desk. And ice trays and lamps and tools and utensils and on and on. We have a small place, so these are the only things we're allowing ourselves for now. It's nice to have room to dance and twirl in the home, and with Beddinge around, we have a place to lounge and to sleep. The desk, who remains nameless, was offered in many different finishes. The "birch effect" was a little understated for our taste, so we turned to the colors. Green is a powerful force in our home, so we're letting it ride. Looking out the windows in our living room has lots to offer: a colorful woodsy view, with a leaf for every bold hue, bright light and a sense of wonder.  Any moment, autumn could shift and we'll be snowed in!  The trees could become a tie-dyed whirlpool and we'll be sucked in! The sea (Puget Sound) could overflow and we'll be washed away! We have great windows.

Peggy, and her friends Lamp
and the butternut twins, (we're not
getting too attached to the twins).

 Fall is here, the trees are explosive and our new pumpkin Peggy is loving the new apartment. See more on the wonders of fall and squash here. Peggy came to us from an expansive pumpkin patch in Idaho. Shaped profoundly unlike her brothers and sisters, she called out to me from the field nearby one of my job sites. A few days later, I cradled her in my arms as I boarded the plane home, and introduced her to Bill. They hit it right off. We don't mention the garlic butternut squash we'll be enjoying this season, or the butternut squash, sage and parmesan pasties, and especially not the roasted sugar  p***kin with sour cream and herbs. We'll be stowing her in the bedroom while enjoying those autumnal delights.

Taking a break from my Ikea idea stupor, this week we visited Red Mill Burgers in Phinney Ridge for a quick stop en route to a game night. No planning, it was just the closest. I've started yelping the establishments we're in while waiting for our food to arrive. And I don't recommend it. Not only do you quickly realize what you should've ordered, but it's like cheating. Suddenly I know all this trivia about the place, which for some reason, I end up passing off as my own research to Bill, and when my order arrives it's expected to live up to all the hype I've just absorbed. (Whispers) "hey Bill, did you know that Oprah said this is one of the 20 burgers you have to eat before you die?"
We liked these burgers though, and for the price, their grade soared even higher. Famous for their onion rings and a heart-wrenching bacon cheese burger, we ordered some regular burgers and  fries (you see?) which we thought were terrific.

One of our first meals in the new place was from the famed Pegasus Pizza. Renowned for its, I'm not sure what, Pegasus is always getting five stars. Though they had an impressive specials menu, we designed our own pizza, curious to see how well they could do bell pepper and anchovies, one of our old faves. The toppings however, would have little to do with our scoring. Pegasus boasts a "spicy tomato sauce topped with only the finest natural cheeses." We took home a dry blanket of thick, overly-chewy cheeses covering the toppings that subdued the sauce completely. I will admit that this pizza performed well cold the next day, (especially the crust - reminiscent of Pizza Hut's Pan Pizza...drool), but for our high expectations the night before, it missed the mark. The mozzarella was indeed fine, but the layer of asiago (not famous for melting perfectly) clogged up the whole works. We're a block away, so we'll be giving them their due, and then some, I'm sure, but they're really going to have to work it next time.

Amber, Bill and Peggy.
Forever.

Feature of the week: I'm a give a holler to Tomato Bros. the two-in-one trattoria and steakhouse in Clarkston, WA, and the standout eatery from my work trip. We dined in to talk shop over Italian at the end of a long day and the crayons and butcher paper action was just what I needed. Having just adopted Peggy, I scrawled out my heart's desires.

Returning a second time for steak and more tabletop coloring, I ordered the flat iron steak salad. Artfully arranged and wanting for nothing, it was just what I needed. The stars however, were the gorgonzola waffle fries that arrived just before we resorted to eating the crayons.  Topped with savory carmelized onions and tossed in my latest fascination, creamy gorgonzola. It was fabulous. And it coated every inch of that dish.Who knew gorgonzola was such a melting paragon?

On location in far away Idaho

These rolling hills put whatever you were imagining to shame

Today I'm reaching out to you from the violently rolling hills of Lewiston, Idaho. Twin city to Clarkston, Washington and bustling cosmopolis of strip malls, Lewiston is cornered by the Snake and Clearwater Rivers to the northwest. Cross the bridge into Washington and follow its curving, downward slopes for a breathtaking, tireless view of the bulbous formations left by the ancient and wonderful glacial Lake Missoula floods. While here, (on business), I'm putting in several hours of driving through this flaxen wonderland, gaping slack-jawed through the window,hypnotized by the endless golden carpet of carefully combed and trimmed wheat fields. A patchwork of texture and hues, I'm reminded of blondie and brownie batter swirled but segregated by long stretches of barbed wire. Like the photo here, but with the hideous danger of clotheslining yourself and bleeding to death during your spastic Julie Andrews spinning through the wheat. And more winding and curving, like from a tractor, and bigger, with a highway snaking through it. So, not like the picture at all. But I'm told this is a food blog with corresponding pictures.

                                                                                           

During my stay here at the Holiday Inn Express, I have a busy work schedule. Rise around 6, shuffle into the lobby and start mindlessly spooning food matter from sprawling, bottomless vats of "breakfast favorites" (unquestionably from concentrate), then wrestling with what to do while waiting for my Minute Pancakes to drop onto my plate. I don't know if this a popular contraption, but I hope to raise it to worldwide fame. It's genius. Simply press start and in 60 seconds it works its magic right onto a conveyor belt that flips out two floppy-but-crisp flapjacks onto your styrofoam eating vessel.

Go ahead and tell your mom you found a better way.

We typically work through the afternoon overlooking vistas of this variety:

Viburnum opulus

When the weather is agreeable we work. When the fog rolls in and the the wind and rain get aggressive, we continue to work. Sometimes we even get our truck stuck in the mud. We have eight different work sites, all with some natural delicacy to try. Yesterday it was what I think may have been Japanese plums and the highly coveted berries of the Snowball tree. These berries, which I learned today are mildly toxic but edible in small quantities, are highly acidic and smell like wet dog food. Today there were plentiful spiders of all kinds, zooming along strands of silk on the wind en route to make their webs, landing unnervingly on my face and arms.

It's actually a lot worse than this.

When the work is done, we hit the hotel to shed our mud suits and go out in search of the finest Lewiston has to offer. First we tried Zany Graze, a family dining extravaganza with a bold and overwhelming mix of everything a family needs in one sitting: burgers, hotdogs, sushi, Tex-Mex, salads, BBQ and every inch of wall space covered in kitch from yesteryear. There appeared to be a kind of game corresponding with numbered headshots from old Hollywood, but our waitress didn't give any hints. She didn't give much, really. I ordered a shake, which arrived with whip but no cherry, flavored with vanilla syrup and, to my chagrin, soft serve from a dismal machine that needed a thorough cleaning. What followed was no surprise, a passable cup of chicken tortilla soup, chicken "teriyaki" (oh no they didn't...) and a no-frills, disengaged muttering from our sterile server. Should I blame her? She works in a hoarder's dining fantasy that insists she wear a tie while schlepping a cluttered array of subpar menu items, ready at any moment to perform a birthday/clapping number that she can never hope to forget as long as she lives. Her service suffered, but I guess mine might too.

The other restaurants we tried had a bit more to offer. M J Barleyhopper's, a micro brewery serving American fare with zero flare, offered a reasonable list of brew options. I ordered the Apricot Ale, which was bright and flavorful but low on the CO2, and would've tried the advertised Oktoberfest but it wasn't available for another week. Our waitress had the sense of humor of a stale cracker, crumbling listlessly as I asked questions about the beers. My $8 burger and fries were boring, but I'll probably be back to try some more of their handsomely priced brews.

Thai Taste, heralded by townsfolk as the best of the best, had solid patronage but little service to speak of. My co-diner was on the phone as we sat down, and when our young server came by he paused to order an iced tea. I looked up from the menu to order a drink but he'd vanished. I don't know if you're familiar with working in the service industry, but there are rules. 

O, to be seated next to these two

When I first started in restaurants, training was imposed on me that I though was ludicrous, unrealistic, and gratuitous. Occasionally I find myself keeping count of demerits when I go out to eat, assuming I'll be able to give detailed feedback at the end of the exercise. Still dining out in the twilight of my twenties, some glaring oversights in service etiquette continue to surprise me. As a server, you have 30 seconds to arrive at a new table and greet your guests, deliver your opening spiel including specials, anything not available on the menu that day and nab the drink order. If you're swamped, you beg someone else to do this for you in passing, or make your table wait a minute and apologize when you arrive with a little dab at your glistening brow and a gleam in your eye. Why the gleam? Sure, you'll bring the food, but they're expecting that. You want them to feel like you've been waiting for them all day. A gleam is just a good start, a means to a very generous tip. For the full seminar on charming and serving your table, please take a brochure on your way out. (Bonus tips on being a well-behaved diner included.)

Profoundly underwhelming Chili Basil Noodles at Thai Taste

After the prospect of ordering a drink had slipped through my fingers, our waiter remained absent. Folded menus ostentatiously presented on the edge of the table, we waited several minutes until he returned. We ordered food, and when it arrived, mine was wrong. He graciously corrected it, and found a moment to chat with us toward the end, but it was too late. Thai Taste failed the taste test and garnered no service awards.

Terrifying, you know?

The stand out performance so far, was the Lewiston RoundUp Corn Maze. They served me my second Elephant Ear, a clever creation of warm, soft, deep-fried dough dusted with cinnamon sugar that can't get handed to you fast enough.

The Elephant Ear, my new favorite appendage.

A staple of the fall season in the northwest, selling carnival fare and jazzy glow jewelry, this was something foreign to me until now, and though it wasn't a haunted maze, it was pretty thrilling. For just $5, you get to wander the 2+ miles of cut out paths under towering stalks of corn, voluntarily recalling scenes from M. Night....'s Signs (or imagining David Lynch's version) and purposefully turning in circles until you're truly lost. They sell maps, but what more do you need but the screams and sobs of children to tell you you're going the right way? Delightfully challenged with the sugar-kissed high of fried dough and the urgent need to plow down a dark row of dangerous possibilities, a corn maze was just what we needed to kick off our weekend.