Sunday, August 21, 2011

Pizza, again.

Carcharodon carcharias and some dead guy
Ah, lazy Sunday. Up at 8am, scrolling through the casting calls, languidly feasting on Raisinets and watching the The Reef - an import from Australia starring my number one frightmare, The Great White. But with the volume way down so I don't scream and fall out of my chair when the shark shows up. The Reef is a perfect example of the horror I feel toward open water (also the less gorey, less star-studded but no less harrowing version of Open Water, which I cannot handle). The boat tips, and is on its way to sinking, the people are dumped, scramble back onto the capsized hull and decide that swimming to shore is the way to survive. Silly humans. 1 out of 5 survives. And is in permanent shock. (True story!)

The fact is, I'm a movie watcher and book reader until we get settled and I get a job. I am exclusively lazy right now, my activities centered around when Bill will get up, get home or get back from the bathroom. I want to think that I have unlimited ideas, become easily distracted by the wonder of new places and that boredom is something I mastered after middle school. The truth is, my stand-by recipe for fun is out of the house for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. So, my assignment is to engage in something
I don't have to share with Bill, which, if you ask him, should be easy. I'm always watching something he wanted to watch too, or drinking the whole milkshake or taking all the covers. But that's not the important stuff. Truly, the only thing we don't share is gainful employment, and of course, his love of uninterrupted hours of sedentary gaming.
More on this later.

Yesterday was another adventure in pizza. Nothing ground-breaking, just a sweet little mom and pop joint in West Seattle called Giononni's. Mom and Pop were out yesterday, it was their two Long-Island-Style sons who were presumably running the place. It was a nice flashback to my NY days, when grabbing a slice for $2 happened naturally, often after whatever you just ate. The pizza was fine, not phenomenal, but I tried a taste of their Full Tilt ice cream and Holy Shit. I had just a spoonful of Ube, (one not shared with Bill) a Filipino squash-flavored ice cream revelation. Did you know about this? I'm undone. Full Tilt, I'm coming for you.

Last night, I did a series of stupid crap. Pitched a fit about not wanting to make pizza, pouted, disappeared, reappeared covered in flour, allowed my new dough to rise and set to perfection, then abused it until it no longer resembled the labor of love it was meant to be. Watch the beginning here:


"Can I do somethin?" Yeah, you can stop me. Leave the dough just like it is. Too much stretching and spinning and you're gonna tear a....
Hole. I spun it, I ripped it, I reformed it into a ball. And did that. Over. And over. And I knew what I was doing. As a sometimes baker I'm familiar with this cycle. It's just something I can't stop myself from doing. Maybe turning perfect dough into a worn out tire is what I'm after.
Lack of discipline, really.
In the end, we ate a dry, baked version of this, not without some difficulty:

My shortcomings as a baker are not nearly as troubling as the fact that I list pizza tossing as one of my skills on my acting resume.


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Don't be fooled, this is about pizza.

While we look for our next round of housing in west (the best!) Seattle, let's take a moment to appreciate what we have right now. A master bedroom, in a many-roomed, much-loved, well proportioned home. While Bill's at work I've been keeping busy by exploring the neighborhood, fraternizing with locals, stretching, cooking and sitting quietly, happily, often dumbfounded, on the structure you see here.
Balconies. Great job!
It looks down over our forgotten dirt road, and a sweet little gurgling, babbling this:

When I wake up, after Bill's gone off to the factory, I stumble out and stretch my bones while gazing distractedly to the east at this:
It's no big deal. Nothing more than lovely, really. Thought it might help actualize your sense of my experience. 


Too prêt à manger for you? There's a full menu besides. 
For lunch on Wednesday we returned to Genki Sushi, a marvel of modern eateries. I'm sure I'm late to discover this Asian sensation, but check it out. They have conveyor belts stringing along a multitude of tiny plates that will soon become an empty stack on your table. At $1-$3 a plate, you can get easily carried away, and during happy hour, their mini pints of Ichi Ban are $1 each. There's a guide on your table with all the names, photos and ingredients of each roll, so those watching their shellfish intake can manage their own allergic risk taking. Thanks, Genki! A.
Just down the strip is Cherry de Pon, a self serve soft serve frozen yogurt dispensary offering sugar free, nonfat and notfat varieties in regularly rotating fantasy flavors. It's like piling a take-out container full of salad that ends up weighing in at 7lbs, without the self gratifying notion of eating fiber and chloraphyl. Rest assured, there were live active cultures living in your dessert before they were frozen and deactivated with "not fat" and sorta natural flavors like cake batter and snickerdoodle. A+ for letting me pump my own gradual undoing!

Last night, Bill and I went to Sun Liquor Distillery to celebrate one of his buddy's birthday, and I was schooled on some new dining destinations. The place is small inside, smaller outside, but everywhere you look someone's enjoying a freshly muddled/squeezed/throttled/imagined cocktail. It's one of those places you favor instantly for its choice of font and clever motif. Personally, it made me want to design my wedding invitations all over again, but that's a compulsion I'm dearly trying to put to rest. The food offering is simple, but all-American, and in interest of not spending all our party money in one place, we said goodnight and wandered a few blocks over to Hot Mama's Pizza for the last stop of the night par excellence: the late night slice. I ordered their famous pesto, Bill their tomato basil, and we fought through the hoards to the red pepper and out into the night to sample our prizes. 
Pizza is a sensitive issue for me.
Not so sensitive that I won't eat bad pizza; sloppy, floppy TMNT style pizza has its cartoon allure, and as I've already admitted there's a shameful corner of my heart where I keep the number for the local Pizza Hut. My first-ever job introduced me to NY style pizza in Houston. A few years and pay raises later as assistant manager of this joint, (which shall remain nameless, as it was brow beaten into bankruptcy in the end) I had a fully-toned bullshit detector embedded in my taste buds. I came to know crust, to know cheese, to know the handling and celestial conditions that form a palatable pizza. Years later, in NY proper, I tried pies of all kinds, worked in another pizzeria, and stand before you today a wizened and fleshy result. Now, here in Seattle, Bill and I have so far found Big Mario's to be our NY style champion. We've only been once, but going up against Hot Mama's, they win outright. Hot Mama's. How to defend you? Your dough, if nothing else, lacked salt last night. One slice was baked perfectly, crisping and crunching in the right fashion but lacking that tell-tale flavor of a dough mixed with purpose and pride. The pesto slice, so inviting from behind the glass, was tough and undercooked, and low on the pesto ladder. You know what it said to me? A feeble, muted "...not having a good night...sorry.....Rosebud..." Pathetic. B-, Hot Mama's. 
I'm glad that pizza speech is out, next time we can jump right in. See you then!






Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Catch up

Background: I'm 28, with 12 years in the food/customer service industry, both in front and back of the house, an actor, outdoor adventurer and food sampler. I hesitate to call myself a food critic, as I'm more of a serial complainer, but I do love to praise a good plate delivered with genuine feeling. My strong suits: drinking just enough water, a sensitive tasting palette, a strong nose, empathy for waitstaff, and my instinctual inner gratuity calculator My vices are plain glazed donuts, pizza hut pan pizzas, milkshakes, cheese balls and beer, sometimes not all at once. I frequently try to get my daily vitamins and minerals, but all too often get swayed by some novelty dish or value menu item. That's right, I'm just like you!

Things are all new around here. For those of you who are new to my life and not just giving this a family/friend pity read, my husband Billy took a design internship a few months ago in Seattle. Having just signed our lease in Austin, I hung back to fulfill it, stay close to home, friends, family, familiar. I took a temp job with an old school chum and prepared to be a bachelorette, living alone for the first time. I have to admit, things were great, if not a little crazy. My sister and her beau moved in a few doors down, work was easy, friends were at arms reach, and my schedule filled itself. Then came June, and with it, Bill's 30th birthday. I traveled to Seattle to celebrate with him and a week later, we had convinced ourselves that this plan was a lot of hooey, unrealistic, loveless, and wasn't I having a little too much fun on my own down there in Texas?
So,

 a new plan emerged, and now just over a month later, here I am in the pacific northwest, windows open with a cool breeze flitting through my hair-smooth and fuzz-free having found peace with sensible weather- waiting for Bill to get home for work. Hoping for more of this:

Driving up together from Austin, we packed a bag full of road food, plugged in the ipod with an audio reading of George R.R. Martin's Storm of Swords, (40+ hours of fantasy narratives) and got ready to spend some gas money. We drove west through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona (one of which gave me some great late night radio listening) and one fine morning I awoke to the distinctly different landscape of Southern California.

 We did great, avoiding drive-thru food, planning our meals with friends along the coast of Cali. We ate Peruvian in Irvine with Patrick Sullivan for lunch, (samosas, fried rice dishes and a hyperactive waitress) and about 9 hours and a speeding ticket later, joined the Saenz's at "Straw", a carnival-inspired bistro in San Francisco. We struggled to get our order taken, but when our fried chicken raspberry jam monte cristo arrived sandwiched between a belgian waffle, all was forgotten. Also making waves at our table were the sweet tots (with bbq blackberry dipping sauce), the grilled cheese & tomato soup, and a salad I couldn't identify in the dark. I tried their Organic Sum'r Ale and Le Fin du Monde Golden Ale and was pleased with both. We were late at our table while they were closing, but they were happy to let us linger. The staff: not too cool, (though they clearly were way cooler than us) and not overly attentive. Straw made an A.

The next morning, showered (reborn) and hungry, we made our way through a sleepy San Fran and stopped at "Happy Donuts" on our way out. The cashier was lifeless, and if I'd had any waking sense would've watched the donuts she bagged up for me. Places like this are everywhere, and unless I've been fundamentally wronged or done really right, I don't yelp. Though they made a C- here, their profile has been slammed enough, and next time I'm willing to spend .95 on a single donut, I'll look to a more posh store front.

On our way through Sonoma county, we stopped at an unassuming but vibrant vineyard just off the highway and took three thousand pictures. Most of which conveyed our total breathlessness and looked like this:
Bill tries to act cool about grapes. But doesn't quite nail it.
California was a whirlwind of color, caffeine, ocean and Westeros. We drove through the Redwood National Forest just before dusk, and found it to be the most impressive part of our drive and maybe our lives. So far. Those trees really got us, like, in here. *Chest pump

In the dark, Oregon was a complete disappointment, as was the Wendy's we decided on for "dinner." Next stop, Seattle. We wandered into Bill's rented room around 2 am, and the rest, dear readers, is unconscious history.

That was last week, what about Seattle has got us so excited this week?





Well, everything. 
If you hate flowers though, you're gonna hate this place. They grow out of the toilet. 






Attibassi espresso will beat up whatever drivel you're drinking.
We've dined on perfect pizza and Attibassi espresso at Tutta Bella. (Try the pizza bianca, or anything with rosemary. Or anything with crust.)
Great service, alluring plates floating by, choice seating, killer neighborhood. A+





Not so far away is Card Kingdom a store for geeks and their girlfriends. Sure, they're a licensed Magic the Gathering retailer, but they're more of a 7000 sq.ft. gaming paradise. Paradise you say?
Paradise. It's a well-groomed, friendly, polished shop with a bar tucked inside. Sure, they've got a few choice brews on tap (I tried the Fremont dark ale), meads and stouts for your friend in the cape and helmet, but their food menu is down right fancy. We'd just eaten, so we just ordered kettle chips and the 'green goddess', a tarragon-based aioli, and would do it again.
Great Happy Hour, excellent ambience, music, seating and bartenders, and a selection of games to rival anybody. See you next weekend, Card Kingdom.
A+


We visited the Center for Wooden Boats, where I plan to start volunteering, and took a free sail with a volunteer skipper. We learned some tricks, and got some sun, a rare and glorious thing. Free sailing, free sun, free coffee in the boat house and friendly volunteers.
A+
Yesterday we hit up West Seattle, a dreamy peninsula where we've rented a room in a 6-person house for the next two weeks. Met the housemates, took some dining suggestions, and went to Maharaja.
View from our balcony, come on over. (Before August 24)
With some moral stretching I agreed to order the Lamb Vindaloo, and it was great. Really, Indian food is always a good idea, and I can't say I've ever been disappointed. We had the mushroom rice, naan and keema samosas. The server was young, handsome, spoke very quietly and was hopeful rather than pushy that we might try the chutneys with our rice. He seemed shy, a genuine person who adopts no airs to get through his shift as a server, and may have thought we were slightly retarded. For predictable atmosphere, tight booths and 45% clean bathrooms, Maharaja scored a B.

Since we're still settling in, there's lots more dining out to come. Come back!


Monday, August 8, 2011

Hello!

Welcome to the new blog. Sure, you never met the old one, but it wasn't really the kind you'd want to take home to Mom anyway. It was too hollow. Grim, aimless flim-flam. Here's the resurrection.
This blog is here to provide a home for my griping and grouchery. Not just a place on this cyber plane, but a home. A retirement community for both my cranky customer and, on that rare occasion, my pleased patron.