mankas!

I got an email from Manka's today. Here's what we will be having at Thanksgiving:

On the Feast to Give Thanks For
Two Thousand Eight


Brick Oven Bread, Dinner Rolls,
Coastal Dairy Butter
And Devilishly Housemade Ham
Held by Local Leaves of Endive

A Soup of Wild and Tame Mushrooms
Including Our Local Gold: The Grand Porcini

Heritage Turkey Last Seen Roaming
On the Range of Historic ‘H’ Ranch
Served Alongside Lodge Mashed Potatoes,
A Chutney of Point Reyes Plums,
Bolinas Butternut Squash
And Dressing Laced with Sausage
Fashioned from Dr.Pasternak’s Rabbit

A Pie of Woodacre Walnuts
Laced with Lance’s Scotch
Crowned with a Cloud of Local Dairy Cream
And a Confetti of Candied Pumpkin
Plucked from Warren’s Patch



sweet dreams

we heart portland soule

Last weekend Jersey and drove down to Portland. Jersey has never been and I really wanted to see my dear friend Damon Soule, whom I hadn't seen in four years. Damon is one of the most talented artist in America and he's also an amazing person. I missed him so much! We stayed at the cool Ace Hotel. The staff is friendly, the rooms are decent, a very hip hotel.
Portland is such a cute and wonderful city. The people were genuine, sweet, and dressed WAY better than here in Seattle.

We went the Portland Farmer's Market and I was impressed. I always talk about my beloved Ferry Building, but I gotta tell you, it was BIG and the vendors had yummy food to offer.

We got some bread from Dave's Killer Bread. Now we only bought the bread, cause of their interesting marketing, but the bread ended up being a great treat. I wanted to buy more stuff, but we didn't bring a cooler. We ate brunch at Byways Cafe in the Pearl district. Try the ginger pancakes if you go there!

On the way to meet up with Damon we saw a fat rainbow!

We went for dinner at Delta Cafe. Jersey and Damon got the low brow champagne. The best thing on the menu was the tater tot casserole!

It was so great to see Damon, I wish I lived closer to him. I really miss hanging out. It's very rare in life for a woman to meet a decent man and be good friends without any weirdness. I am lucky to have Damon in my life.
Before we left we ate at the BEST PLACE EVER! Simpatica, located in a loft building. I had the most amazing frittata with porcini and butternut squash. We ended our best brunch ever with pear gelato and a chocolate hazelnut torte.

We love Portland, the land of hazelnuts and tater tots!

fromage blanc cake

I took a baked cheesecake class from Binko's that was so yummy. A few days ago I saw a mascarpone/yogurt cake on La Tartine Gourmande. I felt like the lemony tartness of a cheesecake would be a perfect pick me up for the dreary weather in Seattle. I took what I knew from Binko's class and used the recipe on La Tartine Gourmande, but instead of the mascarpone, I used 5 ouces of Fromage Blanc and 183 grams of Strauss's Vanilla European style yogurt.

tom morello

The one thing I am going to praise Seattle for is the wonderful way music is supported. My favorite record store here, Easy Street Records, had a free show that Tom Morello play. I LOVE TOM! He's one of my top 5 fave guitar players. If you aren't familiar with the guitar genius called Tom, he played with Rage Against the Machine and Audio Slave. He not only rocks the guitar, but he has a Poly Sci degree from Harvard and very much the revolutionist. Poly Sci and Guitar??? MY KIND OF GUY! Anyway, he played some songs from his The Nightwatchman project. I have a movie I took, but it's a million MB's and it's taking forever to load up on here, so I'll try to figure out how to get it smaller.

happy halloweenie

I tried so hard to make an Obama pumpkin. All I had at my disposal was a huge 16cm cook's knife, a corn on the cob holder, and a steak knife. It was really frustating, so I kinda gave up. Oh well, maybe it's scary enough for Halloween!

kaia inside

I have been kinda down lately, so for a nice cheer up Jersey and I wanted to see our daughter today. I booked a 4D ultrasound at Pregnancy Journal. It was so wonderful to actually see little Kaia's face. Now I don't feel I am giving birth to a dragon!

She's so cute. We both think she's going to look like me. She's got my lips and nose so far!

This is her in the yoga pose Padahastasana, hand to foot!

vashon

Since we moved to Seattle I have been aching to go to Vashon Island. I read that the farms there are organic, even though they aren't certified. I got back from work in San Francisco this week and decided to take the ferry over. Jersey and I haven't taken a car ferry since we were kids so we woke up early all giddy!

We drove into town and got to the Farmer's Market on time to get my knives sharpen (finally!), had some soup, and bought some amazing melons and fall squashes.


The main reason I wanted to check out Vashon Island was for Sea Breeze Farm. I read that they had the most amazing meats, dairy, and eggs. You can also purchase and eat there. By serendipity we ran across their brand new retail cafe off the beaten path.

They were serving lunch. Jersey had the ham and biscuit and I had the chicken and dumplings.


I can't tell you how amazing both dishes were. I devoured most of Jersey's collard greens. They both tasted better than any of my southern relatives' recipes! I love the hint of vinegar on the collard greens, not overwhelming like you normally have at a lot of places, enough to brighten that natural collard green flavor. The biscuit was light and flaky. I didn't investigate too much of the ham, as it wasn't my dish, but it tasted salted enough but wasn't tough at all. My chicken was full of flavor and the dumplings were at that right consistency of tender and not mushy or too hard. We bought a few things at the counter, including duck eggs! I can't wait to bake with them this week. Another shiny item we got was their cheese. I should have bought a whole wheel! It was delicious and salty. We ate the whole thing when we got home!

I gotta tell you, this place is my FAVORITE place in all of Seattle. I am hoping to visit at least once a month.

After lunch we headed back to the car to drive around the island. I jumped back to the farmer's market to pick up a caramel apple. Not only was the apple delicious (grown right on the island), but the person who made them was clever enough to use an apple branch as the stick!

We drove around and found the coolest thing! A SkatePark! What a great place to live and raise a family. You got the beauty of the island, the great produce and a place to rip it up after school (or work!)