Mark Fuller of West Seattle’s newish and dramatically acclaimed Spring Hill Restaurant is going to cost me close to $200, never mind the bill from dinner the other night.  In fact it’s a damn good thing this place is not around the corner from me, because if I were eating there weekly, my kitchen could not handle the amount of sheer gadgetry this hot new chef would unwittingly inspire me to go out and buy.  I have been just fine for the last 30something years without a pasta sheet maker or ravioli former.  I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to my pasta; I prefer hand-rolled, stretched and cut, and until now saw no reason to change that.  I’ve never been a big fan of buying extraneous kitchen junk because all the “things” in the world do not a chef make.

 In college, when I had left behind my father’s Henckels and before I could afford decent knives of my own, I took my cue from Uncle Pauly of GoodFellas and sliced my garlic with plain old razor blades.  Fast, effective and no-frills has always served me well in the kitchen, but after one night at Spring Hill, that’s all gone out the window.  You see, I’ve acquired a new obsession with making the perfect raviolo, and I don’t think any amount of hand-rolling and finger-crimping is going to cut it this time. Read more

In Seattle, it’s a well-guarded secret that September and sunshine go hand in hand.  This is how I manage to sneak in a few final al fresco dinners before the need for simmering stews and hot hearty fare takes over completely.  September is also one of the best times of year to visit Uwajimaya, Seattle’s premier shopping destination for arcane Asiatica.  Since it is harvest time all over the Northern Hemisphere, Uwajimaya has some crazy unheard of produce on-hand, from yama-imo (Japanese mountain potatoes) to Vietnamese nubbly Jackfruit. 

Go in with a camera and a translator and you’ll come out all the richer for it.  In fact I nominate Uwajimaya as one of the best “stay-cation” ideas of the year.  It’s one of the only places in town where you can immerse yourself in a uniquely interesting culture without buying a plane ticket.  Read more

Whew, that title is a bit of a mouthful!  Almost as big a bite as you’ll want to take of the lamb and risotto cakes once they’re in front of you on the plate.  I knew I wanted to create something really special to nosh on during our “glamping” trip since all the apple-wood we could ever use would be provided for our campfire pleasure and food cooked over apple-wood is a rare treat.  I figured a muskier meat would take on the smoked flavor of the wood, so lamb was the natural choice given that my brother-in-law Paris hasn’t yet sent over any venison from his bow-hunting spoils this season.   

I wanted to create something that would be elegant in a rustic setting, yet relatively simple to pull together without the arsenal of my kitchen at hand, so lamb on risotto cakes fit the bill.  As it turns out, supplies for “glamping” turned out to be much the same as supplies for regular old camping, so I wanted a one-stop-shop where I could pick up everything from toilet paper to parchment paper.  Normally in anticipation of a big feast I head down to the market, but because I needed such a variety, Seattle’s best grocery store fit the bill better. Read more

Oftentimes, pairings that sound curiously strange are actually quite phenomenal if you give them a chance.  Case in point: chocolate and peanut butter, bananas and (you guessed it!) peanut butter, or my personal favorite (trust me on this one)peanut butter on a burger-mmmmm.  There are not many things I like as much as I like peanut butter enough to try them with just about anything else, but luckily for me there is one—wine.  I’ve tried wine in movie theaters with great success, wine whilst sailing also works as long as its your own boat and you own a pressure washer, and dare I say I’ve also ventured a glass in planes, trains and automobiles (the last only as a passenger and under the sneaky handle “road soda”).  Given my penchant for wine during transport, it’s a wonder I hadn’t stumbled upon wine-drinking while horseback riding before, but you can bet I signed up the second I made the discovery.

Pepper and Terry Fewel know a bit about marriage from personal experience, so when they decided to marry horses and wine, they must have had intuition that it would work well.  They operate a working farm as a Bed and Breakfast called Cherry Wood complete with luxury teepees and decked out retro trailers as lodging options, so it’s no wonder they thought up as unconventional a concept as wine riding to add to the mix.   For the more delicate among us, they can arrange for a horse-drawn carriage, but we were feeling feisty and so opted for the true cowboys and wine approach.  The ride itself winds through vineyards and orchards, comes complete with lunch, and of course makes a point to hit up tasting rooms along the way.  Read more

I like to take the chill off the late afternoons in our Indian summer by baking a couple loaves of bread.  I sort of cheat and keep the oven on so the air is nice and hot for my loaves to rise, so I figured I’d toss in the acorn squash my gracious neighbors gave us from their harvest last week to soften it up.  One thing led to another and I started to think about just how the squash might best accompany my bread. Hmmm, smeared all over it a la fingerpaint-style the way my one year old Bentley would surely prefer it given his penchant for all things messy? Yeah, probably not.  “I have it!” I thought to myself, some sort of squashy dipping sauce for my little chewy french bread nuggets- what do they usually call that? Oh yeah, soup. Well, in my house we like to whir it all up into a tizzy with the immersion blender and call it bisque, so what the hell, why not make squash soup- sounds fabulous!

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In Seattle, we accomplish the “sun-dried” effect in the oven.  Just halve them, throw them in the oven on racks, turn the temperature to 200° with convection on, and wait 3-6 hours depending on the size of your pomodori. 

Great way not to waste your amassed stockpile, and think of the uses all winter long!