*I’m taking the opportunity of this post to display a few photos by the lovely and talented Jackie Baisa. She came over and taught me how to make pretty pictures, and in the process took a few herself. If you ever need pro photos, she’s your woman.

**If you live in Seattle, tune in to New Day Northwest on King 5 TV this Monday, March 7th at 11am. I’ll be whipping up some science food and causing hijinks.

My kingdom is a fiefdom and I am the Queen. I make everyone call me Princess, though, because Queen makes me feel old. My kingdom is really my kitchen. In there I reign supreme. My subjects are my cat, my toddler Bentley Danger, neighbors who frequently take advantage of our open-door policy, and anyone else brave enough to accept an invitation to dinner.

Even though I have a fiefdom, I maintain that there are some things about democracy that don’t totally suck, and technically I’d only advocate for a monarchy if I were the Princess-who-is-really-a-Queen. As such, I feel it’s a good practice to give frequent State of the Food Union addresses.

These addresses are often given from the pulpit that is my stairwell overlooking the kitchen. That way I can see my entire domain. I lure subjects in with the promise of wine and sous vide souffle’s. If there are not enough subjects to make me feel Princess-ey, I will augment with Bentley’s stuffed animals, but they don’t get wine like the humans do. Bentley doesn’t get the wine either, even though he’s in a phase where he calls all liquids wine. Milk is wine, juice is wine, and water is wine. I have ZERO idea how he got this notion into his head.

My State of the Food Union addresses are quite the production; think velvet, gilt and crystal. They have to be- I have a freaking royal wedding to compete with over in England. England is a country long-steeped in the tradition of being a kingdom, although it’s going through a bit of an identity crisis now that it has a parliament too. In the spirit of competition, I decided to get a parliament for my kingdom too, but all I could find was an old Parliament/Funkadelic record so I listen to that sometimes when I cook. It’s a good record though, as it gives me 500,000 kilowatts of P-funk power every time I play it, and I’m pretty sure the parliament in England doesn’t have that kind of reach.

I have banned tea from my kingdom because they drink so much of it in England I figured I’d better distinguish myself. We, the people of the SaltySeattle kitchen, in order to form a more perfect bite, drink wine, insure domestic dishdoing, provide for the common demitasse, promote the general art of eating, and secure the blessings of calories to ourselves and our posteriors.

Without further ado, I provide you with a transcribed copy of the SaltySeattle State of the Food Union. Peruse at your leisure. It may apply to you if you’re thinking of starting a food kingdom too:

Foodie is a word that sucks in my kingdom, but there isn’t a better word to replace it, so it stays, and it’s time to shut up about it. I will tell you a little story about when I was in high school. Yes, queen/princesses go to high school too- haven’t you ever seen a Disney movie?

When I was in high school, I first learned of a very annoying habit many Americans possess.  Every time these dolts approach a vehicle as a passenger in a group of three or more, they obnoxiously shout the word “shotgun.” Sometimes they inexplicably emphasize the yelling about firearms with a hard punch to the nearest competitor’s bicep (yes, there are penalties for punching a princess, more on that later).

This word, shotgun, is meant to secure a space in the front seat of the car rather than the back. I refuse to understand the etymological ramifications behind why this word has come to mean “frontseat” so don’t try and explain them to me. The last time someone did that I learned things about roast chicken (definition two from the urban dictionary) that no one should have to know.

I’ve disliked guns ever since I was shot in the head at close range by a bb gun in the fourth grade by Aaron Packer* *name has not been changed, he knows he did it but I’ve forgiven him, true story. It never made sense to me that a gun should denote placement in an automobile, so I decided to make up my own word for “frontseat” which is “broccoli.” I called backseat “cauliflower” because I like it slightly less. This was pure genius on my part because as far as I can tell, with the stupid shotgun analogy no label for the backseat exists.

I had plenty of friends high school- I am a princess, after all. I thought I could use my social influence to eradicate the word shotgun. I would not let anyone get into my Grateful Dead sticker-emblazoned Subaru unless they civilly called-out whether they preferred to be broccoli or cauliflower that day (perhaps this is early evidence of a foodie-in-training?).  I rewarded people for correctly using the vegetable analogies by taking them to my house during lunch and after school and letting them take hits off my five foot tall red Graphix bong. Yes, I smoked pot in high school, yes, I inhaled, and yes, I’m now Queen/Princess of my own domain. Suck it, Bill Clinton. (I also got straight A’s except for math and I don’t smoke pot anymore nor do I condone drug use, so don’t hate.)

My broccoli/cauliflower experiment was going really well until I realized people were just humoring me so they could come over and get high. It’s kind of like Prince. Maybe around him, his handlers have found some way to call him that symbol he desperately wants to go by so he doesn’t lose relevance, but the reality is that the rest of the world just calls him Prince. People are lazy.

America is as stuck with “shotgun” as people who vocally like food are stuck with the term “foodie.” If you really hate it, you can call yourself a “food-appreciator,” a “foodophile,” a “food-afficionado” or even a simple “food-lover,” but everyone else is going to call you a “foodie” whether you like it or not. It’s time to embrace it and move on to more important matters like making sure the chicken that graces your table tonight is local, happy, and has a birth certificate to prove it as in this sketch from the new hit comedy, Portlandia. Enjoy!

Bolognara is a smash-up between two classic Italian pasta dishes- Bolognese and carbonara. I suppose I could also call it carbonese, but I like bolognara better- there is something less awkward about it. It’s about the most non-traditional thing ever, and I don’t want to get bludgeoned to death by stalwart supporters of the old world, but it’s really the perfect antidote to the typical holiday fare gracing our tables this season I couldn’t resist. Shhh, don’t tell your Italian nonna, k?

Here’s how it’s done: make Bolognese. Slave over it all day. Sweat. Curse. Accidentally slice your palm to the quick when you use an upside-down boning knife to shove filet down the meat grinder since you lost the little shover mallet tool. Glug half the bottle of wine you earmarked to slosh into the Bolognese sauce because you officially need it more than the sauce does, damn it! Use bacon instead of pancetta because you have homemade bacon and the pancetta from Whole Foods tastes like fat-laced cardboard.

Apologize again for bastardizing the recipe with bacon, but secretly know it’s a pretty good idea. Try not to let the butcher know you plan to grind up his precious veal and pig and cow tenderloins to use in a sauce- he will shake his head and think you’re a pretentious little snob even though you’re wearing rain boots that very nearly match his hip-waders. Shake your head and ponder why butchers and fishmongers sometimes wear hip-waders.

Make bucatini with your handy dandy pasta extruder and spill a quart of semolina all over the freshly-mopped kitchen floor. Deliberate whether to re-appropriate the semolina back into the pasta dough or to toss it. Toss it after toddler Bentley and evil Italian cat Sogno who says “ciao” instead of “meow” both decide scooting through it sounds like fun. Leave the pasta to dry, the sauce to simmer, and decide cleaning out the refrigerator would be a good idea. Start cleaning it out with the highest of hopes. Spy the wine refrigerator next to it.

Give in to the practical voice in your ear telling you cleaning out the wine fridge would be wise and somehow more necessary. Clean out the wine fridge. Explain to readers that in this instance “clean” means randomly remove bottles, open them, and start drinking them. Take Bentley for a walk and bring two sippy cups. One full of milk for him, the other full of something equally soothing for mommy’s nerves.

Have a eureka! moment while pondering how to make the best Bolognese you’ve ever eaten- ADD A RUNNY EGG! Attempt to explain this revelation while on said walk to a neighbor you forgot was vegan AND gluten-free.  Wither at the sheer look of disdain on her face as you remember too late that she won’t appreciate your homemade bacon, ground up tenderloin, or wheat-based pasta just like she didn’t appreciate the time you personally killed a dozen chickens recently.

Race home, toss some duck eggs into the Sous Vide Supreme, come up with a catchy name, and thoroughly impress willing dinner guests with the word bolognara and the dish itself when you plop a perfect egg on top of their bucatini Bolognese.

I’m on a bit of a pasta kick these days that involves putting the egg on the inside.  A few months back I made a duck egg raviolo appetizer that complemented the fresh white Alba truffle I shaved over it perfectly.  Now that the Alba truffle season is passed and my inner foodie snob will not allow me to substitute domestics or French blacks, I’m forced to pair my eggs with such exotic ingredients as bacon (really going out on an adventurous limb here, I know).  Now when you think bacon, egg and pasta, what comes to mind? You got it, carbonara- the Emilia-Romagna or Lazio- originated comfort food quite popular amongst noi Americani because we sure do love our bacon.  But I can never make it that simple.  No, there always has to be a culinary twist, and in this case I decided to make the eggs quail, the pasta giant ravioli called raviolone, and cook the eggs inside the pasta instead of cracked over the top upon tossing. 

A quail egg is the perfect size to work with to fill a raviolo.  It gently bursts from its mottled shell into the waiting mote of ricotta in a faultless decisive moment.   Cooked al dente in its raviolone package, the yolk oozes forth like a particularly lively poached egg.  After this lengthy Pollyanna intro, you would think everything in my kitchen was coming up sugar and spice and everything nice.  You would be wrong.  You see, I have an 18 month old boy named Bentley Danger.  Why oh why did I give him the middle name Danger? People live up to their names, and in his case it couldn’t be truer.  What is it they say about little boys? Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails? Well we haven’t gotten there yet, but we will.  He’s smart as a whip but so mischievous and curious I can’t fathom what the terrible twos have in store. 

While I was elbow deep rolling out pasta sheets on the island in my kitchen, Bentley decided to open the floor-height wine refrigerator.  The locking mechanism broke last week and Jonas and I have been scratching our heads on how to somehow baby proof the fridge while not adult proofing it at the same time, since we do require ready access.  Bentley is completely aware of this development, and I’ve had to blockade the fridge numerous times in the last week.  Somehow intuitively knowing that I would be engrossed in my pasta mass and therefore unable to retaliate, he managed to lift a bottle out of the fridge (starting early, I know).  The really bad part? He proceeded to drop it whereupon it shattered upon contact with the floor.  I jumped to action and lifted him away from any danger, coating him in a mixture of duck egg and semolina in the process.  I put him in his crib and went back to survey the scene. The really really bad part? It wasn’t just any bottle- it was an ’01 Barbaresco worth a pretty penny in economic value, but even more sentimentally speaking, as we picked it up in Italy during our wedding festivities a few years ago.  I guess you can’t fault the boy for good taste, right?  In any case, all is well now, Jonas managed to repair the lock, and I decided that after smelling all that good wine during the cleanup I needed to open a bottle to finish my pasta and drown my sorrows. 

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