Just when I think it might be nice to gnaw on a simple roast and gaze contentedly out the frost-paned window whilst puffing on a pipe wearing a sweater with elbow patches, THE DARK SIDE CREEPETH FORTH. The Dark Side has a voice and it sounds suspiciously like James Earl Jones. I’m at the butcher shop, fingers fondling an enticing slab of chuck, and The Dark Side says, “How the hell are you going to modernize a roast, Salty? You have a reputation to uphold- go buy some sustainable Ahi tuna and update Ahi Poke. It’s so tired with those boring wontons and gloppy salsa. Make it new, fresh and hip or I will chase you down the street with the giant roast you’re clutching and I’ll throw it at your head and it will land on your face and you’ll hereto forth be known as Roast Face rather than Salty Seattle.  Do you really think Roast Face would be a good name for a blog? I didn’t think so. Now take off that nubbly sweater and those hideous rain boots, put on your big girl panties and a pair of stilettos, and feed me something clever.” Read more

Being the West coast wild child that I am, chicken and waffles wasn’t exactly a staple of my youth. Because of that, I had no qualms about eviscerating it to its very core and recreating it Salty Seattle-style.  If you are some kind of Roscoe’s purist, or your mama makes the best chicken and waffles this side of the great divide, you may not want to read about my bastardization. (There- full disclosure)

The first time I had chicken and waffles was on a recent trip to Detroit. It was served in what I assume was a traditional fashion- fried chicken with waffles and maple syrup. It was good, don’t get me wrong. However it could have been SO much better. My ruminations and research began that day, and I’ve finally come up with a more-than-passable update on an old classic. Read more

You have probably heard that saying “once you go black you never go back?” Well I recently went on a mission to discover if that was also true in the fowl family.  One of my favorite places in Seattle, Uwajimaya, sells black Silkie chickens.  I’ve been eyeballing their lush, purple- black skin for a few months now but I wanted to make something of them that would truly showcase their ebony splendor.  Silkie chickens are one of the oldest breeds of chicken, and the most well-documented and earliest mentions come from China.  They are prized today for their downy white plumage said to be as soft as silk- hence their name, Silkie.  From a culinary perspective they are most frequently seen in Chinese dishes such as soups and stews, but not very usual in Western culture.  I don’t mean to generalize, but I feel this is because they lack the over-bloated unnatural abundance of flesh most Westerners now expect on the genetically modified animal commonly known as a chicken. 

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