Leila can’t eat veggies yet. Not unless they’re pureed. I thought felt food toys might be a cute way to teach her the names of some foods.

It’s never too early to get my kid hooked on junk food.

Felt Ravioli works for me.

Cute little anime egg tart.

Breakfast, Fruit, Pizza

The Cranberry Sauce kills me, and you’re selling a pattern?

Simple gift-giving involves giving something that is needed, but with extra meaning or a little flair. Even though I’ve known Mike for a very long time, I only recently found out that oatmeal raisin cookies are one of his favorites! So I told him I’d bake him a batch for Valentine’s day, and he said he’d cook me dinner.

Sausage and Linguine dinner. There was a *lot* of garlic! :)

Taking photos of food has made me more curious about presentation in general. How often is food morphed and enhanced into something delectable via photoshop and good lighting? Hard to tell. The result was me getting fed up with my perfectionist placement of cookies on a tray, and I just started snapping photos around the kitchen without moving anything. Here’s the result with a little explanation.

Leila’s sippy cup next to a ficus plant I bought last year made a nice contrast. She still needs to master drinking water, as it usually ends up all over her outfit. The wine bottles are usually kept next to the spice cabinet, as they are usually consumed within week.

I don’t have the time to catalog all of the drawers and cabinets, but almost every one in my kitchen is slightly askew. No matter how many times I close all of the drawers, they all just pop open or don’t line up properly. This glass-front cabinet is particularly naughty, as the one door always gets a bit in the way when I’m making coffee. How did I not notice when we were looking to buy our home? The kitchen is imperfect, but it definitely has personality.

To the right, just a bunch of notes and cards on the fridge.

Finally, and I suppose randomly, most parents will tell you that kids love to play with anything that isn’t actually a toy. Here we have Leila with a hard-boiled egg. No doubt its odd movement when pushed around is what kept her amused for 10 minutes.

I recently took a trip to Vashon Island to see Karen, one of my former coworkers. Karen offered to show us the best of the island, and I took her up on the offer.
I didn’t know much about Vashon, except for 3 things:

1) It’s very rural

2) You have to take a ferry to get on the island

3) Alex Borstein lives there

One of the highlights was a trip to the Monkey Tree Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant in the heart of Vashon’s small downtown. If you read the reviews on Yelp, there are lots of complaints about having to wait in order to get a table. This is true, but to be honest I find this to be a phenomenon with almost any good vegetarian restaurant, from East Coast to West. My theory is that there just aren’t a lot of really good vegetarian restaurants, which very simply leads to a bottleneck whenever it’s prime time for eating.

The waiter really cared about us. For example, I ordered the cherry soda. He said, I just want to warn you, it’s sweet. That’s cool, I said. He said, just checking, but it’s sweet, like cherry life savers sweet. OK, got it, I’ll take it! We had a theory that one other customer ordered it once and gave this poor guy a hard time.

I knew what I was going to order instantly. The fig and gorgonzola sandwich. Here it is:

Fig and gorgonzola sandwich

It was good. It showed thought on the part of the staff to try and come up with a good sandwich. However, there weren’t enough figs in the sandwich to balance out the cheese. (Could it be because fresh figs are expensive and were possibly out of season?) Gorgonzola is a very powerful cheese, so leaving it as the main flavor without other flavors to properly balance things out can be unpleasantly overpowering. But everything was very fresh, the salad crisp, and the soda sweet.

View from western edge of the island – thanks for the photo Mike!

When I asked if I could take photos and write about the place, I got a not-so-joking answer of “only if you write something positive”. I got the sense that the employees were somewhat weary of answering questions about the the stealth mode of this coffee shop. In case you’re not familiar with the issue, there are some powerful reactions to “test[ing] out marketing coffee with neighborhood-specific names rather than a slutty mermaid” and smaller coffee shop owners seeing “teams of Starbucks employees in [their] shop, making notes and actually placing them in folders marked “Observations.”".

At this particular Seattle location in Capitol Hill, the baked goods are from Essential Baking. That’s a wonderfully good thing. I’m not entirely sure if using local baking companies is a trend for the future or just an experiment. I’ve had stale pastries at Starbucks before and it’s horrible when you can tell a slice of cake was just defrosted.

The decor reminds me of the inside of an Anthropologie – everything was artfully thrown together. The furniture looked very nice, like it was antiqued rather than thrifted from Goodwill out of necessity. There were fresh flowers everywhere, from the tabletops to the shelves behind the baristas.

The coffee: good! There was a selection of about 10 different types of beans to choose from for my single cup of coffee. They’re taking part of the trend in single-cup brewing a cup of coffee to order, instead of creating an entire pot of coffee. Mighty tasty.

The music was decent, a blend of late 80s/early 90s alt-rock that was a lot more toe-tapping than the Barbara Streisand/Norah Jones background noise I usually hear in Starbucks lately.

Starbucks is the queen of ubiquitous chains. If they wanted to endear more people to their brand—especially in an urban area with great coffee and competition—it’s a good start. But can Starbucks afford fresh flowers, wood tea trays, and antique-shop furniture across all their stores across the USA? Probably not, but this is their experiment.

Today I’m two days past my baby’s due date, and my Mom arrived a few days ago to support me during labor and to help out after the birth. I still can’t believe that the months went by so quickly. But that was probably because I spent most of the winter in a fog of dreamy pastry-eating and in marathon sessions of sleep.

Speaking of pastry, Mom rubbed my belly a bit yesterday and called it a pączek (a Polish doughnut). I think pączek sounds much cuter than doughnut, like a doughy little woodland creature that darts in and out from behind a tree throwing raisins and orange peel at you while giggling. She didn’t bring us any from NJ, but she did bring us some delicious sweet rolls called bułka słodka from a bakery in NJ.

A bułka słodka from NJ. This one was filled with farmer’s cheese, golden raisins and candied orange peel.

Mom and I went food shopping a little later in the afternoon, and we saw a table of local currants for sale. Three colors: black, red, and white. She got excited about the white currants, which she hadn’t tasted since she lived in Poland (over 30 years ago!). I had only tried black currants, which I actually thought were entirely too tart at the time.

Despite a somewhat steep price, we bought some of the white currants and took them home. After washing them in my new blue mini-colander, we sat down in the 90-plus heat to try them out. Mom made the interesting note that when you first start eating currants, they seem to taste entirely too tart to continue consuming. But then your taste acclimates and they get more and more appetizing – even addicting. Also, she advised that it’s best to put an entire little cluster in your mouth and pluck off the transparent beads like a Roman empress would with grapes.

White currants

Sometimes I buy way too much fruit. I know I’ll eat it, but occasionally I wonder if I want to eat it in its natural state or take it beyond, to a more decadent and delicious place. Rainier cherries rarely need any assistance, their light yellow flesh and red-yellow skin a perfect treat on their own. The same with watermelon – I recently bought a 14-pounder, and while eating its cool watery pinkness I kept thinking about sorbet. But watermelon is so close to sorbet to me there’s no need to do more with it.

However, this week’s fruit tricked me a bit. I got two pounds of local apricots (from Goldbar, WA, if you want to know). After eating about two of them, I thought about ways to make them even more glorious. The dessert that kept popping into my head was an apricot tart.

Do you know what? Before yesterday, I never had an apricot tart! I took a look at some of my favorite food blogs and promptly found an appetizing recipe from Orangette (her recipe is based on a tart recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook as well as a crust recipe from a friend). The original crust recipe called for using vinegar, but I cut it out and things turned out wonderfully.

For crust (adapted from Orangette’s favorite crust recipe):
4 Tbsp. ice water
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. sugar
¾ tsp. salt
9 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter

For filling:
1 lb. apricots, pitted and sliced
1/3 cup sugar
3 pinches of salt

For crust, add the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Cut the butter into 1-Tbsp chunks, and drop each chunk into the flour mixture one at a time, pulsing a few times in between to incorporate. Once you have a sandy-looking mixture with a few pea-sized pieces, add the ice water one tablespoon at a time. Pulse in between tablespoons of water. At this point the mixture will look like slightly moist sand. Pour contents onto a flat surface, and push together (it will actually start sticking together!) Make a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate a couple of hours.

After the dough has cooled in the fridge, take it out and let it warm up a few minutes. Turn the oven on to 375. Roll out dough and place into a tart pan with a removable bottom.

While dough is chilling, slice apricots and mix with sugar/salt in bowl. Arrange apricots in tart pan.

Bake tart 45 minutes.

Once your tart has cooked and cooled, serve with real vanilla ice cream.

The Hummingbird Cupcake

The Statue of Liberty carries her torch for freedom, and today I carry mine for a satisfied sweet tooth.

I didn’t have watermelon or corn on the cob this 4th of July. I did have a burger from Atlas Foods, because although we can grill at home, let’s face it – if you want fries with a burger, who’s going make them at home on a hot day?

Afterwards, my sugar craving took my mind captive and encouraged me to find some dessert. Plus let’s not deny it, the 4th is a time for summer treats.

This was my first time enjoying a cupcake from Trophy Cupcakes, and I was amazed at the quality. Then again, it was a $3 cupcake, and when little cakes cost that much, they better be above average! The Hummingbird, a "Banana Pineapple Coconut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting" was a really good choice for a hot Seattle day. OK, I’ll admit that I chose the Red Velvet but it was a little heavy compared to the tropical flavors of Mike’s Hummingbird selection. Yum.

Here’s the story of the rock.

About 4 years ago, I decided to take a cross-country trip on my own. On my own, because at 25 my friends were all working and unable to take a month off from work, or they were trying to save money for one reason or another.  I was searching for direction, ideas, and more than anything I wanted to get out of my NJ hometown that I had started living in again in spite my best intentions to move on. I told Mike to meet me when I was in Washington State for camping and exploring.

Two weeks later, when Mike arrived in Seattle, we decided on a trip around the Olympic Peninsula on our way to Portland. One of our stops was at Ruby Beach, where Mike found a rock. It was a peculiar rock—one with little button at the top (later simply called “the nub”)—which fit perfectly into his hand.

The rock was magical. So says Mike. It was his talisman while we lived in Florida. On some late nights I could see Mike holding the rock while thinking, and it worked better than a stress ball. He believes it helped him make some good and important decisions.

Recently, our friends Shannon and Jay came for a visit. This thrilled us terribly and made us want to show them some of the most beautiful places in our region. Mike and I decided to take them to Ruby Beach – and Mike brought the rock with him. His intention? To put the rock back where he found it.

So the rock was laid on top of a pile of other rocks that Jay assembled, and we walked away.

Jay and Mike are now convinced that because Jay was the last one to touch the rock, its magical powers were transferred to him. Jay has found a total of 5 $1 bills on the ground since the events at Ruby Beach.

If you come across the rock, and take it home, beware. But also, please send me a photo of yourself with the rock! We’re curious.

Also, remember to take it back.

—-

My birthday dinner took place the night before the rock-replacing ceremonial trip. Mike told me that I’m the first person he’s known that actually wanted to cook on their birthday. What can I say, I wanted to have some Copper River Salmon for 4 without all of us spending a fortune.

My Birthday Menu:

• Copper River Salmon
• Baby Red Potatoes
• Spinach and Radish Greens Salad

I tend to cook simply. I started dinner by putting the potatoes in a covered iron put and roasting them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes in olive oil and salt. Meanwhile, Jay made the salad – diced peppers, radishes, and spinach. He asked about the radish tops, which looked very plump and fresh, and asked if we should put in the salad. I said why not? and in they went! The salmon, the last thing to get taken care of, was simply pan-fried in olive oil and butter, with some salt. Dill and lemon were sprinkled on the fish after plating.

First of all, thanks to Keren at Frantic Foodie for putting together another great event last night!

As you can see from above, Seattle now has a pig-truck to serve your pork consumption needs. The name of it is MaximusMinimus. You can order your pulled pork sandwich as a “maximus” (savory-spicy) or “minimus” (sweet). This spicy or sweet choice applies to a number of other menu choices, from the drinks (ginger-lemonade or a hibiscus blend) to the slaws – I tried the sweeter apple slaw.

Overall there’s a general consensus among people I’ve talked to in Seattle that they don’t quite get BBQ here. But I have to say this was pretty darn good! Overall my minimus sandwich was the right balance of sweet and a little spicy, with just a little touch of cheesiness. Yes cheese, I figure the Beecher’s people would put good stuff on these sandwiches. My only off-key comments are that the bun was fresh but maybe not quite right for this type of sandwich, and my “chips”—mainly what appeared to be sweet potatoes and green beans—were seasoned well, but half of them were soggy.

I kept hearing that the first time a woman gives birth, she’ll usually do it a week or two after the doctor-codified due date. Because science isn’t that good yet. But guess what – in this case, the medical field got an A+ in predictability!

I’m already just over 6 months into my pregnancy, and I’m starting to feel big. Not in a bad way, it’s still rather novel to have to rock back and forth to get out of bed, and to have a firmer belly than I ever did before in my life.

I’ve heard a bit about the before-the-baby’s-born vacation, a last hurrah to get out with your partner before your life is taken over by your sweet spawn. Mike and I decided on a last-minute weekend retreat to San Francisco.

The trip was a warm and foggy lineup of walks up and down hills. I had a few flashbacks to a trip 6 years earlier, where we had also stayed at the San Remo hotel and munched on salmon-cream cheese-caper-topped bagels at Cafe Sapore. But more than anything, this was a trip to get great Italian food! The kind of Italian food with sauces that make you shake your knees with the first taste and make your breath smell like garlic when you wake up the next day. We weren’t disappointed!

Here is the dessert highlight of the trip – Torta della Nonna with Meyer Lemon Zabaglione.

As you can see, it was so tempting that before Mike could remind me to take a photo I just had to have a taste. It wasn’t as dry as I thought it would be, and the lemon cream was so tart and refreshing. Mixed with the fresh whipped cream, it was perfect. From Calzone’s on Columbus Ave in San Francisco.