If you were organising the Seattle Marathon, it would make perfect sense to run it in November. Wouldn’t it?
Marathon
Pike Place Chowder
I don’t think I’ve ever had chowder before, so was very excited to come across Pike Place Chowder yesterday just in time for lunch.
The exciting part is that the chowder they serve is apparently the best in America, having won this year’s Great Chowder Cook-off in Rhode Island. Being a chowder virgin I have no idea whether it was that good, but it was very delicious indeed – full of flavour and bursting with seafood (my goodness, the seafood in this place is goooooood!). My only gripe was that it was a little too salty, however I’ve noticed that everything over here is incredibly highly seasoned.
The chowder was further enhanced by this strange and delicious condiment which I’ve never come across before, which is made from sherry and Scotch bonnet peppers.
Apparently the name ‘chowder’ comes from the name of a French cooking pot ‘chaudiere’ (etymologically similar to the English ‘cauldron’). For some reason I did know this trivia food fact, but you’re just going to think I found it online.
Turkey Day
Thanksgiving was a blast!
An experiment in blurriness that worked out OK. All the rest were just blurred…
We were invited by some friends of one of the Husband’s colleagues, and they and their friends couldn’t have been been more welcoming, despite never having met us before.
The Minx was beside herself with joy in a house full of balloons in the shapes of large turkeys, a selection of kids aged between one and four, two friendly cats. a large dog, one small Tinky Winky, more turkey than you could possibly eat (though she made a fair attempt) and popsicles for dessert.
On the menu were
huge prawns with chilli dip
roast turkey (brined beforehand. Have never heard of this being done in the UK, so suspect it’s an American thing. It made for very moist and delicious meat, so I will definitely be trying this at home.)
stuffing (lumpier and breadier than British stuffing, but equally delicious)
mashed potatoes
a huge salad
butternut squash puree
a spicy and very yummy cranberry sauce
a Cuban vegetable and polenta bake
pumpkin pie
pecan pie
strawberry and rhubarb pie
so all-in-all a very slimming and abstemious meal.
Viewing Thanksgiving from the other side of the world, it all seems like a rather unnecessary activity given that you’re just going to do the self-same thing all over again a month later.
From here, though, it was all very festive and jolly and marks a very definite beginning to the holiday season which has put me in a deliciously Christmassy frame of mind.
Today we carried on the festive mood by joining in the celebrations in downtown Seattle. We were glad that we made the effort to get up early for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.
I’m sure it’s not a patch on the New York equivalent, but the Minx enjoyed it very much.
After lunch at Pike Place market, we returned later in the evening for the lighting of the Christmas tree, big star on the Macy’s building and the Minx’s first fireworks (given that we managed to miss Guy Fawkes night). If you’re quick you should be able to find a video of the whole occasion here (Westlake Center lights up).
The Minx was entranced.
Pretty as a picture
I’ve recently come across a great blog called Trust Your Style, which published an interview with Japanese illustrator Chico Hayasaki, whose fashion illustrations are absolutely magical.
I definitely want to bring out the first mirrormirror catalogue next year and would love it to be a mix of photographs and illustration. Sadly I think Chico, who has illustrated campaigns for Sportsac, Nordstrom and La Perla, is way out of our league.
Anyway, I strongly advise you to check out her portfolio on her website.
I also thought her take on blogging was rather cute.
To be a pilgrim
We are very excited to have been invited to our first ever Thanksgiving dinner.
We weren’t sure about the dress code, so have opted to make the whole family some very simple pilgrims‘ hats following instructions found online. I hope you’ll agree that they are very dignified and appropriate.
Of course, it is entirely possible that everyone else at this dinner will be extremely glamorously attired.
I will try and get a photo of the Minx wearing hers as she did look incredibly cute for the 2 seconds she was wearing it. A picture of me wearing mine may not be forthcoming as it is possibly the most unflattering thing I have ever worn on my head. If I had indeed been a pilgrim woman, it is highly unlikely I would ever have had sex.
Speaking of toast
Isn’t this glorious? Totally impractical but absolutely glorious. So glorious in fact that I’m really tempted to buy one or even get them in the shop.
Check out the work of Mario Minale and Kuniko Maeda on www.minale-maeda.com. I rather like some of their other lacey stuff as well
(Found via OhMyGooshness – one of my new favourite design blogs).
Seattle Fall
Today was a day of rainbows, swirling autumn leaves and careering round the observation deck of the ‘Pess Nee-doll’ being nearly blown over by the gusting wind and giggling hugely as we went.
Followed of course by a massive thunderstorm in the afternoon.
Arabesque
Claudia Roden is no more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a biscuit baker. She is, rather, a memorialist, historian, ethnographer, anthropologist, essayist, poet.”– Simon Schama
I am indebted to the wonderful Seattle foodie blog Seattle Bon Vivant for sending me off to a lecture last night by one of my all-time culinary heroines, Claudia Roden.
Though I’m the owner of literally hundreds of cookbooks (as I discovered when we were packing to come here), her The Food of Italy – Region by Region is one that I reach for again and again. It is the book my aunt and nonna in Italy would have written if they had had the time and the inclination, and if you’d ever tasted their cooking, you would know that that is praise indeed.
Claudia is an Egyptian Jew who moved to England when she was fifteen when the Jews were forced to leave Egypt after the Suez crisis. Her cultured and cosmopolitan Sephardi Jewish family had roots all over the Middle East and she started to collect recipes from her family and friend in order to counter the horrendous food she found in 1950s London.
The result has been a career as a cookery writer, broadcaster and culinary ambassador which has spanned nearly forty years and focused on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine.
Last night, however, she was a guest of the Jewish cultural organisation Nextbook and her talk focused principally on her seminal work The Book of Jewish Food and on promoting her most recent book Arabesque -A Taste of Morocco, Turkey & Lebanon.
I don’t know very much about Jewish food and her anecdotes were absolutely fascinating – tracing the development of dishes back through time and across Continents. As an unofficial historian of Jewish food she is invited to eat and cook all over the world, and I could have listened to her stories all night.
She pointed out that when people migrate they might change everything about their lifestyles but will still cling as much as possible to their culinary traditions. A glance at our kitchen cupboards – full of Italian pasta, Parmesan cheese, olive oil (itself a product of the culinary traditions my mother brought from Italy) Green & Black’s chocolate, Marmite and Nutella – shows that yes, we are clinging desperately to our European ways, despite the fact that European imports are twice the price of canola oil and Velveeta cheese.
I bought a copy of Arabesque and was starstruck enough to get her to sign it. I really wanted a copy of Jewish Food as well, but all the copies they had were nabbed almost instantly.
Next week I’ll try out something delicious and report back.
Our name on toast
Do you remember The Million Dollar Homepage? Where student Alex Tew created an Internet phenomenon and made himself a millionaire by selling a $1million-worth of pixels on a web page?
There have of course been a slew of similar sites and the latest is www.yournameontoast.com. The major differences as far as I can see is that this one is for charity and that the adverts (which click through to your website) are made of toast. Which of course meant we had to sign up.
I have no idea whether this is going to be an Internet phenomenon but we’ve had a pleasing number of hits so far to the mirrormirror shop and you have to agree that they’ve made us a particularly scrummy-looking slice of toast.
The Mad Hatter
Are we really supposed to be taking fashion advice from this woman?
It makes me sad that someone so intrinsically lacking in any sense of personal style can be hyped into becoming a fashion guru.
