Seattle Archives - Page 3 of 20

Leaf Apple Pie

November 14, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

My back is still killing me, so trying not to spend too much time at the computer. I’ve now tried Rolfing, chiropractic and acupuncture without a whole load of success. If anyone has got any good ideas on how to treat lower back pain then I’d love to hear from you – especially about practitioners in the Seattle area.

In the meantime I made a Bramley apple and raisin pie, and had a little play while making the crust.

I got a set of four different leaf shaped stamps/cutters at Williams-Sonoma a couple of years back, which I use all the time. Unfortunately they don’t have the same set for sale at the moment, but do have fall cutter sets that include at least one leaf. And you could always make a pie covered in overlapping turkeys.

The United Colors of Autumn

November 5, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

There’s no denying that Seattle know how to change seasons BEAUTIFULLY.

My Mamma’s Tomato Sauce and a Foodportunity

October 12, 2012 By Paola 7 Comments

I wanted to give a little shout out today to an amazing lady and an amazing idea.

I arrived in Seattle six years ago with approximately two hundred cookbooks, several boxes of kitchen paraphernalia, knowing not a soul and no idea that I was about to encounter one of the most vibrant and inspiring food communities on the planet.

I caught glimpses of the scene through various blogs and then through Facebook, but it was always as an outsider wistfully gazing in, with my nose pressed firmly against the window pane, while the assembled throng feasted inside. Twitter was a help; finally I could follow the restaurants, farmers, bloggers and assorted foodies I’d been admiring, but the conversation always seemed to be swirling around me rather than including me.

And then I heard about Foodportunity. And it was revelation.

Seattle food blogger, super mum, and networking genius, Keren Brown, of the blog Frantic Foodie, started the Foodportunity meet ups back in 2009 as a way of bringing together the disparate elements of the Seattle foodie scene. Food enthusiasts of every stripe – chefs and restaurateurs, writers and bloggers, photographers and PR people, farmers and winemakers, bakers and makers and anyone who is enthusiastic and passionate about food is invited to attend, sample delectable fare from a variety of restaurants and producers, and talk about food, until the cows (all organic and locally reared of course) come home.

At my first Foodportunity I met bloggers I’d been following for years, chefs I had admired from afar and a whole bunch of knowledgeable, witty and friendly fellow food enthusiasts, who were only too keen to share their insights and expertise. Finally, after three years of being in Seattle, I had found my ‘family’. People I met at that and subsequent Foodportunities now number among my dearest friends and I’ve been invited to some amazing events as a consequence. It has quite literally transformed my life in Seattle and I can never thank Keren (who has also since become a friend) enough. Every city needs a Keren and a Foodportunity.

If you’re pressing your nose against the glass of the Seattle food scene and want to be welcomed inside with open arms then get yourself a ticket to the next Foodportunity on October 22nd. I am girlishly excited because fabulously inspirational food blogger and food stylist extraordinaire Aran Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille is going to be there, talking about her new book. Do let me know if you’re thinking of attending. I’d love to meet up.

Anyway, I’m throwing in a quick recipe for my mum’s tomato sauce as for me this is the ground zero, the sine qua non of my own foodie journey. Even as a tiny kid I could tell that my Italian mother’s homemade tomato sauce was in a different league from all other canned and jarred sauces I’d ever tasted and now I see the Minx having the same thoughts when I make this for her. I used to adore this not just on pasta, but on breaded shallow-fried veal or chicken fillets.

Ingredients

A generous slug of good olive oil

1 small carrot, finely chopped

One medium or half a large onion, finely chopped.

1-3 cloves of garlic, crushed, to taste

A couple of pounds of ripe tomatoes, skinned, de-seeded and filleted or a bottle of good passata or a couple of cans of good quality tomatoes

Half a good quality stock cube (optional)

A couple of glasses of white wine

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Herbs to taste (see ‘Variations’ below)

Method

Heat a generous slug of oil in saucepan and gently sizzle the carrot, onion and garlic until softened and very slightly golden. This is your soffritto. You could add finely chopped celery, but cooked celery is the work of devil, so I do without.

Squeeze your tomatoes through a mouli-legumes (foodmill?) if necessary and add to the soffritto. Make sure you scrape and add all the flavourful stuff from the bottom of the mouli. Cook the sauce on a medium heat until it has reduced and thickened (about 30-45 minutes depending on your tomatoes) again making sure that you scrape in all the flavourful stuff that clings to the side of the saucepan.

A dirty little family secret is that my mother and aunt would crumble in half a good quality stock cube (they call them ‘dadi’ or dice in Italian) and this does add an extra layer of flavour. I bought some good stock cubes when I was in France this year for exactly this purpose but you can use whatever you have to hand or nothing at all.

When the sauce is pretty much ready, throw in a couple of glasses of white wine and then simmer the sauce for an extra ten minutes. Season to taste.

You could probably can this, making sure to add either citric acid or lemon juice. I am scared of canning, so freeze my sauce in a stack of Ziploc bags.

Variations

You could add some finely diced pancetta or dried herbs such as oregano to the initial soffritto, some bayleaves during cooking or some fresh basil, thyme or fresh oregano to the sauce with the wine at the end. You could also experiment with substituting red wine, vermouth or white port for the white wine.

If you want other ideas for what to do with a glut of tomatoes – you could dry them and preserve them in oil, make gazpacho, or bake tomato focaccia.

I think it’s about time I made a cake, don’t you?

Adventures in Cooking: Oven Dried Tomatoes in Oil

September 26, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

It’s been the most incredible warm, dry, sunny September here in Seattle and the whole place, even my little sidewalk veggie patch, is overflowing with ripe tomatoes. (If you’ve ever been to Seattle in September before you’ll know that it’s usually green tomato central round here).

The farmers’ markets are teeming with fragrant ripe toms of every shape, size and hue and I’ve been desperately roasting them, drying them, making sauce and jugs of gazpacho (on the blog soon) until it comes out of our ears, in a frantic race against time to make the most of the bounty.

One quick and easy way to use up great tomatoes, particularly any pretty cherry or small tomatoes you can find, is to dry them in the oven.

Pick off the stalks and calyxes and wash the tomatoes. Pat them dry with kitchen towel. Put them in a bowl and add around a tablespoon of olive oil and a little pepper and good salt (I usually use Maldon Sea Salt). Swish everything around with your hands until each tomato is coated with oil and seasoning and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. You could add some chopped fresh herbs at this point.

Heat the oven to its lowest possible temperature – my oven goes down to 180 degrees F (around 80 degrees C) – and then bake the tomatoes for a number of hours until they reach the level of dryness you want.

These have been cooked down to a medium level of squishiness (mi cuit),

Some of my mi cuit tomatoes have been stored in Ziploc bag in the freezer, ready to be slipped into sauces, casseroles, soups, stews in the winter months, but I also experimented in preserving some of them in oil.

Sterilise a pretty jar and pack with dried tomatoes. I added my tomatoes hot from the oven so as to the flavour the oil as much as possible. Pour some good olive oil over the top leaving around an inch of headspace and tuck in garlic, herbs, spices or small chilis for flavour. I used branches of rosemary and slivers of garlic in this batch.

I’m not sure how long these will last as they have not been properly canned. I suggest you use yours up with two or three weeks (this will not be a problem as they so utterly delicious). I’ve had mine for two weeks now and they are still perfect and taste mindblowingly good in salad or as an accompaniment to charcuterie. When you’ve used up all the tomatoes, the flavoured oil will be fabulous on salad or pasta.

Last night I chopped some of mine up fairly finely and added them to some melted butter and lemon juice as a topping for roasted halibut and they truly were exceptional.

Fifty Shades of Decor

September 20, 2012 By Paola 4 Comments

Come and visit Christian Grey’s penthouse at the Escala in Seattle.

I have yet another terrible confession to make. I have been reading over-hyped spankbuster Fifty Shades of Grey.

And yes it is excruciatingly badly written, the sex scenes are repetitive and surprisingly dull, the hero is a borderline psychopath and the heroine is gobsmackingly, or rather, bottomsmackingly irritating. But yes I read it through to the bitter end (and, oh the shame, the two sequels) and yes, I will go and see the movie if they cast Ryan Gosling. I really hate myself though.

As an aside, by far the best thing about it are these hysterical reviews on Goodreads featuring the most inspired use of cheesy animated gifs ever. It’s worth reading the books for these alone.

One extremely amusing aspect of the books, for me at least, is that British author E L James set them in Seattle, evidently without having set foot on the American continent, let alone in the Pacific Northwest, and having seemingly done most of her research from a map (held upside down) and real estate websites.

I can see the fabulous Escala condo building, where Christian has his wicked way with lip chewing, ever flushing, Ana from my bedroom window, and for the delectation and delight of the mere handful of my erudite readers who will have read such garbage, I have found some photos of Christian’s penthouse online.

And it is amazing. Enjoy.

{All photos by Choi Yee Wong from I.C.E Digital Studio}

Inexplicably there are no photos of the ‘red room of pain’ though.

Seattle’s Great Wheel

September 19, 2012 By Paola 7 Comments

Yesterday was my birthday and for a special treat we decided to take a spin on Seattle’s Great Wheel – the new super Ferris wheel which opened this summer on Seattle’s waterfront.

It’s not quite the London Eye, but the views over downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay are just as spectacular. The sun shone for me yesterday and we were lucky enough to board just as the sun was setting over the Olympic mountains.

The Husband treated us to the exclusive, all black VIP Gondola – which was expensive but worth it I think for the super comfortable bucket seats, which for some reason made me feel much less nervous (I’m not so good with heights), the see-through glass floor and the fact that we didn’t have to share with another party. I think we also got a longer ride than others too (and some super uglyass tee-shirts).

Here’s the view down through the glass-bottom of the gondola

And here’s a gratuitous shot of some folks on the pier watching the sun going down, just because I like it really.

Seattle peeps, I highly recommend this if you haven’t been already. I understand the light show is pretty major too.

Project 52: Freedom

July 12, 2012 By Paola 4 Comments

About six months too late I’ve just started doing something called Project 52.

Every week awesome commercial photographer Don Giannatti sets a real life photography challenge via Flickr and then does a weekly live online critique of all entries.

The most amazing thing of all is that it’s completely free, no commitment, no worries if you miss an assignment, nada. You just show up on Flickr with your picture and then tune in for the online critique later, together with a chat room full of hugely talented and hugely helpful fellow photographers.

This week’s theme was for a single shot that sums up the words Independence, Freedom or Celebration.

The pic above was my first attempt – a random cute kid at Seattle’s Golden Gardens beach.

I also like this shot from the same afternoon.

Come and join me on Project 52. It would be great if there were more newbies in the room.

How To Photograph Fireworks

July 6, 2012 By Paola 8 Comments

I’ve had the summer cold from hell over the last week, AND I’ve been organising our big annual 4th July party, so over the last week I’ve been rushing around like a very grumpy crazy person.

Today though the house is clean and tidy, our roof deck is hosed down and looking beautiful, cherries are being picked from our tree, the second clafoutis of summer is being made, cats are gambolling on our vast acreage, a Brit is in the final at Wimbledon, THE. SUN. IS. SHINING. IN. SEATTLE, the oceans of sticky yellow snot in my head seem to be receding (possible TMI?) and all is right in my world.

So I thought I’d indulge in a little gentle bloggery.

This year I decided to make an effort photographing the 4th July fireworks at our party. In previous years I’ve generally been too outrageously drunk and inept to anything more than a pitiful job, so this year I armed myself with this blog post by the very lovely John Cornicello (whom I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting in person at a recent Creative Live workshop) and set to work.

This is what I learned.

1) Use a tripod

This year I took the trouble to set the tripod up on the deck before I got started on the margaritas. This is imperative as in previous years the tripod has defeated me in my drunken state and I’ve ended up leaning the camera on railings instead. That doesn’t work at all.

2) Use a GOOD tripod

I bought my tripod 6 years ago when I was just starting out doing product photography and I distinctly remember it being the cheapest one in the shop. Its flimsy and lightweight and not suitable at all for long exposures. If you’re serious about photographing fireworks you may need to SPEND MONEY. My next birthday present is sorted out now.

3) Find the BULB setting on your camera

This will allow you to push on the shutter release, hold open the exposure as long as you want and then release it when you think you’ve got the shot. I practised doing this the day before. Go me.

4) Use a low ISO and smallish apertures

Fireworks are BRIGHT and you don’t need to bump up the ISO number, or open the aperture miles wide to get the shot (mistakes I’ve always made in the past). I used the settings John C recommends – ISO 100 and apertures between f/13 and f/18 and they seemed to work well. I held the shutter open for anything between 1 sec and 6 seconds depending on how much was going on in the sky.

5) Use a remote control shutter release

This was the thing I didn’t do and regretted, instead relying on my margarita-fuelled finger to hold down the shutter, and thereby gently shaking the camera every time. So between that and the crappy tripod I got lots and lots and LOTS of photos full of movement blur as below.

So I still have lots to learn and practice where fireworks are concerned.

Until next year.

In the meantime here’s a very lucky shot of a bottle rocket taking off from our deck which is maybe my favourite shot of the night.

Also two really cr*ppy shots of the 100 mini celebratory cupcakes I baked, just to prove I made them really.

Fancy Hotel of the Week: Four Seasons Seattle

May 16, 2012 By Paola 5 Comments

When the sun does come out in Seattle there is no more beautiful place on earth. The unfortunate thing is, that, unless you have your own yacht, there are not so many places to just lounge and enjoy the view.

Yes, there are the lakes and the cold ocean beaches, but there are very few loungers and margaritas types of places, and, as you have probably guessed, I am very much a loungers and margaritas type of girl.

So when it became apparent on Thursday that temperatures were set to soar in Seattle for the Mother’s Day weekend, we decided to throw caution to the wind and book into Seattle’s Four Seasons hotel for a ‘staycation’. The Four Seasons is unusual for Pacific Northwest hotels in having an outdoor infinity pool, with breathtaking south-west facing views out over Elliott Bay to the Olympic mountains beyond, which reminded me of the similar views we had from our downtown apartment when we first moved to Seattle.

The pool area also features a hot tub and fire pit and is protected on three sides by the hotel and other high rise buildings, so I would imagine that it would still be very pleasant in the cooler months of the year.

The beautiful spring green planting creates a little rooftop oasis and exactly matches the beautiful spring green umbrellas, which looked amazing against the blue sky and turquoise water.

The pool itself is heated to 85 degrees and also gently salinated, which makes the water deliciously soft and somehow bouncy, and there was plenty of room for the Minx and the Husband to practise their synchronised swimming routines.

Inside the décor is luxurious, clean and contemporary, with an emphasis on natural stone and woods, soft autumnal hues and organic shapes, with lots of interesting artworks and glass.

In the lobby, slatted wood walls are juxtaposed with intricate stone floors and striped carpets to give a clean, modern almost Asian feel.

Oh and the breakfast wasn’t bad either.

We were also really impressed with the welcome given to the Minx. When we booked they asked for her name and age, and there was a welcome pack waiting for her in the room, with a little treasure hunt questionnaire for her to complete.

It’s the first hotel we’ve ever stayed in which provided a mini kids robe and slippers, to the Minx’s enormous delight and to cap things off, they also gave her a little pink sock monkey, from which she became inseparable. And yes, I do know that my daughter is INCREDIBLY spoiled.

Here is ‘Chaussette’ lounging by the pool.

We left feeling incredibly relaxed and asking ourselves why on earth we haven’t done this sooner. Truly that view is good for the soul. Four Seasons Seattle, we will most DEFINITELY be back.

Thanks once again to the lovely Sheri at Pacific Northwest Journeys for arranging our stay. We paid for the hotel room ourselves.

How To Bake British Without Freaking Out

April 28, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

I just wanted to let you all know that there are still some places left for the class I’m giving on Monday night at fabulous Seattle cookbook store Book Larder.

And it would be lovely to see blog readers there.

The class is called Baking In Translation – How to Bake British Without Freaking Out and is for anyone who’s tried to use a recipe from British website or cookbook and been flummoxed by the strange ingredients or metric measurements.

I’ll be covering the basics of weighing and measuring in metric rather than using cup measures; discussing differences in flours, sugars and creams; translating strange ingredient names and suggesting the best sources and substitutions for hard-to-find ingredients. I’ll be demonstrating how to make a traditional English Victoria sponge cake and maybe, if there’s time, English flapjacks (sort of sticky sweet granola bars, not pancakes) and there’ll be treats to sample.

The class will run from 6.30 to around 8.30 and you can find full details and buy tickets here. Here’s my previous blog post on the subject.

I’d love to meet Seattle blog readers and if you can’t make it, anything you could do to promote the class via various social media would be very much appreciated.

See you on Monday!