Ch 2: Foraging the Streets of Seattle

Growing up we didn't go out to eat all that often as a family. It was a special treat for birthdays, some holidays and when we were given the occasional gift card.  These special dining out experiences were an important part of my development as far as food.  I really learned to cherish food and the pleasures it could offer. I was heavily influenced by my mother, who cannot tolerate mustard, spices and other strong flavors, but through much urging on my father's part I began trying new things. I still remember the first time I tried a raw oyster. I was about 12 or so and we were out to dinner at one of my favorite places back home, The Mainland Inn in Mainland, PA.  My father often got gift cards from clients for the restaurant and my parents were kind enough to take my sister and I along to dinner, being such well behaved children that we were.  The waiters and waitresses there took a liking to us and taught us the mysterious ways of gourmet napkin folding.  Back to the raw oyster, it was an experience I will never forget; the cold slimy little sea specimen swimming in some lemon juice with a hint of tabasco.  It went down pretty easily but I wasn't sure how I felt about it.  I don't think I really enjoyed it then, but it also could have been tainted by the face my mother made as I slid it down my throat. 

The Grand Idea

My idea for this blog is to rotate between two different blog entries.  I'd like every other blog post to be on a food experience I have dining out.  Since moving to Seattle, I've been pretty religious in documenting my dining out experiences.  It started as just listing the date, restaurant name and a short description of the food and drink I had in my journal, but soon grew to be a full out food diary.  I picked up a "Foodie Journal" at a little gift shop of sorts in Fremont and it just went from there. The journal has a template that includes space for the restaurant name, beverages, appetizers, entree, dessert, other, atmosphere, service, and other (notes) and then an option to rate the restaurant from 1 to 10.  I've put the journal to good use and in addition have been keeping a photo diary on my camera, so be prepared, there's more excitement to come!

Ch 1: The Early Days

One of the first things I did after I was left on my own, was go buy ingredients for baking. So many ideas were coming to mind; chocolate, coconut, bananas, hazelnuts...
After much contemplation I settled upon chocolate chip hazelnut cookies and whole wheat banana coconut chocolate chip muffins.  Both turned out awesome flavor-wise, but I left the toasted hazelnuts whole in the cookies and I think for the future I would at least chop them, if not use the food processor to grind them and make them into more of a hazelnut flour.  I left the baked goods in containers on the kitchen counter with a note telling everyone to enjoy and also to offer feedback. All feedback received was good, so I know at least for now I will be making the muffins again.

An introduction

So it's taken me quite some time to put this blog to use, but now I feel it'll be even better than I imagined. I initially planned to use this just for my baking, but since moving to Seattle, I've found myself bursting with culinary creativity of all sorts! With so many fresh ingredients available, great things have begun to happen in the kitchen...

It's as if me moving unleashed a flurry of creativity. I've always been more committed to baking, but over the years as I've begun to cook more and more for myself and others I've begun to move towards adopting the hat of cook in addition to baker.  Growing up my mom did the cooking during the week, while weekends were all my dad.  My mom cooked well enough but it was never something she enjoyed and it showed in her food. My parents were adamant about having a sit down family dinner each night. It's nothing I regret, I think it helped me later as far as communicating with others and my maturity. Another issue with my mom's cooking was that she didn't cook with strong spices of any sort; no garlic, peppers, onion, very little spice, since she couldn't tolerate those things herself.  As I got older and started receiving cooking magazines I began to realize some of the flavors I was missing in my day to day life.  Once I got to college I began adding some of these "forbidden" flavors to my food.  I stuck to pretty familiar dishes though and it wasn't until I moved out of the dorms and grew a garden that I really started to explore new flavors and coming up with my own recipes.  I hosted a few dinner parties; one memorable one the murder mystery dinner party I threw for my 20th birthday.  This past November was the first Thanksgiving dinner that I made.  It was a culinary success, in fact I think I may have overdone myself a bit. The turkey was phenomenal, both glazed yams and garlic mashed potatoes, pear stuffing, golden corn with mint, green beans, and two kinds of dinner rolls.  Then dessert was a selection of pumpkin, apple or pecan pie, and pumpkin bread.  There was also the Christmas dessert selection I whipped together for Christmas 2008, when 2 days before Christmas my mom realized she hadn't asked anyone to bring dessert for our 25 person Christmas dinner.  I got busy and whipped up various cookies, cakes, pies, breads...needless to say it was another success. Now that I'm in Seattle I've been a lot more adventurous in the kitchen.  Just the other night I got in a mood to cook and ended up staying up til 5:30am making mac n' cheese tarts, which turned out absolutely delicious!