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Restaurants Travel

Spotted Bear Bistro – Tofino, BC

Spotted Bear is the kind of neighborhood joint I wish we had around the corner. The kitchen is right there as you walk in, and you're as likely to be greeted by the chef as by the host. With Tofino being a beach town, you might expect seafood to dominate the menu, but Spotted Bear strikes a balance, offering up dishes that take advantage of the local seafood, with plenty of options for folks who aren't so big on salmon and mussels (like me!).
July 13, 20110Comments

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Recipes Restaurants Salads Travel

New Ideas for Salad: Orange-Vanilla Vinaigrette & Braised Greens

Aside from the sunshine, doing nothing and umbrella drinks, eating local is one of the best things about vacation. I love those trips where the biggest decision I'll have to make on any given day is what to eat next. On our recent trip to Tofino, BC, many of the restaurants in town featured greens from Nanoose Edibles Farm in Nanoose Bay, BC. One of the best was this salad at the Long Beach Lodge Resort with Nanoose Edibles greens, Okanagan Happy Days goat cheese, toasted hazelnuts and strawberries with a citrus and vanilla vinaigrette.
July 6, 20110Comments

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Travel

Food Truck Alert: TacoFino – Tofino, BC

What is it about surf towns and great Mexican food? I don't know if I'm totally biased by having spent most of my life in California, but Tofino, BC on Vancouver Island, is proving out the connection. Off Pacific Rim Highway in Tofino, there's a little center with a small grocery, a surf shop, a coffee place, and a taco truck at the back of the parking lot, a taco truck which is doing crazy business with locals and tourists alike.
July 5, 20111Comment

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Recipes

Escarole with Red Wine Vinaigrette

Escarole is one of those greens you don't give much thought to until it turns up at the farmers market or in your CSA box. We're so used to the dark leafy greens -- kale, chard, collards, mustard greens -- I couldn't tell you when I last had escarole. And then it showed up in our CSA box last week -- in June! Related to endive, the season usually runs December through April-ish, and with its broader leafy leaves and just a hint of bitterness, it's perfect for a simple salad with red wine vinaigrette.
July 4, 20110Comments

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Recipes

Super Simple Sugar Snap Pea Soup

Snap Pea Soup just before Fourth of July weekend? I know, but don't you feel like that's how everything seems to be this year? Just a little behind. There were such beautiful sugar snaps at the farmers market, I'd figured on doing a little salad, simply blanching them and dressing them with a little bit of rice wine vinegar and sesame oil and a sprinkle of black sesame seeds. But then this Mark Bittman recipe popped up, equally simple, if not more so.
June 29, 20113Comments

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Restaurants

Seattle: Aloha Ramen in Greenwood

If there's a Starbucks on every corner in Seattle, right next to it is a teriyaki shop. We have more teriyaki joints (most of them unmemorable) around here than any other place I've ever lived. In fact, there's one right next door to Aloha Ramen, which just seems crazy to me. But there's no contest -- you want to go to Aloha Ramen. You think you want chicken teriyaki? No, no, you want karaage, Japanese fried chicken, right next door.
June 28, 20110Comments

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Book Reviews Recipes

A16 Chocolate Budino with Sea Salt

I have a love/hate relationship with restaurant cookbooks. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that one of my favorite restaurants is sharing its recipes, but on the other, the dishes don't always seem to measure up to the versions I've had when dining out. We loved A16 in San Francisco under Nate Appleman (who's since moved on to consult for Chipotle) and had a number of wonderful dishes there -- from the burrata to the housemade salsiccia pizza w/ spicy chile oil to the chocolate budino. The A16: Food and Wine cookbook delivers on those dishes and more. It was the A16 cookbook that introduced me to "00" flour and the overnight rise for pizza dough. The ricotta gnocchi is good, and even better in brodo with spicy pork meatballs, and the chocolate budino...well, what can you say about that other than "Mmmmm."
June 26, 20115Comments

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Recipes Wine

Dried Fig and Port Jam

  Every summer I say, this is the summer I'm really going to make some amazing raspberry or blackberry jam. But something about sterilizing the jars and waiting for that suctioning pop just still seems complicated to me. So I've been sticking with refrigerator jam. And today, since the summer heat is taking its own sweet time to arrive (and I discovered my Maggie Beer is way past its expiration), I made dried fig and port jam with black mission figs.
June 22, 20114Comments

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