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Restaurants Travel
Victoria, BC: Lure & the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort
The last time I was in Victoria, BC, it was a pass through point on the way to and from Tofino. We darted around downtown trying to find some quick lunch before the ferry to Port Angeles. This past weekend, I headed up to Victoria with the city as the end destination for a girls weekend celebrating my friend Linda's birthday. We stayed at a great little place on the Inner Harbour - the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort.
June 19, 2012
Not About Food
Wild Kingdom
This week has been crazy. It's not anything you'd think -- not work, not family commitments, not getting ready for a vacation. It's been Wild Kingdom over here. Literally. It started with the Heron. Our relationship with the Heron has been tenuous at best. We have a small man-made pond and he showed up about a year after we moved in, looking for dinner. It was mainly a goldfish pond, but there was one big koi in there, old enough and wise enough to survive. We called him The Leviathan. The Heron is a gorgeous bird with a 5 foot wingspan, but his goals and ours are completely at cross purposes. Our koi pond is not a sushi bar. So Wolf MacGyvered a cover out of PVC and netting. But the Heron is persistent. Like a 3-year old running through a group of pigeons, I’ve taken off across our grass, waving my arms and yelling to scare him off. We've driven up only to catch him soaring off after a sashimi appetizer from our pond. Eventually, while we were on vacation, he even got the Leviathan. This week, I saved the damn Heron.
June 15, 2012
Main Course Recipes
Asparagus and Pepper Jack Tamales
  When you think of tamales, what's the first filling you think of? Pork with salsa verde or green chile and cheese, maybe? How about asparagus and pepper jack? Drive east on 90 from Seattle and on the other side of Snoqualmie Pass in the Yakima Valley, there's a tamale joint called Los Hernandez, famous for their asparagus and pepper jack tamales. People rave about 'em.
June 5, 2012
Dessert Recipes
Zoku Popsicle Maker: Fudgesicles with a Cayenne Kicker
Inspiration comes at the oddest moments. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do, still laying in bed, is a scroll-through of email, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to see what happened over night. Sunrise is at 5 something now, alarm goes off at 6, and there is zero chance I'm getting out of bed before that. On one of those scroll-throughs, Chronicle Books was doing a Twitter contest to win a signed copy of the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Bookand a bag of bacon peanut brittle. All you had to do to enter was come up with a dream Humphry Slocombe flavor. My idea: Chocolate y Churros -- a cayenne-kicked Mexican chocolate ice cream with churro chunks (I didn't win)...but it led to these cayenne-kicked fudgesicles for the Zoku.
May 30, 2012
Book Reviews Dessert
Humphry Slocombe’s Ice Cream Book and Butter Beer (at Home!)
There's really only one thing to say about Humphry Slocombe's Butter Beer ice cream: OMFG. It's not hyperbole. It's not even sucking up, this ice cream is really that good. It's ridiculous. And hold the phone, I didn't get this scoop at the shop, I made it. At home. From the new book - the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book. Now, if you're already a Humphry Slocombe fan, I know what you're saying, "What, you didn't start with Secret Breakfast?" I love me some Secret Breakfast and Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, but I said, "We gotta go for one of the deep cuts. And it shall be Butter Beer." This isn't the Butter Beer you're thinking of, it's a combo of their Stout and Brown Butter ice creams, and it's not one for the kiddies.
May 28, 2012
sriracha sloppy joe sandwich
Main Course Recipes
Rain or Shine: Sriracha Sloppy Joes
Long before the pink slime debacle, ground beef got a bad wrap. Other than its use for burgers and maybe cottage pie, it ranks pretty low on the beef totem pole. It's a rarity on upscale restaurant menus, except in comfort food preparations or in ironic, hipstery reduxes of Hamburger Helper. But I'm ok with…
May 26, 2012
Baking Photo One-offs
Banana Breakfast Cookies
I was a hold out for a long long time on Larabars. The texture always kind of weirded me out - they're just a little too soft, y'know? But after trying the Ginger Snap and more recently the Coconut Cream Pie, I'm on board. They're like Samoas without the chocolate! And they were a perfect…
May 23, 2012
Restaurants
Traveling Chefs: Dominique Crenn at Matt’s in the Market
It's been four years since we left the Bay Area, so the list of restaurants we need to try has gotten ridiculously long. We don't get down there as much as we should (our friends can vouch for that!). So when an opportunity to try Dominique Crenn's "poetic culinaria" came up at Matt's in the Market, it was hard to pass up. Except we did, because I thought, well, we can't do these dinners two weeks in a row. It'll be too much. But then, after a wonderful meal with Andy Ricker, we went for it, got on the waiting list and hoped for the best. Not only was it a chance to try Chef Crenn’s modernist cuisine outside her home turf in the Bay Area, but it would be interesting to see how the two chefs -- Chef Crenn and Matt's Chef Chester Gerl -- would develop a menu of complements. In six courses, it was inventive, it was sometimes challenging, it was beautiful.
May 16, 2012
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