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.
You never expect a Monday to be the best day of your week. But man, yesterday was about as good a Monday as it gets around here. A sunny, 75 degree day, where I sat out on the deck at lunch and then wrapped up the day with a Thai-themed extravaganza/ Traveling Chefs dinner at Matt's in the Market, with dishes from Matt's Chef Chester Gerl and Pok Pok's Andy Ricker, 2011 James Beard Foundation Best Chef Northwest.
We got clouded out on the initial Supermoon rise last night, but later I did manage to get at least one interesting shot of that super bright moon illuminating the clouds directly east of us...and a lot of bunk ones, too (sigh). Some potentially interesting shots have a nice green reflection of the moon, maybe from my UV filter.
last year, the two popsicles I knew I wanted to make were Nutella fudgesicles and orange creamsicles (did you call them 50-50 bars when you were a kid? I did). I figured out the Nutella fudgesicles right quick, but the orange creamsicle eluded me. I kept seeing it exactly as I remembered it -- a cream center with an orange outside. Last summer, I even made Lemon Buttermilk Zoku pops using David Lebovitz's recipe, but never stopped to think, "Hey, why don't you just swap out the lemon for orange?" DUH!!
The first weeks of the farmers market in Washington always feel like everyone's still trying to wake up from hibernating all winter. We get a relatively late start, opening up in April, but by then, the tulips are in full force. On an otherwise gray day, there's nothing like a burst of color to get you out of the blahs. Those are double tulips, by the way. They almost look like peonies, my other favorite flower.
