Excessively Expensive Food, Seattle Style

Random first note - it is a spectacularly beautiful day here. Sunrise on the Olympics, and helping some tourists find Pike Place market - good morning.

As our Christmas present, my parents gave Allison and me a gift certificate to the Herb Farm. One menu each night, multicourse fixed price, wine pairings, the works. Their menus are only grouped by the major fresh-ingredient seasons of the region, so when we saw salmon we felt that one was worth waiting for.

The general history of the place is that a couple inherited their parents herb farm which was on some land outside of Redmond. They started offering cooking classes and some small attempts at a restaurant in that location. After their initial restaurant burned down they sold the land (probably for a nice sum given the location), bought a smaller plot of land and small building near the Woodinville wineries, and went about building their vision for what a nice northwestern restaurant should be. The owners take the diners on a tour of the gardens, pick pieces of the herbs they're using that night, describe generally how they're used in the dishes. It's kinda an upscale hippie approach to fine dining. They reinforce the local-food philosophy and how everything is either from their gardens, the farms just down the road, or the Pacific Ocean. This includes the wine - the furthest one traveled was from Oregon. I agree with the approach.

Unlike other high end restaurants that I've experienced, the chef and sommelier give a presentation on the ingredients, techniques and wines before the dinner. It is a much more personalized experience - you get to know a bit about everyone that's cooking for you - interesting approach.

However this is a restaurant, not a cooking school. On to the food. No, not all 9 courses included salmon. Some were very simple (one prawn - tail part was butterflied with an herb butter, the head part was fried) and some were complex (3 rabbit and herb gnocchi over stewed beet slices). For the 3 salmon preparations they approached fish in a way I agree with. Cook it as little as possible with as few seasonings as possible. (Sashimi cut with chive, ceviche with a house made lemon scented oil, seared fillet with reduced pinot noir as a light sauce)

It wasn't as overwhelming as the concept may sound. Each of the 9 courses were small - just 3-4 bites at most. Still a large meal, but not any more filling than a trip to the Penguin.

Neat Idea:
- Put a fragrant herb leaf (lemon verbena) in a glass of sparkling wine. The bubbles will smell like the herb.

A bit too self-aware take on a French Laundry creation:
- carrot sorbet cannelle in a cardamom dill 'ice cream cone' with sprig of lemon balm
(the carrot sorbet was even the same color as the salmon cannelle...)

Summary Time

Given the whole house experiment over the last couple years, and the move, and business school, and well, reading more economics nerd stuff, I've found this housing-as-an-investment boom/bust rather interesting.

In the consumer media (cnn, etc) there are typically only glossy stories when companies have failed or when someone is crying about losing their house, rather than the larger trends and reasons why things are like they are.

Enter NPR.

Listen to this show: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Yes, the This American Life presentation model of making ordinary life somewhat more dramatic is still there, but it is still a good concise summary of why the US is in a recession and why it's a larger problem than just some regional banks running short of cash.

There were no informed guesses as to the short term economic future made on the program, and probably for the better. It's still early in the process. No one really knows how it will shake out.

Agreed

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html

Quieter weekend

No concerts or road trips - just a generally quiet weekend in the city - went to a new restaurant (Boom Noodle) where they have okonmiyaki and generally good and interesting noodle combinations.

Sunday was perfect weather - sunny and 60's. So we just walked around a lot. Brought bacon to the local donut shop (Top Pot) that makes good maple donuts to re-create the Maple Bacon Bar from Voodoo Donuts. Then walked to pick up groceries up at the top of Queen Anne hill - just to see the views.

In consumer news - the single speed bike experiment begins. Swapped the old Trek mtn bike for a single speed Marin. I've read a lot about the whole simplification idea and seen tons of them in the city here. Which is surprising because there are well, hills. However the initial test rides seem to show that geared right it can work and be very relaxing. You're just cruising at a fair speed - about 10mph, which is enough for city traffic. Hills don't seem to be an issue, and I took it up some pretty steep grades already. It's all about using the right tool for the job it seems, and in the city, one gear about covers it. For long rides, if I were to ever want to do that, it would be sub-optimal, but I see the bike as in city transportation now, not as a weekend workout plan.

Also - swapped both older watches in favor of a shiny new Seiko automatic (SARB029). Yes, I had to be slightly different and order a model you can't get here directly from Japan. It's kinda interesting that mail from Japan is quicker to arrive than mail from NC out here. In any case - the Seiko should be far more livable than the Poljot - automatic winding, far more precise build quality - hopefully more durable too. Looked at the Tag Heuer and Omega Seamaster again, but they're 3x or more the price of the Seiko for about the same precision. Japan wins this one.

This week - ah, it's still Bike to Work month! Time to continue that trend.