field trip time.
Feb. 23rd, 2009 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gfrancieYesterday I met up with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bbcaddict and her gentleman friend at the farmer's market. Despite it being February there was quite a bit of produce available. (mostly winter root vegetables and apples) I picked up some golden beets for a very good price. I am not sure what I am going to do with them yet. I bought some blanc fromage from the PT Creamery. (always nice to support a home-town business) And I bought this porcini pasta. An Italian family makes and sells some really beautiful pastas and sauces. They had an orange pasta that looked like fun. I could imagine doing something with a dark chocolate sauce and combining that.
The porcini pasta has the best scent. I think my friend S. would go wild for the scent. It is earthy and sexy and makes me think of the way a forest can smell sometimes. I am going to cook that up tonight for dinner. Maybe with some of the leftover pesto I made this weekend. I sampled a lot of cheese. There is a growing industry of locally made cheeses which is fantastic. People are doing a lot of different things. I tried a four year old cheddar yesterday that was so intense. It starts off kind of crumbly but it quickly becomes rather smooth and the flavor is powerful. Woah nelly.
Lots of things smelled good and there were some delicious apples too.
Went to a teeny bakery called, Pauline. (named after the owner's Grandmother who taught her to bake and inspired a true love of cooking) that is fairly new. It is sort of tucked behind a tattoo shop. They have a small selection but it is a great one. She sells tarts, cakes, cookies and chocolates. I brought home two different kinds of cookies and a chocolate.bbcaddict's gentleman friend convinced me to try the chocolate chunk cookie. He says he can't go more than 15 hours without having one. I have to give him credit for being right about how damn good the cookie was. Normally I am not super-wowed by chocolate chunk. It is a reliable stand-by but this was very very very good. Her butter cookies are 75 cents a piece and definitely go well with tea. The chocolate truffle I tried had black tea in it and it didn't have that overt bitter flavor. It was exquisite. I need to go back. I tried a sample of the lemon pound cake -light and sweet. The owner/baker has a real talent and I hope she succeeds. She is a very nice person and enthusiastic about what she does. A definite plus is that her shop is open fairly late on the weekdays. So if you live in Ballard you can go for a walk and get some baked goods.
Then we went to a shop that sells loose leaf tea. We got to taste a tea that comes from some specific mountains in taiwan. It was an oolong tea that was more traditional as it wasn't so green. The tasting was done at this sort of traditional wooden table that had a grating for dumping excess water down. I loved talking to the owner. She is from Taiwan and was telling interesting things about the tea farms there and the development of food. Taiwan has all kinds of different varieties of chinese food because of WWII and the different ethnic groups that ended up in Taiwan. She did make me snort my tea when she mentioned looking at a townhouse and she said, "I like new things. It's because I am Asian." She was very personable and a little snarky. And her shop has interesting things. She told us about a tea that she tried that was 600 dollars an ounce. I mentioned this to another friend and she said, "Does it come with oral sex?" *snorts*
After a lovely day of trying things and talking to people it was time to come home.
On the drive home through Fremont I saw three cop cars racing to the sidewalk of 7-11. Three cops leaped out to help a fourth cop. It took four cops with a fair amount of activity to cuff a man who was on the ground. I have to say that one cop seemed to enjoy kneeing someone the leg just a bit too much. But hey maybe the guy was extra-dangerous or something. Still. Four cops for one person. I am curious as to what provoked the arrest. (great thing about being stuck in traffic for a moment -I got to watch the whole thing)
And now we are back to Monday, where small children demand to get up before seven and my tea is always a little luke-warm.
bbcaddict and her gentleman friend at the farmer's market. Despite it being February there was quite a bit of produce available. (mostly winter root vegetables and apples) I picked up some golden beets for a very good price. I am not sure what I am going to do with them yet. I bought some blanc fromage from the PT Creamery. (always nice to support a home-town business) And I bought this porcini pasta. An Italian family makes and sells some really beautiful pastas and sauces. They had an orange pasta that looked like fun. I could imagine doing something with a dark chocolate sauce and combining that.The porcini pasta has the best scent. I think my friend S. would go wild for the scent. It is earthy and sexy and makes me think of the way a forest can smell sometimes. I am going to cook that up tonight for dinner. Maybe with some of the leftover pesto I made this weekend. I sampled a lot of cheese. There is a growing industry of locally made cheeses which is fantastic. People are doing a lot of different things. I tried a four year old cheddar yesterday that was so intense. It starts off kind of crumbly but it quickly becomes rather smooth and the flavor is powerful. Woah nelly.
Lots of things smelled good and there were some delicious apples too.
Went to a teeny bakery called, Pauline. (named after the owner's Grandmother who taught her to bake and inspired a true love of cooking) that is fairly new. It is sort of tucked behind a tattoo shop. They have a small selection but it is a great one. She sells tarts, cakes, cookies and chocolates. I brought home two different kinds of cookies and a chocolate.
bbcaddict's gentleman friend convinced me to try the chocolate chunk cookie. He says he can't go more than 15 hours without having one. I have to give him credit for being right about how damn good the cookie was. Normally I am not super-wowed by chocolate chunk. It is a reliable stand-by but this was very very very good. Her butter cookies are 75 cents a piece and definitely go well with tea. The chocolate truffle I tried had black tea in it and it didn't have that overt bitter flavor. It was exquisite. I need to go back. I tried a sample of the lemon pound cake -light and sweet. The owner/baker has a real talent and I hope she succeeds. She is a very nice person and enthusiastic about what she does. A definite plus is that her shop is open fairly late on the weekdays. So if you live in Ballard you can go for a walk and get some baked goods.Then we went to a shop that sells loose leaf tea. We got to taste a tea that comes from some specific mountains in taiwan. It was an oolong tea that was more traditional as it wasn't so green. The tasting was done at this sort of traditional wooden table that had a grating for dumping excess water down. I loved talking to the owner. She is from Taiwan and was telling interesting things about the tea farms there and the development of food. Taiwan has all kinds of different varieties of chinese food because of WWII and the different ethnic groups that ended up in Taiwan. She did make me snort my tea when she mentioned looking at a townhouse and she said, "I like new things. It's because I am Asian." She was very personable and a little snarky. And her shop has interesting things. She told us about a tea that she tried that was 600 dollars an ounce. I mentioned this to another friend and she said, "Does it come with oral sex?" *snorts*
After a lovely day of trying things and talking to people it was time to come home.
On the drive home through Fremont I saw three cop cars racing to the sidewalk of 7-11. Three cops leaped out to help a fourth cop. It took four cops with a fair amount of activity to cuff a man who was on the ground. I have to say that one cop seemed to enjoy kneeing someone the leg just a bit too much. But hey maybe the guy was extra-dangerous or something. Still. Four cops for one person. I am curious as to what provoked the arrest. (great thing about being stuck in traffic for a moment -I got to watch the whole thing)
And now we are back to Monday, where small children demand to get up before seven and my tea is always a little luke-warm.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-23 05:47 pm (UTC)It's also the same block where this story originated: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=37084
no subject
Date: 2009-02-23 05:56 pm (UTC)I suppose it is kind of a surprise in some ways for the more gentrified folk. My Mother lived in that area way back in the day and it wouldn't surprise her to some degree.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 08:16 pm (UTC)Kind of like Pioneer Square that way.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 05:28 pm (UTC)What sort of questions about cookware do you have?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-09 03:58 am (UTC)I have fantasies about opening one up myself.
Sure I should be having dirtier ones but whatever.