Ahoy!

I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything since Tilth! We’ve done a lot, and I’ll try to show you some of it in pictures below.

First, I was so inspired by the Tilth melon-and-cheese salad (mentioned in the last post) that I had to make my own. I had to use an orange cantaloupe (instead of a green “French melon”) and I had to put the cheese on top (instead of mixing it into the cantaloupe — I tried that first and it looked terrible!), but it was a pretty successful and very silly appetizer.

We bought more melons from the farmer’s market. The one on the left is an heirloom cantaloupe and it wasn’t very good, unfortunately. The little yellow one on the right was great.

Also, I had tuna for the first time! It was really weird, but very good. It tasted nothing like fish. First we marinated it in a pile of delicious things (including dill). Here’s what was left of the marinade:

Then we cooked it:

When we flipped it over, it had become totally opaque and differently-colored. I was surprised because I’m used to salmon, and salmon doesn’t do that.

Then we made some dill cucumber pickles with Marie and Joel and James. We found a bunch of delicious spices around our kitchen (like a random cinnamon stick I’d forgotten about, which I then expertly crushed with a pair of pliers) and made a pickling spice mixture.

Pickles!

Joel and Marie brought even more apples, so we made even more applesauce.

The Fremont neighborhood nearby hosts a big Oktoberfest thing each year, which is an expensive event ($25 or $30) where you can sample a few moderately exciting beers. We decided to skip the Fremont Oktoberfest this year and host our own Wallingford Oktoberfest, where the only admission is an exciting beer. We provided the snacks, and everyone brought an exciting beer or cider (or two).

Toby made some amazing sourdough bread for the party:

The whole point of the party was to take tiny samples of as many exciting beers as possible. To facilitate this, we provided tiny tasting cups.

The party was great fun. Our friends played along and brought really interesting, exciting beers. We had a nice group of people and many of the beers were delicious. The snacks were neat too. I really enjoy a good, relaxing afternoon party.

After the party, a few of us decided to get dinner from a dumpling restaurant hidden away in a Fremont alley. After that, we found some grapes growing over a sidewalk in Fremont and decided to pick them. Joel and Marie took them home and made several jars of not-very-sweet grape jelly. They gave one to us and I am really excited. It wasn’t sealed so we have to eat it right away, but honestly I’d have wanted to do that anyway. Yum!

On Wednesday night Toby and I dressed up in our finest* and walked over to Tilth for a very exciting dinner.

*That is, a homemade dress for me and a pseudo-suit for Toby. Tilth is actually a very casual restaurant; we might have been the dressiest people there.

We’d already decided to get the vegetarian tasting menu with wine pairings, so we didn’t look at the menu too much — it was more exciting to be surprised with each of the five little courses. That our long-awaited Tilth meal took place in September was by design; since Tilth has a highly seasonal menu, we figured we’d get the most delicious haul of food at the end of the summer.

Just to warn you, the rest of this post is a detailed description of our entire meal.

Right away our server gave us a cute little amuse-bouche. It was a spoonful of cold sweet corn soup with a basil sauce on top. It was neat.

The first course was a cold cucumber soup, which came with a truly incredible piece of poppyseed tuile. The tuile was essentially a really buttery, thin, crispy cookie. The soup was really neat; it tasted like pure, smooth, rich essence of cucumber. There was also some dill for garnish. The wine pairing was a dry, sort of mineral-y Spanish white wine. I wasn’t sure if I liked the wine when I first sipped it, but it actually did go really well with the cucumber soup. The soup somehow made the mineral flavor less overwhelming. I began to believe in wine pairings.

The next course was really inspiring. It was a salad, made of feta cheese and two kinds of melon. There were watermelon rounds at the bottom, on the plate, and there was a cute little pile of a green melon (“French melon”?) with feta on top. There were also a bunch of salt crystals scattered throughout. I really adored the idea of a cheese-and-melon salad. I had never considered such a combination, and it was lovely! The wine was a much fruitier white wine that was easy to like.

Next we moved into the warmer main courses. First up was an amazing risotto, full of carrots, escarole, and pine nuts. It had a shocking amount of flavor: Toby and I discussed how we think of risotto as a sort of bland, rich dish to bury bitter things like beet greens into, but this risotto was no resting place for beet greens. I really want to make a flavorful risotto now. The wine was a delicious white wine that seemed to be a little bit fizzy.

The last dinner course might have been my favorite, but it’s hard to pick. (I loved them all, but I think this one and the melon salad stand out to me.) It was a bowl of small, incredibly creamy ricotta ravioli. The sauce had parmesan cheese, chanterelles, truffles, and cauliflower, and it was incredibly lemony. Wow, this one was good. It was paired with a wine I liked a lot, a pinot noir from Burgundy.

Finally, dessert! Dessert was a cute little white corn crème brûlée. It was rich yet corny at once, with a lovely crust of burnt sugar. There was a bit of fried hominy (weird! but good!) and a little smear of a delicious, yogurty-tasting corn creme on the side. But the real highlight of dessert was the wine pairing. It came with a Madeira wine, which is a Portuguese fortified wine (and possibly a subset of “port”; I don’t really know the distinctions).

Specifically, this one:

It was a really shocking beverage; I had never had anything like it. It tasted strongly of raisins and chocolate. It was incredibly delicious. We both can’t stop thinking about it. Highly recommended!

When our server brought the check, she included two tiny cardamom cookies with fruit filling. They were adorable and looked precisely like super-miniature Fig Newtons.

In summary, the tasting menu is amazing and is almost certainly the best way to enjoy Tilth. My feeling on the vegetarian vs. non-vegetarian tasting menu is that vegetarian food at nice restaurants tends to be more adventurous, so that menu is probably more exciting. (They are actually very similar, though; only two courses are different, and I’m sure the meat courses are delicious too. It’s Tilth, after all!) The wine pairings are neat and definitely recommendable. Tilth is a place to go for a really special dinner, and obviously we aren’t going to be doing this very often at all, but it’s very much worth it for a rare, incredibly exciting meal.

By the way, in case you’re curious (we were), the way wine pairings work (at Tilth anyway) is you get a half glass of the selected wine with each course. This works out to 2.5 glasses total for the 5-course menu, which was much more than I wanted, so I asked for small pours. I think I got about a glass and a half (and maybe slightly more) in total, which was nice.

I made the New York Times olive oil brownies again, seen previously here and here. This time, in true Seattle fashion, I decided to fill them with blackberries! (The original version has coconut flakes inside and on top, which is lovely, but we ran out of coconut and have LOTS of blackberries these days.)

Just for fun, I took pictures throughout the process. But I had to use the flash on my camera because it was cloudy and the light was low, so beware.

First you chop the chocolate (above). Then you whisk in some water and oil.

The texture is fairly chunky and unpleasant, but when you whisk in the egg it becomes all smooth and lovely!

Add cup and a quarter of sugar (for half the recipe, which works nicely in an 8×8 pan):

To make the blackberry filling, I reduced a half-cup or so of berries in vermouth and a bit of sugar. The result was basically identical to jam.

I made three layers in an 8×8 pan: brownie batter, blackberry filling, and then brownie batter again on top. (I worried that blackberries on top would burn.)

These came out really gooey, so in my opinion they are best eaten straight from the freezer.

Last night we saw Higher Ground, charmingly reviewed in The New Yorker a couple issues back. We both really liked the movie. Tonight we’re having dinner at Tilth (which we’ve been anticipating since July) and we are super excited.

Today in the Guide to Seattle I’d like to point you to a tofu factory that also happens to have a restaurant.

Northwest Tofu
1911 S Jackson St (map)
Cherry Hill/Central District neighborhood
Breakfast and lunch; closed Wednesdays

I’m cheating today because I actually already wrote all about Northwest Tofu in 2009, long before the Guide to Seattle. I am pleased to announce that everything I said before still stands (except that a block of tofu-to-go is now $1, not 80 cents), and the dishes I mentioned are still the ones to get. (I went there with some friends a couple months ago and verified it.)

So please allow me to point you to the review I wrote here. Here’s a summary: go there; order Mushrooms Foon, Hot and Spice Dry Tofu, and cold tofu pudding for dessert; and also be sure to pick up some cheap, delicious tofu to go on your way out. But really, just go read the whole thing.

Yesterday we had another big canning day with Joel and Marie. The weather has been gorgeous here for several days, so we went to Discovery Park in Magnolia and picked some buckets of blackberries.

Here’s the view inside my blackberry bucket partway through the picking. The red, unripe berries are there by design: apparently they have extra pectin, which is good for making a thick and easy jam.

We used the recipe that I included on this blog way back here. We had 15 cups of berries, so we increased the sugar proportionally, and I increased the number of limes to 4 (from 2.5). I also zested the limes and threw that in too.

Our stove quickly looked like the scene of a murder as the jam bubbled away:

I let the jam get to about 222°, and then we canned it. It turned out really thick this time, much thicker than the jam I made in 2008. I think it’ll be OK, though; the scrapings at the bottom of the pan that didn’t fit in the jars (pictured below) were delicious and nicely textured.

Here are two finished jars. We ended up with 12 cups of jam, which is consistent with my suspicion that I cooked the jam down a bit more this time. (Last time I got 6 cups of jam from 6 cups of berries.)

Meanwhile, we made some bread and butter pickles from some cheap little pickling cucumbers I found at the market yesterday. We got six pints of these. I should have photographed the process because the pre-canning pile of cucumbers and spices was quite pretty, but you’ll have to imagine it.

After the canning was done, we relaxed with vegetables, bread, peanut butter, and the debut episode of The French Chef with Julia Child (boeuf bourguignon). Joel and Marie had brought an adorable plum and apple pie and some Earl Grey ice cream from Molly Moons, so we had a huge and delicious dessert too.

I stole this picture of the pie from Marie:

We have tentative plans for one more pickling extravaganza in the near future. Maybe dill pickles?

I wanted to mention a bunch of things, but none of them are very big. So I figured it would be appropriate to combine them in a single post like this.

A few days ago we made a REALLY DELICIOUS stir-fry of eggplant and shrimp for dinner. We meant to get these awesome little Oregon shrimp but the store was out of them, so Toby chose a small package of giant, beautiful gulf shrimp. We chopped them up and they were perfect in the dish.

Then yesterday we went to the market and bought two melons. We have already eaten the striped one on the right and wow, it was the best melon either of us had ever devoured. Yum! After a disappointing cantaloupe experience (smelled great, tasted boring) earlier this week, we were relieved. I hold out hope for the cantaloupe in this picture, which we have not cut into yet. Why must melons be so inscrutable?

Also, pear season has begun! Here’s what was available. More will come later.

The orchid protuberance (definitely a root) continues to grow. Soon its tip will be covered by the planting material and I won’t be able to monitor its progress so closely. Incidentally, I have no idea why the root has that weird white stripe.

We also made dilly beans! Seven pints of them, to be exact. Now everything in the fridge smells faintly (or not-so-faintly) of dill.

Finally, we ate the best dinner ever last night: pasta with pesto and clams! It was outrageously delicious. I could barely stop eating it, and then I had the rest of it for breakfast this morning. We will definitely be making this one again. Every time I eat clams, I love them a little more.

Clams simmering in tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil:

The finished product:

Next time… blackberry jam and cucumber pickles!

On Monday we tagged along with Marie, Joel, James, and Alex on an awesome hike in the Cascades. We started at about 2800 feet and maybe made it up to about 5000 feet. It’s hard to say for sure because I don’t know exactly how far we were from the top!

The hike was about three hours up and three hours down. The first half of the uphill was a series of very steep, very slippery switchbacks up a hill full of pine trees. (The needles caused the slipperiness.) I definitely found this part of the hike to be the most difficult, both going up and going down.

But then all of a sudden the view opened up, and it was quite stunning!

We crossed a little creek, just downstream from a gorgeous waterfall.

We kept climbing up and up. Then, all of a sudden, there were little piles of snow and black rocky peaks everywhere.

We stopped to rest and eat at what we thought was the lake at the top, but actually there turned out to be a higher lake (or so someone told us). We didn’t care, since all we wanted at this point was to sit down and stuff ourselves with peanuts, cashews, dried cranberries, bread, crackers, hummus, cheese, chocolate, and olives for about 45 minutes straight, and then nap on the rocks for another 45 minutes.

Joel and Marie brought their dog Henry, who had the best day ever on this hike. You can see him wading in the frozen lake:

Then we turned around and headed down. The light had changed, so everything looked different. I mostly looked down as I hiked, though, because I was constantly worried about twisting or breaking my ankles. (Neither happened, but only because I have ankles of steel. I did keep stepping on them weirdly and causing them to roll in unnatural ways, but I was uninjured.)

The last part of the hike — going down the slippery switchbacks — was rather brutal for me. I had to step gingerly down, because my shoes had no traction and I didn’t want to fall. I finally made it down and was very relieved. Then my calves ached for four days. I could barely descend a stairway on Tuesday! By now, five days later, they finally feel almost normal.

Even though I am no good at hiking downhill, I still had a great time. I would love to do a hike like this again.

On Sunday we visited the Ballard farmers market to purchase another 20-lb box of peaches. Our supplier, by the way, is Collins Family Orchards, who sell by far the best stone fruit available at the markets. (Their Bartlett pears are also incredible, but those come later.) Joel, Marie, James, and Lisa met us there. Then we all went back to Toby’s and my place for a canning adventure. Joel and Marie and James had picked a giant sack of apples a couple days before, and they brought those along with a nifty apple peeling/coring device.

Marie had read about peach butter on the blog Smitten Kitchen, and we decided it would be a perfect thing to make. So we did. Twenty pounds of peaches was too much for our pots, so we had to make two batches.

In the photo below, the top batch had cooked for a long time already and the bottom batch was just getting started

Marie heroically cored and peeled about ten pounds of little apples. The peeler left us with a big pile of apple skin ribbons. I wove a few of them together into a little square, which you can see at the top of the pile:

At the end of the day, we had this:

All in all, we got 18.5 cups of peach butter and 8.5 pints of applesauce. Not bad for an afternoon!

We bought a twenty-pound box of incredibly delicious peaches on Wednesday, and we figured it would be nice to enjoy them in the winter too. So on Saturday we canned eight pounds of them in vanilla syrup.

Our recipe was from this amazing book, which Toby bought on a whim last year:

We scored, peeled, and sliced the peaches, and then we soaked them in vinegary water so they wouldn’t turn brown.

We made a light syrup and sliced open two vanilla beans.

Then we put the peaches and vanilla bean pieces in the jars, filled them with syrup, and processed them. One failed to seal, which was sad, but then I made a peach cobbler out of it. Yum! In the end we had three quarts and one pint of canned peaches, and we will be very happy when we open them in March.

When we got back to Seattle on Tuesday, our plants were in fine shape. They offered us a small bounty of incredibly delicious tomatoes for immediate enjoyment, with several more on the way.

I yanked out the blackening new orchid leaf before we left, because I was worried it had a disease that would affect the whole plant. No leaf in its place yet, but there is a weird green thing growing off the base of the plant! Is it a root or a flower spike? (My guess: root, because it has barely any of those these days and could really use some more.)

Finally, our little pink-flowered plant is fully in bloom!