On Saturday, join The Bite Cooks! outdoors on the Fisher Pavilion Rooftop! And what better way to celebrate than with delicious prizes? Each hour of the Bite Cooks!, host Chef Thierry Rautureau will give away a gift card from a Seattle-area restaurant. And even if you don’t win a gift card, all the delicious recipes will be available for you to take and recreate at home.

Swirl, sip and savor almost 40 wines at Wine & Jazz at the Bite. Purchase a tasting package or buy a bottle (or two) to take home. Plus, the Bite will be pouring local craft beers. Stop by any of the beer gardens and enjoy tasty brews from Diamond Knot Craft Brewing, Emerald City Beer Company, Skagit River Brewery, Fremont Brewing Company, Harmon Brewery & Restaurant and Dick’s Brewing Co. Special happy hour pricing from 11:00am – 2:00pm every day of the Bite, too.

Of course there are also over 50 Seattle area restaurants and over 30 food product companies participating in the event. The Alley, hosted by local Chef and restauranteur Tom Douglas, benefits Food Lifeline. You can enjoy tastes from both iconic Seattle restaurants and exciting up-and-comers and give back to the community, all at the same time! You’ll receive a multi-course meal of tastes from a selection of the area’s best restaurants. Proceeds benefit Food Lifeline, the local hunger relief organization efficiently serving the Western Washington area by using 95% of revenue to directly feed hungry people. Tickets to The Alley are $10/person.

Getting to the Seattle Center:

On Saturday and Sunday for the Bite, Metro Transit will operate direct shuttles between downtown Seattle from the bus stop northbound on 3rd Avenue at Pike Street. It will stop at the Seattle Center on 5th Avenue North near Broad Street. When leaving the Seattle Center, the shuttles will board at the stop southbound on 5th Avenue North near Broad Street. These will be the only stops. The shuttles will operate every 10 minutes from 10:45am to 9:30pm on Saturday, and 10:45am to 8:30pm on Sunday. Fares are $2.25 per person.

If you want to cycle your way to the Bite, Seattle Center has bike racks to lock and park your bikes during the event.

Cost for parking is $15/vehicle.

For more information, check out the Bite of Seattle website at http://www.comcastbiteofseattle.com.

Seattle Center is located at:
305 Harrison Street
Seattle, WA 98109

On Saturday, join The Bite Cooks! outdoors on the Fisher Pavilion Rooftop! And what better way to celebrate than with delicious prizes? Each hour of the Bite Cooks!, host Chef Thierry Rautureau will give away a gift card from a Seattle-area restaurant. And even if you don’t win a gift card, all the delicious recipes will be available for you to take and recreate at home.

This year, the Bite has partnered with The Hope Heart Institute for the Hope Heart Right Bite competition, in which all participating restaurants at the Bite are being challenged to create a healthy option at every booth. The Hope Heart Institute is a non-profit organization based in Bellevue that focuses on cardiovascular health promotion and disease prevention, as well as community outreach and research. Hope Heart Right Bite dishes will be judged in a separate category, and one restaurant will receive the prestigious award of “Best Right Bite.”

Swirl, sip and savor almost 40 wines at Wine & Jazz at the Bite. Purchase a tasting package or buy a bottle (or two) to take home. Plus, the Bite will be pouring local craft beers. Stop by any of the beer gardens and enjoy tasty brews from Diamond Knot Craft Brewing, Emerald City Beer Company, Skagit River Brewery, Fremont Brewing Company, Harmon Brewery & Restaurant and Dick’s Brewing Co. Special happy hour pricing from 11:00am – 2:00pm every day of the Bite, too.

Of course there are also over 50 Seattle area restaurants and over 30 food product companies participating in the event. The Alley, hosted by local Chef and restauranteur Tom Douglas, benefits Food Lifeline. You can enjoy tastes from both iconic Seattle restaurants and exciting up-and-comers and give back to the community, all at the same time! You’ll receive a multi-course meal of tastes from a selection of the area’s best restaurants. Proceeds benefit Food Lifeline, the local hunger relief organization efficiently serving the Western Washington area by using 95% of revenue to directly feed hungry people. Tickets to The Alley are $10/person.

Getting to the Seattle Center:

On Saturday and Sunday for the Bite, Metro Transit will operate direct shuttles between downtown Seattle from the bus stop northbound on 3rd Avenue at Pike Street. It will stop at the Seattle Center on 5th Avenue North near Broad Street. When leaving the Seattle Center, the shuttles will board at the stop southbound on 5th Avenue North near Broad Street. These will be the only stops. The shuttles will operate every 10 minutes from 10:45am to 9:30pm on Saturday, and 10:45am to 8:30pm on Sunday. Fares are $2.25 per person.

If you want to cycle your way to the Bite, Seattle Center has bike racks to lock and park your bikes during the event.

Cost for parking is $15/vehicle.

For more information, check out the Bite of Seattle website at http://www.comcastbiteofseattle.com.

Seattle Center is located at:
305 Harrison Street
Seattle, WA 98109

At the centre of Palace Kitchen is the bar, and two dining rooms are to its left and right. Window panes slide open for fresh air on warm nights and natural light filters in on long summer days.

A jewel toned goblet of strawberry lemonade was garnished with a lemon twist. A second beverage of sour cherry fizz was tart and minty.

Shirley and I shared three courses. First was ‘plin’, a Piedmontese style ravioli, filled with roast pork and chard. The pinched pasta were in a puddle of sage and parmesan butter. I spooned the fragrant sauce over each of the cute al dente morsels. Next time I’ll order a side of bread to mop the plate!

Palace Kitchen is famed for their applewood grill. The chicken wings were golden and sticky, laced with an intense smokiness. A sea foamed coloured coriander cream tempered the succulent poultry.

A vibrate mound of lettuce was studded with spicy garbanzo beans, fava beans, chopped boiled egg, drizzled with herbed dressing, and dotted with sliced radish. It was a healthful salad, spicy and crunchy.

Our second salad was compliments of Chef Dezi. Fava beans from Prosser Farm were grilled and tossed with ‘extra virgin’ (first press) fish sauce, ricotta salata, mint, radish greens and marinated peppers. The charred pods of tender beans were exquisite, a luscious contrast to the peppery greens.

An oval dish of silky orange blossom panna cotta was topped with seasonal strawberries and a brittle pistachio wafer.

Tiered discs of malted chocolate milk cake and cream were paired with shards of cocoa rice crispies and a quenelle of chocolate crémeux. A decadent treat, this was malty, chocolaty, and redolent of Milo and chocolate crackles.

I shall not wait another seventeen months before I dine at Palace Kitchen again!

Tom Douglas’ Serious Biscuit is just as divine as the name:)  Seriously…how can you really go wrong when everything on the menu revolves around a buttery and flaky biscuit?!  My first time there I ordered the Fried Green Tomato Biscuit which included a fried egg, bacon and remoulade.  Absolutely delicious in every way!  The fried tomato gave it a nice crunch all the while being nice and juicy inside, the bacon…well…the bacon was just awesome, the fried egg is what should be on top of everything in my opinion and last but not least the remoulade added a great kick of flavor to the whole thing.  Awesome!  I would get this again.

My husband went for exactly what I thought he would…”The Zach” – fried chicken, gravy, an egg and bacon all on a biscuit.  I think that’s everyone’s hangover dream:)  And in this case my husband wasn’t hungover so it was just pure bliss on a normal midday afternoon.

My second time there I decided to go for a “healthier” option and ordered the Fried Chicken Chop Salad. Perfect!  There was just the right amount of fried chicken on top of the freshest salad.  There were radishes, carrots and tasty feta cheese in there too.  And don’t forget about the biscuit that came on the side.  Of course I nibbled on it:)

There’s nothing too “light” about this place but you won’t regret going there and guaranteed you’ll be back soon after.

A dear colleague shared correspondence with me which asks a group of people on a committee for an architectural exhibit to share their thoughts on the theme of the future/primitive in architecture:

“As we have progressed with our theme of Future/Primitive I have begun research into the ideas that are important to the planning committee for this year’s exhibit. As I have done some reading into contemporary thinking around the word “primitive” as used in the architectural field I have found that the use of the word is quite contentious – as it is in other fields of anthropology and cultural studies. I will provide a link to a book I was reading from and I think that the issues I am referring to are clear in the introduction, which is quite short. Would some of you be willing to read it as well and let me know your thoughts?”

Of course, don’t ask me what I think:

I like the passage in the introduction “…architects continue to use the word [primitive] to mythologize and reify the practice of simplicity.” Which also makes me think of authenticity, both the cultural/ephemeral and the material/tectonic…

Hailing from the South, where hushpuppies come free of charge (like chips and salsa do at their “Mexican” restaurant counterparts), I think of Tom Douglas’ foray into another brand of authenticity with his Brave Horse Tavern ca. 2011 in the middle of the new car smell of South Lake Union (see also Local 360, where the only thing local about the idea of grits as a side dish is paying $3.50 for it, which at that price should be called polenta)…

Brave Horse, invoking images like this:

And serving familiar food like this:

Fried chicken? Macaroni salad? Watermelon?

The design response to authenticity may be romance, even nostalgia for the future/primitive, machines we can look at and understand, the opposite of say the iPod ‘back in the day’, if you can recall your own first impression/fascination with the simplicity of it and its iterations, but also your frustration with how something as simple as changing its battery was no longer in your domain, among other things.

At the architectural scale, Tom Kundig’s kinetic architecture may be a response/celebration of machines we can look at and understand and that somehow speak to an authenticity, a transparency about how things work, and beyond, how we live and interact and view the built environment and the world around us vs. say the iPod-class of buildings:

This popular sentiment, to which Sweets Catalog can attest, see their recent product design feature, Practice Makes Products.

Is this new/old aesthetic the primitivization of building products and buildings, the modern analogy to the English Arts & Crafts Movement’s response to the Industrial Revolution?

Perhaps Douglas and Kundig’s is a response or some antidote to the present day revolution already upon us, the Information Age. The future already looks like this:

In the statement accompanying the World Architecture Festival Building of the Year, 2011: “The Industrial Revolution and now the Digital Revolution. Today, in the information age, architecture is a technology platform that consists of computer system connections and new materials. This project has been commissioned by The Consortium of the Zona Franca CZFB and 22 @ of Barcelona. 22@ is an experimental district with a powerful, distributed and accessible, energy load. Part of the Districlima network, where new business values are intangible. We were extremely interested in this digital city model based on ICT (information and communication technology), with the idea of a city where what matters is knowledge, added value and patents, in short, where the objective is for your architecture to be in sync with your own values…”

How can/does the primitive persist in the Information Age? Into that “experimental district with a powerful, distributed and accessible, energy load” ie. eco districts? Or among the Amazonians of South Lake Union?

There must be something about the primitive which represents our longing for authenticity, simplicity, continuity, provenance if not permanence. A memory-grounded anti-Information Age statement via hand-cranked windows and fried chicken, where the currency of information, open-source, virtual social networks and concepts as ephemeral as The Cloud, are held at bay, or in contrast to the dominant paradigm of the day.

If not still fried chicken, what will be the future’s go-to ‘comfort food’? Will we define Kundig as someday charming, quaint, the Delta Shelter making the cover of American Bungalow?

The character “Mater” from the Disney movie Cars, comes to mind. Popular, CORTEN after all, capitalizing on hushpuppies and grits, and a bit of the American nostalgia for a bygone era where people changed their own oil, their own flat, and tinkering on cars was a pastime. And so on…

Is it not that the future/primitive for any generation is an attempt at authenticity when authenticity seems all but lost and some bygone era, a ‘Golden Age’ ala Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011), gives us hope, respite and perspective, eventually re-grounding us so that we might yet make that next bold step more confidently in the direction of one’s dreams?

I like this trend.

I don’t want to spend 45 minutes trying to figure out a menu and decide what to eat, only to find that whatever I have chosen is mediocre.

I love seeing a menu with just a few, well thought-out choices made with quality ingredients — including some vegetarian choices.

After my recent visit to Seattle, I’m happy to report that this was most certainly the case.

So here are some highlights from the visit:

Serious Pie: Most of my stops on the trip were at Tom Douglas establishments – not that I planned things that way; he just has a lot of restaurants in Seattle, and they’re good ones. You don’t get the James Beard Award for Best Restaurateur for nothing. Serious Pie does pizza: lovely, thin-crust pizza with simple yet interesting toppings. I went for the Arugula, Feta and Spring Onion pizza because it was one of two veggie options.

Serious Biscuit: This is the morning-time incarnation of Serious Pie. It features really, really awesome biscuits topped with all sorts of delectable things. I had to mix and match a bit to get something vegetarian, but was met with an upbeat “Absolutely” when I asked to make changes. I ended up with Fried Green Tomato, Apple Mustard, Beecher’s Flagship Cheese, and Fried Egg. Just thinking about it makes me want to weep.

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Brave Horse Tavern: The thing with Tom Douglas restaurants is that you’re never more than a stone’s throw from one, especially in South Lake Union. We ended up at the Brave Horse to watch a soccer game and returned later because we HAD to try the pretzels. Two freshly baked soft pretzels with pimento cheese, sour cream and crispy onion, and peanut butter and bacon dipping sauces. The PB was all Carla, who is vegetarian “lite” when we travel.

Lola: I didn’t even know this was Tom Douglas until moments ago. Seriously, he’s hard to avoid. Now, Lola was a little tough for a vegetarian. Carla and I split an (ahem) overpriced plate of eggs, toast, potatoes and sausage. I think the sausage may have been the star — all Carla again. But we also shared some lovely house-made donuts shaken with sugar and served with vanilla mascarpone and strawberry jam. Super awesome.

Cure: This a new-ish little place on Capital Hill. As the name implies, they serve cured meats and cheeses with breads and some fun complements ranging from olives to anchovies to spicy pepper jelly. I loved Cure. Aside from the fact that it is owned by my friends Eric and Amy, the restaurant is small and friendly with simple, clean, modern design, lots of windows and a patio. The menu is interesting without being overwhelming, and while I can’t speak for the meat, the cheeses I tried were YUM. I have to say, though, that it was the Manhattan that really got me here. It was the best one I’ve had, hands down.

Portage Bay Café: Seriously? The Portage Bay Café might just make me move back to Seattle for their Oven Baked French Toast: homemade bread soaked overnight in a ginger and blackberry custard; baked, sliced, and griddled; then served with vanilla crème anglaise. Plus it includes a trip to the toppings bar for fresh fruit, syrup, whipped cream, and nuts. Need I say more? We’re already plotting an attempt to duplicate this at home.

For more on my visit to Seattle, go to Composing Kitchen.

Beer.  Happy Hour.  Seattle.  Is there anything better?  It actually gets better when you throw Tom Douglas in the mix.  Not only are his restaurants innovative, beautiful and friendly, they are all about local food and beverage.  Oh, and he understands the importance of a good happy hour.  I headed to Palace Kitchen for my beer of the week this week.

Palace Kitchen is in Downtown Seattle, easy to get to, bright and beautiful, and offers an amazing happy hour.  We sat at the bar, where they have glasses of fresh shelled pistachios!  Yum.  I ordered a beer from Seattle based Odin Brewing Company.  It was called Odin Ruby Ale, but according to some websites it’s now being called Odin’s Gift.  No matter the name, I like it.  The taste is much different than many other beers I’ve had as of late.  There are some amazing scents coming off this beer.  The taste is hops, caramel, sweet and unknown!  Lots going on in this well carbonated super tasty beer.

At 5.4% it packs exactly the right punch for happy hour.  I enjoyed a few of these at Palace Kitchen.

In addition to pistachios, we ordered real cod fish and chips, wood grilled chicken wings, olive oil marinated tuna and cheese fries.  All of the food was excellent, and the price is right.  We’ll be back for more tasty snacks and tasty local beers.  Maybe next time Matt will be more adventurous and try something other than a Rainier!

Our home in Sydney had a small L shaped garden in the courtyard. The previous owners had planted tropical specimens that were coarse and prickly and it took many hours to dig out all the roots. We replaced the grotesque fluorescent plants with evergreen hedges and Japanese maple trees.

We had terracotta pots of herbs and vegetables which yielded produce sporadically. We had a stubborn lettuce that was determined to grow up so all we had were stalks and no leaves. The singular chilli we patiently cultivated was pecked at and spat out by a bird. But we did have an abundance of basil. My only gardening skill is watering. I was excellent at that!

It is ironic that I cannot garden but I’m interested in learning about farming. Last week Dev Patel returned from Prosser Farm for an evening at Dahlia Workshop to showcase seasonal harvests.

Kimberly and I chatted in an empty Serious Biscuit prior to class, recently rebranded to reflect its menu.

The workshop is the bakery for all the Tom Douglas restaurants. Serious Pie Westlake is on the mezzanine level with a view over the commercial kitchen.

We were greeted with a rhubarb lemonade in a mason jar. Macerated rhubarb was strained and mixed with lemonade, a refreshingly tart beverage.

Our snacks were courtesy of Serious Pie. Buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce and fresh basil, and Penn Cove clams, pancetta and lemon thyme pizzas sated our hunger.

A stack of recipe cards were tied in a bow.

A cardboard tray of Prosser Farm vegetables had asparagus, oregano, Chinese cabbage and mustard green seedlings.

We gathered around Dev as he and chatted chatted with us about farming in Prosser.

We tasted a trio of greens. Clockwise from top: baby mustard greens, mustard greens and Chinese cabbage. The peppery red mustard greens contrasted with the grassy green variety.

An orange coriander vinaigrette was in a spray bottle. A spritz of the citrusy dressing on the red mustard green leaves alleviated the spiciness.

Dev peeled stalks of rhubarb with a paring knife which he reserved for colouring. The yoghurt and asparagus are from their neighbours. There are no asparagus on Prosser Farm as it requires space and takes three to four years for the crops to develop. The sheep milk yoghurt is from Mercer Sheep.

Thick and creamy, the piquant yoghurt balanced the mellow sweetness of the poached rhubarb. Tossed with crunchy asparagus spears, crisp green leaves and slivered almonds, it was a unique salad.

Dev foraged a handful of devil’s club for us to nibble on. There were murmurs as we considered the flavour. It was herbal, like juniper berries in gin. These can be eaten raw in salads or pickled.

Green garlic is straight and garlic scapes are curved. The former is young garlic and the latter are the stalks of garlic. Both have mild, dulcet notes that differentiate them from the pungency of garlic cloves.

These curious curls are fiddlehead ferns. The fronds have to be carefully cleaned, and can be blanched or seared.

We were surprised with chorizo made by former Harvest Vine chef Joseba Jimenez and they were smoky paprika morsels.

Dev explained that hard boiled just laid eggs are difficult to peel. The egg whites thicken after three days.

Coddled in 145 °F water for 35 minutes, the glossy eggs were gently cracked into individual bowls and briefly warmed.

Dev sautéed kale and green garlic, and spinach was wilted in stock.

The greens were puréed.

And simmered with brown butter, and cooled in an ice bath.

Mushroom slides and A ladle of green garlic broth were topped with a coddled egg. Luscious and healthy, the broth was the definition of spring.

Currently Prosser Farm is supplying 300 pounds of food to the Tom Douglas restaurants per week. It will peak at 1000 pounds in summer. There are quince, fig and peach trees on the property. Last year the restaurants did not have to purchase any tomatoes and only had to supplement lettuces. Next will be eggplant and peppers.

Dev answered all our questions with aplomb and recommended rhubarb leaves as rain shields!

Yesterday was just one of those really great Sundays. I grabbed breakfast with my good friend at Serious Biscuit here in Seattle. Then we just cruised the city shopping, well, he shopped I just tagged along. Then had happy hour at a local restaurant. It was a fun day. I was thinking, on a day like this, what do you typically wear? Well I wore something similar to this.

I didn’t get photos of me yesterday but this outfit is similar to what I wore yesterday. The cardigan I wore is actually a dark gray and black strip. I got it at target maybe last year. My sunglasses are actually from H&M. I ADORE sunglasses but I go through them and I constantly just toss them in my bag and the lenses get scratched up so I figure just spend a little money on certain things. I obviously don’t own this Dior bag, I wish I did but I don’t. I was just trying to find something similar. I kept my hair up in a high bun too to keep with the casualness of this look. This is not the most amazing outfit I know, but it is comfortable and I felt good for a kicked back Sunday.

The first stop was Serious Biscuit. If your ever in Seattle definitely try the Tom Douglas Restaurants and this place is great for a yummy breakfast. He has several locations in Seattle including Dahlia Lounge, Palace Kitchen, Serious Pie and several other spots. Serious Biscuit is home-made biscuits and my favorite is the Fried Green Tomato so good.

{The actual sweater hehe }

*NOTE*  The 1st 5 photos taken by my good friend  at http://www.peoplewithagendas.com

]]> http://mykindofcountry.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/review-marty-stuart-country-music/ Mon, 28 May 2012 13:00:21 +0000 Occasional Hope http://mykindofcountry.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/review-marty-stuart-country-music/ http://fireeyesphotography.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/tom-douglas-presented-an-award-by-dow-constantine-and-the-seattle-convention-visitors-bureau/ Fri, 25 May 2012 17:48:27 +0000 Trishann Couvillion http://fireeyesphotography.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/tom-douglas-presented-an-award-by-dow-constantine-and-the-seattle-convention-visitors-bureau/ On Thursday at Tom Douglas’s Palace Ballroom, Dow Constantine arrived at to Seattle Convention & Visitors Bureau’s (SCVB) monthly board meeting, also on behalf of Tom Norwalk, CEO of the SCVB, to not only celebrate local Restauranteur Tom Douglas, but to also proclaim June 1^st as “Tom Douglas Day” in King County.

© Fire Eyes Photography 2012 ~ Tom Douglas & Dow Constantine

Tom Douglas is devoted to Seattle and his commitment is shown in all 12 restaurants he owns throughout the city’s most coveted areas. He also makes his love of the area known with the local, sustainable ingredients he uses in his restaurants and with every book he writes. He and his business partner wife, Jackie Cross, also own and run Prosser Farm. This ensures tons of fresh local produce heads straight to his restaurants and the delectable menus that Douglas is renowned for.

© Fire Eyes Photography 2012 ~ Restauranteur Tom Douglas

© Fire Eyes Photography 2012

The SCVB got it right when they dubbed Douglas “a local gem.” All that Douglas has done to shape the culinary landscape of Seattle has definitely put the city on the map as a “dining destination.” It’s great to have local entrepreneurs who are passionate, inventive, and supportive of Seattle. It’s inspiring and makes it feel as though Seattle really is a small, connected town. Make sure to follow Tom Douglas on Facebook and Twitter at @TomDouglasCo!

© Fire Eyes Photography 2012

~By Trishann Couvillion of Fire Eyes Photography (@fire_eyes)

]]> http://kitchenandegg.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/the-man-from-the-west/ Sat, 12 May 2012 19:29:01 +0000 bettyjrex http://kitchenandegg.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/the-man-from-the-west/ Phew! Busy night last night. I know because I didn’t get a chance to go to the bathroom for about 8 hours =_=;;;

Ruth worked Station 2 and she did a great job, though there were a couple glitches, not really her fault. For my part, I made a terrible mistake and sold a whole fish somewhere else, and it resulted in someone else waiting half an hour for theirs. Urgh… I’m so sorry >_<
The wave of diners came in a pattern that made Ruth nervous. It was a flurry of tickets and then the board would clear just before the turn. Usually that means another wave of tickets will be coming…. Whether it did or not I really can't remember though I probably just forced myself to forget to deal with the onslaught.

Working the chef's table was a little rough tonight for a while (that whole fish incident not really helping) because we changed the old chitarra dish to a new one more fitting for the spring. It's orchiette with ramps, chicken & liver sausage, fava beans and verjus. It's really tasty, though I'm still fiddling with the taste. It should be light and rich at the same time, and I'm still fumbling around. I'll get it….
It was pretty popular for a good part of the dinner hour and then I feel like when we were at our busiest, I didn't really sell much pasta (not that I'm complaining). I know at least one server (Marcus) who was definitely doing his best to sell the pasta though. Thank you!

Since it was Friday, I was counting on people not to order foie gras, but I was wrong. Grr… cooking foie is not a favorite activity of mine. I feel this pressure all the time not to overcook it, and of course the pressure should be there; it's a really expensive piece of protein. One lobe that weighs a little over a pound and three-quarters costs $150.

Chef Tom Douglas came in tonight and to my dismay, he ordered a quarter piece of foie. I shouldn't hold it against him since he's rolling in the dough and he's a chef and he probably had a hankering for foie, but when it's super busy and the onslaught is going on, the last thing I want to do is cook foie gras. Oh well. I cooked it. I ended up selling the other half that night too.
Anyway: Tom Douglas! I don't know why I find it so weird that he was here that night. Maybe because he was sitting at seat 74 at the bar. It's the next closest seat to station 3 (chef's table is right in front of me), so I could see him so clearly. That might've been it. Or it could be that I'm considering trying to work in one of his restaurants when I move to Seattle (since he has like a bajillion) and having a potential future employer (who doesn't know you by the way) sit so closely and being able to see you work makes you a little self-conscious.

Nothing else of note. Theo worked 1 at the beginning of service and had to be bailed out later on by Fred. Armanzo was expo. Armanzo's dad and his wife came in to eat earlier that day and they loved everything and left us a $5 tip. Hey, every little bit counts! Yay money! Later that night, this woman at the chef's table saw me prepping out the foie, and she kept pronouncing it as "foie gwah" which made me wince ever so slightly. It reminded me of the time I worked at my dad's chinese takeout and some regular kept calling bok choy "boy chuk" no matter how many times I'd gently correct her. Oh well.

Back on 3 tonight with the same lineup (Ruth-2, Theo/Fred-1, Armanzo-expo, Elliot opening). Hopefully it'll be fun times and I get to go to the bathroom more than once :/

These pancakes are great as a side dish paired with a salad or, as I’ve discovered, a quick and unusual light dinner entrée. 

Four servings…two pancakes:

• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 4 8-inch flour tortillas
• 2 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
• 1/3 C finely chopped green onions or scallions, white and green parts
• 1 T peanut or vegetable oil, plus more as needed

In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg with the sesame oil.  Brush each tortilla with the egg mixture and then sprinkle two of the tortillas with the sesame seeds and green onions.  Place one of the plain tortillas over each of the sprinkled tortillas and sandwich them together, pressing down to seal, forming two whole pancakes.

Heat the peanut or vegetable oil in a saute pan over medium heat.  When hot, add a pancake to the pan and cook until lightly browned on both sides, about 2 minutes per side.  Repeat with remaining pancakes using more oil if needed.

Cut each pancake into 6 wedges and divide them amongst serving plates.

Fivenineteen notes:  I’ve sautéed these over both olive oil (when I couldn’t find peanut oil) and with peanut oil, and the peanut oil does make a difference with the flavor.  So track it down if you can.

The Palace Ballroom is located at:
2100 5th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121
206.299.1713
http://www.tomdouglas.com
http://www.houseoffashionseattle.com

Tickets are available online HERE.