Tilth

Beginning on Thursday, I've been wined and dined by my loved ones - Bamboo Sushi with dad on Thursday, Tilth with Phil on Saturday, Volunteer Park Cafe with Phil, Katie and Jason on Sunday, and Nostrana with mom on Monday! I don't believe there's anything I love more in life than my family and friends combined with rich, tasty foods and my camera. Since I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to eat at such scrumptious places (when I'm not laboring over my own stove), I figured I should be jotting down my memories for friends, family, and future reference. I'll get to all of them eventually, but today I'm beginning with Tilth.

I'd been on the train for 3.5 hours when Phil picked me up on Friday evening. We hopped online to see who had openings and what sounded good, and quickly agreed on Tilth, as we'd both been itching to get over there.

Located in Wallingford, a lively neighborhood adjacent to the University District in Seattle, Tilth boasts the claim to fame of having been the second restaurant to ever become Oregon Tilth certified. How fitting. The restaurant is in a tastefully renovated craftsman house, with an enclosed sunroom which sort of makes you feel like you're coming home as you step into the entrance. The space is small, and the staff to table ratio seemed unusually high - but in a really good way.

We started our meal off with some pink bubbly and some scrumptious hors d'oeuvres.....

Phil ordered the salmon and I ordered the ricotta dumpling with lardon. Yum YUM. The portions were the perfect size for having started with an appetizer and ending with a cheese plate (and chocolate deserty thing for Phil). We were able to take our time, and savor each dish without getting too full. I can't WAIT to go back.

Tilth on Urbanspoon

Phil's in Seattle

As a lot of you already know, Phil moved to Seattle a few weeks ago to work for Urbanspoon. This is quite exciting for all sorts of reasons, but I am selfishly mostly excited about the fact that he's closer in mileage and therefore we get to spend significantly more time together. He moved into a cool rental house with a lot of weird features including 1) a warm water dog bath in the basement; 2) tons of windows in every room and not a single curtain or shade; 3) pine flooring; 4) cork walls in one room; 5) a sink that has a regular faucet, and also a "pot filler" that is extra tall and can run at full water pressure while the other faucet is being used; and 6) fruiting shaggy mane mushrooms in the driveway. In case you couldn't tell, I really like Phil's house. I like Seattle too. I'd never been to Seattle before he moved there, and oddly enough, now Josh and I are both spending a lot of time there together as well. (Phil and Josh and Ava went to see the new Matchstick Productions film, and of course Josh dressed up as Saucerboy.)

Last weekend while walking around in a city park, Phil and I found what says is his most favorite mushroom of all. Seems like the perfect combination of rain and sunshine, and temperature this year. We've been finding a lot of mushrooms every weekend, whether we're trying to or not!

Phil with shaggy parasols

Chanterelles from two weekends ago

New stuff all over again....

Well well well... It's been a long time again, and boy do I have a lot to report. Not going to go into a lot of detail, because I want to get back to posting some beautiful pictures of edibles. I quit my job at WebMD (finally!) am happily employed as a Research Assistant now at Oregon Health & Science University. Woot. Pretty excited to be back in research, and also doing research that is now more related to what I went to school for.

Last night, Grandma Davis went out in the rain and cold and started picking concord grapes in the driveway before I came over for dinner. By the time I got there, she had gotten about ten pounds already done, if not more. I added a bit more to it, and now I have tons of grapes to do god knows what with.... Between Grandma and mom, and I, we decided I'm going to make grape juice and can it. So that involved me bringing grandmas canner home too. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tofu Snacks

This is one of my favorite snacks - so much so, that I sometimes just eat a bowl of them with a salad for dinner or lunch. I've tried over a dozen different brands of tofu, and I've tried freezing it vs. not freezing it, and so on...

I've found this comes out the most favorable in terms of texture, and flavor absorbtion using Wildwood, extra firm, no water packed tofu. They carry it at Fred Meyer and New Seasons regularly now. Put the tofu in the freezer till frozen all the way through, then thaw it back out in the fridge over a couple of days, or on the counter if using immediately.

After freezing and thawing, firm tofu takes on a spongier texture that lets you squeeze all the water out, then it reabsorbs juices much better, and bakes into a more firm final texture. After freezing and thawing, follow the below recipe to make these nummy snacks.

Baked Tofu Snacks

• 1 pound extra firm tofu, water pressed out, frozen and thawed.
• 2 tbls extra virgin olive oil
• Bragg's Liquid Aminos to taste (about 1 tbls)
• 2 tbls nutritional yeast flakes
• 1 tbls garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400F. Dice the tofu into large, 1/2" squares and place in a medium mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss well until tofu is evenly coated. Add more Bragg's to taste. Spread cubes onto an ungreased cookie sheet and place on medium rack for 10 minutes. Flip cubes, and bake for additional 12-15 minutes until tofu is golden and crisp on the outside. Middle should be spongy, but not crispy. Dip in something spicy, goddess dressing, or enjoy plain! Can be refrigerated up to 3-5 days to nom later.

Random Food Pic

Breakfast Bagel. Yum.

Phil actually put this together. We went over to his mom's garden and took the tomato, bought the sheep cheese from New Seasons, I grew the basil, and it's a Kettleman's bagel. The colors looked really great in the natural light and he said, "I can't believe you're not shooting this..." to which I responded, "DON'T EAT IT!" and went to grab my camera.

Cycletrack

Bee Allergy

Photos clockwise from top, left: Josh at Ozone, honey bee outside my house, my hand about halfway to the full size (~24 hours after sting), a cartoon of an epi-pen from http://www.epipen.com/page/how-to-use-epipen-auto-injector-index)

Last weekend Josh was passing through Oregon, heading up to Washington for his next NOLS course. We went to Ozone on Saturday, and while we were approaching the climbing area, a bee just decided to sting me. Maybe someone pissed it off, coming down the trail in front of us, but one second Josh and I were chatting, and another second, I was jumping up and down, swearing. The honey bee "left it's butt in me" as I've been telling folks, and it was a good thing Josh was there, because he directed me to "scrape" the butt out to avoid getting more of the poison in my hand. I was stung twice at Ozone when I went climbing with Ian and Graham earlier this summer. Maybe that was enough bee juice for my body this year. By the time Josh and I got home, my hand started getting big.

I took two rounds of Benadryl, made a pen mark when the swelling hit my wrist, called my insurance companies free nurse line when the swelling was a third of the way up my arm in the morning, went to see a doctor at the advice of the nurse line, took 60mg of prednisone and waited six hours, then called the nurseline again when I couldn't feel my hand anymore, and then headed for the ER when the nurse told me he wouldn't have waited that long if it were him, and I was starting to lose circulation in my hand, which was obvious from the cold fingers, and white hand. After several hours in the ER, and some humming and hawing over my ridiculously small veins that are almost impossible to get blood out of, let alone stick an IV into for such a small problem, the folks turned my arm into a real topographic map (watching for more swelling), and I waited. Then I got a cool lesson in histamine and the allergic response in the body, reminding me of those funny H2-receptors, blah blah blah - at that point I was really zoned out on Benadryl, but still really enjoying the geeky talk about why I would be taking Pepsid (an antacid) to help lessen the reaction.

Now I have to carry an epi-pen. That's the funny thing about the allergic response to an antigen like bee stings - the reaction can get worse after every exposure. This time it was my hand, and most of my arm all the way up to my elbow that swelled into a painful, red balloon. And next time, I'll have this handy dandy epi-pen around in case I get stung on my neck. Ew.

Soup in the middle of summer

I'm pretty sure the last time I made French Onion Soup from scratch was in 2006 (post) when Phil lived in Mountain View. I think it's typically made with yellow onions, but last night when I was wandering around Fred Meyer at 10pm, I saw Walla Walla's on sale for $.49/lb and decided I wanted French Onion soup today. Two Walla Walla's amount to almost three pounds of onion. I scaled it down to two pounds, and followed this recipe from epicurious.com. Three hours later, Rachel and I had dinner. My mouth was watering too much to get the proper foodie shots, and I was already nibbling the edges of the melted Gruyere, so this is all I got.