The Seattle Times: All You Can Eat

Tom Douglas teams with Obliteride: More for the cure

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:06:05 PDT

Just when you think Seattle chefs are doing all they can to help find a cure for cancer, Tom Douglas announces he's teamed up with Fred Hutch to "cook cancer's butt" during this summer's new fundraising bike event, Obliteride (read my pal Nicole Brodeur's tale of its genesis, here). Tom's catering the kick-off party at Gas Works Park, to be held for a cast of thousands Friday, August 9. Register to ride for the cause here and you'll get two free tickets to that salmon shindig.

: Tomboy, hoping to obliterate cancer by helping out at Obliteride, he'll be cooking for the cause.

Seattle chefs, 'Top Chef' Master Rick Bayless kick in for cancer

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:23:41 PDT

For the past five years, I've played "kitchen liaison" (or kitchen Lee-ee-son, as I like to say) at the Fred Hutch Premier Chefs Dinner and fundraising auction. I did it again last Sunday, hanging out with some of my favorite chefs, watching as they showed up at Sodo Park by Herban Feast and in a few short hours produced a multi-course meal for 300 generous donors, helping raise a whopping $775,000 for cancer research.

[In case you were wondering, that's Skillet's Josh Henderson with his back to the camera. Recognize the rest of those folks? That's some bigtime talent there.]

Among the donors was Top Chef Master and keynote speaker Rick Bayless, who upped the ante on live auction number 7: dinner for two at his Chicago restaurant Topolobampo (plus first-class airfare and hotel accommodations, among other goodies). But wait, there's more! -- he said, stepping up to the plate (and the mike) as hands shot in the air while he added to the package: a behind-the-scenes restaurant tour! appetizers first at his private residence! add four more guests for a party of six!

Fierce bidding ensued, making Rick's the No. 1 auction item of the night, raising $35,000.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen . . .

I kept busy introducing the culinary talent, course-by-course, via live video-feed. Like me -- and the chefs who've come before them -- they were volunteering their efforts because like you, we know a lot of people who fight cancer every day, others who've beat it, and some who've died from it.

But we also work this event because it's great fun.

The best part? I get to pick up pieces of juicy gossip, and hear things that crack me up. Like?

Well, like last year, when I told keynote speaker Ruth Reichl I'd recently scored a copy of her first cookbook (the hippie-fied now-out-of-print and eminently collectible "mmmmm: a Feastiary") for $80 at Seattle's Book Larder. She laughed, then told me she can still kick herself for not taking her mother's advice and saving a case of those old paperbacks she'd stored way-back-when -- and later jettisoned. "Those would have made me a fortune today!"

This year, I busted a gut when chef Greg Atkinson -- standing right next to Daisley Gordon -- told me that his Bainbridge Island restaurant is "the real Restaurant Marché" (which is better than busting an ankle, which I did a few years ago, on Mother's Day, forcing me to work this gig a week later in a boot-cast).

And when Daisley pulled out his phone to show me a video of his unbelievable roast chicken being stuffed and trussed at his Marché in Pike Place Market, I thought, "Man! I should have included that one in my recent roast chicken roundup." The one where I sang the praises of Jim Drohman's roast chicken-for-two.

After that story came out, said Jim (who was here offering up hors d'oeuvres with Cafe Juanita's Holly Smith and RN74's Phil Lehmann), those chickens were flying. With no walk-in storage at Le Pichet, he said, they had to make some special fridge-runs to Cafe Presse to keep up with the constant call for the birds, hot-sellers at both of his restaurants.

At the Hutch event, I also get the lowdown on restaurants not yet open, like Eric Donnelly's RockCreek, a sustainable seafood house slated for a July debut, right next door to Scott Staples' Uneeda Burger, in Fremont. And speaking of fish, and Fremont, I had a chance to tell Rachel Yang (whose cold smoked escolar went over big) how crazy I am for the Chinese-accented monkey bread she's serving at brunch at Revel. (Seriously, you've got to try it.)

I also got to talk face-to-face -- for the first time -- with great guys like Mike Robertshaw (late of Local 360, now set to cook N'awlins specialties at Mike Lewis' as-yet-unopened Restaurant Roux, in Fremont). And Hitchcock's Brendon McGill, who recently won the People's Choice Best New Chef award from Food & Wine, and had to run over to La Bete to borrow a 10-gallon stockpot for his stinging nettle and oyster soup at the last minute ("I thought the restaurant supply store would be open on Sunday!").

I also introduced myself to Belgium-born Jelle Vandenbroucke, from ART at the Four Seasons, practicing his name over-and-over for the camera: "Van-den-BROKE-ah, Van-den-BROKE-ah." "Hey! You're the chef at ART?" I asked. "What's up with the fabulous Kerry Sear?" Turns out Kerry's still hard at it -- as the hotel's director of food and beverage.

Try as I might, I could not get award-winning chef Jason Stratton, the man behind Capitol Hill's Spinasse and Artusi, to fess up and tell me where he's planting his new Spanish restaurant and bar, Aragona, set to open near Pike Place Market by early autumn. (Any guesses? The comments box awaits!) But when it does, the lovely Carrie Mashaney will be there, wearing the title chef de cuisine. "Right?" she said, poking Stratton in the ribs.

Premier Chef board members Russell Lowell and Robin Leventhal were on hand as well, making sure things went smoothly -- and indeed, they did. ("There's cold beer in the cooler!" shouted Russell, before heading back to his Bothell barn). After an evening at this event, I always feel lucky to work with such a great team of chefs, restaurateurs and wine folk who are doing what they can to give it up for cancer research. Robin agrees, for a very personal reason:

"On the one hand I am lucky, I have a low-grade form of lymphoma," she says of the cancer diagnosed years ago. "On the other hand I have a treatable, but not curable form of cancer. This means that every few years I am undergoing some form of 'maintenance' to combat its hold on my body. Because of that, I am dedicated to the Hutch for their amazing cutting-edge research to find better treatments, and hopefully, one day a cure for cancer."

Is Pike Place Market really a farmers market?

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:01:05 PDT

The Huffington Post recently named Pike Place Market one of the country’s 10 best farmers markets. It was a well-deserved honor, except for one thing: Under most guidelines, the city landmark isn’t actually a farmers market.

It’s true that the public market, which the city’s website calls “the oldest continually operating farmers market in the United States,” is a city treasure when it comes to fresh food and artisan producers. Spring officially starts for me when the first morels come to Sosio’s Produce — it’s got an enviable selection of local wild mushrooms, and an ample produce selection, period. My fridge is well-stocked with preserved lemons from Britt’s Pickles and smoked salmon from City Fish and cheeses from Mount Townsend Creamery.

“When it comes to customer service, produce quality, freshness and variety, and vendor knowledge there really is nothing in this region that compares to the Pike Place Market,” Sosio’s manager Tom Osborn wrote me earlier this year when I omitted Pike Place from a story mentioning year-round farmers markets.

But the Market’s wide variety of businesses “does not allow us to be considered a farmers market in the strictest sense,” even though farmers are its essential cornerstone, acknowledged Emily Crawford, the Market’s marketing specialist, when we talked earlier this year.

At the Market’s farm stalls, producers meet the requirements we usually associate with farmers markets — “strict requirements for growing everything they offer — whether flowers, seasonal produce, meat and poultry or value-added products,” Crawford wrote in an email. But its high stalls, the year-round produce markets, are allowed to sell produce purchased from wholesalers and from outside the region. There would be nothing wrong, for instance, with them selling a Costa Rican banana next to Skagit Valley peas.

That goes against the state Farmers Market Association guidelines (there are no national guidelines, according to the USDA), which forbid vendors to buy from wholesalers, or to buy produce from outside Washington or specific bordering counties in Oregon or Idaho. That means, for instance, no bananas and no oranges. There’s also a formula requiring sales from farmers to exceed sales from produce resellers and other categories.

Pike Place Market does operate a summer farmers market Fridays-Sundays within the larger Market boundaries, and it operates “express” farmers market branches around town in the summer. All of these subsets qualify as farmers markets. It’s just that the entirety of Pike Place Market, with its mix of vendors and craftspeople, does not.

It sounds like a technicality, but I think it’s good to be aware of the distinction.

Both customers and farmers want a clear definition of what it means to be a farmers market. That’s what allows them to assess, in just one example, that it’s wrong for national supermarket chains to advertise a “farmers market” when they're just setting up produce displays outside. It draws the line encouraging customers to object and market managers to investigate if they think farmers are importing fruits and vegetables rather than growing their own. It allows -- literally, in our region -- apples to apples comparisons between the organizations.

If the Post just called Pike Place “one of the 10 best markets in the country,” period, it would have been spot on.

Seasonal farmers markets opening

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:31:05 PDT

In the Northwest, vegetables always seem to run a few weeks behind, with produce lovers having to be content with lingering weeks of flowering kale and braising greens until we can buy our fill of asparagus and rhubarb.

Finally, though, spring has arrived. Farmers market tables are multiplying by the week, with new producers and fresh goods cropping up — and, the biggest sign of all, more markets opening for the 2013 season.

New seasonal markets this year include the Pike Place Market Express farmers market in Pioneer Square (10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays in Occidental Park, starting June 19).

The Lake City Farmers Market, one of my favorites for its relaxed feel by a library and playground, will have expanded hours, running from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, starting June 20, as well as adding more prepared food vendors for picnicking in the park. The extended five-hour run — I’d like to see that become a trend! — was meant to capture “the local family and senior shoppers who enjoy showing up early and also capture the commuter crowd going home at the end of the workday,” said Chris Curtis, director of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, in an email.

The most intoxicating news of the season: A pilot wine- and beer-tasting program tested at 10 farmers markets statewide last year was made permanent and expanded by the Legislature. Under the new bill, effective July 28, up to three wine or beer sellers per qualifying market will be allowed to offer samples.

Interesting new vendors abound at nearly every market, including Seattle Urban Honey and the delectable cheeses of Kurtwood Farms coming to the University District market in June (the year-round market, celebrating its 20th anniversary, is 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.)

Likewise, the West Seattle market is year-round, and open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays.

Honest Biscuit and Rachel’s Ginger Beer will join vendors at the Columbia City market, San Juan Island Sea Salt is one of the new tables at the Broadway market, and Tabby Cat Pickling will come to the Lake City and Phinney markets, among a host of other new appearances.

There are at least six new farms at the Madrona market (3 to 7 p.m. Fridays), according to Zachary Lyons of the Seattle Farmers Market Association. Those will include two additional dairies, Seattle Tilth’s farm incubator program, and “a new farm project by Phong Cha, patriarch of the Hmong farming community, who is developing a farm that will focus on growing culturally relevant Asian varieties of vegetables and herbs,” Lyons said in an email.

The Wallingford market (3:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, starting next Wednesday, with chefs allowed in at 3 p.m.) will also have two new dairies, Lyons said, plus “Seattle Tilth’s Youth Garden Project and Children’s Garden, a certified organic Hmong farm run by Chai Cha, Phong Cha’s son. Children’s raises a wide variety of vegetables, including the hard-to-find Chinese Spinach — the most beautiful vegetable on earth, for my money — and it has become one of the year-round anchor farms at Ballard Farmers Market.”

The Queen Anne market, starting June 6 from 3 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, features a large rotating gathering of food trucks (organizers think it’s the largest weekly gathering in the city), notably scheduled to include Renee Erickson’s new Narwhal truck.

Columbia City’s popular market is operating Wednesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. (chefs can squeeze in early at 2 p.m.), while the Farmboat “floating farmers market” aboard the Virginia V at Lake Union Park will run 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays. Madrona operates from 3 to 7 p.m. Fridays, and the Broadway Farmers Market runs Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For upcoming opening days, the Phinney market will run from 3 to 7 p.m. Fridays starting June 7, and the public is welcome at the farmers market at Virginia Mason Medical Center on First Hill, which runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays starting May 31. The Magnolia market will follow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays starting June 1. Pike Place Express will open its City Hall Plaza branch 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays starting June 18, and its South Lake Union branch 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays starting June 20. Granddaddy Pike Place Market itself has a seasonal farmers market from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays-Sundays starting June 21.

A good list of farmers markets throughout King County is online at Puget Sound Fresh.

All You Can Eat blog sets a bigger table

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:46:04 PDT

Good morning, fans of all things food. Beginning this week, you’ll notice that All You Can Eat is expanding to bring you more news, tips and talk about our favorite subject. Now, the entire Seattle Times “food group” will be serving you. Rebekah Denn will continue to be our host, setting the communal table and keeping the conversation going. And Nancy Leson, who began this blog in 2008, will be back, while keeping her regular gig in Sunday’s Pacific NW magazine (see her latest story, plus cool video, on Pasteria Lucchese).

Joining them will be their pal, Providence Cicero, dishing on the dining-out scene she covers so well as our restaurant critic, but also on cooking, entertaining at home, and whatever else she feels like sharing. Happy Hour honcho Tan Vinh is quite happy to bring another round of drinks, filling us in on the booze-and-beer beat he covers each Friday in Weekend Plus.

And just for kicks, fellow editor Brian Thomas Gallagher and I will take a seat here from time to time to offer a few appetizers, side dishes and desserts of our own.

Enjoy the meal, and please, join the discussion.

— Kathleen Triesch Saul, Seattle Times food editor

Local man wins best 'Better Burger'

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:16:06 PDT

One of our better burgers was also one of the best.

That was the ruling of judges at the Sutter Home Build a Better Burger contest, one of the biggest cooking competitions in the nation, where Mark Richardson's "Indian Lamb Burgers" won the $15,000 'Alternative Burgers' category in the May 18 cookoff. Richardson was one of five finalists in the category. Katie Sherrill of Edmonds had been one of five finalists for the $100,000 beef burger prize with her "Korean-Hawaiian Taco Truck Burger" inspired by Marination Mobile. (Erin Evenson of Brooklyn took that prize for her 7 Train Caramelized Green Curry Burger.)

One of the judges said she was "bewitched" by the flavors in Richardson's burger, which was topped with tahini pistachio mayo.

Richardson said earlier this year that his entry had been inspired by a neighbor from his college years who introduced him to Indian food. Richardson loved it, started cooking it on his own, and began thinking that a filling commonly used for stuffing samosas could be worked into a good burger.

Here's his winning recipe, which we also featured earlier this year:

Indian Lamb Burgers

Recipe by Mark Richardson

Snohomish, Washington

Ingredients

PATTIES

• 2 pounds ground lamb

• 2 tablespoons minced shallot

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

• 1 tablespoon minced garlic

• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

• 1 tablespoon seeded and minced serrano chile

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

• 1 1/2 teaspoons garam marsala

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon ground coriander

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

TAHINI PISTACHIO MAYONNAISE

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise

• 1/4 cup cream cheese

• 2 tablespoons tahini

• 1/3 cup ground pistachios

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

• 1 tablespoon minced shallot

• 2 teaspoons minced garlic

• 2 teaspoons seeded and minced serrano chile

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

• 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• Vegetable oil, for brushing on the grill rack

• 6 pita breads, top third removed

• 3 cups shredded romaine lettuce hearts

• 18 slices (1/8-inch-thick) English (hothouse) cucumber

• 2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped into 1/4-inch dice

Directions

To make the patties, combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Handling the meat as little as possible to avoid compacting it, mix well. Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions and form the portions into patties to fit the pitas. Cover and refrigerate until grilling.

To make the mayonnaise, combine the mayonnaise, cream cheese and tahini in a small bowl and mix until smooth. Add the pistachios, cilantro, shallot, garlic, chile, lemon juice, sesame oil and salt. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate until assembling the burgers.

Heat a gas grill to medium-high.

Brush the grill rack with vegetable oil. Place the patties on the rack, cover, and cook, turning once, until done to preference, 4 to 6 minutes on each side for medium. During the last few minutes of cooking, place the pitas on the outer edges of the rack to toast lightly, turning once.

To assemble the burgers, spread 2 tablespoons of the mayonnaise on the inside of each pita pocket. Place the patties inside the pita pockets. Divide the romaine, cucumber, and tomato evenly among the pitas and tuck around each patty. Serve.

Makes 6 burgers

Suggested Wine Pairing (the contest is sponsored by a winery, after all): Merlot

'Henopause' and whether you should have backyard chickens

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:16:04 PDT

Every time I visit friends with backyard chickens and come home with treasures like blue-green Aracuna eggs, I debate whether I should get my own flock.

Just when I think I can balance the responsibility and nuisances of chicken care against the benefits, along comes a perfectly pointed post from Erica Strauss of the Northwest Edible Life blog, one of my favorite gardening resources, assuring readers like me that "You Absolutely Should Not Get Backyard Chickens."

She highlights the "henopause" problem: Hens are done with their prime laying lives around age 3, but might easily live another five years, eating a lot of expensive chicken feed along the way. (Most commercial operations cull hens at age two, notes Seattle Tilth.) "So basically those are your two choices: you continue to pay and care for chickens that barely give you eggs or you cowboy up and you deal with the slaughter of no longer profitable hens," she wrote.

I'd be fine supporting those older hens simply as pets and compost producers-- except that, as Strauss reminds us, for Seattle city-dwellers they would be taking up slots in the limited quota of eight chickens allowed on most lots (that in itself is an increase from the mere three chickens that used to be allowed.)

I wouldn't be up for slaughtering chickens that had been seen as "pets with benefits" -- or even sending them off to be slaughered for someone else's soup pot. But I also don't think I would take on the responsibility and cost of chickens without getting the payoff of the eggs. So I'm out. How about you? (Read Erica's entire post, along with more than 200 comments bringing up other notable points, over here.)

Venerable City Kitchens closes shop

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:24:43 PDT

It was known as the place to buy serious cookware from Le Creuset pots to Wusthof knives, from tongs to tea strainers. A generation of cooks sought out its staff for expert advice and eagerly awaited its big annual sales. But City Kitchens has closed its doors in downtown Seattle, after 25 years of selling kitchen tools near Westlake Center.

"I guess we just couldn't afford to exist anymore," owner Kerry Niesen said Wednesday, in the midst of arranging a liquidation sale scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18.

"I reached a point where I had to finally say, OK, this isn't working," Niesen said.

He started working at the store in 1993 as a University of Washington student interested in cooking and looking for a part-time job. An aunt had told him, "you'll learn a lot there."

He did indeed, becoming the store's manager and finally purchasing it from founder Robert Hammond in 2006. The store was dedicated to training its staff well -- it was known as a place where customers got an education rather than a hard-sell -- and to offering the best selection possible in its chosen categories. (One of its longtime principles: Never dabble.) "If we did something, we went all in for it," Niesen said.

But the store never recovered from the economy's collapse in 2008, Niesen said Wednesday. "Every year sales dropped," unlike expenses. More people were showrooming the store, using it for research but then purchasing items at a discount online. And, he said, the location started to feel more on the outskirts of downtown than the center, with customers avoiding the area for disruptions like the Occupy Seattle protests and the recent May Day protests.

Many of the store's 14 staffers (there have been as many as 25 during seasonal highs) have stayed on to help with the liquidation sale, Niesen said.

"Really heartbroken," one customer wrote on the store's Facebook page after Niesen sent a farewell message. "Sad news, another great old downtown shop bites the dust," tweeted another.

The final, farewell sale -- Niesen promised "great prices on everything," though he's still figuring out the numbers -- will run May 18-24. Hours will be from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.