The Islands

I’d been long overdue for a trip up to Whidbey Island to see my mom. These were a few of the highlights from my weekend:

Stopping at a roadside stand to pick up live Dungeness crab and spot prawns. I steamed the prawns whole with garlic and soy sauce and the crabs were boiled in spices and eaten with melted butter. The crab meat was incredibly sweet, meaty and delicious.

Visiting friends and seeing their cool silver and golden sebright chickens (pets, not for eating) and picking fresh arugula and nasturtiums from their garden for a bright summer salad.

Eating mom’s incredible chocolate shortbread cookies made with Scharffen Berger chocolate and cacao nibs. The lavender shortbread cookies looked great, but I have this weird thing with lavender where I can’t disassociate the flavor from hand lotion.

UPDATE: Here are the recipes!

My friend K’s mother was in town for a few weeks and we thought it would be great to take her up to my mom’s place on Whidbey. It turned out to be a relaxing and fun mother-daughter weekend.

When we arrived in the early afternoon, the weather was trying it’s hardest to be nice, so we felt obliged to sit on the deck with drinks and a cheese plate. It was before noon and I felt a little weird drinking that early, but K’s mom opened a bottle of red and started pouring. The funny thing is that she was still on East-coast time and thought it was more like three in the afternoon.

Once the weather turned too cold to be outside, we headed into Coupeville to check out some antique stores and have a proper lunch at Toby’s. We had an order of the Penn Cove mussels, which were extra delicious that day and almost sweet. My mom and I split a crispy halibut burger and a pepper-jack hamburger. They are just regular burgers and there isn’t anything fancy about them, so I have a hard time explaining exactly why they are so amazing and delicious.

Later that evening it was still cold out, but the wind had died down and I was determined to be outside. K helped me build a fire in my mom’s fire pit and we opened some more bottles of wine and prosecco. It was really pleasant being out in the garden, watching the sun set through the trees and listening to the whir of the hummingbirds. K put some rosemary on the fire, so the smell of the fire was incredible. The wind picked up a bit and created a funnel through the fire, which brought the ashes up into the sky and it felt like it was snowing. It was one of those times when I just stopped thinking and had to breathe in how perfect everything can be in a single moment.

When it was too dark to see, we went inside and cooked a beautiful dinner of dry-brined salmon grilled with lovage from the garden. We also had asparagus, a fresh green salad with pear dressing and soft baked polenta with gruyere. It was a perfect end to a wonderful day on Whidbey.

This was the big weekend of Zach’s Birthday Pizza Party so Zach and I headed up Whidbey Island the night before to prepare. Mom had a dinner of dilled carrots, pan-fried steaks and fried potatoes waiting for us. Lately I’ve either been cooking huge, fancy event meals or been so exhausted that I just make myself a sandwich, so having my Mom’s home cooking was such a treat. The dinner was delicious, but I especially loved the hand-cut wedge fries that were soft and fluffy on the inside and crisp and golden on the outside.

As we were eating the last of the fries, I suddenly remembered that I had brought along my Casina Rossa Truffle & Salt (from La Buona Tavola, Truffle Cafe). We sprinkled it on our remaining fries and there were moans all around the table. It was so good. My mom actually got mad at me for not bringing it out earlier. Then she suggested we make truffle salt omelettes for breakfast the next morning. I think Zach called her a genius.

We spent the rest of the night making pizza dough and watching Word Wars, which was fantastic. It was not only the best documentary I’ve ever seen, but also one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. It was funny and engrossing and it made me realize that I’m not neurotic or obsessive in the least bit.

This weekend Zach and I went up to Whidbey to visit my mom. We left after work on Friday and didn’t get there until late, but mom had a great home-cooked meal waiting for us. We had thick-cut pork chops (braised in a porcini broth that mom transformed into an amazing, salty gravy), creamy mashed potatoes, broccoli with mayonnaise and my mom’s home-made applesauce—which Zach claimed was the best he’d ever tasted. She had also made a batch of chocolate-hazelnut biscotti, which are incredible. Everything was so good that it made me miss being a kid and getting to eat my mom’s cooking everyday. Sniff.

After dinner mom showed us her spoils from Sfoglia—a gourmet takeout place on the island that just went out of business. She had a table full of flavored and balsamic vinegars, cookbooks, chocolate bars, flavored oils, chutneys, jams, torrone, tomato sauces, quince paste and more. She had paid $88 for everything. Out of curiosity, we added up the retail prices and it came to over $600. Mom gave me half of everything, so I ended up with lots of great things… specifically the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. My mom rocks.

The next day we went for a great beach walk at South Whidbey State Park. It was insanely cold (and therefore empty) but beautiful. We poked around the beach and found these beautiful chiton shells that were a brilliant turquoise color on the inside. Afterward, we checked out The Grange—a weird rental hall located just outside of Langley. It has a large kitchen so I was hoping that I could rent it for my Iron Chef party, but once the owner found out I was a Seattleite she jacked up the price. That’s one really weird (and annoying) thing about Whidbey; almost everyone hates “outsiders”. (Does anyone know of a cheap, commercial kitchen in Seattle that you can rent by the day?)

That night we ate pizza and played mah jong into the wee hours of the morning. I had heard several people talk about a great New York style pizza place on Whidbey called the Village Pizzeria. Seattle PI’s Penelope Corcoran actually called it “the best New York-style slice of pizza I’ve unearthed to date anywhere in the Puget Sound”. Uh, too bad I didn’t specify I wanted thin crust. Damn! It was still good, but my mom said that the thin crust pizza was much, much better. I ordered three different flavors; sausage, Hawaiian, and clam & garlic. The clam & garlic was surprisingly rich and delicious, and by far the best of the three.

The next morning I woke up groggy and before I knew what I was doing, I had offered to cook a waffle breakfast. Now usually I’m pretty skilled in the kitchen, but for some strange reason I can’t make a decent waffle to save my life (pancakes are even worse). I really don’t know what my problem is, but I’m going to blame it on shoddy recipes. This time I ended up with one or two perfect, crisp waffles, a few deliciously chewy ones, a few well-done ones and one that was so burnt that it shattered into pieces when we tried to remove it from the waffle iron. I know this doesn’t sound like a huge success, but the good waffles were so good. I think it was the secret, crispy waffle recipe that is found only in the 1970s edition of The Joy of Cooking (and here). It’s kind of involved and requires an insane about of butter and whipped egg whites, but the waffles were so good! We ate them with bacon and some maple butter that I had bought for mom during my last trip to Vancouver. The “butter” was made entirely from maple syrup, so it was like a whipped and condensed version of maple syrup; delicious and sweet.

Before heading back to Seattle we called my brother Ross in NY so I could catch up and hear about his recent trip to China. We had both been to China once before in the early ‘80s. It was before China had really opened up to foreigners, but we were able to visit because we were considered “Overseas Chinese”. Which is really funny because I was born and raised in Seattle and have no intention of ever moving to China. I guess they’re eternally hopeful that, one day, all Chinese people will return to the mainland…

Ross said that China had changed drastically and that everything was now very modern and luxurious—an extreme contrast to what we experienced before. He also said that it was much more colorful and that the people didn’t wear those awful drab olive uniforms anymore. I asked if the streets were still packed with bicycles and he said yes. Except that the bicycles are now cars and there are no driving rules. Basically if there’s an open spot in traffic you take it; it doesn’t even matter what side of the street it’s on.

I also asked about the food (of course). Ross said the food was really, really good—which I found surprising because on our first trip to China we could barely eat anything. I got incredibly sick from eating an entire bowl of garlic shoots (lord only knows why I thought eating the entire bowl would be a good idea). After that I only ate packaged crackers or fruit that I could peel myself. Everything was segregated so it was illegal for us to eat where the Chinese people ate and vise-versa. So our dining options were limited. Ross said that on this visit he ate almost every meal from street vendors. He tried frog on a stick and also a crepe with an egg cracked into it which was then wrapped around a donut. You could also get it wrapped around a hot dog. It sounds very bizarre to me, but he said it was delicious.

My friend used to live on Bainbridge Island, so we decided to take a day trip over there. We were on a mission for licorice and yarn.

Our first stop was a licorice spree at the Marina Market in Poulsbo—a cute and strange Norwegian town. I honestly didn’t know there were that many different kinds of licorice produced; I guess they import a lot of it. I have never really liked licorice very much but after trying some of Zach’s I’m open to the possibility that I just don’t like bad licorice. He gave me this kind that looks like a piece of chalk and is coated with salt and then a hard candy shell. It was really good. My favorite part of the store was the freezer full of dead, bloody herring that were right next to the bags of crushed ice.

We then wandered down the street and I dragged Zach into an antique store to see if I could find another egg cup for my collection. I did and isn’t is cute?

There wasn’t much else in the town that seemed interesting except for the Marine Science Center. It was a teeny little place, but they had nice displays and touch tanks so we decided to go in. Zach didn’t want to touch anything so I made up for him and touched everything twice. Although, I did make him touch the sea anemone because it was so weird and sticky. I kept looking at the giant sea scallops wondering if they are still tender when they’re that big. More and more I find that when I’m looking at animals I’m picturing them on a dinner plate with an accompanying sauce. Sometimes, when I look at my cat, he runs away.

It was fortuitous that we went to the science center, because if we hadn’t, we would have completely missed The British Market. They actually had real, imported HP sauce (we did a taste-test a while back between HP sauce that was brought from London by a friend and HP sauce from DeLaurenti’s—they are drastically different and the real stuff is much better). We got the HP sauce and some Hob Nobs. They also had a freezer stocked with Pork Bangers, Bubble & Squeak and British Back Bacon, but sadly we had no way to transport frozen meats.

We got back in the car and drove to Winslow to check out Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. I had been used to shopping for yarn at places like Jo-Ann fabrics, so I was impressed and had to touch everything… Twice. I ended up with some really beautiful and soft balls of yarn.

We needed a snack, so we stopped in the Blackbird Bakery. I had to try the pots de crème—I love anything that requires its own specialty cookware or dish. And of course milky, gooey caramel doesn’t hurt either.

After dessert, we decided we needed dinner, so we walked down to the marina and stopped at Doc’s Marina Grill. We ordered a great gorgonzola bacon burger and a prime rib dip with cheddar cheese on sourdough—possibly the greasiest sandwich I’ve ever eaten, but it was incredibly good. The beef was delicious and the waiter told us it was from Misty Isle Farms. The burger boasted some of the best applewood smoked bacon I’ve ever tasted, also from Misty Isle. The waiter said that the farm produces a limited number of pigs (and only in the summertime), so it may be hard to locate bacon available to the public. But I will try.