Seattle


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2012: The Year of Fideo?

I rang in the new year with a brand new food I’d never tried before! Way to start 2012 on a decidedly culinary note, huh? Okay, in full disclosure, I ate this at about 11:00pm on 12/31/11, but I actually started 2012 at a house party in which all I consumed was warm Cook’s “champagne,” so I’m just gonna count this. I mean, I was still digesting it after the clock struck midnight.

At this point, you are probably sitting on the edge of your seat, gripping the front of your desk, thinking, “What, Emily? What is this wonderful mystery food you consumed to kick off your amazing year?!” Well, my friends, it is called fideo, described as a Mexican dry soup with a spaghetti-like pasta.

My group was enjoying a leisurely, festive dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle — Poquitos — which I have mentioned in the past. One of the owners, Matt, was bartending, and he suggested we try their new appetizer. Matt is so charming that you can never resist anything he suggests, so we eagerly agreed. He brought over a piping hot bowl. “I like to eat mine with chips,” he remarked with a smile.

Wait, noodles you eat on a fried tortilla product?

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in Restaurants / Trends 2 comments
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Grilled Cheese Gone Wild!

Sure, mom’s buttery white bread and American cheese version is a classic, but these days grilled cheese has hit a whole new level. Here are some of our favorite crazy grilled cheese options.

1. Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese

Can’t decide between your two favorite cheesy snacks? Have them both with Simply Scratch’s simply amazing jalapeno-cream cheese-onion-sourdough-colby concoction.

2. Fried Green Tomato Grilled Cheese

Fried inside fried? Yes and yes. Life’s Ambrosia has the recipe.

3. Bechamel Grilled Cheese

You thought rubbing a layer of butter on grilled cheese was indulgent? At Firefly in D.C., chef Danny Bortnick’s cadillac grilled cheese has bechamel sauce spread in between white bread, with garlic-herb butter, aged Cabot, and Gruyere.

(Photo: Dakota Fine)

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in Cheese / Featured / Lists / Restaurants / Trends 4 comments
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Always Do a Lap Before You Commit

Hallelujah! My neighborhood far mar, Mount Pleasant Farmers’ Market, is opening this Saturday. I’m working there the first day and cannot wait to be surrounded by spring’s fresh vegetables. But I just couldn’t wait and headed to FRESHFARM’s Dupont far mar this past Sunday. A little sneak peak, if you will.

I listen to Cher and always do a lap before I commit (see last quote), checking options, quality, prices and variety around the far mar. I selected the spring staple asparagus, as well as spinach. And then I made my one out-there purchase: peppercress. I’d never heard of it before. My rule at market is if I haven’t heard of it I’m allowed to buy it and will try not to buy something else that I’ve already discovered.

I tasted the mirco-green and holy crap, it’s like eating horseradish. It has that fantastic harsh heat, sort of like a radish as well. I was stoked but wasn’t at all sure how I’d like to use it. And then I went with my standby: whiz it into a sauce.

Recipe, with mysterious berry, after the jump.

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in Recipe / Veggie 1 comments
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Hakuna Matata: Learning To Eat Bugs

I was not born an epicure; it has been a relatively slow evolutionary process. When I was young, I eschewed many foods I now love, such as: most vegetables, Mexican cuisine or any type of meat off the bone. Luckily, I grew out of my pickiness and now I am eager to stuff myself with organs, raw meat, marrow, you name it — anything edible is fair game.

Still, there are a few final hurdles I have yet to wrap my head (and mouth!) around. For example, while the nutritional value and sustainability of insects as food has been fairly well documented, the idea has never been at the top of my culinary to-do list. So when I received a coveted invite to the opening of Poquitos, a new restaurant in Seattle touting ultra-authentic Mexican street food, I knew I had to pay them a visit and sample their most notable menu offering: chapulines. Time to eat me some BUGS!

Before Poquitos, I was a virgin in the bug devouring department (except for that urban legend about the average human unintentionally eating eight spiders a year, which makes me want to die just thinking about it). My only “experience” with intentional bug eating heretofore was watching that “Hakuna Matata” scene in The Lion King: “Slimy yet satisfying!”

I honestly had no idea what to expect when I ordered my chapulines, but I knew I needed to have a margarita at the ready. Besides my lifelong vendetta against spiders, I’m not terrified of other bugs. But the prospect of putting a whole insect in my mouth wasn’t exactly delightful either. Especially when my lovely server deposited a huge bowl of them right in front of me. When Matt, one of Poquitos’ co-owners, stopped by my table to check in, I pulled him off the busy floor for a quick chat re: Mexican bugs. I needed to know what I was in for.

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in Featured / Restaurants / Trends 9 comments
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America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches — Veganized

Our recent article on America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere, but no one was more riled up  than a group of spunky vegan bloggers. Their de facto leader, Namely Marly, explains:

We read this article with great curiosity but it didn’t take long until the curiosity faded and was replaced with something else. OK. We were grossed out. Particularly at one sandwich that referred to an ingredient called suckling pig. We hoped this was a reference to something other than the obvious, but it appears it is exactly as it sounds. Only one of the 10 sandwiches appeared to be vegetarian. We felt like a cross between Stan Laurel and Rodney Dangerfield, scratching our heads with a half whimper and half scowl thinking, “Why don’t we vegans get any respect?”

So they decided to demand their own respect, teaming together to create tasty and healthy versions of each cholesterol-laden entry on the list of America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches. Hence, America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches — Veganized. Here are all ten of ’em. Follow the links for recipes.

10. The Vegan Spuckie

We called this olive-carrot-mortadella goodness from Cutty’s in Boston “the one sandwich that most successfully merges the old-school method of overdoing it on Italian meats with the new world of artisan, veggie-centric goodness.” Drop the meat part and it’s still drool-worthy. Trina Jaconi Biery of Your Vegan Mom made her own meat-free mortadella, featured here on a ciabatta roll topped with vegan mozzarella and a sweet carrot-olive salad.

Recipe: The Vegan Spuckie

(Photo: Trina Jaconi Biery)

9. Vegan Bulgogi Steak Sandwich

When Allyson Kramer of Manifest Vegan learned there was a Bulgogi Steak Sandwich (from Koja in Philly) on the list, she jumped at the chance to veganize it. As a child she used to eat bulgogi steak sometimes twice a week. Now a vegan, she’s been hankering to try a veggie-friendly version. Served on a hoagie roll (Allyson even provided a recipe for gluten-free hoagie if that’s to your liking), marinated tofu is topped with caramelized peppers and onions, chili garlic sauce, and melted vegan mozz.

Recipe: Tofu Bulgogi Steak Sandwich

(Photo: Allyson Kramer)

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in Featured / Lists / Sandwich / Veggie 16 comments
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Aunt Jemima’s Lies

I recently pulled my mom out of maple syrup ignorance when I told her the cheap Aunt Jemima syrup probably did not contain any real maple, just corn syrup and other artificial flavorings. She reported back that maple is the sixth ingredient listed, which means that there is probably little of the tree juice in that plastic bottle.

She was bummed. She felt duped. Unfortunately a lot of the foods I grew up on were fakes. But nothing came close to the fake that is Walden Farms’ “peanut” spread that I found at a convenience store in Seattle. The first tip off – the spread claimed to be-calorie free. With a slight turn of the jar I uncovered that it was free of many other items as well: fat, sugar, cholesterol, carbohydrates and gluten. And of course, no animals or animal by-products were used in the production of this spread—it’s vegan.

So what the hell was in this magical jar?

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in Rants & Raves / Trends 10 comments
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