Hurricane Sally visits Seattle

When I lived in New York, I had a number of friends who enjoyed food and wine but none more than my friend Sally. I actually met Sally while she was dating a friend of mine that I used to work with (yes, I am still good friends with her former boyfriend - Matt). As Sally and I moved to different places, we always maintained our great friendship. But for me, she was what I call "my food partner-in-crime" – over time that became something like "food and wine partner-in-crime".

Since I have lived in Seattle, I have been trying to get her to visit Marc and me to sample the awesome local produce, seafood, restaurant scene, etc. Well you know that saying, "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it"? Yeah, well Hurricane Sally visited Seattle for 6 days and it is going to take some time for our stomachs and livers to recover. Given that Sally is a chef for a living; the pressure was immense to showcase Seattle's best in the food and wine scene. Marc and I strategized quite a bit for this visit….

Upon Sal's arrival, we had to have her sample some great Pacific Northwest microbrews (we also had to clear her palette of the awful Bud Light she had during her flight delay at the STL airport), so I think we started with a Cinder Cone Red from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. That seemed to go over well, which led to us all crashing and me having to head to work the next morning while she explored downtown Seattle. She got to see all of the major sites (including Elliott Bay Books – a fantastic independent bookshop) and we found out that she consumes lots of coffee, which makes Seattle an obvious choice for her to consider relocation to.

That evening, Sal and Marc picked me up and we went to Café Juanita in Kirkland. Wow. I had been trying to get into this place for awhile, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Wonderful menu and great service. The bar for the rest of the week's meals had been set pretty high now. Seared foie gras, papperdelle with duck ragu, a ribeye with castelmagno sauce – yum!

The next day, Sal and I explored different neighborhoods within Seattle such as Green Lake, Ravenna, Queen Anne, South Lake Union, etc., and we got her some proper Dungeness crab chowder at Duke's along with the best amber around – Mac & Jack's African Amber. Marc introduced me, and I am definitely a fan. That evening, we went to Crémant for dinner which was another awesome meal – more of the same with Alaskan halibut, salads using morels and other very seasonal produce, and I'll tell you – Crémant probably had some of the best pommes frites (aka French fries) I have ever had.

On Friday, the sun was out and the mountains were starting to show so we headed back to Queen Anne and then drove around Magnolia. It was warm and very pleasant so a great day to be enjoying Seattle. Plus Marc got us off on the right foot with his famous M&M pancakes. We then had to do some food shopping as Sal was starting to really get inspired by the local ingredients. She rummaged through some of our cookbooks and found one that she actually gave to me as a gift – Bouchon. Armed with an extensive list, we went to the Pike Place Market (home of the flying fish) which may be very touristy but also has some reasonably priced fresh produce and seafood. The selection is incredible, so Sal was just loving it. We got morels, fiddlehead ferns, baby sweet onions from Walla Walla, sea beans, rhubarb and more. Plus we picked up some Dungeness crab, which I'll never turn down.

Our final stop was DeLaurenti's, which is an Italian specialty store that also has a great cheese counter. Sal had checked out Beecher's earlier in the week, and they also have some very high quality cheeses, but DeLaurenti's has an impressive selection. Nathan and a McSteamy look-alike took great care of us for about a half hour letting us sample different cheeses before we settled on 5 for the big dinner that Sal was going to cook for us on Sunday. McSteamy seemed to take a liking to Sal, so yet another reason for her to consider relocating here – attractive, knows a lot about cheese – this could be good. Ok, enough – Sal's embarrassed enough probably as she reads this. We met up with Rebecca and Nina for lunch at Latona Pub. I felt that in order to give Sally the complete Northwest experience, she needed to try another beer so we hooked her up with Baron Hefeweizen.

A few beers later, we needed to re-charge as Marc, Sal and I were off to Crush later that evening. I've blogged about this place before and you always worry if a place is going to live up to the hype. Well yeah it did. We skipped the tasting menu this time, and that was a great call. Marc had an awesome short ribs dish and also tried some veal sweetbreads, Sal had some local sea scallops and I went with the black cod. Lots of great local produce incorporated into the dish such as sweet onion risotto, more mushrooms, etc. We split a dessert that had pink peppercorns and rhubarb incorporated into a trifle. YUM again! At this point, we all wished rolling home was an option.

Saturday was going to be a LONG day. We had reservations at the Herb Farm at around 6:15pm with Maureen, and we decided to go wine tasting in Woodinville in the afternoon. We had a disappointing brunch at Salish Lodge – normally this place is great but we had a crappy server, which kind of ruined the experience of being right near Snoqualmie Falls. The weather ended up holding out (ok, unless you were Michael who was riding 100 miles in the wind for the American Diabetes Association – great job, Michael!) and we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of sipping wines at Cuillin Hills, Matthews, Des Voigne, Woodhouse and Brian Carter. It all kind of worked out that Maureen lived close by since she was joining us at the Herb Farm (also in Woodinville). We hydrated and Marc snoozed for a bit before the main event.

The Herb Farm has won many awards over the years and is definitely a nationally known restaurant as the executive chef has won the James Beard Award and a few others over the years. And yes, their mantra is to use only fresh ingredients that are in season. We went on a tour of the actual herb farm where everything grows and got to taste many of the herbs that were going to be used with dinner that evening (my favorite was chocolate mint – shocking). The theme of the evening was Copper River Salmon, and to Marc's credit – he actually tried some. He enjoyed the sockeye (no skin) but the fillet not so much because the skin makes it fishier. Maureen, Sally and devoured our courses (the Dungeness crab soufflé with stinging nettles was my favorite actually) and the 4 of us had a great time. Because Sally is in "the industry", we were able to get a tour of the kitchen and talk to the Executive Chef (Jerry Traunfeld) for a bit after the meal.

I felt relieved – all of the restaurants selected lived up to expectations, and all were enjoyable for different reasons. But there's more! The Seattle Cheese Festival happened to be this weekend, so we ventured there on Sunday morning. It was at Pike Place and there were a ton of cheeses to sample (see picture to right). Marc had picked up some tickets to the Mariners' game for that afternoon, so of course we had to take Sal to Pyramid Brewery for a pre-game meal and beverage (more Hefeweizen). Unfortunately the Mariners' lost, but what was in store for later in the evening made up for it (oh and the Yankees finally won a game).

We had enough food from Friday's shopping extravaganza for a feast, so we invited our neighbors over – Guré, Jim and Eneko – along with Rebecca and Michael. Cheese to start of course, with a Mache salad topped with some crabmeat (I'm not giving this justice) with some brioche. Then we went to a flank steak and gnocchi that was pretty easy to make, along with fiddleheads and morels… more food coming…. Ended with candied rhubarb and a chocolate mousse piped into some fresh eggs brought over from Guré and Jim's hens! We also had a majority vote that said that Sal needed to return to Seattle in August. Stay tuned.

It was all so good that I almost overslept and Sal would have missed her flight. Ok, maybe I would not have minded having "my food and wine partner-in-crime" for another day. It was great to spend some time with her and catch up. Food and wine aside, Sally is a trusted and valued friend to put it mildly, and my dazed state this morning (yes, noticed by my boss) was completely worth it given the laughs had by all. Marc and I can't wait to have her back.