Happy Holidays from Seattle!

Well, the holidays are upon us! Hanukkah began Friday night and Christmas is just around the corner. While Sarah was visiting me for Thanksgiving, we went to two, yes, two(!) tree lighting

ceremonies, which was a great way to ring in the holiday season. The Westlake Center tree lighting was quite the ta-do, with 5th Avenue singers, three different choirs (mens, womens and children's) and a fireworks display at the end.The Pike Place Market tree lighting was a bit more modest, but much more charming. They both were fantastic in their own way!

The Space Needle is also festive, with lights on top as well as a display at the base, with bright spheres making up the shape of a tree, very pretty!

I've also been busy decorating the places I spend most of my time, so I thought I'd share some pictures of holiday spirit, courtesy of me, at my office and in my apartment. This is my first year having my own Christmas tree, and it's so nice to have! My friends were kind enough to go get me one, which made life a lot easier. Trees in the city are hard to find and fairly expensive! They got me a nice 4 1/2 foot tree for $20 at Lowes, which as a relief because I was planning to pay $25-$30 for a 3 foot tree right in the city. I'll post pictures from my office and home in a post to follow...too many pictures already!

Halloween is a time to be crafty!

So. Halloween was a week ago, in case you missed that somehow. I was a crafty little bugger this year and made my own dress, which was a blast! My friend and I both got short haircuts a few months ago, and realized that we would make great flappers, so we dressed as a pair. I used to sew a lot growing up, and my mom sewed a ton, she even made my sister's prom dress! Crafty lady, my mom is. Anywho. I've been itching to sew something for quite a bit, so I went all out this year. I used vintage fringe I found on etsy.com and got the rest of my supplies at Stitches, a great little sewing shop on Pike Street in Capitol Hill. I'm quite pleased with how the dress turned out!

To round out the homemaker in me, I made sugar cookies and pumpkin cupcakes for the party, which were festive and tasty! The pumpkin cupcakes themselves were good, but the frosting was a disaster so I'm going to skip on those recipes. The sugar cookies, on the other hand, were taaasty, so I've included the recipe below, taken from 'The Christmas Cookie Book' by Lou Seibert Pappas. Ignore the name of the book title and think Halloween! So...Happy Halloween!

Ingredients: 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temp

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

3 1/2 cups flour

1 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together the butter and sugar until light. Add the eggs, vanilla extract and almond extract and beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until smooth. Scrape out the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and flatten into a disk. Wrap and chill for about an hour, or until firm. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease baking sheets. Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll out a section to about 1/8th of an inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut into the desired shape and place on a baking sheet. Bake the cookies 6-8 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool. Repeat with the remaining sections of dough. Decorate as you wish!

The Hangover

Well folks. Election day has come and gone. In Maine, the results are in, and they aren't good, so I'm having a bit of an election day hangover. Yesterday I was full of nerves, but super excited, and today I just feel 'ugh'. Since Seattle folks vote by mail, we don't get the final vote count until 4:30 PST, and the race for mayor is so close that we probably wont' have an official result on that for a few days (the current report is that McGinn is ahead by 910 votes, out of the 85,000 that have been counted), so let's get back to the news about Maine.

Maine voted to reject gay marriage. I'm appalled. I'm shocked. I'm sad. Honestly? As many have pointed out, the fact that we even put people's rights to equality to a VOTE is absurd. The fact that when give the chance to grant or deny rights to a minority group, rights that the majority group unquestionably has, and we deny those rights, just makes me sick. I don't understand how there could be so much hate, so much disillusionment that No on 1 did not prevail last night. I do firmly believe that the majority of people in Maine wished to grant same sex couples the right to marry, but that many were confused about the language on the ballot and/or confused by the Yes on 1 campaign who used lies and manipulations. The main tactic was to make people think that their whole life would be changed if they voted yes (but seriously, that's not an excuse, so what if your kids find out in school that it's totally okay to have to men or two women in a committed relationship) or...and this is what I think happened to the rural, and often older, folks in Maine, they made people think that voting 'yes' granted rights. I don't know if that all makes sense, but I want to believe that the people of Maine, overall, aren't that intolerant, but it's really hard to say with a vote like last nights.

In better news, Dow Constantine beat the pants of Susan Hutchison, thank god for that, Tim Eyman's initiative got rejected by a landslide (as far as Tim Eyman's initiatives go, at least), and Referendum 71 is trending towards 'Approved', which is fantastic. I got to go to Kay Smith-Blum's victory party last night, as she won resoundingly over the incumbent to become the new School Board member for District 5. She has great ideas, she's unbelievably well informed and I think she's going to do a great job! So. Washington election results are so far so good, but I'm really having trouble celebrating, due to the loss in Maine. Perhaps when we get the final results for the mayors race, McGinn will have won, and I can celebrate more then...

Election Day!

It's election day folks. One of my most and least favorite days of the year. I love election day because I love politics, I love the possibility for change, I love finally finding out what the result of everyone's hard work campaigning for change is. What I hate? Waiting. Seeing how few people vote. Seeing anti-choice, intolerant values and candidates win. So. Today I am a ball of nerves. But, I'm a hopeful ball of nerves. Many people could care less about today's elections, but there are some really important things on the ballot...I'll highlight the ones that I'm worked up about...

In Maine. Proposition 1. Governer Baldacci signed into law the right for same sex partners to marry. Prop 1 is trying to veto that law and they are using the same people, same $$, and same lies they used in California to confuse and manipulate votes. Vote No on 1. Support equality in Maine.

In Seattle (some King County, some statewide):

Mayor: Democrats Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan are neck and neck in the polls. Mike McGinn is an environmentalist, a lawyer and someone who is going to put Seattle on the right track. Joe Mallahan is a T Mobile executive who has little experience, a bad voting record and has used his own personal funds to get himself this far. Vote McGinn!

County Exec: Dow Constantine supports a woman's right to choose, has experience and will work hard for equality, the environment and a slew of other things. Susan Hutchison is a staunch conservative who is anti-choice, has no experience and is counting on her name recognition from years as a TV anchor to pull her through. She is wrong for King County and a win for her is a win for intolerance.

Referendum 71: Vote APPROVE on Ref 71 to retain the rights given to domestic partners. This isn't just a gay rights issues, it's a senior issue too. Voting APPROVE on Ref 71 gives long term domestic partners the legal rights and protections that they deserve.

Initiative 1033: This is a Tim Eyman initiative, must I say more? Vote NO on I-1033 to make sure Tim Eyman doesn't succeed in his efforts to cap our government growth and push our economy into an even worse position fiscally. Vote for the sake of our schools, healthcare, the environment, each and every person who lives in Washington, just vote NO!

So there you have it, the things that I'm so anxious about. Now go vote if you haven't already!

Minnesota State Fair

Having grown up in Maine, I moved to Minnesota with the general understanding that fairs were kind of small county events, with lots of farm animals and some cotton candy circulating. Thankfully, I have come to know better. In Minnesota, as with many midwestern states, the fair is a very very big deal. I generally go at least twice a year, and eat as much food as possible while I am there. This year, though I only went once, it was all I hoped it would be and more - as usual! I have some fair-going rules, and one of them is that I only go with people that will split every food order with me. In this way, I get to try tons of food, avoid feeling sick, and it all costs half as much.

On Tuesday evening, my friend Kate (who is a tried and true fair companion) joined me on a Minnesota State Fair adventure. We shared an order of each of the following:

- Fried Green Tomatoes

- Cheese Curds

- Swedish Egg Coffee

- Corn Dog

- Lemonade

- Hush Puppies

- Mini Donuts

Most years I also eat a Scotch Egg (a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage, dipped in bread crumbs, deep fried, and presented on a stick), but

we ran out of steam before we made it to that vendor. We also were serious about finding the Funnel Cake Fries (new this year!), but the stand had closed by the time we located it. We skipped the chocolate covered bacon (it's apparently kind of gross), Martha's cookies (a bucket of 'em costs $14), and all the deep fried candy bars (melty and delicious, but we filled up before we got over to that corner). I usually make a stop at Custard's Last Stand, mostly out of appreciation for the vendor name, but a gi

rl can only eat so much food in one evening. The twittersphere was all abuzz regarding the smoked salmon on a stick, but I wasn't coordinated enough to seek out that vendor, either. So many things to eat, so little time! It's no wonder that some people make a habit of going 4 or 5 times a year!

Somewhere along the way we stumbled upon some live music: Rock It Science was to

tally rocking out, and we stuck around long enough to see them perform Total Eclipse of the Heart - followed closely by Sweet Child of Mine.

As you may have noticed, we didn't spend time in the animal barns... and the reason for that is simple: a few weeks ago I visited Kate in Milwaukee, and we went to the Wisconsin State Fair. In addition to enjoying such culinary delights as Cream Puffs

(made by the Wisconsin Bakers Association) and Loaded Baked Potatoes (made by the Wisconson Potato Association), we visited tons of animal barns AND we won a trivia game. I love fair season.

An "Adult Birthday Party"

I have a group of friends that I hang out with on a fairly regular basis these days, but our relationship revolves around food. It all started when we were recent alums in the same city, who had all been friendly with each other, but not much more than that. We started having dinners once a month, rotating hosting duties, giving us each a chance to try out new recipes on willing guinea pigs. Our monthly dinners have been going on now for 9 months and since we started we have added dinners for special occasions, as well as outings to restaurants we've wanted to try and pretty much any food related excuse we can find to hang out and eat delicious food. It's all very fun (and delicious), and we've all expanded our cooking knowledge in the process.

We joke about how we act so grown up, making fancy appetizers, complex entrees and extravagent desserts. But then there are things like the halloween themed paper napkins we use at Michael's or the table I (used to, yay) have that barely fit 4 plates on it, or the joke that no one can start dating someone, niether Alicia & Matt nor I have more than place settings. And best of all, the following phrases are most likely heard at least once per dinner: "sorry if this is a disaster", "oh no, I think I missed a step", "oh shit!" and last but not least "I swear, it's almost ready!". Because honestly, we don't know what we're doing.

So this brings me to the title of the post. Last weekend was Michael's birthday so we, of course, had a dinner to celebrate. I was in charge of choosing the cake that Alicia, Matt and I would make. Now usually I go for the classic three layer chocolate cake with the most fantastic Fanny Farmer chocolate frosting. But I needed something more extravagent for Michael, since he never ceases to amaze us with the meals he come up with. I was flipping through my cookbook The Birthday Cake Book by Dede Wilson when I came upon "Chocolate Almond Apricot Cake with Chocolate Glaze". Mmmmm mmmm that sounded delicious! The description made it even more appealing with adjectives such as rich and luscious, but the last sentence is what really sealed the deal. "This is a fabulous cake to serve at an adult birthday party". Perfect!

The cake was delicious, surprisingly easy to make, and last but not least....it looked so fancy and grown up! Here's the recipe, enjoy!

Chocolate Almond Apricot Cake with Chocolate Glaze

Cake Ingredients: 2 3/4 c toasted sliced almonds, 1/4 c plus 1 T flour, 14 T (1 3/4 sticks) butter, at room temp, cut into pieces, 1 c sugar, 1/2 t vanilla extract, 1/4 t almond extract, 8 large eggs, seperated and at room temperature, 7 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted and slightly cooled, 1/2 c apricot spread (100% fruit, no sugar added).

Chocolate Ganache Glaze Ingredients: 1 1/4 c heavy cream, 12 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped. Whole dried apricots (for garnish).

Directions: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F, grease a 9 x 3 inch round springform pan (a pan whose bottom is not attached, and the sides expand for easy removal) and line the bottom with greased parchment paper.

Combine 1 3/4 c of the nuts and the flour in a food processor and pulse a few times, then grind until nuts are very finely ground. In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add the sugar gradually and beat until very light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Beat in the chocolate, blend in the nut-flour mixture in 2 additions.

In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold about one-quarter of the whites into the batter to loighten it; fold in remaining whites. Scrape batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 50-55 minutes.

Let pan cool for 10 minutes or so and then unmold the cake. Using a thin, long-bladed knife, slice the cake in half horizontally so there are two even halves. Spread 6 tablespoons of the apricot spread evenly over one of the cut sides, then put cake back together. Melt the remaining apricot spread and brush it all over the top and sides of the cake. Refrigerate briefly to set the apricot spread.

Place the cake on a wire rack set over a clean pan. In a large saucepan, bring cream to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and immediately sprinkle the chocolate into the cream. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes, the chocolate should melt in this time. Gently stir the ganache until smooth. Let cool a little and then pour on top of the cake, gently spreading it evenly toward and around the edges. Allow excess to drip onto pan beneath, using later if necessary. Take the remaining almonds and press into chocolate glaze. Place dried apricots in a flower pattern in the center of the cake if you wish. Refrigerate the cake for at least an hour, allowing the glaze to set. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 3 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Weekend of Festivals

My oh my was this a fun weekend. Saturday - Bite of Seattle, Sunday - Sequim, WA Annual Lavender Festival. I certainly ate a lot of food and got a lot of sun! Summer in Washington State is fantastic. First up, Bite of Seattle. The Bite of Seattle is the cities annual foodie festival. Like any festival at the Seattle Center, there is a large variety of food vendors, but the two features that are special to Bite of Seattle that I most enjoyed were the local and/or organic companies giving out samples, coupons and information, and 'The Alley', the Tom Douglas sponsored $10 speed lane to a sampling of food from some of Seattle's finest restaurants. The menu of 'The Alley' was different each day, my favorites from Saturdays menu were..

Rub With Love
Painted Hill's Tri Tip Beef —served with Ancho Molasses BBQ Sauce and Corn Relish

Seastar
Thai Seafood Salad—Calamari, Shrimp and Octopus with sweet white onion, Kaffir lime, mint, cilantro and peanuts in a spicy Thai sweet-n-sour dressing

Cellars Restaurant & Lounge
GNUDI—“naked ravioli” Gnocci like ricotta and spinach pasta served with mushrooms and sage in white truffle oil cream sauce

Salty’s
Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho with Dungeness crab—a chilled heirloom soup topped with herbed Dungeness Crab and avocado

Absolutely Delicious!

After consuming a free Brown Cow Yogurt (a favorite of mine ever since I got a free sample on the corner of 3rd and Pine last summer), gourmet popcorn, salsa, Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate Juice, Jones Soda, the food from 'The Alley' and who knows what else (can you

blame me for being unable to keep track?) I headed home full and exhausted. I was moving at a nice rate until I hit Whole Foods, upon entering to use the bathroom, I discovered they now sell Molly Moon's...Seattle's newest, most delicious and original ice cream. Realizing I hadn't had dessert, I got a 'mini' (one scoop) of Mojito Sorbet and closed out my trip to Bite of Seattle on a cool and sweet note.

Upon arriving home, some friends arrived at my apartment. Seeing as though they had gone to Bite of Seattle the day before, their bellies were much less stuffed than mine and were eager to

cook a fun and fancy dinner. After some snacks to hold them over while I mentally prepared myself for more food, we decided to prepare linguine with clam sauce, topped with fresh steamed clams. Sounds fancy, right? Turns out it's a fairly simple meal to make! Butter, cream (we used fat free milk plus a few teaspoons of corn starch instead), some fresh herbs (we used basil and parsley), salt & pepper plus a sprinkle of shredded parmesan and...ta da! A delicious and satisfying feast. Who knew?

With an eventful Saturday under my belt, I slept soundly and rose early the next morning. It was Lavender Festival Day! It turns out that the north east corner of the Olympic Peninsula has the climate and soil of France, and is perfect for lavender growing! After a quick drive to Edmunds, a lovely ferry ride across the sound and another quick drive (okay...so this one was not so quick), we arrived in Sequim (pronounced 'squim', like 'squid' but with an 'm'), home to the13th Annual Lavender Festival.

The 13th Annual Sequim Lavender Festival is the premier celebration of the joys of lavender and the largest lavender festival in North America. Sequim is located on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, cradled in the “rain shadow” of the Olympic Mountains and Olympic National Park. The Sequim-Dungeness Valley has an ideal microclimate for growing lavender and with less than 20 inches of rain per year; the area is similar to the Provence region of France. Because of the unique conditions and dedicated farmers, Sequim lavender has received world-wide recognition for its superior quality and fragrance. Our farmers have over 200 years of combined experience cultivating lavender, developing the best planting and growing practices, and creating lavender products. (www.lavenderfestival.com)

According to newspaper reports, there were over 200 stands at the street fair and over 30,000 visitors to the festival. Wow! The amount of lavender infused food was impressive, and the lavender infused culinary items for sale were inspiring. I purchased a little container of culinary lavender and I can't wait to try it out! My favorite part by far though, were the farm tours. There was a free shuttle bus running from the street fair to each farm ($15 got you into all 8 farms, if you had the time!), and we managed to make it to three farms before we ran out of time (and

energy). At Port Williams Lavender Farm we got a taste for what was to come and learned about the organic soil they use. At Purple Haze Lavender Farm, my favorite for sure, we were entertained with jovial live music, relaxed with drinks from the Lavender Bar (I had a lavender cosmo, delicious!) and took in the beauty of the neverending fields of lavender. As seen in the picture at the beginning of this post, they had a field of lavender with alternating rows of deep and light purple varieties, with a huge hedge of sunflowers at the end. Gorgeous! We finished up at Jardin du Soleil Lavender Farm, where we cooled off with some White Chocolate Raspberry Lavender Ice Cream, and got our picture taken in the field.

Prairie Home Companion

Well, if ever there was a way to celebrate the 4th of July a few weekends ago, I found it. And most of the over 60 crowd in central Minnesota would agree with me, I think. I attended the 35th Anniversary show of Prairie Home Companion, along with 10,000 other individuals, in the small town of Avon, Minnesota. Here's what I wrote while attending the event:

"If the public radio audience is narrow, and the Prairie Home Companion audience narrower - those that show up for 4th of July celebrations in Avon, MN - to celebrate an otherwise generally debaucherous holiday amongst families and a live brass brand... it's that much narrower. In a very complex Venn diagram (how do you spell that?) these families match mine. Sitting in rural Minnesota, surrounded by strangers, I am home.

"Rhubarb pie sold out first, then brats (bratwurst sausages, to those of you that are not midwest-based). They can't get rid of the pizza. The only beverages being purchased are water and beer. Every kid in sight is nibbling on carrot sticks, raspberries - and that one has a hunk of brie cheese.

"Children old enough to be irritable at the world are coping with their frustrations by quietly reading books, propping up spare layers to create shade for their huddled reading nooks."

I ask you - does this sound like your average American crowd? I think not. Get your Venn diagrams started.