Bringing the Tropics Home

Last week, my little family and I went for a vacation to Kauai which is one of the islands in Hawaii. As I wrote about here, it is a good idea to get out of the Seattle gray skies and drizzle at least once each winter to keep your sanity - if possible. We have had more sun this winter than usual, but also more cold and a LOT more snow. Suffice it to say that I was really ready to see the sun and to have it be warm.

But it was not to be. Kauai is the "rainy" island and we were staying at the "rainy" end of it, but usually that just means that, in the midst of sunny 80 degree days, rain clouds periodically pass by and drench you. I'm OK with that. Our week was a little different. Some kind of storm system was settled over the islands last week and we had colder than usual temperatures, quite a bit of rain, and a lot of wind. Oh, and not much sun.

We still had a lovely vacation - we were all together in a nice place and the boys got to play on the beach and even stick their toes in the water. We went to an incredible park with the best play structure that any of us had ever seen. Randy and I got a babysitter one night and went out for dinner. And each night at 5pm, we would venture over to the bar for happy hour and the cocktail of the day. The boys were particularly fond of pineapple and guava juice. We were particularly fond of anything with rum.

It was really so nice to be away from our stressful and busy lives back home. It felt luxurious to just sit for a while - and not at the computer! I finished 2 1/2 books and it would have been 3 if I had not chosen Salman Rushdie's latest. He is a tough read.

Now that we are back, I find myself missing the tropics - even if the tropics weren't that tropical for us this year. I wanted to re-create some of those flavors for my clients this week and found the most amazing soup. This tropical gazpacho is quite different than the gazpacho I make gallons of each summer. Most of the vegetables, along with some bread, are all pureed together. Here is the kicker - there is pineapple in there too. It may sound weird, but I assure you the flavor is fantastic. The pineapple doesn't overpower, just lends a slight sweetness and yes, tropical-ness. I would encourage you to taste as you go and what you think it needs. I added additional pineapple and it's juice, plus more lime. I served this soup with Sweet Potato Roti and Golden Basmati Rice Pilaf.


Tropical Gazpacho
Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites
Serves 4-6

4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 English cucumber, peeled and seeded
1 medium red pepper, diced
1 small red onion, diced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1 cup canned unsweetened pineapple chunks in juice
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
generous pinch cayenne, or more to taste
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 1/2 cups crusty bread, crusts removed, torn into chunks
3 cups tomato juice
salt and pepper to taste

In a blender or food processor, combine the garlic, 1/2 the cucumbers, 1/2 the bell peppers, the red onion, 1/2 the tomatoes, the pineapple and its juice, vinegar, cayenne, cumin, bread chunks, and tomato juice and puree until smooth. (DN: If you do this in the blender, it will be quite full. Be sure to hang on to the top when you turn it on.)

Transfer to a bowl, then stir in the remaining vegetables. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 1 day.

Aloha!

I say "Seattle" and what do you think? Space Needle, Safeco Field? Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Nordstrom? Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Death Can for Cutie? Mountains, Water, Trees? Nope. You probably think "rain".

And you would be right. It does rain here although you may be surprised to know that, in terms of inches, we get less than New York, Boston, or even Miami. What we get is days and days (or weeks and weeks) of gray skies with little spits of rain. We don't get the cold that strikes much of the nation in winter and we usually don't get snow - this year has been an exception. But we don't get much sun and that can be hard to take. I went to college in Connecticut and my first winter I was blown away by how cold it was and by how much sun there was. "What is up with sun in winter?", I remember asking my college roommate.

So to live in Seattle, and keep your sanity, it is important to get out of town in the winter if at all possible. My parents are big skiers and so when I was growing up, we always went skiing. I am not a big skier, although I am a decent one, so I always begged them to go somewhere warm. They did not listen to me and so each February, we were off to Sun Valley, Deer Valley, or Vail. (Cue the violins.)

I married a big skier and resigned myself to future Februarys in snowy locales. But the most amazing thing happened. Last year we went to Kauai on a deal we could not refuse. Neither of us had ever been to that island and we both fell in love with it. Randy finally understood my desire for sun - and warmth - in the midst of our gray winters. He isn't ready to give up the idea of ski vacations as our boys get older and truthfully, neither am I. I love the idea of putting them in ski school and taking to the slopes with my husband just like the old days. But for now I can look forward to a little sun and warmth each winter.

We leave tomorrow so I will be absent from this blog for a week. I wish you all happy cooking! Before I sign off, I thought I would share my 2 year old's favorite place to play these days.


This is my spice cabinet. I have two of these wonderful drawers on either side of my oven. The one on the right side houses extra oils and vinegars and this one houses all my lesser used spices and random jars and bottles.

I have a lot of spices. These are the heavy rotation ones.

Anyway, I made the mistake of opening this cabinet one day when my two year old was in the kitchen with me and now he loves taking things out and putting them back and hiding them in all different parts of the house. I used to keep it organized but now, why bother?


The bottom shelf has airplane sized liquor bottles of things that I use in baking (really!) and those, of course, are his favorite things to play with. The other day, this is what was on his highchair tray.


Yes, that would be Pear Brandy, Grand Marnier, and his water cup. Please don't call CPS on me.

Memories of France

My husband Randy is a master finagler. Everything he finagles is above board but he is just one of those amazing people who can ask for things and get them. He spent many years in the Navy and was able to do some incredible things (spend time with the Norwegian Navy, travel in Israel, study in France), all because he asked and they said yes.

This quality served us well the year we lived in London. We went to Euro-Disney for a conference (and a weekend in Paris), we went to Israel for a week so he could meet with a company his employer was thinking of buying. Oh yes, and he got us to London for a year!

Before we moved back to Seattle, and after he had been recruited to work for another company, he finagled a trip around northern Europe so he could "meet the teams." If you know my husband, you know that he worked hard on that trip. He never doesn't work hard. But he also got us to Tallin (Estonia), Stockholm, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Paris in the week and a half after we left London.

Once he was done with meetings in Paris, we rented a car and took our time driving south to Provence to meet up with some friends. I will always remember this trip for many different reasons. First, obviously, I got to see cities in Europe that I had never seen which is always thrilling. I was on my way back home to the States which I felt really excited about. I was going to see a part of my beloved France that I had heard so much about but never seen. We were going to witness parts of Llance Armstrong's historic 6th win of the Tour de France. But perhaps most of all, I was hyper aware of the baby growing in my belly.

Right before we left London, I had an ultrasound (at 16 weeks) which told us that we were going to have a boy. The incredible joy I felt seeing that little fully formed person is difficult to describe - if you have witnessed an ultrasound for your baby-to-be, you know what I am talking about. We were beyond thrilled that he was going to be a boy and over the moon to see that he looked healthy. About a week later, once we had gotten to Stockholm, I started to bleed. Of course, it happened on July 4th, so I was unable to reach a doctor back in the States and the Swedish doctor we spoke to just told me to hang in there and if the bleeding increased, to go immediately to a hospital. My first thought when I woke up, the last thought I had before I drifted off to sleep, and every other thought in between was whether or not I was going to lose that precious baby for days. Once we got in touch with our doctor back home, she told me to stay off my feet as much as possible which is difficult in small European cities where you really just need to walk everywhere.

I did notice that when I took it easy, the bleeding stopped. Once I started walking too much, it would pick back up again. So, as much as I enjoyed the travel on that trip, when we finally made it to Provence, I could breathe easy. We were staying at a property where we had a wonderful room with lots of communal living space and a pool. We weren't near anything except tiny perfect French towns. I pretty much just took it easy for the first few days. As my fear began to subside, I began to explore the paradise that is Provence. I did see Llance Armstrong come through Nimes (although I was sitting on the sidewalk). I did see countless vineyards and walk through the markets of Arles. I also sat in the sun poolside and got lots of sleep.

Once home, I had another ultrasound and everything looked fine with our baby. Just 17 weeks later he was born and showed himself to be perfect.

So what on Earth does all this have to do with lentils?? This incredible dish (one of my absolute favorites - like take it to a desert island favorites) comes from Patricia Wells' The Provence Cookbook. It is the one cookbook I took with me on our trip there. Not only did I use it to cook lots of delicious food for our friends that week, but I also used it as a reference. Wells details out where the best markets are, where the best pottery is, and profiles some of her favorite farmers. It is an amazing cookbook but also a resource for traveling in her beloved Provence. Because this book really is a love letter to Provence. I cannot open this lovely cookbook with its sunny cover and inviting prose without thinking of my incredible son, now 4 years old. How worried I was! I had no idea that really, as a mother, you just keep worrying...

Lentils with Capers, Walnuts, Walnut Oil, and Mint
Adapted from The Provence Cookbook
Serves 4-6

You could use regular lentils in this recipe, but Le Puy lentils are worth seeking out for their firm texture and density. Toasting the walnuts really brings out their flavor so don't skip that step. The method of cooking the lentils may seem overly fussy here, but I trust Wells implicitly, so I always follow her advice when making this dish.

2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
Sea salt to taste
6 tbsp. walnut oil
1 1/2 cups (8 oz.) French lentils, such as Le Puy
2 cups vegetable stock
1 carrot, peeled and cut into thirds
1 onion, peeled and stuck with a clove
1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
1/2 capers in vinegar, drained, rinsed, and chopped if large
1 cup fresh mint leaves
Freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Place the lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a jar with a screw top (such as a jam jar). Cover and give it a good shake. Add the oil and shake to blend. Taste for seasoning and set aside.

2. Place the lentils in a fine mesh sieve and rinse under cold running water. Tranfer them to a large saucepan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil over high heat. When the water boils, remove the saucepan from the heat. Transfer the lentils back to the sieve and drain over a sink. Rinse the lentils under cold running water again. Return the lentils to the saucepan, add the stock, season with salt, and bring just to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the carrot and onion. Simmer gently, uncovered, until the lentils are cooked but not mushy. Taste to make sure. Remove the onion and carrot and discard. If there is still liquid in the pot along with the lentils, drain them once again in the sink.

3. Transer the lentils to a large bowl. Add the walnuts, capers, and a few grinds of pepper. Add the vinaigrette to taste - you may not need all of it. Toss well. Once the lentils have cooled a bit, add the mint and toss again. Can be served warm or room temperature. Keeps 2 days, covered, in the refrigerator.

Vancouver Weekend

When I was pregnant with my older son, Randy and I decided to take a Lamaze class to prepare us for childbirth. Because his work schedule was even more crazy then than it is now, we opted to do a weekend away instead of a class meeting once a week. As luck would have it, 11 other really cool couples made this same decision and we had a truly wonderful weekend meeting new friends and getting scared about our impending births.

As we all had our babies within two months of each other, we formed a support group. We would get together once a week and cry and laugh and nurse our newborns. If I hadn't had this group of women, I'm not sure how I would have survived my son's first year. Of the twelve couples, six have moved away and the rest of us don't get together as often as we would like. We have all had second children now and our lives are crazier than ever. I have been trying to get away with my friends Joy and Lauren for the better part of a year now and this past weekend, we skipped town and went to Vancouver, B.C.

If you have never been to Vancouver, it is truly one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I think Seattle is beautiful, but when I go there, I am truly blown away. Like Seattle, there is water everywhere, but there the mountain practically sit on top of the city. There are terrific neighborhoods, great shopping, a very vibrant restaurant scene, and everyone is nice. I won't go into exhaustive details about our weekend but I will say the following...

I DID:
- sleep in a great bed in a nice hotel
- have wine with lunch
- shop for and buy a little black dress
- have INCREDIBLE Indian food at ViJ's Restaurant
- have incredible ravioli at Parkside Restaurant (the menu was specializing in game meats)
- have uninterrupted adult conversation
- enjoy time with two good friends
- miss my boys

I DID NOT:
- drive
- do dishes
- go grocery shopping
- change a diaper
- check email
- cook
- think much about cooking

All in all, a great weekend!

Birthday Weekend

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am a total dork about my birthday. I have been this way since I can remember. Counting down the days to my birthday (starting one month prior) while still in grade school is one thing. Doing the same into my thirties is another.

Now that I am officially in my late thirties (!) and have two kids with their own birthdays to get excited about, I can report that I have become slightly less of a dork. I can no longer answer automatically how many days are left in the countdown - I actually have to count. On the big day, I no longer feel like I want to go up to the top of the Space Needle and shout so the whole world can hear, "Today is my birthday!" However, I do still kind of expect everyone who I interact with (including complete strangers) to wish me a happy birthday. Is it because I am a summer baby? I never had the cupcakes brought to school and no classroom full of children ever sang to me - am I still searching for that attention? And if so, why?

Fortunately, my husband indulges me and works hard to make me feel special on my birthday. This year we went to Portland for the weekend without our kids. This was the first time we have been away from both of them and, as much as I adore them, it was much needed. The idea of having one full day of just doing whatever we (all right I) wanted without having to take their eating and sleeping schedules into account was, well, glorious. We didn't even really mind that it took us 4 1/2 hours to get there and back because traffic was awful - there were no children in the car and we actually had time to talk.

What do you do in Portland? Well, eat and shop. It is a much smaller city than Seattle, but has an incredibly vibrant restaurant scene and fantastic boutique shopping. I spent quite a bit of time researching restaurants and obsessing over which two would be perfect. I whittled it down to about 5 options because all the cross-referencing I did brought up the same five. Based on menus I saw online, I made the choice to go to Park Kitchen and Bluehour.

Friday night we went to Park Kitchen and I really can't say enough good things about the place. We had an 8:30 reservation (pushed back from 7:30 because of the traffic) and they weren't ready to seat us. We grabbed a seat in the bar and Randy proceeded to almost pass out. He is hypoglycemic and for some reason, it takes him a while to realize that he desperately needs food. Sometimes I can recognize that he is being weird because he needs to eat and sometimes I just think he is being weird. Fortunately, he was able to ask the hostess for some bread and the most incredible giant slices of bread were in front of us before we knew it. As an apology for the table taking so long (we didn't sit until after 9), she also brought us some salted cod cakes which looked like giant fried golf balls and Randy said tasted like fish sticks - in a good way.

After that, the dinner was just lovely. We had an amazing server named Holly who, in addition to having just the right amount of cheer, was incredibly knowledgeable and opinionated about the menu. I love it when a server tell you with zeal what their favorite dish is and what to stay away from. As she brought us our salads (farro with giant chunks of feta and fava beans for me; green bean, apricot, and hazelnut with a caramel crouton for Randy), I mentioned that we had reservations at Bluehour the next night. She made a face. Was it too swanky, I wondered. She said that indeed it is kind of a see-and-be-seen place, and if we just wanted to eat good food, we should go to Lovely Hula Hands, another restaurant in the five I chosen from.

Our entrees continued in the same vein as the appetizers, interesting and delicious. I had stone-ground grits that were somehow the consistency of risotto (but with that amazing rich and buttery corn flavor), topped with a trio of beans - fava, wax, and kidney. They had been tossed with some kind of vinaigrette so the balance of rich, salty and acidic was perfect. Randy told me over and over again that I had to write about the lamb sausage he was loving to death, although I assured him that it really didn't have a place on a vegetarian blog.

As the meal wore on, and we loved the vibe more and more at this simple and yet sophisticated restaurant, I made up my mind. For my birthday, swanky was out and simple was in. We cancelled the reservation at Bluehour and decided to drive to a totally different part of town to check out Lovely Hula Hands.

We never did get the story behind the name of this place. Our experience there was good - it is on a very cool street and the place is small and sweet. They don't take reservations so we had to wait a good long while which kind of spoiled the mood of the evening for us. The food however, was terrific. Randy had a zucchini carpaccio for a starter and I had a perfectly dressed arugula salad with hazelnuts and pecorino cheese. My imaginative entree made me curse all the risottos and pastas I have had at Seattle restaurants. Two huge cornmeal crepes filled with greens and ricotta, topped with a salsa of tomatoes and beans. Take that Restaurant Zoe!

A Love Letter to Lopez

No photo or recipe today (tomorrow, I promise), just musings on this past weekend. Our little family went to Lopez Island, one of the San Juan Islands in the northern part of Puget Sound. If you have never had the good fortune to visit these magical islands, you best put it on your to-do list.

Both my brothers and I were lucky enough to go to a heaven-on-earth place called Camp Nor'wester. In those days, it was all the way at the southern tip of Lopez and I think it shaped my life more than any other thing with the possible exception of my parents. Talk to just about anyone who went there and they will most likely say the same thing. Camp was rustic (we slept in teepees), cold (the lodge had an exposed wall), and perfect. My parents would come up to visit us and over time, fell in love with the island as much as we had.

In 1991, they purchased a little house on the island that looked right across the bay at camp. In the evening, across still water we could hear them singing after dinner, and we could always hear the meal bell. A few years later, the camp moved to a different island (another story for another day) but we still had our perfect little house. My parents made some nice improvements to it and bought two one-person kayaks. My dad and I had many slow and lovely paddles around that gentle bay and one day he said to me, "Dana, I think this is what heaven must look like.". My dad is agnostic to the core so still brings tears to my eyes to remember that statement - his love for that beauty is so deep, he might even entertain the idea of heaven.

Almost as soon as we met, Randy and I started going to stay at that little house over weekends. We met in late November, so our first journeys were in the winter. I had never spent any time there in the winter and those cold and dark days are some of my favorite that I have ever spent there. The island empites out in the winter to the 2000 or so year-round inhabitants and becomes a different, yet no less special place. The beaches are deserted, town no longer has more bicyclists than motorists, and everything just feels more peaceful and still.

Two of the most wonderful things about this island (and there are many many wonderful things) have to do with food. At least for me anyway. First of all, there is the kind of bakery that everyone wishes that they had in their neighborhood. Her name is Holly B, she named the bakery after herself, and you wish she was your relative, or at least your neighbor. Her heavenly bakery contains all kinds of perfect things. I say perfect because that is exactly what they are not - no confections that test the laws of gravity, or pastries that look too perfect to eat. Everything (and over the years, I have sampled just about everything) tastes like something baked with all natural ingredients, plenty of sugar when needed, and lots of love. You taste what you would taste if you were a really good home baker. She has one of the most wonderful cookbook available for purchase and it is a treasure. The recipe for Cowgirl Cookies alone is worth the price of the book.

Sadly, Holly B's is not open during the winter months but the other food treasure is. The Bay Cafe has long taken been my answer when people ask me about my favorite restaurant in Seattle. The problem is, it's not in Seattle. But it is the only place I can seem to come up with when a friend (or my husband) asks me where I want to eat. I have eaten there more times than any other place besides my own house, and I always marvel at the food.

Randy and I had some very memorable meals there over the course of our courtship and engagement (including the weekend that he proposed to me on Lopez, of course), so it only made sense that we should have our wedding reception there. We were married in a perfect little church and then took 30 of our family members and closest friends to dinner at the Bay. The sun was setting just as we arrived and really the whole thing could not have been more perfect. Uncharacteristically for me, I do not remember what we ate, but I do remember everyone loved it. We had such special people sharing that day, many of them had dined there before with us.

Our trip this past weekend was our first in two years. Last year our baby was just a few months old and I just couldn't summon the energy for the journey. It was so wonderful to be back and see that, apart from some minor business changes, everything looked the same. We decided to brave The Bay Cafe, even with our two little ones, because - how could we not?

One of the most wondeful things about the Bay is that all entrees include a soup of the day (which is always vegetarian), and a green salad. For me, this is huge because it guarantees that I am going to have multiple flavors in my meal - something so often missing in most of my dinners out. And the other most wonderful thing about the Bay is that there is usually a Vegetarian Tapas on the menu. This is always three separate plates of healthy sized portions of things that the chef decides to put together that day. So, stay with me on the math here, that means five different things to eat in one meal. Hip hip hooray!

To be truthful, Friday's dinner was a bit of a disappointment. The soup was a Cream of Cauliflower in which I tasted no cauliflower only Parmesan cheese. My baby ate my whole cup and half of Randy's. The salad had greens, salted cashews, strawberries, and a Wasabi Lime Vinaigrette. I tasted no wasabi or lime, just water from the not-dried-enough lettuce and my baby ate all of my (and all of Randy's) strawberries. And the tapas was three really disjointed things. A chickpea cake (which seemed to actually be made of black beans), a warm Israeli cous cous salad, and thin slices of golden beets with goat cheese sandwiched in between, topped with a lemony dressing. Each thing was fine, not great, but none of them went together. I only got one bite of the beets and the baby ate the rest of them. Beets!

All in all, it didn't matter. It was wonderful to be there and to know that that was our first dinner there as a family. We know we will be there countless times in the future. They better keep beets on the menu.