Paleo Crepes

Did you know that crepes are quick and easy to make? In fact, you can make them for an afternoon snack. Sure, having received the Analon Crepe Pan from last year's International Food Bloggers Conference made it easier and having an easy paleo crepe recipe kept it healthy, too!

Making crepes, even non-paleo crepes is pretty quick and doesn't require a lot of ingredients. Basically, crepe batter is a very thin batter which quickly cooks on a wide flat pan. You don't even have to have a crepe pan, a large skillet will work too!

Mise en place, a technique of preparing everything a head of time, helps make quick work of crepes. For Elana's crepes, it's simply eggs, coconut flour, coconut oil and water. That's great for a savory filling, maybe adding some coconut sugar would be nice for sweeter crepes.

Crepes cook quickly, maybe in 3 or 4 minutes and are delicate. I don't like to flip them because I lose so many to tearing, so I keep my batter on the thinner side.

 If I were making these as a treat or not worried about clean eating, this is where I'd dust them with powdered sugar!

My personal favorite filling is spinach, ham and mushrooms - I lean towards the savory over the sweet. I made crepes for breakfast this morning (yep, they're an all day snack) and realized that mushrooms need to be a staple item in my house!

What is your favorite filling?

Disclaimer: I received the pan at the IFBC conference and this post is one of three that I had to write as a blogger attending IFBC.

Trying to make a lamb lover out of me yet

At last year's International Food Blogger's Conference, I attended a breakout session sponsored by the American Lamb Board, Curriculamb 101. Historically, I've not really liked lamb - it's had a gamey taste, it's been tough. But surprise of surprises, I have 56 lamb recipes clipped in my Evernote Recipes notebook. My lovely wife likes lamb and I'll give it the old college try and make it for her on special occasions. So, I attended this breakout to learn more about lamb and see if it could get me across the threshold to be a fan of lamb.

Roast lamb with mashed carrots

I learned quite a bit about lamb, particularly that quite a deal of lamb is produced here in the Pacific Northwest and that the gaminess comes from the age of lamb. Domestic lamb is usually younger than imported Australian lamb - because we don't have a huge demand for wool in the US. In Australia, they'll keep their lamb a little longer to be able to shear their wool a few times.

One leg of lamb

And as an added bonus for attending the breakout, the American Lamb Board gave me a boneless leg of lamb to roast for my family! One more try to make me a lamb lover and an opportunity for me to make Heather a nice meal.

Herbs and spices ready to make a crust!

I decided to make the Serious Eat's Slow Roasted Boneless Leg of Lamb with Garlic, Rosemary and Lemon with Carrot, Leek and Parsley Mash from Chowhound. The lamb recipe called to me because of the crust of herbs that get rubbed on the leg before roasting it. This meal had a bit of fanciness to it, but kept it clean, not quite paleo, but primal.

Neither recipe was difficult, but it was one of those meals that took several hours as the leg of lamb needs to be in the oven for almost 4 hours and then rest. At least this way, you're only really cooking one thing at a time.

After several hours of roasting (and a fair bit of hoping on my part that it was fully cooked), I had some wonderful lamb ready for dinner.

Leg of lamb, all roasty!

It was good and it definitely opened me up to more lamb. I don't actively avoid lamb nowadays, but it still hasn't made itself a commonplace meal on my table yet!

Thanks to the American Lamb Board @fanoflamb for the meat and if you're a food blogger, think of heading to IFBC 2016 in Sacramento July 29 -31, 2016. This is one of my posts in return for a discounted blogger conference rate.

Pizza or Lox for Breakfast?

This morning, I came downstairs and found my daughter eating a slice of last night's pizza - the breakfast of champions. Pizza wasn't the breakfast for me; I was thinking about how to prepare my eggs.

With more time on this weekend morning, I offered to make soft boiled eggs for her, knowing that soft boiled is one of her preferred ways to eat eggs. She said, "No" that she had already eaten pizza.  I remembered some gluten free bread that we had and decided to fry an egg on toast. She still wasn't interested.

As I was getting the eggs from the fridge, I saw a package of lox. This changed it all for me - I was going to poach an egg on toast with lox.  Evidently, it changed it all for my daughter too, "Can you make one for me too?"

Poached egg with lox on toast #breakfast

A photo posted by Beau (@beauraines) on Jan 30, 2016 at 8:22am PST

Starbucks Grande Plan For Great Coffee

I've think I've figured out Starbucks grand, or should I say grande, plan. For years, I've maintained that Starbucks is great because you can get a consistent cup of coffee, just about anywhere. Recently, I've come to the conclusion that I want to consistently get great coffee. For me, this has meant independent cafes and brewing my coffee myself.

I brewed 248.6g of Nicaragua Laurina #coffee from 20.7g of beans with pour over. I couldn't quite pull as much of the lemon notes out as I got at the roaster. @starbucksroastery @acaiacoffee #singleorigin

A photo posted by Beau (@beauraines) on Mar 29, 2015 at 8:42am PDT

Starbucks recently opened their Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room, where they roast rare and small batch coffee beans. Its an experience because the tasting room is built around the roastery, you can chat with the roasters as they work. They sell beans that you'll only be able to find there, some of them even roasted the same day!  There are great single origin beans and some that come from a farm smaller than a football field.  Unlike a normal Starbucks, you can get your coffee from a whole slew of brew methods and if you find a new favorite, you can pick up all of the coffee gadgets you'll ever need (or want).

While this is a great coffee experience, it is only here in Seattle. But Starbucks is up to something. Starbucks has done a great job of exposing American's to good coffee, but they're going to take it up a notch. With the roastery and a few other efforts, they're exposing American's to great coffees.

I've recently started seeing Starbuck's single origin beans at the grocery store. I've not picked any up because they've always been pre-ground and I know that is sub-optimal, but its getting the idea out there in front of consumers.

Last weekend, I was driving a carpool for swim practice and was in a shady neighborhood where the Starbucks is my hangout while waiting for practice to end. I was surprised to see that they had one of their espresso machines loaded with single origin beans from Kenya. They had little signs suggesting that people order their espresso drinks with the single origin beans. I decided to have a tasting and compare the espresso made with the two different beans. It took a while to get my order right, two single shots of espresso, not one double, but the differences between the two beans were incredible and easy to notice.

Having a #coffee tasting this morning. @starbucks is offering #singleorigin in their #espresso. Kenya vs. the espresso roast. Huge difference. Kenya #ftw

A photo posted by Beau (@beauraines) on May 16, 2015 at 9:24am PDT

At most Starbucks, instead of their drip coffee sits in the urn for up to 30 minutes, you can order a pour over. They'll use any of the beans in the store for it, opening a package from the shelf if necessary. At no additional cost compared to their drip coffee. It's definitely slower and does have an impact on the customer queue, but its one more way that Starbucks is upping the quality of the coffee that they make available.

Starbucks has been successful at getting coffee in front of almost all Americans and even convinced them to shell out big bucks for a drink with very little coffee in it. Now, with these introductions of better brew methods, distinct flavor profiles and single origin beans, they're working on stepping the American coffee drinker up to a better coffee experience. In the long run, this is great for coffee growers and the coffee industry. Its actually interesting from a business perspective where the big player in the industry is working to make the market better rather than just drive costs out.

Maybe its not a grande plan, but a Venti. What do you think?

New Spring Menu at Shibumi Izakaya

The spring menu is coming to Shibumi Izakaya on Capital Hill in Seattle! Last week I was invited to a preview dinner of the forthcoming Japanese small plates and comfort foods. I've never been there before and wasn't sure what the evening had in store, but I was impressed.

The restaurant is beautiful and minimalist with wood accents and Japanese ceramics and clothing on display. The bar is well stocked, with a range of Japanese whiskys, sake and sochu. Always my favorite in any restaurant, the open kitchen borders on one half one the restaurant.

The bartender is super friendly. I'd never had shochu before and after chatting about how it fits into different cocktails, he brought out some samples. Quite a difference between barley and sweet potato distilled liquor. I had his take on Moscow Mule, made with his own ginger beer. He also made a vesper, substituting shochu for vodka, which was a delicious drink, too.  I recommend Shibumi on the drinks alone!

Moscow Mule with house made ginger beer

Like many Japanese restaurants, Shibumi serves beautiful sashimi. And while delicious, Shibumi has far more to offer. This eating experience showed that Japanese cuisine was more than just ginger and wasabi.

Sashimi

Once the small plates started coming, it got real.  The food ranged from vinegary and sweet shrimp and pickled cucumbers to savory cuttlefish stuffed with sausage. It was an eye opening evening; I don't think of sausage as a typical Japanese dish.

Soft boiled eggs are hard to come by in restaurants and I was pleasantly surprised by the soft egg with roe. The egg was perfectly creamy and the roe popped with the freshness of the sea. It's less salty than caviar and was a beautiful treat. I will replicate this at home for sure.

 

The chef, Eric Stapelman, came out and visited our table a few times. He shared that shibumi means always striving for perfection and it shows in his food. There was one dish that the restaurant was too dark for me to capture a picture and it was quite possibly the highlight of the evening.  A piece of poached salmon was wrapped in tofu skin, packaged up as a little gift drizzled with a savory nage. Each bite was blissful, but in a later discussion with the chef, he said he was considering swapping the salmon with his house made sausage - demonstrating how he's always trying to perfect what he does.

The evening wrapped up with black sesame ice cream, beautifully served with an edible flower. The black sesame impart a vaguely coffee flavor to the ice cream and the whole sesame give it a little crunch.

The new menu launches Wednesday April 15th and will delight your senses. Stretch your eating boundaries, try a new cuisine and enjoy some great cocktails.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post, but I was given an awesome dinner and drinks. As always, the opinions are mine and I'm looking forward to coming back to this restaurant.

I'm still going to get Specialty Coffee

I wasn't able to attend this year's Specialty Coffee Association of America's Event in Seattle this weekend, but I've been getting my fair share of specialty coffee and have been living vicariously through the #SCAA2015 Instagram feed.

Did You Know…? #SCAA2015 pic.twitter.com/BZ511A35qz
— SCAA (@SpecialtyCoffee) April 11, 2015

Over the year's I've realized the benefit of slowing down and enjoying life's experiences, even if they're the small everyday things. Coffee is one of those things for me. I used to drink 6 -8 shots of espresso a day. Along with some other lifestyle changes I'll drink one coffee a day, but it will be a damn fine coffee.

There is a lot of mediocre coffee available today and people drink it up. But what is great when you can find people that really love coffee and it shows in their product.  I've found a small cafe in Burien, Washington that makes excellent coffee and love the fact that at most Starbucks, you can get a pour over.

With a little searching or good friends you can find great roasters. A friend of mine from work brought me coffee from Bend, Oregon from Backporch Coffee Roasters which I've quite enjoyed of the last few weeks.

Sure, I've geeked out a bit with my purchase of a grinder and love my acaia coffee scale, but they all aid the experience in bringing out the best of the coffee.

What a difference a grinder makes! New grinder brought out so many more nuances from my @backporchcoffeeroasters #coffee
— Beau Raines (@beauraines) March 6, 2015

Starbucks has done something wonderful with coffee, too. And I'm not talking about the fact that you can get a consistent cup of coffee just about anywhere in the United States (or right across the street from you where ever yo u may be in Seattle) - Starbucks has opened a roastery just for their own Reserve beans.

A great afternoon checking out single origin #coffee and small batch roasting @starbucksroastery

A photo posted by Beau (@beauraines) on Mar 28, 2015 at 4:35pm PDT

They have rare beans and they roast them in the same space that they make your drinks. Its not just machine pulled espresso drinks - they have all types of different pour overs, siphons and cold brew. Now that Starbucks has gotten everybody hooked on coffee, they're going to upgrade everybody to good coffee!

Ironically, the Starbucks Roastery is right down the street from Victrola Coffee Roasters. While they've been on Capital Hill for a long time, I wonder how many people walk right past them, not knowing the wonderful coffee that has been available since the early 2000's.

A photo posted by Beau (@beauraines) on Mar 29, 2015 at 11:12am PDT

Take a little time, make an investment in your coffee experience and really enjoy it. You can have Specialty Coffee right in your own home.

Get your oysters at Whole Foods Market

Last month, a few foodies and I were invited to Whole Foods Market Interbay to enjoy oyster and wine pairings. I don't go out of my way for oysters, so it was neat to try different ones and their taste differences.

A photo posted by Curator PR (@curatorpr) on Jan 15, 2015 at 2:31pm PST

The Pacific Northwest has many great places for oysters to grow with all the inlets and beaches. They are evidently fairly easy to grow and sustainable.  They need little care and help clean the water while they feed on plankton filtered through their gills.

My favorite was the Penn Cove Select, it had a bright taste but not overly like the sea. I was really impressed that each oyster had a different flavor, even though they all come from the same sea. I guess its sort of like appellations for wine.

Shucking oysters is a learned skill and requires a special knife. Professionals use gloves to prevent stabbing themselves. I hear that you can even use a screwdriver to shuck them, but leave the shucking to the pros. You can pick up oysters at the market and bring them to your next social gathering. Oysters definitely add an air of class to a party or Sunday brunch.

If you're in Seattle, Whole Foods Market South Lake Union is having an Oyster Happy Hour with $0.69 oysters on Tuesday, January 21st 2015.

Disclaimer: I wasn't compensated for this post. I was, however, plied with oysters and wine by the Whole Foods Seattle PR team. All the opinions are mine.

How to Poach Eggs [Video]

I've always enjoyed Poached Eggs. They've always had a special cachet to them - most restaurants don't have them on the menu, unless you get Eggs Benedict, another favorite of mine. And it takes a certain caliber of restaurant to have Eggs Benedict. I used to only make poached eggs when I was making a special brunch, New Years, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day or having friends over for brunch. I have several gadgets and even a special pan with inserts to make poached eggs, which I would leverage quite frequently.

My go to breakfast: poached eggs, mashed sweet potato and bacon. Photo by Heather.

But after some research, I learned how easy it is to make Poached Eggs in just a pot of water. And now, sadly, Poached Eggs have lost a bit of their cachet, because I eat them just about everyday (which makes me happy - a net increase in happiness).  Heather had posted several photos of the breakfasts I make for her with poached eggs, and one of her friends asked how to make poached eggs.  I decided to make a video of the method.

Without further ado, here is my first ever cooking video! Enjoy.

If you give it a try, let me know how it works out for you in the comments, either here or on YouTube. As a teaser for a future post, you can also make poached eggs in the microwave! Think how awesome your breakfast in the office could be!

The rest of this post is about making the video, so if you just wanted to learn about poaching eggs, that's all I've got for you today. If you want to see what I learned about making a YouTube video, read on.

It's not the greatest video around, but it was my first go. In making this video, I learned how easy it is to make videos for YouTube. The YouTube editor is pretty nice for working with multiple clips and provides some reasonable editing capabilities. I shot all this video with my phone, and in fact, the last half was inverted because I held my phone with my left hand, upside down so I could reach the buttons. Little did I know that the display would be right side up, but the video wouldn't be. However, YouTube came to my rescue and I was able to invert part of the clip!

Almost a year ago, I attended the International Food Blogger's Conference and a blogging chef recommended I try out food videos. IFBC 2014 is less than two weeks away, and I've finally done it. Here are a few things I learned while making this video - its probably the quality of what would be turned in for a high school project, but the lessons are still a good foundation.

1. Shoot in multiple clips. The editor can help you put them in sequence, even if you need to re-shoot a portion, and trim the starting and ending points. You'll notice that the video hadn't started when I was talking about bringing the water to a full boil.
2. I recorded my audio at the same time as my video. I didn't script it or prepare too much for it. You'll notice I was repetitive at times and stumbled over the words and simultaneous actions. With the editor I can turn off the volume on the video clip and lay an audio track down. That audio track could even be a new video, but it will only play the audio portion. This way you can go sequence everything and even talk through the transitions. I'd plan on redoing this video with a better audio track, with some introduction speech and some voice over the "what you need" picture.
3. Its easier if you have a helper to actually hold the camera. When it comes to food preparation, there is only so much you can do with one hand. Talk through the shot with them before hand. I didn't tell my son that I'd want to show the eggs right after plopping them in the water, hence the finger pointing.

I thought that this was a fun medium to work with and I plan on making more of these in the future. if there are any things you'd like me show you how to make, just leave a comment!

My Experiences with Bulletproof Coffee

People are putting butter and coconut oil in their coffee. And they say its the greatest thing - more focused, more energy, feeling satiated. I read it on the internet and like many things, I took it with a grain of salt.  Then, a few weeks back, I decided to give it a try. I'm a morning person. I like to get up, work out and then eat breakfast.  My regular wake up time is 5:20 AM, so, usually within 2 or 3 hours of getting up I'm eating breakfast.


My daughter has an early morning swim practice which starts at 5AM on Wednesdays, which means we're both up at 4:20AM. I can still go to my 6AM CrossFit, but that really messes with the eat breakfast within 2 or 3 hours. The same week that inspired me to try Bulletproof Coffee (aka butter coffee), I had some changes to my morning schedule and I was going to go to CrossFit at 8AM. But I still got up at 5:20, which didn't quite leave enough time for breakfast to digest - and no one wants to go to CrossFit with a full stomach.  So I decided to try Bulletproofing my coffee, and see if it was worth it.

Bulletproof coffee is simply your morning coffee with a tablespoon of coconut oil and a tablespoon of (grass-fed) butter.  The clean fats provide calories (energy) and really make the coffee creamy. Drinking something is easier and quicker to get down than eating something, so its a way to kickstart your day. You can read more about it and get a recipe here.

My first day trying out Bulletproof coffee was an early morning swim practice day. I made my coffee with my Caffe Vita Theo Blend beans after dropping her off at practice. I used the blender to mix it all in, some people just let the hot coffee melt the fats. The coffee had a nice frothy top and boy was it creamy tasting.

Now here is a little something about me, I like coffee for its taste. I drink my coffee black, my drink of choice is an espresso. But no cream, no sugar. If I drink an espresso, its so dry the foam just stays on top. Its all about the flavor of the coffee.  And so much fat in the drink covered up the coffee flavor. It was like a super-creamy latte. So, it loses a few points for covering the taste of my coffee.

I drank it on my way to CrossFit and was feeling quite energized. My workout went well and I wasn't really that hungry when I came home, but I ate a small breakfast because... Well because you're supposed to eat breakfast, aren't you?  I felt pretty good all day long, but I was also wearing my Captain America t-shirt - he's almost bullet proof.

But that day, I was so thirsty. I couldn't drink enough water. I even emailed some of my friends who've bulletproofed their coffee and they drink 32 ounces of water before drinking their coffee. Lesson learned.

The next day, I got up at my usual 5:20, but wasn't planning on CrossFit until 8AM. So I drank 32 ounces of water and made my butter coffee.  I then sat down and worked on an edX.org class I was taking.  And I felt really focused, considering I was studying big data analytics at 6 in the morning.  CrossFit at 8AM was alright, my energy levels great considering that I hadn't eaten anything and I wasn't all that hungry when I got home and then didn't eat anything until lunch time.

Those two days were a pretty successful test and I've continued to bullet proof my coffee when I have early mornings or planning on going to the later CrossFit sessions. Its been working out well for me. Its almost like a meal replacement - it has enough calories for a meal.  I'm energized, focused and satiated.  My two big lessons are:

1. Don't use your great tasting, special beans or single origin beans. The nuances will be lost under the uber-creaminess.
2. Drink lots (32 ounces) of water before your coffee. I guess it has to do with how the fats are processed by our bodies.

So, what do you put in your coffee and would you put butter in it?

A snack that I can say YES too

A few week's ago, I got a package in the mail that made me jump up and say "Yes!" I got some YES Bars to snack on. If you haven't heard of YES Bars, they originated in a home kitchen in Southern California when a mom was trying to make a healthy snack for her food sensitive son. Her son loved them, her husband loved them and their friends loved them.  People wanted to buy them and then she was able to get local stores to carry them and it just grew from there.

On top of having such a positive name, YES Bars are clean - gluten free, paleo friendly (meaning no grains, dairy or soy) and no fake, chemically stuff.  The ingredient lists are long, but their made of almonds, macademia nuts, dried fruits, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and the ingredients that really get me going are coffee and cayenne pepper! I like spicy and I love coffee, but if you're not like me, the Macadamia Chocolate Chip is for you. That just means there are more of the Coffee Cayenne for me!

The two flavors each have 4g protein and 16g carbohydrates, making it a great snack. Combined with the healthy fats, 170mg of omega-3s, its a snack that I can feel good about eating any time. It's not quite the bar for after my CrossFit work outs, but in the afternoon when my stomach starts to rumble from when i didn't pack enough lunch, well, if I had more of these bars, they'd be in my messenger bag ready for snacking.

The YES Bars are more like cookies than your typical nut and granola bar, with a nice, chewy texture. They don't fall apart when you sink your teeth into them, as its a moist-chewy cookie. The Macadamia Chocolate Chip had a nice chocolate taste, but not too sweet, as its made with dark chocolate.  The Coffee Cayenne bar warmed my mouth with the subtle spice, like a Mexican chile infused chocolate, not an open assault on your tastebuds.  The coffee was there in the background, making the bar live up to its name.

If these sound like your kind of clean eating and yet delicious snack, get some from TheYESBar.com.  There is a long list of stores in California (and one lucky coffee shop in Denver) that carry the bars as does Amazon Fresh Los Angeles. UPDATE: YES Bars are in Seattle! You can pick them up at Tom Douglas' Assembly Hall and soon to be at Healeo on Capital Hill.

What kind of things do you like for clean snacks? Which one of these sounds good to you?

Note: I got a few bars in trade for an honest review. I wouldn't write about them if I didn't like them. I liked them. I wish that stores in the Pacific Northwest carried these bars. I wish I had more to carry around with me for when I needed a snack.

Book Review: The Carnivore's Manifesto: Eating Well, Eating Responsibly, and Eating Meat

I got my hands on an advanced readers copy of The Carnivore's Manifesto: Eating Well, Eating Responsibly, and Eating Meat by Patrick Martins and enjoyed the book. The book comes out on June 10th, 2014 and you can pre-order it on Amazon.

The Carnivore's Manifesto: Eating Well, Eating Responsibly, and Eating Meat really is a manifesto. The author, Patrick Martins, has been instrumental in founding the Slow Food movement and is passionate about clean, sustainable, eating and farming.  He uses words and phrases like 'complicit in their crimes' and talks about the extinction of heritage pigs and turkeys.  He wouldn't be out of place in Berkeley, yelling on Sproul Plaza about his cause.

The book is a series of short essays on a topic ranging from the food supply chain, breeding conditions, artisan producers and vignettes told from the perspective of a cow, pig and turkey.  I'd read a few at night before going to bed.

Like other books I've read, this book does not take the stance that being a meat eater is good and vegetarianism isn't. This isn't a foil to the vegetarians, but to the Concentrated Agriculture Feeding Organizations. His view is that if you're going to eat meat, give the animal the best life, rather than constrain it to some dark, fume filled barn. The activist in Patrick wants people to make decisions that get food production out of the big corporate, profit centric organizations and into the hands of sustainable, heritage producers and help them become profitable. These sustainable operations not only make great tasting food, but they help the whole life cycle as opposed to creating waste while producing genetically modified meat.

Something I found to be very interesting was his perspective on ground meat - we need to eat more of it. This allows the farmer to sell the fewer desirable cuts of meat from the cow/pig/turkey and get a good price for the rest of it. If we only buy filet or pork loins, the farmer won't have a good opportunity to sell the rest.

It's a good read, but every once in a while you have to push past the activist cries. This book won't change vegetarian's opinions, but I don't think it was meant to. It's really targeted to those that already eat meat, but don't yet understand the dark side of what happens to get meat into your grocery store.

View all my reviews

As a note, this isn't a sponsored post, but an my own book review and like everything else, my own opinion. The post does contain affiliate links, so if you click it to Amazon, I'll get a little back. I was able to get my hands on the advanced readers copy at work. As I write my reviews on Goodreads, I think about the book reports that my kids have to write for school.  Now, if any publishers would like me to read and review books on clean living or the paleo lifestyle, I'd be happy to!

Snoqualmie Ice Cream Scoop Shop is Back

I got to spend Wednesday evening at the Pre-Grand Opening event for the Snoqualmie Ice Cream scoop shop and let me tell you it was awesome.  Their ice cream on its own is already great and they've added boozy milkshakes, new sundaes and flatbreads to their menu. If you're lucky enough to live in the Seattle area, you should go check out their new scoop shop some time.

Snoqualmie Ice Cream is a super-premium ice cream made here in Washington, with real ingredients. They grow a lot of their own fruit and have 400 chickens on their property.  From their scoop shop, you can see into one of their test kitchens. I was impressed, the ingredients on their shelves looked just like the ingredients in my pantry; real food not processed, industrial flavorings. Check out the picture below and count how many you have in your pantry!

We got to try little samplers of every shake on the menu board in the first picture and they were all really good. My favorite was the Espresso Chocolate Stout milk shake, but the Candied Bourbon Sundae was right behind.  And when they weren't bringing around samples or flat breads, we got to taste ice cream!  Now that is a great Wednesday night dinner, if you ask me!

Eating ice cream is a way to replenish your glycogen stores, right? We were out of sweet potatoes at home, so I needed to get my carbs somehow. Even if it wasn't paleo.  Yeah, so I cheated that night. I lost the day's nutrition points for the Whole Life Challenge.

But it was worth it.  Lavender ice cream, with its fragrant taste. Bourbon ice cream made with Maker's Mark. Basil ice cream. My tastes run towards savory, but the Salted Caramel and Mukilteo Mudd are delicous too!

If getting to Maltby, Washington (which they should probably rename to Malty) to the scoop shop isn't hoing to happen, you can find Snoqualmie Ice Cream in stores in the Western states. If you don't live in a Western state, maybe you should move.

This was not a compensated post and I was entirely sober when i wrote this; the sugar and alcohol had worn off. It is all my own opinion and tastes. Enjoy your treats.

Dinner with Chef and Story Teller Russell Lowell

Thursday night, I was invited to dinner with Chef Russell Lowell at his restaurant, Russell's.  Dinner with a great North West chef at the Best Independent Restaurant winner of the Washington Wine Awards? In a rustic, yet elegant former barn?  I'm in. You don't have to ask twice.



The restaurant is comfortable, yet elegant at the same time. Beautiful place settings and not too crowded would make it a great dinner for prom or anniversary or a nice business dinner.  I was looking forward to the dinner, because everything looked great from the New Bedford Sea Scallops in beurre blanc to the Seared Duck. I'm participating in the Whole Life Challenge and I decided that this was going to be worth the points lost.



Dinner was filled with fun conversations with Meeghan Black (yes, from Gardening with Ciscoe) and T'Chani Hill and local wine maker Kevin Lantz (and yes, his Viogner was served at dinner). I lucked out and the perfectly seared scallops were served as the appetizer and followed by a wonderful, beet salad special. Goat cheese, candied walnuts and a delightful vinaigrette topped off peppery arugula and beets. Definitely worth the cheats.



I've always been afraid to buy duck and prepare it, I think I'm fearful of messing up the investment, so when we got our choice from the menu for dinner, the seared duck was an easy choice.  The duck was served with a savory roasted shallot glace, perfectly complimenting the duck.  Heather ordered the rack of lamb, which we rarely make at home, because I think its too gamey. She shared a taste of the nicely crusted, but still red on the inside lamb, and if every lamb tasted that good, you could make a lamb believer out of me.   Chef Russell supports Washington farms and vine yards and this lamb came from Eastern Washington - far better than the Australian lamb I've had before.

Chef Russell got up and spoke during dinner. I'm beginning to really enjoy listening to chefs speak, because they always have some of the most interesting tales to tell. And Chef Russell has definitely got a personality!

I enjoy sitting at breakfast on Sundays, reading a cookbook, both for inspiration and for the beautiful photography. Chef Russell has a cookbook coming out in May and it's going to be one of those read it for the stories as well as the recipes.  I can't retell the story he told (I wouldn't do it justice) us from the book, but it involves Hollywood celebrities, pugilism close calls, road kill, funeral wakes and great white sharks.  If you've got an experience that involves all of those, you've got to put it in a book.  I look forward to getting my hands on it when it comes out.

And dessert... I cheated for sure. I was torn between the creme brulee and the chocolate gateau. Winemaker Kevin Lantz, who eats frequently at Russells' strongly recommended the gateau, so I went with that.  Rich, dark chocolate cake, still gooey and molten on the inside, was served with creme Anglaise and a berry coulis. I was in heaven.

It was a wonderful evening, with new friends, great food and excellent stories.

Special thanks go to Heather for letting me use her photographs and to Karie Engels for putting this all together. I was not compensated for this post, but I got a wonderful dinner and night out. Everything I write is, as always, my own opinion. And if you've got something great, I'd be happy to check it out and write about it too!

Food Fun This Week

This has probably been the most foodie week since I went to the International Food Bloggers Conference in September. It was awesome, I got to meet Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo, met the awesome marketing crew from Tessemae's and got to try food from some cool food trucks at a Yelp party!



 On Sunday, I went to the book signing for Michelle Tam's book, Food for Humans. Her blog is one that was really helpful in my transition to eating Paleo. On top of having delicious, healthy recipes, she's got a great personality which comes out in her writing. And she also went to Cal, we were there at the same time, but she graduated a year before me!

Her husband, Henry, was there too and it was really cool to learn how they went about their publishing experience. By his reports, they did it wrong, but they made a pretty awesome book out of it!



Tuesday, I went to dinner with a few other local food bloggers and the marketing team from Tessemae's. This was quite exciting, because Tessemae's is all about sauces and dressings made with real, clean ingredients, which fit in perfectly with my lifestyle.  I do a lot of label reading and when you can find a brand that you trust and tastes awesome, it's a realy nice thing.

We got about 6 bottles of dressing and I've been using it in my tuna salad and I'm looking forward to hot wings at our Super Bowl watching party. Go Hawks!



Thursday night was the Yelp Holiday Hangover Party in a really cool space in Pioneer Square.  I blew out my Whole Life Challenge nutrition points and enjoyed Theo Chocolates, Ezells Fried Chicken and street tacos from Contigo. It was so worth it.




This wasn't a normal week for me, but it was a good one!  What did you eat this week?