Nosh Pit

Slideshow: Cochon 555

Our vegetarian photographer braved the porkiest event of the year to bring you these pig-a-licious party pics.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 21, 2011 at 04:04PM 0 Comments

Tracy Smaciarz from Heritage Meats cuts it up the VIP room.

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Tracy Smaciarz from Heritage Meats cuts it up the VIP room.

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Elderberry liqueur and pork: together at last. St. Germain samples in the VIP room.

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Hama Hama oysters in the VIP room.

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Carr Valley ‘Snow White Goat’ cheese in the VIP room.

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The K Vintners table with bacon from Snake River Farms.

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Chris Hansen of Mosaic Farms holds a photo of his Red Wattle pigs eating their last meal—butternut and delicata squashes.

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Pig heads about to be carved in the butcher competition.

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Cuts from butcher competitor Josh Graves (of Olympic Provisions in Portland).

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A sample from Lark chef John Sundstrom’s winning dishes.

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Chefs prep a dish for competitor Ethan Stowell.

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Competing chef Rachel Yang pulls pork from a cooked pig.

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Yang’s table.

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Farmstead Meat butcher Brandon Sheard cuts up a Newman Farm Berkshire pig during the butcher competition.

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Pork doughnuts from competing chef Ethan Stowell.

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Servers worked the crowds with glasses full of bacon.

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Guests paid $125 for general admission tickets to the event, VIP spots went for $175.

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A dish from Café Juanita’s Holly Smith.

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An attendee carries a cut won from the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance pork raffle.

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The “East vs. West” pig roast pigs: Adam Stevenson—‘Earth and Ocean
Porcelet de lait’ from St. Canut Farms and D’Artagnan.

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Talking pig.

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Dessert chicharrones—fried pork skin with powdered sugar and chocolate sauce—are the perfect ending to any proper pig-out.

Poor Lucas Anderson.

The guy is a vegetarian, for crying out loud, and I assigned him to shoot the Seattle stop of Cochon 555, a 10-city event that tasks local chefs with creating dishes using the many bits that make up one 175-pound heritage oinker.

Held on February 20th at the downtown Westin, the Seattle stop pitted five local chefs (John Sundstrom of Lark, Holly Smith of Café Juanita, Rachel Yang of Joule and Revel, Jason Stratton of Spinasse, and Ethan Stowell of Staple & Fancy Mercantile) against each other.

Attendees, along with a panel of judges, cast votes for the chef they felt made the best dishes—last year, Chef Jonathan Sundstrom won first place for his piggy treats. This year the award went to…Jonathan Sundstrom. And so in June, Sundstrom will once again travel to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen where he’ll compete against winning chefs from each of the cities along the tour. Sundstrom lost out to Washington D.C.’s David Varley in 2010, but we have high hopes for him this time around.

Click on the slideshow for photos of last night’s pig-out.

All photos by totally traumatized photographer Lucas Anderson.

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Tags: Downtown, Tastings and Classes, Chefs, Food Events and Festivals, Slideshow, Pork, Seattle Chefs

New York Times Food Writer Mark Bittman to Speak at Sleeping Lady Resort in Leavenworth

Lecture tix + overnight accommodations in Leavenworth = one great April evening.

Posted by: Kathryn Robinson on Feb 21, 2011 at 08:00AM 0 Comments

Mark Bittman

Mark Bittman, the author of ten books on food culture and cooking whose “The Minimalist” food column ran in The New York Times for over a decade, will deliver a lecture Friday, April 8 at Sleeping Lady Resort near Leavenworth.

Bittman will discuss his book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, which explores the connection between diet and personal and planetary health. His argument is that a few simple dietary tweaks can help individuals lose weight, slow global warming, reduce environmental harms, and reduce cruelty to farm animals. And save money.

Sleeping Lady, Seattle arts patron/philanthropist Harriett Bullitt’s 67-acre retreat center, is located in a particularly stunning piece of the Cascade Mountains.

The overnight package includes tickets to the lecture, with rates starting at $318. VIP tickets to a dinner with Bittman prior to the lecture are also available along with single tickets to the event ($25 for adults / $15 for students and seniors).

Details here.

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Tags: Food Events and Festivals, Food Writing, Leavenworth

Tickets On Sale for Next Walrus and the Carpenter Nightime Oyster Picnic

The bus departs Tuesday, February 15.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jan 28, 2011 at 10:57AM 0 Comments

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter, “you’ve had a pleasant run!”

I mean, come on. A nighttime oyster picnic on the beach with world-famous oyster person Jon Rowley? This is something every Seattleite should do.

It begins with you showing up at Elliott’s Oyster House at 6:30pm on Tuesday, Feb 15, where you board a bus headed for Totten Inlet. Upon arrival you’ll walk down to the beach then gorge on wine, just-shucked oysters, and hot oyster stew.

Tickets to the Walrus and the Carpenter Oyster Picnic (named, of course, for the famous Lewis Carroll poem) are $75 per person.

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Tags: Food Events and Festivals, Oysters, Seattle Food Events

It’s the Year of the Rabbit, Let’s Eat Cheap in the ID

Eat your way around the neighborhood for a couple of bucks.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Jan 25, 2011 at 09:15AM 1 Comments

This weekend: cheap chow and the Lunar New Year Celebration at the ID’s Hing Hay Park.

Chinese lore tells us 2011 belongs to the Rabbit, and Seattle’s International District is paying its respects this weekend. On Saturday, January 29 the neighborhood puts on a Lunar New Year Celebration in Hing Hay Park starting at 11am. In the works is taiko drumming, calligraphy, dragon dances, yadda yadda, but what’s catching our eye is, of course, the food specials.

Ten restaurants will serve up bites and bevs for $2 each, among them the always-delicious Thai Curry Simple (where splurging on roti is a must), and dim sum gold-star Jade Garden. (Find the rest of the roster on the CIDBIA site.) If you’ve yet to take advantage of the culinary gem that is the ID, Saturay’s fete is a golden opportunity.

On a related note, Long Provincial plans to ring in the Vietnamese New Year with a five-course dinner February 1. Both vegetarian and traditional menus are available for $20.11—a steal, really. Call 206-443-6266 to reserve a spot.

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Tags: Cheap Eats, Food Events and Festivals, International District

Skillet Goes Pop-Up Once Again

The supper series takes place in Fremont starting December 2.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Nov 29, 2010 at 10:59AM 0 Comments

Pop goes Skillet December 2-5 and December 12-17.

Josh Henderson is baiting the poutine-obsessed with another sampler of his forthcoming Skillet diner. But unlike the preview dinners he hosted in September in Mount Baker, this go-round the pop-up restaurant will run the course of two weeks, December 2-5 and December 12-17, and take place in Fremont at the Mama’s Brown Bags locale.

The reservations page has a rundown of the menu, but here’s an idea of what to expect: Listed are six starters (or tastes and gathered, as they’re called), including a golden beet salad, spiced pork fritters, poutine, and potato leek soup. Among the mains: grilled rockfish, braised beef cheeks, handcut pasta “with seasonal tendencies,” and Henderson’s beloved burger. For dessert, try brown sugar-and-cinnamon rice pudding, Mexican hot chocolate, or lemon curd shortbread.

The meal will cost you $33.

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Tags: New Seattle Restaurants, Restaurant News, Special Dinners, Food Events and Festivals, Skillet, Restaurant Popups

What You Missed When You Missed Last Night’s Cookbook Author Roundtable

Aphrodisiacs, doughnuts, and the saddest oyster tale ever.

Posted by: James Ross Gardner on Oct 21, 2010 at 02:15PM 1 Comments

Non-chef Raymond Carver

An event that takes its name from a short story in which a fatal car crash sends a steering wheel into the sternum of a drunk teenager sets the drama bar pretty high. Based on premise alone, though, the bi-annual Kim Ricketts Book Events panel discussion with local cookbook authors, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food,” doesn’t seem likely to plunge any deeper than a nick from a potato peeler.

Not so. Last spring’s iteration had nearly the entire audience salting its chardonnay with tears after an author read a tribute to her ailing father. Time before that, the crowd went fetal laughing at a writer’s description of a bodily fluid that, as a man, I didn’t even know existed.

The events have something else in common with Raymond Carver’s gorgeous, gin-soaked story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love:” People sitting around a table, drinking and recounting tales.

Last night, the impossible-not-to-like Amy Pennington (author of Urban Pantry) led a discussion with five cookbook scribes: Shauna Ahern (co-author of Gluten Free Girl and the Chef), chef/author Ethan Stowell (Ethan Stowell’s New Italian Kitchen), Greg Atkinson (Northwest Essentials), Kim O’Donnel (The Meatlover’s Meatless Cookbook), and Lara Ferroni ( Doughnuts ).

The highlights: Stowell’s secret seduction recipe (it involves a sea urchin); the origin of Ferroni’s lifelong love affair with doughnuts (family road trip, cramped VW Karmann Ghia, Dunkin Donuts pit stop, bliss); Ahern’s burnt-garlic-as-metaphor; the O’Donnel clan’s flirt with fate via high cholesterol and steak.

But it was the author of Northwest Essentials—which first hit shelves a decade ago and has re-emerged for a new audience to devour—who lifted the evening to literary heights worthy of the event’s name. In a chapter ostensibly about oysters, Greg Atkinson recounted the moment he learned that his brother had died. The prose sent the audience on Atkinson’s grief-stricken walk along a Bainbridge Island beach and back to a table where tears and oysters and memory melted into one.

And that, after the panel disassembled and disappeared into the mingling crowd—and we all shouldered out onto the sidewalk and pointed our cars home—is what we talked about.

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Tags: Cookbooks, Review, Food Events and Festivals, Ethan Stowell, Kim Ricketts

Where to Eat During Seattle Restaurant Week

A map of our favorites doing the $25 three-course thing.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Oct 15, 2010 at 09:35AM 3 Comments

That’s a lot of dots: Our favorite participants of Seattle Restaurant Week.

T-minus three days until Seattle Restaurant Week gets underway, that annual gustatory affair that slam-packs practically every joint out there and lures even the most agoraphobic of agoraphobes with nice cuisine at a nicer cost.

This year more than 100 restaurants are on board. That’s pretty awesome, if not a tad overwhelming. So if you’re having trouble deciding where to dig in first, we compiled a map of our favorite participants.

Feliz meal dealing! And don’t forget to reserve.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Food Events and Festivals, Special Lunches

Phabulous Phinney Pig Out: A Good Reason to, Well, Pig Out

Dine out October 14, help Phinney Neighborhood Association Soup Kitchens.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Oct 13, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Get piggy at the Phabulous Phinney Pig Out.

Ballard Ave gets a lot of love these days—and rightly so—but let’s not forget another a.v.e. worthy of kitchen crawling: Greenwood. The residence of such charmers as Carmelita, Stumbling Goat, and Oliver’s Twist, the Phinney Ridge sleeper does the tummy good.

It’s also doing the community good. The above places, along with Prost, Picnic, and 20 others, are taking part in the Phabulous Phinney Pig Out. That means some of their proceeds from October 14 will benefit the neighborhood’s soup kitchens. Look for the doors with a balloon and you’ll know you’re helping out while hogging out.

Oink, oink, kiddos.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Phinney Ridge, Food Events and Festivals, Greenwood

Marjorie the Latest to Set the Sunday Supper Table

Their first feast is October 10.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Oct 08, 2010 at 09:29AM 0 Comments

Marjorie on Capitol Hill hosts its first Sunday Supper October 10.

Marjorie is joining the Sunday Supper club. The Capitol Hill restaurant is hosting its first family style feast October 10 as a means of “showcasing the bounty of the season.”

The menu will highlight produce from the Capitol Hill Farmers Market; other menu mentions include grilled albacore tuna, roasted chicken, and hand-cut pasta.

The meal costs $40—I’d says that’s pretty reasonable considering wine is included—and starts at 5pm. RSVP by calling 206‐372‐3995 or emailing info@marjorierestaurant.com.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Food Events and Festivals, Sunday Suppers

Delancey Hosts Autumn Family Dinner

Pizza? You won’t find any of it on this menu.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Oct 06, 2010 at 11:53AM 0 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Delancey’s Brandon Pettit and Molly Wizenberg.

When you talk about Delancey, you talk about its pizza —those New York–style pies perfectly toasted in wood-fired ovens. But if you think bubble-crusted pucks are the Ballard boite’s only ticket, consider the menu for its October 19 Autumn Family Dinner.

Highlights of the all made-in-house, all made-from-scratch feast include chicken liver pȃté, fennel soup, greens with goat cheese, roast park shoulder, and a plum-cardamom tarte tatin. Note plates are contingent on “what looks best at the market,” so there may be a tweak or two.

Time and ticket information? Yeaup, we got it right here. When we called in the AM of October 6, there were about 15 seats left.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Food Events and Festivals, Ballard

A Quick Shout-Out to Rover’s, Celebrating 23 Years

The restaurant hosts an eight-course meal to mark the occasion.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Sep 28, 2010 at 11:04AM 0 Comments

Photo: Lindsay Borden

Thierry Rautureau’s Rover’s celebrates its 23rd anniversary.

Hats off to Chef in the Hat Thierry Rautureau. On Wednesday his perennially revered Rover’s celebrates 23 years in the biz. To fete the occasion, the Madison Valley restaurant is arranging an eight-course meal promising 23 flavors. As of Monday afternoon all seats were booked, but the Rover’s rep we spoke to said interested persons could be placed on a waiting list.

The dinner starts at 6pm and costs $150, with wine pairing an additional $80. To inquire, call 206-325-7442.

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Tags: Food Events and Festivals, Madison Valley

Prost! Oktoberfest Is Here, Now
Eat Up

Eat, drink, and be merry at these German haunts.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Sep 21, 2010 at 09:29AM 0 Comments

This weekend is Oktoberfest. Eat bratwurst mit sauerkraut and don’t think twice about it.

Guten! This weekend marks the return of Oktoberfest, which has otherwise local-loving, sensible-minded Seattleites going the way of beer, brats, and all things Deutscher. It’s happening on Phinney Ave and North 35th Street, but when you’ve had your fill of Fremont, keep the sausage wheels rolling at Seattle’s other Bavarian temples. Considering the scads of Scandahoolies here, there’s a decent amount of gurken salat and landjager mit brot to be had.

Ja!

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Tags: Drinking Events, Food Events and Festivals