FORAGING

To me foraging in the wild is the most satisfying of activities. Foraging taps into my ancient hunter-gatherer self and I derive extra pleasure when eating things personally gathered. So, on Friday we set out for Hood Canal to dig clams. Getting there is half the fun. We took the Bainbridge Island ferry from downtown Seattle, a beautiful 35 minute crossing of Puget Sound, and drove across the Agate Passage bridge onto the Kitsap Peninsula. I am such a ferry geek (ferries being the light rail of the waterways) that I had brought my 1995 Washington State Ferry mug in my suitcase from Santa Rosa. By bringing your own ferry mug aboard, your coffee is discounted. My excellent cup of local Seattle coffee was only 50 cents!

After a lovely drive through rolling pastureland, and such charming towns as Poulsbo, the Pacific Northwest's little Norway, we reached the Hood Canal Bridge, which connects the Kitsap Peninsula to the Olympic Peninsula.


"At 7,869 feet (2,398 m) long, it is the longest floating bridge in the world located in a saltwater tidal basin, and the third longest floating bridge overall." (Wikipedia)

We were headed for one of our favorite clamming spots, the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife Shellfish Lab at Pt. Whitney. We chose this spot as it is very scenic and has a nice little lagoon where you can dig without having to deal with the surf. For this day's -2.9 tide, the tidelands were closed (the WDFW is re-seeding the geoducks and horse clams - if you have never seen a geoduck, click here for a great photo http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/shelfish/beachreg/2clam.htm - yes they really look like that) so we knew we would only be getting steamer clams.

As it was a typical Northwest day with a light drizzle, our lagoon wasn't mobbed with people and we were treated to this pair of Bald Eagles in a nearby tree top.


After we got our limits (40 clams each of 1 1/2" or larger) we headed to the tidelands which were open for oysters only. I never tire of this lovely Hood Canal view, even on a cloudy day.

While we were gathering our oysters, we saw tons of tiny crabs skittering through the rocks. This one was especially elegant.

I know Great Blue Herons eat fish, but maybe they also like crabs, when they are easy pickings like this.


Here's Jim shucking oysters. The law states that you must shuck the oysters in place and leave the shells. This is because the empty shells serve as a nursery for the baby oysters. It is not unusual to pick up a Hood Canal oyster and find one empty side and two or three other sides with different size oyster shells attached.

There is just nothing like a fresh oyster. I had forgotten how delicious these wild ones are - we've been eating mostly farm raised ones in the past decade or so, which are quite delicious but not as good as these. Jim and I both popped down a few raw ones and we talked Jeff into trying one.
I guess it must be a textural thing for some people.
He was a good sport, though, and kept it down.

The Hood Canal area is just so lovely. Every time I come here I wonder if we could manage to buy a place over here and whether we would survive the long rainy winters.

As the day was still young, and we had gotten all of our limits of shellfish (18 oysters each), we decided to show Jeff and Lynda Port Townsend, called PT by locals. On our way in to this quaint Victorian seaport we spotted this.

The pose of the sitting deer reminds me exactly of cats, a sort of "this-is-mine" attitude.

Port Townsend is the County seat of Jefferson County. In summer it is a major tourist destination for events such as the Wooden Boat Festival. Even on our rainy Friday there were still a fair amount of obvious tourists looking around at the fun shops.

We did our share and then headed back home to cook our clams.

Waiting in the ferry line is always entertaining.

Here comes our boat.

Since this was Jim's birthday, we decided to do up a proper birthday dinner. We sauteed our clams in champagne and shallots and served them with crusty bread.

We had gotten some absolutely lovely arugula from a stall at the Pike Place Market, and some breasola from DeLaurenti, a great old Italian deli in the Market. (Breasola is a very thinly sliced air-dried salted beef that has been aged about 2 months - like the Prosciutto of the beef world). This gave me the opportunity to make one of my most favorite salads, which I discovered in Tuscany.

The recipe couldn't be simpler:

Young arugula leaves
Breasola
Parmesan curls

Dressing:
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Pepper

Instant feast.

The one thing we didn't have for the birthday dinner was a birthday cake. Jim decided he really didn't want one but he did want ice cream. As there wasn't any in the house, we piled in the car and went to the one store we were sure would be open at 9:30 at night - Safeway. AND, we found the ultimate ice cream. Jeff and I stood giggling in the ice cream aisle as we read this label:

"A celebration of rich vanilla ice-cream with brownie batter swirl and peanut butter filled chocolate cows."
Does it get any better than that?

Next -FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL

TOURING SEATTLE

I was born and raised in Seattle and nothing pleases me more than to be a tourist in my own town. Jim and I, and our friends Jeff and Lynda, set out after work last Wednesday and took the evening flight out of the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County airport (1/2 mile from work) to Seattle. This flight stops in Portland, OR, which is a perfect restroom and coffee break. After we took off again for Seattle, we were treated to this fabulous sunset and full moon view of Mt. Hood from the airplane window.

Our first day's adventure was to just look around downtown Seattle. As we were staying near SeaTac airport, we decided to take the fairly new light rail to downtown so we wouldn't have to deal with a car. I am very impressed by the light rail system which it took Seattle voters decades to commit to. This is the modern station at Tukwilla.

As with many things in Seattle, there is art work incorporated throughout functional things. The floor tiles of this station had lovely carvings. This one captured my heart, because, deep down, I believe every true Seattlite feels this.

I absolutely love taking public transportation, and most of all light rail.

The Sound Link track heads toward downtown Seattle via the Rainier Valley, then through Beacon Hill and north past both sports stadiums, the International District and on into downtown via the bus tunnel. The last stop is Westlake Center where riders can come out of the tunnel right into the Nordstrom Flagship store (site of the former Frederick and Nelson department store, where Jim and I used to work).

Downtown Seattle has some really great old architectural details among the ultra modern high rises. I love the fact that many of these old buildings have been preserved.

Right away we headed for one of our favorite lunch spots, the Virginia Inn at 1st and Virginia. Jim and I have been coming here for lunch since the early 1980's when it got transformed from a divy tavern into a funky lunchspot. The fun part was that during the transition, the "regulars" who could be seen on their bar stools as early as 10 am still came and mixed with the younger trendy crowd.

http://www.virginiainnseattle.com/history.php

Today, the VI, as we call it, has expanded and the bar stools are gone but they still have their fabulous gumbo on the menu.

After our fortifying meal, we headed to the ultimate Seattle tourist destination: the Pike Place Market. The Market was built in 1907 and is one of the oldest continually operating farmer's market in the US. I have been coming to the market since I was a kid and I never tire of it. Locals know never to go on Saturday as it is packed with tourists. This was a Thursday and it was still very crowded. We showed Jeff and Lynda some originals: the original Sur La Table (more stuff packed in there than in our more spacious store in Santa Rosa) and the original Starbucks (so jammed with Japanese tourists we couldn't even get in the door).

In its first heyday, the Pike Place Market was a venue for local truck farmers to sell their food. My parents' really good friends, Ruth and Bill, sold produce from their Maple Valley farm at the Market for years. In the 1970's the demographic of the Market changed as more hippie-types moved in with handicraft items - homemade candles, lotions, wooden toys and stained glass, which I made and sold there in high school. At the time there was a hue and cry from the farmers about the changes but Seattle had a vision and put lots of money into renovating the decrepit buildings, while keeping the original ambiance. Today the Market is a vibrant part of the city which still combines local produce (and fish, of course) with hand made items, restaurants, low income housing, and various odd retail shops.

Anyone who has been at the Market knows about the famous bathrooms, for years only marked by the chromosomes on the floor:

I guess this confused lots of people because they have since labeled each door with a hexagonal tile representation of a man in pants and a woman in a dress. Also, there is a certain seaminess that is missing from the restrooms and they have been updated with modern yet fitting fixtures.


Downtown Seattle has done a good job of integrating high rise condos with shops and restaurants, which is good for keeping the city core alive. One of the really nice things is all those inner city folks have lots of open spaces for their living rooms.


This one, a park on the north side of the Pike Place Market, has spectacular views of Elliott Bay, downtown, West Seattle, ferries and, on a clear day, the Olympic Mountains.



From the Pike Place Market it is an easy down hill stroll past some really neat shops (The Spanish Table, and the Paris Grocery, e.g.) to the bottom of the Harbor Steps, a beautiful promenade from the waterfront to First Avenue, ending up at the Seattle Art Museum with its iconic Hammering Man.




Also at the top of the Harbor Steps, at 1st and University, is Ipanema, a Brazilian restaurant which features Rodizio, a Brazilian style of dining with friends. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Rodizio:

"... a restaurant service in Brazilian and Portuguese restaurants. One pays a fixed price (prix fixe) and the waiters bring an offering of food to each customer at several times throughout the meal, until the customers signify that they have had enough. In churrascarias, servers come to the table with knives and a skewer, on which are speared various kinds of meat, most commonly local cuts of beef, pork, or chicken....

Foods served at a churrascaria often include:

• Filet mignon chunks wrapped in bacon
• Turkey chunks wrapped in bacon (these two are usually two-bite sized)
• Sirloin steak (cut semicircular and served in slices)
• Roast beef (served like sirloin steak)
• Rump Cover (called Picanha in Portuguese)
• Beef short ribs
• Lamb
• Pork ribs
• Chorizo or some other spicy Iberian pork sausage
• Chicken hearts
• Grilled dark-meat chicken
• Grilled pineapple or banana (meant as a palate cleanser between courses)"

http://www.ipanemabraziliangrill.us/

You get 19 different meats which come to the table on skewers. You can have as much as you want, although we pooped out before we tried all 19 types. Here is one of our "skewer guys" bringing a selection. He slices it most of the way down then you pick it up with tongs.

The "salad bar" (it was SO much more) had some amazing choices and flavors.

In addition, there were grilled prawns and we finished off with the most excellent grilled pineapple coated in cinnamon. Next time, I will probably opt for just the salad bar as it was very satisfying all on its own.

After this meal we were so bloated that it was all we could do to trudge up one block to the University entrance of the bus tunnel to wait for our train home.



Another grand day out in Seattle.

Tomorrow, CLAM DIGGING.