Which would translate to “god jul” in Swedish, with a “gott nytt år” tossed in to wish you a happy new year as well!

There are a couple of reasons that our Christmas day menu–usually a hearty but simple brunch, then a casual nosh later in the day–became a vaguely smörgåsbord-influenced Scandinavian spread. The main impetus was a holiday party earlier this month. The gift I came home with at the end of the white elephant exchange was this aebleskiver pan. I don’t think I’d ever tasted aebleskiver before, let alone made them, so instantly  looked forward to giving them a shot. And as soon as that seed was planted, I was recalling our mid-November trip to Stockholm a few years ago. The amazing foods we ate, the aquavit we sampled, the fun table-top trinkets I came home with that would be ideal on the Christmas table. Off and running, I was!! Thankfully I can count on my family to be up for pretty much anything I serve them, so I knew they’d be game.

This particular pan, whose provenance I know nothing about, does the favor of not only telling me what it’s for: “ebleskiver” is how it’s spelled on the pan. It also offers a none-too-appealing translation: apple pancake balls.

Oddly, just a few days after I’d acquired the pan, the folks at Sur La Table  twittered that they had an aebleskiver recipe to offer. And just in the nick of time. I wasn’t having any luck right off the bat finding a recipe among my usual go-to sources. I’m a huge fan of the 1970s Time-Life book series, Foods of the World, but in this one case felt a little let down that the Scandinavian volume didn’t offer an aebleskiver recipe. I checked a dozen other places, from my old Joy of Cooking to www.epicurious.com and found no recipes at all. Later I found this site with lots of information about aebleskivers, but since they sell aebleskiver mix, no luck with a recipe there either. So that Sur La Table version that came across from Twitterville proved to be serendipity for me. The few recipes I’ve found since don’t include apples at all. The name apparently translates as “apple slices” but clearly the literal foundation of this classic Danish dish has morphed over the years.

I don’t usually go through a dry run of a new recipe before a first time of serving it to family and friends. But I made an exception here, since this pan’s pretty one-of-a-kind, and this is a pretty unique treat. I wasn’t sure if the pan needed some coddling to avoid sticking, or how much fiddling I’d need to do to regulate the heat. I found pretty quickly that medium-low heat was plenty after a good dose of preheating, and that this would be hard to do on a non-gas stove (at least with the type of pan that I have), given that only the outer rim of the lower part of the pan comes in contact with the surface; gas flames licking up to warm the undersides of those divots was invaluable for even cooking.

The basics of making these little pancakes puffs is pretty straight-forward. The simple batter (using eggs separated, more like a waffle recipe) is spooned into the preheated cups of the aebleskiver pan and cooked until about halfway done and nicely browned. Then with the flick of a wrist, each is rolled over in its little cubby to cook on the other side.

That last bit is easier said than done. It’s the sole potential snag to an otherwise easy recipe. After a few minutes in the pan, the batter in the center will still be liquid so that it will, when inverted, flow down into the bottom of the indentation to make a rounded surface on the second side. If cooked a bit too long on the first side, that top surface won’t give at all and you’ll have an odd-looking demi-sphere of dough. Still delicious, just not evenly formed. Next time around I’ll try the technique I learned here, turning the round cakes in a few stages rather than all at once. 

I had to laugh when a few descriptions for how to make aebleskivers cited a knitting needle as the tool of choice for the job. I love to knit, but prefer to keep those needles in the living room where they belong. I chose instead a long tapered chopstick that lives in the crock next to the stove with other handy utensils, its tip ideal for the task.  I got better after a couple dozen but still, the delicate texture of the puffs makes it hard to avoid deforming them in the process of nudging them upside down. But my nephew was the first to reassure me that they taste just as good, even if not perfectly round.

The Christmas batch was gobbled up pretty quickly. I served them as is, alongside a dish of lingonberry jam that I’d picked up at IKEA while buying a boatload of office furniture earlier this month. Many descriptions call for topping them with powdered sugar, sweet jams, even syrup. This household doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, so plain with tart lingonberries was perfect. In fact, my brother-in-law had a couple topped with thin slices of the gravlax I’d made for the occasion, claiming the aebleskivers to be not far off from blini (blini with a smidge of orange zest and cardamom, which actually sounds great for salmon!).

Most Christmases in recent memory I’ve welcomed my family with fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon rolls. I forsake those this year with aebleskivers and kringle on the menu (the latter my sister picked up from Nielsen’s Pastries in lower Queen Anne). And while I know these aebleskivers will be welcome again, I got a few hints that they might still like to see (and smell) those cinnamon rolls again some year. Oh well. Tradition is tradition! And when new traditions come along, I guess they can learn to mingle with the old. Perhaps I’ll add a French bûche de Noël and another holiday delight or two, making next year’s Christmas even a bit more international.

The menu that eventually built up around the aebleskiver foundation became an easy-going cold buffet that we could nibble on over the course of a few hours. I made a few different salads: grated carrots with toasted caraway, red cabbage with apple and walnut, dilled cucumbers. I made that aforementioned gravlax, a gin- and juniper-cured version that I developed for my Salmon cookbook a few years back. I picked up some cheeses (cumin-gouda, aged emmenthaler, havarti) and good cold cuts (mortadella, olive loaf, ham).

Oh, and libations! How could I forget. I had in my cupboard an unopened bottle of Krogstad Aquavit from Portland distiller House Spirits. Aquavit is a strong spirit that can be flavored with a range of spices, commonly with caraway as at least a base flavoring. Krogstad uses caraway and star anise. We came home from Stockholm with a sampler-pack of seasonal aquavits from different producers, each using different flavor elements that included dill, bitter orange, anise, cumin and coriander. That Christmas just a few weeks after we returned from the trip, I had a number of the bottles out for sampling throughout our brunch feast. This year, I plunked that bottle of Krogstad down into an empty milk carton, shimmied some red-berried branches down around it and filled the carton with water then stuck it in the freezer. With the ice frozen solid, the aquavit pours in a wonderfully icy, viscous texture into small glasses. Outstanding. A wonderful digestif to enjoy after our feast, while we watched the Swedish “comedy” Together. By the end of the evening, after playing a rousing card game called 2500 (a new family favorite), we’d emptied the bottle.

So, a lovely, Scandinavian-hued Christmas was had by all in our cozy home. A really wonderful, memorable, relaxed time with family.

Here’s hoping you, too, had a wonderful holiday season. And cheers to you for a wonderful 2010 ahead!! A toast from Bob and me, here in the ice bar of the hotel we stayed at in Stockholm. Skål! and gott nytt år!!

Aebleskivers

(adapted from Sur La Table)

4 eggs, separated

1/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon or orange zest

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until well blended. Add the melted butter and gently stir to blend. Add the buttermilk and citrus zest, stir to evenly mix, then add the flour and baking soda and stir until just smooth.

In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until medium peaks form. Working in 2 batches, fold the egg whites into the batter.

Heat the aebleskiver pan over medium-low heat and brush each cup with butter. Spoon the batter into the heated cups, to just below the top. Cook for a few minutes, until bubbles begin appearing on the surface. Use a tapered chopstick, skewer or knitting needle to carefully turn the aebleskivers over. Continue cooking until nicely browned on the second side. Transfer to a baking sheet and keep warm in a low oven while cooking the remaining batter. Serve warm, with a dish of lingonberry or other jam alongside to spoon on top of each aebleskiver.

Makes 3 to 4 dozen aebleskivers

As usual, I walked into the grocery store last night not sure what we’d end up having for dinner. I was thinking “pork tenderloin” but when I got to the meat & seafood department, those big, plump Dungeness crab really caught my attention. At under $5 per pound, they were impossible to resist.

Just Wednesday, I’d been talking with guests at Tom Douglas’s Cookbook Social about Dungeness crab, particularly with one couple who pull up plenty of their own crab throughout the year. I’d been telling them about a couple of my favorite recipes from my cookbook, Crab. One a twist on traditional steamed crab, using good local beer in place of water to steam the crab. The malty-hoppy character of the beer melds beautifully with the sweet crab, which I suggest serving with a simple melted butter embellished with a dash of dried mustard. The other favorite is this one, which has been a hit with classes I’ve taught since the book’s release. It’s got a trifecta that’s beloved by home cooks: simplicity, great flavor, and fun presentation. Plus, the added benefit of the aromatherapy that comes from the wafting blend of rosemary, garlic, lemon and crab coming from the oven? Nothing much beats that!!

It was a delicious dinner last night, served with sautéed lacinato kale and roasted sunchokes alongside. A perfect Saturday dinner on a chilly winter evening.

Enjoy!! Don’t forget to cover the table with newspapers, you’re sure to send a bit of crab juice, bits of shell, a random flick of meat scattered around as you pick and eat. What a snap it then is to just roll up the papers and toss them out, no messy tablecloth to have to wash!

Rosemary Roasted Crab (from Crab in the Northwest Homegrown Cookbook Series)

The rosemary, lemon, and garlic roasted with the crab here penetrate the sweet meat with delicious subtlety while filling the kitchen with their wonderful aroma. This preparation is particularly good with raw crab portions, which will suck up that flavor more than precooked crabmeat will. It would also be good with king crab leg portions, fully thawed before cooking if using frozen meat. Partially split the king crab shells before roasting, to allow the flavors to penetrate and make shelling them easier for your guests.

2 whole Dungeness crab (about 2 pounds), cleaned and portioned, shells lightly cracked if precooked

6 to 8 long sprigs rosemary (about 1 1/2 ounces)

1 large lemon, thinly sliced

1/4 cup olive oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped or sliced

1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Lay the crab portions in the bottom of a 9- by 13-inch baking dish and top with the rosemary sprigs and lemon slices. Add the olive oil, garlic, and pepper flakes, and season generously with salt and pepper. Toss with your hands to evenly coat the crab pieces with the seasonings, arranging them finally in an even layer with most of the rosemary and lemon underneath. Roast the crab until the flesh is just opaque through (use body portions to judge, their flesh will be more visible), about 15 minutes if using raw crab, or until the precooked crab is heated through, 8 to 10 minutes.

Transfer the crab pieces to a serving platter, garnish with the rosemary and lemon slices, and serve.

Makes 2 servings

At Seattle Bookfest in late October, I found myself chatting with a gentleman at the  Book Club of Washington booth about their organization. “Are you a collector?” he asked me. “No, not really,” I muttered. ”Do you have more than 3 books at home?” Sure. Of course. Who doesn’t? Is it that easy to be a collector?

It’s surely not a fair impression, but I’ve always equated “book collector” with someone who buys volumes (often historic or otherwise singular) in pristine condition (or has them restored), then puts them on display in some elegant fashion. I sit at the other end of the spectrum. I have many hundreds of books, but they’re all over the place, some on the floor, many on shelves, some piled on the tops of said shelves. Some are new, some are old. Some are immaculate, some are verging on tattered. But it is, I suppose, a collection. If a random, unorganized, somewhat motley one.

When it comes to adding books to this collection, that’s equally random. Many show up on the doorstep, of course, as did the delicious The Grand Central Baking Book this past week. Which was delightfully frustrating only in that the book did not come with an accompanying piece of that Lemon Crumble Tart on page 126. I also received last week the new Coco book from the artfully-inclined publisher Phaidon. In it, 10 master chefs from around the world (including Alice Waters, Fergus Henderson, Ferran Adrià and Mario Batali) each picked 10 chefs they feel are on the cusp of greatness, contemporary chefs that will be tomorrow’s masters. It’s a luscious, inspiring, diverse volume that is equally cookbook, culinary narrative and travelogue, with wanderlust-inducing destinations to add to the food life list. And it was great to see Seattle’s own Kevin Davis among the chefs profiled, a choice of Mario Batali’s.

Because of the existing overload of books I already own, I don’t scour bookstores–new or used–nearly as much as I used to. Now and then, I will, unable to fully shake the habit. And I usually gravitate to the old, the quirky, the unexpected, the nostalgic. I seem to have a thing for the 1950s given the number of my books–including a Ford Motor Company collection of recipes from drive-worthy destination restaurants and Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts*–that  were published back then.

But as I first started reflecting on my oddball book collection for this post, it just happened that the first few books I reached for had a common theme. So it’s prompted me to start sharing occasional peeks at the books that surround me in this office. Starting today with the animal kingdom.

Take the Wolf in Chef’s Clothing book I picked up somewhere along the line. It was first published in 1950 by the Wilcox & Follett Co. publishers in Chicago. Billed as “the picture cook and drink book for men” (men, those wolves!!), it takes the picture-worth-a-thousand-words ideal to the extreme. Recipes never list quantities such as “2 teaspoons sugar” instead showing a sugar bowl showering its contents into two spoons. Hard to get any simpler than that! Recipes include Welsh Rabbit (rarebit, but who’s counting), C’est la Vie Canape (cream cheese-roquefort stuffed celery stalks) and even Crêpes Suzettes. Picking the book up again, I realize it bears some resemblance to the Look & Cook cookbook series I worked on with Anne Willan. Which itself was inspired in part by another volume in my shelves, La Cuisine Est Un Jeu d’Enfants (Cooking is Child’s Play). My 1965 copy includes both original and translated text, complete with forward by Jean Cocteau!

Another animalistic food book I have is less cookbook, more “food as decorative art” inspiration. L’Artichouette (which seems to be out of print) has this wild bird-like creature on the cover, with radish-slice eyes, that exemplifies the transformations found within–in this case an artichaut (artichoke) into a chouette (owl). Get it? Arti-chouette? (Chouette is also slang for “cool,” so gets extra mileage in the title.) I picked this up in France years ago, in fact it still has the Librairie Gourmande card and facture tucked inside. The introduction references  everything from the grand pièces montées of the 19th century to holiday gingerbread houses as examples of metamorphoses from food to art or structure. I haven’t tackled the carrot-race-car or palm-tree-pineapple, nor any of the creations, to be honest. It’s more a reminder of food as a source of endless artistic creativity. A more recent twist on that theme, Play With Your Food takes it to a different extreme, less manipulating the food by trimming and cutting, more finding the hidden faces, creatures and other features that fruits and vegetables naturally serve up.

Last, a sweet, simple little book that I came across in the vast cookbook collection at Château du Feÿ when I was helping Anne Willan determine how to prioritize the 4,000-plus cookbook library there prior to their move. A few books that ended up in up-for-grabs pile caught my eye, this one included. I mostly loved the title, since I haven’t been to Norway and have not, in fact, eaten anything there. And the determined look on that chef’s face. Inside, most recipes are in that very simple brief-paragraph narrative form, including fylt kaalhode (stuffed cabbage) sursild (sour pickled herrings) and risengrøt (rice porridge).

Motley, indeed, these books I surround myself with. And with my office redo imminent, I’ll be pulling each and every one from its shelf for safe keeping while floor, walls and new furniture are attended to. Seems an ideal time to purge a few from the collection. But my money’s on 99 percent of the books coming back to the new shelves. Old or new. Quirky or not. There’s something to relish in every single one of them.

I imagine more than a few Champagne corks will be popping over the course of this month as Seattle’s beloved Dahlia Lounge restaurant celebrates its 20th anniversary. Beyond Champagne toasts, they’re celebrating too with lots of fun and prizes throughout the month, check out the goings-on here.

Any restaurant that survives and thrives to hit such landmark milestones is something worth celebrating. (Tip of the hat to Pike Pub & Brewery where our friends Charles and Rose Ann Finkel are also toasting 20 years since they first opened doors of the brewery! Woo-hoo!!) With Dahlia, the anniversary stands out for me for a number of reasons.

Professionally, I’ve been eating at, and writing about, Dahlia Lounge and its

Tom Douglas and me, March 1993, both much younger then....

 eventual siblings for about 18 of those 20 years. After enough meals to form a solid opinion, I came to the conclusion that–for me–Dahlia stands out as a quintessentially Seattle restaurant. Its colorful, inviting room. The professional but relaxed and friendly service. Carefully prepared food that’s got finesse without ever being fussy. Menus rooted in Northwest ingredients  and seasonality but with Asian and European influences that show Seattle’s got an open palate.

Personally, Dahlia’s been the home to a number of my own celebrations over the years, so I definitely connect with the place by way of deeply fond memories. My husband and I chose Dahlia–then in its original 1914 4th Avenue location–for the “rehearsal dinner” location when we got married in 1993. We had that upstairs area at the back of the restaurant to ourselves, and Tom cooked up the dinner. The menu included spicy cornmeal pan-fried oysters with artichoke remoulade, ginger and garlic

Hmmmm, looks like a bottle of Bernard Griffin? Nice.

glazed spare ribs, chipotle glazed Alaskan halibut with grilled cornbread salad and pear tart with caramel sauce.

Ten years later, it made sense to celebrate again with Dahlia. Now in its new 4th & Virginia location, we took over that back room and had one of the best nights ever with family and friends, eating and drinking well to toast a decade of married life! Mark Fuller (now making his own waves at Spring Hill in my neighborhood) was in the Dahlia kitchen then and cranked through an amazing menu that included shrimp dumplings, slow roasted sucking pig with fennel relish, salt-roasted ehu (a Hawaiian snapper) and lemon-thyme panna cotta with rhubarb confiture. What a fun and delicious night that was. I’d say that we’ll be celebrating there again in 2013 for our 20th, if not for

Ten years for Bob and me, twelve for Dahlia Lounge

 our master plan to run off to Vegas and get married again on that occasion!

Dahlia opened in November of 1989, a few months after I’d left Seattle for a spell to attend culinary school in France. But I learned about the opening and the restaurant’s early popularity long distance, my mom a trooper about keeping me up to date with Seattle goings-on by way of newspaper clippings. (She also sent me every single batch of Sunday comics; oh, how I love and miss that lady!) Upon my return a couple years later, I wrote my first national magazine article about Seattle restaurants, for a May 1992 issue of Restaurants and Institutions magazine. By then, I’d had a chance to check out Dahlia Lounge in person, noting that “The free-spiritedness of chef-owner Tom Douglas makes a strong first impression when you walk in the door.” And, later, “Douglas swears that his cooking is simple, but to me, his food is testament to a Northwest culinary attitude that is deliciously refreshing to come home to.”

A couple of decades later, I think those reflections are no less true. Dahlia Lounge, Palace Kitchen, Etta’s, Lola, Serious Pie are all imbued by the free spirit of Douglas, his wife Jackie and the passionate, creative team they work with. And that Northwest culinary attitude? More than ever it’s about consciously chosen ingredients of quality, made to shine without unnecessary flair. Just great food that feeds us well, makes us happy, and makes us glad to call Seattle home.

‘Tis the season. For a lot of things, actually.  I hear talk of comfort food and big cozy sweaters, fires in the fire place and hunkering down to watch old movies and read a good book.

And with all this rain, cooling temperatures, it’s also the season of wild mushrooms. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve eaten various types of the seasonal delicacy in recent weeks, but they include a wonderful spinach salad with wild mushrooms and goat cheese at FareStart, a kind of ragout of chanterelles at a dinner meeting held at Lisa Dupar’s Pomegranate, and a roasted corn soup with wild mushrooms at Barrio. It’s always time to celebrate when the price of chanterelles begins to approach that of cultivated mushrooms, a sure sign the bounty is here. So we’ve had them at home, as well, sautéed with chard and garlic, or added to a rice pilaf.

But ’tis THE season as well. The holiday season. The one that has us all starting to dream up menu plans and flip through magazines for ideas. Thanksgiving is hands-down my favorite holiday of the year, not to mention one of my favorite meals. And it’s one that I love to keep traditional. No standing rib roast or salmon fillet or crown of pork. It’s always turkey, or on rare occasion maybe Cornish game hens, as I did on the grill one year. Stuffing, absolutely. Potatoes? Yes, mashed and rich. A bright crisp salad. Something pumpkiny for dessert.

Only thing missing is a green vegetable. And the most quintessential side dish at this time of year is the famous green bean casserole. Nostalgic, beloved, but who today can stomach the canned provinence of the original’s ingredients? I know I can’t. Which is why, in the course of developing recipes for my Wild Mushrooms cookbook, I came up with a from-scratch version. Simple white sauce. Lots of fresh wild chanterelle mushrooms. Savory leeks. Crisp green beans. And a chanterelle/bread crumb topping. Still a little nostalgia in there. But with a whole lot more flavor! (Go ahead and use those crunchy canned fried onions if you just can’t imagine this recipe without them.)

One of the many beautiful watercolor illustrations done for my book by artist Don Barnett

Green Bean and Chanterelle Casserole

from Wild Mushrooms, in the Northwest Homegrown Cookbook Series

1 1/2 pounds green beans, trimmed

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, split, cleaned and sliced

1 pound chanterelles, brushed clean, trimmed and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup dried bread crumbs

White Sauce:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole milk

Pinch freshly grated or ground nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the white sauce, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture foams up and begins to smell slightly nutty, 2 to 3 minutes (the flour should not brown). Slowly whisk in the milk and cook until the sauce thickens, whisking often to avoid any lumps or sticking, 6 to 8 minutes. Take the pan from the heat and whisk in the nutmeg with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously butter a 12-inch oval baking dish or other 2-quart baking dish. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, add the green beans, and cook until they are bright green and nearly tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain well.

Melt the butter in a sauté pan or large skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook, stirring, until tender and aromatic, 2 to 3 minutes. Set aside about 1/2 cup of the chanterelles and add the rest to the skillet. Cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms are tender and any liquid they give off has evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Take the skillet from the heat and stir in the white sauce, white wine, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the beans and stir to evenly coat them in the sauce, then transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish.

Pulse the bread crumbs and reserved chanterelles in a food processor to a fine crumbly texture. Scatter the mixture over the green beans and bake until bubbly-hot and the topping is nicely browned, 30 to 40 minutes. Spoon onto individual plates to serve.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ok, so where was I? Ah yes, lounging in my Victoria hotel room on a lazy Saturday. This was the view at one point in the morning, typically Victoria: incoming float plane and a Black Ball ferry heading in from Port Angeles. Outgoing whale-watching trip (that bright orange boat center)  and a tugboat on some mission or another. It was late morning by the time I was done with that previous post and I was powerful hungry. We quickly headed off for lunch. (Breakfast consisted of hotel room coffee and the few lingering ginger snaps in the car-snack-supplies bag.)

A quick stroll to circumnavigate the harbor, and we were down on a pier joining others at a very popular lunch spot, Red Fish Blue Fish. This place is all about sustainability, down to the converted shipping container in which the tiny, efficient, friendly restaurant is housed. Sunny, a bit of a breeze, it was a good day to visit the no-frills spot with its outdoor-only seating. You can grab a stool at the bar-type seating toward the back of the pier, but we opted for the squat backless chairs along the pier’s edge, one doubling nicely as a table for two. It was a severe temptation to over-order, but we honed selections down to include the Pacific Rim Chowder (fish, coconut milk, corn, garlic, hints of chipotle), a 1-piece salmon and chips (huge portion! their hand-cut, twice-fried chips are outstanding, as is the homemade tartar sauce) and spicy Pacific fish sloppy joe (small pieces of fish in a light sauce, with aïoli and lemon pickled onions). Notice the wood utensils offered, definitely no effort spared to keep the environmental footprint to a minimum. Can’t wait to return to try the tacones, barbecued oysters and other selections.

A nice stroll back to the hotel to retrieve the car and we were off for the day’s explorations. Never too early to consider gin, one of my favorite subjects (I’m a big believer in the idea that it’s 5:00 somewhere!). So our first stop was Victoria Spirits, makers of Victoria Gin. They’re located out on the Saanich Peninsula to the north of town (where you also find Butchart Gardens and Sydney, with its busy ferry docks from US and mainland Canada). The drive, once we got off Highway 17, was really lovely, winding through the trees, lots of lovely old homes along the way, sometimes opening up to a field where horses graze. At the end of many of the driveways, we saw tables laden with garden fruit, fresh-cut flowers, garlic, eggs — with honor-system prices noted. So charming!

Victoria Spirits‘ tasting room is housed on the Winchester Cellars property, a very pretty setting surrounded by trees and garden. Ken Winchester added the gin to the business’ portfolio last year, but he has moved on to new things. The new owners, Brian and Valerie Murray (with a fun-loving bunch of colleagues), carry on the gin tradition, also making a pinot noir eau de vie (loved it! smooth and flavorful). They’ll start work on whiskey later this year, though product won’t be debuted for at least a few years, since it will take an element of aging. And bitters are on the agenda as well! Will look forward to checking in with them again as the months go by.

After a couple judicious sips at Victoria Spirits (while my non-drinking hubby took in the garden surroundings), the next stop was Sea Cider. Just a bit further up the peninsula, almost an apple’s throw from the water, this is one lovely setting for whiling away a good hour of a lovely Saturday afternoon. It’s a new-construction building that looks to have been here for years, though the youthfulness of the apple orchard that spills down toward the water is a give-away that the property’s been in place for just a few years. Those trees are able to produce, now, about 30% of the cider-making needs, the rest coming from other sources in British Columbia. Over the years, as the trees mature, the goal will be that Sea Cider will become an “estate” cidery, with all their apple needs coming from this property.

This isn’t a tasting room, per se, where you belly up to the bar and sip little samples of selected products. Instead, the scenario is table-service. Of course, as a first-time visitor looking to take it all in, I couldn’t not order “the long flight,” a generous pour of all nine ciders currently available. My favorites of the ciders were Kings & Spies (made with Kings and Northern Spies apples, brought a bottle home) and Pippins. For an afternoon nibble, we chose the platter for two, a delicious array of things to snack on, including locally made sausages, cured salmon, eggplant salad, and some Moonstruck cheese from Salt Spring Island. Such a pretty, enjoyable setting. Little surprise they were shooing customers out a bit early that afternoon to get ready for a wedding, a lovely spot to tie the knot.

Sunday morning, and I wanted to venture beyond the hotel for breakfast. A little sleuthing quickly turned up Blue Fox Cafe as a locals’ favorite at this hour of the day, confirmed by the front desk gal who helped us verify where it was on the map. It wasn’t too hard to find Blue Fox, thanks to the small group of folks clustered on the sidewalk in front. It’s a bustling, cozy, colorful little no-reservations place; and they don’t take names on a list, so you just hang out and wait your turn as a pretty regular stream of folks vacate their tables. Our wait was only about 20 minutes; when we left, after noon, the line was at least twice as long.

Bob opted for the lunch side of the menu, a great club sandwich with a generous and flavorful salad alongside.  Huevos Rancheros always jumps out at me from breakfast menus, I went with that for morning sustenance that day. Great staff, friendly and efficient. And they get major gold stars from me for brining a small pitcher of frothed hot milk when I simply asked for milk for my coffee. I can see why this is a Victoria favorite; we’ll surely return on another trip.

Our time on Vancouver Island was capped off in grand style with a Sunday  afternoon at Feast of Fields. I’d been hearing about this annual local-foods indulgence for a number of years, from my friend Mara Jernigan who helped found the event. The fundraiser–in its 12th year–is put on by FarmFolk/CityFolk each September, held on a different Island farm (this year was the only repeat, the event returned to Providence Farm where it had been held in 2003). Check out the cool wine-glass-friendly “plates” on sale for a mere $5: planks of local cedar. Brilliant. And aromatic!

It was one of those perfect mid-September Northwest days: sunny, blue skies, light breeze, warm. About thirty restaurants from various spots in the area were on tap, not to mention a few dozen or more wineries from throughout BC. And Victoria Spirits with their gin, some local breweries and a teamonger. No trouble sating ourself with (sometimes return visits for) late summer gazpacho with vodka-pickled Manila clams (Marina Restaurant); blackberry-walnut baklava (Providence Farm); local Red Fife wheat blinis with Cowichan Bay smoked duck (Fairburn Farm); grain fed beef burgers with ale-braised onions (Spinnaker’s Brewpub); pastry cones with wild mushrooms and smoked goats milk crème fraîche (Sooke Harbour House) and even lovely little mini gluten-free wedding cakes (VinCoco Patisserie). Man alive, it was a lovely afternoon of grazing on the farm. So pleased to finally make it to that celebrated event; I highly recommend trying to plan a mid-September trip to the Island to partake.

After the Feast, we settled in at Fairburn Farm for a last night of the trip. Powerhouse Mara was busy at the event for a couple more hours, we sat out on the big porch with another couple from Seattle, shooting the breeze, talking about life and travels and food. Dinner was simple and delicious, family-style pasta with a perfect bolognese-style sauce. And sleep was blissfully sound. Breakfast the next morning was temporarily interrupted by the chance to watch the farm’s herd of water buffalo parading from the field up to the milking barn. We walked up later to visit with some of the young’uns who are still housed in the barn until old enough to join the others. Before long, we were off, heading back to Nanaimo for the ferry trip back to the “real world” on the mainland.

This trip to Vancouver Island had been a long time in coming, more than a few years had slipped by since our last visit–and countless short-lived efforts to work it into the schedule. It was a full and wonderful time. We packed a lot into those five days, maybe a bit too much. For such a relaxing, unwind-inducing place, we didn’t do a whole lot of relaxing and unwinding. But next time. It won’t be five or six more year. And we’ve already got a list going of things to do that trip that didn’t fit into this itinerary.

Welcome back, Mr. Smith! I was wondering what had come of you…..

About this time last year I was working on a feature article for Horizon Airlines Magazine recounting the lives and times of Northwest tea companies. It’s a story impossible to tell without the name of Steven Smith coming up. The one-time manager of the first natural foods store in Portland went on to co-found two powerhouse tea companies: Stash (1972) and Tazo (1994).  He’d moved on from both businesses by the time I was doing research (Stash was sold in 1993; Starbucks purchased Tazo in 1999, but Smith stayed on until 2006), though  I read plenty of historical perspective on his work at Stash and Tazo and found a great radio interview online (the link for which seems to have died).  The best I could do in terms of learning where Smith was at that moment in time, however, was the speculation of “somewhere in the south of France” from one of the tea folks I spoke with.

So what appeared on my front porch this week but a small box from Portland announcing the return of Steven Smith to the world of Northwest tea, with a couple lovely boxes of tea to boot. Back home in Portland, he’s once again scouring the world for the very best tea resources and crafting wonderful blends.

Smith Teamaker represents a core mission of “developing a tea line where I can take people as close to the ingredients’ origin as possible,” Smith explains in the press release. Twelve signature teas launched the enterprise (though many more show on the Web site), each blended in small batches with careful attention to the exact provenance of individual teas incorporated in each blend. To the degree that inputting the batch number found on the bottom of the tea box into the ”Batch No. Lookup” spot on the home page brings up specific details of that box’s components.

Based on the panache of the packaging and the pedigree of the founder, I instinctively reached for the fine mesh tea strainer I was going to use to brew a sample cup. Loose-leaf is the purist’s path to a perfect cup of tea, right? (I’m saying that as a coffee drinker, mind you, as in “I think I heard that once…”) Surprised was I to find the teas in these boxes come in individually sealed sachets. I had to laugh when I read this clarification on the side of the box: “Our roomy, relaxed fit [!!] sachet encourages greater full leaf expansion to give you better flavor.” So apparently it’s the best of both worlds–loose leaf tea that just happens to be corralled in a tidy pouch of delicate mesh.

The Northwest is well blessed with outstanding tea purveyors (Remedy Teas, T, Barnes & Watson among them), not to mention a wealth of interesting, varied tea shops and salons in which to enjoy them. So did we need one more elegant, selective, high-end tea to now make those choices tougher? Well, perhaps not “need” exactly. But I do think the region surely benefits by having one of the industry’s gurus return to the fold, helping ensure the Northwest remains the envy of tea lovers everywhere.

I hope you read that title with an appropriately thick French accent, as I’d intended. Lay am-behr-gehr. It makes a difference. Because this isn’t about the all-American hamburger we all know and love, instead a Gallic take on our Yankee icon.  

It really had never crossed my radar in all the time I’ve spent in France that the French were big on hamburgers. At least I never saw evidence that replicated the way we love them in the U S of A.

Here’s the limit of my hamburger-related memories from France: I was on a study-abroad program in Dijon my junior year of college. There were just 6 of us, a small program, we were each housed in a family home. And one day each week we convened at our coordinator/den mother’s apartment for lunch, with random host family members joining us. One day a friend’s “French mom” arrived with a packet from the butcher. Some lovely ground beef, all richly red and mottled with the little flecks of white fat. She just plopped that mound onto her plate and dug right in. No pretense about “steak tartar” with its seasonings and accoutrements. It was a culinary learning moment.

So I’ll clarify here that indeed this story is about cooked hamburgers. Les hamburgers à la française.

What inspired this musing is having run into a friend back in July at the preview screening of Julie & Julia. Chatting before the movie started, she told me that the first Julia Child recipe she ever cooked was the hamburger recipe in Mastering The Art of French Cooking. The assignment in her home-ec class was to cook a recipe from a cookbook and that’s what she picked. I kindly asked if perhaps it was another book she was thinking about, secretly sure she was muddling her memory.

No, she assured me, it was Mastering. Volume One.

Huh?

Didn’t quite compute. Pommes de terre dauphinois, sauce chasseur, veau Prince Orloff, bavarois au chocolat, sure. But hamburgers? In fact, there it is, bottom of page 300, the heading “Ground Beef–Hamburgers; Bifteck Haché.”

Julia explains, “Shock is the reaction of some Americans we have encountered who learn that real French people living in France eat hamburgers. They do eat them, and when sauced with any of the suggestions in the following recipes, the French hamburger is an excellent and relatively economical main course for an informal party.”

So I owed Karen an apology. And I got out the grinder attachment for my KitchenAid. Not because of that recent discomforting New York Times article about ground beef; this was a few weeks prior. Instead because Julia said so: “Be fussy about your meat; have all the fat and sinews removed, and have it ground before your very eyes or better, grind it yourself.”

You’ve got a copy of the book, right? [I'll wait while you go check your shelves] No? Well you should, pick one up next time you’re out. Even if it’s just for the reading quality and the depth of knowledge that the inimitable  Madame Child shares with us. You don’t have to cook the stuffed leg of lamb or an elaborate cassoulet. Plenty of great go-to recipes for a casual meal, like endive and ham gratin or sole poached in white wine.

I picked up some chuck at the store, dutifully trimmed and ground it. Then  following her steps for Bifteck Haché à la Lyonnaise (with onions and herbs), added the sautéed onion, thyme, egg and softened butter she calls for (being fresh out of bone marrow or beef suet).  While I did spend a lot more time on those 4 or 5 burgers than I would have buying a pound and a half of ground beef, the flavor really was a few steps above the norm. Not just the flavor, but the texture too, so toothsome, resistent, juicy. My only quibble with Julia’s method was the final coating of the patties in flour before cooking; I found it just encouraged sticking and burn potential, I preferred the unfloured version.

The real French-ness of this recipe shines next: making a little pan sauce to serve over the burgers, dispensing with the frivolous bun/lettuce/tomato finish we come to expect. I chose red wine to dissolve those tasty bits stuck to the pan, reducing quickly to a nice sauce. Simple in presentation, powerful in flavor.

I’m sold. There is a lot to be gained in fresh-grinding meat for burgers, and surely meatballs, sauces, other favorite uses for ground beef, whether your motives are gastronomic or health-related.

Having had a fabulous trip to Vancouver, BC earlier this year, which included a cocktail or two (plus an amazing dinner) at Yew in the Four Seasons Hotel, it grabbed my attention to read about the Olympics-themed cocktails recently unveiled for the restaurant. The Games will be starting in 127 days, and yes, there are a lot of people counting down (not the least, official timekeeper Omega watches at this link). I found myself mentally doing so as we passed through US customs at Blaine a couple of weeks ago, noting the new expanded crossing gates that aren’t yet open.

But back to those cocktails. Yew’s master mixologist Justin Taylor put together three concoctions that celebrate Vancouver’s hosting of the Games, tipping his hat, too, to two past Canada host cities.

The Bronze cocktail is Montreal-inspired (1976 hosts), with Canadian rye whiskey that’s infused with Quebec maple syrup and Granny Smith apple.

The Silver honors Calgary’s 1988 hosting of the Games, with buffalo jerky-infused vodka, housemade Clamato juice, chile peppers and horseradish.*

And the Gold is saved, of course, for the 2010 host Vancouver. The  commemorative  cocktail melds cucumber- and dill-infused BC gin (wonder if it’s Victoria Gin?), fresh citrus and egg white, with a garnish of candied smoked salmon.

I had no intention of trying to slip back up to Vancouver before the Games begin, but now I’m thinking twice. With luck, Canada will not only capture some gold medals in the competitions, but perhaps Yew will consider holding the Gold cocktail on their menu for a while.

* The press release noted this cocktail as a twist on the Caesar. Nothing salad-related, the Caesar is a Canadian cocktail of note that one of my go-to cocktail resources said they think is more flavorful than the similar Bloody Mary. What they share is vodka, Worcestershire sauce, celery salt; where they differ is the Bloody Mary using classic tomato juice, the Caesar has always been made with clam liquor-enhanced tomato juice. According to Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, the Caesar was first served a good two years before Clamato juice was developed down in California. I’ve never had a Caesar but will surely seek one out soon.

Sometimes I presume that everyone does all the same little tricks in the kitchen that help make our cooking lives easier and more efficient. Like laying down a dampened paper towel under a cutting board to keep it from slipping around on the counter (though my no-skid KitchenAid cutting board makes that unnecessary). Or using the side of a broad chef’s knife to first crush hazelnuts a bit before trying to chop them, avoiding the whole nuts rolling around on the board.

But thought I’d go ahead and pass this one along just in case. I have a pot of tomato sauce simmering on the stove for tonight’s pizza (making enough to have a few portions to freeze for another time). After the onions and garlic had lightly browned and the canned diced tomatoes simmered for a few minutes, I added a generous tablespoon of tomato paste. Didn’t need to open a can, just grabbed this sheet of frozen tomato paste from the freezer, snipped around one of the mounds, and plopped it into the pan. Could not be simpler, and does wonders for stretching the life of one of those cans of tomato paste, large enough that I seldom use the whole thing in one recipe.

Whenever I do open a can of tomato paste and have used the tablespoon or two called for, I cut a piece of plastic wrap and set it on the counter. Then, on go the mounds of tomato paste, spaced well apart. You can be precise if you like, making them each a level tablespoon for measured portions, but I just do it freestyle.

Then the paste is covered with another layer of plastic, a bit larger than the first to allow for covering the mounds. I don’t obsess about there being no little pockets of air, but do my best to seal the outer edges and envelop the tomato paste as well as I can. Then into the freezer on a flat surface until frozen solid. At that point, you can bunch up the sheet and store it in the door nook or some other out-of-the-way spot. Next time you need some tomato paste, just cut around a mound or two with scissors, peel away the plastic, and you’re good to go.