Aunt(!) Amy, a fine all-round person and gourmet extraordinaire came up with these. The father mixes, the partner knocks ‘em back, and I get to watch the aftermath.
the woowoo
1 oz peach schnapps
2 oz vodka
.5 oz rose’s lime juice
.5 oz tonic
Shake with ice, and serve with a twist
Enjoy slowly - more than two are known to lead to unfortunate long-distance phone calls. Merry Christmas, everyone. What a year. We look forward to getting back and sharing the end of it with ya’ll.
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The thermometer on the rooftop weather station (yes, we take it that seriously) reads 76 degrees in the full sun. I suspect the nominal temperature is closer to 60, but the high reading makes it feel warmer than it is. It is 8 pm, and there are several hours before sunset, 10:30 tonight, according to the weather service. It seems the first real warm day we’ve had in Anchorage. No blustery wind off of Cook Inlet stirring up dust, and few afternoon clouds to block the light. The bugs are finally out in force, although the mosquitoes are few and far between. The grebes, geese, gulls, and even cranes are raising a cacophony on the lake across the street - the ice just went out, and there are nests to build, eggs to be laid, and eagles to chase off.
One day last week we skipped work and took the raft through snowy mountains to the Kenai River for the first float of the season. We left town in a miniature spring blizzard, feathers of snow dashing against the windshield, but left it behind and found sunny blue skies on the other side of Turnagain Pass. It was early season fishing, the water low and clear, and no trout were even remotely inconvenienced by our presence. Still, it was good to be out again, listening to water flowing on rocks and watching the river come alive again. We used to fish feverishly, almost frustrated and perhaps even angry when things did not go our way. The more time I spend on good rivers, the more I realize the time on water with a best friend matters more than fish. Dad’s been saying that for years…takes us sons a long time to learn what our fathers already figured out. Funny how that works. [read more →]
→ 1 commenttags:asparagus·mushrooms·spring
It was long winter by anyone’s standards. Some of us are still hoarding chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs leftover from Easter, enjoying the extra sunshine, and dubiously acknowledging that it is finally spring in Alaska. Friday before last, Old Man Winter lashed out one last time, dropping 24 inches of snow onto Anchorage. April 2008 was the snowiest on record. We thought we were in the clear, but no. Still, it has been warm since then and the snowbanks have receded quickly, leaving moraines of trash and a winter’s worth of dog poop all over town. The surest sign of spring is actually here - the street sweepers are patrolling the roads, hoovering up a winter’s worth of gravel. A welcome sight, as the tons of rock spread through the winter to help with traction ends up ground to dust by traffic, leaving a gray pallor over the entire town. [read more →]
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Sunday morning rises crisp, cold, and clear. It is 14 degrees below zero at my house, and I am not an early riser: It’s 9:15 before the sun starts to clear the Chugach mountains and lights up Anchorage below. The mercury starts to tick upwards, but not quickly enough. I should not complain about the weather much. It is all relative, but we live in the banana-belt of Alaska: A few hundred miles north of us temperatures have been holding steady in the -50 range for weeks. We are to meet friends at a trailhead in the mountains for a back country ski before settling in for the Super Bowl, but the French press, a thick Sunday paper, and the new DWR catalog all beckon. The excuses are all there, but we need to get outside for awhile, at least. We also need to feed, and time is short. It’s cold, we’re going to be exercising hard, and breakfast doesn’t really count unless it involves a pork product. Seriously. This afternoon there will be burgers, nachos, good beer, but now we need something quick and easy.
At Christmas we found neat little French place in Seattle that a friend recommended. Good food prepared simply, for the most part. The highlight of our pre-lunchtime visit was about as simple as it gets. Crack a couple of eggs into a shallow baking dish lined with good cured ham. Grate a little hard Gruyère over it, and toss it under a broiler for few minutes. The trick is to get the edges of the ham crispy without getting the eggs too hard. How long you leave it in the oven depends on your preference for runny eggs, but it doesn’t take long at all before over-easy turns to over-hard. There are several softer cheese sold as Gruyère, and I think they make the dish a little mushy. The real stuff crisps up better over the soft egg. Make sure you have some fresh crusty bread and butter for wiping out all of the corners of your bowl. That is it is just stupid simple doesn’t take away anything from how good it is, so it has made it into the near weekly lineup here at the Alaska Cooks Corporate Headquarters. Something this easy and good works for last minute dinners as well as pre-skiing fuel.
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original photo by scott dixon
So maybe heading for one of the more popular restaurants in Seattle’s Belltown on Christmas Eve afternoon isn’t the brightest idea, but it worked out. We walked in and grabbed the only open table. Le Pichet is just up the street from Pike Place Market, and we had ridden the ferry over from Bremerton just to walk the market and be a part of the holiday scene in downtown Seattle. The place is small, and was full of folks enjoying the neighborhood and wrapping up last minute shopping. If you airlifted this restaurant across the world into any neighborhood in Paris, it would be indistinguishable from any other cafe or bistro there. The dim lighting, old tile, the rolled zinc bartop, the slate tables; everything but the smoky atmosphere is right. Run by owners Jim Drohman and Joanne Herron (he cooks, she works the front of the house), the place is a Francophile’s dream. A friend had stopped in one lazy fall afternoon, rated it highly, and it has been on my list ever since. Yes, I actually carry a list of places I want to eat when I travel. It rarely works out that I get to cross anything off of said list, but I have one.
The menus are small, but there are three: Le Casse Croûte, Le Déjeuner, and Le Diner. The choices are few and the dishes simple, but it would be hard to not find something tasty. Only the Le Casse Croûte menu was available to us at 10:30 in the morning (it’s available all day) and we settled on pain et buerre, ouefs plat, jambon et fromage, les tartines.
Sadly we weren’t in town long enough to try the dinner menu, but I’ll be back. Spécialités de la maison include a whole chicken roasted to order, with Walla Walla onions, orange-rosemary butter and eggplant caviar or local mussels sauteed with bacon, leeks, saffron cream, and fried potatoes. Prices range from 5$ to $34, and the highest is for the whole chicken - meant for two. The prices here are unreal, in the best way possible. There are artisanal cheeses available by the ounce or by the plate, with the selection varied daily. Wine is available by the glass,the pitcher (le pichet…), or bottle.
Restaurant Le Pichet
1933 1st Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98101
Telephone: (206) 256-1499
8 am to 12 am Sunday through Thursday
8 am to 2 am Friday and Saturday