The Asian Counseling & Referral Service Food Bank is one of King County, WA’s most-used food banks and it’s the only one in Washington that regularly distributes foods for Asian and Pacific Islander diets. At some point after Dec 22nd, when the food bank closed for the holidays, burglars took a substantial amount of provisions from the food bank trailer at 919 S. King St. The theft included 40 bags of rice (50 lbs each), 25 crates worth of frozen chickens, salmon, beef and pork, and many pounds of toiletries. A box of chocolates was consumed on site. Jerks.

What does the San Francisco Ballet do with a cast of a hundred kids in between matinee and evening Nutcracker performances? They get sent off to “Club Nut” which sounds like one of those slumber parties where no one sleeps. The kids hang out in a large studio in the SF Ballet building with free food, craft projects, Christmas videos, cards, Twister, and volunteer adult chaperones. At the appropriate time the young performers are escorted across the street to the Opera House to get in costume and wait for their cues.

Jamie Oliver invented a funky looking shaker bottle with a ceramic ball inside for bashing herbs and spices for marinades and rubs. The Flavour Shaker is essentially a mortar and pestle replacement, supposedly faster and less messy. I haven’t seen one “live” yet but Oil & Vinegar (which, btw, for you local foodie folks, is now open in Bellevue Square) is carrying it in the U.S.

Out in Stanwood, Washington a small group of Orthodox Christian nuns creates beeswax candles, each carefully hand-poured or dipped. Their enterprise began with the production of paraffin candles, the most common type found these days. The toxic fumes from the paraffin, a petroleum by-product, forced them to consider an alternative and beeswax was the natural replacement. The sisters spent six months searching for the right cotton wick to create a votive candle that can burn for 18 hours. And they discovered that beeswax actually cleans the air instead of polluting it and is often recommended for people with allergies and asthma. I can see the residue on the surfaces near where we burned paraffin candles during our power outage and am considering switching to beeswax and soy candles. Quiet Light Candles, run by the four nuns and two volunteers, has a store that is open on Saturdays and online shopping (they use Paypal!).

The power outages from the windstorm have left local restaurants at two extremes. The ones with power or who somehow managed to remain open got a bonanza of business from hungry (and probably cold) hordes. The places that lost power are throwing out precious refrigerated and frozen ingredients and losing income for every meal that they are unable to serve. At Cafe Juanita, one of my favorite local spots, they lost many days of fully booked service and private parties. It’s a busy season for the Herbfarm but without power out in heavily hit Woodinville they have had no recourse but to call their guests and let them know dinner cannot be served.

If you’re wondering what’s been keeping me from posting then you may not know about the huge windstorm that hit the Seattle area on Thursday night (small photoset on Flickr). In a precursor to that storm, we lost power for much of Wednesday night thanks to a tree that came down a mile or so away. Then the electricity went out again Thursday night as the major winds came in. A large tree fell across our road taking the power lines with it. Our power stayed out until Monday evening when a crew came and reconnected the lines without bothering to move the tree first. We were very lucky to not suffer any property damage and we had the luxuries of hot water and a gas stove. Others were not as fortunate and there are many still without power. Driving around the area you can quickly see the scale of the destruction and understand why getting power back on has been such a huge task. A crew has been working around and on that tree on our road for over 24 hours now (perhaps not continously but they’ve been out there whenever I check) and it’s only one of many.

With prescient planning we decided to have dinner at Mistral with our friends Pavel and Kathleen on what turned out to be the night after our power finally came back on. It was a great way to shake off the indignities of being stripped of the conveniences of modern life. Here’s a summary of our 9 course tasting menu. More details and a scan of the hand-written menu we requested are on my Vox blog.

Bluefin Tuna with watermelon radish, fennel, and celery froth: A nice little starter with a foam of celery sitting on top of the veggies. A refreshing way to get ready for the meal to come.

Seared Sea Scallop with sunchoke and vanilla soup: The scallop was perfectly cooked, crunchy on the ends and tender with the right amount of “give” on the inside. There was a bit of citrus dust on top. This was one of my favorites with the texture of the scallop and the wonderful flavor of the soup.

Black Bass with roast peppers, pinenuts, brussel sprouts, burnt leek and blood orange vinaigrette: The bass had great contrast with a crunchy skin and tender flesh. The peppers were in a small cube dice and very sweet with no bite, like how bell peppers really should taste. There were a few leaves of sauteed brussel sprout, very fresh tasting.

Roast Swordfish, abalone mushroom, bluefoot chanterelle, horseradish puree: The swordfish was nicely done, but I really love mushrooms so those are the flavors I remember from this dish.

Seared Foie Gras with acorn squash puree and passionfruit juice: I remember enjoying the foie gras at Cafe Juanita, but this was more memorable perhaps because the contrast of texture was very striking. The seared exterior and the warm fatty interior — yummy.

Anderson Farms Lamb with fingerling potato puree, thumbelina carrots, red chard: What a lovely rack of lamb that must have been. The meat was dark pink and I believe our server said the exterior was coated with truffle salt. The potato puree was buttery goodness. The carrots and chard were lovely, not a hint of bitterness.

Cheese Course: Pierre du Jaquin, Tomme de Fedoo, Valle de Valdeon, Brillat Savarin, Beaufort. YUM. I LOVE CHEESE. All meals should have a cheese course.

Blood orange granita with pineapple, passionfruit, and orange sorbets: A real winner. There were small shards of pinky red granita on the bottom of the dish and a sorbet quenelle pyramid resting on it (pineapple and orange on bottom, passionfruit on top). The passionfruit was especially strong and striking.

Almond Financier, Vanilla Creme Brulee, Coffee ice cream, Mint ice cream, chocolate croquant: The creme brulee had just the right amount of torched top and tons of flecks of vanilla. The financier was a tasty little mini-muffin. The ice cream flavors held true to their origins with the mint hailing from the herb garden. A flavorful ending to a Mistral experience.

No, not again! Seattle Center planners are invoking the ghost of the altogether unsatisfying Metreon project in San Francisco as they plan their vision for the future of the Center. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Seattle Center is the home of the Space Needle and its surrounding buildings (the former World’s Fair site). We go there for various events and to amuse our toddler at the museums. Improvements certainly should be made to the area, but a flashy interactive gaming, entertainment and retail center is overkill. Right now it feels uncommercial and has a nice community atmosphere. Essentially it takes on the character of whatever events are going on at the time (the yearly Bumbershoot festival being the extreme example). Even if they succeed where the Metreon failed, I’m picturing walls of flashing screens and high-tech tie-ins replacing the holiday model train set and performances by local ethnic groups. Of course the real issue is money. Will residents pay for the upkeep of a community center when they could get Microsoft and Nintendo to fund a gaming center instead?

Behold, The Virtual Absinthe Museum, celebrated by many finer publications (Forbes, The Independent) as the best absinthe site on the Internet. (via Coudal Partners)

A report in the East Oregonian (subscription needed) about a woman who had ten pounds of skin and tissue removed after being bitten by a spider was picked up by the Associated Press and made its way into papers across the country. But Rod Crawford, Curator of Arachnids at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum, posted a doubting Reader Comment to the East Oregonian’s site: “…99% of the time these cases are caused by about 50 different non-spider-related medical conditions; recently, the dominant cause is skin eruptions caused by antibiotic-resistant staph infections, which can be quite serious if not treated for what it really is by medical personnel who believe in the common superstitions about spiders.” He went on to chastise the paper for not consulting a spider expert (the reporter did talk to a local entomologist). The Seattle PI printed reactions today from “dubious” and “exasperated” arachnid experts echoing Crawford’s complaints.