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.
Photographer Nigel Cook of the Daytona Beach News-Journal seems to have a signature nighttime shuttle launch shot: here’s Discovery’s arc over a marina, and here’s Atlantis over a lighthouse. Pretty!
Throughout the saga of the search for the missing Kim family, I found that the local news media had more details and more accurate coverage. This wasn’t surprising. News gets more filtered the farther away it is from the action, even if a reporter is on the scene. Wrap-up articles are now coming to press. The Oregonian’s version adds the perspective of Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson. Ready to move on to another job, he had been hoping for a quiet last few days when he read the report of a lost family. A week later, Anderson’s last official statement for Josephine County was the ending that no one wanted to hear.
It’s happening all over again! “Seattle police say this weekend’s filming of a movie based in the 1999 WTO riots will have ‘minimal’ impact on commuters and shoppers. Of course, they said the same thing seven years ago before the anti-globalization protests erupted into full-scale, tear-gas-choked riots.” Filming will be this Saturday and Sunday, closing several streets.
TVGuide.com has an interview with Joss Whedon about Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. No, don’t get too excited, it’s not going to be on TV, it’s in comic book form. But it’s still neat news for Buffy fans. The plot begins several months after the end of the final TV episode, with all the newly minted slayers. A different company owns the comic book rights for the spin-off Angel series so there won’t be much Angel and Spike crossover, but he promises there will be some old faces. And there won’t be any of that comic book outlandish depiction of the female chest area; as Joss puts it: “All the people I work with draw actual women.”