Traveling Feast

After a week of heavy eating with some of the best chefs in the Northwest, I planned to simply order a glass of juice or a cup of tea at Café Presse this morning.  I’d arranged to meet Charles Drabkin there to follow up on a conversation begun over the weekend at the International Pinot Noir Celebration, and while food and cooking would inevitably be part of the conversation, I didn’t plan to eat anything.

But Drabkin spoke so enthusiastically about the food coming out of the kitchen that I felt a moral obligation to try something on the menu.

I looked for something cheap and noticed the omelette for a buck or two less than on any breakfast menu I’ve seen for quite some time.   I ordered one with mushrooms… not expecting much given the price… and when it came my expectations were met.  It was plain and completely alone in its dish.

But two bites into the omelette I started to wonder how in the world I was going to make it in for breakfast weekly given the fact that our home is on the other side of the state.

Most places use omelettes as a comatose-producing egg wrap for a mess of cheese, meats, and occassionally vegetables.  The perfect omelette at Café Presse is a study in simplicity.  You taste egg, perfectly cooked, and, in my case, mushrooms.  There was also a slight tang inside that I’m still trying to identify in the hopes that I might try to make something similar at home.  I hate to admit I couldn’t identify that third element immediately, but I’m willing to fess up in the hopes that one of you do know and will tell me.  Please.

It didn’t even occur to me to reach for the salt or pepper.  And Tabasco?  Not a chance.  You don’t mess with perfection.

I met Boka’s Executive Chef Angie Roberts this weekend in Oregon and after a taste of her amped up breakfast hash, I was very interested to find my way into her restaurant in Seattle soon afterwards.  Last night on the back end of a Mariner’s game  (we left BEFORE Ichiro’s game winning hit at the bottom of the 9th) we stopped by Boka’s sleek space in Hotel 1000 for appetizers and dessert.

But first the space…

Near the center of the room is a stand of glass bamboo.  Equally striking are the walls in the back reaches of the dining room:  they gradually change color throughout the evening.  Our server said these transformations are programmed along certain themes such as “sunset colors” but confessed that she didn’t know what the current for the night might be.  Whatever it was, it included a cool blue and a blood red along with white and purple.  Maybe the theme for the night was Patriotic Eggplant.

I seriously doubt I would ever be inspired to decorate my home to look like a cocktail lounge lifted out of the Jetsons, but it Boka’s version is a great spot to spend a few hours.  Good food certainly helps, and Boka throws in the food righteousness factor with a menu that is upwards of 75% organic and as local as possible.  Expect individual farm names on most of the dishes on the menu.

We opted for an heirloom tomato salad with fruit grown on Billy Alsott’s farm and a small plate of of goat cheese gnocchi served with smoked tomatoes (excellent), porcini mushrooms (meaty), toasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan cheese.  I  was enjoying myself and quite full before Sous Chef Andrew Pritchard appeared with the most memorable dish of  the night: a selection from the brand new dessert menu.

It is listed under a somewhat confusing name,”easy like sunday mornin’, but don’t let a little menu camouflage get in your way.  Megan start to eat while I talked with Pritchard, and I should have known that something was amiss when she didn’t stop.  Just seconds before Pritchard arrived at the table, she had said with conviction that she couldn’t eat another bite.

Easy like Sunday morning’ is technically a sundae, but unlike any I’ve encounter in recent memory.  Put together a remarkable graham cracker ice cream with a huge pillow of house-made marshmallow skewered on a stick of sugar cane and suspended over the bowl with a tiny pitcher of hot fudge sauce on the side.  I may not be able to eat another s’more again with thinking of Boka and beginning to weep silently.  Okay… that might be a bit melodramatic, but it truly was a treat… so much so that I completely forgot to pull out the camera until we’d almost destroyed it entirely.

Seattle WA: Walking up First Avenue tonight I noticed an apparently unplanned billboard combination that suggests something quite unintended, but entertaining.

Maybe we need to add a warning: don’t drink and text.

Mark Hosack spent his birthday (today) riding herd on the International Pinot Noir Celebration kitchen with his monster mug.  Happy Birthday, Chef.

What more needs to be said?

Thursday: Today in the kitchen at the International Pinot Noir Celebration is both a ramp up to a weekend of fine dining and a reunion as the kitchen crew alumni arrive with their knife kits and chef whites.  Preparation begins for meals throughout the weekend and the first headliner chefs arrive to work.  Chef Mark Hosack hands out kitchen assignments as people arrive:

Snap these beans.

Zest these limes.

Shuck this corn.

Pit these olives.

Do whatever Chef Priest asks.

Press these tortillas.

Cook that octopus.

Bias cut this celery for a potato salad.

Other chefs filter in: those with their names in the weekend’s program next to the course at one of the lunches or dinners that they will prepare… often with our help.  More prep tasks are handed out.

My intimate companions for the day were yellow beans, limes (and my Microplane), olives, four types of beans for a salad, and Mexican chocolate for Molly’s Mole.

The theme for the staff dinner tonight is Mexican and Molly Priest is in charge, and her instructions to me as I incorporate the chocolate at the end is definitive: “Don’t waste a drop.  That stuff is gold.”

I take just a nip once the chocolate is melted it.  It doesn’t look like gold, but I agree.  It is.

This is only my second year, but in addition to plenty of work, the kitchen is also full of welcome smiles.  I suspect it is the smiles as much as anything that keeps the crew coming back: smiles, some great Pinot, and time working alongside some of the most creative culinary figures in the Northwest.

Melissa has a great smile...

Last year a friend who calls herself a “chef and food wrangler” invited me to spend four days working in the campus kitchen for Linfield College alongside some of the best chefs from around the Northwest.  “We don’t pay you, but we give you room and board.  The wine is not bad, and you’ll get to meet some amazing chefs.”

I went.  The event is called the International Pinot Noir Festival and for the better part of the week each summer the IPNC folks take over the college in the heart of Oregon’s Williamette Valley.  The wine is excellent and the food is as well.

Today I’m headed back for more 10 hour days in a hot kitchen for no pay and I’m looking forward to it.  My friend describes it as “summer camp for chefs” and most of the other volunteers in the kitchen (who actually are chefs in their own right) agree.  They keep coming back because it is fun.

Last year I kept a running record in pictures of the bottle bin in the back.  I might do so again.  Over the course of the long weekend it goes from empty to overflowing.

My new favorite taco truck in Spokane is adding a measure of authenticity in its daily special sheet.

I didn’t order the “Shrip Speasal” but took the spelling as a potentially positive indicator that English was a second language for whoever made the sign (and hopefully would soon be cooking my food). It turns out that Patty’s Tacos is turning out wonderful and quite authentic Mexican street  food despite the decidedly Anglo name and the dictionary difficulties noted above.

For the record, there are actually two different Pattys in the family that owns the truck: cousin Patty Pineda and sister-in-law Patty Ramirez.  Pineda was at the grill the day I stopped by and her Alambre taco ($1.25) approached the category of life-changing.  Think mini fajita with steak, grilled peppers and onions, and melted mozzarella on top.  Normally I would scorn a taco that didn’t come topped in more traditional Mexican cheese, but before you do the same, try Patty’s Alambre.  It was stunningly good.  The pork Adobada taco was also wonderful.

For those of you within driving distance of Spokane, put Patty’s Taco Truck on the top of your list.  The truck is open 10 am to 8 pm every day on North Division between Garland and Walton.

In our weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) cooler from Rocky Ridge Ranch this week was a bundle of rhubarb.  I’ve also got some of my own happily taking over the backyard.  And rather than just make what I’ve made in the past, I’d be interested in any brilliant rhubarb recipes you might have locked up in your family recipe vault.  Despite the title above, I’m not actually desperate, but I am quite interested.

I have two great rhubarb recipes, both from my mother.  One is a moist rhubarb cake made with buttermilk that I find completely addictive.

The second is a rhubarb sauce that transforms ice cream and just about anything else you ladle it over.  Yet I am sure there are other possibilities out there, and you may have one of the best.  Let me know what rhubarb becomes in your kitchen.

Last Friday the urge for a maple bar from the Donut Parade overwhelmed any more measured reflection on how to start the day right with fruits and fiber.  It would be a morning for some of the best carbs and sugar on the continent.

I gathered up the three kids in the house at the moment (my daughter, one of my twin sons, and his friend that we affectionately refer to as ‘not my son’) and headed from Hamilton and Illinois just north of Gonzaga to order a dozen maple bars and donuts and four glasses of milk.  The milk is critical for true donut delight.

Yet another part of the Donut Parade perfection is the place.  It is frozen in time (circa 1950) and every hard-to-reach corner is covered by a quarter century of fine fryer grease that should preserve it for all eternity.  Our turquiose vinyl booth has a tear in the seat mended with duct tape.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Friday’s visit also reminded me of how much I love the old diner counter and line of chrome stools facing the kitchen.  Invariably, the line is occupied by neighborhood regulars nursing a cup of coffee, reading the paper, and discussing the sad state of the world over a plate of the sacred maple bars.

I’m sure the faces at the counter change depending on when you come during the morning, but the stools are almost always filled and all their occupants appear to have been here before.

By the time I reach St. Regis (Exit 33 coming down off of Lookout Pass in Montana) I’m usually hungry.  The Travel Center promises fudge, ice cream, slot machines, a full-service restaurant with the word “huckleberry” in the title, and a massive trout tank in the shape of a moat that you can actually crawl inside.  It also offers almost as much travel kitsch as the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar a few miles back up the road.

It is true that the St. Regis Travel Center can’t match the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar in the area of medieval swords and black ops knives.  Yet unless you want a replica of Excalibur in the trunk or a Chinese knock-off of a Navy Seal blade under your car seat, I recommend stopping in St. Regis.

Particularly if your destination is the Flathead, actually leaving the freeway at Exit 33 feels like real progress rather than just caving into the tourist trap pressure of a bar surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of silver dollars with a life-sized carving of an Indian chief guarding the door.

St. Regis is the place to stop, but where to eat has never been settled to my satisfaction.  The seasonal trailer hocking fresh Montana cherries at highway robbery prices is an viable option.  The Travel Center restaurant isn’t.

I still haven’t mustered the courage to go into the restaurant in the center.  The word “berry” in the title combined with a cave-like entrance is part of it.  Bad experiences at similar places next to other exits in other states is also a factor.  Then there is the urgency to keep moving.  Junk food from the racks near the register might not be heart-healthy or wholesome, but it can be eaten in the car.

Yet there is something more that has kept me out of the restaurant all these years.  For absolutely no rational reason I can identify, the place feels sinister.  I may be missing the best buffalo meatloaf on the planet cooked by some rising truck-stop star who will win Top Chef. But if I am, you’ll have to tell me because the place makes me nervous.

This has presented a problem in the hunger-for-hot-food department until now.

Now another option at Exit 33 takes credit cards.  Frosty’s Drive In isn’t new, but for years they’ve been a cash only spot.

No longer.  They take credit, and offer at least the pretense of fast food with their drive-up window.  Realistically you probably want to park and walk in.  Frosty’s isn’t the place for your burger in a minute or two.  Try six.  Or ten.

Neither is it the spot for a culinary revelation.  You can, with confidence, skip the banana shake.  The handmade sign made me hope for actual banana.  Instead, the syrup they use produces a color not found in nature and a taste to match. But the Mushroom Burger was a surprise in the other direction.

It has personality.  The beef appears to be food service standard, but the bun is fresh, grilled slightly, and comes with a smear of special sauce.  They include a cheese product without advertising it on the menu and the cook takes the time to slap the canned mushrooms on the grill.  She is also generous with the hand-torn lettuce.

Frosty’s isn’t In-N-Out, Fatburger, or Shake Shack, but it does give me a place to stop when I’m hungry in St. Regis and not in the mood for kitsch and travel center sinister.  I count this as progress.