Much as I like to think I'm an organized person, inevitably there are trips when I realize too late something that I failed to pack. Usually remedying the problem just takes a trip to the drug store for some toothpaste, or relying on the room's alarm clock rather than my favorite [...]
It must be a bumper-crop year for chanterelle mushrooms here in the Northwest. My local grocery store, the wonderful West Seattle Thriftway, has had a consistent supply of lovely chanterelles for $8.99 per pound, one of the lowest prices I recall seeing for the beauties in recent years. And I've [...]
Home again, home again jiggity jog...... What a trip that was, three weeks so full and enriching and reviving that it felt like we were gone for two months. So I suppose we got our money's worth. And our time's worth. But it's great to be home. Another sign of [...]
I have got to make a point of getting to Vessel sometime in the next week or so. Just got an email reminder that they're celebrating one of the most venerable drinking establishment in the world--Harry's Bar--with signature items from their menu (beef carpaccio was created there, so the legend [...]
I think a new tactic I'll employ whenever travelling to a new place for the first time will be getting a pedicure on the first day there. That's how we found out about the prime location for getting our shrimp fix while in South Carolina last month. Warm weather, beaches, [...]
Endless acres of Spanish moss hanging from trees; this at the Middleton Place plantation. For a couple of months there, mid May couldn't arrive soon enough. I'm truly thankful that this year's been such a full and busy one work-wise, but the load was almost too much, lots [...]
I can tell by my watch that it's salmon season! Well, okay. Not exactly by my watch. But by the fact that the harbinger of the seasonal openings--Copper River--has launched and that means that commercial openings begin peppering the region, bringing in freshly-caught wild salmon from throughout the Northwest. What [...]
This morning's breakfast was a particularly good eye-opener, a nice change of pace from my standard fare (english muffin with peanut butter, yogurt with Grape Nuts, bowl of cereal). Today, I slipped a piece of cornbread from the pan in which I'd baked it yesterday. I cut the piece in [...]