I’m doing something new this week – house-sitting for my brother and taking care of his kitten.  So far I’ve been scratched, woken up at 6am and head bumped in the face.  She’s quite adorable though and might get away with all the abuse and the sniffles (I might be allergic).

As much as I am growing to like her though, I wasn’t about to share with her my tamale from El Camion.  She seems to be upset – judge for yourself.

 

On a Saturday afternoon I put on my black little dress, heels, and armed with a notepad and camera drove to Georgetown, WA for a Chef’s Table hosted by the lovely Traca Savodogo.  I’ve heard about Chef’s Table before and was more than excited when Eric Rivera asked me to attend the dinner in his place (thanks!).

The dinner was hosted at Skillet, the modern American diner. Walking towards the Skillet, I knew I was about to experience something quite special – the soft glow of candles, beautiful arrangements of fall flowers and tantalizing smells from the back of the kitchen were there to welcome!

While we sampled delicious charcuterie courtesy of Charlie Hertz of Zoe’s Meats, Traca introduced all the wonderful people who put together the event.  She started with a bit of Food for Thought: did you know that most people consume only 75 pounds out of 1500 pounds of meat?  The rest is considered to be secondary cuts of meat.  These secondary cuts (think beyond tenderloin and ribs) were the focus of the evening.

The dinner began with BLT Salad with Bacon Lardons and Farm Fresh Tomatoes with Green Goddess Dressing and Shaved Summer Squash Salad with Lemon, Cucumber and Mint.

I was too busy eating the next few courses (Vietnamese Oxtail Lettuce Cups and Ragu) to be taking pictures.  But both were delicious in their own way – the lettuce cups, fresh and vinegary, a perfect bite served in a lettuce leaf.  The ragu was rich and hearty, perfect recipe to have on hand for a fall night.

What came out of the kitchen next, was a thing of beauty.  A platter of Moroccan Lamb with Cous Cous, Olives and Fennel.

Perfectly tender and rare, the lamb was brought by Linda Neunzig of Ninety Farms who spoke about ethically and naturally raised animals.  Did you know that animals are best slaughtered during certain seasons?  As Linda explained, the slaughter timing depends on the growth of grass – the optimal time is during Spring and Fall.  Most animals slaughtered during Spring are fabricated for the BBQ cooking where the Fall animals are fabricated for braising (think roasts, larger cuts).

And then came the pig.  One, whole, roasted pig.

Crispy on the outside, fork-tender on the inside and oh-so-delicious!  We devoured the pork, dunking the tender meat into Chimichurri for an extra tang.  The stone fruit roasted along with the pig were tender and soaked in delicious juices.  Oh, and there was some red wine involved.

The pig came from Crying Rock Farm.  Joel Blais made the personal delivery and all of us were so thankful! Joel talked about the way pigs are treated on the Crying Rock Farm “let pigs be pigs” he said.  “Pigs have a good life” on the farm.  This is a celebration.

As though the dinner wasn’t already sweet enough, we saved some room for dessert.  The individually plated Fresh Fig Tart with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust and Honey Glaze was a delightful finale.  I personally wouldn’t have thought of putting rosemary in dessert, but it enhanced the figs and added a bit of a savory taste.

And honey?  Oh boy!  The honey came from Corky Luster of Ballard Bee Company – Keeping the Bee in Ballard.  Corky does urban bee pollination.  Say what?  He places bee hives in people’s backyards – think of that as surrogate for honey.  There are currently 60 hives in Seattle and Corky hopes to grow the number next year.  Did you know that a worker bee’s life is a month long, while a Queen Bee lives about 5 years?  More food for thought!  


Unfortunately, I have honey issues….Growing up, my parents would feed me honey and hot milk when I was sick.  And the memory associations have stuck.  As a grown up, I do not consume honey straight out of the bottle, but I did love the Cokry’s honey in the dessert and as a glaze for the roasted pig.


How is it that I’m hungry at the end of this post?  If you are lucky to live in Seattle, please visit The Skillet and Volunteer Park and support the local vendors.

I was first contacted by Fitness Magazine in March.  By some universal force my resume got into the right hands and the magazine offered me to develop a recipe for their Dinner in 20 section.  The goal was to create an original, healthy recipe that took 20 minutes to prepare from start to finish. 

By this point, I’ve had experience developing recipes for Cuisine at home magazine (just a note to all you grammar people out there – “home” is really meant to be lower case) and Joy Bauer’s Slim & Scrumptious Cookbook.  I was up for the Fitness challenge!

Unlike a 9-month-giving-birth-to-a-baby process, giving birth to the recipe took only 5 months from development to print.  I hope you try this recipe for Grilled Curried Shrimp with Mango Couscous in your own kitchen and let me know your thoughts!

Thanks so much to the staff at Fitness Magazine – I had such a wonderful time working with you and hope to do it again in the future.

Here’s the background story: after I joined Foodbuzz, I told my twin sister Anna to join too! And she did. She blogs here:www.snackinginthekitchen.com    She lives in Seattle, WA while I live in Arlington, VA. Despite the entire country between us, we chat all the time, travel together, and share many hobbies/interests such as FOOD, salsa dancing, crafts, etc.  One of the differences between  Anna and me is that she prefers red wine, while I prefer white wine. When I saw the Cork & Fork “challenge,” I thought this would be perfect for my upcoming trip to Seattle to visit Anna and our family.    And so the name for this would be Red vs White Wine Cork & Fork Twin Cook-off. Anna will make one of the red wine pairings, and I will make one of the white wine pairings.    We’ll invite some of our closest friends and depending on the weather have the meal outside or inside: sorry, with Seattle weather you can never tell! At the end of the party, the guests will choose the winning menu. 

And so, this Tuesday Anna and I set out to make a family dinner for our parents and brother. Anna chose Shiraz, and I chose Pinot Grigio. Luckily, the weather was absolutely perfect for a dinner outside.

Here’s a view of the table with a few of the dishes. Scroll below to see what we cooked.

For her appetizer, Anna made a bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, onions and basil on top of a grilled ciabatta bread.

For my appetizer, I made a pear salad with blue cheese and spiced pecans. The recipe called for roasting the pears, but it was too hot for that. The pecans were toasted in butter, sugar and a bit of cayenne and gave a bit of a punch to the salty blue cheese and the sweet pears. The dressing for the salad included reducing two cups of orange juice to two tablespoons: I just did not have enough patience for that and only reduced it to about quarter of the cup. Still, a success.

I also made steamed mussels. Instead of using poblano peppers as the recipe called for, I used roasted red peppers. The broth also contained onions, garlic, clam broth, coconut milk and white wine. I absolutely love mussels, but neither my brother nor my dad tasted a single one of them. Fine, more for the girls in my family 🙂

Anna chose to make grilled lamb chops with balsamic honey glaze and mint pesto. The mint pesto was absolutely awesome and also went well with bruschetta. It smelled fresh like summer! 

To go along with the lamb, Anna and I made grilled baby potatoes by first cooking red and white potatoes in salted water till they were tender and then drizzling them with some olive oil (thank you, Misha, for doing that) and seasoning with salt and pepper before putting them on the grill.

Anna grilled the lamb till medium rare and everyone enjoyed it with shiraz. Everyone other than our dad, who has very strong dislike for lamb (and also cilantro).

There was too much food to also make a dessert, so we ended up choosing a watermelon as a finale for our dinner.

Thank you Foodbuzz and Columbia Crest for sponsoring this dinner with my family. As far as who the winner is, my mom’s favorite dish was the lamb, and my brother liked bruschetta.  My dad liked all the food, other than the lamb and mussels 😉 He’s diplomatic like that.

Long overdue photos from a cherry and wine trip in Yakima, Washington with a stop at Chinook winery.