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Pierogies in front, sausage in back
One of the things we love about Seattle is that we are always discovering new food experiences. Whether it’s an authentic Mexican dinner for 40 on a rooftop or a soft opening at one of the hottest new restaurants in the city, it seems like we’re constantly learning of (often through Twitter) meals both unique and delicious.
One place we learned of recently through friends is the Polish Home, and more specifically, the PB Kitchen. Every Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the local Polish association serves dinner in their basement/dining hall. Pierogies, sausage, stuffed cabbage, and of course stout bottles of Polish beer.
Being from Pittsburgh, Jeremy was raised in the U.S. capital for Polish immigrants and pierogies. And my Russian ancestry makes me conditioned to go for the little dumplings at any opportunity. So we knew we had to check this place out.
Just don't ask us how to pronounce it
When we arrived around 8 p.m., the place was packed with Capitol Hill hipsters ironically munching on pork hocks, groups of yuppies 10 to a table, and community members chattering away in fluent Polish. It was loud and bustling, and it was easy to feel like you were in some Eastern European beer hall, especially when ordering beer at the bar went something like, “I’ll have a Zy…a Zoo…uh, the one that starts with Z” (aka Żywiec, a nice Polish lager.)
We ordered a mixed plate of pierogies — meat, sauerkraut & mushroom, potato & cheese — a plate of sausage, sauerkraut and potatoes, and some fried mushrooms to nosh on for an appetizer. We considered the stuffed cabbage and cranium-sized pork hocks we saw passing by, but decided to stick with the basics for our first visit. It was a busy night (I suspect they always are) but the people-watching made the time pass quickly until our food landed.
For a cold, rainy, Seattle fall night, nothing hits the spot like Eastern European comfort food. The sausage had a nice snap to it, and the pierogies were cooked perfectly. I liked the tangy beet salad they served alongside. Plus, they sprinkled bacon across the pierogies — how can you go wrong?
We definitely will be going back for a repeat visit, this time with a crew of friends in tow. It’s the kind of place you want to bring a large group along to share in the over-sized beers and platters of savory comfort food.
When I used to live in Pittsburgh, I became acquaintances with a coworker, a student at Carnegie Mellon, at Starbucks who was from San Diego. Whenever I would walk up Forbes Ave. at 5 a.m. through a foot of snow to open the store in the winter, I would always ask why he left sun-drenched SoCal for our ice and frigid temperatures.
Cameron’s response was that he wanted seasons. I countered by shaking my head in incredulity. Who moves from San Diego to…Pittsburgh?
Leaves on a sidewalk
Years later, I can understand his desire for change. This is why I’ve always looked forward to fall, the time of year when the heat breaks and the leaves turn. Fall meant college football, foliage and warming up with a coffee in neighborhood cafes — three of my favorite experiences.
For the most part, Seattle has amazing summers. The clouds stay tucked behind the mountains and rain is almost non-existent. Sun glasses come out and Green Lake fills up. Mt. Rainier makes a glut of appearance and shutterbugs dash off to Kerry Park. But despite those three months of perfection, I looked forward to when the skies would return to their normal slate color, and when I can see my breath in the morning. I’m not sure why that is exactly.
Fall colors in Seattle
This is my first real fall in Seattle. The rain has returned, but the city has responded with a spectacular outburst of color. The leaves on the maple trees are sporting their best reds, yellows and oranges. I came in thinking the Pacific NW would be full of evergreen pines, and therefore lacking the fall look I was accustomed to on the East Coast. Wrong. And while Seattle is not quite on the level of an October in Burlington, VT., it’s amazing in its own right.
For some reason, I thought of this earlier today on a walk through the Mt. Baker neighborhood for coffee and breakfast at Sweet & Savory, a nearby cafe. Lisa and I took Cooper, her Golden Retriever, with us as we walked past the Craftsman homes and up the hill. The leaves were out in full force, and it was worth it to take our cafe haul over to the view park on 31st. It was a small section of a rather mundane October Sunday, but it somehow resonated with me.
Change is good.
It emerged on Twitter, of course, where all good food parties are born. I don’t even remember how the topic came up, but someone started talking about comfort food and someone else brought up macaroni and cheese and another person chimed in with fried chicken and the next thing I knew, a bright-orange Evite was in my inbox announcing a Macaroni & Cheese / Fried Chicken Potluck.
A spread of cheesy goodness
I decided to go for the mac n’ cheese, which like any good human being I love, though oddly before this weekend I had never made it myself. I’ve always tended more toward the quick and dirty boxed variations, growing up with the occasional Kraft or shells + Velveeta before graduating to the more virtuous Annie’s. For whatever reason, I never felt the urge to make it from scratch.
So this was the perfect opportunity. Naturally, I obsessed about it for days. Basic? Bacon? Mushrooms? Green chiles? An attempt at the legendary fried mac n’ cheese wedges from Denver’s Cherry Cricket?
Ultimately I did the obvious thing and turned to one of my most reliable cooking resources: my cousin Megan, currently a pastry chef at the delicious Columbia City Bakery, always ready with recipe suggestions and sure-fire potluck winners. We consulted, and she gave me the guidelines for her crab mac n’ cheese with Gruyere, Comte, and chives.
I ended up using a Barefoot Contessa recipe for lobster mac n’ cheese as the template for Megan’s crab mac n’ cheese, and I have to say I was pleased with the result. It’s always nerve-wracking making something for the first time, especially when you are making it for other people and even more so when you aren’t going strictly off a recipe. But it turned out gooey and bubbly, with the sharp bite of the Comte cheese giving it a nice kick while the savory crab paired well with the chives.
The reviews from the others at the potluck were positive too, and almost all of it got eaten — which is the best kind of feedback, especially considering there were about 8 or 9 other kinds of mac n’ cheese and a few types of fried chicken.Some of the other offerings: Lorna‘s prize-winning macaroni and cheese had six kinds of cheese and a pound of bacon (!), Valentina creatively rolled up long, wide noodles individually, and hosts Sarah and Frank fried up ridiculous amounts of popcorn chicken that everyone devoured like…popcorn. [Update: Lorna thankfully has better photos in her blog post.]
I only took one hurried photo before diving in, but you can see my little mac on the right side in the red casserole.
If you need a dish for a potluck, macaroni n’ cheese or otherwise, I’d recommend this one. It makes a ton of food so you’ll need some help eating it. I have an entire pan full of it in the freezer still.
Crab Macaroni n’ Cheese
Adapted from Megan Bokan
- Kosher salt
- Vegetable oil
- 1 pound cavatappi or penne
- 1 quart whole milk
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 12 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated (4 cups)
- 8 ounces Comte cheese, grated (2 cups)
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 pound cooked crab meat (canned is fine unless you’re a high roller)
- 1/2 cup chives, chopped
- 1 cup panko (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente but not completely done. Drain well.
Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don’t boil it. In a large pot, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. Still whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the Gruyere, Comte, 1 tablespoon salt and the pepper. Add the cooked noodles, crab, and chives and stir well. Place the mixture in 1 big casserole or 2 medium ones.
Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine them with the panko, and sprinkle on the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the noodles are browned on the top.
Lisa
Jeremy
