This is what we’ve coined as “Island Life.”

There are no work deadlines with Island Life. Nor are there meetings to attend or bills to pay. Island Life is simple living, free of worries. Bob Marley would wholeheartedly approve.

Thew view from Mt. Constitution

Last weekend, a group of us rented a farmhouse on Orcas Island with a simple goal of enjoying the bucolic surroundings and consuming excellent food. Our friends Frank and Sarah brought delicious foods and an obscene amount of wine, the bulk of which we consumed our first night on the deck. Lisa and I arrived early, free to wander Eastsound (the main town on Orcas Island) and watch the Mariners game at a waterfront bar with a ridiculous view of Puget Sound.

Friday afternoon, we started with lunch at Roses Bakery & Cafe, a hyperlocal institution in Eastsound. Everything was fresh. The spelt salad and crispy halibut sandwich with heirloom tomatoes were excellent, but also outclassed by the blueberry pie (with vanilla bean ice cream) that came afterwords. As we wolfed down the dessert, the shocked waitress presented the bill with her mouth agape.

“My, y’all inhaled that.”

Yes. Yes we did.

Blueberry pie from Roses

The only complaint to eating out on Orcas is the ridiculous prices. Lunch for two was $45 without tip. But these are the small sacrifices we make for Island Life (as well as the interminable ferry waits at Anacortes). For one, I don’t mind paying $14 for clams if it comes with baseball in HD and a waterfront view.

Back at the farmhouse on Friday night, the eating and drinking continued. Frank & Sarah had arrived, along with Benson and Kel. The stress of any ferry delays had worn off after the second glass of Riesling, and we spent the night conversing until well past midnight.

The hit of the weekend was dinner at Allium on Orcas, a farm-to-table restaurant headlined by Lisa Nakamura, the former sous chef at The Herbfarm in Woodinville. Everything about the meal hit the right notes, from the clever appetizers (roasted vegetables with herb dip) to the well-executed main courses. Several in the group ordered the polenta topped with mushrooms and duck egg, a combination that blew taste buds. The salmon on ginger risotto (covered in a Thai chili sauce) was defined by excellent kitchen technique, as the fish was perfectly cooked. A raft of desserts followed, highlighted by a few smart choices such as apricot angel food cake and a blueberry/peach crumble. The common thread to the meal – for me at least – was freshness, as a majority of the ingredients had been picked up earlier that morning at the Orcas Island Farmer’s Market.

To summarize: dining on Orcas Island is limited, but the restaurants do well to take advantage of the bounty of local ingredients. But the weekend was defined not just by a few nights of voracious eating. It was an opportunity to escape for a few days, enjoy the island seclusion and the striking scenery.

Island living. Island Life.

Orcas Island, in a nutshell.

A classic Dark 'n' Stormy

For us, nothing is better after a long day of work than mixing up a highball and decompressing. It’s one of those classic cocktails no one should tinker with the ingredients, or its construction, which is simple and delicious.

• 2 oz Gosling’s Black Rum
• Ginger Beer (Reed’s is a great brand)
• Lime garnish

That’s it. Much like the Cape Codder (vodka & cranberry juice), New Englanders (and Bermudans for that matter) keep things hassle-free when it comes to imbibing. Unfortunately in this day and age of amateur alchemists, Lisa and I have seen a lot of imitation Dark ‘n’ Stormies, each with their own special “spin.” Perhaps the most egregious was the one at a nameless bar in downtown Seattle, where the recipe called for Calvaldos brandy and ginger ale, along with added cinnamon to taste.

By law, nothing but the original three ingredients may constitute a Dark ‘n’ Stormy. The New York Times chronicled Gosling’s fight to protect its brand from submerging in a pool of cheap imitators.

“We defend that trademark vigorously, which is a very time-consuming and expensive thing,” said E. Malcolm Gosling Jr., whose family has owned Gosling’s since its founding in Bermuda in 1806. “That’s a valuable asset that we need to protect.”

Not to say there isn’t some incredible mixologists plying their trade here in the Pacific Northwest. From the Gilda Sucia at the now-defunct Txori (R.I.P) to proliferation of bars like Bathtub Gin, Tavern Law, etc., the art of the cocktail has seen a renaissance. Neo-classic drinks (such as the Old Fashioned, thanks to Mad Men) have become more common additions on drink menus in Seattle, which long has held a reputation as a microbrew town.

But there’s also an art to mastering the classic drinks. The Dark ‘n’ Stormy is one of those drinks that pulls me towards a beach club in Hamilton, Bermuda, and needs no different personality other than its own.

This would be Noodle Boat, a family-run operation nestled inside a strip mall. Dismiss the nondescript decor and the far-flung location and focus instead on the cuisine, which ports traditional Thai dishes in a family-style setting – with a few surprises.

Chicken Soaked With Rum, Set Ablaze

As you can see, the menu includes a flaming chicken dish called the “Volcano Gem Hen”, soaked with Bacardi 151 and lit afire. You must be 21+ to get the full alcohol-soaked blaze. We asked the server the point of the pyrotechnics and she said, “It’s cool.” Well, there you go.

Showy display aside, the chicken itself was delicious, the meat so tender it fell off the bone while the skin was deep-fried and crispy. Lisa gave up fork and chopsticks and went after it with both hands.

We also ordered a dish I had our first visit, the Talay Hot Plate, which is a sizzling platter of shrimp, squid, scallops and vegetables. Given our group size (eight people), the goal was to create a smorgasbord of varying options, allowing us to graze over the different plates.

You can hear the sizzle

Some other standouts were the Ka-Pao-Rad-Khow (stir-fried ground pork with chili, bell pepper and Holy hot basil); a spicy Koa Soi (egg noodle curry); and the “Queen of Banana”, which according to the menu is “steamed banana blossom, shrimp, chicken mix chili paste, lime leaves, coconut milk, roast coconut, lemon grass, mint, onion and cilantro put in a banana leaf.” Yowza.

What also makes this place worth a visit is the friendliness of the staff. It’s a family of about a dozen, with members of all ages doing the cooking and serving. They close the entire restaurant for 6 weeks every year to go home to Thailand to acquire ingredients and visit family. One of our servers told us wistfully about her excitement at getting to go home in just a few short weeks (this year it’s April and the first half of May, so get to Noodle Boat soon or face a long wait!)

In Seattle, you hear stories of these types of places all the time, the hidden find beyond the beaten path. Someone will ask if you’ve checked out the Indian restaurant out on the Eastside in  BFE (rather, Factoria). Or if you’ve discovered the Mongolian BBQ place in Mill Creek (a place my UW coworkers RAVE about). One thing we love about Twitter is how viral a new restaurant/find can become. One recommendation leads to a caravan of foodies hightailing it over the 520 Bridge in search of a new meal.

A laden table, just the way we like it

All evidence why quality dining in Puget Sound is not limited to just the 206, or the celebrity chefs now flexing their muscles in Bellevue. Better yet, hidden finds such as Noodle Boat come cheap. Our group split a ton of dishes and had several drinks, and each of us left $24 lighter in the wallet, including tip.

Welcome to Oregon

Armed with a list of recommendations from friends, coworkers and the Internet, Lisa and I were determined to squeeze in at least three quality meals during our short time in Oregon. After decamping in Irvington (where LK’s cousins live) we made our way to Laurelhurst Market, a restaurant/butcher that’s a pantheon for carnivores in the Pacific Northwest. Inside the dark and intimate confines, we were whisked to the bar where I sipped a local Pinot Noir while Lisa studied the menu. Everything came farm-to-table, so fresh/sustainable the bartender joked the meat was “grass fed, oat-finished and constantly massaged throughout.”

Meat dominates at Laurelhurst Market, to the point that vegans and vegetarians are straight-up discouraged from even trying, and cooking the steaks well-done is “not recommended.” We glanced only briefly at the mussels and non-beef dishes on the menu before selecting the flank steak (made from Wagyu beef) with chimichurri and a steak with arugula salad. We also ordered an appetizer of sweetbreads (yes, glands) and a side of brussels sprouts.

As blog readers know, we are big fans of sweetbreads. Laurelhurst’s version were by far the best we’ve ever had. Crispy on the outside, melt-in-your-mouth insides, with a slight briny flavor. They also came with a slice of baguette topped with something called “bone marrow butter.” Your heart hurts just thinking about it, right? This might have been the best dish we’ve eaten in months.

The steaks were seared to perfection, and as we dined we chatted with our bartender (a transplant from D.C.) about the culinary renaissance Portland has undergone in recent years.

The Grilled Cheese Grill

Our favorite aspects of PDX are not limited to restaurants, but also include the pods of food carts stationed throughout the city. Endless options are available, ranging from grilled cheese on Alberta St., to poutine and frites inside the cart confluence on 12th and Hawthorne. Not limited by bureaucratic red tape and boosted by low start-up costs, food carts are now woven into the food experience in Portland. There’s too many to list, but our new favorites include the two mentioned above, particularly the poutine with its irresistible blend of gravy and cheese curds. Oh, did I mention we (cough) took a weekend off from Paleo dining on this trip. No sense in limiting yourself with so many options around, especially while on vacation. This is the reason we decided the coup de grace should be a dulce de leche milkshake, delicately balanced with sea salt, from the Patisserie cart.

One final memorable snack was at Random Order Coffeehouse and Bakery in Northeast, where we sampled the Meyer lemon pie and coconut cream pie, washed down with (what else) a French Press of Stumptown coffee. Both pies were rich without being too sweet, with flaky, delicate crusts.

Shaker lemon pie from Random Order

We packed a lot into 24 hours, and that isn’t even going into the time spent at Powell’s or the sports bar Claudia’s on Hawthorne in Southeast, where we joined a raucous crowd to watch the gold-medal hockey game between the USA and Canada, all huddled around pitchers of IPA and bottles of Session beer – Oregon’s finest.

A taste of Wee Britain

In tourism magazines and Clipper brochures, Victoria BC likes to tout itself as a foodie destination. But we were suspicious that the culinary scene was nothing but a tourism trap, where the restaurants are boring and unimaginative in order to pacify the blue-hair tourists after tea at the Empress.

But on our last two trips to Vancouver Island, we’re  slowly coming away with the fact there are some hidden gems in Victoria. None more so than our last trip this past weekend, where we savored one of the better meals we’ve eaten in the 14 months we’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest.

The entire trip was made possible by a ridiculous Clipper-and-hotel offseason package deal. In the summer months, the Victoria Clipper is comparable to a plane ticket, but in January they’re practically begging you to take the two-and-a-half hour ferry ride up the Strait of Juan de Fuca. So early on a Saturday morning we took the Clipper to Victoria and checked into a swanky boutique hotel.

Breakfast, or brunch by the time we arrived, was at Mo:Le Restaurant, near Chinatown. It was packed with a mix of hipsters, tourists and vegans even close to noon, so they sent us next door to Habit, a coffee shop that wouldn’t be out of place in Seattle. We enjoyed loose leaf teas with names like “Tea for Sad People” and read free copies of Cook’s Illustrated and Meatpaper while we waited.

People, if you’re in Victoria, go to Mo:Le. The reputation is that of a veggie-friendly spot, and they can certainly make most things vegan, but there’s a burger on the menu and sides like local lamb sausage and free-range chicken. The varieties of eggs benedict were enticing, but since we’re not eating dairy or grains right now (more on that in another blog post) we kept it simple. Jeremy had the special omelet with sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach both days we went (yes, we went there both mornings) while Lisa ordered a yam and onion omelet that may have sounded weird but tasted out of this world. The omelets were the lightest we’ve ever had, nothing like the leaden, overcooked eggs you get at so many breakfast places. Their housemade hot sauce, which we should have purchased to take home but inexplicably didn’t, tasted like it was made from tomatoes picked yesterday.

In between touring Victoria, helping out the Canadian economy with our hard-earned American dollars and catching a film at the Victoria Film Festival (the Danes are a dark, dark people) we discovered another outstanding local restaurant called Stage Wine Bar. It’s away the tourist center of the Inner Harbor in the Fernwood neighborhood, a good 20-minute walk from downtown. The little retail intersection has a few above-average restaurants, but Stage really blew us away. They serve small plates and both tastes and glasses of wine, several from Vancouver Island wineries. We started off trying to be restrained (we had just polished off a dozen oysters at Ferris Oyster Bar) but were unable to control ourselves once the first few plates started coming out of the kitchen.

We ordered smoked ham from the selection of local charcuterie; a salad of marinated white anchovies, celery, fennel, marcona almonds; crispy fried local octopus & lemon; duck confit with caramelized caraway cabbage and wine syrup; and then chicken curry with apple apricot chutney, because we couldn’t help ourselves.

Everything was delicious, but the standouts were the octopus and duck confit. The octopus was like the best calamari you’ve ever had, but lighter and more flavorful, with the perfect amount of crispness on the outside. The duck confit was rich and balanced by the caramelized caraway cabbage, which was braised until almost dissolving. This is another must-visit if you’re visiting Victoria, especially if you want to avoid the overpriced tourist slop closer to the harbor.

The memories of the best dishes we had (seriously, Lisa woke up the next morning still thinking about that octopus) made up for the fact that our return Clipper boat was canceled because of mechanical problems and we ended up getting bused 7 hours home to Seattle, via the BC Ferries, arriving home at 12:30am. The good news: they gave us 50% off coupons for a future Clipper trip, so we can return and revisit some of our favorite tastes.

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.

Meet the Jucy Lucy

I received my first introduction to Jucy Lucys via cable TV, when I saw the spiky-haired Guy Fieri of the Food Network biting into some melty burger goodness at Nook’s dive bar in St. Paul, Minnesota. After wondering for a few seconds how he did not experience a “cardiac event” afterwards, I knew I had to try one. Here in Seattle, we have a lot of friends who hail from the Twin Cities. So the other night we decide, WTF, we’ll have a bunch of them over and grill up some Jucy Lucys.

The concept is simple, yet brilliant. Take burger. Stuff American cheese in the middle. Grill.

Of course, even with the most minimal of culinary creations, there are subtle arts to it all. So Lisa and I did our research. A wonderful resource was the super-comprehensive Twin Cities food blog, Heavy Table, which detailed step-by-step how a true Minneapolitan (or a St. Paulite) constructs a Jucy Lucy. There’s even a six-minute video.

From other Web browsing, we noticed a lot of foodies like to put their own creative “spin” on their Jucy Lucys. There’s no denying American cheese is processed, and pretty gross. So people add fancier cheeses, and then wonder why the burger didn’t turn out as expected.

American cheese? *Chortle* I have this aged raw milk manchego that is produced only from a hand-picked group of La Mancha sheep who have passed my own rigorous selection tests based on intelligence, athletics and personality.

So yes, American cheese is “gross,” but in this case it works perfectly. This reminds me of an old lesson harped on by many a print editor in the past: “Don’t use a $10 word when a 10-cent one will suffice.” That being said, you can also use another SOFT cheese, something that melts easily into a fondue-like consistency — we used fontina on half of the burgers, to provide a non-plastic alternative to the bright yellow classic. But those who insist on using cheddar will be disappointed.

Another crucial element is to flatten the meat a lot when constructing the burger — too fat a burger, and the cheese won’t melt all the way. It’s also important to securely seal the two halves of the patty when constructing it, so the cheese won’t leak out during the grilling process. Then you end up with a messy grill and a hollow patty.

The most surprising part is that this burger ends up being more than a gimmick. The cheese on the inside actually helps keep it moist and “jucy”, and ensures that it melts properly. Think of all the times you’ve had a burger with gummy, half-melted cheese on top. In the Lucy, you have gooey cheese evenly distributed throughout each bite. We devoured them, and our Midwestern guests raved. One said it was one of the best burgers she’d ever had. Aw shucks.

Jucy Lucys

• 2 pounds ground beef (use a fatty mixture, 80-20)
• American cheese. Kraft works fine.
• Hamburger buns (here’s a hint…use something soft. We went with onion loaf)
• Montreal steak seasoning
• Mise-en-place your fixens: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, etc

Preheat your grill (medium heat, or 400°F for those using gas). Divide the beef into six portions. Take one portion and roll into a ball, and then chop in half. Now, roll one of the halfs into a ball and then mash into a thin patty on the cutting board. Remember, go thin because otherwise the cheese won’t cook well in the Jucy Lucy. Secondly, make the patty slightly bigger than the bun, as it will reduce in size during cooking.

Here comes the cheese! Take one slice American cheese and fold it into quarters. Place the pieces of cheese in the middle of the burger, leaving space on each side for hamburger to be exposed. Then roll the other half of meat into a ball and flatten into a thin patty. Place on top of the first patty and seal the edges real tight, working the hamburger with your fingertips to make sure there are no holes/openings in the meat. Otherwise, the cheese will volcano spew outwards during grilling. No good.

Burgers are now ready for the grill. Season Jucy Lucys with the Montreal steak goodness and place burgers on and grill for 8-9 minutes. Flip and then poke each burger with a knife to let out some steam. Grill for another 7-8 minutes.

There might be a trip to the Twin Cities forthcoming for the Hipster in my Latte duo, and so a pilgrimage must be made to see the true Jucy Lucy professionals at work. We’ll probably start at Matt’s Bar, which is the self-proclaimed inventor, and then stop when our hearts tap out and say “no mas.”

P.S: This has absolutely nothing to do with cheese-stuffed hamburgers, but the new season of Top Chef looks beyond awesome. Even if there’s only 10 minutes of actual substance between all the product placements, celebrity chef/hotel plugs and forced Padma segues. As usual, plenty of snarky recaps from the writers over at Grub Street.

Well, my love affair with the mobile foodistas has grown exponentially since we’ve moved out to Seattle. In the eight months we’ve lived here, there have been several addition to the fleet of food trucks, each seemingly outdoing each other in terms of quality and flavor.

Not just content with gyros and tacos, we’ve seen a sea change in mobile food competition. The entrepreneurs are innovative and creative.

I thought about this today as I pulled up to Beacon Hill with Lisa and we stood in line at Marination Mobile, a Korean-style taco truck that offers such delicacies as Aloha Sliders and Kimchi Quesadillas. The veggies in Seattle have tofu options as well. For around $7 a person, the quality of the food was well above what’s out there in terms of fast food (outside of In-And-Out Burger, but that’s for another post).

Serving up some fabulous Korean tacos in Seattle

The trend in Seattle began with Skillet, which began slinging gourmet truck food a few years ago out of an old silver Airstream. Skillet upped the ante, offering burgers with local, farm-raised beef, bacon jam, arugula on gourmet bread. Poutine (the Quebecois treat of fries topped with piping-hot gravy and cheese curds) was another option. Lines started queueing up and business boomed. Aside from a few health code violations, Skillet has been a success in Seattle.

Competitors sprouted up not soon after. We’ve enjoyed veggie BBQ (yes, really), from the Maximus/Minimus truck, a which happens to be shaped like a pig. If you want an octopus taco, get thee to Eastlake and visit the Tako Truk late nights on the weekends. Added bonus: you can follow them on Twitter (like you can most of the food trucks) to stay in the know about locations and 86s.

The Piggy Truck

And as much as Seattle has advanced in terms of street food, Portland has us whipped, unfortunately. A lot has to do with regulations that Seattle has now finally laxed on, but a recent trip to Portland presented us with enough evidence (over 400 or so vendors!) to come to that conclusion. Such options ranged from a vendor specializing in nothing but grilled cheese, one of my favorite comfort foods. One section of PDX had a confluence of trucks all happily competing with one another. This site keeps readers up to date on the food cart news in Portland.

Back in Seattle, I’m just glad to see our city has jumped on the street food bandwagon. This was cemented when I bit into an incredibly flavorful slider of shredded pork and Korean slaw. And as much as Seattle has grown in this regard, there are still some great old-school options. During the blizzard this past winter, Lisa and I trudged our way from Mt. Baker to Rainier Valley to the taco bus. Another fantastic option is Rancho Bravo in Wallingford. These are my rebuttals to those who believe Chipotle is an acceptable lunch option.

Half-eaten paella

For some inexplicable reason, I was feeling adventurous today. Part of the impetus was a recipe for paella in Jose Andres’ bible on Spanish Cooking: Tapas, a Taste of Spain in America. As a former D.C. resident, I can speak in reverence of Jose’s skills with Iberian ingredients in the kitchen. His flagship Jaleo restaurant is, in my opinion, the end-all, be-all tapas destination in the United States.

So I decided I wanted to cook paella, even though I have never cooked it before. Culinary suicide, I know. Paella can be a finicky dish. If you eff up the rice, for example, it’s ruined.

Undeterred, I made a trip this afternoon to The Spanish Table, an Iberian specialty shop located on Western Ave. near Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. The shop focuses on Spanish goodies, but there’s also ingredients with Portuguese and Moroccan flavors. Basically, my head exploded. I grabbed a basket and loaded it up with gazpacho (chilled tomato soup), sofrito (sauteed sauce with tomatoes), smoked sweet paprika (staple flavor of Spanish dishes), Valencian rice and some European candy. The hallmark of my haul, though, was a cazuela. It’s a terra cotta dish, perfect for cooking one-pot type meals over low-to-medium heat. 

Originally, I planned on picking up a paella pan, which is a large metal pan with a flat bottom. This is so the rice cooks evenly throughout. The problem is you can’t use a paella pan on a flat stove, which is what we have. Another problem is that it’s only good for cooking, you guessed it, paella. Not wanting to spend $150 on a specialty pan, I asked the lady at the counter what my options were. She recommended the cazuela, which is more versatile. Sold.

Now here comes the ingredients, which is where paella gets tricky. The dish is a freelancer’s dream, because you can essentially use whatever meat or vegetable is available/in-season. Andres’ recipe called for green beans, chicken thighs, jamon serrano and wild mushrooms. We decided to amp it up with fresh eggplant as well. All of which was available, btw, at both the Queen Anne Farmers’ Market, and the nearby Metropolitan Market.

Before hitting the markets, I soaked the cazuela for six hours in water. Because the dish is kiln-fired at 2300 degrees at creation, it needs to soften a bit before you toss it on a hot stove. But it worked perfectly. 

We made a few other slight alterations to the recipe. Andres uses homemade sofrito and chicken stock. Not wanting to waste several hours in the kitchen, I stuck with the store-bought varieties. 

We added the ingredients, one after another, according to the recipe, but the real test came when we were to let it sit, bubbling, for the rice to absorb all the liquid. Jose (and my mother) warn not to touch the rice with a spoon or finger while it’s cooking, or the delicate crust will break and the rice will cook unevenly. So we obediently let it sit until all the liquid was soaked up and the paella was finished, a cake-like crust on both the top and slightly-burnt bottom.

Success. It was delicious.

Chicken and mushroom paella

(Inspired by Jose Andres)

Serves 4, or 2 or dinner with ample leftovers

• 2 Tb. olive oil
• 2 chicken legs or boneless thighs, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms
• 1-2 cups other vegetable (we used 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1 inch cubes)
• 3 oz. green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 small garlic clove, pressed
• 2 slices chopped jamon serrano
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup sofrito
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 pinch saffron threads
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tb. salt
• 1 1/2 cups Spanish Bomba rice (or Calasparra or Arborio rice)

Heat the olive oil in a paella pan, cazuela, or 12-inch deep skillet over high heat. Add chicken and saute until browned on all sides. Set aside.

Add mushrooms and eggplant or other vegetable to the pan and saute until golden, about 3 minutes. Add green beans and garlic and cook 3 more minutes. Return chicken to pan, along with the ham.

Pour in the wine and cook about 1 minute. Add the sofrito and cook 3 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Crush the saffron and add it and the bay leaf. Season with salt.

Now add the rice, and cook for 5 minutes over a high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.

Reduce the heat to low and cook at a slow boil at least 10 minutes, until all the liquid is absorbed. DO NOT poke or prod at the paella during this time, or the top crust won’t form properly. 

Remove the paella from the heat and let sit 3 minutes. Then serve. Buen provecho.

Francis Mallmann's crisp sweetbreads with criolla salad. And Malbec, of course.

Ever since I made this wondrous decision to purchase Seven Fires, the end-all, be-all guide to Argentine grilling by Francis Mallmann, I’ve been hooked on the idea of cooking sweetbreads. And why not? This man is an expert: raised in Argentina, but trained in France and now owns three of the best steakhouses (including Patagonia Sur, a Mecca for carnivores in Buenos Aires) around back in his native land. Needless to say, the book is total food porn. 

Of course, for many this decision has been met with disgust. You see, sweetbreads are beef or veal glands, and to some people that’s just gross. Organ meat tends to have that effect. To others, it’s heaven. They’re a staple at Argentine restaurants. When seared perfectly, sweetbreads develop a crunchy exterior and a creamy inside that has the consistency of flan (Mallmann’s words, not mine). 

Turns out, sweetbreads are hard to find in Seattle. I called several reputable butchers from Queen Anne to West Seattle, and came up empty. So I turned to Don & Joe’s, the butcher shop in the touristy yet charming Pike Place Market. This meant a trip downtown, finding a parking spot and weaving my way through market booths slammed with out-of-towners packing video cameras and giggling at the flying fish. 

The recipe that spurred my interest was a crispy sweetbread and baby lettuce salad. After I acquired the protein part of the meal, I met Lisa at the Queen Anne Farmer’s Market to gather the rest of the essentials. We found the lettuce from a local farm, but had to make due with hothouse tomatoes. A trip to a Metropolitan Market provided a punchy Malbec. 

Now the hard part was actually cooking the sweetbreads. I’m by no means a skilled operator when it comes to the art of making food. I have a deep appreciation for food, but all I can really do is follow a recipe. I lack the flair and imagination of Lisa, who is supremely talented. [LK note: I am flattered but this is a vast exaggeration.] One of my goals this summer, though, is to teach myself the intricacies of grilling and master them.

Sweetbreads a-crisping

The sweetbreads were surprisingly easy. Rinse and pat dry. Coat in olive oil and sprinkle liberal amounts of sea salt and fresh pepper. Next, add to cast-iron skillet with lemon wedges. While I was doing this, Lisa prepared the salad. One of Mallmann’s points is that amateur asadors manhandle the food on the grill too much, constantly turning and massaging and poking. Wrong. The key, I’ve learned, is to let it sit and develop a crunchy crust. A few minutes and a flip later, the sweetbreads were done (and crispy!) and we plopped them on a bed of lettuce, tomatoes and red onions. Delicious. 

Sweetbreads aren’t something you cook, obviously, on a regular or even semi-regular basis. But they’re a tasty alternative and unlike most meats you’ll ever eat.