Eat All About It

It’s a mixed blessing for a restaurant to be as hotly awaited as Ballard newcomer Delancey. Expectations are pitched high, just when all the kitchen edges are at their roughest. And Delancey comes with a whole level of anticipation that goes beyond its pizza. As I wrote here in the Christian Science Monitor, it’s hard not to feel as though you’re walking into the pages of a book when you enter the front door, a favorite story come to life. 

What I wound up thinking after a “soft opening” dinner last week, though, transcended what I knew about the restaurant walking in. I wound up wishing I was part of the real neighborhood, not the storybook one, wanting to look forward to a standing reservation at my window table at the end of a long week, like the people walking dogs and pushing baby strollers by, looking inside and saying this is just what they hoped to find.

Here’s a little peek at the inside, with final commentary from the peanut gallery:

Longtime readers know that my go-to cake recipe is the “Tender White Cake” on the back of the Queen Guinevere cake flour bag. I love that brand from King Arthur Flour enough to mail-order it in bulk, as it’s not available in stores, but I’ve always been taken aback by this note on the bag:

“Despite our reservations about chemicals, this flour must be bleached to set the proper ph absorption, tolerance and adaptability for cakes.”

This is, after all, a company that prides itself on never bleaching its other flours. And, bleached flour is banned in the European Union. But bleaching has been a given in U.S. cake flours, essentially part of the term’s definition, credited with giving cakes a finer texture and more even rise, a better ability to hold moisture and distribute fats.

But now, something new’s in the works. King Arthur Flour has developed an unbleached cake flour, and it’ll start showing up in grocery stores across the country in September.

How exciting is this? Enough that there are already 600+ comments on the blog entry talking about the flour’s debut.

“(W)e really care about offering the highest-quality product free of unnecessary chemicals, and our cake flour has been the one product in which we compromised our unbleached stance,” spokeswoman Allison Furbish wrote when I asked about the new flour. “We wanted to change that,” or at least offer an alternative, as the Queen Guinevere flour will stay in the catalog.

I told Allison that I’d always thought it was impossible to make an unbleached version of the low-protein flour. (more…)

 

I’ll be at the University District Farmers Market from 10 a.m. to noon today, Aug. 8, for the “Chef In Residence” (or, in this case, “Writer In Residence”) program. Please, come say hello. We can talk about potatoes, tomatoes, Canvolutions, or whatever you like in that place where words and dinner plans collide.

I just finished cooking a triple-batch of this corn-basil-orzo salad from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Herbal Kitchen. I’ll bring a batch along for samples and inspiration. And if you get there before 10, you can probably find me at Foraged and Found, which will have huckleberries for the early birds.

Here’s the rest of this season’s “Chef In Residence” roster: (more…)

As we forecast, Urbanspoon is piloting an online restaurant reservations system here in Seattle. The popular site already provided tons of information in 90+ cities on how to find a restaurant and whether to eat there. Now, a handful of high-profile Seattle eateries — Canlis, Dahlia Lounge, La Spiga, Matt’s in the Market, and Rover’s, so far — will let you reserve a table on Urbanspoon as well. Urbanspoon showed available reservations for all four earlier this evening, then gradually removed the links as the time slots passed.

I talked with Eric Tanaka of Tom Douglas Restaurants tonight about why one of the city’s leading restaurants is taking Urbanspoon for a spin. After all, the Dahlia already uses Open Table, which has long been the national giant for online restaurant reservations, with dedicated terminals and software that allows restaurants to track diners’ habits and tastes.

(more…)

Let us briefly interrupt our coverage of food safety, fancy cookbooks, and Korean tacos for a look at watermelon baby carriages. Why? Because when your friends are having a baby, it feels good to throw them a party. And because this would make a great centerpiece for the party table. And because if you carve your friends a watermelon basket, you will. not. have. to. play. any. dorky baby shower games. Because I said so.

And besides, it’s easy. How easy? So easy that, while I made the salad, my husband simultaneously carved and videotaped this one. Here you go. We first got the idea from the parties my aunt and stepmother used to cater; when we started looking for directions on our own we found this good guide through the National Watermelon Foundation Board.

So we haven’t convinced you to join the Canning Across America project? You say you’re not sure how to begin, have never canned food before, nervous about food safety…?

How about this to get you started: The first people who pledge to host a canning party in the next few weeks (or teach someone the basics, if you already know how) will receive a free copy of a classic reference, The Ball Blue Book of Preserving. (more…)

Keep an eye out for a new feature on Urbanspoon. The site already cleverly maps restaurants in cities worldwide, mines useful data about them for consumers, and aggregates reviews. Now, some Seattle chefs tell me, the Spoon is looking at allowing users to make online reservations at participating restaurants — something like Open Table, but more affordable than that service, which mines data for the restaurateur but gets dinged for its costs. (It’s free to diners, but the restaurants pay.)

The folks at Urbanspoon don’t want to talk about projects that are under development, but check back — I’ll update this when there’s more to tell.

*updated 8/6. It’s live, with more information here.

I do understand why some people roll their eyes at Twitter. But if you’re reading this, chances are good that you’re interested in food. And I would bet a pint of homemade jam that you would find Twitter worthwhile. I have an article in this month’s Seattle Magazine on just that topic.

One of my oldest friends continues to resist, saying that it’s better to spend time with actual human beings than to engage them online. No argument. The funny thing about Twitter, for me, is how much it does spill over into real life. It led to the impromptu canning party I attended this afternoon with Jeanne Sauvage at Kathy Casey Studios, and this lovely afternoon of cherry picking on Vashon Island. As I told people at Keren Brown’s Foodportunity last week, I was recently walking to the Lake City Farmers Market, and ran into Alice of Savory Sweet Life in person for the first time. We ran and embraced like the friends we clearly kinda are.

Want to know where to begin? Here are just a few of the most active Seattle-centric tweeters on my own follow list, for a starter sampler. It’s heavy on local food writers, but that’s my tribe.  I could easily make the list five times as long, but hey — those of you already on Twitter, feel free to let people know how to find you, or to add your suggestions for other places to start. You can also add your suggestions on the article, over here: (more…)