03/01/17 - Snow in Seattle

12/03/16 - Christmas in Seattle - Part 2

12/02/16 - Christmas in Seattle - Part 1

08/27/16 - Seattle - Part 3

For dinner, we had heard good things about Copine. We gave the place in Ballard a try and were really impressed. The space was cool and quiet, and the food was exquisite. We started with a sort of deep fried shrimp toast wrapped around ahi tuna, made our way through the first fresh heart of palm we have had since the 1980s, enjoyed the hearty and perfectly cooked wild mushroom risotto. The service was friendly and elegant. Everything was delicious. The black cod had a crisp skin and tender meat. It was served in a bonito broth with radishes and celery, a perfect match. The rack of lamb was out of this world, but the real treat was the chef’s felafel that worked perfectly with it. Now that Rover’s is gone, we have been looking for a successor. In terms of food, space and service, Copine may be just what we are looking for.

08/26/16 - Seattle - Part 2

We headed out from near the MOHAI past moorings and working docks with views of construction, cancer research centers and Gas Works Park. We admired the houseboats which are hard to see from land and passed under familiar bridges in a new direction. We knew the little waterfront park in Fremont, but from the water one could see the cut of the ship canal. We passed dry docks and terminals and were soon at the Ballard Locks where we dropped twenty or thirty feet from fresh water to salt water.

Then we headed out into the harbor passing by Discovery Park and the West Point Lighthouse. We could just make out the faint outline of Mount Rainier over the lighthouse as we passed. We rounded the point, and ahead were the harbor and downtown.

08/05/16 - Seattle

06/10/16 - Volunteer Park Conservatory

06/04/16 - Welcome to Seattle, Sidewalk Closed

05/27/16 - Seattle Trip

We were also amused by the Amazon bookstore at University Village. Given the impact Amazon has had on bookstores, the existence of this place is rather ironic, but there it was, an Amazon bookstore. It even had lots of books inside and a traditional bookstore look. This is either a result of the book publishers’ hard fight against electronic books or a retro thing like all those new music stores selling vinyl albums. In either case, it was amusing to wander a bookstore where every book had a star rating.

03/09/16 - Cherry Trees in Bloom at WSU

The quad was full of people admiring the 80 year old trees and taking pictures. Some were serious photographers who were actually using cameras instead of cell phones. The trees were full of flowers, clouds of them, light pink set off by the dark bark of the trees. We made a lazy double loop of the quad exploring the pathways with the laden branches arching overhead.

That’s enough labored prose for now. Enjoy the pictures, just click to see the larger version.

12/09/15 - Gingerbread Star Wars at the Sheraton

Every year, there is a lot of wonderful imagination at work in creating these confections, and there is a lot of technical skill involved. They aren't just cookies with a bit of icing. There is a whole confectionary along with the appropriate lighting and sometimes motion. Even if you aren't a Star Wars fan, it is worth dropping by the Sheraton and getting a dose of the Christmas spirit.

12/04/15 - Seattle - City Christmas

11/10/15 - Seattle, Again

Needless to say, we were exhausted.

10/14/15 - Exploring Seattle

10/03/15 - Seattle and the Ghost Mountain

06/01/15 - Quick Trip to Seattle

03/14/15 - Pompeii in Seattle

Pompeii was destroyed by a volcano in the first century, but not by a lava flow. It was buried under volcanic ash, so all sorts of things were preserved, locked in stone. The folks living in Pompeii had no idea that they were living next to a recently active volcano. In fact, the Romans of the day had never even heard of a volcano, save possibly for highly distorted accounts in old stories of dubious veracity. We have no such excuse, so we don't buy retirement condos with names like Rancho Mount Saint Helens.

There were mosaics, glass bottles, statues of household gods, frescos, furniture, dishes and even somebody's safe decorated with various figures associated with vigilance and defense. We were fascinated, as we Kalebergs often are. The exhibit is in Seattle until the end of May, so if you are at all interested in this kind of thing, make your plans soon.

01/09/15 - Short Trip to Seattle

To be honest, we started our meal around 4PM at Taylor Shellfish which is just down the block. We had dropped by before and checked out the oysters bubbling in their holding tanks. This time we tried some Olympias and Kumamotos, fresh and tasting of the sea. We also had some of the calamari salad with seaweed and mushrooms. It was quite good.

Then, we had dinner at Sitka & Spruce which was quite an experience. We knew we were in good hands when the sourdough bread arrived with the lightly whipped cultured butter. We were served each dish in turn, family style, and when the corned lamb with seared cabbage arrived, we knew we were in the hands of genius. The theme for the meal was crisp skin on the outside and tender meat inside. We had the pork belly with caraway seeds on toast, the porchetta with squash and rye crisps and the amazingly good rabbit. We were in heaven.

We finished off with a floating island with two types of meringue, one light and fluffy and one crisp like a cracker. It was an intense experience.