January 2009February 2009 March 2009

02/26 - Weather Radar Is Back

We out a brief email outage which was made all the more mysterious by a simultaneous weather radar outage. Instead of the usual green and yellow spatters of precipitation set against a gray and blue map of our area, we saw only a large overlay explaining that our local station, KATX, was out of service. We clicked the little legend for an update:
  • KATX will be down until further notice due to a mechanical failure of the radar.
  • Radar will be down until at least Thursday afternoon, Feb 26th, for repair. The mechanical failure for the radar is more extensive than previously thought ... and more parts are on order.
  • Radar will be down until Friday morning. New part has been installed. Radar needs to be calibrated during the daylight hours.
Our email recovered a bit before the radar came back on line. We assume that there was something going around.

Keywords: weather, science

02/21 - Serendipity in Seattle

On our last trip to Seattle, we were a bit tight on time. We had climbed Queen Anne and had made it back to Seattle Center, but we had an appointment downtown, near the Nordstrom's. Could we get a taxi? That wasn't likely. We've had better luck with a street hail at Mosman Gorge in Queensland than in Seattle. What could we do?

Then we remembered the monorail. It's been around nearly 50 years, but it has such a limited route that one barely thinks of it as anything but a tourist attraction. But here we were, needing transportation, and that limited route would take us from where we were to where we wanted to go.

From here on, things went smoothly. The monorail was up and running. A train arrived as we stepped onto the platform, and in a few minutes we were on our way. We made our appointment with time to spare. That, and we got a glimpse of the future, like maybe 1975.

The train to tomorrow: That's the two cylinder Westin looming, another icon of the future.

Keywords: seattle

02/21 - The Little Oven - An Update

As you may have noticed, The Little Oven on Peabody has closed. The laundromat wanted to put in a few new driers, so the oven had to go. There is good news however. The owners of The Little Oven are taking over Good To Go on Lauridsen and hope to bring back the little oven. Perhaps they'll have a bigger oven. Their note follows. We wish them luck.

Dear Friends:

Thanks to everyone for the friendship this last year. We're changing our email to goodtogogrocery -at- gmail.com . I don't know if that tells you anything about our status, but at the risk of redundancy I'll elucidate here.

The paperwork is not finalized yet, but we're going to be the new owners of the Good To Go Grocery on Lauridsen (technically 1105 S. Eunice). We are planning on keeping the grocery, expanding on the selection to include dairy items and eggs, as well as some meats, including sandwiches made with same. We'll also be doing the bakery in that location, much the same as before, and continuing with the bread oven plan. Please note, however, that these changes will not be immediately enacted. The bakery, especially, is going to take a little time as we'll have to modify the kitchen to meet city/county requirements for using an oven.

Anyway, we're looking forward to seeing everyone.

Sincerely Yours,
Erich and Liz and Julie

Keywords: food, port angeles, good to go

02/21 - Lazy J Farm - An Update

Lazy J Farm has some of the best potatoes on the Peninsula. Our favorites are the Austrian Crescents and the Ozettes. The latter were supposedly introduced to the area directly from Peru by the Spanish, way back when. Lazy J used to sell their potatoes, and other produce at the Farmers' Market, but they haven't been doing so lately. This situation is going to change.

The young lady in the picture, whose name we have foolishly forgotten, will be working with Lazy J, growing and marketing vegetables, theirs and her own. This is great news. Not only does it mean we'll be getting Lazy J potatoes, but it also means we'll have another farmer selling all kinds of local produce. We're really looking forward to this year's harvest.

Keywords: farms, farmers' market

02/20 - Quick Update On Hurricane Ridge

The mountains are still standing. They are still covered with snow, though the surface is packed and a bit slick for cross country skiiing. The road is clear but for a few stretches of well sanded ice. The sun still shines. We were up there snowshoeing on the trail from Hurricane Ridge to the Hurricane Hill trailhead. A lot of people were just hiking the trail in boots or hiking shoes. Did we mention that the mountains are still standing?

The mountains are still standing.

Keywords: hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, snowshoeing

02/18 - Upgrade Your Tribble

After the recent demonstration of cooking with triticale at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market, we decided to take a good look at our tribble. You have to be a Star Trek fan to understand, but this is a reference to one of the great comic episodes in the original series, The Trouble With Tribbles. The tribbles are organic eating machines, and Captain Kirk was assigned to protect the precious store of a newly developed grain, quadrotriticale.


In any event, we have a tribble, one of the many sold by Thinkgeek. That's our tribble above. It doesn't seem to purr, but it does chitter noisily whenever one of us sneezes. We decided it needed a new look. As chance would have it, we had just the thing, a fox fur hat suitable for a Russian princess, or a tribble. The fit was perfect. Not only is our tribble larger, indicating that it is getting all the quadrotriticale it needs, but it is also softer. It still chitters something awful when disturbed, but otherwise doesn't seem to have minded the modification.

Keywords: art, science, humor, russian easter

02/14 - Review of Maneki

We have finally reviewed Maneki, a Seattle Japanese classic. For over a hundred years they've been serving great Japanese food with a serious emphasis on seafood. We loved it. For more details and ideas on what to order, read our Review of Maneki.

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

02/14 - Review of Poppy

We heard the hype about Poppy. We gave it a try. We were not impressed. Indian fusion, imaginative cocktails and a nine dish thali plate sound like a sure winner. To find out why it doesn't work, read our review of Poppy.

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

02/09 - Along The Morse Creek Trail

We saw a first sign of spring, a salmonberry blossom, along the Morse Creek Trail, which is what we call the Discovery Trail running west from the parking lot on Morse Creek. It isn't much, but this has been a hard winter, and we'll take what we can get.
We aren't sure what this is a sign of. That's a broccoli floret. There were a number of them along the trail. Did someone run out of breadcrumbs? We have no idea.

Keywords: morse creek, spring, winter, salmon

02/05 - Winter Beach

Second Beach is a winter beach, but there is still a lot to explore at low tide. The beach is broad and sandy, and there are even a few starfish in the tidepools. There is some rough going at the south end of the beach since so much sand has washed out for the season. Check our tide tables and look for a good mid-day low tide at Second Beach or Rialto Beach. (You can also see upcoming good tides in the left column of this web page).

The hole in the wall

Seastacks and a broad beach

Tidepools

Starfish are back.

More starfish

More seastacks

It is a rocky road to the cave entrance without sand.

Rough beach and seastacks

We don't know who has been making little leaf faces and leaving them on various trails, but hello again.

Keywords: rialto beach, second beach, tides, trails, winter


You can see the melted raclette in the middle. You can't see the scallions which means we should have added more.

02/03 - Deep Fried Tofu and Raclette We recently tried a rather improbable recipe for Fried Tofu Stuffed With Raclette Cheese. It was in Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook which we had bought, because we had enjoyed our meal at a Japanese pub in Honolulu, Izakaya Nonbei, some years back. The izakaya style of cooking tends to be informal and imaginative, but we had never seen any dishes made with cheese. Let's face it, Asia, unlike Europe, is not big on cheese. The recipe itself was easy. Just deep fry the tofu. Stuff it with scallions and raclette, then broil it until the cheese melts. The prunes were simple as well. Just dump them in a pot with red wine, a stick of cinnamon and simmer. The combination was incredible. Let's hear it for fried food and melted cheese, the glory of two continents combined in one great dish. The trick was to get a good, super-firm tofu. We went with the special 1950s stuff that was developed to take anything but a direct hit. We found that locally, but we had to get into Seattle for the raclette. It was worth it. To be honest, we've never had anything quite like this in any izakaya, but we'll be keeping our eyes, and mouths, open.

We deep fried the super-firm tofu in peanut oil. That's our Fry Baby in action. Then we cut a slit in the tofu, stuffed in the cheese and scallions and broiled them until the cheese melted.

Here are the simmered spiced prunes in red wine with cinnamon.

Keywords: food, recipe

02/03 - Swan Amongst the Swine

If you've ever been down Towne Road in Dungness, you have probably noticed the swine at Delta Farm. These are what you get when you order a pig share from Nash Huber. On some days, you'll also see swans, usually in large flocks. They seem to enjoy grubbing around in the same fields as the swine. We haven't been able to photograph them together which has fed some speculation as to their secret identities, but we figured we'd point out that these magnificent birds are visiting our region. You might want to check out the area, the swans, the farms and maybe even the swine.

Some swans

They settled in great herds. They're too big for flocks.

The setting

Keywords: birds, dungeness, farms, nash huber

January 2009February 2009 March 2009