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04/26/11 - Quick Trip to Seattle

We took a quick trip to Seattle. Everything is sort of a haze. Yes, we flew in on Kenmore Air. We got back to Maneke which is as wonderful as ever. We had lunch at Monsoon which has a terrific pho and some great noodle dishes. We even tried out Fare Start which is a restaurant that helps the down on their luck get started with culinary careers. They had some pretty good salmon burgers and a falafel like vegetarian sandwich. The Seattle streets were full of ninjas attending some kind of conventio. Then, we bought a whole pile of cheese, had lunch at Seatown Snack and flew home.

The Olympics are pretty amazing from the air.

That's the REI garden.

That's Fare Start in an old industrial space near the courthouse.

Keywords: kenmore, seattle, salmon

02/11/11 - Some Views of the Olympic Mountains

We got a great view of the Olympic Mountains on our last flight into Seattle. We got another view from near Pike's Place Market. Enjoy the pretty pictures.

Valley haze in the Olympic Mountains

Some snow covered peaks

Another view, from in town - No, they aren't made of Beecher's Cheese.

Keywords: seattle, flying

12/10/10 - Our Flight Home

We flew home around dusk. Here are some pictures of Seattle at night, suitably blurred by the planes vibration. That last photo is one of our plane's lights.

That's Seattle.

More Seattle lights

The lights on our plane's wing

Keywords: seattle, flying

12/09/10 - Christmas in Seattle

We made another lightning trip into Seattle, and since it is December, we checked out the gingerbread house show in the Sheraton Towers lobby. This year, the theme was houses, so they had cozy houses, tree houses, farm houses and space houses, all done with gingerbread, candies, icing and other wonders.

Remembering the good old days, before the housing bust ...








Keywords: seattle, christmas

12/04/10 - Quick Trip Into Seattle

We made a lightning run into Seattle to handle some business. Even though the trip was short, we did manage to get around a bit.
  • We had the Beef Seven Ways at The Tamarind Tree. A vegetarian friend recommended this restaurant, so we were surprised to see this on the menu.
  • We wandered around the International District. We rarely just wander around this part of town. In the summer, it is just too hot.
  • We discovered Hing Hay park. This is another one of Seattle's great freeway parks. It's a community, memorial and mediation garden set hard between the I-5 freeway and the international district. It was a bit past season, but still quite pretty.

That's beef four ways.

We really liked this space available sign.

The view from Hing Hay Park. Yes, there is a bit of climbing.

Some autumn color

One of the lanterns

Keywords: autumn, seattle

09/28/10 - Labor Saving Design

We were walking around Seattle and noticed an excellent piece of lazy design. Instead of designing their own facade, these clever architects just copied the one across the street. Nice work!

It'll look just like the building across the street.

Keywords: art, seattle

09/03/10 - New, at Least for Us, in Seattle

We were briefly in Seattle. We visited a few old haunts like Le Pichet, Trabant, the coffee house, and REI, and we discovered a few new places:
  • Melrose Market - This is a mini-mall of little food shops on Melrose Avenue between Pike and Pine. Rain Shadow Meats alone was worth the visit. There are quite a few interesting places cropping up between Pike and Pine, like Cascina Spinasse, Eliot Bay Books and now Melrose Market.
  • Belle Epicurian - This is a pastry place on Fourth Avenue between University and Seneca, and we nearly walked right by except for the wonderful scent of buttery baked goods. To be honest, we didn't try anything. Despite rumors to the contrary, we Kalebergs can only eat so much. Still, everything had the right look and scent, so we'll be back.
  • Seatown Snack Bar - This is Tom Douglas's latest addition to his empire. It has taken over the retro-1970s furniture store next to Etta's. (See our review below.)

Meat at Rain Shadow Meats

Cheese at Calf and Kid

Belle Epicurian

Seatown Snack Bar

Seatown Snack Bar - A Brief Review

We had a porchetta sandwich, which was almost as good as Salumi's. We also had an amazingly good beef short rib sandwich. They have a great potato salad made with a simple coarse Dijon mustard dressing. We also had a wonderful dish of thinly sliced octopus with turmeric cucumbers and a plate of heirloom tomatoes and avocado skordalia. We were quite impressed. Not only is the food great, and you can get a light snack or a full meal, but they serve all afternoon and into the evening.

Keywords: seattle, food, restaurants, kale

08/18/10 - More Pictures From The Air

We flew into Seattle briefly on Kenmore Air. As usual, the scenery was spectacular. The Olympic Mountains are spectacular, but the park is the largest roadless area in the lower 48. That means that you don't see a lot of the mountains when driving, but a short scenic flight offers awesome views.

That's coastal fog. It's often sunnier inland.

More coastal fog

The mountains

More mountains

Even more mountains

Amazing mountain profiles

Do we really need a caption here?

Snow capped mountains

One of the many green valleys

Keywords: kenmore, seattle

05/15/10 - News From Seattle

We were in Seattle recently for a lightning visit. Everything was a bit of a blur, but we did note the curious sign on the right. It seems to be for a law office, but a closer look reveals a chapel. An even closer look reveals that the chapel offers food and a bar. That sounds like full service to us.

Below we offer our update on Spinasse. They've changed seating plans. Gone are the long communal tables. They now offer more private seating options. The food is as good as ever. That's a shot of their Russian salad with fresh English peas, pickled beets and tuna. We can hardly wait for the local peas to be ready, so we can try this at home.

Food - Chapel - Bar

Tables at Spinasse

Russian salad

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

03/01/10 - This Was Just Awful

We saw this corn on the cob for sale at Pike's Place Market. Curious, we asked:

Q: "Why is it called 'pirate corn'?"

A: "Because it's a buck-an-ear."

We did warn you that this was awful.

Actually, it looks like pretty good corn.

Keywords: seattle, humor


The train to the plane

02/28/10 - More on Seattle

We finally tried out the new train from Seatac to downtown. It was a pretty smooth ride, but no faster than the old 194 bus. Still, it gets you right to and from the airport.

Keywords: seattle

02/27/10 - We really have to ...

... write a review of Spinasse. We went back again, and once again the pasta was fantastic. They had ravioli stuffed with swiss chard and walnuts, and even more amazing, they had little packets of ricotta wrapped in meltingly tender pasta in brown butter with sage. The rabbit was as tender and delicious as ever, and they did a wonderful job with their braised pork belly. The skin was crisp and the center succulent.

They're on Capital Hill on 14th Avenue between Pike and Pine. Check out their website and look at the menus.

The bar at Spinasse

Keywords: restaurants, seattle

02/03/10 - Flying to Seattle

We recently flew to Seattle on Kenmore Air, and the views from the plane were spectacular. It wasn't a clear day. There was plenty of cloud cover, but the mountains and the skies were spectacular.

Fairchild Airport

Mountains

More mountains

The clouds washed up to the mountains like the sea washes up to the shore.

A tantalyzing mountain closeup

Mountains under our wing

Water below

Minas Morgul, aka Mount Rainier

The sound

Keywords: seattle, flying, kenmore, mount rainier

12/23/09 - Cassoulet for Christmas

This year was a cassoulet year at Casa Kaleberg. (We alternate cassolet and choucroute garnie every other Christmas.) That's a photo of our Christmas cassoulet on the right. Cassoulet, if you've never had it, contains white beans, duck confit, pork loin, ham hocks, pig skin, garlic sausages, andouille and a host of other pork products. It's an amazing dish. Just making the duck confit, that is, duck preserved in its own fat with spices, is a fair production, and it takes several days just to cook and assemble a cassoulet.

We tried to get a shot of the whole cassoulet, but our guests moved in too quickly, so enjoy this action shot.

This year we got our pork from the folks at The Swinery, a butcher shop based in West Seattle. They get their pork from a number of local farmers, and we have to say that the meat is first rate. They didn't blink when we asked for pig's knuckles, and they came through with a first rate piece of pig skin. We tried their Toulouse sausages and were quite impressed. You can see some of them in the photo above. The Swinery is based out in West Seattle, so now we have to explore more of West Seattle, and we have to try out The Swinery's new sandwich shop near Pioneer Square. If you live in Seattle and hear oinking in 2010, that might just be a couple of Kalebergs on the march.

Keywords: christmas, seattle, kale

12/16/09 - More From Seattle

These are just a few more Seattle photos. We had to include the Space Needle. We also have to write a review of Spinasse up on Capital Hill. They have amazing hand cut pasta. We had one dish of little squares served with a rabbit liver sauce that was out of this world, and the wonderful gnocci could have fed an army. The pork cheeks with polenta were tender and tasty. The rabbit excellent, but the surprise was the wonderful almond cake, and we don't even like almond cake. Maybe it was the blackberry sauce and the dollop of foamed olive oil?

The sunset

The Space Needle in context

Spinasse

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

12/11/09 - Bed, Bath and the Great Beyond

We saw this sign while wandering around Capital Hill in Seattle. For a moment we were sure we had gotten lost somehow and wound up in Fremont.

Keywords: seattle

10/23/09 - The Seattle Museum of Flight

We often fly Kenmore Air from Port Angeles to Boeing Field, but we rarely stick around the field for long. However on our latest trip our friends insisted that we head to the other side of the runway and see The Museum of Flight.

First, we stopped by the Fisherman's Terminal in Seattle and grabbed some lunch. We hadn't expected much. After all, this is supposed to be a tourist trap, so we were pleasantly surprised. The fish was fresh, as we had expected, but it and the side dishes were also well prepared. If nothing else, they used real butter, and that can make a lot of difference.

Then, we made our way the museum. It was much bigger than our friends had remembered with a veritable plethora of airplanes. We spent some time in the space exhibit. The full scale prototype module from the space station was larger than we had expected. Maybe there really is a space station orbiting up there, even if it doesn't have a cocktail lounge a la 2001.

A lot of our favorite planes were there including the Gossamer Albatross, the first man powered ultralight to cross the English Channel, the SR-71, always a crowd pleaser, an old Alaska Air DC-3, and, of course, the war planes from the first and second world wars. We didn't take too many pictures. If nothing else, the place was so chock full of aircraft it was hard to find a place to stand for a good shot.

We even crossed the road for a peek inside an old Concorde. Wow, it was cramped inside. Give us a full length, fold down bed seat, and we'll be happy even if it takes an extra hour or two to get there. We didn't get to see the old Boeing red barn and a whole lot of other things. All told, we were impressed, and we plan to come back.

The Museum of Flight

The Gossamer Albatross - one of the first successful man powered flying machines

From World War I

From World War II

High technology - The SR-71

Low technology

Keywords: seattle, art, science, kenmore, alaska

10/04/09 - The Space Needle Again

Yet another photo of the Space Needle in Seattle. Recession or no recession, there is still a lot of construction going on in town.

Keywords: seattle

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