anna cotta

Walrus

Anne — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:52:11 +0000

Last night I finally, finally, finally went to The Walrus and the Carpenter, after pining for the place for truly almost a year. Beautiful Ballard oyster bar, tucked behind Staple and Fancy and a bike-slash-coffee shop. Went with my dear new friend Madeline, a smart oyster-loving gal with a bourbon drink named after her. We kicked things off with a dozen oysters, all tiny and perfect and tasting of the not-so-faraway sea.

Four each: kusshi, malispina, and effingham. From not-so-briny, small and soft, to big, brackish, and just chewy enough. Shallot vinaigrette or fresh horseradish (or nothing at all) on top. Delight. We slowly ate them, savoring and discussing the goodness, making it all the better. (And deriding those who have dismissed the oyster…)

After the oysters, duck prosciutto with pickled huckleberries. You had me at duck, you really had me at prosciutto, you really truly had me with huckleberries, the sweet gem-berries of my homeland. See-thru-thin prosciutto, bright sweet berries; a great earthy counter to the icy oysters. Then a mound of swiss chard marinated in lemon and mingled with feta, topped with a soft sunnyside egg. Hearty in the exact right way. Then the very best bit of all: white anchovy tartine. What is tartine? We don’t know. A baked thingy? Anne suggests. The toast and jam French kids eat every morning? says Madeline. Yes, toast. Thinnest of the thin rye toast, with a slab of butter (served like cheese– see, I’ve been saying butter is a cheese and should be eaten in quantities as such all along), one perfect anchovy, more of that buzzing fresh horseradish, and a few glowing orbs of salmon roe. Pure Scandinavian-ish bliss.

And long, leisurely savoring and sharing of it all, chatting with our Vancouver table-neighbors about the restaurants I loved (and the ones I sadly missed out on). Chatting about the weird girly joy of putting dry goods in mason jars and being poetry-reading college students and all the good things we love to cook and eat and share.

It seems like a good many of my posts are half about food, half about loving food and loving people and loving eating with those people. Which is kind of the more important part anyway. Food is great, people are better. At the magazine we have a grammatical policy of referring to restaurants as singular (Canlis’ new pastry chef, not their new pastry chef) and that just feels a little odd to me. Plates don’t materialize from some mystical place, they aren’t brought to the table by some silent force, the whole thing isn’t a self-sustaining concept–-a restaurant is a big bunch of people making something happen. And we’re a big bunch of people enjoying it. In my interdisciplinary degree-carrying way, I’m finding myself more interested in the spaces between us and food, in the ways that we understand food and invite it into our lives, than just the food or the eater itself.

Portlandia

Anne — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:27:08 +0000

My weekend: homemade cinnamon rolls, shooting off rockets, salmon, clams, risotto, Powells, chocolate chip cookies, foie gras. All these good things, all with beloved folk. Joy and sweetness and over-eating-ness. My M and D and I converged upon the Redmonds in Portland for the weekend, where we ate and laughed and ate some more. We love the Redmonds and they love us and we all love to eat and when we’re all together it’s pretty dang joyful. The first night we were there we had pasta with clams and about eight chocolate bars between the seven of us. The next day we “hiked” Mt. Tabor and did the requisite Powells Pilgrimage, where I got a bunch of food-lit books.

Then Pearl Bakery for sandwiches and cookies, before another beautiful dinner of asparagus risotto and salmon and roasted cauliflower. Kate knows how to do a dinner. Plus Craig and Dad’s “bad things I did with/to my brothers when I was little” stories and Dawson’s film ideas and Gabey’s cleverness. Good times around the Redmond table. Then Sunday. Began the day with a Reed campus walkabout, in preparation for the brunchy feast to come. Homemade cinnamon rolls, the dough made the night before to maximize both goodness and anticipation. Salmon scrambled eggs, the real reason you make salmon for dinner. And sweet spicy bacon. I ate three cinnamon rolls, I am proud/ashamed to say.

Then a walk to the park for the most thrilling hobby ever that I really am desperate to take up (and have lots of friends who excitedly take it up with me): model rockets. You go to the park, and you shoot off a rocket. And it flies a bazillion feet up into the sky and you frantically run around underneath to catch it. So thrilling! I want to have rocket launching picnics! Then after all that excitement died down, more excitement right away, with a dinner at Little Bird, the new restaurant by the Le Pigeon crew. the chef just crowned by the James Beard Foundation as Rising Star Chef, the beautiful bistro lived up to the expectations.

We started off with oysters… (“nietard” oysters? We couldn’t hear our shockingly hip waitress so well in the bustly restaurant… we made a lot of borderline jokes and laughed real, real hard.) Then we ate the most perfect little oysters ever, the sea-blessed goodness nestled into tiny little shells, just the right size. After the oysters, the charcuterie. Which involved: pickled fennel, something kind of spam-colored and textured, but incredibly un-spam like in all other ways. Deep-fried duck. Clearly awesome. Some other little tidbits that I can’t remember because included in this particular charcuterie plate was: foie gras brulee. Goodness on top of goodness. I… I don’t know what to say about it. Just think about it. Caramelized sugar crust (best thing ever) on top of creamy foie gras. Spread on toast-lets with a bright little daub of apricot jam. If foie gras ever gets banned nation-wide, I will have to move because I will die of sadness otherwise.

Moving on. (Gabriel has awesome hair.) After the charcuterie: crab and celery root remoulade, a tangy cilantro-tinged heap of crunchy celeriac and carrot with salty crab. Butter lettuce with more carrots and “saffron-infused garlic.” This was the one thing that was an eensy bit of a letdown. The menu said “carrot dressing” so I was imagining the roots made liquid, a light orange dressing for the best lettuce ever. Instead, carrots and lettuce, both still in their regular ol’ solid form. But still good (and now I have an idea for dressing and all the carrots I’ve been hoarding in the crisper.) Then on to the main courses. Get excited. Hanger steaks for Kate and Dad (with perky watercress perched in the plates), salty pork shoulder for Craig, the famous square Le Pigeon burgers (with killer fries and perhaps-maybe-housemade ketchup, the origin of which called for much taste-testing and speculation) for Dawson and Gabriel, lamb navarin with goat cheese gnocci for Mama (I need goat cheese gnocci in my life, stat), and beef tongue for moi.

Usually tongue is all chopped up beyond recognition, looking more like pulled pork than ex-taster. Not here. a generous hunk of tongue, with crispy roast broccoli and topped with teensy potato chips. I had a big pang of hanger steak order envy when they brought the plates, but that vanished instantaneously with my first bite. Tongue rocks. I’d love to learn to cook intimidating things like tongue and liver and sweetbreads…partly because I love them and partly because I’d feel so incredibly cool buying them at the butcher. After all this deliciousness, dessert. Of course. Coconut cake with passion fruit sorbet (I remembered having my first actual passion fruit in the Redmond’s Jakarta kitchen after years of having passion fruit flavored things and being shocked by the weird shell-like fruit, filled with seeds and slime), creme caramel with raspberry sorbet, and a butterschotch pot de creme, shockingly ordered at the last minute by non-dessert-Dad and shockingly my favorite one of the desserts. All beautiful and delicious, followed up with the good bitter ao a tiny cup of coffee in a beautiful little cup. And with the bill: tiny (teensy tiny) darling little oatmeal macarons.

Love to Little Bird, love to family, love to Redmonds, love to Portland!

1890

Anne — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:02:15 +0000

“Perhaps one can say that the subject of Cookery has never received so much and so intelligent attention as at the present time. Not that more people have deliberately concluded that the wisdom of the ages is to ‘live to eat,’ but a great many careful observers and close thinkers are convinced that the height of human wisdom is ‘eat to live.’ Famous Cooks receive higher salaries than learned College Professors. The convictions of the older philosophers, and the rhythm of earth’s sweetest poets are alike forgotten when placed side by side with the attractions of a fragrant roast, or an appetizing joint. A new and improved recipe, tested and approved by a noted cook, receives more attention than the discovery of an asteroid, or a theory of creation. And there is reason for the choice. The perfection of brain and body are equally dependent on the perfection of the food consumed, and its method of preparation.”

The Compendium of Cookery and Reliable Recipes

Published 1890 by Merchants’ Specialty Co. in Chicago

Old cookbooks. Kind of everything I love all in one.
And that first line, about cooking being at the center of the world’s attention… 1890, 2012. I think cookery has only gotten more and more “intelligent attention.” More attention and more intelligent. ‘Cause food is fascinating and eating is fun and everyone in their right mind is a little bit obsessed with what they eat.

(Also, a cookbook plus “The Book of Knowledge, aka 1,00 Ways of Getting Rich”… what more could you possibly need out of a book?)

One of my favorites from The Compendium:

CORN BREAD

Sift three quarts of corn meal, add a tablespoonful of salt, one teaspoonful baking powder, and mix sufficient water with it to make a thin batter. Cover it with a bread-cloth and set it to rise. when ready to bake stir it well, pour it into a baking-pan, and bake slowly. Use cold water in summer and hot water in winter.

Valentine’s

Anne — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:25:24 +0000

Happy Valentine’s Day. Today seems like the day to reveal this: I have a serious new celeb chef crush. Rene Redzepi. You know, the best chef in the world. David Change and Peter Meehan (no crushes there, but a serious want to BE them) ate chanterelles on toast and live fjord shrimp and “beach cilantro” and “old fennel” and chicken skin sandwiches with him in Copenhagen. Bon Apetit took pictures of his expectedly airy Scandanavian home and his expectedly adorable blonde baby girl and expectedly lovely walnut cake-baking wife. Ok, so maybe not so much crush as general life-envy. Love, nonetheless. The Lucky Peach bit about him and Noma and innovation might make you squirm with delight as you imagine Redzepi and Chang, on a houseboat, whipping up dishes with 200 year-old clams. (Redzepi waxes a little poetic-nerdy, talking about WWII submarines gliding over these clams…swoon.)

More love: This article, about Chicago food writer and his true love… Anne. Kevin and Anne’s love over pork rinds and Alinea. This is sweet.

Even more: This is 0% food related, but my parents sent me a Valentine and it. is. the. best. (Family tradition of animals smoking on cards…)

More love yet: On Sunday I baked a cake. And made a new rule: She who bakes the cake gets to eat four pieces of cake. I have officially embraced the facts that: A. I am a piglet and more importantly, B. I am a sloppy baker. I don’t really follow recipes when I cook (more just read the ingredients and sort it out, reading while cooking exceeds my multitask skills) so it feels funny to level off quarter-cups of flour and daintily sift things together when I bake. Nope, not doing that. But I had bought a new spring-form pan (buying nice bake ware makes me feel very adult) and felt the need to bake a cake. Going with the Orangette obsession, I was going to make this apple tart-cake deal, but was led by Mollie (we’re on first name basis) to Sweet Amandine’s take on Teddie’s Cake, an old NYT recipe.

Amandine made it heartier, subbing half whole wheat and adding more vanilla and cinnamon. I took it a little further down the granola-y path, using only whole wheat (we only have whole wheat), subbing half the sugar for maple syrup , adding bran (then it’s classified a “health cake” and you can eat it for breakfast), and pears (chopped up far teensier than the big apple chunks with the hope that they’d diffuse into pear goodness– they did), orange zest, even more cinnamon, and grated ginger. And? Yes, success. Unless you’re baking macarons, you really don’t have to be that careful. (So say I.) Except the baking soda/powder and salt. Don’t mess with that. (Once I forgot the salt and figured I’d just artfully put it on top of what would become the WORST chocolate cookies ever.) Also: I have a plan to change the world. With recipe formatting. Why the list of ingredients then the recipe? It’s inefficient. I say combine the instructions with the ingredients.

That

This

Ballard Market

Anne — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:02:24 +0000

Ideal overcast Sunday: up early-ish, yogurt and almond butter (breakfast part 1), “yoga church” with dear roommate-friend Laura, back home for breakfast part 2 (raisin toast with cream cheese), and a walk across the locks to the Ballard Market. Plus a stop at Cafe Besalu, Seattle’s beloved (and packed) French patisserie. Line out the door, beautiful buttery scent out the door. Just this morning I’d been telling Laura about the tragic scarcity of orange rolls in this world (craving sparked by Saveur) and whaddyaknow, there in the blessed Besalu case, orange brioche. Aka, extra eggy, extra good orange rolls. And there’s breakfast part 3: americano and half an orange roll.

Then on down to the market, where I tried every single sample. Ballard Market has a freakishly high/great percentage of sample-doling vendors. Anne ate: apples, pears, kim chi, sauerkraut carrots, gingerbread caramels, absinthe caramels, chocolate-covered toffee pretzels (really), salmon jerky, muesli, the best $12 strawberry jam on earth, camembert, cheddar, and some picked salmon. Yes. Breakfast part 4: shmorgasbord.

TEMPTING:

Everyone was parked on the curb, eating folded-over wood fired pizza slices, making me envious. But I somehow managed to resist, saving myself for the best “quesadilla” of my young life. A gigantic heap of hearty, winter market-y vegetables (think dark green kale and bright ruby beets) steaming on a hot hot grill, ready to be folded into a tortilla with just enough cheese and topped with spoonful upon spoonful of tomatillo salsa. Yes. Went home full and happy with half a pound of adorable teensy brussel sprouts, a hunk of smoked salmon, some fresh fettuccine (…and a new Kavu jacket.)

Unrelated but kinda related: Lately I have been feeling… inspired. (For lack of a more inspired word word.) I have been reading lots of fantastic blogs (Orangette, Sweet Amandine, Wednesday Chef, Hungry Ghost, An Apple A Day… if you’re bored too) and magazines (Lucky Peach, Kinfolk, The Art of Eating) and feeling like there are two million things I want to do: flower arranging (no, seriously), traveling, photographing, selling orange rolls at the market, writing, eating, cooking, baking, studying critical theory, gardening, editing cookbooks, eating, reading, eating. Thrilling! Possibilities are thrilling.

Pike’s

Anne — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:30:28 +0000

Every morning I walk through Pike Place Market. I will never stop loving Pike Place Market, nor will I ever give up calling it Pike’s like a spacey tourist. I arrive on bus 31 at 3rd and Pine at 8:16, which leaves me 14 minutes to walk to 1201 Western Ave, Seattle Met HQ, 6 blocks away. I hustle past the closed shops on Pine and the just-waking homeless, racing down toward Puget Sound so I can go slowly through the barely roused market. I pass by the guy with the “Old Hippies Need Love Too” sign and exchange routine nods and clomp down that last little steep pitch past Sur La Table and Beechers, peeking into both. Some mornings I see the white-jacketed staff of Marche prepping in their big kitchen, quietly looking over long lists, clearly appreciating the rarity of silence in that space. Then I’m on down that little strip of shops on the left of the market; the Chinese steamed bun place, the tiny old couple already there rolling dough; the pastry shop whose windows are filled with croissants and baguettes, leaving only a tiny hole for the vendor’s face; the cinnamon-heavy bakery whose blueberry bran muffins I cannot resist. I continue South, muffin in hand, crossing paths with this dapper old man who is always, always there, nodding to his market friends, hands in the pockets of his khaki overcoat. Sometimes I pop into the market proper, the covered space that becomes packed pandemonium on a summer Sunday. The fish is coming in, their shiny bodies getting re-situated in new ice, their glassy eyes all lined up, their mouths gaping, showing their odd little fish teeth. The dried flower ladies arrive around the same time as me, announced by their rustling as they move box after box of dyed-purple thistles and silver spray-painted wheat in from vans. 8:25, I walk back up to 1st. Past the tacky T-shirt shops, past the Four Seasons, past Frans and their worth-three-dollar dark chocolate almonds, past SAM and the hammering man I remember thinking was Paul Bunyan. Turn right where University ends, trot down the Harbor Steps, look at myself in the vacant storefront windows on the corner, watch everyone else look at themselves in the window, lust after the candlesticks in Liave, pull open the very big front doors, click across the lobby, catch the elevator, wonder whats on the key-holder-only 7th floor, get off at the 4th, say “Good Morning” and try not to yawn, walk past the food critic’s office, feel full of job envy, and there I am, at my very own desk, with my mason jar of pistachios and tacked-up picture of me and my mom and dad.

P.S. I am a tiny bit proud: read my restaurant post on the Seattle Met food blog.

Lunches

Anne — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:07:49 +0000

I did some serious lunch-ing this week. Little Uncle on Wednesday, then Bitterroot BBQ on Thursday (which was photographically neglected… return visit necessary) and Le Pichet today. After reading and reading about Bitterroot’s opening (and hungrily mentioning it a bajillion times in Met blog posts) I had to go. Met with a sweet new friend for a light lunch of: buffalo chicken livers, kale, cornbread, and a half rack a’ ribs. Lawdy. I thought I had experienced good barbeque in my quasi-Southern Florida life, but no. Nope. This was a whole world better. The chicken livers were… buffalo wings but with livers instead of wings. Crispy, spicy. Countered with a delightfully dressed little mini-salad of bright greens and lemony mayo-ish dressing. Then the kale, always a winner. With bacon, double winner. And… I have such a gigantic soft spot for cornbread. I crave it every time I think of it. During the snowstorm that forced us all inside to stuff ourselves, I used a half-cup of chili as an excuse to eat about six cornbread muffins. Cornbread, my sweet. And then the crowning glory of our ladylike lunch: RIBS. Oh; yes. I am kind of getting the food equivalent of misty nostalgia about them, just a day later. Caramelized to a crunchy, maple-y crust on the outside, incredibly tender and rich and mmm-I-can’t-even-think-of-a-good-enough-word on the inside. We both kind of did a how-can-that-taste-that-good double take, then polished ‘em off. The waitress kept trying to take our bone-strewn tray away, but we shooed her off till we gnawed off every little rib remnant, talking about restaurants and food and all the while. Then I went to yoga and spent the entire class wondering if I could maybe go back to Bitterroot for dinner.

Then today: Le Pichet, the 1st Ave cousin of Cafe Presse, home to the best omelet in the city. The two other new-girl interns and I decided it was high time we all had lunch together. Plus, we’re all January babies, so we had to celebrate. So up to Pichet we trekked, taking a place at a sunny little table in the sweetly bustling and surprisingly truly Paris-y little cafe.

Thankfully, all of us are sharers, so I didn’t have to go through the agony of choosing one little thing off the menu. For us three workin’(ish… if you aren’t paid can it count as work?) girls: calamari, pork belly, and a charcuterie plate. The calamari, light and airy and one of my favorite things on earth, atop its opposite, the earthy lentil, all lightened by lemon. Pork belly, cooked into crispiness, set atop a haystack of bright celery root, squash, and greens. Then the charcuterie, all delicious, especially the terrines and pates. Smooshed onto slices of delightfully airy white baguette (…with butter). And then a roasted pear brioche, to cap it off. Obviously.

Jessie and Amanda, my intern compatriots, in blurry form.

Little Uncle

Anne — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:43:10 +0000

I was in a rush this morning, and all I packed for lunch was a kinda stale whole wheat tortilla and what I thought was a hard boiled egg and a forgotten back-of-the-fridge pear. So…I had to go out for lunch. I was feeling that I needed a smidge of work day adventure, salt, and spice. The kind of salty spicy adventure that only a walk-up Thai joint could offer.

Jammed into a 3 ft x 15 ft closet on Madison is Little Uncle, kickin little 5-item-menu street kitchen. Run by a husband and wife team, half which used to be the sous chef at fancy Cap Hill restaurant Lark . As foodie intern girl, I’d read lots about Little Uncle, and knew that they now took cards, thanks to that iPhone card scanner new-fangled thang.

So braised beef cheek bun and pad Thai for Anne it was. Pounded the soft bun stuffed with tender beef and a mini-fistful of cilantro while I waited for my noodles…no time to take a photo. (Wouldn’t want it to get cold or anything.) Then my pad Thai, wrapped in brown butcher paper, secured with a rubber band. Planned to take it back to work, but I honestly could not wait. Stepped up to the stand-and-chow counter, ripped open the steamy package. Inside: noodles tofu eggs bean sprouts shallots green onion, all just a little bit deliciously burnt in that hot wok way. Slice of lime. Packet of crunchy sugar. Packet of hot hot crushed chilies. Smashed the lime on top, getting every last molecule out. Tasted the sugar (sugar? Yes, it’s sugar) dumped some on. Cautiously dipped pinkie in chilies. Yes. H O T. Dumped half of that on. Ate like a frenzied puppy.

Revel and Sweetness

Anne — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:34:06 +0000

I have been dreaming of Revel for a long, long time. I read about it in my usual pre-move restaurant lurk session; I read about it almost every day in my perusing of all things Seattle food while being an intern. Best Restaurant, Best New Restaurant, Best Dish. I wanted it. Dumplings, rice bowls, noodles, savory pancakes, KIMCHI. Yes. I needed it. I finally had it. Genia (my foodie sidekick) very sweetly took me out for a night-before-birthday dinner. (Food is the best gift.) Too scared of the icy hills to drive, we bus-trekked from our respective neighborhoods through the snowy “wonderland” that is slush-and-ice-plagued Seattle all the way to Fremont to get ourselves some Korean fusion.

First off: the corned lamb salad, which I never would have normally ordered (especially when there’s salad nicoise up for grabs…) but I saw about ten go out while I read the menu, and they looked dang good. Leftover steak salad’s swanky cousin. Mizuna, see-through thin radishes, falling-apart-tender salty corned lamb, and really really spicy hot dressing. By really spicy hot I mean straight chopped little green chilies hot. By really hot I mean G had to ask for a glass of milk hot. By really hot I mean my Sriracha-loving self was feeling the burn hot. Hot. (But in a good way.)

Then the shrimp and bacon dumplings, which I had dreamed of most (shrimp dumplings are my number one favorite dim sum item) were sadly the least interesting. Just dumplings. Good, not great, Genia and I decided. But next up the mussel pancake, with fennel and coconut. Sounds funky, was delicious. Salty, crispy, sea-y. With the tangy pickled fennel, yeah.

Then the rice bowl: white rice topped with spicy kimchi-ed daikon, lemony greens, and heaven-sent short ribs. Genia and I agreed white rice is such a simple, delicious treat (since we force ourselves to love brown rice the rest of the time.) The daikon was cruncy, the short ribs were killer, the greens were a welcome change from the fried goodness. Topped with little spoonfuls of all the condiments–ginger soy sauce, spicy fish sauce, chili sauce, red bean paste.

Then, stuffed, we debated dessert, coming to the obvious conclusion: Yes. And soon a sweet little bell jar was in our lives: red velvet cheese cake, made pink and earthy with beets, nestled in a crumbly walnut crust. “Really too full for dessert” thoughts faded away quickly. Sweetness. I am developing a terrible sweet tooth. Last weekend I had a cinnamon roll and a waffle for brunch. I cannot stop buying Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups. I walk by the Pike Place muffin guy every morning on the way to work and just “have” to buy a muffin. And to top off all this sweetness in my world, Genia gave me a packet of dark chocolate Tim Tams, sweet sweet Aussie gold. And just a little more sweetness, my sweet new roommate Laura baked me a carrot cake birthday cake, topped with almond flowers. Sweetness abounds.

Since Seattle has pretty much stopped functioning with the snow, I was misled by bus schedules and after dinner I found myself waiting for a bus that would never come. So I tromped on home, over the river and through the woods, up a lot of hills and through a lot of slush puddles, thankful for my Idahoan blood. The walk was sweet in its own way–there’s that weird lovely pink snow-glow outside and everyone has their makeshift sleds out, careening down the closed streets. And pretty train track shadows:

Benvenuti a Seattle

Anne — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:41:42 +0000

I’m milking the “new in town” angle before the “I’m a poor intern” reality sets in, and went out for lunch and dinner yesterday. Lunch at Homegrown after yoga and before nannying in Queen Anne (which is becoming my favorite ‘hood) and dinner at much-hyped Bar del Corso with much-missed Genia in Beacon Hill. It was pouring (not raining, POURING) all day, and I was starving after yoga, and as luck would have it, Homegrown was right across the street. Meant to be. Got an avocado breakfast sandwich: grainy whole wheat bun, habanero sauce (pow!), greens, avocado, and a fried egg. Good choice. Spicy, salty. Yolky. Yummy.

Then a few hours playing with my 2 little charges (You can call me Nanny Annie) and their new favorite thing (…and my new favorite thing) in the whole wide world:

Then later on to Bar del Corso. In preparation for interning at Seattle Met, I’ve been doing Seattle food scene research, and everyone is all about Bar del Corso. So we trekked on down to Beacon Hill to see what it’s all about. It is so nice to have foodie friends, friends who get equally jittery about the prospect of a good meal. We arrived to a full-ish restaurant, full for a Wednesday night, and took a couple spots at the par, peeking over into the small open kitchen.

We ordered one of the irresistible specials: deep-fried roman artichoke, then grilled octopus and the requisite margherita pizza. Artichoke… deep-fried, elevated. Crispy leaves made into arti-chips, the heart salty and soft. The octopus was smoky and not chewy, the twirly little tentacles atop a generous handful of warm peperonata, which I of course schmeared on the crusty white bread with joy.

Soon our pizza arrived: thin thin thin, chewy, and charred. That dreamy light sauce made milky by mozzarella. Just enough wrinkled basil. Mmm. I ate my half before Genia even finished her first modest slice. And then, in celebration of Genia’s return from Auz and my relocation and really just becasue we wanted it: buttermilk panna cotta with huckleberry compote. I have a special warm little place in my heart for: A. panna cotta, B. huckleberries. Served simply in a little bowl, with just a touch of buttermilk tang and that special huckleberry magic of sunshine and Idaho mountains and achy backs and stained fingers from a long day picking.