While I’m partial to the camping standards like hot dogs and s’mores, I’ve found a lot of fun in trying to get fancy with my fire-cooked meals, the best one being a skillet dinner made with rice cooked risotto-style with lots of bouillon-based broth, onions and chicken. I’ve also tried a campfire Bisquick apple cobbler, which was good, but the fire got too hot and the pot didn’t survive the stick.
For those like me, who like the occasional spruced-up campfire meal, The News Tribune today has a feature on campfire desserts, going beyond the s’mores to things like eclairs and camp brownies cooked over a charcoal chimney.
What camping concoctions have you come up with? The Boy Scouts have a pretty good Dutch Oven Cookbook, know of any other good camping cookbooks?
The Ajax Cafeis the kind of place you go with friends or people you want to be friends with, unless you’re comfortable putting on a jester’s hat with any old person.
If you’ve never been, it’s a small, quirky place in Port Hadlock with hats for the borrowing hanging on the wall, posters, pictures and paintings of a hodgepodge of things including Shakespeare, Duncan Hines, Elvis. The poem “Purple” (also known as “Warning”) by Jenny Joseph hangsas though it’s a theme song for the restaurant:
“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves …”
I visit the place at least once a year (with friends) and have written about it before, as have many other publications from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, when it was a newspaper, to guidebooks such as Frommers and online reviewers such as UrbanSpoon.
I went again recently and rather than give you a written out review of the place, I broke out the camera so you can see for yourself in this series of 10 photos:
The Ajax is on Water Street, across from the wooden boat school.
It’s been a busy week, and while I haven’t spent nearly as much time in the kitchen or out in the eating world as I like, I’ve been reading about it. Here are a few tidbits I found and a couple local food-related events happening in the upcoming week:
You probably don’t want to know
A new Web site calledWhat’s on My Food lets you search your favorite foods — from almonds to winter squash — and see how often toxic pesticides have been detected on them. Let’s see, I’ll have a dash of Piperonyl butoxide, Chlorpyrifos and Boscalid on my almonds, please …
Cupcakes
Sometime in the past few years the cupcake has exploded on the scene as the dessert of choice, moving from papered kiddie party staple to an adorable, delectably delightful dessert of choice. In Seattle, one shop, noted this week by the Tasting Menu blog is Trophy Cupcakes of Seattle. They deem the cakes at the Wallingford adorable, creative and I assume tasty, though they really focused on the adorable.
For the Love of Sandwich
Restaurant reviewers over at The Stranger this week compiled a list o Seattle’s best sandwiches in case you find yourself in need of a noontime pick-me-up. Their vote for best sandwich in the city happens to be my favorite kind, though from a place I’ve yet to try, a Reuben from I Love New York Deli on Pike Street. Mmmmm … corned beef and rye.
Rolling in Rhubarb
For those of you, like me, trying to figure out what to do with the armfuls of rhubarb either growing in your garden or gifted to you by family and friends, there will be more on that in this blog. In the meantime, the Amateur Gourmet blog has a quick and easy recipe for roasted rhubarb to serve with yogurt. And a little more than a week ago, Anne from the Small Potatoes blog offered up a recipe for strawberry rhubarb muffins
Events:
This weekend
The annual Taste of Tacoma kicked off Friday and runs through Saturday (11 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and Sunday (11 a.m. to 8 p.m.). The event features 32 restaurant booths (though some are repeats) each with options for $6 or less. A wine-tasting area also is set up with 10 wineries to choose from with a set of 5 tastes costing $15. You also get music and comedy while you eat.
Also this weekend, Sustainable Bainbridge will host two food-related matinees for $9 at the Lynwood Theatre on Bainbridge Island. On Saturday, they will show “Food Fight,” an 83-minute documentary about agricultural policy and food culture in the 20th century and a counter-revolution against agribusiness. Afterward, Lari Setlzer of Real Foods in Winslow will lead a discussion. Here’s a trailer for “Food Fight”:
On Sunday, they’ll show “Homegrown Revolution”, a 16-minute film about a Pasadena, Calif. family who began growing their own organic food, using solar energy and biodiesel. A post-film discussion will be lead by Anne Willhoit, a volunteer with Sound Food.
Wednesday
Your hunger Wednesday could help supportThe Kitsap Food C-Op if you satisfy it at Hi-Lo’s 15th Street Cafe. From 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., a portion of the food sales will go to the co-op to help them raise funds for things like a feasibility study. Folks from the Co-op effort will be there to answer questions.
Starting tomorrow, Bainbridge Island ferry commuters will have a convenient spot Wednesdays to pick up fresh, local produce, courtesy of Sound Food. It’s set up as a speedy grab-and-go, $5 bag of fresh goodies that Sound Food volunteers put together and hand off (after payment, of course) to people getting off the 3:45 p.m., 4:40 and 5:30 ferries from Seattle.
Reporter Tristan Baurick checked out the stand and interviewed customers during its debut last year, if you’re curious about what they had to say. Over the 12 weeks the ferry stand was open, they sold about $11,000 worth of fresh produce, all of which went to the local farmers, Sound Food said.
The lowest tides of the season are this week, and the Seattle Times rounded up some of the best (which happen to be in our neck of the woods) places to find clams and oysters.
French Fries can be bad for your house, too
The Tacoma News Tribune reported Wednesdaythat accidents with homemade french fries are responsible for a half dozen fires in Tacoma. The firefighters there reminded folks that the fryer should not be left unattended, nor should you pile paper up against it.
Emapanadas
Also in the News Tribune, is a profile of a mom and daughter who make a living out of making empanadas.
Tipping at Weddings
Seattle Weekly’s Voracious blog asked a bartender this week about the etiquette for tipping at the bar (and other places) at weddings and other events. Answer: yep, tip, and how much depends on what you order. They have suggested tip amounts for other things in the post.
Grocers Woe-ing, but not Uwajimaya
People’s need to save money at the grocery store has hit some companies from Safeway to Costco with revenue drops. But not Asian grocer Uwajimaya, says a Seattle Times article. The Seattle-based chain — which once was rumored to be interested in downtown Bremerton, among other grocery chains, though that information could not be confirmed. They’re doing OK for themselves and even expanding in Renton.
Cheetos Kisses?
The Mental Floss blogposted this week about a few companies’ past creations to extend their brands into new markets. Some are from food companies that are creating things that aren’t edible (or from good taste), such as Cheetos-flavored lip balm, which I guess are for people who prefer salty kisses. Others are from food companies that went beyond the traditional food, such as Gerber’s attempt at making food for adults and Colgate’s recipe guide.
For people like me who can’t get enough crab, you’ll be happy to know that crabbing season is about to kick off in South Puget Sound (think east Mason County waters) Thursday, June 18. This doesn’t mean you’re free to catch anywhere. Other areas around the Kitsap Peninsula, including Admiralty Inlet and the stretch of water from North Kitsap to Bremerton won’t open until July 1. Crabbing in Hood Canal opens July 29.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has a map of the areas
And if you’re ever interested, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife hasinfo, including a handy dandy video that explains recreational crabbing and how to identify crabs that are OK to catch and eat:
Here is a random (very random) collection of news tidbits that appeared (or that I found) online this week:
One Less Bremerton Breakfast place
Some sad news from the Bremerton Beat blog, August Wynn in Manette apparently has closed its doors and shut down its web site.
To market, to market?
Former Seattle Post-Intelligencer food writer Rebekah Denn wroteabout a recent study on the growing number of farmers markets and asks at what level we reach the saturation point. The study, based on information collected in 2006, seems to show that with the growth in farmers markets has come a decline in sales at each of those markets.
Speaking of Farmers …
The local food movement has been growing for the past couple years, and some folks are trying to help it grow further. Early this week, The (Everett) Daily Herald reported on a farmer who is hoping to show city folk what farming is all about by starting up an agro-tourism (can I claim to coin that term?) operation at his farm. And locally, farmers looking to expand are learning a whole lot about the complex system surrounding water rights.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for … what is that?
Ice cream is delicious in so many varieties, but a couple of the flavors in a recent Women’s Day article on the top 10 innovative ice cream flavors may stray a bit from the “delicious.” I haven’t tried, so I can’t really judge, but among the flavors are caviar ice cream and candied bacon. Yeah, yeah, savory and sweet go together, but in my world, ice cream is sacredly sweet or sour or a combination of the two. Other flavors there, however, I could definitely dig my spoon into, including strawberry balsamic, bourbon and cornflake.
While not mentioned in the article, but of local interest, was that one of those unusual flavors can be found at a local ice cream shop. Mora Iced Creamery on Bainbridge carries a Goat Cheese and Fig (though it’s seasonal and not available right now), as well as other non-traditional flavors, such as lavendar, a mojito sorbet and a sabayon, which is like an egg custard with wine.
Wine Online
It’s not enough to just get together with friends for a few sips. Cue the smooth jazz: Web siteSnooth has created a social network and website around wine. You can search for wine reader reviews and recommendations, and talk to other wine lovers. And yes, there’s an app for that, launched this month.
Lifehacker’s Food Week
The above find came from LifeHacker, who declared this week Food Week, where they offered plenty of links to sites that show you things from how to season a cast iron skillet to how to choose the healthiest (or unhealthiest) items at fast food restaurants. A couple of my favorite highlights: Making your own ginger ale, baking fresh breadin five minutes, and making brown bag lunches more appealing.
Recently, I added another bacon/greens combo concoction to my growing list of greens recipes.
One quick note before I get to the recipe, I should put in a quick note about identifying the greens. If you are one of those people who didn’t get the benefit of asking or forgot to ask the farmer what on earth all that green stuff was you had in your bag, a couple websites offers some help identifying greens. About.com has a decent list of greens with pictures and tips for uses. I’m looking for others, but that seems to be the most complete. PCC Natural Markets also has a basic primer on greens.
Also, while I was out in Internet land, I found a few other greens recipes and added them to my Food Stories page.
And now to the recipe, or rather “recipe” because it’s an approximate of proportions I used to make the dish on the fly:
Foodies, consider yourself warned: This is not a post about some gourmand or exotic delicacy.
This is about eating. And eating. And eating until you can’t eat anymore.
When the ’50s style Coffee Club Diner opened in the the old Park Avenue Diner spot in Bremerton on Armed Forces Day, one item on their lengthy menu didn’t go unnoticed for long.
At the bottom of their burgers listed, highlighted with a pink “Ka-Pow” kind of star burst is the Goliath Burger — “A monstrous 5Lb burger with 5 Lb of fries. Eat it all in 1 hour and get it for FREE!!” They promise that if you do, they’ll put your picture up on a wall of fame. If you don’t finish, it’s $25.
So far, no pictures have made it to the wall.
But seven people have tried.
The first would-be David was Cameron Stewart. He ate through to number four of 10 half-pound patties on one bun and a good portion of fries, all served on a large pizza-sized plate.
The second was my co-worker Paul Dent, who let me take video (or more likely, was nice about it when I showed up with a camera) of the spectacle.
I could try to describe what it’s like to try and watch someone eat 10 pounds of food, but really, you just have to be there, but you can get an idea by watching the video.
Stewart just happened to be in the diner when Paul tried his attempt late last month. When Paul was done, they exchanged phone numbers and said they’d try an eat-off. So far, no date has been set.
This summer, the Bremerton fountain park will host a Kitsap Wine Festival that will benefit Harrison Medical Center. For $45, you can take tastes of more than 20 wines from Washington wineries, though of the 23 wineries listed on the site for the Kitsap Wine Festival, not a one is from Kitsap. The closest they get is the Olympic Peninsula. Maybe Kitsap wineries will be included in the “and more”.
While the festival may lack local wine (so far), it will have local food. You can eat food cooked by chefs from the Harborside Conference Center and Anthony’s and local vendors including Amy’s Chocolates of Bremerton, Crimson Cove of Poulsbo, who you also can find at area farmers markets, and Monica’s Waterfront Bakery of Silverdale.
The festival will be from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 23.
For more info, go to the site or cal 360-473-5555.
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