I said YES to many things at Willows Inn

Sometimes you enjoy a tremendous meal and it goes down in your head and on your tastebuds as one of the most memorable experiences of your life. We had such an experience this weekend that was a little more special than just the food... more about that later...

I bought Nick a new pair of skis this past Christmas and he got me a Willows Inn reservation. We had both been dying to eat at this raved-about restaurant and Nick knows that I prefer experiences over material presents.

We started with a couple of old fashioned cocktails which they make with a hint of walnut while we enjoyed the sunshine and view before heading into dinner. Willows Inn does a six course fixed dinner that seems to proceed endlessly because you are regaled with a ton of snacks and bites before and in between courses. Servers poured champagne glassed filled with local fresh, sparkling apple cider which was a crisp palate cleanser. Then a pretty wooden box was set before us which contained sunflower root baked slowly with locally foraged lichens and mosses to help impart additional earthy and smoky flavors. The root's texture was a little reminiscent of Vietnamese candied yams but its center was soft and rich like a roasted eggplant. The second bite was a crisp crepe surrounding a salty and sweet burst of cream and salmon roe brightened up with chives. Then we were served a slab of stone with something that looked like it was plucked from the woods; toasted kale with black truffles and rye. While it looked like fungus growing on a dried leaf, the kale chip was a heavenly salty crisp that could have perfectly accompanied a cold beer and some Sunday night football.

Oysters on river rocks frozen in water in a dish. Elegant & beautiful.

The next snack had a gorgeous presentation: a pickled oyster sprinkled with sorrel. Nick usually doesn't love oysters like I do but this was soft and creamy with a hint of the ocean and herbs without tasting murky. Keeping with the delicate shellfish theme, the next bite was a weathervane scallop in dill milk served with herbs that imparted a grassy flavor. We delighted in the campfire taste of fire-roasted shitakes that were impossibly juicy and smoky before getting served the most complex and buttery chardonnay from Walla Walla to kick off our actual courses.

Weathervane scallop with dill and milk.

The first course was a dish of organic ancient grains bound in watercress and dotted with geoduck. the dish was as bright as its springy kelly green color; the flavors were herbaceous, fragrant and light while the geoduck imparted a slightly salty chewiness.

It looks like rabbit food but it's delicious.

Then Nick nearly doubled over from an in-between course snack: salmon smoked over green alder. This simple piece was just lightly smoked to impart a delicate caramelly sweetness but balanced so it still retained a soft texture without being too dried out. It was amazing and in Nick's words, "Best piece of salmon I've ever had."

Perfectly, lightly smoked salmon caugh just off the island in reefnets.

We were then served a Poet's Leap riesling with crisp apple flavors along with the most delicious buttery wild onions, caramelized local mussels and toasted breadcrumbs. I was to try to emulate those onions at home... need to experiment. After that, we were served another simple and fantastic snack.: A loaf of whole wheat and rye bread with a sourdough started demonstrated expert baking with a crispy crust and an amazing light chewy and melt-in-your-mouth center served with salted sweet churned butter and a dish of herbed chicken drippings for Nick and onion boullion for myself. Bread can be the most simple and amazing thing and we were excited to devour this loaf.

Our next wine pairing was a bordeaux blend that was slightly sweet with a soft fruity finish that accompanied Lummi Island stewed stinging nettles with fresh milk cheese and magenta salmonberry shoots. The cheese was like a rich milky panna cotta and the dish was bright and floral with the stewed nettles that hinted faintly of a grassier spinach.

Those salmonberry flowers are all over the island.

We got a crunchy snack of halibut skin served with razor clams dusted with seaweed powder. It was reminiscent of a puffed Asian shrimp chip except it was sprinkled with chewy clams.
Our last savory course was served with the most berry and jammy pinot noir from the Willamette valley that was fragrant with a lingering marionberry finish. It wasn't too heavy and paired well with a sablefish served with trumpet mushrooms. They gave us what looked like a dragonglass dagger; it was a rock arrowhead type knife with a deer antler handle and was bound by deer sinew. It was certainly the most rustic cutting utensil I have ever used. The fish was rich, buttery and almost woody with a slight sear but barely cooked so it still melted in your mouth. The chewy mushrooms made this a great amalgamation of earth meets sea umami.

We cleansed our palates with a soft and fresh sheepsmilk frozen yogurt served in wheatgrass and dill. This tasted like the farm in a fresh and grassy way that is hard to put to words with my somewhat poor food vocabulary. It honestly tasted like cartwheels in a field on a bright summer's day.

We had a dessert riesling that was sweet, syrupy with honey tones but it was hard to finish the glass. I was focused on dessert of sweet potatoes served with whipped cream, a fresh melted marshmallow, pine and crunch from sugar and nut crumbles. The pine leant it a uniquely sweet and earthy flavor profile that was piney without tasting like Pine Sol. Then we topped off the most fabulous meal with flax caramels!

This meal ranked among my top meals of all time, if not the top. I've eaten at some of the most delicious and award-winning spots around but what made this restaurant a standout is what they do with fresh and hyper local ingredients. It was all healthy, hearty and absolutely Pacific Northwest fare without being gimmicky, using molecular gastronomy tricks or pulling out the stops with needless ornateness. It was as if Chef Blaine Wetzel woke up, made a fire, got the smoker going, rummaged through the garden, caught some fish and thought - I'll just throw this stuff together for dinner. Obviously it's much more meticulous and well-crafted than that, but we took a stroll around the island and noticed that there were little farms everywhere - goats, fresh egg signs, cows - as well as fishermen a few hundred yards away. We noticed salmonberry blossoms from dinner all around. There was an abundance of great produce and ingredients all around us on that island, which were carefully showcased for us in simple and delicious ways.

Another reason why this dinner was so memorable was just hours before while we were walking along a private beach, Nick got down on a knee and asked me to marry him. And I said yes.

 

 

The rest is just gratuitous food porn and includes our breakfast the next day. Enjoy. 

Baked sunflower root with lickens and mosses.

Picked oysters!

Kale chip

Crepe with salmon roe and chives

More kale chip - see why it looks like leaf litter?

Someone is excited for his oyster

Fire-smoked shitakes.

Course one. Simple, delicious, healthy.

Best. Salmon. Ever.

Smoke mussels with that amazing wild onion.

Bread porn.

More bread porn - a piece with butter and dipped in the bouillon.

Bright and delicious fresh cheese over stewed nettles.

Halibut skin chip.

Sablefish with trumpet shrooms.

Cartwheels barefoot in grass on a summer's afternoon. Seriously.

Dessert - sweet potatoes.

Flaxseed caramels.

Breakfast at Willows Inn... worth waking up early for!

Homemade granola over fresh yogurt.

Freshly baked rye bread crisp with salmon, dill and cream.

Poached eggs with creamed spinach and mushrooms

Ham. Nuff said.

Homemade english muffins.

Brekkie of champions.

Fatty Like, Healthy Eats

Browned butter. Whipped cream. Creamy mac and cheese. Fried egg. Anything that drips and oozes sauce. Deep fried anything.

That's a sampling of a list of things that often catch my eye at a restaurant and will make me pause and go mmmm. I'm a glutton for delicious food and man, can I be a total fatty.

In honor of a recent Bon Appetit blog, I decided to go through some of the photos of the fattiest awesome things that I've eaten as well as incredibly healthy awesome things I've eaten.

http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/2013/03/least-most-healthy-restaurant-dishes.html

Eating healthy and eating deliciously isn't mutually exclusive; one of the best dishes I've had in recent memory was a kohlrabi salad from Spinasse that wasn't smothered in butter and creamy dressing. In fact, you can still eat out and eat well while watching your figure or gasp, paleo diet.

I started a weight loss challenge at work as an impetus to help me get back into shape so let's hope this serves as an inspiration to myself to enjoy life while eating fewer calories.

Here it goes:

Make-your-own burger is a bad idea. For me, anyway. I routinely try to figure out how to make the burger with so many toppings, you need to eat it with a knife and fork. This one was a thai-themed burger with peanut sauce, a fried egg and likely the kitchen sink. Fatty.

 

My friends and I make-your-own sushi parties so people can do hand rolls. This was actually healthy since we mostly ate vegetables and raw fish.

I would say this dish from re:public, while pan seared in butter, was actually pretty light and tasty. However, you have no idea how much butter goes into a dish so it may be deceptively bad for you.

My gluttonous self knew no bounds when I encountered a restaurant chain in Kyoto that allowed you to select tempura to go with your udon. I was very liberal with the tempura. It's a good thing I had a long walk back to the hotel afterwards.

 

Oh Austin. Damn you with your Whataburger fries, spicy ketchup and Torchy's tacos.

 

I love pickles! Here was a variety from the Walrus and the Carpenter. Pickles are delicious and not so bad for you. It's also a good way to eat your veggies.

 

Italian pizza in New York with extra mozzarella. It's  good thing this is thin crust... I gotta find a photo of a Chicago-style pizza because a single slice has got to have my day's worth of calories.

 

The infamous frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity in NYC. Although this one is a frozen peanut butter hot chocolate so even worse... Or even better?

 

 

One of my favorite Revel brunch dishes is the Dutch Baby with apples, raisins and smoked cheddar. The pancake batter they use is light with crispy edges and an unctuous center but this is definitely a splurge.

 

 

I adore Poppy's thalis since it allows you to eat a little bit of everything but this Dungeness crab, grapefruit, fennel and avocado salad was fresh, light and healthy.

 

Molly Moon's ice cream!!! No explanation is needed but the flavors were honeycomb and maple nut.

 

The Dahlia Bakery coconut cream pie and tartlets are heavenly because they are soft, airy, creamy but not too sweet. However, this isn't going to belong on the healthy list.

 

 

How to Cook a Wolf is one of our favorite neighborhood spots but we always order the Hamachi crudo because it is always light, perfectly balanced, flavorful and an ideal starter to not blow your appetite for mounds of pasta to follow.

Easy-to-make fancy salts and sugars

Attending a dinner party soon? Want to wow your hosts? Homemade gifts are usually more special and thoughtful than random things you happened to pick up at Safeway along with a bottle of pinot noir. Don't worry - you won't need to learn how to crochet a tea cozy, knit a potholder or hit up a pottery painting spot to create plates that your friends will never use.

Here are a couple of easy-to-make, inexpensive and awesome things to give your pals as gifts or to have on hand in your own kitchen. Just store these items in smaller mason jars and tie ribbon around it.

Rosemary Salt

• At least three ounces of coarse-ground sea salt
• One bunch of fresh rosemary

Wash and dry the rosemary and remove the leaves. Blend leaves with the salt in a blender or food processor until the leaves are coarsely chopped up and the salt is greenish. The salt mixture should remain pretty coarse and not too fine. Spread evenly on a baking sheet lined with foil and bake in an oven about 225 degrees F. This is just to dry the salt and take out any remaining moisture from the rosemary and should take 15-20 minutes.

Store in a jar. If you have a giant rosemary bush, or if you get a lot of rosemary at the farmer's market, buy a big bar of coarse salt and make a ton of this. You can also use other herbs like oregano if you'd like. The salt is great for sprinkling on top of breads you're baking like focaccia or pizza crusts or as a rub for lamb, grilled steaks or kebabs. I think this is a great gift for anyone but is especially useful for people who love to barbecue.

Vanilla Sugar

They always have vanilla sugar on hand at Macrina bakery and that stuff is fantastic to add to coffee or for baking.

• One vanilla bean
• Two cups of granulated cane sugar

Pour the sugar into a jar. Slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the sugar. Mix up the seeds into the sugar and bury the remaining pod into the sugar. Seal tightly with the lid. Shake up the jar and make sure the vanilla is evenly distributed. The seeds are pretty gooey so it doesn't need to be too even if they stick together. Wait a couple of weeks and the sugar will turn golden and be ready to use. Use it in lieu of normal sugar in recipes if you want a light vanilla flavor or use to stir it into coffee, tea and hot cocoa. Just remember to remove the halves of the bean! This is a fantastic gift for your pals who love to bake.

You can also make lavender sugar pretty similarly except that you will want to use dried lavender flowers and sift out the lavender later or wrap lavender in a cheese cloth and remove the sachet after a couple of weeks.

Top Chef Seattle - Finale live-blog

It's the last episode of Top Chef Seattle. Our city, our show. Two talented chefs: Brooke from LA and Kristen from Boston. Both cool chicks. Both easy on the eyes. Excited? You could say that.

My money has always been on Kristen. She has a clean style, doesn't blow it on technique, and is laser-focused on the details. If the finale pushes them to do something where they're timed, Kristen will win. She gets in trouble when she isn't under the gun and has time to let her brain meander.

But with no time and ingredient constraints, Brooke will dominate. She came up with some seriously interesting courses this season: Here. Are. My favorites. Let's put it this way; I'd eat at Kristen's restaurant everyday for lunch. I'd eat at Brooke's on a special occasion where I'd order 3-4 courses.

10:00 - here we go. whoa, what? the chefs are already cooking?! looks like the outed cheftestants are sous-ing it. and we're apparently they're in an Iron Chef-esque Thunderdome... Ann notes a Voltaggio presence. Shocker.

10:01 - Brooke background. LA prodigy with the pedigree. Both ladies acknowledging the other as their main competition.

10:02 - team Brooke: CJ, Stefan and Kuniko. Kristen has Lizzie, Sheldon and Josh. Each chef has snapper and scallops for 2nd and 4th course. The rest is up to them. Top scallop, bitches!!

10:04 - Padma's boobs are very excited to be here. First dish coming out shortly. Brooke is starting with a pig's ear and 63 degree egg salad, that's a play off of lardon and frisee salad. CJ's already sweaty and burning the pig's ears. ruh roh.

10:06 - Got the winner's table in there: Stephanie, Paul, , Harold, Elan, Kevin, Michael...the whole crew. First dishes are out. Kristen has chicken liver mousse with mustard, prune, hazelnuts, and pumpernickel salad. Kristen getting rave reviews. Brooke doing pig's ear and chicory salad with 6 min egg, candied kumquats and apricot jam. Pig's ear is a little overcooked, but otherwise good marks.

10:10 - Judges pick a winner each round, first chef with 3 rds win. And Kristen takes the first round solidly from all judges.

10:15 - Next up, rd two...Top scallop! Super fresh, still in the shell. Stefan jokes that he choose light blue for their unborn lovechild's bedroom. Oh, Steffers! You cad.

10:17 - flashback to Brooke talking about her son and her phobias. They are numerous. I'm not gonna make light of those, because they look like they're kinda crippling. But, can we please focus on something else? Is she really just a mom/chef with a shattering case of acrophobia? Gail interviewing Brooke's family to pass the time. Brooke is apparently a cooking savant, at a very early age.

10:19 - Mike V spotting - "I want to be down there." And Ann missed her chance to say "That's what she said."

10:21 - This scallop dishes look beautiful...and here they come. Brooke does a seared scallop over salt cod puree, black currant, mustard seed vinaigrette, juniper, romanesco and crispy speck. the former winners complain a little of overcooked scallops, but the judges aren't even phased at all. Brooke might have a little too much on the plate here. Kristen has a citrus & lavender-cured scallop with meyer lemon, bitter orange and apple. Looks absolutely gorgeous. Kristen is taking this.

10:26 - The Hughnabrow is a sucker for romanesco, and gives the tie-breaker to Brooke. Kristen's plating was perfect...I don't know how you could lose that one.

10:28 - Kristen is doing crispy bone marrow for 3rd. Brooke is going for redemption with some vadouvan chicken wings. Tom explains how each chef's style can work against them. Would anyone every question Tom at this point; the dude is on point with everything.

10:31 - flashback to Josie-gate. Barf. Let's move on.

10:32 - Kristen is a hot chef-bot that cannot be stopped. She'll go to Korea on vacation if she wins.

10:34 - 3rd course is out. Brooke does a vadouvan fried chicken wing with sumac yougurt tahini and pickled kohlrabi fatoush. Looks like a middle eastern BBQ plate. Brooke apologies for not bringing wet-naps. Kristen brings out a celery root puree, crispy bone marrow, mushrooms, bitter greens and barely cooked radishes. Not a run-away hit...we'll see. Kristen pulls it out. 2 to 1. Only one round between her and victory. Brooke is freaking.

10:39 - 4th course...snapper. But first, some messages from the winners. And Elan breaks a lamp. Methinks there are plenty of drinks between courses.

Holy shit there are a lot of commercials.

10:45 - Back to the snapper. Both chefs seem supremely confident in what they're making. Padma interviewing the winners...Elan says he looked fat. We all do, bro. Except for Padma.

10:51 - And plates are out. Brooke has to kill it here. Brooke makes a braised pork cheek with crispy red snapper with collard green slaw and sorrel puree with pomegranate seeds. Kristen brings out snapper with leeks, little gem lettuce, tarragon, uni and shellfish nage. Sounds very coastal French. Gail complains about the leeks, but Hughanbrow isn't phased.

10:55 - we're getting short on time. not enough time to get another course in. hmmm.

10:58 - decision time on 4th course. and here comes the votes...
Gail goes Kristen

Emeril goes...Kristen

oh boy...

Tom time.

...
...
Kristen!

She wins!! my girl takes it!!

Aww, I feel for Brooke. No one thinks less of you, woman. You're a stud.

And that's it. Kristen takes the title, the second female to win the prize. Congrats, girlfriend. If you and Stefan don't work out, Ann and I can figure out some sort of girlfriend timeshare program. She'll be cool with it, I swear.

A little Top Chef Seattle preamble

A little backstory before we get to the finale live-blogging...

Ann and I had the opportunity to appear on two episodes of Top Chef this year. Some of you saw us. If not, here's us, post-Stefan&Brooke monte cristo and fig.

We were also in part 1 of Restaurant Wars with the concept food stands at Bite of Seattle. 

It was great to be a part of a show that we've followed for many years, and watch religiously. We were very lucky to know the right people that graciously offered to bring us along. So thanks to Brooks & his wife, Nate & Jenna, and the producers at Bravo for letting us in and not leaving us on the cutting room floor.

Here's some random thoughts I have on the season, based on what we all saw, and what I saw behind the scenes:

• Kristen and Lizzie had the best dishes at Bite. We didn't have a chance to sample Josie's or Brooke's, and Sheldon had run out of food by the time we got to him, but none of the other contestants came close. 
• Stefan is a ham. Not that anyone didn't already know this. He joked with us while we waited for his white chocolate & passionfruit lollipops. He splashed liquid nitrogen on the floor next to him and dared us to stick our hands in and do the same. He talked shit about Josie. We asked if he was nervous. "Oh shit, of course not. This is my second time around. I don't even care. I have 5 restaurants and a Ferrari." He also said Brooke and Kristen were very talented. And look who's in the final...
• Lizzie was probably the nicest chef we talked to. Very sweet and bordering on shy. I'm a sucker for her Saffa accent too. 
• CJ was the comedian of the bunch at Pike's Place. Bummed he didn't make it farther. Very cool dude. 
• Both times, Sheldon ran out of food early. I never got to eat any of his food. I was kinda surprised that the judges didn't make a bigger deal about this given in the past, wait times and lack of food have been held against chef-testants. 
• Padma is probably the most ridiculously beautiful woman I've ever seen in person. She's an effing alien. Her legs go up to her armpits. She has cheekbones for days. She must drink the blood of 7 virgins each night to maintain her perfect skin & hair. 
• Like every other male who watches the show, I have a major crush on Kristen. She's very striking in real-life. She also served up some really great dishes, especially at Bite. Kristen and her onsen egg have a special place in my heart (and probably in my arteries too). 
• At Bite of Seattle, we were forced to wait for close to 2 hours, despite being in the second of four groups. The producers did a horrible job managing the crowd. The first group went in and basically camped for as long as possible. When we finally got in, most of the chefs were running out of food. We quickly grabbed dishes from Josh and Lizzie first, then Micah and Kristen, sat down, and started eating. Then the unbelievable happened. We were immediately approached by a producer and his camera crew and had the following dialogue: 
• Producer "Hi there - So, how many dishes is for you guys?"
• Me "Just grabbed our 4th from over there. We were in the 2nd group."
• Producer "Yeah, so we need you guys to finish up and head out so we can get everyone in. We still have 2 more groups to bring in."
• Me "Well, we just came in not more than 15 minutes ago, and there's people that have been in here for 2 hours already. We haven't even had half the dishes."
• Producer "Yeah, but we still have people that haven't had anything."
• Me (in my head) Those sound an awful lot like "you" problems and not "me" problems...if you can't even feed two groups, maybe you shouldn't have let in twice as many people as you needed.
• Me (out-loud) "Alright, we'll leave."
• We didn't leave. We just hid over next to Stefan's stand and made jokes with him about the other chefs and Padma. It was rad.

Live-blogging of the finale coming up next. I'm rooting for Kristen, but I feel like Brooke is engineered for a finale, where planning and course-progression are very important. My guess is Kristen will have 2 amazing dishes and 2 semi-clunkers and squeak out a win, but I definitely won't be upset if Brooke wins. Both presented the most consistent talent throughout the season, and I think we all agree they were the two that needed to face off at the end. We shall see...