july 31, 2012 lunch

leftover stovetop pork carnitas. i ate some last night for dinner too (with avocado! sadly, one did not make it into my lunch today), but it seems to have been consumed with no paparazzi in sight. today, though, a camera was ready and waiting and caught a bowl of citrus-y, cumin-y pork shoulder in the act of posing with a starlet of a salad.

july 31, 2012 breakfast

a fine entry in the frittata regatta, featuring linguica from A & J meats, and co-piloted by broccoli (roasted). i don't want to eat frittata anymore that don't have roasted broccoli. also making a showing are plums from my husband's coworker's yard.

july 29, 2012 breakfast

sunday breakfast is a delicious scramble of eggs, red chard, onions, and garlic. i added turmeric and cayenne - i used to do this scramble with tofu, and all of the flavors really work well together somehow. add to this two pork sausages from A & J meats and we're ready to hit the zoo!

we made a beeline to the family farm area to check out the new piggie on the block, the kunekune. too cute for sausage! kunekune means "fat and round" in maori, and is so fun to say. i am running out of ways to use kunekune in a sentence, but i'm not giving up yet.

it was a hot and sticky day, so the brown bear went for a refreshing dip. he kept dunking his head in and scanning from side to side for trout (his "river" is pretty well stocked), blowing bubbles as his ears rotated above the water's surface. have you ever seen a brown bear blowing bubbles underwater? it was a first for me.

july 28, 2012 dinner

oysters on the grill! dinner at my dad and stepmom's, out on their deck.

a pretty plateful of sirloin steak, lamb heart, japanese eggplant, caulliflower, mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes and blueberries. the veggies were basted in garlic oil and i wanted more of them. i only had a nibble of the heart (not feeling lamby) and half the steak.

saved room for my stepmom's homemade blueberry ice cream, made with fresh blueberries, coconut and rice milk. perfect!



july 28, 2012 breakfast

a pretty darn decent scramble of tomatoes, bacon, avocado, garlic and basil.

july 27, 2012 lunch

a lunch of country captain chicken from paleo comfort foods (chicken breaded with almond flour and curry powder, broccoli, more tomatoes than you can shake a stick at, onions, etc. all cooked in a yummy broth), plus purple coleslaw and a salad. i know i haven't been consistently posting dinner photos, but the country captain chicken is leftover from wednesday night. it has some strange ingredient combinations, but it's pretty good!

july 27, 2012 breakfast

friday breakfast is a couple of hard boiled eggs and some roasted broccoli. hint: walking a mile with uncushioned eggs bopping around in your backpack make them easier to peel!

july 26, 2012 breakfast

no, i didn't eat a crow for breakfast. but i saw this fledgling crow on the way to work! note the stumpiness of the tail compared to the rest of its body, the blue eyes, and the blunt beak. it was super cute! its parents were none too happy with me for taking this photo.

the crow's parents had no issue with me taking this photo of my breakfast, though.

july 25, 2012 lunch

lunchtime in meatball country. 

july 25, 2012 breakfast

same breakfast, only sunnier.

july 24, 2012 lunch

more meatballs, more salad. i've mentioned i call these meatballs sneaky meatballs for all of the veggie goodness i manage to sneak into each batch. it's not as if i'm trying to trick a toddler into eating them, but i imagine it would do the trick!

july 24, 2012 breakfast

i think the pros outweigh the cons of having the same thing all week. the convenience of having a ready-made portion of eggs, meat and veggies to bring to work ensures i don't have to make the choice between spending money on something on the way to work or trying to hold out until lunch.

july 23, 2012 lunch

returned to an old standby for this week's lunch - garden fresh meatballs from everyday paleo. this time we added a bunch of fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes to the usual mix of ground turkey, ground beef, egg, yam, spinach, roasted red pepper, zucchini, garlic and almond flour. a simple green salad of greens from my boss's garden, tomatoes and cucumber plays sidekick to the meatballs.

july 23, 2012 breakfast

a similar frittata to last week's, but with sliced chicken andouille sausage from trader joe's instead of bacon, plus a good deal of fresh basil. a nice addition to the standard crowd pleasers of oven-roasted broccoli, spinach, roasted red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, etc. both the sausage and the cholula lend it a nice wake-up kick.

july 22, 2012 brunch

kitchen sink omelet with a filling of sauteed chard, cherry toms, basil, green onions and garlic, served alongside a couple slices of bacon.

here's what it looked like pre-folding.

july 21, 2012 dinner

oh lola, you're so good to me! friends were in town, so we took the opportunity to splurge a bit. i'd been here once before (some years ago), and fondly remembered ordering off of the small plates menu. skewers of meat and little saucy things galore! this time, i dove right in and ordered the squid skewers, which came out smothered in a piquant chermoula on a fajita-style hot plate of sizzling onions, to which the waitbot added a splash of ouzo. obvious theatrics aside, the ouzo added a little something special to the dish, which was sweet and aromatic and so tender it spoiled me on ever eating squid again, i think. one of my dining companions called the squid "the best i've ever eaten", and i had to agree. a lifetime of rubbery, chewy squid quickly forgotten. swoon.

and on to the main event, a luscious tagine of mussels, clams, scallops, fish, and a few mandolined veggies.. not only did i devour half of this before remembering to take a photo, i was gauche enough to use my entree fork instead of the dainty wee thing they bring out for doing battle with bivalves. never you mind. i was a hungry dog, and this bowlful of perfection was my chow dish.

shellfish, how i love you.

july 21, 2012 brunch

let's see, what's in the fridge? leftover grilled chicken, topped with the zippy moroccan dipping sauce from well fed. yum! and some grape tomatoes and sliced cucumber. why not?

july 20, 2012 dinner

attended a goodbye potluck barbeque at ella bailey park in magnolia. it was a nice seattle summer evening, sunny and breezy, with the rain clouds from the morning dissipating. the view from this park is amazing - you can see elliott bay, downtown seattle, west seattle, and queen anne. the way it's situated on a grassy hill with its panorama and houses on hills reminds me of parks in san francisco. anyways, i had a delicious meal of a grass-fed beef burger, topped with garlicky guacamole, and a side salad with bell pepper, avocado, and some of the leftover smoked salmon from yesterday shredded on top.

addison's fancy hat looks on.



july 20, 2012 lunch

today marks the third day in a row of going out for lunch this week. today, my dad, aunt and i went to tengu sushi, which is a kaiten-zushi joint next to the movie theater at northgate. there are a LOT of lackluster conveyor belt sushi places in town, but this one is a real find. not only are prices competitive and sometimes cheaper than the other places, you can really taste a difference in the freshness of the fish. since i'm off rice for now, i snacked on a sashimi plate of sake (salmon), maguro (bluefin tuna) and hamachi (yellowtail tuna). their raw salmon is so buttery!

this was a real shocker. i was excited to see sake kama (salmon collar, but translated as salmon cheeks) on the menu, and thought i'd supplement my raw with some cooked. i assumed i was getting one, maybe two cheeks. when they brought out a portion the size of my head, with the tasty faces of not one, but four salmon, i knew i wasn't going to make it through it on my own. (my family was happy to partake!) these were unbelievably good - melt-in-your-mouth tender in a way you don't find in a regular fillet, unctuous and rich, with salty, crispy skin. yes, they had veggies on the menu, but everything was either coated in tempura or drowning in a sugary sauce, so i passed on the roughage for this meal.

bonus: i saw a pileated woodpecker on the way to lunch!



july 20, 2012 breakfast

not too proud to have a little leftover thai food for breakfast at my desk. not too proud at all!

july 19, 2012 lunch

going out a lot more than usual this week, although this is the only one i had to pay for. thai one on, despite the cringe-inducing name, is a more than decent place in the neighborhood i work in. they have amazing khao soi, although i'm opting to stay away from wheat for now. sure, a little soy sauce snuck into the chicken basil lunch special, but the overall effect of chicken and veggies in a garlic-chili-basil sauce sure was tasty. next time i order without rice, though, i'm knocking off a star. three stars pack quite a punch in this dish!

speaking of khao soi, i am quite impressed with this blog.

july 19, 2012 breakfast

i ate half of the salmon today, and the last of the savoryslaw. preview! the other half of the salmon will make a special guest appearance tomorrow evening..

july 18, 2012 lunch

my boss treated us to lunch today at the elliott bay public house. i ordered the chicken fajita salad, sans dressing, with guacamole on the side. really yummy, but the peppers and onions were cooked in a too-sweet-for-me balsamic reduction. the last few bites were so eye-wateringly syrupy (ok, fine, my eyes didn't actually water), that i can only wonder how much sweeter it would have been with the dressing included (a framboise vinaigrette).. i have a pretty low tolerance for sweet tastes - it needs to be balanced by a hefty dose of savory to work for me.

july 18, 2012 breakfast

some more savorykraut, two hard boiled eggs, and a glass of cherry chia kombucha. one of my eggs tried to escape its shell.

oh, and my dracaena is regrowing its roots! hip hip!

july 17, 2012 lunch

very similar to yesterday's, except i remembered to dress my salad (i didn't send it running naked out the door). tasty fuel for the rest of the afternoon!

july 17, 2012 breakfast

dry-smoked salmon (caught by a family friend) with a side of savorykraut. delish!



july 16, 2012 dinner

breakfast for dinner is the theme this week, what with our surplus of farm fresh eggs. here is comfort food in a bowl: butternut squash hash with bacon, yellow bell pepper, onion, garlic and a baharat spice blend, topped with two eggs cooked in grass-fed butter, and half an avocado.

july 16, 2012 lunch

today's lunch is chicken awesomeness, a salad of beet greens, mizuna, romaine, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, kalamatas and red onion, and a cup of green tea. but the chicken! the flavor and moistness certainly live up to its name: the best chicken you will ever eat ever. brining is key, and the solution to every overbaked, dry chicken breast i've ever eaten. a new favorite!

july 16, 2012 breakfast

a delightful breakfast of cherry chia kombucha, savorykraut from midori farm, two hard boiled eggs from nash's organic produce and a cup of green tea.

check out how vibrant the egg yolks are! prettiness aside, these were the best-tasting eggs i've had in a long time.

birds i saw

i've seen a lot of birds in the past year, and not just robins, american crows, rock doves and various gulls. also not counting the zoo: snow goose, canada goose, wood duck, mallard, surf scoter, bufflehead, goldeneye, common merganser, california quail, common loon, brandt's cormorant, double-crested cormorant, pelagic cormorant, great blue heron, turkey vulture, bald eagle, cooper's hawk, red-tailed hawk, peregrine falcon, coot, killdeer, caspian tern, pigeon guillemot, rhinoceros auklet, mourning dove, vaux's swift, anna's hummingbird, rufous hummingbird, belted kingfisher, red-breasted sapsucker, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, steller's jay, western scrub jay, raven, magpie, tree swallow, barn swallow, violet-green swallow, black-capped chickadee, chestnut-backed chickadee, brown creeper, bewick's wren, canyon wren, swainson's thrush, european starling, yellow warbler, townsend's warbler, spotted towhee, chipping sparrow, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, white-crowned sparow, house sparrow, dark-eyed junco, western tanager, black-headed grosbeak, red-winged blackbird, brewer's blackbird, purple finch, house finch, and american goldfinch. 

yay birds!

good spottin'!

july 15, 2012 lunch

lunch is an improvisation on the materials at hand. half a yellow bell pepper and two hard boiled eggs, eaten on the ferry from kingston to edmonds. i'm excited about our cooler full of local goodies from port townsend and chimacum: two dozen eggs, two pounds ground pork, four pounds grass-fed beef, a pound of chicken sage breakfast sausages, two pounds grass-fed sirloin steaks, two lamb hearts and a pound of leaf lard. our larders are brimming!

july 15, 2012 breakfast

breakfast at the blue moose cafe in port townsend is the special of the day, a 'summer is here' scramble of eggs, chicken sausage, zucchini, yellow and red bell pepper, tomato and onion, with a side of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, pineapple, purple grapes and bananas. 

july 14, 2012 dinner

we cooked up some chioggia beets (aka candy-striped beets) in aluminum foil, with a drizzle of oil, some kosher salt, and some quality campfire coal time.

beef tri-tip sirloin, pepper and onion kabobs, in a lime and basil marinade (from mark's daily apple) was also heartily consumed.

nesting boxes for pigeon guillemots on the pier.

july 14, 2012 lunch

on the way to our campsite, we stopped at the port townsend farmer's market. a more idyllic market i can't imagine, with sunny admiralty inlet as a backdrop, the blue crows playing, and colorful produce that would make a crayon cry!

oysters on the grill for lunch with just a squeeze of lemon, plus a salad of greens from the market: beet and mizuna, drizzled with a little olive oil, lemon juice and pepper. perfection.

..and a few rainier cherries to round the whole thing out.

properly satiated, we set off to explore fort worden. it had been thunderstorming earlier, but it ended up being a beautiful day. good for a barefoot walk on the beach out to the point wilson lighthouse.

there are a ton of old abandoned bunkers to explore in the park.