I picked up some purslane at the farmer’s market this weekend. Perhaps you are now saying to yourself, “what on earth is purslane?” Purslane is a succulent that is found most commonly in Mexican, Greek, and Middle Eastern cooking. It is a low-growing, creeping plant with small paddle-shaped green leaves and a thick reddish stem. It kind of looks like a jade plant but with much thinner leaves. Purslane is often used raw in salads, but it can be cooked as well. The leaves are tender and have a refreshing lemony flavor. The stems are edible too but are best when they are young and slender.

For all you gardeners out there, it is worth pointing out that purslane takes very little effort to grow. If you have a sunny spot in your garden, plant some purslane, and it will practically take care of itself. But, you might just want to check and see if you already have some growing first. Purslane is listed as one of the top ten most troublesome and pervasive weeds worldwide. People have been pulling it out of their gardens for years without ever knowing what a wonderful vegetable it can be. Purslane is slowly starting to shed its bad reputation, however. Word is getting out that purslane is rich in vitamins and antioxidants and also contains more of the potentially heart-protecting omega 3 fatty acids than any other leafy green vegetable.

My mom bought some purslane last week at her farmer’s market and used it to make Grilled Zucchini Salad with Purslane and Tomato so I decided to follow suit. I washed the purslane in several changes of water, and then I picked off the leaves and dried them in my salad spinner. Next, I grilled some zucchini and tomatoes on my little grill pan (which is producing better, more authentic-looking grill marks every time I use it!) The recipe doesn’t call for grilling the tomatoes, but I wanted to take some of the raw edge off. Once the grilled vegetables were cool, I tossed them together with the purslane in a lemon-shallot-parsley vinaigrette. The tart flavor of the purslane went really nicely with the smoky zucchini and sweet tomatoes. This was a really delicious change of pace from a standard lettuce salad. And, there is something mildly thrilling about eating a succulent!

Since we don’t have a backyard of our own, Robert and I spend a lot of time at Volunteer Park during the summer. We have developed a bit of a routine over the years. We go to the park and read our books for a while, then we stop off for beer and fries at Canterbury, one of Seattle’s last true dives, and then we usually stop by the wine shop and Sonic Boom Records before walking back home. Yesterday, we were feeling rambunctious so we decided to break out of the routine and go out for lunch before heading to the park. Our lunch destination: Volunteer Park Cafe.

Volunteer Park Cafe has been open since January 2007. It is located 2 blocks east of Volunteer Park in the super-rich section of Capitol Hill, where scruffy apartment buildings give way to towering trees and grand homes. Despite the surrounding opulence, Volunteer Park Cafe is a very casual, cozy restaurant. Ceiling-high windows and light yellow walls make it bright and cheery inside. It has a very old-fashioned general store feel about it (the building actually used to be a grocery store and meat market in the early 20th century.) There are big jars of gum balls available for the kids and a small refrigerator case full of local beers and wines for the adults. In keeping with the general store look, the tables are surfaced with packaging from flour and other dry goods. There is even a vintage grocery store sign hanging above the kitchen. There are modern touches as well. Huge black and white photographs are up on the walls and the restaurant’s focus on seasonal, local ingredients is very now.

Volunteer Park Cafe is primarily open for breakfast and lunch, but they also have monthly “wine dinners” that focus on pairing foods with local wines (they were advertising a Belgian beer dinner when we were there which sounded interesting.) The breakfast menu features a small number of scrumptious-sounding options including caramelized banana brioche french toast and apple & brie breakfast panini. Or, if you are in a hurry, the pastry case is stocked full of freshly-baked pastries and cookies. For lunch, there are various soups, salads, and grilled panini to choose from. They also usually have some sort of interesting beverage on special. This weekend, they were offering three different kinds of flavored lemonade.

For my lunch, I ordered sour cherry lemonade and a caprese panini which is basil, roasted tomato and fresh mozzarella on country bread. Robert had a B.L.T. made with fancy thick-cut bacon. When our panini arrived at the counter, they were still sizzling. Hot off the grill! Both were tasty, but I thought they were grilled for too long. When it comes to grilled bread, I like a mix of crispy exterior and chewy interior, but this was all crisp and no chew. They were also a tad greasy for my taste. The fillings were great, however. Not being a fan of raw tomatoes, I really liked the fact that they roasted the tomatoes. It made them sweet and delicious. And, the fresh mozzarella was nice and creamy. Overall, the food was just OK which is fine since Volunteer Park Cafe is a bit outside of our normal walking range. I would like to try another one of their panini someday just to see if they are always made that crunchy or if we simply happened to be there on day when the cook was being a little overzealous with the panini press. I am also very intrigued by their breakfast menu (the yeast-raised waffle with seasonal fruit compote must be mine!) Volunteer Park Cafe is located at 1501 17th Ave E and is open Tuesday-Friday from 7am to 5pm and Saturday & Sunday from 8am to 5pm.

OK, so it may be a bit of a stretch for me to call it my new favorite ice cream since I only eat ice cream about three times a year. Whichever ice cream I am eating is pretty much my favorite at that point. Still, I am currently in love with Haagen-Dazs‘ Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle. It is a plain cream base speckled with strands of toasted coconut and little pieces of sesame candies (Remember those caramel candies with all the sesame seeds in them that you used to eat when you were a kid before all the candy became fizzy and neon-colored? That’s what is in here.) Supposedly there is some ginger flavoring in the sesame candy, but I couldn’t detect it. It doesn’t matter, though, because there is plenty of goodness going on in this ice cream without the ginger. The coconut is so toasty and crunchy and the sesame brittle is nutty and yummy. Robert thought it was kind of weird, but I thought it was delicious.

As an aside, there is an interesting story about the origins of this ice cream. Last year, Haagen-Dazs held a contest in which they asked fans to submit their best ice cream flavor ideas. The winning idea would become Haagen-Dazs’ newest ice cream. The top three finalists, one of whom was the brain behind Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle, were featured on a Food Network special. Sticky Toffee Pudding ultimately was chosen as the winning idea, but now, a year later, what turns up on our shelves? Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle! Hmmm…I wonder where Haagen-Dazs got that idea? Fortunately, there wasn’t any corporate foul play or thievery going here. They awarded the original prize money to the woman who created Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle so, although she didn’t get to be recognized as a winner of the contest, it all worked out for everybody in the end (including for me!)

Smith, the newest pub to open on 15th Avenue, has gotten more than its fair share of press recently. On its first day, the Seattle blogs were already raving about how great it was. Lots of Seattle notables visited and plenty of hipsters followed suit. The blogs even went so far as to declare that the curse had been lifted. You see, Smith moved into the “haunted” space on 15th that was previously occupied by Cypress, Kozak’s, Maguire’s, Mango’s, and other such duds before that. None of these places lasted longer than 6 months. It was beginning to seem unlikely that any restaurant would ever be able to make it in that location.

While it may be a bit premature to claim that the curse has lifted, I must admit that all signs are pointing that way. The space looks entirely new, yet it also looks like it has been there forever. Unlike the previous restaurants, Smith just feels really comfortable. Plus, Smith is the latest venture of Linda Derschang of Linda’s and King’s Hardware fame, and, if anyone knows how to open up a good bar in Seattle, she does. When we visited last month, the place was packed full of hipsters which, as the Capitol Hill Seattle blog points out, weren’t anywhere to be seen on 15th Avenue before. That must mean that Smith is actually drawing people up from elsewhere on Capitol Hill. If that’s not a sign that the curse is broken, then I don’t know what is. It wasn’t quite as busy tonight, but there was still a decent trickle of nice, normal, non-hipster types (like us) coming in to grab a drink and check it out.

As I mentioned before, Smith feels really comfortable. If you’re a fan of taxidermy, that is. Yes, Linda does love her taxidermy. Although there are many deer heads, stuffed birds really prevail here. The interior of Smith is very dark, with dim lighting, stone tile flooring and dark wood everywhere. Although there are big front windows and lots of open space, the place is a bit gloomy (but in a good way.) There are many tables and booths, including the now-ubiquitous communal table in the middle of the room. Smith is what I imagine a hunter’s den would look like, but on a much larger scale. Although it is summer and cheerfully bright restaurants with patios are better suited to my mood right now, Smith will be a perfect hideout when the rainy season hits.

In keeping with the hunter theme, the menu at Smith features lots of meat. It is a rather odd menu. I feel like I like reading and thinking about the menu more than I actually want to order off it, but that may be because I don’t really eat much meat. Meaty options include steak (served rare), burger (served rare), fried duck legs (think duck corndog) and trout…wrapped in ham. There are some vegetarian choices but they are mostly just vegetables, not really full meals. We ordered the Devils on Horseback which are dates stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in bacon. It’s tough to go wrong with that combination so, unsurprisingly, they were very good. We also shared an order of fries which were served attractively in a tall mason jar lined with brown paper. Our beet salad consisted of thinly sliced beets dressed simply with olive oil, garlic and fresh thyme. A plate of yummy greens rounded out the meal. They had all of the salty, brothy goodness of Southern greens but weren’t cooked to death. Everything was really good, although we didn’t exactly leave Smith feeling full. Maybe an order of poutine instead of fries would have solved the problem. Poutine is a Canadian specialty which consists of French fries and soft cheese curds covered in gravy. I’m so getting that next time! Overall, even though the menu frightens/intrigues me, I will definitely be returning to Smith. It is a really great addition to the neighborhood. I hope it lasts! Smith is located at 332 15th Ave E.

My wine of choice for this week’s winesday was a Bordeaux: 2004 Château La Rose Bellevue “Cuvée Tradition” Red. Considered by many to be the finest wines in the world, Bordeaux is also arguably the most confusing wine region to understand. Like most French wines, Bordeaux wines typically do not list the grape type on the label, instead listing only the winery name (or Château.) But, unlike, Sancerre, which you can easily remember is always made from Sauvignon Blanc, or Burgundy, which is Pinot Noir, Bordeaux wines are made from varying blends of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and others. There are some trends; certain grapes are dominant in certain areas. But, with 9000 wineries operating in 57 different appellations, how is a wine novice like me to know what style of wine I am getting when I purchase a bottle? Add in the fact that Bordeaux wines can be very, very expensive and then experimenting with these wines just seems downright risky.

The good news is that there are decent and inexpensive Bourdeaux wines out there for us newbies to try. They don’t come from the best regions or most well-known wineries, but there are many cheaper wines that are good examples of the Bordeaux style. It’s just a matter of finding them, and that’s where your friendly wine merchant comes in handy. They are able to pick through the lot and find the best of the cheap wines to pass along to us. A couple of weeks ago, Robert and I stopped by our local wine shop and noticed a number of budget Bordeaux wines in stock. I picked up the Château La Rose Bellevue which is from the lesser known Premier Cotes de Blaye appellation. It was on sale for $10. There were two notes on the wine shop’s description card that intrigued me: “tastes like it should cost more” and “hints of pencil lead.” Pencil lead? Sure, sounds great!

I served the wine with a simple cheese plate and some lovely vegetables from my CSA box. We had three cheeses, all from Estrella Family Creamery located in Montesano, Washington. Estrella Family Creamery began making cheese in 2003 and has been getting lots of acclaim ever since. All of their cheeses are made with raw milk from cows and goats raised on organically maintained pastures. My mom has been buying their cheeses at her local farmer’s market, and she gave us these samples to try. The “Jalapeño Buttery” is an aged cheddar cheese full of hand sliced fresh jalapeños. The jalapeño was nice and spicy! “Weebles,” a unique cheese shaped like a pear (or a weeble!), is a provolone that has been very lightly smoked with alderwood. Finally, we had the “Guapier,” a cow’s milk cheese modeled after French Morbier with a thin line of charcoal in the middle separating the evening and morning curds. This one was my favorite! The texture was very soft, similar to Havarti, but the cheese was much more flavorful than Havarti. And, the slightly gritty charcoal added a very unusual element. I loved charred food, but I don’t think I’ve ever had charcoal in my cheese before. You can find Estrella Family Creamery cheeses at several Seattle farmer’s markets. DeLaurenti and Beecher’s also supposedly sell their cheeses, but I didn’t see them at either place when I was there the other day.

The wine tasted like a good, fairly straightforward Merlot (it was 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon.) I suspect that this wine was fruitier than higher quality Bordeaux but, since I haven’t had Bordeaux before, I can’t really back that up. Still, it was much less fruity than Californian or Australian wines tend to be (this is the classic distinction between old and new world wines - old world wines tend to be more earthy whereas new world wines tend to be heavy on the fruit.) The wine went very well with the Estrella cheeses. It had a nice light, fruit flavor with a small amount of tannins. I couldn’t detect the pencil lead, however. Perhaps the charcoal from the Guapier was interfering with it! Mmmmm…charcoal and pencil lead.

Robert and I just returned from a fantastic backpacking trip to Toleak Point, located on Washington’s beautiful Olympic Coast. My family used to backpack at Toleak Point every year when I was little, and it was always my favorite place to go. Unlike most modern coastal areas, which are typically lined with hotels and tourist traps, the Olympic Coast is made up of natural, protected wilderness. Rocky headlands, dense forest, rugged beaches, tidepools and creepy off shore sea stacks are the name of the game here. Hiking on the Olympic Coast usually means scrambling up steep, unstable cliffs and over giant, slippery rocks in order to get where you are going. A tide chart is a necessity in order to avoid getting trapped between impassable headlands. But, once you arrive at your destination, you are rewarded with some of the most beautiful, pristine wilderness in the United States.

Although the coastline is always changing, everything at Toleak Point was basically the same as I remembered. In a way, I felt like I had been there just yesterday (20 years can really fly by!) We saw plenty of wildlife including seals, bunnies, starfish, sea anemones, blue herons, bald eagles and a family of river otters who would come out to play in the ocean twice a day (the river otters were there when I was a kid too, so I was glad to see that they were still around.) The weather was very kind to us - no rain! A huge heatwave hit Washington State during our trip so, even though it was pretty sweltering out at the coast, it was still a much better place to be than in the city. We were lucky to have a giant ocean to cool off in. Mostly, we spent our time sitting in the sand reading our books or staring out at the water. I may love my computer and TV, but you really can’t beat the Pacific Ocean for entertainment. Robert’s well-crafted campfires provided lots of entertainment as well.

As for the food? Well, my kitchen experiments last month really paid off because our dinners were all excellent! Of course, food always tastes so much better when your have dirt on your face and sand between your toes. Breakfasts and lunches were pretty standard fare: logan bread and oatmeal for breakfast and peanut butter, crackers, dried fruit and snacks for lunch. The dinners were the real highlight. The first night, I made frito pie, Robert’s favorite. It was just as good as it was during our last backpacking trip, if not better. At this point, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go on a backpacking trip without bringing along frito pie fixings. It is perfect camping food - spicy, filling and lightweight! My tuna & broccoli pasta was good, although, out of fear of starvation, I added more pasta than my own recipe called for, and we had a really hard time finishing it. I suppose being too full is better than going hungry, however. My final dinner was the result of another kitchen experiment: Vegetable Jambalaya. This dish was just OK when I tested it at home, but I doctored the recipe a bit and it ended up being completely delicious out at the beach. I combined instant rice with corn, okra, green beans and red bell pepper (that I dehydrated at home in my oven.) Green chilies, sun-dried tomatoes and spices add flavor.

Click here to see photos from the trip >>

Click here for my Vegetable Jambalaya Recipe >>

I’ve been listening to lots of food podcasts lately so I thought I’d give a little summary of my favorites. What is a podcast you might ask? Simply put, podcasts are audio or video files that are available via the web. You can think of them as a radio shows you can listen to at your convenience. Despite the fact that it contains “pod” in the name, you don’t need an iPod in order to listen. You can download podcasts and play them on any Mp3 player or you can listen to them right on your computer. The benefit of podcasts is that you can subscribe to them using simple software known as an aggregator, often called a podcatcher. When you subscribe to a podcast, your podcatching software will either download new episodes of your favorite podcasts automatically or notify you when new episodes are available, allowing you to download them at a time that best suits you. iTunes, Juice and Amarok will all allow you to subscribe to podcasts. I prefer to use Amarok since it is designed for linux users like me.

Bon Appetit - Like the monthly magazine, Bon Appetit’s podcasts cover a wide range of food-related topics. The podcasts are usually paired with an article in the current issue of the magazine, but they are not just a recap of the contents of the article. Instead, the articles are used more as a branching off point. For example, a magazine article about margarita recipes may be fodder for a podcast on types of tequila. Bon Appetit’s podcasts are hosted on a rotating basis by the magazine’s editors (I like the ones with Associate Editor Andrew Knowlton the best.) The podcasts are nice and short, averaging about 15 minutes each. New podcasts come out every Tuesday.

Good Food - Good Food is Santa Monica Public Radio/KCRW’s weekly food show. It is hosted by Evan Kleiman. The shows feature a wide range of food topics from restaurant reviews to food politics to specific ingredients. Each show starts off with a report from the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market about what’s in season and how to prepare it (which means that I can start planning meals several months in advance for when those ingredients finally come into season in my area.) Podcasts are around 1 hour each and are available every Saturday.

Splendid Table - I have always loved Lynne Rosetto Kaspar’s wonderful NPR radio show, The Splendid Table. She is so exuberant and enthusiastic about food, you can’t help but smile when listening. Now that the show is available as a podcast, I can listen whenever I want (usually Saturday mornings over coffee.) The first part of the show is devoted to interviews with guests; the second half features listener questions and sometimes my favorite segment, Stump the Chef, where Lynne has to come up with a delicious meal based on 5 ingredients in a caller’s fridge. Christopher Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen serves as judge and deems whether Lynne’s creation is edible or not. Podcasts are about 1 hour long and are available every Saturday.

Eat Feed - Eat Feed was the very first food podcast I ever listened to. It is hosted by Anne Bramley. Ms. Bramley, with her soothing voice and food scholar intelligence, provides a very insightful podcast. The podcasts are broken up into four “channels” each with a different focus. There is “Amuse Bouche”, which focuses on food terms and their history, “In Season” (self-explanatory), “Eat Feed Midwest”, which highlights Midwestern cuisine and can be very enlightening for a West Coaster like me, and “Now Serving”, in which Anne Bramley teams up with Leite’s Culinaria’s David Leite to explore what is happening in food today. Since it was my first podcast, Eat Feed will always be my favorite. John Edwards is supposedly a fan too!

This week’s wine of choice was A to Z Wineworks’ 2005 Pinot Gris. Attentive readers of my blog may recall that I served another A to Z wine, a Pinot Blanc, just last month for my birthday. I swear I don’t have any sort of affiliation with A to Z Wineworks. I promise they aren’t paying me or subsidizing my blog in any way. It is simply that this wine was on sale at our local wine store, and, since I really liked their Pinot Blanc, I was naturally curious to see what their Pinot Gris would be like. Plus, I figured this would be a good opportunity to compare the two wines to see if I could detect a significant difference between Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. I think Pinot Gris tends to be crisper and lighter in body, but so much of a wine’s style depends on what the winemaker decides to do with their grapes, not just on the inherent differences between the grapes alone.

The Pinot Gris was very good. I’m afraid I don’t have much to say about it, but that certainly shouldn’t be taken as a bad sign. It was a perfectly nice, solid wine with lots of tropical and citrus fruit flavor. I could drink it often. I think it’s just that I have been trying too many similar wines lately, and I don’t want to bore everyone by describing yet another wine as “crisp and limey!” Overall, I think I liked the Pinot Blanc better. It was much more flavorful and gutsy than I had expected so it took me a bit by surprise. If you like a more restrained wine, then you would probably like the Pinot Gris more.

For dinner, I served a meal made straight out of my Boistfort Valley Farm CSA box. This is the second week of CSA boxes and, once again, I was very pleased with the contents. I made a simple risotto using fresh peas and garlic shoots, seasoned with just a touch of grated parmesan cheese. On the side, I served carrots with sage and butter, which seems like more of a fall or winter dish to me, but, carrots and sage came in the box so they must be in season. I also had a salad of green leaf and red leaf lettuce taken from the hugest heads I have ever seen - seriously, I could barely pick them up! I topped the salad with goat cheese and a mix of red beets (leftover from last week’s box) and Chioggia beets (from this week’s box.) The Chioggia beets are Italian and, when cooked, are striped pinkish-gold inside. Very pretty. For dessert, we had fresh cherries, which are rapidly becoming my all-time favorite fruit (although last week’s strawberries were pretty hard to top!)