There are some weekends where you spend most of your time hanging around the house, engaging in mellow activities such as reading and watching rented movies, and dining out only in your favorite neighborhood restaurants. But, sometimes, it just so happens that you end up with a weekend jam-packed full of plans with friends and family requiring you to venture out to new restaurants in neighborhoods other than your own. This weekend fell into the latter category for me. I put a pretty big dent in my New Year’s resolution to try some new restaurants. Here are mini-reviews of each of the places I visited.

On Friday, I had to attend a business lunch at Taste in the Seattle Art Museum. Although I would rather do pretty much anything than go to a work-oriented lunch, I had been meaning to try Taste for a while now. Typical of any downtown lunch spot, Taste was bustling when we arrived. Taste is sort of an upscale cafeteria; they have lots of room for sit-down dining but also sell sandwiches and other to go items. I ordered the soup of the day (curried cauliflower) and the Alsatian flat bread. The soup was creamy and very good although it didn’t taste particularly like cauliflower or curry. The flat bread, which came topped with fromage blanc, bacon and caramelized onions, was too dry and crumbly. Every time I broke off a piece, little shards would go flying everywhere out onto the table. For dessert, a couple of us decided to split the S’more which consisted of, not surprisingly, homemade graham crackers topped with chocolate and an oval of toasted marshmallow. It was good, but the real highlight of this dish was the burnt caramel-sea salt ice cream that came with it. Too bad it was served in a thimble-sized cup!

Friday night, Robert and I met up with friends at Calamity Jane’s in my beloved Georgetown. Like all of the restaurants in Georgetown, Calamity Jane’s has a real old-time Seattle feel about it with lots of vintage wood and brick everywhere. There is a definite Western theme going on at Calamity Jane’s. Besides the fact that the sign is written in a lasso-style font, the menu features country favorites such as ribs served with corn on the cob. That said, it is actually a pretty eclectic menu. Friday night’s special was pasta with clam sauce, certainly not something anyone would consider traditional country fare. I ordered the red beans and greens meal which comes with a johnnycake on the side. The beans were good but a little meaty for my taste (of course, that’s only because I don’t really eat much meat. For everyone else, these beans would probably be perfect!) The greens were delicious. They used chard instead of collards so they were nice and tender. If you are a strict vegetarian, you have the option of ordering only greens instead of the beans and greens combo. Overall, it was a great meal and a really fun place. Georgetown scores again!

On Saturday, we had plans to meet up with my family at Crave to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday. Crave is only two blocks from our apartment, but Robert and I don’t go there too often. Their food is really good (especially brunch), but there is always a huge wait and we are just too impatient for that. I ordered the goat cheese gnocchi which is served in a cream sauce with roasted garlic, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, and prosciutto (yep, more meat for me…it’s a good thing I had my cholesterol checked last week and not this week!) The gnocchi were topped with stir-fried pea vines which I absolutely adore. The rest of the food looked really good too including mole-braised short ribs with corn bread and the fish special which was seared cod atop a white bean ragout. With my meal, I had a very unusual Australian wine called Pericles. Pericles is a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend by Flinders Bay Winery. According to the wine list, it is supposed to have an aroma of tomato and jalapeno. I didn’t really pick up on that, but I could tell that it was very different, in a good way. I’ll have to see if any of the wine shops around here carry it.

Finally, we got up early this morning and headed out to Ballard to meet my friend Val and her husband for brunch at one of their favorite spots, Wild Mountain Cafe. Located in a renovated home, Wild Mountain Cafe is very cute and, well, homey. The brunch menu, which is huge, has all of the standard brunch items you would expect to see plus some rather unique creations. Instead of hash browns, most dishes are served with roasted garlic-potato cakes. I ordered the “Tower of Power” which consisted of two potato cakes topped with seared spinach, green bell pepper, tomato, mushroom and sharp cheddar cheese. It was quite tasty and, despite the name, was not an overly gigantic portion size which appreciate. Robert had a breakfast burrito with chicken sausage and green chili. The food was great and the cafe was charming and cozy, just what we were in the mood for on a rainy day like today.

Wow, two whole weeks without a single post. That’s just shameful. I’ve been so busy lately, and obviously my poor blog is suffering as a result. I was off on a sewing retreat with my mom and sister the weekend before last and, this week, work has been just crazy. All I want to do each day is come home and veg out and make easy, ordinary (and therefore unblogworthy) meals. But, it is winesday once again, and my blog can no longer be ignored!

This week, I decided to serve a white Burgundy: Joseph Drouhin Saint-Véran 2005. Saint-Véran is a small village located in the French Alps right next door to the more famous wine producing town of Pouilly Fuissé. Although both appellations are part of the reputable Macon region of Burgundy, wines from Pouilly Fuissé tend to be more hyped and thus more expensive. The wines from little-known Saint-Véran, though of similar quality to those of Pouilly Fuissé, are often a better deal.

Joseph Drouhin is one of the most popular producers of Burgundy wine. Not only are Drouhin wines widely available in the United States, they also have a reputation for being consistent and of high quality. The Drouhin family is based in Beaune, France but makes wine in many different appellations throughout Burgundy. They also have a winery in Oregon! Oregon’s Willamette Valley has a climate similar to Burgundy’s, and the Drouhins have capitalized on that, making top notch Pinot Noir and Chardonnay here in the Pacific Northwest since the late 1980’s.

White Burgundy comes primarily from one grape: Chardonnay. But, unlike the big California Chardonnays that most people in this country are more familiar with, white Burgundy is typically left unoaked. This is great for people who, like me, fear the big oak wines. The Drouhin Saint-Véran is a perfect example of this style of wine. Instead of wood and vanilla, the nose of this wine is very floral, having more in common perhaps with a Gewurztraminer than a California Chardonnay. The wine is zesty with bright flavors of apples and citrus. Since it is a Chardonnay, however, this wine has plenty of body to offset its crispness.

The fuller body of white Burgundy makes it a good match for heavier fish dishes and light poultry or pork. It can also be paired with rich quiches. I was initially thinking of pairing it with scallops, but the halibut cheeks at my fish market struck my eye instead. I’ve never made halibut cheeks before. I honestly didn’t even know that fish had enough cheek on them to constitute an entire meal. Do all fish have edible cheeks? I don’t know! Maybe salmon cheeks are delicious, and I have been missing out this whole time. I’ve never seen them at my fish market before, though. It’s probably one of those delicacies that you only get when you catch your own fish. One of these days, I swear I’m going to learn to fish…

Compared with fillets, the halibut cheeks were quite dense. They had an interesting striated texture, similar to crab or scallops. They seemed to release a lot of water in the pan so I wasn’t able to get as good as sear on them as I would have liked. Still, they were tasty. I served the cheeks with a rosemary-cream sauce on a bed of sauteed tatsoi (similar to bok choy but with much slimmer stems and a mustardy flavor.) On the side, I served oven-roasted Rose Finn fingerling potatoes, golden beets and carrots. Although it was a beautiful, sunny day, the roasted root vegetables really put me in the mood for fall! With its robust apple flavor, the Drouhin Saint-Véran is the perfect accompaniment for fall foods.

OK, so clambake may be a stretch; clam “boil” or clam “steam” are more accurate descriptions of tonight’s meal, but, for the sake of recognition, I’m calling it a clambake. Clam “boil” doesn’t sound very appetizing, and it certainly doesn’t conjure up the same romantic images of late summer nights at the beach that the term clambake does. An authentic New England clambake is typically a laborious, all-day event. For a traditional clambake, you must dig a giant pit in the sand. Stones are placed in the pit and a big fire is built on top of the stones. Then, the fire is covered in wet seaweed (freshly harvested from the nearby ocean, of course) and whatever ingredients you wish to cook. Most commonly, this is clams, lobsters, potatoes, corn and some type of sausage such as chorizo or kielbasa.

For some reason, when my CSA box came loaded with corn and potatoes this week, I started craving clambake. But, while I may live on the West Coast, I don’t exactly live right on the beach, nor do I have my own backyard or even small plot of dirt into which I could dig a hole for a traditional clambake. I would have to develop a clambake recipe that would work on my stove top. After a short bit of research, I realized that there are actually lots of recipes for indoor clambakes out there. However, most of the recipes I came across called for way too many ingredients and involved way too many steps. I wanted something easy that could be cooked in one pot all at the same time. Using epicurious’ Easy Summer Clambake as a very, very loose guideline, I set to work improvising my own recipe. I decided to really streamline the ingredients. Leeks and garlic for the aromatics, potatoes and corn for the veggies, 1 small link of Spanish chorizo, lots of clams and, instead of lobster, I bought shrimp. Call me a wuss, but I just can’t do the live lobster thing. I think I could actually handle cooking the lobster once I got it home, but the thought of toting the poor thing around with me on the bus home from the market just makes me feel kind of icky.

The key to a successful clambake is layering the ingredients so that they are all done at the same time. Ingredients that take longer to cook go on the bottom; those with the shortest cooking time go on top. Into a large pot with a low-hanging steamer basket, I added my potatoes. Tiny, whole new potatoes are best. Next, I layered the chorizo and corn followed by the shrimp (which I left unpeeled) and finally the clams. For the broth, I added a mixture of white wine and water (enough to just reach the potatoes) and my aromatics. It is important to remember to salt the layers as you are adding the ingredients. In order to ensure that the potatoes would be done, I gave them a 5 minute head start before adding the other ingredients. 8 to 10 minutes later, my clams were open and my shrimp were nice and pink. Robert and I enjoyed the clambake with melted lemon-butter and bread on the side for dipping. To drink, we shared a delicious Spanish Albarino. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to summer!

Whenever we are up on 15th Ave, Robert and I make a point of stopping by our local wine shop. Sometimes, we are lucky and happen to come in on a day that they are hosting a wine tasting. Unfortunately, our timing is usually off, and we end up walking in just at the tail end of the tasting after most of the customers have left and the cheese plate has long since wilted. The shop’s proprietor, busy with other tasks at this point, will wave his hand across the multitude of open wine-stained bottles on the counter offering us to help ourselves to whatever is leftover. We keep meaning to actually go to a tasting at the scheduled time one of these days. But, until we are able to drum up the foresight and planning that that would entail, we’ll continue to happily sip on the leftover dregs.

A couple of weeks ago, the wine shop featured wines from Maryhill Winery in Glendale, Washington. I overhead someone say that the customers were most enthusiastic about Maryhill’s 2004 Sangiovese so I made a point of sampling that one. Maryhill Winery is one of a small, but growing, number of Washington wineries producing Sangiovese. Sangiovese, of course, is the most widely planted grape in Italy and is responsible for such famous Italian wines as Chianti and Brunello. Although Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are still the most famous Washington reds, lesser known grapes, such as Sangiovese and Grenache, are beginning to make their mark here. In fact, although Maryhill Winery produces its fair share of the big name reds, it claims to focus more of its efforts on producing excellent Syrah and Sangiovese.

Last night, I served Maryhill Winery’s 2004 Sangiovese with pizza. Not a real creative match, but what can I say? Sangiovese is made for tomato-based dishes such as pizza. Since I didn’t want to overpower the wine, I kept my pizza very simple. I topped it with crushed tomatoes, sliced Sungold CSA tomatoes, purple basil and fresh mozzarella. It was a wonderful match! The sweet tomatoes and soft spiciness of the basil went beautifully with the fruity, spicy wine. Unlike many of the Italian Sangioveses I’ve tried, the Maryhill Sangiovese is not very acidic. It has enough acidity to be a good match with food but isn’t tart like some Italian wines can be (perhaps this is the Washington influence!) Robert impressed/annoyed me by completely nailing the description of this wine after just one sniff. “Cherry and cinnamon,” he shouts out. What does the wine label say about this wine? Flavors of cherry and cinnamon! And he claims to have a terrible sense of smell. I’m not buying it. Meanwhile, my idiot palate told me nothing except that the wine I was drinking was delicious and certainly worth seeking out.

We had a big, quasi-Mexican feast at my parents’ house yesterday. My mom made pulled pork with mole for the meat-eaters and also black beans and grilled polenta cakes (which falls under the “quasi” part of quasi-Mexican.) My sister made a spicy Southwestern green bean salad and brought over some fresh farmer’s market corn. My contribution to the meal included a Mexican Shrimp Cocktail, Cucumber Agua Fresca (still trying to use up those CSA cucumbers!) and Chocolate Beet Cake which we attempted tie into our Mexican theme by drizzling with a spicy raspberry-chili sauce but that, as you can see from the photo, ended up looking like a most patriotic, all-American dessert instead.

Now, you may be thinking, “Beets? In a cake? No way!” Yes, it sounds odd at first, but we use zucchini and carrots all the time in breads and cakes. So, why not beets? They are actually a perfect ingredient for a cake. Beets are naturally sweet, and, like zucchini and carrots, they produce a very moist cake. They are also an ideal match for chocolate as both are rich and dark and take well to sweet spices such as cinnamon and ginger. Plus, even though the cake cooks to a normal, chocolaty brown, the bright fuchsia color of the uncooked batter makes it fun to make (a good one for the kids to help out with.) And, the whopping 1.5 cups of pureed beets called for in the recipe makes this cake downright good for you!

Another bonus is that this cake is extremely easy to put together. The hardest part is keeping the kitchen clean while pureeing the beets (beware of those bubbles that form in the blender which can cause beet puree to explode everywhere. I ended up getting beet spatter on my face. It looked like something straight out of C.S.I.!) I made a couple of small changes to the recipe as written. I didn’t have any unsweetened chocolate on hand so I used a very dark chocolate instead and then reduced the sugar to 1 cup. This is probably more of a reduction than I needed to make to compensate for the sweeter chocolate, but I tend to like things on the less sweet side. I also substituted half of the oil with applesauce. I swear I’m not some sort of health nut, but the applesauce trick really does work, and it is an easy way to make your cakes a tiny bit less guilt-inducing. I skipped frosting the cake and, as mentioned, topped it with raspberry sauce and whipped cream instead which was perfect. Robert and I ate leftover cake with fresh berries for breakfast this morning, and it was delicious!