We wanted to get a really early start on our hike last Sunday so Robert and I decided to spend Saturday night in Leavenworth. Leavenworth is located on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, about 100 miles east of Seattle. It also happens to be situated 11 short miles away from the trailhead to Lake Caroline making it an ideal stopover location. For those of you that don’t already know, Leavenworth is not your average town. It is a full-fledged Bavarian village! Every single building in Leavenworth is outfitted with Bavarian touches, even the gas stations and the supermarkets. Some people might call it a cheesy tourist trap, but I like it. My grandparents lived there for many years so we used to visit all the time. I had lots of fun in Leavenworth as a kid. Bavarian-styled buildings and kitschy toy and gift shops – what child wouldn’t love it? It was like our little Disneyland (minus the rides.) Although it is much bigger now, and many of the kitschy shops have been replaced with upscale wine tasting rooms, Leavenworth is pretty much exactly as I remember it.

After an amazingly traffic-free drive down Highway 2 on Saturday afternoon, we arrived in Leavenworth famished! We immediately headed down to München Haus, a classic Leavenworth eatery where I knew I could get my hands on the one thing that I was craving: sauerkraut. Hey, this is a Bavarian village after all! München Haus is located right in the heart of downtown Leavenworth. It is less of a restaurant, and more of a glorified beer garden (or is that biergarten?) Communal picnic tables are arranged around a small courtyard where bands sometimes play. The restaurant is primarily outdoors, although most of the seating is covered by roofing or large umbrellas which provide much needed relief from the hot sun (or snow, depending on the season; in the winter there is also a big open fireplace in the courtyard to keep everybody warm – sounds cozy!)

München Haus specializes in one thing: bratwurst! They have a wide variety of brats to choose from including standards such as kielbasa and knackwurst, as well as more unusual fare like curry wurst and vegetarian wurst. You order and pay for your brat at a window and then grab a seat in the seating area and wait for your order to come up. Beer and wine is sold at another counter and, since this is Washington State, they feature plenty of local brews and wines in addition to the expected German imports. All brats are cooked to order on an open grill. München Haus is a very busy place, and I’m fairly certain that this has something to do with the aroma coming off that grill. It is pretty hard to resist. It may also be because München Haus’ food is relatively cheap. Our two brats came to $11.

Robert had the München Haus Beer Brat, an all-pork bratwurst boiled in beer. I ordered the vegetarian wurst. I really didn’t expect much from my wurst but, since I was in it mainly for the sauerkraut anyway, I wasn’t too concerned. Boy was I surprised! München Haus’ vegetarian wurst was amazing. It was spicy and flavorful, with plenty of delicious caraway seeds sprinkled throughout the “meat.” But, best of all, it was somehow actually juicy. Vegetarian meat substitutes have gotten better over time, but the one thing they are never able to imitate is the juiciness you get with a piece of meat. Not so here. I don’t know if München Haus just slathers it with grease before grilling or what, but it was great. I think Robert was even a little jealous. Topped with a smoky porter mustard (one of about 30 different mustard offerings,) horseradish, chopped onion and München Haus’ famous apple cider sauerkraut, this vegetarian wurst made me one happy camper (for that night at least – the next night, of course, I was fated to become one truly unhappy camper!) We washed our brats down with München Haus’ house brew: Alpine Brewing Company’s Marzen Amber. After dinner, we did a little shopping, cooled off with some huckleberry ice cream in a waffle cone, watched Bavarian music in the park and grabbed an Icicle Ale at Gustav’s before heading back to our hotel.

Robert and I just got back from our first backpacking trip of the season. We headed up to Lake Caroline in the Wenatchee National Forest. I wish I could say we had a great time, but, unfortunately, the mosquitoes had made it their goal to cause us misery. I have never seen such ruthless bugs! They were so bad at Lake Caroline that we decided to climb higher and higher into the mountains, hoping to find a windier, bug-free spot. No luck. We found wind and colder temperatures, but just as many mosquitoes. Even our 100% DEET wasn’t enough to keep them at bay. We ended up packing our things early the next morning and heading home, a day earlier than expected. Oh well, things can’t always be perfect. That’s the risk you take when you go into the backcountry. Robert and I have really good luck with backpacking up until now so we were probably due for a less than ideal trip.

At least, this trip afforded me the opportunity to try out a new backpacking recipe. This time I made “Alpine Peanut Noodles.” This recipes features angel hair pasta and my signature dehydrated broccoli in a spicy Asian peanut sauce. Black sesame seeds add an exotic touch - a little bit of gourmet while you’re out in the mountains! Weighing in at 12 ounces, this meal is bit heavier than I prefer for backpacking. After the exhaustive climb we did on Sunday, I am more motivated than ever to make my meals as lightweight as possible (without having to resort to commercial, freeze-dried camping dinners - blech!) That said, my Alpine Peanut Noodles were worth the extra weight. They were spicy and filling, just what you need after a long, hard day of hiking. It’s just too bad we couldn’t enjoy the meal thanks to the swarms of mosquitoes making a meal out of us!

Click here for my Alpine Peanut Noodles recipe >>

I’m still getting a lot of green stuff in my weekly CSA box. A couple of weeks ago it was spinach and lettuce and green onions. Now it’s snap peas and shelling peas and even more spinach! I had some spinach leftover from last week’s box so I cooked it up and used it to make spinach fettuccine. Then, when this week’s box came loaded up, once again, with spinach, I decided to make a spinach pesto to serve with my spinach pasta. That may be spinach overkill but I had to use it up somehow. Plus, I probably need the iron. I decided to go whole hog and make it an entirely green meal by serving my double-spinach pasta with herbed mahi mahi and a green salad with fresh peas.

With my winesday menu thus determined, I needed to find a good wine to serve with it. What wines are good with pesto? A whole variety it turns out. Of course, any wine from pesto’s homeland of Liguria would be an excellent match (although I’m sure people from Liguria would balk at my basil-free spinach pesto.) Some people recommend choosing a grassy, herbaceous Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris in keeping with the herbal nature of pesto. Others believe that any white, as long as it isn’t oaky or sweet, will be a good match for pesto. Still others feel that the aggressive flavors of the garlic and parmesan cheese in pesto makes it an ideal match for a medium or even a full bodied red.

A couple of people online recommended serving pesto with a white wine called Gavi. Almost immediately upon walking into my wine shop, I spotted a Gavi. It was serendipity. Clearly, I was meant to serve this Gavi with my uber-green meal. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find too much information about Gavi so I don’t have much to share other than that it comes from the Piedmont region of Italy and is made primarily from the Cortese grape. It is also known for being one Italy’s premier whites (often with a price tag to match.) The Gavi that I bought, Tre Donne 2006 Gavi, is made in a small winery run by three sisters in the Langhe area of Italy. The man at the wine shop described it as having “nice, clean fruit.”

The wine and meal proved to be a really great match. My spinach pesto was not overly garlicky so the delicate Gavi was not overwhelmed in any way. The wine was lovely. It had a light yellow color and a citrusy, ever so slightly floral aroma. Robert also detected something outdoorsy in the nose, like pine but not actually pine. Interestingly enough, the flavor reminded me of retsina but without any of retsina’s distinctive pine flavor. It was lemony but not overly tart; just bright and fresh tasting. A perfect summertime wine!

Besides ice cream, one of my favorite things in Seattle right now is the Grilled Sardine Sandwich en Baguette at Cafe Presse. I’ve expressed my love of oily fish before on this blog, and sardines are among the best of this group. Sadly, none of the fishmongers here seem to ever sell fresh sardines. Canned sardines are good, but nothing beats a grilled or pickled fresh sardine. Hopefully, if the new trend towards eating lower on the seafood chain holds up, we will begin to see more of these kinds of fish in the shops. I would absolutely love to be able to walk down to Pike Place Market and pick up some fresh sardines or anchovies. Until that happens, I will continue to content myself with Cafe Presse’s delectable sardine sandwich.

A mere $5, gets you a crusty, chewy baguette filled with crisp butter lettuce, vinaigrette and mayonnaise, and two plump sardines, their beautiful, shimmering silver skin charred to perfection. If you are squeamish at all, don’t worry. Their heads and tails have been removed; you’ll only have to contend with a vertebral column or two. The baguette is guaranteed to tear your mouth apart, and the sandwich drips everywhere, but it is so worth it. The sardine sandwich comes with just a few cornichon on the side but, if you desire a more filling meal, a large bowl of frites only costs $4. When we go to Presse for breakfast, which we do frequently, I almost always order the sardine sandwich. Yes, that’s right, for breakfast - I like to get my omega 3’s in early in the day! They’re good for your brain!

Move over gelato, ice cream is back! There is a huge ice cream renaissance happening in Seattle right now. People have been raving about Molly Moon’s in Wallingford ever since it opened in May. With such unusual and tempting flavors as Balsamic Strawberry, Cardamom and Salted Caramel, it’s no wonder why. Full Tilt Ice Cream, which just opened for business a couple of weeks ago, is definitely on my to do list. How can you go wrong with pinball, ice cream and Mexican popsicles? I don’t even know what a Mexican popsicle is but I know that I must have this summer. My only problem with Full Tilt is, how on earth do they expect me to choose between Mango Chili and Blackberry Cinnamon? I guess I’ll just have to order a scoop of each!

Robert and I are lucky enough to have our very own neighborhood source of ice cream awesomeness: Half Pint Ice Cream. The gal that runs the show is sweet as can be. She comes up with some great flavors and makes every attempt to incorporate sustainable and local ingredients into her ice cream. Although, Half Pint doesn’t have a permanent location in the hood, you can find her selling ice cream at the Capitol Hill Farmer’s Market every Sunday morning (she is also at the Lake City Farmer’s Market on Thursdays from 3 – 7 pm.) Get there early because this ice cream goes quickly.

Four different flavors of ice cream are offered each week. Classics such as Rocky Road and Mocha Almond (featuring coffee beans from Victrola) are offset by slightly more unusual offerings like Chai Vanilla and Mexican Chili Chocolate. I really lucked out on opening day of the farmer’s market. Toasted Coconut, one of my all-time favorite ice cream flavors, was on tap that week. I took a pint home and savored its creamy coconut goodness over the following days (okay, it might have taken me more like a day and a half to polish it off.) This week, although tempted by another personal favorite – Pistachio – I ended up being won over by the Lemon Basil Sorbet. As was everyone else it turns out. Each person in line with me, after tasting a sample of the sorbet, immediately proceeded to order a scoop or two. Not for the faint of heart, this sorbet has a very intense, tart lemon flavor. Every once once a while you even come across a delicious little piece of lemon zest to chew on. The basil flavor, while not overly pronounced, adds a nice refreshing quality to the sorbet. Yum! I might need to make it my goal to become an ice cream connoisseur this summer.