Wright Eats

It turns out that, yes, it is entirely possible to spend just 24 hours in the San Juan Islands and feel like you’ve had a grand getaway.  At least it felt like this to us, parents with some unexpected vacation time and a babysitter for one night.  We considered a whirlwind food trip to Portland, or maybe a nearby overnight to Whidbey.  But we realized that a journey to Orcas Island takes as much time as a trip to Portland, and spending an hour on one of the most beautiful ferry rides in Washington state is infinitely better than time spent in I-5 traffic.

A fire hydrant in the town of Eastsound, on Orcas Island.

Complete the picture with an evening at Lisa Nakamura’s new restaurant Allium.  Add sunshine blue skies, while Seattleites are complaining about rain ruining their Independence Day weekend (the San Juan Islands are in the rain shadow, after all), and you have the perfect start to a summer holiday weekend.

Islanders were saddened when their beloved Christina’s Restaurant closed in March after 30 years in business.  Lisa, then chef de cuisine at The Herbfarm, heard that the space was available.  She had already been dreaming of opening her own place, so two months later, Allium was born.

Daisies; the stairs leading up to the restaurant; Allium’s entrance next to Fishing Bay, in the center of Eastsound.

Bubbly, in celebration of this mom and dad’s first night away since baby was born!; the bar at Allium; the daily gnocchi, with Lopez Island beef tongue.

We walked in and settled ourselves into our reserved table overlooking Fishing Bay.  While we hadn’t had a bite of food yet, it took us about ten seconds looking at the menu to decide that there was no way we were leaving the island without a return visit to Allium the next day.  With just a day on the island, this would mean lunch before heading out on the ferry home.  Luckily, since the gnocchi is a mainstay on the menu (with an ever-changing daily preparation), I could set aside my gnocchi craving for the moment and focus on the rest of the menu.

We instead shared a refreshing fresh pea soup livened with flecks of dill, along with Oregon blue cheese brioche “pizza” with bacon and mango relish.  I wanted about five plates more of that brioche, but really, it was just the right size (as states Keller’s law of diminishing returns).

Did I mention the bread basket?  The flaky, warm buttery biscuits and herbed focaccia alone are worth the trip to the island.  Since the bread stands nicely on its own, the accompanying caramelized onion marmalade almost seems superfluous.  Until you taste it.  I was tempted to eat this marmalade straight out my spoon.  Ok, I might have done just that.

Coq au vin leg and roasted breast with smashed potato cakes; blue cheese brioche “pizza” with bacon and mango relish; inside the entrance to Allium.

Our entrees arrived next.  Let me preface this by saying I don’t typically order chicken at restaurants.  First, chicken is one of the easiest things to prepare at home, so why order in a restaurant?  Isn’t it a bit boring?  And second, I’m simply not a fan of chicken.  But I found myself cajoling Eric (who ironically loves chicken) into ordering it since our trusted friends Michael and Robin told us it’s amazing.

Indeed.  The coq au vin leg is served with a roasted breast, alongside smashed potato cakes and spring onions.  Remember what I said about not liking chicken much?  Can I just say this is hands down the best chicken I have ever eaten?

Our waitress had swayed us toward the Alaskan halibut in red curry cream when we couldn’t decide between that and the salmon (with morel cream!).  Her advice was well taken.  Not only was the fish perfectly moist and delicious with the curry, but the accompanying ginger risotto cakes were stellar.  I loved the crispy bits of rice on the edges, and the ginger complemented the curry nicely.

Beef goulash with sage spaetzel; the cheery dining room; a peek into the kitchen, with Lisa hard at work.

Flowers along the road; twice-cooked pork shoulder sandwich with pickled onions; a white picket fence in Eastsound.

I hesitated when I heard the dessert special was shortcake.  Still remembering the amazing shortcake I’d eaten the week before, I was craving shortcake.  But I knew it couldn’t match up to Rowley’s version.  It was a close second in my book, however, with first-of-season local strawberries and a thick strawberry sauce underneath, intensifying their flavor.

Chocolate puddin’ cake with Bourbon sauce was gooey and rich, like a brownie with pudding inside, a perfect dessert for chocolate lovers.

Angel food cake with a Nootka rose-strawberry Bavarian cream; Chocolate puddin’ cake with Bourbon sauce; outside on the deck.

Did you think we were done?  For that night, yes, but we were already thinking about lunch as we left.

The deck is a lovely place to sit for lunch.  Overlooking the water, with a cool breeze, there are sunny seats for those who want to soak it in, and plenty of umbrella shade for the others.  Bartender Paula suggested we start with her daily special cocktail, a Mojito made with Malibu rum and well-paired with the sunshine.

We first split the gnocchi with Lopez Island beef tongue and truffle oil.  Soft pillows of potato and a rich sauce?  This was exactly as my taste-craving imagined.  The plate went back to the kitchen without a speck of sauce after we’d sopped it up with the house made focaccia.

The twice-cooked pork shoulder sandwich came with pickled onions.  While I loved the tenderness of the meat, I wished that the onions weren’t together on one side of the sandwich, since they were not well-integrated with each bite of pork.  A small quibble, though.

A field of foxglove; Mango cheesecake semifreddo with orange Lilikoi; sunshine on Allium’s deck.

Ok, yes, it would be frowned on in Italy if you ordered gnocchi for your first course and pasta for your second course, but if I had it my way, I would order pasta for every course.  The spaetzel was done just the way it should be, with crunchy bits here and there and a toothsome chew to the noodle.  Lisa’s time at The Herbfarm was evident in this and a number of other dishes, with sage in the spaetzel and hints of dill in the beef goulash.

Being undecided on dessert, we ordered two.  You know, in the name of research and all.  Um.  Anyway…  The angel food cake featured the same local strawberries that graced the shortcake and came with a molded Bavarian cream made of Nootka rose petals picked down the street.  That and the mango cheesecake semifreddo disappeared all too quickly as we traded bites, scheming already about our next trip to Orcas.

A sweet ending in celebration of July 4th arrived with the check.

Allium
310 Main St, Eastsound, WA
(360) 376-4904

The three of us headed to the Skagit Valley on Saturday for the ultimate strawberry picking event.  Jon Rowley, the man who was named the “Disciple of Flavor” by Saveur magazine, organized this second annual field trip north to show us where the sweetest variety of local strawberries are grown.  This is the same man who introduced Copper River salmon to the lower 48 states and who is well-known as our local oyster expert.

Shuksan strawberries

My first taste of a Shuksan strawberry was last year, when our friend Lorna shared with us some of her harvest from her day of strawberry picking with Jon.  These large glossy berries are a beautiful red color all the way through the center, unlike your typical white grocery store strawberry.  And they are the sweetest berries I have ever tasted.

They have a brief shelf life, deteriorating in only 24 hours, so they are difficult to stock in stores.  However, for a very limited time, lucky Seattleites can find Skagit Sun’s Shuksans at Whole Foods (Roosevelt Square, Interbay, and Westlake) and Metropolitan Markets (Queen Anne, Sandpoint, and Kirkland).  Shuksan season only lasts for about three weeks.

Jon Rowley helps Mike cut strawberries for shortcake; fifth-generation farmer Chris McKnight; kids and adults listening to Chris talk about the farm

First pick of this strawberry field at Thulen Farm

Sixty of us met at Thulen Farm in La Conner to pick the first of the season berries.  Fifth-generation farmer Chris McKnight first talked to us about how they grow strawberries at his farm, a very small operation.  He said that the Shuksan plants are in very high demand, and they have to purchase new plants to keep the berries growing strong.  He pointed out a sparse field behind us where the plants were four years old and barely producing fruit.

He then had us grab empty flats and showed us to the field, where the Shuksan berries were hanging heavy under a canopy of green.  In no time, everyone had filled their flats to the brim with the brilliant red berries and stained their lips bright red, babies included.

Empty flats waiting for picking; Dawn in the field; unpicked Shuksans

 
Devouring a strawberry; strawberries awaiting jam and shortcake; Eric and Ian picking together

Strawberry face

As if we hadn’t eaten enough berries in the field (pick one, eat one), next up was a side-by-side strawberry tasting of five varieties.  The Shuksans and the Hood strawberries were our favorites, although we also enjoyed the Puget Reliance, which reminded Eric of the berries from his childhood.

Kids lined up immediately when Jon started handing out heaping plates of shortcake.  They waited patiently as the architectural masterpieces were assembled: half a biscuit, a spoonful of whipped cream, a heap of berries, the other half of the biscuit, more berries, another spoonful of whipped cream, and finally a few artfully placed berries with a drizzle of juice on top.  And before Jon handed the plate over, he asked each kid if they would be able to eat the whole plate of shortcake.  They nodded solemnly with hands outstretched, and carried it away with a smile.  There wasn’t a speck of shortcake left on those plates.

Jon Rowley hands out huge plates of shortcake to the kids, who devoured every bit

Anticipating shortcake

Licking the fork clean; I want more berries!

We spent that afternoon hulling and processing all those berries (remember that 24 hour shelf life?).  I churned a batch of my favorite strawberry frozen yogurt, and finished the first step in my three-day strawberry balsamic Ferber jam.  In the morning, we made blintz soufflés with strawberries, which were so yummy that we plan to make them again this weekend.  We also assembled our own architectural masterpiece of shortcake, using David Lebovitz’s three-seed shortcake biscuits.  Those seeds add just the perfect crunch and texture.

For the remaining few pints, I tried a recipe for pickled strawberries that my friends Michael and Robin had recommended to me.  I recommend you do the same.  Sweet and tangy, with a touch of spice, they are a unique way to preserve the sweetness of summer in a jar.

Spiced Pickled Strawberries
Adapted from The Complete Book of Pickling, by Jennifer MacKenzie

6 pints strawberries, hulled (preferably small and under-ripe)
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
? teaspoon ground allspice
2 cups cider vinegar

Puncture strawberries with fork tines and cut any large ones in half.

Combine remaining ingredients together in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar and salt are dissolved.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.  Pour over prepared berries.

Cover berries and let stand at a cool room temperature for at least six hours or overnight.

Prepare canner or water bath, jars and lids.

Re-heat berries, gently stirring occasionally until strawberries are heated through but still hold their shape.

Gently spoon strawberries and hot pickling liquid into hot jars, leaving ½ inch head space.  Remove air bubbles and adjust head space as necessary by adding hot pickling liquid.  Wipe rim and place hot lid on jar, screwing band down until fingertip-tight.

Place jars in canner and return to a boil.  Process for ten minutes.

Turn off heat, remove canner lid and let jars stand in hot water for an additional five minutes.

Transfer jars to a towel-lined surface or a cooling rack and let stand undisturbed until completely cool, about 24 hours.  Check lids and refrigerate any jars that are not sealed.

. . . . .

The pickled strawberries are lovely on their own, but here are some other tasty ideas from folks on twitter:

• @mbruchas: Blue cheese and pickled strawberries tossed with summer greens, or pickled strawberries on ice cream
• @tanukipdx: Chopped chicken liver with whipped ricotta and pickled strawberries on grilled bread
• @jessamyntuttle: Salmon with pickled strawberries
• @hhlodesign: Foie gras with pickled strawberries
• @voraciousgirl: A salad with pine nuts, feta, and pickled strawberries

We were reminiscing about our croissant taste-off last year, when a ridiculous plan was hatched and quickly spun out of control.  Doughnuts.  Let’s see where the well-known favorites stack up against Seattle’s mom and pop shops.

We retrieved doughnuts from all ends of the city and convened on Father’s Day morning for a taste-off of epic proportions.  If you thought four dozen croissants was excessive, try eleven dozen doughnuts in the same room.  Perhaps it was an ambitious plan.

The Contenders

Family Donut Shop.  An unassuming strip mall shop in the Northgate area is where those in the know stop for their sugar-rush, whether it’s a fritter, cruller, or a basic raised.

Frost Doughnuts.  Open for less than a year, this is the youngest doughnut shop in our taste-off, offering sophisticated creations out of their boutique shop in Mill Creek.  The shop is so popular that they are rumored to be looking for a second location closer to Seattle.

King Donuts.  They sell teriyaki and doughnuts next to a Maytag Laundromat in Rainier Beach.  Needless to say, we were curious to see what kind of doughnuts are baked in a place like this.  Teriyaki doughnuts while you wait for your last load to finish spinning?

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.  The Original Glazed Krispy Kreme was popular across the country before they opened three stores in the Seattle area, including the SODO location where we picked up fresh glazed doughnuts for our taste-off.

Mighty-O Donuts.  Organic vegan doughnuts might make you imagine a tofu ring covered in glaze, but you would be hard-pressed to identify their doughnut as vegan in a line-up.  While the bakery is situated in Wallingford, you can also find these doughnuts in high-end area grocery stores like Whole Foods and Madison Market.

Original Bakery.  Open for decades, this neighborhood favorite in West Seattle is our oldest taste-off contender.  They sell no-frills doughnuts and other home style bakery items to go with your coffee at this friendly family-owned shop.

Top Pot Doughnuts.  Top Pot’s “hand-forged” doughnuts are in such demand that they’ve now got six brick-and-mortar shops, along with an Airstream mobile unit, plus a presence at our own Qwest field and in Starbucks across the country.  The doughnuts for this taste-off came from their original location in north Capitol Hill.

Lara Ferroni’s homemade doughnuts.  How do homemade doughnuts stack up against the very best doughnut shops in Seattle?  Lara made us a few batches from her soon-to-be-published Doughnuts cookbook, which is scheduled to hit bookstores this fall.  No fancy, professional bakery equipment here; just a stovetop pot and thermometer.  We should note for our taste test that only two of the twelve people judging knew that there were homemade doughnuts in the mix, so the doughnuts were judged as if they were from a professional bakery.

The Judges

Six couples, three kids, two babies, plus one on the way gathered after some self-imposed carb fasting.  Those with voting rights were our hosts Kye Soon Hong and Eric Vigessa, along with Catherine Reynolds and Ken O’Hara, Laurie and Matthew Amster-Burton, Rebekah Denn and David Dickey, Michael and Robin Bruchas, plus yours truly.

Revealing the results

The Ranking Method

This was a blind taste taste, with an arbitrary letter assigned to each doughnut for identification.  Each person independently stack ranked them, from their most to least favorite.

A doughnut was given one point when it was the top of someone’s list, a second choice doughnut received two points, all the way on down the list.  So if there are seven doughnuts, the best possible score is 12 (i.e. when everyone ranks it top on their list) and the worst possible score is 84 (all twelve people rank it 7th on their list).

The Categories

We decided that the only way to make a fair comparison between shops was to compare the same kind of doughnut from each place.  However, it was tough to whittle the playing field so that we could avoid each person having to eat dozens of different doughnuts on a single morning. (I know, you’re asking, how is that a bad thing?)

To focus our attention on the doughnut recipe, we stuck with the quintessential plain cake and glazed raised doughnuts as our categories.  This meant we’d only have to try around a dozen different doughnuts, which should be no problem, right?

But then we got tempted by all of the other doughnut possibilities.  Apple fritter?  Buttermilk bar?  Bismark?  How could we ignore each doughnut shop’s specialty?  In the end, we decided a third category might be disastrous, but we would allow a specialty doughnut flavor from each shop, which people could taste, but these doughnuts would not be part of the judging.

The Plain Cake Doughnut

A plain cake might not be the doughnut that you choose when you’re distracted by chocolate, maple glaze, sprinkles, and jelly.  But it’s an important doughnut because it tells you a lot about the bakery.  What is the flavor of the oil they use for frying?  Is the cake dense or light?  What kind of crumb?  Is it fried with a crunchy or soft exterior?

And besides, sometimes a plain doughnut is all that will do for dunking into your coffee.  And in case you’re wondering, no, Dunkin’ Donuts was not a participant in our taste-off, since they closed all west coast outposts a couple years ago.  Krispy Kreme was the only one of our contenders that didn’t participate in this category, because let’s be real here: which doughnut do you buy when you go to Krispy Kreme?

	7th place: A majority ranked Mighty-O’s doughnut dead last, due to the off-flavor (excessive baking soda and the taste of corn oil?) and lack of crunch to the crust.  With a uniform texture throughout, it was uninteresting and bland, garnering a score of 74.
	6th place: Top Pot was all over the map, landing everywhere except in the number one spot on the stack rankings.  But the median score was 5, giving it an overall rating of 53.  The texture on this doughnut was bready with no crunchy crust, and some felt that it was oily, with a strong nutmeg or clove flavor.
	5th place: With only a point advantage over 6th place (52), Frost had a score distribution similar to Top Pot.  This is a very sweet doughnut that seemed bland to some, and like Mighty-O and Top Pot, it had a soft exterior with no crunch.
	4th place: The rankings for Family Donut ran the gamut.  It might have placed better if it hadn’t been fried in slightly rancid old oil, since it was crunchy with a good open crumb.  Overall, it received a score of 48.
	3rd place: Homemade doughnuts did well in our taste-test, yielding two first-place votes and an overall score of 46.  The crust was crisp, which was an important criteria for most in the cake category, and there was a good crumb with a subtle nutmeg flavor.
	2nd place: The sweet, cakelike doughnut from King Donuts made it into the top two slots in half of our stack rankings.  Its score was 35.  The nutmeg was well balanced and while many liked the texture and crunch, a few felt that it was a bit too fluffy.
	1st place: Original Bakery was the clear winner with a majority voting the cake doughnut as their favorite.  The crunchy crust and light interior made this the perfect doughnut for many.  This doughnut had a slightly unique (some called it citrusy) flavor to it, unlike the customary nutmeg flavor.  Was it cinnamon?  However, there were a few who didn’t go for the non-traditional flavor of this doughnut, resulting in a score of 28.

Raised Glazed

Raised dough is a canvas for many people’s favorite doughnuts: jelly-filled, maple bars, bismarks, and the ever-classic raised glazed.

This category was harder to judge than the cake category.  A few people mentioned that they thought only the top few cake doughnuts were worth eating, whereas they would be happy eating any of the raised doughnuts, including the lower ranked ones.  The rankings here were based more on subtle nuances, although the highest ranked tended to be doughnuts that had an airy soft interior with a touch of crunch on the edges.

Mighty-O doesn’t make a raised glazed, so didn’t participate in this category, and we were unfortunately unable to include Top Pot’s ring for this tasting.  Next time.

	6th place: Homemade doughnuts did not fare as well in this round as in the previous round.  Raised doughnuts can be tricky to make without professional equipment like a proof box, and some felt that they tasted a bit yeasty and not as sweet as the others.  The overall score was 69.
	5th place: Half ranked the Frost Doughnut fifth on their stack ranking, but the rest placed it higher.  The resulting score of 44 put it marginally behind the next couple doughnuts.  This doughnut was more cakey than the higher ranked doughnuts, and some felt that it, too, was yeasty.
	4th place: With a very sweet dough, Krispy Kreme’s Original Glazed doughnut was no one’s favorite, rating an overall score of 42.  It was uniformly soft and had a shiny thick glaze.  And yes, our Krispy Kremes were eaten at room temperature, just like all the other doughnuts.
	3rd place: Family Donut had four first place votes, but the rest of the votes spanned the entire range, pulling it down to a score of 39.  This doughnut was fairly sweet and if it didn’t have a slight old-oil flavor similar to their raised, it might have placed higher.
	2nd place: Half of the people placed Original Bakery’s doughnut in their top two, and a couple said this was a clear winner above the rest.  This sweet doughnut had a strong nutmeg flavor and a bit of a crunch to the edges that people liked.  The overall rating was 35.
	1st place: The King Donut was far and away the favorite, with nearly everyone placing it into their top three, and five ranking it their favorite.  It came in with a score of 23.  The doughnut had a good all-around flavor and sweetness, plus a great soft texture.  With so many favoring this doughnut, it makes me wonder if their teriyaki is as good.

Specialty Doughnuts

As a way to showcase the best of each bakery, everyone brought in a specialty doughnut to taste.  The red velvet from Frost was beautiful and with cream cheese frosting to boot.  Mighty-O’s raspberry lemon poppy seed was soft and tangy.  Lara supplied cute sugared twists and doughnut holes that were the perfect small bites.  And we could see why the bismark from Original Bakery has a loyal following.

I even tried my own hand at doughnuts, using Lara’s German chocolate recipe, and for my first homemade doughnuts ever, I was pretty pleased with the results.  Since they were easy to make, and I saved the used fry oil in my fridge, I’d like to try her banana doughnuts next.  Or maybe the ricotta fritters.

Then there were the apple fritters.  Nobody knew who was bringing which specialty doughnuts, so we didn’t plan to have four different apple fritters.  But perhaps it shouldn’t be much of a surprise, with this being a classic favorite.  So we set up the plates for a spontaneous third taste-off.

Apple Fritter

One of our judges almost defected from her job when she heard that she would need to judge another round, but she rallied for the last four doughnuts.

There seemed to be two camps to the apple fritter lovers: some like the crunchy edges and others prefer the soft inside.  Since the fritters were each very different from one another, this resulted in voting being pretty scattered among the fritters, with one clear favorite.

	4th place: The fritter from Top Pot Doughnuts was very traditional-looking in shape, with quite a bit of soft interior and a thick coating of glaze.  The edges were somewhat crunchy, and several thought the whole thing was too sweet.  As with every doughnut in this category, the votes spanned the whole range, although the Top Pot fritter was last on half our rankings.  The overall score was 34.
	Tie for 2nd place: The two fritters taking second could not have looked and tasted more different from one another.  The one from King Donuts was a regular-shaped soft puffy square, with lots of apple bits, while the one from Frost Doughnuts was a crunchy maze of crazy-shaped dough drizzled with caramel.  Nearly everyone gave these two fritters a 2nd or 3rd place ranking, leaving them with a tied score of 31.
	1st place: The flattest fritter with the crunchiest edges was from Family Donut Shop.  This one was a deep caramel-colored brown, and preferred by a majority of our judges, coming in with a score of 24.

Our conclusion was that doughnut judging is a lot more difficult than croissants.  With so many variations on even the standard recipe, not to mention the toppings and flavors that we didn’t even touch, the type of doughnut you like and consider the “best” may very well be quite different from mine, or our judging here.

But we did discover two things.  One: there are a lot of good doughnuts hiding in nooks and crannies of this city, certainly more than we tasted on this morning.  Any suggestions for other favorites we should try?  And two: we will never again try to taste 22 different doughnuts in a single morning.

The carnage

What should we taste-test next?  Cupcakes?  Baguettes?

Crack buns.  Need I say more?  Nicknamed by Harvest Vine customers who are as enamored as I am with “Carolin’s Sweet Buns,” these buttery pastries truly are addictive.  They go fast, too.  The first time we visited the Harvest Vine for their new brunch, our server had to check with the kitchen to make sure there were any left for us.  Fortunately for us, we got the last two.  Fortunately for the people who walked in the door behind us, more were on their way into the oven.

 
Caracolillos: Carolin’s sweet buns with vanilla bean sugar

Made with hand-rolled croissant dough and crusted with vanilla bean sugar, they were a happy accident that came about while owner and pastry chef Carolin Messier was recipe testing this spring.  She was about to bake a batch of sweet buns and ran out of space on the baking sheet.  The only thing handy was a stack of ramekins, so she nestled the extra spirals of dough inside the ramekins and popped them into the oven.  It turns out these were the best croissant dough pastries she’d made yet.  The ramekin walls leave them slightly chewy around the edges, yet shatteringly flaky.

During her spring testing, Carolin also perfected her recipe for Mallorcan bread served with spaghetti squash preserves, and features it alongside other savory and sweet items on the new brunch menu.  Although the Harvest Vine has been open for more than a decade, this is the first brunch offering they’ve had.

With a baby now in tow, brunch was welcome news to us since it gives us a chance to go more often to a restaurant we love.  Carolin said we’re not the first parents to mention this – patrons she hasn’t seen in months, or even years, are bringing their young families in on Saturdays and Sundays.

Txistorra: Navarran style pork sausage

Piquillos Rellanos de Morcilla: Blood sausage inside Piquillo peppers

Huevos Flamencos: Baked eggs with asparagus, peas, chorizo, jamon, and fried tomato sauce.

Much of the menu is familiar from the dinner hour, including a favorite of ours, the txistorra sausage, bright red from the paprika inside and served with grilled bread alongside.  And while we usually enjoy the morcilla blood sausage at dinner, it was under seasoned on both of our brunch visits.  A plate full of dry-cured Serrano ham made up for that shortcoming, though.  The same jamon is featured inside one of their three bocadillos, which are Spanish-style sandwiches.

The highlight from the savory half of the menu is head chef Joey Serquinia’s creation, Huevos Flamencos.  These eggs are baked with peas and asparagus in the Harvest Vine’s famous (well, I think it should be famous) fried tomato sauce.  As you dig in you uncover the bits of jamon and tangy chorizo below.

Pork belly and peppers topped the other baked egg dish we liked.  While pork may be a more likely mainstay on the menu than the asparagus and peas, the entire menu changes with the seasonality of ingredients and the whim of the chef.  Still, with their popularity, I expect that the crack buns will stick around for a while.

The Harvest Vine
2701 East Madison, Seattle
(206) 320-9771

The shops and restaurants at the new triangular shaped Melrose Market in Capitol Hill have been slowly opening their doors.  It started with two retail neighbors in Ballard opening new locations inside this Melrose Avenue marketplace in the Pike-Pine corridor.  Sonic Boom Records and Velouria clothing boutique (which happens to be one of my favorite clothing stores) both set up shop in December.

Then a flower shop, Marigold & Mint, opened amid the construction at the beginning of April.  And by the end of the same month, two new neighbors appeared: the independent butcher Rain Shadow Meats along with cheesemongress Sheri Lavigne’s new shop Calf & Kid.

Rain Shadow Meats is owned by Russ Flint, recently sous chef of the Boat Street Cafe.  His counter has already become a popular destination for cooks looking to buy high quality local meats from a small neighborhood butcher.  In addition to cuts of meat, Flint sells cured and other prepared meats.  We picked up some lamb crépinette, bratwurst, and country-style pork terrine on our visit this weekend.  Flint has other products still curing, including pancetta and salami.

Across the way inside is Calf & Kid, where Lavigne is selling artisan cheeses that are near impossible to find elsewhere in Seattle.  Hers is only the second place where I’ve spotted the elusive Kurtwood Farms Dinah, a cheese named after one cow on Vashon Island.  And burrata, a luxuriously creamy mozzarella popular now on restaurant menus, is hard to come by retail.  We were torn between this and burricotta, a similar cheese made with ricotta instead of cream inside.  Fortunately, Lavigne plans to have both available regularly.

Marigold & Mint adds a spot of color to the construction still going on inside Melrose Market.  Katherine Anderson offers unusual organic flowers and edibles.  She has been selling her flowers wholesale from her Snoqualmie Valley farm for a couple years now, and this is her first retail location.

Local meat, artisan cheese, organic edible plants, music, and clothing – these alone should be enough to entice anyone serious about food and shopping to hightail their way over to Capitol Hill.  But then there are the restaurants, the first of which opened last week.  Matthew Dillon closed his tiny Eastlake strip-mall restaurant, Sitka & Spruce, at the end of last year, and finally reopened it in a stunning new space inside the Melrose Market.

Huge windows topped by gauzy curtains look onto a quiet (for Capitol Hill) dogwood-flowering street, and flood natural light inside during the evening service.  High stools look out and tables sit behind, but the focus of the restaurant is on the huge communal table in the center of it all.  The table merges seamlessly into the kitchen prep and plating station and ends at a beautiful wood oven, where Matt and his staff are focused on getting plates out, which they did with speed on Saturday.

We were prepared for a leisurely pace more akin to the Eastlake location, but our meal went quickly.  We ordered from the paper menus in front of us – sadly, the handwritten chalkboard menu is gone.  The highlight for us was the beautiful Juan de Fuca spot prawns with couscous, slow cooked greens, and crispy nan e lavash.  Hearth-cooked chicken was an alternate option that we simply wouldn’t have had room for after the other dishes we ordered: potted King salmon, preserved smelt, hand-sliced Serrano with pickled porcini, and garlicky poached chorizo.

Although the new location accommodates 15 more than the original 24 seat restaurant, the wait for a table is still long, at least during these initial days.  Fortunately, they now take reservations, something I always lamented wasn’t possible at the previous location.

While the restaurant is only open for dinner at the moment, this will change on June 15, when they switch to a breakfast, lunch, and dinner schedule seven days a week.  Brunch will be offered on weekends, and if it’s anything like The Corson Building’s brunch or the brunch I miss dearly from Eastlake, I suspect I will be driving over to Capitol Hill a little more often on weekend mornings.

More is planned for the Melrose Market.  Homegrown Sandwiches is opening their second location there this month; the Homegrown sign is already anchored outside.  And rumor has it that the owners of Ballard’s Bastille will eventually open a Mexican restaurant there.

Is Melrose Market our city’s answer to San Francisco’s Ferry Building?  Although the shops are fewer, the merchants here have equal emphasis on quality product at the small scale.  This little corner of Seattle is certain to become a destination for both locals and tourists alike.

Sitka & Spruce
1531 Melrose Avenue E #6, Seattle
(206) 324-0662

When we made our reservation for Delancey’s first “family dinner” last November, I was bummed that pizza was missing from the menu plan.  I mean, how can you go to a pizza place and not have the pizza?

As it turns out, I didn’t miss it at all.  Don’t get me wrong – I love Delancey’s pizza.  In fact, it’s my favorite in Seattle.  But that dinner was pretty darn amazing.  I don’t know which I liked more: the wood-fired mussels with crusty bread or the braised rabbit.  Mussels aren’t my favorite thing around, but wood-fired mussels from Delancey’s oven are a whole different story.  And that rabbit was the best I’ve ever eaten.  I wasn’t the only person that night who said so.

So I jumped at the opportunity to attend Delancey’s Seattle Beer Week event last week: a Chuckanut Brewery dinner.  And this time, there was even pizza!  It wasn’t hard to convince our friends Michael and Robin, ardent beer-lovers, to join in, despite their already-full week of planned beer events.  I will admit to being more of a wine than a beer person, so you’re better off jumping over to their recount of the dinner for info on the beers from the evening.

Chuckanut Brewery co-owner Mari Kemper (yes, the name behind Thomas Kemper sodas) and brewer Kevin Davey greeted us at the door handing out glasses of Kölsch, which we drank while slurping Kumomotos at the counter.  We sat down to family-style platters of burrata and prosciutto, along with braised fennel paired with a Pilsner, which was the favorite beer of the evening.  An entire platter of burrata?  Really?  It took all my willpower to take only one and pass the platter along.  I absolutely love the stuff.

A pile of glistening duck fat roasted potatoes arrived next, and I have to say, this was my favorite dish of the night.  And that’s saying something, coming from an avowed potato-phobe like me.  Finished with beer-vinegar, the potatoes were rich and a teeny bit tangy.

Asparagus soup followed.  This dish epitomizes the food served alongside the pizza each day at Delancey.  Local, seasonal, simple, and delicious.

We had the pleasure of sitting next to Ashley of Not Without Salt and her husband Gabe, along with Allecia and Seth, newly relocated to Seattle from Chicago (with a pause in San Francisco for a year).  Ashley told me what she was planning for her upcoming cooking classes, and left me wondering why I haven’t signed up for one yet.  Soon.

Allecia’s is a blog to watch.  As a former food writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, she already has the pulse on the Seattle food scene.  I’m definitely bookmarking her blog for my next Chicago and San Francisco trips.

After a long pause, the pizza (yes, pizza!) was up next.  The oven at Delancey can only handle a few pizzas at a time, so they trickle out slowly for dinners like these.  First, the cremini with house-made sausage, then the Brooklyn, a simple yet perfect three-cheese pizza, and finally the Pissaladiere, covered with beer-braised shallots plus salty anchovies and olives.  I devoured every slice and loved the Brooklyn the most.

I haven’t been to Delancey since Brandi Henderson, formerly of Tartine Bakery, started working as Delancey’s pastry chef.  This is regrettable because the chocolate stout cake for dessert this evening was memorable.  A year ago, you would not have found me espousing the merits of chocolate.  I’ve always been a fruit dessert kind of person, always passing over the token chocolate dessert on every menu.  I don’t understand why – after-baby hormones? too many samples of the quality stuff from Chocolopolis? – but something has converted me into a chocolate-lover.  And then there’s the whole thing about salt in desserts.  Lately, I’ve been buying chocolate bars with salt (LOVE the Fran’s Gray Salt Thins) and doubling the salt in my cookie recipes.  So Brandi’s cake, warm and gooey in the center, with a surprise sprinkling of salt hidden inside, all underneath a layer of stout anglaise, was just about perfect paired with a malty Alt beer.

Delancey
1415 NW 70th Street, Seattle
(206) 838-1960

One of our favorite Seattle restaurants closed at the end of last year, leaving an open space sandwiched between a Subway shop and a teriyaki place in a strip mall on Eastlake.  Sitka & Spruce will be reopening elsewhere, and its old space has been filled with Nettletown, a restaurant opened this month by Christina Choi and her partner Matt Dillon.

Years ago, Christina co-founded Foraged and Found Edibles, which is a frequent stop of ours at the U-District market for wild mushrooms, miner’s lettuce, nettles, fiddleheads, and especially huckleberries.  She is using these ingredients in her restaurant, making comfort food influenced by our local area and her Chinese and Swiss culinary heritage.  Nettletown is open for lunch and brunch only, although Christina plans to extend service to dinner in the future.

The interior hasn’t changed dramatically, but there have been a few updates.  Sitka’s yellow walls have been painted blue now, with a lovely mural depicting the forest floor, morel mushrooms and all.  And there is now seating at a new low-slung surface added to the formerly standing-room-only counter.

Old habits die hard.  When we walked in, it still had that familiar aura of Sitka & Spruce, so we waited politely to find out where they wanted us to sit, only to be reminded that they offer counter service at the front, and we could sit wherever we like.  I love this kind of casual way of serving “yummy food” (as the sub-title on their web site says).  It makes it feel easy to stop in for a bite.  I only wish service were a little speedier; the food took longer to reach the table than many full-service restaurants, in spite of the place being only half-full.

For weekend brunch, they have a few additional offerings beyond their “always available” menu.  We wanted to try the elk meatballs (also available in a sandwich), so ordered them as an add-on to eggs, potato onion cakes, and miner’s lettuce salad.  The greens were nicely dressed and a good complement to the potato cakes and perfectly poached eggs.  Lemongrass brightened the flavorful meatballs, and it was a generous portion for $4 additional.

Noodles catch my eye on any menu.  The Nettletown noodles looked exactly like the comfort food I was craving.  The egg noodles are served with pork ribs, wild mushrooms, scallions, and a tea egg, and reminded me of my favorite ramen dish at Samurai Noodle, sans broth.  But drawing the parallel led me to disappointment, since the noodles were bland, and the tea egg was nothing like the flavored egg served at Samurai.  Fortunately, the five spice ribs were marbled and delicious.  With a few tweaks, I think this would be an excellent dish.

The huckleberry cardamom bread pudding with yogurt whipped cream was a sweet finale to our brunch.  Warm and full of berries, it was my favorite item.

Dishes I want to try on my next visit include the Nettletown knoepfli (Swiss egg noodle dumplings), and the fried rice, which is only offered for weekend brunch and changes daily.

We noticed a number of people popping in to pick up take-out orders.  We are certainly going to take advantage of that in future, especially once they’re open for weeknight dinners.

Nettletown
2238 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle
(206) 588-3607

Walk through the farmer’s market at this time of year, and you’ll find fewer produce farmers and slimmer pickings.  Don’t get me wrong, we live in a great part of the country for growing food, and in the winter we still have beautiful greens, apples galore, winter squashes, and carrots to brighten up your bag.  But after eating Yet Another Apple, I start to long for summer days with more variety.

So I give props to chefs who are committed to using local foods year round and, in the middle of winter, still come up with diverse, interesting menus – especially a menu like Seth Caswell’s at the newly opened emmer&rye on Queen Anne hill.  During my visit there this past weekend, I was ready to order one of everything.  Lucky for me, the menu is designed so you can choose half or full sizes of nearly every plate (including dessert!), so with several friends, you really could order everything.

It’s a given that you will order the farro fries, which is destined to become the restaurant’s signature dish.  Farro is another name for emmer, and the namesake starter is crisp outside and creamy, cheesy goodness inside.  I’m now inspired to try making the farro fries recipe I came across in the most recent Edible Seattle, to see if I can come close to the same thing at home.

Highlights from the “small dishes” section of the menu were the roasted sunchokes and potatoes with truffle aioli, along with the cauliflower, mushroom, and greens salad.  These dishes were all about the ingredients, cooked simply to emphasize the best flavors of each vegetable.  On the other hand, the sausage on our crostini was dry, and the pork belly, while flavorful, fell a bit flat.  Our former-chef friend at the table commented that the dish needed some acid, and no, he had not read Seattle Magazine’s assessment of the same dish.

Our table’s universal favorite from the “large dishes” section was the orrechiette bolognese, which had the perfect ratio of pasta to flavorful beef sauce.  And every aspect of the goat crepinette dish was outstanding, from the herby goat, to the butternut gratin, to the trumpet mushrooms we were fighting over at the end.  My least favorite dish was the rabbit pappardelle, which just needs a few tweaks to make it great.  In our case, the rabbit was tasty, but the noodles were thick and undercooked, and the dish was swimming in too much liquid.

The best desserts we tried are the only two that aren’t available in a half size. But order both anyway.  The chocolate bourbon bread pudding is dense and perfect.  One person at our table who doesn’t even like bread pudding declared it delicious.  My favorite, though, was Gramma’s cheesecake with huckleberry sauce.  Light and tangy, it was lovely with the huckleberries, and all four spoons at our table made it disappear in a matter of minutes.  If you can only get one dessert, Get. The. Cheesecake.

Chef Seth Caswell opened emmer&rye quickly once he secured a lease on the former Julia’s restaurant.  I doubt anyone believed him when he said at the beginning of January that he’d be open by February 1 – you know how those things tend to go.  But he was better than his word, and the place is already packed each evening.  Reservations are recommended.

And it looks like there is more good stuff in store.  The Victorian building housing the restaurant has a lovely patio in front, which promises to be the perfect place for a summer meal on the hill.

And the emmer&rye web site hints at a forthcoming brunch.  I’m excited to see what Caswell has planned for the menu.  Anyone know when brunch service will begin?

emmer&rye
1825 Queen Anne Avenue North, Seattle
(206) 282-0680

As you walk through the glass-paneled wood doors, you pass below an ornate sign resembling the one hung over sister restaurant Peso’s Kitchen & Lounge next door. This sign, however, is laced with the curves of New Orleans style wrought iron, and reads “Toulouse.”

Inspired by the French Quarter, Toulouse Petit opened in lower Queen Anne in November and has been packing in crowds ever since.

On a recent spring-like January morning, sunlight streamed in through the wall of paneled windows, reflecting a warm glow off the mottled walls inside. The mosaic tile floor, blown-glass amber lamps hung from above, and wrought iron fixtures made it seem like we’d just walked into a Bourbon Street bar. Although the upholstered, tall-back chairs and velvet booths were all occupied, the open space on this bright Seattle day made it seem lightly busy and gave it a casual laid-back feel.

Another mom and I were there with babies in tow for Toulouse Petit’s Breakfast Happy Hour. On weekday mornings through the end of January, almost everything on the menu is $5 (with only a couple exceptions, like the Rib Eye Steak and Eggs, which is $10). In February, the price goes up to $6 an item.

They offer an ambitious menu, whether you’re there for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Even the happy hour menu (4:30-6 p.m. and 10 p.m.-1 a.m.) lists dozens of items, many for around $5. The breakfast menu includes beignets, crawfish etouffee with corn grits, red beans and andouille with eggs, bananas foster pancakes, and more than a handful of different eggs benedicts.

Portion sizes are not huge. I was hungry that morning, and with the lure of $5 price tags, I ordered two plates and ate nearly all of both.

Biscuits and spicy Creole sausage gravy came with two eggs any style. Biscuits and gravy is often a heavy, dense dish, but these biscuits were small and the gravy, while tasty, was applied with a light touch. The breakfast potatoes served alongside were crispy and nicely seasoned.

The crème caramel pain perdu is served with pecan butter, maple syrup, and strawberries.  The bread was thick and custardy with a crisp coating, and as insanely sweet as it sounds.

With such extensive offerings, you’d have to live down the block to make any kind of appreciable dent in the menu. But for the happy hour price, breakfast is more than worthwhile, so I expect I’ll be back soon to explore the menu further.

Toulouse Petit
601 Queen Anne Avenue N, Seattle
(206) 432-9069

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an unstoppable sweet tooth. I never say no to a good dessert. So, a year ago when we held our first tamalada and I consulted my co-worker Janete about what I should make, I was intrigued and excited to hear about dessert tamales. I’ve had plenty of chicken, pork, cheese, and other savory tamales, but sweet tamales were news to me. I adapted a recipe from one I found online, and they ended up being my favorite tamales of the night.

So for our second tamalada last week, I came armed and ready with the ingredients for more sweet tamales. After we finished wrapping the savory tamales for dinner (spicy mushroom, chorizo, Mexican collard greens, duck confit with salsa verde, roasted poblano with queso fresco, and smoky pheasant), we set them to steam and got to work on dessert, with our orange margaritas in hand.

Sweet tamales are made using the same method as savory tamales, by spreading the masa batter across a corn husk or banana leaf, adding the filling, and then closing the husk or leaf and tying it shut. See our post from last year for the savory recipe. The difference is that sweet tamal masa is made without the savory components like chicken stock, and instead, a sweet liquid like juice, or in my case coconut milk, is used to moisten the batter. With some sugar, cinnamon, and butter, you have the perfect vehicle for some rum-soaked raisins in the middle, and a sweet ending to a tamalada.

Sweet Tamales
Makes about 18 tamales

Corn husks
½ cup rum
½ cup dark raisins
½ cup golden raisins
5 ounces shortening
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup sugar
1 pound fresh masa
¾ cup coconut milk
½ cup butter, softened

Soak the corn husks in very hot water for a hour or so, until pliable. Drain.

Put the rum and both kinds of raisins into a small saucepan. Heat just until it comes to a boil, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.

With a stand mixer, beat the shortening, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon until light in texture, about one minute. Add the sugar and half the masa, and beat for 3 minutes. Add the last half of the masa, and beat for 3 minutes. Reduce speed, add the coconut milk, and then beat for another 4 minutes. Add the butter, and beat for 4 more minutes.

Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the masa batter into the center of a corn husk, and spread it with the back of the spoon. Add about a teaspoon of raisins in the middle. Fold in the sides, fold up the bottom of the husk, and tie.

Steam the tamales over simmering water until they are cooked through and easily pull away from the husk when opened, about 1½ hours. Enjoy!

It’s the time of year when many of us are hosting out of town visitors and family.  With the holidays, you may be planning a brunch, perhaps for Christmas morning, or maybe for New Year’s Day.  I’m curious: what are your favorite things to make for brunch?

I like to look for make-ahead recipes, so that I don’t have to wake at the crack of dawn, and can relax with my guests over a cup of coffee.  I’m a big fan of these cheese-filled blintzes from Chef Robin Leventhal.  Make them the night before, and all you have to do is fry them up, pop them in the oven, and set the table.

Or how about a granola parfait?  I’m so addicted to Molly’s homemade granola recipe that it’s an every-morning kind of thing for me to layer granola and yogurt together for breakfast.  But add some layers of fruit and serve in a trifle bowl, and it would make a lovely addition to a brunch buffet.

For something savory, an egg soufflé is a great dish to make the night before.  I’ve enjoyed this Greg Atkinson recipe, published in the Seattle Times a few years ago.  Made like a bread pudding, it was the centerpiece of our Christmas breakfast last year.

Citrus fruits are like jewels on the holiday table.  My favorite make-ahead side dish is a bowl of vanilla citrus fruits.  The fruit infuses overnight with vanilla bean and a touch of honey which mellows the tang, and it is beautiful served in glass goblets or a pretty holiday bowl.

I’m always looking for new brunch ideas.  Feel free to add your suggestions and links to the comments below.

Vanilla Bean Infused Citrus Fruit
Serves 8

5 oranges
4 ruby grapefruit
1 vanilla bean
Honey

Segment the fruit:  Slice off the top and bottom of the fruit, exposing the flesh inside.  Set the fruit on a cutting board, and slice off the skin and white pith in strips, by following the curve of the fruit with your knife.  When all the skin is gone, hold the fruit in your hand over a bowl and gently slide your knife between the membrane walls to release the segments.

Before discarding, squeeze any remaining juice out of the membrane and into the bowl of fruit.

Cut open a vanilla bean and extract the seeds with a knife.  Stir the seeds into the juice to evenly distribute them.  Place the vanilla pod into the bowl, too.

Stir in a few spoonfuls of honey, to taste.  Refrigerate overnight.  Serve chilled.

On these cold winter nights, there’s nothing quite like an after-dinner digestif to warm up with.  My spirit of choice for many years has been armagnac, a brandy from southwest France with complex aromatics and a wide variety of tastes.  Armagnac is France’s oldest brandy, distilled as early as the 14th century, and yet it it remains largely unknown today in the States, with few quality offerings available at restaurants or liquor stores.  Sadly, given the recent trend of many producers replacing their grape vines with more profitable crops, it’s hard to say how long this fine spirit will even be available.  But while it’s here, it’s worth sampling some of the amazing offerings.

I first tried Armagnac fifteen years ago at my friend Keith’s house, who himself had discovered it on a business trip to France years before that.  That first taste was a mixed experience – at 40% alcohol content, it burned my throat and made me cough like a neophyte, but the finish left a subtle mix of sweet and spicy flavors tingling on my tongue.  I was intrigued, and tried some sips on subsequent visits, and slowly I began to see that this spirit that many refer to as “an acquired taste” might indeed be worth the effort.

Over the next few years, armagnac fell off my radar while I moved cross-country and worked long hours during the heady dot-com days of the late ‘90s.  Then in the early part of this decade, a coworker and I were talking about some of the digestifs he had been collecting – cognac, calvados, armagnac – and suddenly I recalled my lost interest.  After trying a not-so-good bottle from the Washington state liquor store, I decided to do a little more digging online to see what my options were.  This led me to Charles Neal’s book on armagnac.  His book, appropriately subtitled “The Definitive Guide to France’s Premier Brandy,” clued me in to its history, and provided a wealth of detailed tasting notes for over 700 armagnacs.  Armed with my armagnac bible, I searched for a suitably interesting vintage for my next purchase, and read this tasting note:

Fruit on the nose nearly soars from the glass; honey, coffee, white chocolate, apricot, ginger.  Vanilla, coffee, prune, cinnamon, and a hint of smoke in the mouth.  A seamless texture and also very long.  Nearly perfect armagnac.

The bottle?  It was a 1973 from Domaine de St. Aubin, distributed by Francis Darroze, aged 24 years in oak before being bottled.  I managed to find a bottle for sale, and the first whiff alone was a revelation: this is what it’s all about.  I understood why someone would even want to aspire towards being an armagnac connoisseur.  I was hooked.

At this point, you might be wondering, “What exactly is armagnac?”  Charles Neal has lots of detail on his website, covering grapes, soil, distillation, aging, blending, labels, vintages, and even how to drink it.  The short version is this: if you grow one or more of four particular wine grapes in a small region of southwest France, distill it, age it in oak, and let it evaporate and reduce a bit along the way, you might find yourself with a barrel of armagnac.  So how is it different than cognac?  Cognac is double distilled, and almost always blended with cognacs from multiple years to smooth out inconsistencies and achieve the same taste.  Armagnac is commonly offered as a single vintage, though you can find blended armagnacs for sale.

I found myself fortunate enough to chat with Charles Neal here in Seattle in early October at a wine dinner at Licorous.  I must admit that I am quite envious of his lifestyle, traveling France for several months every year, meeting with wine, calvados, and armagnac producers to sample their products and import them into the States.  In fact, he’s currently working on a 500-page book on calvados, due to be released in late 2010, which I look forward to already.  I may find myself with another habit then!  But I digress.  I mentioned to him that the best Armagnac I’ve ever tried was a 1973 Domaine Boingnères, and was pleasantly surprised to hear Charles agree that Domaine Boingnères is one of the top producers.  He explained the sad reality that the current owner, Martine Laffite, will be retiring in a few years and has no one to pass the 200-year-old family business on to, and it’s unclear as to what will happen to her armagnac.  My outlandish daydream: uproot the family, move to Gascony, somehow convince Ms. Laffite to teach me the old family secrets, and carry on the banner of this preeminent chateau.  Who’s with me?

A glimpse of the wall of vintage armagnacs at Les Caves Augé, Paris.  This store is an excellent source, with bottles dating as far back as the 1940s.

But while I’m still in Seattle, finding good Armagnac in the state’s liquor stores is a challenge.  They typically only carry three or four ho-hum blends (XO or VSOP), and possibly a single vintage bottle at one or two stores in the entire state.  One option is a road trip to a good store in Portland.  But my favorite mail order source is D&M Wines and Liquors in San Francisco.  They typically have 70+ armagnacs in stock, with most of them being very high-quality vintage bottles.  Not surprising, since Charles Neal used to work for them and helps source their bottles.  These bottles aren’t cheap, but I can tell you that the good ones are worth it.  The spirit doesn’t age once it goes into bottle, so I’ve gotten my money’s worth by having little sips here and there, allowing me to keep bottles open for years.  Drop me a line if you’re interested in trying a glass!