Wright Eats

Italian is my favorite type of food: simple dishes designed to make impeccable ingredients shine.  And admittedly, I have a weakness for great pasta.  But I’ve been forever disappointed in Seattle’s Italian offerings.  Sure, there are La Spiga, Tavolata, Volterra, Branzino, and others which are good, but none match that ideal we’ve been looking for, especially on the heels of a trip to Italy, when we’re craving handmade pasta and authentic rustic antipasti.

Our hopes were raised when we heard last year that Justin Neidermeyer was planning to open a restaurant in Seattle featuring his ethereal pasta.  He’s known for the handmade pasta he sold at the Ballard market a couple years ago.  When the folks at Sitka & Spruce told us that he was hosting trial dinners at their restaurant last fall, we signed up immediately.  The intimate 10-person dinner only managed to make us more excited for his restaurant to open: the pastas were truly amazing and the meal left us giddy about the prospects of a Seattle restaurant where we could enjoy this kind of food.

Finally, Spinasse opened last Thursday.  We dined there on their second night, one of the hottest evenings in Seattle this summer.  The menu is family-style and designed for having a number of courses, just as you would at a restaurant in Italy: antipasti (starters), primi (pasta), secondi (usually a meat or fish), insalata verde (salad, typically eaten before dessert), and dolci (desserts).  You can choose between three fixed price options, depending on how hungry you are: $33 for your choice of one antipasto and one primo, $47 for two antipasti, one primo, and one secondo, or $75 for everything (when we were there this included tastes of six antipasti, three primi, two secondi, and a light dessert).

Each dish transported us straight back to Italy.  With the sweet and sour onions served with artisan salami from Fra Mani, we were suddenly eating dinner at a rustic agriturismo outside Bologna.  With the intensely sweet, juicy melon wrapped in 24 month proscuitto, we were now on the piazza on a beautiful day in Verona.  We nearly cleaned all the plates of antipasti before remembering that we had several more courses coming and needed to pace ourselves.

Next up: the pasta.  Each was perfect, and it was hard picking favorites.  The gnocchi were light and served with the cutest chanterelles and tomatoes with basil.  The agnolotti filling was flavorful and quintessentially northern Italian.  These two pasta alone would have left me happy and satisfied, but it was the tajarin, fine hand-cut egg pasta, served with ragu, that simply blew us away: delicate and perfectly al dente.

The option they’re missing from the menu is a pasta tasting menu.  While pasta-only meals are not typical in Italy, one of our more memorable meals in northern Italy was at a restaurant in Bologna known for its pasta menu degustazione.  At Osteria Numero Sette we had upwards of seven different pasta courses.  I think this would be a great way to highlight Justin’s pasta making skills!

We were full now and could only nibble at the secondi: a delicious roasted chicken with amazing dandelion greens (typically a very bitter vegetable) and potatoes, along with slow-roasted goat with chickpeas and savoy cabbage.  More than one of the wait staff told us that they’re still adjusting portion sizes – during their trial dinners the plates had been even larger!  They’re aiming for more reasonable sizes and were anxious to get our feedback.  So for the best deal, get there soon.

Dessert was typically Italian – nothing complicated, and a light sweet ending to the meal.  In this case, it was a single slice of Piemontese Toma cheese with a perfectly roasted nectarine half drizzled in honey.  Remember how we were full?  We ate every bite without a problem.

Ok, so the food was great, but how about the service?  Somehow it always seems that in Seattle you can get great food, or great service, but rarely both.  Not so at Spinasse.  Our waiter was super-friendly and down-to-earth, and as a former New Yorker (where there are as many Italian restaurants as there are Starbucks in Seattle), he was excited himself about the arrival of Spinasse.  He was attentive, and even when returning to the kitchen with a handful of plates, stopped to welcome patrons who had just walked in the door.  We also didn’t go wrong by asking him to choose our wines – the white and red he chose were both great and well-paired with the food (not surprising since the wine list is exclusively Piemontese, and regional wines really do seem to match local food the best).  We particularly appreciated the quartino size wine options, with about a glass and a half of wine per carafe, making it easy to pair a couple different wines with our meal.

The only downside of the experience was the heat.  But we all know that air conditioning is rare in Seattle, and those few hot days of summer are ones that you have to grin and bear in exchange for the generally idyllic summer.  But compounded with the summer heat were the periodic blasts of hot air wafting straight from the kitchen, which left diners sweltering.  I generally wither in heat, but it still didn’t mar our experience.  We were just so crazy about the food, and somehow, I think it even made it feel more like dinner on a hot summer day in Italy.

UPDATE 8/23: They’ve been tweaking things at Spinasse based on the feedback they’ve been hearing.  Previously, à la carte options were only available while sitting at the bar, but now are available to everyone.  They’ve lowered the price on the smallest fixed price menu to $27, and they’ve added an antipasto misto option, where you can try small bites of every antipasti for $20.  Still no pasta tasting menu, though.

Spinasse
1531 14th Avenue, Seattle
(206) 251-7673

We got two kinds of bittersweet baking chocolates from Lauren Adler, owner of Chocolopolis, to try an A / B baking chocolate experiment.  I wanted to make brownies, but haven’t found a really great brownie recipe.  So I went straight to David Lebovitz’s blog to see if he had one, since every dessert he touches is gold, and chocolate is his specialty.  The recipe I found there wasn’t his but Nick Malgieri’s “Supernatural” Brownies, which sounded great.  Then, before I had a chance to make the brownies, I was reading the September issue of Saveur, and the very same recipe is printed in there.  It was settled – now I knew I had to make them.

The chocolates we wanted to compare are Valrhona Manjari 64%, and Guittard Coucher du Soleil 72%.  On their own, they’re both good, but I like the Valrhona better because it has the hints of cherry that I really like.  But would we be able to tell the difference in brownies?

To make it a true A / B experiment, I used the same eggs, butter, vanilla, etc., and I baked them side-by-side in the oven, switching sides halfway through baking.

The result is a super fudgy moist brownie – exactly what I was hoping for!  So could we tell the difference?  Well, the Valrhona brownie had a slightly brighter chocolate flavor, while the Guittard has a bit deeper intense chocolate flavor.  But the difference is subtle.  No matter, because it turns out this recipe is awesome!  This is definitely going to be my brownie recipe of choice from now on.

We’ll be bringing a half pan of each batch to Chocolopolis tomorrow morning for Lauren to try.  If you’re reading this and would like to try the taste test for yourself, head on up to her store, ask for my brownies, and she’ll give you a sample of each.  The thing that isn’t mentioned in the Saveur issue but is mentioned on David’s blog is that brownies improve after sitting for a day or two.  Lauren says 3-4 days is even better which is why she told me she’ll keep them on hand until Wednesday, if they’re not gone before then.  If you’re planning on stopping by, note that the store is closed Mondays.  Report back here on what you think!

We sometimes get a bit of neighborhood envy (but hey, not too much – we love our neighborhood!) when we read about all the great new restaurants flocking to Ballard, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, West Seattle, and really, any neighborhood besides Ravenna.  We’d just like a few more places within walking distance.  Is that too much to ask?

Some locations on 65th have been regular revolving doors with restaurants coming and going year after year.  There’s the place at 65th and Ravenna Avenue which had Shamiana (which we still miss), then Shamiana reborn as World Beat Cafe, then the short-lived Bistro Magnolia, and finally Hot Dish before sitting empty for a while.  That place has a bad luck omen, so we hope that The Himalayan Kitchen, which opened there two weeks ago, fares better.

We went last night to THK, and it was decent, although we were really hoping for better.  They serve Indian, Nepali, Bhutan, Tibetan, and Indo Chinese food.  We tried one Bhutan dish, aima datchi, and another more familiar Indian dish, alu matar paneer.  We both preferred the alu matar paneer.  Although we ordered the mid-range spicy level, the food was quite mild, so we’ll order the hottest level next time.  The naan was tasty, although it was a bit thinner and somewhat crisper than I like.

Just across the street, the windows are papered over but the sign is ready for Da Pino’s to open later this month.  Currently located on Rainier Avenue, Pino Rogano is moving into our neighborhood and bringing what looks like a great menu of sandwiches, pastas, artisan cured meats, gelato, and espresso.  It will be nice to welcome a little neighborhood place like that.

Two blocks up from there is Third Place Books, where we hear that the Honey Bear Bakery will be replaced by a second Vios later this year.  We’ve enjoyed Vios Cafe & Marketplace in Capitol Hill, a family-friendly Greek restaurant with great food.  It’s interesting that the Honey Bear Bakery, which is synonymous to us with Third Place Books, is moving out.  Personally, I never found the Ravenna bakery to be as great as the old Tangletown location from years back, though, so this sounds like a good change to me.

Finally, it looks like Felix and Sarah Penn’s second place, which we mentioned a few months back, is getting close to opening on 55th.  It should be good, if it’s anything like their first place, Pair.

The Himalayan Kitchen
2255 65th Street NE, Seattle
(206) 588-0651

We had perfect weather last Sunday for Dog Mountain Farm’s fourth farm dinner of the season – skies with barely a cloud in sight, and warm sunshine, but not too hot (which was nice since the dinner tables are not shaded!).  We were looking forward to this dinner, since we thought it might be a bit like the Outstanding in the Field dinner we attended back in 2005, which we really enjoyed.  This time, we had the chance to experience the dinner directly on the farm, whereas in 2005 we toured a farm in the Skagit Valley before heading off to eat at a different location nearby.

We arrived just after 3:00 and got ourselves situated with a cool glass of white wine as we wandered the orchard and gardens.  Cindy Krepky, along with her husband David, gave a tour of their farm gardens, duck and chicken coop, and greenhouse.  The variety of products they grow is amazing, given that this is such a small operation, and especially given the harsh weather farmers were faced with this spring.  They supply a number of local restaurants, like Cafe Juanita, Canlis, Andaluca, and the Latona Pub.  Cindy explained how the land is former Weyerhaeuser land that the company sold off when the trees were no longer in good condition.  They’ve been clearing the trees and reviving the soil since they bought the land about seven years ago, and now they have a beautiful view of the Cascades.

Erik Jackson was the chef for our meal, assisted by Chef Tony who makes pies at Serious Pie in Seattle.  We were impressed with the meal, which had all the right elements for a farm dinner in the height of summer – a beautiful poached duck egg from the farm served with brioche and anchovy aioli, a cotechino sausage made by the chef and served Napoleon style with puff pastry and sweet Tiny’s farm nectarines, a delicious refreshing cold green gazpacho, a flavorful pork chop with onion jam and Muscat peach sauce, and three melon sorbets with port syrup.  It was all quite tasty, but a couple people in our party thought there wasn’t quite enough food and left a bit hungry.  My only wish was that they had used a local pork, given that it was the main dish of the whole meal – instead, it was shipped in from somewhere in Iowa, which seemed like an odd choice for a Washington farm dinner.

Dinner was served at a slow leisurely pace, so we had time to wander off to visit the two Percheron draft horses, Ike and Zeek.  Beautiful, and huge, animals!  We fed them big handfuls of green grass, and managed to keep our fingers too.

They’re hosting two more dinners this year, and their web site says they each have six seats left.  All of the previous dinners have been sold out, so if you have a chance to, I recommend signing up soon!

To see more photos from the event, you can view our album.

I nearly let strawberry season slip away without making my absolute favorite ice cream.  When Eric went to the market on Saturday he heard people talking about how it was the last weekend for strawberries, so he came home with a half flat for me.  I made a small batch of strawberry preserves with black pepper and mint, along with a double batch of Jerry Traunfeld’s strawberry rose geranium ice cream.  You can find the ice cream recipe in an earlier blog posting here.

Something about rose geranium makes berries taste even more intense, and this recipe has become almost an annual summer tradition for us since The Herbal Kitchen was published.  We have a huge gangly rose geranium plant whose sole reason for existence is this recipe (so if you want any leaves, let us know).  Know of any other great recipes we should try with it next?

As I found out when a part on my ice cream maker broke after the first batch, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can still make this recipe.  It won’t be quite as smooth as when made in an ice cream maker, but still creamy and delicious.  Just freeze a metal 13×9″ pan, pour in the mix, and place in the freezer.  Take it out and stir every half hour or so with a pastry scraper.  It will take several hours to freeze.

Twice this week, publications came out featuring copies of our photos.  On Wednesday, the Seattle P-I printed a photo of our friend Lauren Adler, owner of the new Chocolopolis shop on Queen Anne hill.  And then tonight, we picked up a copy of the August Travel + Leisure magazine, which has our photos of Licorous on page 30.  Last year, we did a photo shoot at Licorous for their new web site that I was designing, and this month T+L chose two of them for their Q&A about which restaurants a reader should try when they visit Seattle (Licorous and Txori was their answer).  Pretty exciting!

On a beautiful summer day like today, nothing beats a tall glass of lemonade.  I came across a recipe online years ago called “Best Ever Lemonade” and I’m convinced that it really is.  The trick is steeping the lemon rinds in boiling water to extract the tart lemon flavor, before combining it with the lemon juice.  Here is my slightly simplified version of the recipe:

Best Ever Lemonade

4 lemons
1 cup sugar
1 quart water

Halve and juice the lemons.  Set the juice aside and place the lemon rinds into a large bowl.  Cover with sugar and let stand for half an hour.  Pour boiling water over the lemons and stir to dissolve the sugar.  When cool, take out the rinds and strain the sugar water into a pitcher.  Stir in the lemon juice.  Chill and serve over ice.

Adaptations: Add eight 4-inch sprigs of fresh rosemary or lavender into the hot water with the lemon rinds to make Rosemary Lemonade or Lavender Lemonade.

A recent farm basket from Tiny’s Organics included some beautiful fava beans.  Dawn and I look forward to favas each spring, and we ordered them at restaurants around town whenever we could this past month.  Now that we had our own, I spent an hour peeling them, twice – once for the outer pod, which provides a spongy cushion for the beans, and then again for the shell around each individual fava.  Talk about packaging!  But it’s worth the effort.

Since it was such a nice summer day, I wanted something to snack on while relaxing in the back yard.  I looked at what we had in our kitchen, and decided to make fava bean crostini with pecorino and mint.  It went well with a glass of Commanderie de la Bargemone 2007 Coteaux d’Aix en Provence Rosé (a great recommendation from Catherine while we were shopping at Bella Cosa).

Fava Bean Crostini with Pecorino and Mint
Makes 4 crostini

1.5 lbs fava beans
1 garlic clove
1 lemon
Rustic bread
Mint leaves
Olive oil
Pecorino cheese
Salt
Pepper

Remove the outer and inner fava bean shells.  Blanch favas in salted boiling water for a minute, then strain and run under cold water to prevent beans from cooking further. 

Whisk together 2 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/8 tsp salt, and pepper.  Taste the vinaigrette and adjust flavor as needed.  Toss the favas with just enough vinaigrette to lightly coat them.

Brush four pieces of 1/2″ thick bread with olive oil, and toast until golden brown.  Slice garlic clove in half, and rub the bread with the garlic.  Chop mint into thin strips.

To assemble: put a single layer of favas on each toast, shave pecorino cheese on top, sprinkle mint strips, drizzle a little olive oil, and crack pepper over each toast.

Starting this week, Skillet Street Food’s weekly downtown location will be on the corner of Boren and Denny Avenue.  I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be working remotely on an upcoming Wednesday.

And if that doesn’t fit your schedule, you can stop by Skillet at the upcoming Pioneer Square Fire Festival on July 11-12.

Chocolopolis opened on Wednesday to the Queen Anne neighborhood.  Grand opening festivities are scheduled to begin July 15, and Chocolopolis will be participating in the Queen Anne Sidewalk Sale on Saturday, July 19.

Take a look at our previous blog posting about Chocolopolis to learn more about Lauren Adler and her new store.

We’ve been fans of Sitka and Spruce since it opened, so when we heard last year that chef Matt Dillon was opening his second place, The Corson Building, we could hardly wait.  Whereas Sitka and Spruce is generally first-come-first-served, The Corson Building is reservations-only.  They’re only open for dinners a few nights a week, usually Thursday through Saturday, but it varies – their web site lists the dates.  They host a number of other events (more on that later) and periodic Sunday Suppers, too.  We scored our reservation for their first Sunday Supper, which was last weekend.

The Corson Building sits below the Corson Street off-ramp from I-5, in Georgetown.  You’d think this would make it easy to get to, but instead the ramp deposits you a block or two beyond the building, so we wound up making U-turns and backtracking before finally finding the rustic brick two-story.  The front half of the lower floor is the dining room with the original ornate fireplace taking center stage, and in back, Matt was cooking in the homey kitchen filled with windows.  The dining room was empty this evening because the tables had been moved outside.  Tonight’s dinner was to be the first official dinner on the patio (Matt joked that the meal he served outside to his family the previous week didn’t count).

For the first half hour, we wandered the yard, admiring the edible garden, chicken coop, and doves.  We enjoyed iced tea and oysters on the half shell while Matt’s friendly and mellow dog Che ambled about, greeting guests. The urban soundtrack of planes, trains, and automobiles was completed with the railroad tracks out back and Boeing Field nearby, both active this evening.

Two dozen people squeezed in around the single long table, some in chairs, others on wide wood benches.  When we had arrived, there were place settings on the ends which were missing when we sat down, so we asked if we could wrap someone around the end to get a touch more elbow room.  It only made a difference for one side of the table, unfortunately.  This would be a cozy supper.

Three wines were available for purchase on top of the $50 per person for dinner – a good deal given that the regular dinners are $80, but the pours were small and the dinner long so we would have preferred to purchase a couple bottles instead.  The wines were chilled and just right for the hot day.

Dinner finally commenced when heaping plates of radish and fennel salad with prosciutto arrived at each end of the table.  The salad was a refreshing start, though with just two plates to pass, there was sadly little left by the time each reached the other end of the table.  For the next course, we filled our plates with clams, bacon, and chorizo, plus crostini with rabbit liver pâté.  Both were delicious and a few of us wished for bread at the table to sop up the flavorful clam broth.  Instead we dumped our broth into the shells to make way for the next course after it was clear that there would be no fresh plates for the salad.  The roasted tomatoes were intense and really made the romaine, cucumber, and tomato salad stand out.

Everyone had a break to stretch their legs before the main dishes arrived in quick succession:  King salmon with fava beans, rabbit leg poached in olive oil, lemon, and bay, with green goddess dressing, and Bluebird Grain Farms emmer with morels, carrots, and lovage.  (Dawn and I predicted tonight’s meal would include fava beans and morels – ’tis the season!)  The salmon was amazing, and the tender rabbit’s simple preparation let the delicate flavor come through – definitely one of the best rabbit dishes we’ve had.  The meal finished with muscat wine, a large plate of Pecorino-like cheese, and a huge bowl of fresh strawberries with 25 year old balsamic on the side for dipping.

Dinners are only half of the picture of what The Corson Building is about.  Matt has plans to make it into a community center for the Georgetown neighborhood.  He’s collaborating with the nonprofit Seattle Youth Garden Works, providing the kids with a plot of land just down the street from the restaurant to grow produce that he’ll buy from them.  They will be growing some of the more interesting and unusual items that he can’t easily get elsewhere.  SYGW provides jobs for underserved youth, and you may have seen them selling their fresh produce at the University District farmers market.

Then he plans to host visiting chefs at The Corson Building.  Not only will he provide the chefs a venue for hosting dinners or classes, but if they’re from out of town, he’ll let them stay upstairs in The Corson Building.  The first chef’s dinner is this Sunday with Justin Neidermeyer, who is about to open his new Piemontese-style restaurant Spinasse Trattoria in Capitol Hill, where he’ll serve his amazing handmade pasta.  Matt also plans to have Jerry Traunfeld in a couple times before he opens his much-anticipated restaurant Poppy in September.  They know each other well, since Matt once worked in Jerry’s kitchen while he was at The Herbfarm.  And Matt will also soon be hosting Amaryll and Lori from Boulette’s Larder in San Francisco.

Matt has visions for his own larder next door.  He already has space in the back half of the neighboring building and plans to develop it into a café and retail space, where you can purchase top-notch ingredients for a party or your pantry.  He says it’s the place where you’ll be able to go buy a gallon of chicken stock or maybe some stuffed quail for your dinner party.

He’s open to other ideas for using The Corson Building space, too.  Let him know what you’re thinking about and he’ll try to make it happen.  Matt’s vision of The Corson Building as a vibrant community center for all things food-related is exciting, and we look forward to seeing it develop over the coming months.

The Corson Building
5609 Corson Ave, Seattle
(206) 762-3330

To me, nothing beats pasta made at home.  People think it’s difficult and time consuming, but it’s really one of those things that takes a few times to learn and get the swing of it, and then it’s actually pretty easy to make.  It takes me less than half an hour to go from flour and eggs to fresh noodles for the two of us, including cleanup.

The key to good homemade pasta is good fresh eggs.  We buy ours at the U-District market, usually from Skagit River Ranch or Sea Breeze Farm.  You only need to add flour and you’re on your way.  I’ve seen recipes using olive oil, water, semolina flour, salt, and other things, but I subscribe to the method I learned from Giuliano Hazan, which was passed down from his mother Marcella.  Marcella is an opinionated writer, but many including myself consider her the authority on authentic Italian cooking.  She says:

The basic dough for homemade pasta in the Bolognese-style consists of eggs and soft-wheat flour.  The only other ingredient used is spinach or Swiss chard, required for making green pasta.  No salt, no olive oil, no water are added.  Salt does nothing for the dough, since it will be present in the sauce; olive oil imparts slickness, flawing its texture; water makes it gummy.

I find that unbleached all-purpose flour works really well, and in Italy they typically use 00 soft-wheat flour.  Marcella points out that semolina is primarily used for factory-made pasta, which is in a completely different category than egg pasta:

The boxed, dry pasta one refers to as factory-made includes such familiar shapes as spaghetti, penne, and fusilli.  These cannot be made as successfully at home as they are in commercial pasta plants with industrial equipment.  Dry pasta from factories is not necessarily less fine than the fresh pasta one can make at home.  On the contrary, for many dishes, factory-made pasta is the better choice, although for some others, one may want the particular attributes of homemade pasta.

The Hazans’ cookbooks are great for getting a better feel for which sauces go with egg pasta and which with factory-made pasta.  A good rule of thumb (although there are plenty of exceptions) is to use factory-made pasta for olive oil based sauces and egg pasta for butter and cream based sauces.

Last Saturday evening, I made some fettuccine which we enjoyed with Bolognese sauce from our freezer.  Every once in a while we prepare a big batch of Bolognese so we can make sure we always have some in our freezer for quick meals.

Egg Pasta
Makes 2-3 servings

1 to 1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 eggs

Pour about a cup of the flour into a mound on a wood surface, and set aside the rest to incorporate later if you need more.  Create a hollow in the center of the mound, like a volcano, and break the eggs into the hollow.  Using a fork, beat the eggs lightly while slowly incorporating some of the flour from the walls, a bit at a time until the eggs are no longer runny.  Bring the mound of flour toward the center with your hands and work it together with the eggs.  Incorporate more flour if it is too sticky.  You will know that you’ve added enough flour when you can press a clean finger into the center and it comes away clean.

Using the palm of your hand, knead the dough.  Push forward with the heel of your palm, stretching it a bit, then fold it in half as you pull your hand back toward you.  Turn a quarter turn and repeat this motion of stretching, folding, and turning until the dough is completely smooth, about five minutes.  Immediately wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for at least 10 minutes.

Set up your hand-crank pasta machine, and lay out a couple clean towels.  Cut the dough into 2-4 equal parts (it’s easier to work with smaller pieces, so start by using four parts).  Leave all but one part wrapped in the plastic wrap.  Flatten the ball of dough with your hand.

With the machine at its widest setting, roll the disk through the machine.  Remove it and fold it in thirds.  With the folds on the sides, roll it through the widest setting 2-3 more times.  Narrow the opening between the rollers by one notch.  Roll the dough through again, just once.  Continue narrowing the opening and rolling through until the pasta is the desired thickness.  When you are about halfway done, the pasta will become very long and unwieldy – you can place it on the towel, cut it in half, and switch between the two pieces each time you narrow the opening.

Allow the pasta sheets to dry for a few minutes on the towels until they are leathery but not too dry or brittle.  Cut strips using a fluted pastry wheel to make pappardelle, or feed it through the machine’s cutting attachment to make fettuccine.