Mountains and Wine and Vodka, Oh My!

Saturday was a looooong day.  We started off by heading east into the mountains.  We went back to Tiger Mountain which had hiked up back in the fall.  That hike ended in one of the most spectacular views I've ever encountered with Mt Rainier in the background and Paragliders launching themselves into the open air.  Amazing.  Well, this hike was great but the reward at the end was nowhere near as good.  Anyway, up we went.  It was another gorgeous day and I got to test out my new camelback. That thing is awesome and good for things other than beer.  Which having spent a lot of time at LSU tailgating was all I had ever seen them used for previously.  It was a three mile hike up to an elevation of around 2,500ft.

Upwards and onwards

Cool trees...

I think it took us about 2 hours to get to the top?  We forgot to check but it was pretty tiring.  Once we got to the top we enjoyed the lookout for a few minutes but then headed back down.

oooooo....preeeeetyyyyy

For some reason we decided that while walking down the mountain was ok what would be a REALLY GREAT idea would be to run back down.  So we did some trail running.  Dumbest idea ever.  It's Monday night and I still hurt everywhere but on the plus side we made it back down in around thirty minutes so that was kind of nice. 

Item number two on the agenda was Wine!  We headed northwest (I think) toward Woodinville for some tastings.  The first stop was at Januik Cellars  http://www.januikwinery.com/events-tours.html .  Awesomely enough they were also selling pizza so it was a great place to start.  The building where they have their tastings is fantastic.  Very modern and neato, they even have bocci ball courts!  So, we got our tasting underway and went outside w/ our pizzas and tried to recover from the assinine trail running excursion. 

Local art in the tasting area

Future fun times.

The neato outside area

So we did our tasting and then continued on to the room at De Lille Cellars/Doyenne.  YUM.  It was so good and the people that worked there were all so nice.  Plus since I joined their wine club I'll get to go to events and whatnot which is always a plus.  http://www.delillecellars.com  

After we left De Lille we decided to try to find one of the places that the bartenders the night before had recommended.  We came up empty as far as that goes but in its stead we discovered a magical place.  It's called Project V Distillery and Sausage Co. https://www.facebook.com/pvdistillery  and it was seriously one of the coolest places I've ever seen.  They make vodka with wheat grown in Washington.  After they're through using the wheat they donate it to a local pig farmer who in turn uses it as feed.  They get a free pig periodically and make sausage etc out of it.  We missed out on the sausage but they had made this huge vat of smokey bacon and corn chowder and were giving out bowls of it.  AWESOME.  Plus the people were all so cool and the inside of this place was so much fun. I will definitely be visiting again (and again) when I finish the move up there.

The bathtub on the right is part of the distilling process

Instruments, tasting table, and fun times

Yes, that's a VW bus in the distillery.

So, after the mountain, the wine, and the vodka we were pretty much spent.  However, we went out to dinner that night...in retrospect I probably would have been fine w/ a piece of toast and a pillow but since it was my last night there we went out to dinner.  That night we went to La Bete http://labeteseattle.com/ It was good, the place was cute and the food was tasty but I was so burned out by that point that I didn't really appreciate it the way I should have.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Sunshine and Sangria

So, this post and the one after are a bit delayed as I've been stuck in the hell known as weather related flight delays for a while now.  However, stretching the memory allllll the way back to last Friday I have a number of new places to report on.
First off, the weather on Friday was phenomenal.  Not a cloud in the sky and it had to have only been around 65ish outside.  When L and I got through with work we decided that happy hour was imperative.  When is it not?  So off we went.  I can't remember the name of the first place we went to.  It was in Belltown and had a patio outside so what more do you really need?  It was a Spanish place though so we were able to order sangria (this town seems to have a thing for sangria) and some little snackies to get us through the first round.  I think at this place we had ham and cheese croquettes (basically fried cheese, and when is that ever a bad thing?) and little crackers and proscuito.










After that we headed over to yet another little speakeasy (love that there are so many of them here) called Bathtub Gin & Co.  It doesn't have a website or I would have linked to it.  So this place was great, and tiny, and the bartender was amazing.  Unfortunately we were unlucky enough to be seated next to a pony tailed hipster wanna be goob (even worse than a real hipster?) that was talking at top volume to the girls sitting on the other side of him.  One of the things we learned from his conversation: books over 200 pages are trying too hard and when they're over 1,000 pages they obviously don't have anything real to say.  However, we learned things of value from the bartender...like there's such a thing as an Australian hibiscus that is preserved and then put in drinks, thus making them magical!

The drink was called St. Peter's Promise (I think...something like that) and it was fantastic!  When I finished it we pulled the flower apart and split it...it kind of resembled a floral gummy bear or fruit roll-up.  Whatever it was it was awesome.  So I had the magical drink above and then I had a Sidecar.  L's a slow drinker...I tend to drink 1.5 to her 1 drink.
We left Bathtub Gin and headed over to Local 360 for dinner  http://www.local360.org/ .  This place was great.  It was pretty crowded but we were able to get a couple of spots at the bar and just ate there.  I can't remember everything we had here...I know we had some kind of a Kale dish, marrow, fried pumpkin seeds, little neck clams, and the mac n cheese.  Everything is locally sourced, seasonal, etc.  It was all really pretty good, the mac n cheese I could have skipped, I've had and made much better.  And they forgot to salt the kale.  But overall really tasty.  And more yummy drinks, local beer and wine.  After that we called it a night b/c we had big plans for the next day.  But.  The funniest part of the entire night was that we managed to catch a ride home in a cab where the drive told you really bad jokes the entire way.  He even gave us his card where he called himself The Comedy Cab.  Luckily I was able to remember a Santa Claus joke from 3rd grade so we were able to contribute. I don't honestly remember any of his jokes though...I might have had a few drinks by that point.

Paint and pasta

We went by the new place last night to remove the blue masking tape and do a little picking up.  It looks so much brighter and happier now in that place without all of those dark colors.  Seriously, it's a daylight basement and a good choice of paint colors is not anything remotely dark.  So I know have a pale pale green bedroom and a BRIGHT green dining room.  It makes me super happy.  I also got to meet one of my new neighbors.  He was really nice and has actually spent a lot of time recently on the gulf coast assisting with the BP oil spill recovery effort.  So yay!  Good neighbors!  My landlady is in the process of replacing the oven/stove and the fridge.  The ones that were in there were in definite need of an update.  I'm going to try to insert a couple of pics but this is my first time attempting this so we'll see how successful I am...

Living room before painting

Living room after painting! Now it's happy!

Bedroom before painting (see the horribly dark wall?)

Happy pale green bedroom after painting!

So, after we finished up at the house (and dropped of the sweaters that I most certainly won't be needing when I get home) we ran by the awesome co-op grocery store that is soon to be MY grocery store.  I grabbed some chocolates as gifts and we got a few things to make dinner.

We got back to L's and made a recipe for pasta that I had when I was in Italy.  So freaking simple and delicious...

-Make fresh pasta (yum)
-Heat up some chicken stock (I winged it but it was probably about 1.5 or 2 cups)
-Add a pinch of saffron to the stock while it heats.  I used homemade chicken stock so I also had to add    some salt.  If using store bought this should not be the case.
-Cut bacon into lardons and cook over medium heat until cooked but not crunchy.  Throw in several handfuls of arugula and let it wilt with the bacon.  Cook the fresh pasta briefly and then drain and transfer to the pan o bacon and arugula.  Pour the saffron chicken stock over the pasta/bacon mixture and let it all cook together until the sauce is almost totally absorbed.  Turn off head and pile as much pasta as you can eat on a plate and grate copious amounts of parmesan (the real stuff please.  not that shit that's scraped up off of the floor and put in a green plastic container) over the top.  Eat w/ good wine (and return for seconds)!

Up for tonight and tomorrow...happy hour hopping tonight.  And then tomorrow hiking up Tiger Mountain to watch the parasailers fly off into the distance.  Then on to wine tastings in Woodinville.

And so it begins...

Ok, so this is my first attempt at the whole blogging thing.  We shall see how it goes.
Basically it will be an easy way for those of you who know me to check on what is going on up here.  How things are different from things back in the south and other randomness that my brain decides to spit out on these pages for the world to see.  I'm thinking this will probably be an easier format to use than sending out mass emails or facebook updates (so I won't keep filling up your inboxes or FB walls).  But since this is an unprotected site I'm going to do my best to keep identifying information to a minimum, i.e., no proper names, addresses, pics w/ faces, etc...

So...

I'm moving from the deep Gulf south to the Pacific Northwest...the move isn't happening at the moment but will in just about a month.  I have found a place to live (woo hoo!), am in the process of selling my house (gah!), and trying to fit in and remember to take care of everything in between. So far things have been moving well which must mean that I'm overlooking something major.  Anyway, as long as I get myself and my dog up here the rest will follow.

Since I've been up here for the last week or so I have discovered some fan-freaking-tastic restaurants and bars:
Quinns (longtime favorite)
Coastal Kitchen (awesome brunch with amazing little fried fritter thingys)
Knee High Stocking Co (love this place!  fantastic drinks in an awesome atmosphere)
Branzino (Great food, I had a housemade pasta dish that I pretty much inhaled)
Spur (food was good, the decor was better)
Flying Fish (yummy seafood)
Tavern Law (another awesome little bar, fantastic bartenders)
I'm sure there are several other places we've been to recently but I'm drawing a blank.  I'm also sure that they'll be addressed at some point in the future.
Something else I've discovered since I've been up here...Pure Barre is the work of the devil.  I shit you not it is one of the most painful things I have encountered in a long time.  Those instructors fatigue every muscle in your body until you have no control over them and start to look like you're having a seizure.  It's awesome!  Definitely the best workout I've had in a long time.

Ok, that's it for now.  There will be much more to come...