Mysterious Plant activity

This is a retired charcoal grill which we have been gifted and use as a planter in front of the store. Cypress and I started Nasturtiums indoors and watched them grow into hardy plantlings inside on the window sills. Then we transplanted them out to the grill and they began to spread and flourish. We hoped for cascades of trailing bright flowers in a few weeks. THEN SOME MEAN PERSON RIPPED OUT OUR LITTLE PLANTS!!
Stranger still, there were these pathetic little filler flower plants piled in the back portion of the grill. I was really mad...now I'm just perplexed and a little sad. Did one person take Nasturtiums and leave replacements? Or did one mean person take Nasturtiums and another kind neighbor saw and left replacements. Anyway, I planted the substitutes, and I'll plant more nasturtiums.

Tomatoes and Buns

Yes, we have Washington Tomatoes! We scored them at Broadway/Capitol Hill Farmer's Market from Kititas GreenHouse. I enjoyed my first very Israeli breakfast in about 7 months.(Bread, veggies and cheese) They're pretty darn tasty tomatoes and we're excited to be offering them on specials, and as a new component to our "Seasonal Burger".
We've added several options to the menu lately including a "Beast Feast Burger" and "Ultra Grilled Cheese" With Spring produce coming on strong, look for yummy specials which change every couple days.
Our burger bun saga continues. The Tall Grass Baguette we've been using is very tasty, but we've had too much waste since baguettes have a very short shelf life and don't freeze well, and they're considerably more expensive than buns, and well, people really want buns for their burger. So after recommendations from customers and other industry folks, and our personal taste trials we'll be using Macrina herb buns. ( If you're not familiar, Macrina was founded in Belltown in 1993. They have 2 cafes and bake lots of yummy stuff. They also do wholesale deliveries.) We'll also be using their Ciabbata for sandwiches, and bringing in a few sweets.
Running an artisan bakery is a really tough gig and we give props to all of the hard working bakers out there.

Planting

Very busy time. We planted peas and beans. Cypress and Dylan made this wall/trellis for the Peas. (We use last season's sunflower stalks for support and structure around the garden. It's almost like bamboo. One more reason to love the sunflowers.) Then these heavy rains came and washed most of our plumped seeds out and the pesky but beautiful Stellar Jays came and ate the seeds. Gotta re-plant the Peas and Beans.
Our neighbors at Market Street Traders had a drumming for fair trade on Sat afternoon. Lot's of fun, Cypress enjoyed a break from his Maitre d' job to go drum in the circle.

Halibut, health dept, Gwen's Buns

So much stuff going on, I can't even organize it coherently! Thanks to our neighbor Sam for bringing the onion starts and making us get out and get to work in the garden. It's been neglected, but we got the ball rolling, our strawberries look great, raspberries too, some herbs.
HALIBUT SEASON HAS BEGUN!! I love Halibut! I feel bad for the Halibuts, being fished into extinction like virtually all of our wild resources. I'm assured that Halibut has been sustainably managed, and they're not in as bad of shape as Salmon, hhmmm....it just tastes so good! We're serving it up for "Fish Friday" over some sauteed veggies, very simply prepared. Come enjoy it!! *****The health department has a very bad fee structure which squeezes tiny guys like us....I'll keep this very brief and just say that since January, we have paid $1,271 to King Co Health dept. for fees for service. I have seen an inspector for maybe 20 minutes. Tomorrow we must mail another $226 to them for our Broadway market permit. We never even received the permit we paid for University District. I went to a meeting....they have ways of justifying it...so do most crooks.
Bun situation....a lady named Gwen at the Dahlia Bread Bakery has been responsible for our wonderful burger buns for the last year. The only problem is that someone must go downtown to fetch those yummy buns on a regular basis...Not Fun, often stressful, sometimes trapped in the alley, ticketed. So we've decided to use our neighborhood Tall Grass Bakery for all of our bread needs for the time being. We've always used their Pullman Loaf for our sandwiches, now we're using Baguettes for the burger. Thanks Gwen, for so many great buns! I hope to still get them for catering events. And thanks to Amanda and crew at Tall Grass for the new solution.

Spring veggies are on!

Hopefully, we are turning the corner in many ways. We've got tasty Bloomsdale spinach from Nash's, also some rutabaga. We tried a new Polenta Royale last night which was carmelized onions, Shitake mushrooms, spinach and Queso Fresco. It was super yummy! One issue, we use lots of butter and wine to cook for ourselves. At the shop we only use olive and canola oil on the Polenta Royale. Then there's cooking with wine. Virtually every restaurant does, but you don't see it in the average closed kitchen. I can just imagine the fuss from certain people if they saw wine being splashed on their food. So we're working on a lemon verbena splash instead.
We're also thinking about menu tweaks. Tommy brought us a beautiful and inspiring book called 'Wichcraft all about sandwiches. We'd love to make some fancy pants sandwiches, but given the quality and cost of our ingredients, we'd have to sell $12 sandwiches. Maybe people want that. Which brings us back to the question we always ask, "Are we just setting ourselves up for failure by refusing to compromise on the integrity of our ingredients?" "Should we just sell industrial food and make a big profit like everyone else?" Or maybe just serve a couple really good things and serve the rest "Donkey in a Tutu". Neighborhood places serving dressed up crap are always busy, and we're barely making it.

Check yer Beef !

The other day, a customer ate in our shop, and was talking about a few places that serve organic burgers. HUH? I didn't think anyone else was serving organic burgers. I know Tilth and Taste at SAM also use Skagit River Ranch beef for other items, but not fast food burgers.
The person claimed that Blue Moon Burgers and Geraldine's Counter served organic beef. I've eaten at Geraldine's many times, but I was pretty sure their beef just said "natural". But I'd never heard of Blue Moon, so I started digging. Blue Moon serves Painted Hills Beef. According to the Painted Hills website, Their beef is hormone and antibiotic free, it's from Oregon, they still finish with a corn, barley alfalfa blend for "marbling". So not 100% Grass-Fed, not organic, and not as local as Sedro-Wooley. But clearly a Thoughtful choice.
Next I called Geraldine's Counter in Columbia City. The person who answered the phone said the beef comes from Sysco.
If any other casual establishment is serving Beef close to the same quality as ours, I want to know about it! I love a good burger, and variety is nice.

Lovin the Patio!

Sunshiny days worth living! So nice to be warm! Thanks to CJ for bringing by patio furniture just in time for the warm! You Rock!
Thanks also to the Granparental units for taking Cypress this weekend, a huge help when we need it most!