Solstice and the Light

HAPPY SOLSTICE!!! This is our favorite time of the year. We were married in a beautiful park in Skagit County on the Solstice 6 years ago. For the past 5 years, we've always enjoyed the Fremont Solstice Parade. This will be the first year we miss it since we will be working. I'm baking some special Solstice Strawberry (from our Victory garden) Scones. I also made Gazpacho. Cypress will be going with his Grandpa from Michigan.
As we celebrate these longest days of the year, we give thanks to the "Light". Yes, the abundant sunlight, but also to the people who bring light to our life. There have been many days over the past few months where we have wanted to just lock up, pack the van and head to Mexico. But the good people in our community have sustained us and given us the strength to continue. This week, we are stunned by the generosity of our friends at Cooklocal . When they heard about our window being smashed, they started a fund to replace it. It looks like we may have a new window by next week. I am running out of time, we must get to U-District market, but I want to say the biggest THANK YOU TO THE PEOPLE WHO BRING THE LIGHT!

Random acts of unkindness

Being in the heart of it all certainly has had its disadvantages lately. This month, we have experienced about $1200 of property damage which we can not afford to fix. (Yes, we have insurance, but high deductibles mean we would basically pay 90% of the damage anyway, and we don't have a spare $1000) Last week, someone hit and run the front bumper of our van. Sat night someone smashed in the art window of our shop shown here behind Cypress. They didn't come in the building, (we have an alarm) but they ruined art and smashed a large window which would be very expensive to replace. For now it will get ugly plywood and shut out the natural light. Thanks Crack-heads. And I sincerely mean thanks, this is just one more not-so-gentle reminder that we belong on a farm, not in the concrete jungle.

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.