Happy (first) Father's Day

My very first Father's Day weekend was a pretty nice one. After getting up early on Saturday to watch two World Cup matches at Empire Espress (which is my new favorite espresso place in Columbia City), I pretty much lazed around back home and wathed los gemalos while Carrie went out shopping for my Father's Day dinner. Sunday we got up and had breakfast at Cafe Campange, one of the two French-style eateries in the Marketplace; Cafe Campange is more of a resturant while the seocond place, Le Pichet, is more of a cafe where food just happens to be served.


While we were in the area, we decided to head to Sur la Table in order to get a new nonstick griddle for eggs and pancakes and a wire mesh splatter guard. Carrie did want to get a nice wire mesh strainer, but I talked her out of it, reasoning that we would hardly ever use it. However, when we had gotten home, on the spur of the moment I decided to make Dulce de Leche (following Alton Brown's recipe). In making Dulce de Leche from scratch, guess what the final stage in the process is? And guess what I found myself heading downn to the Target in West Seattle to get?


Dinner was a real treat- home made Chicken Tikka Missala, a nice dark beer, and homemamde brownies and ice cream with my DDL sauce on top. For my Father's Day gifts, I recieved some primo e-Shave shaving lube and cream, and a mandollin slicer that will help me out a lot when it comes to food prep. But the best gifts that I recived can be found here!


Links:

• Empire Espresso
• Cafe Campange
• Alton Brown's Dulce de Leche redipe

Something I saw the other day

I found this old sign while walking home from the Beacon Hill light rail station a few days ago:

From Blogger Pictures

I had to do a double take. Someone in 20th century Seattle actually thought  that this was a clever name for a cafe?

Kid 1: "Hey guys, I"m bored. Where do you want to go?"

Kid 2: "I know - let's go hang out at the K.K.K!"

Ughh.

Fortunately, the Triple-K no longer exists (that I can discern, anyway). There is a bakery-flower shop at the site, and adjacent to it is the Seattle Supermarket. Which really isn't, but that's a discussion for another day. Maybe.

Just another weekend

Things are definitely better when I'm able to mow the lawn once a week. I was able to cut my previous times by a full hour due to the facts that (1) I didn't  have to mow the entire lawn twice, and (2) I didn't have to rake up a ton of grass.


Taking advantage of the fact that we have someone who is living with us who doesn't mind looking after the kids, Carrie and I went down to Georgetown on Saturday to eat at Calamity Jane's, a new American eatery. We found the food there to be pretty good - not stellar fare, but tasty nonetheless. We both opted to have half-pound burgers - which we both finished ;) I had the Calamity Jane while Carrie had the Wild Bill Hickock. We both liked the toppings and the burgers were cooked perfectly. The food snobs in us suspected that they were using pre-formed patties that may or may not have been previously frozen (verssus hand-formed patties which would more definitely be fresh), but I personally don't think that detracted from from the experience.


Sunday, I tried my hand at making a drink that I had first experienced last week at Toulouse Petit, called a "Breakfast Flip". Here is the recipe that I used in my first attempt:

• 1 cracked raw egg
• 1 shot vodka
• 1 shot maple syrup
• 1-1/2 shot Cafe Boheme
• Sprinkled cinnamon on top of the shaken mixture

My first attempt came out a little strong and sweet. I alleviated the former by adding crushed ice into the mix. I suspect that the latter could also be remedied by my using Baileys instead of Cafe Boheme; both are cream-based liqueurs, but Boheme has more of a sweetened coffee flavor  to it. To cut down on the sweetness, I may just cut out a bit of the syrup and up the vodka content. Next weekend, maybe ;)


Links:
Calamity Jane's
Toulouse Petit

Memorial Day weekend

Aside from running, mowing the lawn, watching over kids and the like, not much went on over Memorial Day weekend. The weather prevented us from really being able to get out and do too much until Monday rolled around.


On Monday, Carrie and I took a trip to lower Queen Anne to eat breakfast at Toulouse Petit, an eatery that does for Cajun Cusine what The Kingfish Cafe does for Creole. We went there for breakfast during  their happy hour. We were in line for a twenty+ minute wait, but when two spots opened at the bar, the hostess asked us if we would like to skip the line for seats and eat our breakfast at the bar, which we did.

The bartender was fairly prompt and very friendly. I started off with a Breakfast Flip, and my wife had a Breakfast Martini. Both drinks were excellent and generous. To eat, we had the Cajun Meatloaf and eggs and the Pork Cheek confit. Both dishes were very tasty and delivered to us pretty quickly, considering that the place was at the time packed for the breakfast happy hour, during which all of the dishes were $6. My only minor complaint is that our order of beignets arrived late, after our entrees, but that just meant that we had a desert course!

After that, we went to Lowes to pick up some supplies so that we could get started on our herb garden this year. We planted cilantro, basil, thyme, parsley and chives in pots, and put them on the bench on our porch so that they'd get plenty of sun. 

Aside from the herbs, we had to buy the pots, potting soil, peat moss and vermiculite. We have so much of the soil-related matter left over  that we should be able to plant a fairly full garden with it, and we'll always have plenty of compost for our efforts, since I started composting at least three pounds a week on average since we moved onto Beacon Hill almost a year ago.