Every year, my husband surprises me with a birthday experience.  This year, the theme was FOOD!  I’ve lived in Seattle for half my life and never experienced all that this town has to offer, especially at the Pike Place Market.  The first day, we started on a food tour by Savor Seattle Food Tours.

Day 1: Food tour

First stop: Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company

Cutters seafood restaurant

Wine Tasting at Lost River Winery.  I wasn’t too into these, but it wasn’t bad, either.

Olive oil and balsamic goodness at Olive Oil Balsamic Vinegar Tasting Room:

Warm sunny weather guided by Mark with Savor Seattle.  He was a fun tour guide.

La Buona Tavola: Truffle shop, wine serving, etc.  The black truffle salt is excellent, as is the truffle oil they used for cream soups.  Yummers!

Drinks at Thoa.  My food picture is of an empty plate, which was cold noodles with a sweet/fish type of sauce.  It was delicious.

Fran’s Chocolates.  This is salted caramel with milk chocolate.

Day 2: Fresh food shopping and cooking with Diane LaVonne.

Day 2 was spent walking through the Market and learning about what sustainable really means, knowing where your food comes from, what kinds of salmon are there, what spices can do for your meals, and how to eat locally.  It was so educational.

Places we visited:
Market Spice and Teas – Holy cow!  You smell a plethora of different spices when you walk from the front of the shop to the back.  Spices are refreshed weekly.

Uli’s Famous Sausage – And I can see why.  We sampled some chicken sausage with sauerkraut from Germany.  It was delicious.   Heard these were going to be served at Safeco Stadium soon.  I know where I’ll be getting my hot dogs at the game!

Chukar Cherries – Candied cherry goodness.

Stackhouse Bros Orchard – Cajon almonds and dried grapes.  Mix together and eat.  Yes, please.

Sockeye salmon from one of the stalls.  I can’t remember if it was the main one or City something.

Sockeye salmon belly with grated wasabi root.  The salmon is obviously thicker in some places and the bellow is the thinnest, but fatties part.  So she trimmed it off to fry separately from the thicker 4 oz fillets we were going to have.  The wasabi root was to DIE for.  So yummy.  Expensive.  But yummy.  I wish I could have had it with sashimi.

Arugala salad with grape seed oil, hazelnuts, shallots, dried cherries. This inspired my latest experiment with making our own salad dressing at home.  It was a success.

Sockeye salmon fillets with cajun spice for spice.  With lightly sauteed asparagus:
 Rhubarb crisp with wheat flour/brown sugar crumble, and fresh creme fraiche:

We topped it off with dinner at Aqua by the Olympic Sculpture park.  It was wonderful.  I had halibut cheeks and ordered a side of mac n’ cheese (black truffle, paremigianno reggiano), which I took home.  It was delicious.

Bottom line: Eat good food.  Eat fresh food.  Eat a decent proportion of food.  Get to know where your food comes from.  Who handles your food?  Savor the moments you share with people when you’re eating food.

I’m incredibly grateful for everything I have and who I get to share it with.