Weekend in Seattle

It goes without saying that I had a fantastic time in Seattle with Lorraine, her family and friends. There was food, incredible food. To say “that woman knows how to cook” would be the biggest understatement ever.

I was truly honored to partake in her annual Autumn Feast on Saturday night. To say that the food was incredible would be the biggest understatement ever.

However, the best part was getting to shop for everything with Lorraine and cook with her in her kitchen. Cooking with Lorraine has got to be one of my favoritest things to do.

I arrived on Friday evening. Lorraine met me at the airport after coming straight from work. She looked all corporate-y in her work attire. Hugs and kisses were exchanged.

The Child was at her first high school dance which is exactly where a high school freshman should be on a Friday night. She arrived later that night and I was shocked to see how much she had grown! That kid is definitely going to be breaking the hearts of many a high school boy.

Next day, Lorraine and I spent about five hours shopping for her Feast. While we were shopping at Pike’s Place Market (which Seattleites simply call “The Market”) there was a panhandler who had this fat little guy with him:

His name was Tubby and if you look closely, you’ll see that he is actually sporting two sweaters. The one underneath was argyle. So cute.

Of course, I had to get a couple dozen oysters from a vendor there. A very nice wine merchant (who Lorraine knew) made some wine suggestions for our meal. Fresh flowers were procured.

And then we got to cooking. As I was helping with this-and-that, doing sous-chef things, The Spouse gave me the title of “Kitchen Bitch”; a moniker I was proud and happy to accept.

The guests began to arrive. Tim and John, as per tradition, always bring an appetizer. They arrived with a gorgeous mushroom tart to be enjoyed with a fine bottle of fino (a dry sherry). Here is a lovely photo of Lorraine, enjoying her fino while she puts the final touches on dinner; sauteeing the butternut squash gnocchi in butter:

I took photos of the dinner which I just emailed to Lorraine. I’ll let her tell you about the dinner. Needless to say, it was incredible. I never knew there could be that many astounding food items in one meal.

While I was there, Lorraine turned me onto the Wii game called Guitar Hero which I pretty much sucked at. She can play a mean Barracuda on Guitar Hero, let me tell you. Here’s a photo of her and The Child in action.

We went to Mass at the cathedral downtown. The Neighbor sings in the 80-voice choir there and the music is heavenly. I love going to church there. We had brunch at a neighborhood place called Saffron. Of course, I had eggs with salmon. When in Rome. . .

Sunday afternoon was a good time for naps for the adults, then more Guitar Hero and three rounds of Speed Scrabble.

Sunday night, we had The Neighbor over for another wonderful meal. More hugs and kisses were exchanged. I just adore The Neighbor. A more gracious woman on this earth would be difficult to find.

Lorraine made her salmon which is cooked on hot plates served with a chipotle cream sauce.

And the oysters were featured. I had bought two dozen sweet little oysters at The Market.

The Child tried her first raw oyster and actually liked it. That's pretty impressive.
I had later found some huge honkers at another fish market so I bough a dozen of those too.

See how big they are? I didn’t know oysters came that big.
The big oysters were really too big to eat raw, but we tried one tried anyway.

The Spouse fried them up and they were delish. Fried oysters are, hands down, my favorite food item.

I flew back to Chicago yesterday morning. It was a little bit sad because I really love being in Seattle with these lovely people.

I miss being a Kitchen Bitch.

It’s good to know one can have friends like that.