SF day one

I finally got into San Francisco after a two hour delay at the airport due to rain and high winds, but I can't wait to explore the city tomorrow.

Northwest Harvest

Yesterday, I volunteered with Northwest Harvest through CAAP packaging up sliced potatoes and beans for needy families.

"Northwest Harvest is the only statewide hunger relief agency in Washington. It operates the Cherry Street Food Bank in Downtown Seattle and secures over 18 million pounds of food for distribution through warehouses in Grays Harbor, King, Stevens and Yakima counties. In an average month, these programs provide approximately one-half million services to people in need." - From the NW Harvest Website. The really impressive part is that they do all this without federal funding.

Altogether over the course of an hour and a half, myself and about 20 others managed to bag over 3000 lbs of potatoes and beans. The potatoes we packaged were already peeled and sliced into 1/2" discs and frozen. It was amazing seeing the huge blocks of potatoes being dropped down into the bagging area as we worked frenetically making 1 lb bags of potatoes. To maximize efficiency the tasks were divided in assembly line fashion. Some people chipped at the frozen potato block, some shovelled potatoes into bags, others sealed the bags while yet others boxed it all up. It was weird suddenly taking on the role of a factory worker and it made me wonder what it would be like doing the same task every day eight hours a day. Although, I'm betting that McCains (KC tells me that this is a Canadian brand, but I don't believe him) has an all automated process. I also pondered possible recipes using sliced potatoes, pommes anna, potatoes au gratin, garlic mashed potatoes? In any case, volunteering was a good reminder that we're lucky to have the luxuries that we have.

Volterra

About a month or so ago I assisted for a phenomenal cooking class taught by Chef Don Curtiss owner of Volterra (http://www.volterrarestaurant.com/) featuring imports selected by Ritrovo (http://www.ritrovo.com/index.php), a great company that takes care in selecting fine Italian products to bring to the Seattle market. Highlights of the class included ribolitta, a hearty Italian bread soup with lots of veggies and cannellini beans, and the largest lamb shanks I've ever seen (organic from Oregon) braised in chianti and a beautiful dark, rich demi glace. Don's comment was that he couldn't sleep at night unless he knew there was a gallon of demi glace ready at the restaurant. All of it was sumptuous both that day and two days later as I served up the leftovers.
So after much hinting, KC finally suggested we go there. After much anticipation, dinner was a let down. We started off with their pate appetizer which included a mushroom, chicken, 2 kinds of rabbit and a veal pate. My favorite one was the mushroom while KC's was the chicken. I ordered the crispy herb chicken which had the warning of a 25 min wait time - I was willing to wait for a freshly done moist chicken. KC had the meat ravioli stuffed with braised beef. Even with the warning of a wait time, our entrees arrived just as we were finishing with the appetizer. My chicken arrived a tad overdone and covered in sauce which pretty much eliminated the crispy factor by the time it arrived at table. KC seemed unenthused with his ravioli's. I tried one expecting the soft delicateness of a freshly made pasta, but the edges were decidedly firm. As for service, our server was courteous enough, but after dropping off our food he only came back once to drop off a dessert menu after the busboy had cleared our plates and didn't once ask how our meal was. He had meticulously listed the specials of the day with all their myriad of ingredients, but seemed to care little about our experience of the final product. I may give Volterra another try since I did take Don Curtiss' class and know they care about their ingredients, but if it had been another restaurant I probably wouldn't be back.

Sake

Last friday I went to a sake session hosted by my professional networking group CAAP(www.caapseattle.org) held at Nijo Sushi Bar and Grill on Post Alley. The tasting consisted of 4 different sakes paired with food. My friend KS and I had gone to Nijo a few weeks prior to try out their sake and food sampler as a prelude to hosting the event and I was impressed by the sake and the food served. My experiences have been that their lunch boxes are mediocre, but the chef's choice menu was creative and fresh. Last Friday, I was even more impressed by Nijo's sake expert who gave us a thorough lesson on the history of sake, types of sake and their flavors and an overview of the food we were having and why it was being paired with the sake chosen. One interesting piece of sake history (and probably the only piece of information that most of us will take away from the sake lesson) is that originally the rice grains were chewed by virgins prior to the fermentation process. JB commented that they can't do this is the US due to unavailability of virgins.

The sakes we tried were:

1. Mu - a junmai daiginjyo - this is sake that is brewed with rice that is at highly polished (at least %50 percent) and is generally supposed to be light. This was served with salmon and ebi nigiri and was the least favorite of the sakes I tried.

2. Sato no Homare - Pride of the Village (http://www.vineconnections.com/Fact%20Sheets/sake.pdf/sato_no_homare_pride_of_the_village.pdf) - a junmai ginjyo - this is sake that is also brewed with at least 50% polished rice. This sake has hints of floral and anise flavors. Definitely my favorite one of the night.

3. Kurosawa - Black River - a junmai kimoto - I didn't think there was anything too special about this sake. JB noted that he had seen this sake at other places.

4. Rihaku nigori - Dreamy Clouds - Nigori is roughly filtered sake. I never really liked sake until I had nigori and similar to not liking wine until I had a late harvest Moscato, nigori was an easy sake for me to start with - lots of residual sugars.

I noticed that a couple of the sakes that we tried were imported by vine connections (http://www.vineconnections.com/sake/index.html).

Kampai!