Rose Bowl Bound

Bacon scallion scones

Just a scone weekend I guess.

Lemon ginger scones

I decided I need to work on breakfast this week. My habits have not been healthy as of late. If I have a large batch of quick food in the house, that is relatively easy to snag before I hop on my bike, then maybe I can pump some fuel into me before my morning commute (5 mile ride). Since I've never made scones before, they sounded like a fun challenge, and also a great way to customize my morning snack. Usually, bakery scones are huge and I only eat them if I'm sharing with someone else. I looked for some recipes, and decided to just make them tiny.

I fell in love with the recipe for Orange and Oat scones on 101 Cookbooks, and thought I'd give those a go. I made a ton of changes though, and realized that my scones don't even vaguely resemble her recipe.

First, you cut in the butter. Then you stir everything together, gently working in the buttermilk.

After forming the dough into a round, you slice into wedges and bake till the bottoms are golden brown. Then you nom nom nom nom....

We all deserve it.

Tilth

Beginning on Thursday, I've been wined and dined by my loved ones - Bamboo Sushi with dad on Thursday, Tilth with Phil on Saturday, Volunteer Park Cafe with Phil, Katie and Jason on Sunday, and Nostrana with mom on Monday! I don't believe there's anything I love more in life than my family and friends combined with rich, tasty foods and my camera. Since I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to eat at such scrumptious places (when I'm not laboring over my own stove), I figured I should be jotting down my memories for friends, family, and future reference. I'll get to all of them eventually, but today I'm beginning with Tilth.

I'd been on the train for 3.5 hours when Phil picked me up on Friday evening. We hopped online to see who had openings and what sounded good, and quickly agreed on Tilth, as we'd both been itching to get over there.

Located in Wallingford, a lively neighborhood adjacent to the University District in Seattle, Tilth boasts the claim to fame of having been the second restaurant to ever become Oregon Tilth certified. How fitting. The restaurant is in a tastefully renovated craftsman house, with an enclosed sunroom which sort of makes you feel like you're coming home as you step into the entrance. The space is small, and the staff to table ratio seemed unusually high - but in a really good way.

We started our meal off with some pink bubbly and some scrumptious hors d'oeuvres.....

Phil ordered the salmon and I ordered the ricotta dumpling with lardon. Yum YUM. The portions were the perfect size for having started with an appetizer and ending with a cheese plate (and chocolate deserty thing for Phil). We were able to take our time, and savor each dish without getting too full. I can't WAIT to go back.

Tilth on Urbanspoon

Phil's in Seattle

As a lot of you already know, Phil moved to Seattle a few weeks ago to work for Urbanspoon. This is quite exciting for all sorts of reasons, but I am selfishly mostly excited about the fact that he's closer in mileage and therefore we get to spend significantly more time together. He moved into a cool rental house with a lot of weird features including 1) a warm water dog bath in the basement; 2) tons of windows in every room and not a single curtain or shade; 3) pine flooring; 4) cork walls in one room; 5) a sink that has a regular faucet, and also a "pot filler" that is extra tall and can run at full water pressure while the other faucet is being used; and 6) fruiting shaggy mane mushrooms in the driveway. In case you couldn't tell, I really like Phil's house. I like Seattle too. I'd never been to Seattle before he moved there, and oddly enough, now Josh and I are both spending a lot of time there together as well. (Phil and Josh and Ava went to see the new Matchstick Productions film, and of course Josh dressed up as Saucerboy.)

Last weekend while walking around in a city park, Phil and I found what says is his most favorite mushroom of all. Seems like the perfect combination of rain and sunshine, and temperature this year. We've been finding a lot of mushrooms every weekend, whether we're trying to or not!

Phil with shaggy parasols

Chanterelles from two weekends ago

New stuff all over again....

Well well well... It's been a long time again, and boy do I have a lot to report. Not going to go into a lot of detail, because I want to get back to posting some beautiful pictures of edibles. I quit my job at WebMD (finally!) am happily employed as a Research Assistant now at Oregon Health & Science University. Woot. Pretty excited to be back in research, and also doing research that is now more related to what I went to school for.

Last night, Grandma Davis went out in the rain and cold and started picking concord grapes in the driveway before I came over for dinner. By the time I got there, she had gotten about ten pounds already done, if not more. I added a bit more to it, and now I have tons of grapes to do god knows what with.... Between Grandma and mom, and I, we decided I'm going to make grape juice and can it. So that involved me bringing grandmas canner home too. I'll let you know how it goes.