Taylor Clark's Slate.com on Being a Vegetarian

Do you ever read an article and have this weird feeling like the author is channeling you? Or rather channeling a version of you that writes words together real good like?

That's how I felt about Taylor Clark's hilarious essay on Slate explaining vegetarians to omnivores. He captures exactly my definition of being vegetarian (food that didn't previously have eyes), my reasons for being veg (don't like to kill things), lack of judgement about other people's personal food choices, and plea for reasonable consideration at restaurants.

Granted there are lots of other kinds of vegetarians (which he acknowledges) but I'm on exactly the same page as this guy. If you are too, it would be a good one to forward to friends and family who feel the need to taunt you, think you hate food, or are worried that you are near malnutrition.

Seattle Food Blogger Dinner (With Brief Review of Quinn's Pub)

Tuesday night we had a gathering of a bunch of Seattle food bloggers at the relatively new Quinn's Pub on Capitol Hill. I'd never met any of these folks before, so it was exciting for me to see everyone, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce you as well.

The night's organizer was the fabulous Keren Brown, author of the Savvy Savorer, which is also mirrored over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as the Frantic Foodie. She has a knack not just for alliterative titles, but also creating very welcoming gatherings and bringing great treats to share. My favorite was the fig flavor of Greek Gods yogurt, but the Bacon Salt was good fun too. Who knew it was vegetarian?!? Keren was recently married in Israel and brought along her new husband Erez.

Then we have Katrin Rippel, who is actually not a blogger, but a specialist in menu translation and cultural customization for the dining and hospitality world. She's built her own company around this fascinating niche. She told me that she can look at a plate of food and see what state of mind the chef was in when they made it, which I thought was fascinating! Katrin brought homemade candies to share, which I'm fervently hoarding.

Next we come to Ronald Holden, author of the very popular Cornichon.org and connoisseur of aged grape juice. I asked him a question about Hermitage wine and he instantly described not just the style and general area of France it was from, but the layout of the town and vineyards. As someone who can concentrate that way on food but never had the brain for wine, I was thoroughly amazed.

Candace Dempsey writes both about eating and travel in her Italian Woman At The Table blog and in books. She also teaches other folks how to write about food via an Internet class. She brought me a special treat of cumin powder direct from the souk in Tunis which tastes unbelievable! Candace came with her friend Annie Beckmann, who is a writer and editor at Antioch University.

Chow Foods, operator of 5 Seattle restaurants, is lucky to have Naomi Bishop as their marketing coordinator. She's passionate about food, and you can read her about her personal cooking and dining experiences at The Gastrognome. Naomi is in no way gnome-like in real life. (Go back and read her blog name if that made no sense to you.

Rachel Belle isn't a blogger (yet?), she's a reporter and co-host of the popular Stick a Fork In It show on 710 KIRO radio. At the site you can download their short programs and listen to her amusing hidden-microphone banter with Dan Restione.

And last but not least, Jay Friedman, who is a staff author at Seattlest as well as a sex educator. Heck, sex and food go great together, makes sense to me! I hear he's also working on a one-man show, which I'm guessing will be hilarious. He got my Maldon Sea Salt in the gift exchange, can't wait to hear if he likes it as much as I do.

Quinn's was an ideal place to hold this get-together. They devoted a big communal table to us, giving us lots of space to share drinks and food There are a handful of vegetarian dishes on the gastropub style menu of relatively small plates.

I had a grilled romaine and bread panzanella-style salad that was super tasty, but I thought the bread could have been less soggy. My second dish was curried roast cauliflower, black lentils, and fresh mango with raita. Unlike many Seattle restaurants, Quinn's is not afraid to use salt properly, which I greatly appreciate, especially with drinks. I'm not surprised that the food is delicious, Quinn's is owned by Scott and Heather Staples, who also own the outstanding Restaurant Zoe.

So that's the roundup! I hope you'll check out the sites of some of our other fine bloggers and Quinn's is well worth a stop.

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Foodbeam Sables Au Chocolat with Fleur De Sel

I've been thoroughly enjoying Fanny's Foodbeam blog lately, and when I needed a straightforward chocolate dessert for dinner with Mini-me's cousins tonight, I thought I'd check her archives. Sure enough, there were these great looking Chocolate Sable Cookies with Fleur De Sel. Fanny warns that they might induce some form of rage but it was a chance I was willing to take. Boy am I glad I did, they are superbly chocolatey and the salt provides a subtle counterpoint. I used my favorite Maldon sea salt, and Guittard bittersweet chocolate. And as a bonus, this solved a little mystery for me. 20+ years ago when I lived at the Green Gulch Zen Center and Farm in Marin County, we used to make a little mocha cookie that I loved. I tried to figure out the recipe years later and never quite hit on it. Now I realize that it was a sable technique, with the sandy texture from the sugar and no egg or liquid to dissolve it.  (Sable is from the French word Sablee which means sandy). I'll have to make these again with an espresso flavor and see if it is close. Another nice bonus about the eggless recipe: you know you can safely eat the dough and let your kids lick the spoon! Be sure and follow her advice to take them out before they actually look done, they firm up a lot as they cool and this is a case where the flavor is coming from the chocolate, you aren't trying to caramelize the sugars.

And by the way props to Fanny for providing the recipe by weight, that makes it go so quickly and  accurately. If you don't have a kitchen scale, here's a digital one that we own and I get much use out of. It is small enough to live on your counter, but big enough to weigh up to 2 Kg / 4.4 pounds, and accurate to the gram. If you do have one, I want to make sure you know the trick for working quickly with it. Let's say you need 100g of flour, 40g of sugar, and 50g of cocoa powder mixed together. Turn on the scale with its bowl and pour in flour until you hit 100g. Leaving the flour in the bowl, "tare" the scale (reset it to read 0). On the scale I mentioned above that is a simple click of a button. Pour in sugar until it reads 40g. Tare again and add the cocoa until you reach 50g. Fast, spot-on, and no dirty meassuring cups!

Totally unrelated note. How great is the Pacific Northwest? In Seattle I can play golf, and kind of hope I fade my ball a bit to the right along the fenceline, so I get to eat handfuls of perfectly ripe blackberries while I wait for my partners to take their second shots!

Sables Au Chocolat with Fleur De Sel (Chocolate Sable Cookies with Sea Salt)