So we went off to Seattle, where it was 45° and rainy, leaving Wisconsin, where it was in the 30s and snowy. Over the course of the 4 days we were away, it warmed up and iced in WI, but the most drastic changes have been last night and today. It was 50° and pouring rain when we landed in Milwaukee last night; rain pelted down on us the whole drive home, and I had to sop up the basement and start up the dehumidifier when we got back. Overnight, the temperature dropped and it started snowing. Right now (ca. 3:28 p.m.) it’s about 28° and there’re about 4 or 5 inches of slushy wet snow on the ground. And the wind is picking up and it’s getting even colder, so I am expecting the shoveling experience to be challenging.
Yay, global climate change. You can’t get used to the cold this winter in WI, because it keeps warming up.
I already told you about our first dinner in Seattle. For our second night, after I spent way too much time in all my afternoon sessions, when I should have been listening to speakers talk about how we will transform MARC data to linked data, Yelping and Open Table-ing, making and cancelling reserves, trying to find a restaurant that was close enough to the Space Needle, and could accommodate the lactose intolerant, wheat eschewing, and non-adventurous eaters in our party of 6 – the others all cancelled, and Mark and I went to the Steelhead Diner. We started off with a salad. I had Cioppino and a really nice white wine; Mark had the sole, that was prepared with capers and butter and fennel. And when they accidentally brought Brussels sprouts instead of the roasted potatoes he asked for, they took the sprouts away and comped the potatoes.
In the midst of all of my Yelping and Open Table-ing, I made a reservation for Sunday – the next night – at the place where we really wanted to go – Terra Plata. Really nice meal there – mix and match small plates – but I had a cocktail and two glasses of wine and felt as if I had overindulged the next morning. We also had a little group-shrink; our party of four turned into three, and the third was a little over a half hour late instead of the 15 minutes she expected. The server was extremely nice and accommodating, though. We started off with their house-made potato chips with truffled salt – I thought they were better without the chive dip, because you could taste the truffle more. And we got bread that came with good olive oil and balsamic – and I probably ate too much of it because we were waiting. I had a pasta filled with butternut squash, with lots of butter – the menu said browned but not significantly – and a few hazelnuts on top. I also got the roasted carrots, that even Mark liked. They were roasted with lots of cumin, and on top of crème fraîche or sour cream, and reminded him of fried plantains. Mark had a steak with duck fat potatoes – that were as yummy, but different, than the potatoes the night before. Our third friend had the tuna. We got a dessert – ice cream, and ginger cake, and crystallized ginger – a spoonful or two apiece.
On our last night, we went over to my brothers and I cooked. The day before, I walked over and inventoried their kitchen and left some bread dough rising n the fridge. We ate soup and bread and winter greens Ceasar salad, and an apple pie – because it’s been such a bad apple year here in WI, I really wanted to shop for apples at the Pike’s Place Market. I think I liked this last dinner of the trip the best. I like my own cooking, but even more so because we had family and friends assembled to eat.
