Ode to Brouwer's

Becca and I took advantage of a work trip last week to go up to Seattle, visit friends and hang out downtown. It was a great opportunity for both of us to decompress and celebrate a good 2008 and hope for a fantastic 2009. As part of the fun, Sunday we took the bus and headed up into the artistic Fremont neighborhood. We'd been given a recommendation to visit Brouwer's. It's a Flemish-inspired cafe that promoted its wide selection of Belgian beers and tasty food.


Needless to say from the picture above, it did not disappoint. The leather bound bottled beer list included SIX pages of Belgian beers. With these many choices, paralysis was bound to take hold so I left the choice in the hands of my handy waiter. A St. Bernardus Abt 12 and St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, coupled with a Croque Monsieur and Belgian frites (with mayo, naturally) left me very happy. The third seasonal ale I had though left me ruing the 10.5% alcohol content of all three beers. Dude. However nothing a few more frites couldn't take care of.

In short it was a fantastic place to enjoy top notch beer and frites and heaven for someone like me currently taking a break from the training bandwagon. The added bonus is that I found out it is located less than a mile from my friend Mark's place.

With that, I'd like to honor Brouwer's with a Davis Haiku:

Seattle's Fremont
Brings Belgian Beers and Pommes Frites
Too Much Temptation

Brian

Becca found her Seattle nirvana via a slightly different indulgence:




I actually considered getting the 5 kg(!) jar of Nutella for her (look at those puppy dog eyes) but in the end was too afraid of emerging one morning to find her passed out in chocolate-hazelnut coma, spoon still in her hand....

Ode to Oregon, part 10

So lunch yesterday was a farmer's market special.

An ear of fresh sweet corn
Slices of heirloom tomato
Melange of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries on cottage cheese.

Yum. Yet another reason why I love summers in Oregon.

becca

The Zen of Turkish Breakfasts

On the patio of Kilise Alti, Sirince

One of the many cool things about traveling in Turkey is that breakfast is included in almost all but the cheapest and (strangely) most expensive of lodging. And breakfast in Turkey is a cultural experience all of its own.

The food at breakfast, not surprisingly, has a very Mediterranean influence and we found fairly consistent offerings at all the different places we stayed. There was usually some combination of green and black olives, olive oil, fruit jams and compotes, a variety of cheeses, tomatoes, cucumbers, nuts, dried fruits, and an egg of some sort (hard/soft boiled, fried, etc.). These were served with bread, not the pita or flatbread that we had been expecting to find. There was also the ubiquitous tea, cay (pronouced 'chai'), in the distinctive tulip-shaped glasses that we grew to really love.

While some hotels and pensions just had buffets where you could go up and help yourself (and we noticed that those tended to have a few more ‘familiar’ or ‘western’ options) more than half of the places we stayed provided individual ‘spreads’ in lovely dishes.

Breakfast at the Agora Pension, Herakleia/Kapikiri

In the two smallest villages we stayed in the food was all totally fresh and most of it came from in town. It was beyond delicious.

Fresh, homemade breakfast at Kilise Alti, Sirince

Even when the food was much more processed and packaged (such as what we found when we were the first guests of the season at our hotel in a small Mediterranean town), it still was beautifully presented and satisfying to eat.

Breakfast at Beyaz Guvercin, Selimiye

It was a wonderful way to start the day and really got you into the mood of a place in touch with its land and enjoying its bounty. I'm looking forward to making more meals like this for our own breakfasts or brunches.

Becca

Fun with Food

(The first in what will likely be a recurring series on one of my favorite topics...)


One of the things I love about living in Oregon is the ubiquity of farmers markets (I can never figure out if that should be farmers' markets) and fresh produce in the summer, especially the berries. While visiting our local Sellwood/Westmoreland market last week I eagerly checked out the offerings, squeezing through the crowds in front of each to taste the tempting samples each vendor was displaying. One in particular had a variety of juicy looking berries: raspberries, blueberries, and marionberries*. Checking out their prices, I noticed that there was a special price for half-flats (6 pints). Never one to resist a deal, I quickly picked up a mixed box (2 pints of each kind of berry). It was only as I was walking home with my purchases that I began to wonder how the two of us would possibly eat all of these berries before they went bad. (For some reason freezing them never came to mind. That's a culinary tactic I'm still working on developing).

Arriving home I immediately called my mom to pick her brain about the relative merits of crisps versus cobblers versus crumbles for these types of berries. The conversation was fruitful. (ugh. sorry. terrible pun) Not only did I figure out that I'm definitely more of a crisp person than a cobbler person, but Mom reminded me of a delicious, quick, easy and impressive-looking dessert that we used to make when I was young and we were getting buried by berries.

I'm sure it has a more elegant name, but I've always called it Berry Pizza. Basically, it's a cheating way to make a quick fruit tart with some serious wow factor. (You can, of course, make your own dough (whether it be pastry dough or cookie dough), but part of the beauty of this recipe is its "quickfix-ness") My first try at it (pictured above) ended up with a more rustic than elegant feel. Without a pizza pan to bake the cookie crust on, I ended up with a more oblong/blobby shape than a true circle, and I left the apricot lumps in the glaze because they taste good, even if they're not that aesthetically impressive.

I recommend giving it a try before the berries are gone for the year. It takes practically no time to make and adds a very summer-y feel to any occasion. Enjoy.

Becca

*For those non-pacific northwest readers of the blog, Marion Berries are a particular type of blackberries developed in Marion County, OR. They are known for their intense flavor and for having fewer seeds than other blackberry varieties. Marionberry pie is an Oregon specialty, kind of our version of American Apple Pie. (And no, despite what some suggested in the late 90's, they are not the punch line to a joke about disgraced former DC mayor, Marion Barry)


Becca's Berry Pizza
recipe from Joyce Carver

Crust:
1 tube Frozen/refrigerated Sugar Cookie dough

"Pizza sauce":
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract

Toppings:
Raspberries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Strawberries, etc
Sliced peaches/plums/nectarines, etc.

Glaze:
1/2 cup apricot or raspberry jam
2 tsp sugar

Cut cookie dough in 1/4" slices and arrange on a greased and floured pizza pan. Bake 10-12 minutes at 325 and cool.

Cream cream chees, sour cream, sugar and almond extract and spread over cooled cookie dough.

Arrange peaches, strawberries, raspberries or marionberries in rings on top.

Stir jam and sugar together over moderate heat in a saucepan for 2 to 3 minutes until thick enough to coat a spoon with a light film. Drizzle over berries while warm.

Can be made up to 1 hour ahead of time. Store leftovers in frig (fruit will run)