Sandwich Challenge? I Accept!

A few weeks ago, Eater Seattle posted their "18 Iconic Seattle Sandwich" list. This list, in my opinion is very accurate, and sounded very very delicious, so I decided that before summer is over, I would eat all 18 iconic Seattle sandwiches. Seeing that this wasn't going to be too difficult of a task (I 've already eaten most of them already before the list was posted) I set out to try the rest. The task at hand:

To Do: 

1. Baguette Box- Drunken Chicken

2. Bakeman's- Turkey Sandwich

3. Grinder's- Meatball Sub

4. Hi Spot Cafe- Tuna Melt

5. Market Grill- Blackened Salmon

6. Matt's at the Market- Pan Fried Catfish Sandwich

7. Other Coast Cafe-  Rajun Cajun

8. Pecos Pit- BBQ Pulled Pork

9. Tat's Deli- Pastrami Cheesesteak

10. Three Girls Bakery- Meatloaf Sandwich

DONE!

1. 74th Street Alehouse- Reuben

2. Paseo- Caribbean Roast Sandwich

3. Saigon Deli- Bahn Mi

4. Salumi- Porchetta AND Braised Oxtail

5. Tubs Subs- Joker's Dip

6. Where You At Matt?- Oyster PoBoy

And I will now add to the DONE! list:

Dot's Delicatessen Reuben- Stacked high with pastrami, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing. The house-cured and smoked pastrami makes this extra amazing.

 Marination Station Spicy Pork Torta- Their "nunya sauce", a spicy miso mayo blend, gives the pork and slaw an added kick, so delicious!

I will chronicle the rest of my sandwich adventures in my blog. Wish me (and my tummy) luck!

Pickling TIme!

As spring slowly changes to summer, so does the menu at Cafe Flora! Last week I brought in some freshly picked ramps and sea beans from Foraged and Found to add to our new "Pickle Jar" that we will be offering on our menu in a few weeks. If you are unfamiliar with these foraged items, here's a little summary:

Ramps: aka "wild leeks" are a wild onion found in the forest. They have a very strong onion flavor, and while they come with a large green leaf top, I trim that off when I pickle them and just use the bottom white root.

Sea beans: Found in coastal tidelands, they almost look like miniature asparagus. They grow in large beds and are harvested at the beginning of their growth before they flower and become too tough to eat. 

Ramps after they are pickled

Awesome Scone Recipe, Thanks Martha!

Now I know when you hear someone say "Martha Stewart" nowadays, instead of talking about food, the conversation goes to securities and stock fraud, her time in jail, and the crumbling of her huge food empire. But I will always think of her as that woman I watched on TV when I was a little kid, making the perfect cookies in the beautiful perfect kitchen, and always blatantly bossing around the guests she had on her show (why not, it's her show!).  I wouldn't quite put her up there with Miss Julia Child, but she has forever changed the way we cook at home, and made beautiful DIY home projects for us way before Pinterest came to be! 

I love looking through her website for recipes.  Her recipes are always accurate and turn out great every time. I recently made these sweet white scones that are quick, easy, and turned out delicious! Recipe below (along with a beautiful perfect Martha Stewart photo to accompany it :-) Thanks Martha!

Mummy's Sweet White Scones

Courtesy of the Martha Stewart Show and Petersham Nursery

• YieldMakes about 18 scones

Ingredients

6 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

• Pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
• 1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
• 4 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons milk
• Granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, superfine sugar, and baking powder. Make a well in the center and add butter. Using your fingers, work butter into flour mixture until a crumbly mixture is formed.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 eggs and milk. Add milk mixture to flour mixture and stir to combine.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface; knead lightly and shape into a round. Roll dough out until it is 1 inch thick. Using a 3-inch biscuit cutter, cut out scones and transfer to prepared baking sheets.
5. In a small bowl, beat remaining egg and brush the top of each scone; sprinkle each with granulated sugar. Transfer baking sheets to oven and bake until golden brown and cooked through, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer scones to a wire rack and let cool slightly before serving.

Can You Handle My Randall?

This past Monday, Nick and I went to a Seattle Beer Week Event at The Pine Box. The event was called "Can You Handle My Randall?" If you're not familiar with what a randall is, it's a process that involves passing beer through food (fruit, herbs, you name it) and infusing the beer with that flavor. There were 12 different infusion at this particular event, with different beers going through everything from grapefruit, to bacon and peanut butter chips, to skittles (yes the candy!). We were able to try all 12 and both of us decided that the Port Townsend Golden Ale infused with green tea was the winning combination. The lightness of the pale ale with a hint of green tea made for an amazing infusion!

Below is the menu of beers, plus a picture of the randalls where you can see the lines going into the fruit, and coming out the back to the taps! Delicious!

List of featured randalls

The randalls

Mmmmm, Morels!

Today at Cafe Flora, Foraged and Found brought us some beautiful morel and king oyster mushrooms. Morels are quite the luxury mushroom, and I'm very excited to have them on my Mother's Day spring garlic and pine nut pesto linguini dish!

Morel Mushrooms from F&F

Seattle Beer Week 2013!

Last night was the first of ten days of events celebrating something we do best here in the PNW, beer! Seattle Beer Week 2013 is upon us, so Nick and I decided to go to the opening party last night at The Pine Box in Capitol Hill, where we were able to try this year's featured SBW beer, Fremont's Seattle Beer Week Session Ale. Very tasty!

My earliest memories of this event was back when I worked at Quinn's, and we hosted some awesome food/beer pairing events and brought in beer that you cannot find anywhere else. Here's a link to the Seattle Beer Week website with a schedule of events going on around the city, there's something going on everyday so go check it out!

Springtime at Cafe Flora!

Looks like Spring flowers are in full bloom! I took this photo in front of the restaurant today of some beautiful wisteria growing along our roof. Just in time for Mother's Day!

Dinner at Altura

This past Tuesday my boyfriend Nick and I decided to visit our friend Ian at his new work, Altura in Capitol Hill. Ian and I had talked a little bit before about the food there, he showed me many pictures of their dishes, of some amazing grass-fed beautifully marbled beef that they served, but none of them really did their food justice. It was AMAZING! Altura is only open Tuesday-Saturday, and the same kitchen crew works everyday, so their attention to detail, freshness, and execution are spot on. Ian said they never serve prep that is more than two days old, and the Chef has an amazing eye for detail.

We were able to get a bar seat in front of Ian's station, and I kid you not I probably saw at least 15 components go into the plating of one bowl of soup! If you would like an excuse to splurge (dinner comes with a hefty price tag but it is worth the experience) go visit Altura!

Ian workin' his station!

Amuse Bouche

Octopus over a white bean puree on the left, cuttlefish on the right.

Pan seared king salmon, morels, fava bean puree.

Lamb cheek, "bone marrow"- a daikon hollowed out with bone marrow inside, pea shoots.

Beef carpaccio, soft poached egg yolk, pickled ramps.

Welcome to my blog!

Me at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival April 2013

Hi! My name is Bernadette (Berny) and welcome to my first attempt at writing a blog! I hesitate to call this a "food blog" since I won't be writing solely about food. I thought this would be a great way to share my experiences not only as a lover of food, but also as a sous chef working in Seattle. I am currently the dinner sous chef of Cafe Flora, a vegetarian restaurant located in Madison Park in Seattle. Everyday I get the privilege of working with some of the most amazing ingredients, talking to local farmers and purveyors of food, visit farmer's markets across the city, and get to cook with local produce for our seasonal menu. It's an experience that I felt needed to be recorded and shared with all those who love food and would like a peek into the food industry from the perspective of a very new chef!

I hope to be able to write about my experiences, stories, share some awesome recipes I've found, and also give advice for those who have questions about their own cooking experiences at home. Feel free to comment or post to anything I write, I love hearing new ideas! I'll try my best to keep the posts fresh and current. Thanks again, here we go!

P.S. I would like to give credit to my creative friend Andrea for coming up with the title for my blog! :-)