Harvest Fair

I have actually forgotten about my poor blog. I will be posting more regularly starting...soon. That's the plan. Last week I went to Seattle Tilth's Harvest Fair in Wallingford. It's about a 3 mile walk from the house, and it was a gorgeous day! Not a cloud in the sky, and a bit hot. I went because I wanted to learn more about urban gardening and raising chickens. Yes, one day I will have a yard, and in that yard I will compost, grow fruit trees, herbs and veggies, and raise some chickens!

I wasn't expecting the fair to be so big. It was really good! I met Marlo M who's the organizer for our etsy team, very cool. Always nice to meet fellow local crafters!

Need some peppers? What kind?


Chickens! I've been intrigued with the idea of raising chickens for a while, but after talking to some chicken owners at the fair, I really want some! To be clear, I just want a few hens for eggs and as pets. I am an omnivore, but I won't expect anything from my chickens other than fresh eggs...and to eat the bugs from my lawn (pretty please). Oh, this is just my observation, but kids seem to love chickens. Seriously, they like to chase them around, pick them up and hug them like teddy bears. See below, it's a fairy princess trying to hug a chicken.

Seattle Tilth offers a city coop tour every summer and classes on raising chickens in the city. Yay! They also have classes on raising goats if you're so inclined. I am not. What do you think of this little bird? Ain't she a beaut? I don't know much about chicken breeds, but I recognized this one right away as the kind I've had in a traditional Chinese soup. Yeah, the first time I had it, I was a little disturbed, but I soon got over it. Gray chicken meat with black bones is probably one of the tamer things I've eaten.

SVC Wayzgoose

Seattle's School of Visual Concepts hosts a Wayzgoose every year at the end of summer. They open up their letterpress studio for curious guests, there's equipment and art to buy, and most exciting of all, the steamroller smackdown!

Steamroller Smackdown: Local artists and design firms will be challenged to produce a giant poster, printed in the SVC parking lot, using a two-ton steamroller as a press. Prints will then be sold to the public by silent auction.

I took lots of pictures, so get ready!


Steamroller press! If I had a steamroller, this is what I would use it for.

Inking...

Checking out the letterpress studio...pretty cool. I'm going add 'Take a letterpress class' to my shopping list.

...and blocks for sale.



Looking down from the Fitch poster, and AIGA group checking their print.

I think this is the Starbucks group. Cool stuff! I had a good time! Now go and design something :-)

Urban Craft Uprising

Sorry for the lack of posts! I've been having some troubles with my laptop :-( It appears the fan needs to be replaced, repaired or cleaned. Hmmm....so in the meantime, I only use my laptop until it reaches a certain temperature before the fan kicks on, which seems to be an hour or so, longer if I rest it on an ice pack. it's low tech but it works. And doing any flash or video is a problem. sucks sucks sucks!

Anyway, this is way late, but three weeks ago I went to Urban Craft Uprising at Seattle Center. I had a fabulous time! So fabulous, I didn't leave for three hours! I didn't take many pics, but I found a few on flickr. The picture on the left is from a felting workshop by the lovely ladies of Feltique. Well hey! That's me! (look for the white hat) I've never done any felting before, except by accident when I tried to machine wash my wool sweater in college. Um, so needle felting is very cool and terribly addicting. I recommend it to anyone, especially those who like to poke and stab things. See more photos here.

See the apple I made!


I also sat in on a kansashi fabric flower workshop by Diane Gilleland. It's a great way to use up small scraps of fabric. There are some more pictures on her blog. Hey! I'm in some of those pictures, too! (in white hat)


There were so many wonderful things I wanted to buy! There's so much amazing talent out there. Unfortunately, I'm still on an extreme budget diet, so I was not able to purchase much. I did allow myself two small purchases though, a sketchbook (from ex libris anonymous) and some flavored salt (from Secret Stash). I actually did need a new sketchbook, and I got attached to this penguin book. I think it suits me :-) It's made from an old children's book. I love it much. and flavored sea salt...YUM! I humored myself and only bought a small vial. Afterwards, I spent the rest of the day wandering around Seattle Center, checked out the Arab Festival, got a kebab, found a spot under a tree and relaxed. It was good.

Captain Phil!

I met Captain Phil over the weekend! He was doing some promo for Deadliest Catch and Alaskan Brewing Company, so I hopped a bus and went to meet him at a local supermarket. heehee! It's silly how excited I was to meet a crab fisherman. I'm usually completely starstruck around famous people (not that I meet tons of famous people, but I've met a few)...but he was super cool and very nice. I totally would have bought some brew, but money's tight these days ya know.

I've made another giant food pillow! It turned out well, but it still needs some tweaking. I'll try to get some pics and post it soon!

The Library

I had some time downtown last week, so I went to the central library. Definitely very cool. I am a fan of libraries, especially this one. I found the craft books section fairly easily, read a few magazines, perused the internet. It was raining that day, so it was a good day to be hanging out at the library.

My what big salmon you have!

After our morning in Ballard, we went to Gas Works Park, previously seen in this post. By this time, it was definitely getting hot, but we all had a nice walk about and/or relax in the grass. In the evening, we made a trip to Whole Foods for some shopping and a light dinner before my parents headed back to their hotel to get ready for their early morning flight.

We are a family that loves to eat crab! On the east coast we had blue crab. I remember getting them fresh somewhere near D.C when I was little. They'd come with a big scoop of Old Bay seasoning, and we'd take them home, steam them, and spread some newspaper on the kitchen table and dig in. Here, we dig in to dungeness crab! They're bigger and more fun to eat! The last time the family was here, we bought two fresh crabs and cooked them at home. This time dad got us two pre-cooked ones which my brother and I heated up and chowed down on after our parents left. Num num num! and the carnage in the compost bin...



The next day we went downtown and made our way to all the outdoor shops; REI, Feathered Friends, Columbia, and Patagonia. Somewhere in there, we stopped at Whole Foods for lunch (we love Whole Foods). Oysters were one dollar each. We tried to buy just two of them, but the guy said, "I'll just give them to ya." So we each got a free oyster! Then Tom wanted more, so he ordered six more. It was a bit much.



After lunch we went back to Pike Place to look at salmon again. Oh, we do love our salmon. You just can't get it this fresh in Ohio. Copper River salmon was still too expensive, so we just looked. We were also nervous about ruining a $30 piece of salmon if we did buy some.





smoked salmon...which we happily sampled. so good!


We felt defeated by not finding my brother some frozen king salmon, and also because he couldn't try some Copper River salmon. So we got a piece of fresh king salmon for dinner, and experimented with some new cedar planks. I also made apple pie, but it took so long to make, it didn't come out of the oven until 11:30pm. Oh well, it was good for breakfast. It was a lovely little mini-holiday with the family.

Fisherman's Terminal

On Sunday two weekends ago, we went to the Ballard farmers market. There wasn't too much in season that I usually buy. I can only eat so much brussel sprouts and asparagus. I can't wait until berries and cherries are in season! We were mainly looking for fresh frozen salmon, which I had definitely seen there the week before. My brother wanted to take some back to Virginia with him, and he wanted the kind that was fresh frozen and vacuum packed. Alas, on this day we didn't see much frozen salmon. So we then headed to the nearby Fisherman's Terminal, where I read that you can buy good fish. I'd never been there, but I've been wanting to check it out because I love the Deadliest Catch, and some of the boats on the show are moored here. The monument below is the Fisherman's Memorial.



We had a fresh fish lunch at Chinook's, which had a great view of the boats.



The Sea Star was on a few episodes of the first season of the Deadliest Catch. You can tour the boat for $10 or visit the gift shop on the boat for free, which is what we did. Two crew members were working in the shop, one of which I recognized from the show :-) We didn't do the tour, but I would pay money to tour the Northwestern boat though. I was still kind of excited to see one of the Deadliest Catch boats, even though it wasn't on the show much.



More big fishing boats...


Alas, again...no luck on the frozen salmon. I'd see signs in Ballard pointing to Loki Fish at the Fisherman's Terminal where you can buy flash-frozen fish straight from their boat, exactly what we wanted! But they were not there that day either. hmmm, out fishing perhaps? I do want to go back and find them because I love the idea of buying fish right off the boat from the people who caught it. I remember buying fresh fish and chips from a boat in Hobart, Tasmania...mmmm, so good.

Afterwards, we made a trip to Costco to get some Copper River sockeye salmon that we had seen there day before. at $19.99/lb, it was ten dollars cheaper than every other place. We were just there the day prior, but we didn't buy any because we were going to be out all day away from a fridge. So we went back the next day to buy some, and it was gone...all of it. Completely gone, like it was never even there. Boo...salmon fail.

Okay, so I guess that week was the very first Copper River salmon of the season, so it was all expensive and everyone wanted some. I just now got back from Costco and got some for $9.99/lb. Yippee! Salmon for dinner.

Pike Place

After we returned from Bainbridge Island, we walked to Pike Place from the ferry terminal. Pike Place was crowded! We just happened to be there during the Seattle Cheese Festival, which was a delicious event to happen upon. We tasted some cheese, most of them were of the pungently tasty variety. With the perfect weather, cheese festival, cruise ships in port, and general weekend crowds, Pike Place was hoppin'. There was plenty of fish being thrown at "the place where they throw the fish", aka Pike Place Fish Market. Copper River salmon season had just started; I think the first catch had just arrived the day before, according to the local news. The season only lasts 3-4 weeks, and foodies go crazy for this stuff every year. From what I've read, salmon from the Copper River in Alaska is fattier and tastier than most other salmons, and from what I've seen, its colour is more pronounced. I'm yearning to try some, but I just can't afford it this year. At $30-$40/lb it's quite pricey, though apparently a bit cheaper than last year. I think a good smoked wild Alaska king salmon is one of the most delicious things on earth...yes, even better than bacon (and, better for your heart!) So I'm really curious to see how one of my favorite foods can taste even better than it already does.

Mmmm...dungeness crab. I like those, too. See this is the reason I wanted to move here.

Bainbridge Island

My parents and my brother came for a visit this past weekend and the weather was perfect! They all arrived Friday evening. Saturday morning we headed downtown and took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. My dad expressed a slight concern that we might mistakenly end up on a boat to Canada without our passports. We were assured that Bainbridge Island is indeed not part of Canada. The ferry ride was about 35 minutes and affords great views of the city and Mt Rainier. I always have trouble photographing the Mountain. It doesn't show up well in photos. You can see it in distance in the photo above. I had to "enhance" it to make it visible.

So, um, it's pretty apparent in the next photo that my camera lens is quite dirty. Just ignore that...this is Bainbridge Island from the ferry.



From the ferry, you can walk to Winslow which is where all the shops and restaurants are. We checked out the farmers market, where we met the mayor of Bainbridge Island. She was very appreciative and friendly when my dad told her the island was really lovely...then he asked her where we should eat for lunch. Some people on the ferry had recommended a good place that was by the water... so we asked the mayor, and she directed us to Doc's.

I only took two pictures on the island. Here we are waiting for out table. We didn't do much, just wandered and ate. Halibut and chips, yummy!



This excursion actually reminded me a lot of New Zealand in many ways. The climate, the town, the water... The ferry ride was very reminiscent of a ferry I took in Auckland.

City from afar. You can see the giant cruise ship in port.

An Evening with Bret and Jemaine

I went to see Flight of the Conchords at the Paramount on Tuesday night. Bret and Jemaine were in fine form. I haven't laughed so much since I went to see John Hodgeman several months ago. I love these guys! As you can see, I had awesome seats. Close enough to see the little rhinoceros on Bret's guitar.

Bret, aka Rhymnocerous


Jemaine, aka Hiphopopotamus


Nigel, the cool cellist


Arj Barker opened


Sugalumps. That's Jemaine sharing his sugalumps with someone in the first row.