Views of Sequim, the Olympic Peninsula. . .and beyond
I heard someone recently pose the question, “What would you eat if you could choose your last meal?” I decided not to overthink it. Crab. Steamed and cracked. If there were time to get fancy I’d throw in old fashioned San Francisco sourdough bread and a big Caesar salad. This, for me, is a perfect Happy Meal.
Above is a commercial operation in Port Townsend, New Day Fisheries. Many people around here go crabbing and harvest crabs for themselves.
Cobb salad lunch at Black Bear Diner in Sequim. I don’t think I’m fooling myself that this may be any more virtuous than a hamburger and fries. This is to a salad what a banana split is to a scoop of ice cream. There’s lettuce under there somewhere but most of the rest is pure indulgence.
Last month as part of Native American Heritage Month, the local Elwha Klallam Tribe hosted a screening of a film called “More Than Frybread.” We’d not been to the Tribal Center, a beautiful building in Port Angeles, and the movie sounded like fun. It was – fun and very funny. A mockumentary on the first ever state frybread championship in Arizona, it profiled and followed contestants before and through the competition. The characters were all well drawn and well acted and the film was full of wry humor.
We love frybread and have great memories of finding a couple of frybread stands in very remote areas of the Southwest. There is nothing like fresh, hot frybread when you’ve been out camping for days and driving for hours in the high desert. That was some years ago and the thought of seeing it on film filled us with nostalgia. I can’t tell you how thrilled we were when our Elwha hosts announced before the film that a batch of frybread was out and ready to eat. Heaven! A great movie and frybread, too. Life is good.
Beware! This post probably contains more verbiage about fruitcakes than you can tolerate. But heck, it’s that time of year!
It’s fruitcake season. Fruitcake: The brunt of jokes (the first one I heard this year: “My family has one fruitcake. We pass it from person to person every year..”). For some, like my husband, it ignites an annual quest: Find a fruitcake, a decent fruitcake, that can approach the taste ambrosia his grandmother created each year. As his search has become more, well, fruitless, the longing increases. His grandmother used fruit, lots of fruit. “All these have too much cake! It should be more fruit!” Grandma started making her cakes in September. “Lots of green and red cherries. And citrus peel.” After they were baked she’d wrap them up and then soak them in brandy, dousing them repeatedly month by month until they were just right. By Christmas they were perfect and the little boy version of my husband feasted so contentedly he’s never recovered. Though the fruitcake above is iced with marzipan, this is the first fruitcake that’s come anywhere near passing muster in decades. My husband’s face lights up like a four year old catching a glimpse of Santa when I dole out the nightly slice. It remains hidden. Otherwise it would disappear in moments as he beasts it.
Me? I’ll eat fruitcake but my affection for it doesn’t approach the level of addiction of, say, chocolate. Fruitcake had an entirely different place in my family history. My uncle, a commercial baker, was in charge of fruitcake production for Hostess Bakeries. We got a fruitcake every year in one of the distinctive Hostess antique-looking gold tins with a picture of a woman on it. I think she was holding a plate with a fruitcake on it. And every year around the Christmas table we’d hear war stories of fruitcake production from my uncle who, by Christmas, had seen enough green and red cherries to jade the jolliest of Christmas elves. The only brandy I knew that was related to fruitcake was probably downed in relief by my uncle. I took it totally for granted, much like my childish belief that nothing would ever change. I don’t remember when we stopped getting the cakes. My uncle moved up the corporate chain and eventually moved to the East Coast for the remainder of his working career. He moved on to Twinkies. (Really!) But that’s another story.
So. What about you? Shall I cut you a slice, or is there another treat that speaks to you of happy holidays?
“Looking Out” is the challenge for today’s City Daily Photo Theme Day.
This was going to be a photo of my barbecued rib lunch at Jeremiah’s BBQ. But as with many a meal, the food arrived. I was hungry; the camera was forgotten. What does this have to do with “looking out?”
When I raised my attention from the plate, I noticed the floor show outside the door. Here’s what I saw looking out: The Girls, shown here, all have names and according to the wait staff, they respond to them. They have a small repertoire of tricks, including a poultry version of “fetch.” They will chase objects tossed their way. (They’re weak on bringing them back.) And they’ll climb stairs. I didn’t see these skills demonstrated. Mostly they scratched and pecked as I watched.
For me this suffices for entertainment in the country. Who needs bright lights and the big city?
Click here to see other interpretations of this theme day from around the world.
Here are a few things I’m not going to do today:
I will not rise before dawn to head out shopping.
I will not venture anywhere near a shopping mall.
Heck, I probably won’t buy anything at all today.
Here are a few things I’m planning today, or very soon:
I’ll probably eat leftover pumpkin pie. And there may be some eggnog that makes its way into a nearby mug. I’ll put up a tree and decorate it. I’ll see if Hubby knows where the lit Labrador went (you can keep the blow-up snowmen and moving lit reindeers and Santas; nothing says Christmas like a lit Labrador).
If you’re local and you want to get into the spirit of things let me remind you that Lazy J Farm, featured above, is open for the holidays and has u-cut trees and wreaths. They also sell tasty organic apples and pears as well as apple cider, Graysmarsh preserves, honey, and that perennial holiday favorite, elephant garlic.
Here are a few things I’m not going to do today:
I will not rise before dawn to head out shopping.
I will not venture anywhere near a shopping mall.
Heck, I probably won’t buy anything at all today.
Here are a few things I’m planning today, or very soon:
I’ll probably eat leftover pumpkin pie. And there may be some eggnog that makes its way into a nearby mug. I’ll put up a tree and decorate it. I’ll see if Hubby knows where the lit Labrador went (you can keep the blow-up snowmen and moving lit reindeers and Santas; nothing says Christmas like a lit Labrador).
If you’re local and you want to get into the spirit of things let me remind you that Lazy J Farm, featured above, is open for the holidays and has u-cut trees and wreaths. They also sell tasty organic apples and pears as well as apple cider, Graysmarsh preserves, honey, and that perennial holiday favorite, elephant garlic.