Much like Gruner deserved two back-to-back dinners, this pizza was so good, we had it twice in a row. I declared that it might be the best home-made pizza yet. And it's straightforward to make:

1. Roll out your pizza dough.
2. Spread on home-made pesto. (Don't be afraid of the salt!)
3. Add grated mozzerella.
4. Top with roasted beets, asparagus, and blobs of chevre.
5. Bake. Season with extra salt, pepper, and maybe even a few red chile flakes. Pairs well with Friday nights. Enjoy!

Spending half a week in Portland was great, but it wasn't enough time. Portland and I have unfinished business.

Our doughnut business is finished (although I could easily go for another Blue Star classic buttermilk).

Hill walks are another story, though. Out of the 24 walks in this fantastic book, I did 4. They included fancy suburbs, woodsy trails, and an aerial tram. It was unfortunate to leave the other 20 undone, but I'd go back to Portland just to do more.

And to eat alpine cuisine. Dinner at Gruner was so amazing that we went back again the following evening and ordered pretty much the same meal. Not pictured are the crispy polenta-and-raclette balls. Or the homemade pretzel. (Note the pretzel croutons in the salad.) 

Ruby Jewel Scoops! Unfortunately, we also missed getting pie at Random Order and sandwiches at Grand Central Bakery and pizza at Apizza Scholls. Next time we'll try for an entire week, and in addition to hitting more restaurants and hill walks, it would be great to also make it to Sauvie Island, the Willamette Valley, Mount Hood, Timberline Lodge, Crater Lake... Oregon and I. Unfinished business. 

I like to collection information on destinations, be they food, travel or otherwise. This satisfies my need for making lists, for subsequently crossing things off of lists, and for knowing where to find "the good stuff". For instance, I have a folder of bookmarks dedicated to Seattle, and this past weekend provided the perfect opportunity to check some of them out, along with discovering other gems.

After dropping our things off at the Chambered Nautilus (a great b&b near the university), we headed straight to... the Chittenden Locks! Truth be told, the locks themselves were not all that exciting. No, the real excitement was in watching the action at the fish ladder (I am not joking). Dinner afterwards consisted of multiple tapas from Essex; the cauliflower toasts and rhubarb toasts were particular hits. The pictures above were taken the next day at the Chihuly Garden and Glass, which was one of the biggest highlights of the trip. The Boat Street Cafe provided lovely lunch fare (there was a cornmeal custard thing drenched in maple syrup that was pretty fabulous), and then it was off to Bainbridge Island where we enjoyed a driving tour of the island and wine and cheese tastings (keep it up, Eleven winery!). On our last day, we quickly ran through Pike Place Market (thankfully avoiding the gum wall) before taking the underground tour. The best meal of the trip might just have been sandwiches at the Grand Central Bakery and then we left Seattle and headed for Woodinville. We were not expecting Woodinville to be a wine tasting hub, but that is what we found. And finally, we hit Trader Joe's in Bellingham for the cheese arbitrage. Next up... Portland in July!

My ship came in last week, in the form of an inspiration pass. This is a fairly new program at the library where said pass grants you (as well as 1 additional adult and 4 children) free admission to most attractions in Vancouver. Of course, due to its popularity there is a lengthy wait to get one, but because of said popularity the program may be expanded and additional passes issued. 

Stop # 1 out of 10 was the aquarium. The jellyfish have landed!  

The cobblestones at Sun Yat-Sen Garden really caught my eye. Drinking tea, admiring the penjing, and noticing the many carefully-executed architectural details was a tranquil way to relax before heading to the the Vancouver Police Museum. There we learned about the Vancouver's early race riots, were chilled by details of various gruesome crimes from the city's sordid past, and saw a replica of a coroner's lab. Then at Science World I discovered that the modern beaver had an ancestor that was the size of a black bear. This fascinates me still.

Bloedel Conservatory was a good place to go to watch exotic birds preen themselves. Other highlights from the weekend included the Museum of Anthropology (including a worthwhile tour), the Beaty Biodiversity Museum (a real gem) and the Maritime Museum (I went in with no expectations, and was pleasantly surprised). 

Fuel for all this inspiration included vegetarian poutine at Belle Potate, which ranked a solid 7 out of 10 on the poutine scale. The fries were excellent; the vegetarian gravy was... fine. This sort of lunch was balanced by a healthier dinner later on at Heirloom, which also served up a super tasty strawberry mojito - which will be super easy to make at home too!

Susannah's shop, The Curious Vitrine, is an "emporium of handmade art, curios & vintage collections". She's having a sale until June 9, so go check it out! As a fan of tone-on-tone, this cream crocheted cuff is my favourite item: it's "embellished with distressed vintage lace that has been hand-dyed with rosehip and hibiscus tea, and scattered with irridescent sequins". Charming! 

In other accessorizing news, I recently purchased this bow necklace from local artist Sarah Mulder, and today I stumbled upon an impressive array of hair tutorials. And in a final bit of foodness, if you're in Vancouver, go here for burritos post-haste! 

I made a hat.  It was actually finished some time ago, but I decided that it wasn't complete until I  added gold sparkly bird pins.  (Do they look like birds?  I'm not so sure, but I do enjoy a pink/gold colour combination.)  I shaped the "birds" out of modelling clay, used liberal amounts of awesome glitter from Paper-ya, and hot-glued pin backings on them.  The stitch pattern is Little Birds, and the hat pattern is my own (it fits more like a beret than a toque, which may not be clear in this photo).  I'm still working on my rose cardigan, but after seeing this incredibly cute hedgehog scarf, well... there's an incredibly cute hedgehog scarf in my future.

In food updates, high tea at Last Crumb was excellent; I'm also excited to find out that Butter has high tea too -  this will be an expedition for May.   I'm thinking of heading to Patisserie Lebeau for traditional Belgian waffles, and to Miura Waffle Milk Bar for a waffle sandwich (!).  In the last while, I've had two excellent home-made breakfast items that are worth sharing: granola (the best I've made yet), and baked oatmeal (a nice change of pace from my regular go-to baked oatmeal with apples and raisins).  Lastly, the April cookie of the month!

I am seeing too many photos of waffles.

During a visit with my friend Sheena, many years ago, she whipped up this most delicious thing that she referred to as "spicy noodle sauce".  I'm not sure where the recipe came from, but I made sure to get a copy of it.  Then, for whatever reason, I only made it once or twice before it was inexplicably left to languish in my recipe binder.  However, during a recent cupboard clean-out, I made the sauce again as part of a campaign to use up some aged rice noodles.  I wondered if it would live up to my memory of it, if it would be as amazing now as I thought it was back then.  And yes.  It was.  I had sauteed bok choy and tofu over noodles, but you could use this sauce as a dressing for a cold noodle salad, or maybe as a marinade.  Try it and see - it's repertoire-worthy!

Spicy Noodle Sauce 

Note: I've halved the quantities and tweaked the ingredients slightly.  

Whisk together the following ingredients.  The sauce should keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.

2 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp chili sauce (I used sambal oelek)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2" chunk of ginger, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp chili flakes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
pepper

In other food updates, The Last Crumb is a new-ish bakery on Main Street. After only two visits there, I'm prepared to say it may just be on par with Thierry (which is Vancouver's best bakery IMHO).  It also turns out that The Last Crumb has afternoon tea on weekends; full report coming in April.

(By the way, this is a banana bread pudding with creme anglaise.)

And finally, the March cookie of the month.  Solid!

Today marks the two week anniversary of my return from a one week trip to California.  It's cold and rainy here and I miss the warm and sun.  And the eating.  Thanks to a friend's suggestions, we had ample guidance to steer us in delicious directions:  in San Francisco it was a perfect lunch of assorted appetizers at Green's (why is Vancouver only now getting vegetarian restaurants on par with this?); samosa salad at Burma Superstar; a fantastic morning bun from Tartine Bakery that was sadly sold out on the following day; pizza and salad done right at Pizzeria Delfina.  

Napa, I miss you too.  Bubbles in the morning at Domaine Chandon and Mumm Napa;  pommes frites and salad at Bouchon and Bistro Jeanty (I'm hitting my new year's resolution of eating at French restaurants more often); tacos at the Oxbow Market.  The burrata at Bottega was enough to convince us to go back again for dinner the following night.  And the surprising winner?  A kale and farro salad at Tra Vigne that just might have been the best thing I ate in Napa.  (Perhaps it is also that kale and farro are the perfect antidote after a week of copious food and wine consumption...)

I was intrigued several years ago when a co-worker made a comment that people, like fields, need fallow time.  While I haven't been completely idle these last few months, I've certainly had less of a to-do list mentality.  My goal for January is to lower my expectations of what will be accomplished, and to pick one small task or activity and just focus on that.  Bake apple cake.  Write a letter.  Put something away that's been sitting out for a long time.  Watch Gilmore Girls and knit.

This cardigan has been on my radar for some time, ever since it appeared in a Debbie Bliss magazine a couple of years back.   Over the holidays, I finally bought appropriate yarn for it, and am just finishing up the right front.  Kimono sleeves are knit concurrently with the front and back pieces, and it's hard to tell intuitively exactly what's going on and how it will come together and fit.  This is one of those times when I'm just blindly trusting the pattern.  No doubt it will be fine.

And while it's mid-January, it's not too late to announce new year's resolutions.  What's in store for 2013?  Eating more often at French restaurants.  And reading another Daphne du Maurier novel.  Resolved!