A Stop in Seattle and Other Travels
First off, Happy New Year!
2009 promises to be a crazy year for me, and a part of it is possible (as in highly likely) relocation. Moving always stresses me out, but with things like a baby on the way, I haven’t gotten too stressed about moving…yet (I’ll wait until I have to start house-hunting). 
My wife and I have been surveying cities all over the country for the bulk of this past month (so in case I’ve seemed absent, well, I have been), and its been fun and exhausting. Now I haven’t been great about photographing the whole experience (e.g. a few great restaurants and plenty of awful ones), but there were a few photos from one stop on our tour I thought I’d share with you: Seattle.
If you like food (and if you don’t, what are you doing here? lol), you’d love Pike’s Market. Its a food market in the Seattle area that has a great variety of top quality….well, everything. Its a good thing I only had an hour to walk around, because otherwise, I could have blown some serious money there. The variety and quality of the meat, produce, seafood, honeys, preserves, local cheeses, breads–I was just in awe.
Also worth mentioning: you can read more random musings from when I’m out and about if you follow me on Twitter (e.g. everywhere else I went besides Seattle). If you’ve never heard of Twitter, check it out–its not quite instant messaging, but its a simple web site that can stick you in the middle of a big, random conversation. Its a lot more useful and addicting than I could make it sound like, and if you read more food blogs than just mine, you’ll probably spot a lot of familiar faces on there (and no, its not restricted to food people). For instance, if I had better planned my trip, Twitter would have made it easy for me to meet up with a few of my readers and other favorite food bloggers. Next time!
Its never too early to drool over a nice spread of meat. Sure most of the merchants weren’t even there yet–I wasn’t complaining.
I also loved all the fruit. I saw some of the biggest persimmons ever–if I had an extra suitcase, I would have loaded up on them…and everything else.
Speaking of loading up a suitcase, oh the fish! On my flight home, somebody brought what smelled like raw fish on board. Ah how I love flying. But annoying people on planes aside, the fish at the market really looked awesome and you could get just about any fish you could think of. Do I sound smitten with the place yet?
Oh and the shellfish? I simply can’t get my hands on lobster tails like these. And I’ve always wanted to try fish cheeks…figures, the one time I don’t have the time (and I’m still sipping my morning cup of coffee, so it really wouldn’t have worked)…
I also was jealous of the crabs. Florida has some great blue crabs, but they can be a bit of a nuisance given how small they are. These Dungeness crabs though were another story.
And lastly, the space needle. Its a bit smaller than I would have imagined it to be…and a rip off to go up top. I’ve never paid so much to ride an elevator in my life, lol.
Oh, and one more odd bit. I also had a brief stop in NYC. While I’m no photographer (I just take a lot of photos, lol), my wife and I stopped at the real-world B&H, not just the web-site (which most people know B&H for). If you’re into photography and ever in the area, you absolutely have to visit. In the coming weeks/months, hopefully I’ll have gotten the hang of some of the new gear we picked up when we visited and I’ll be the next Ansel Adams of food…but I’ll settle for just a little bit better than I was before. 
After that expensive trip shopping, we ate at our first ever Michelin-starred restaurant for lunch, The Spotted Pig. The atmosphere was cozy and unpretentious, the menu looked deceptively simple, and the food was beautifully executed and incredible (we had the deviled eggs, burger, gnudi, banofee, and chocolate cake). We were also seated near the kitchen, so I really enjoyed seeing how smoothly and efficiently that was running. Like B&H, if you’re in the area, make a point of visiting. You’ll be glad you did.
Anyways, that’s all this not-quite-food interlude. I’ll be back to the usual format soon!
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