JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

When summer leaves and the rains begin Seattleites shift into the “surviving Seattle” mode. The Seattle Times and the local restaurant community capitalize on this transition by drawing attention to our nationally acclaimed culinary scene and enticing “survivors” to explore the best of it.

Restaurant Week is co-sponsored by the Times and the Seattle Restaurant Association for two weeks each spring and fall. This fall’s event is underway right now; from October 19 – 23 and 26 – 30 (Sunday through Thursday). For the next two weeks 134 of Seattle’s best restaurants will be offering three-course gourmet meals for $30.

Last night M and I took advantage of the promotion to see what Chef Maria Hines was offering at Tilth, her signature location in the Wallingford area. Hines has been a star on the Seattle scene since 2005 when she was named one of Food and Wine Magazine’s 10 Best New Chefs. She was at the W Hotel’s Earth and Ocean then but opened Tilth in 2006 and in 2008 the restaurant was named one of the New York Times 10 best new restaurants in the country. In 2009 Chef Hines topped it off by winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest.

We were not disappointed last night, although we were surprised by one entree. Tilth is certified organic and specializes in New American cuisine. M chose a celeriac-apple soup for her first course followed by pork belly and a brioche pudding with huckleberries for dessert. I had the pork belly too, but started with pate campagne and finished with Theo’s Chocolate ganache cake topped with Chantilly crème (pictured above). Everything was delicious and beautifully served.

M and I love good food as you might have gleaned from other posts on this blog, but we were fooled last night when I confused pork belly with pork cheeks. The difference is significant. I became a fan of pork cheeks when I sampled them in three different Paris bistros this spring.  Last night when I saw pork belly on the menu at Tilth I was excited. I confess I didn’t realize there was a difference between the two cuts. The difference, I now realize, is that pork cheeks are “relatively” lean while pork belly is a boneless cut of fatty meat – the same cut that bacon is made from.

We were both surprised when the entrée’s arrived. I loved mine but M, who doesn’t eat fat, had to trim hers off (and donate to me). It was a lesson in culinary humility. We should have been aware of the difference since pork belly is a staple in Asian cuisine and we had seen it on many menus in Saigon. At least we know now.

But that’s what Restaurant Week is for – trying new restaurants and tasting new iterations of Northwest cuisine.

More tomorrow…

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Rockin’ out … Last night M and I took a couple of friends to hear Tweety and the Tom-Cats at Alexa’s Café in Bothell. George Michael (on the left) teaches guitar as a sideline and has his hands full trying to break me of 50 years worth of bad habits. Good luck with that!

I’ve written before about how astonished I am at the creativity, artistry and talent that never gets much further than its own neighborhood. Every week I go to book readings, art galleries, theater and music venues where the talent is local, the quality exceptional, and the artists virtually unknown – artists whose work is creative and whose execution is polished and professional. The best blues harmonica player I’ve ever heard is a guy named Paul Green. When you hear him blow you ask yourself why he isn’t on the stage with Dave Matthews or the Rolling Stones. He’s that good, but he’s never made the big time. These days you might catch him at a dive bar on Aurora Avenue, but he should be on a big stage with a great band. The world of art and music is fickle and strange. The Brothers Four made a fortune with absolutely no talent and 50 years later the remnant is still milking it. Paul Green and Tweety put them to shame.

I first went to hear George (and Tweety) out of curiosity. He was my teacher and I wanted to know what he sounded like playing with a group. Now we go because they’re so much fun to hang with. Tweety and the boys are essentially a cover band and their playlist is huge – everything from Fleetwood Mac to Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell and Jason Mraz. But they also write and play their own music. George has a program and a following on a website called Second Life, complete with an avatar, studio setting, and a live audience.

You can listen to Tweety and the Tom-Cats do their rendition of Blues in the Night on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK5Y9yvYw3c They’re better in person but close your eyes and listen.

As you might suspect, Tweety and the boys have day jobs to support their music. Tweety, whose real name is Gina,  is a senior manager at a major bank though you’d never believe it when she’s blowing her bluesy tenor sax. George teaches guitar on the side but during the day delivers mail at UW Bothell, and Tom oversees the installation for a large fence company.

I took this picture last night.

As you might have guessed I’m a big advocate for getting out – stretching beyond your comfort zone – to see what’s going on locally.  Get out there. It’s always interesting and you might just see or hear something pleasantly surprising.

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M and I heard an NPR feature on salmon spawning in the Cedar River on Thursday morning before we had to pick the kids up from school. It’s a long way to the Cedar River but the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard has a fish ladder so we decided to make that our afternoon destination. We thought we might catch a glimpse of salmon passing through on their way to the spawning ground. Win or lose that bet, the Locks are a great place to take kids on a sunny afternoon.

We checked out the Locks:

We saw a tug with gravel heading for Lake Washington:

And pleasure boats heading for the Sound:

We eventually got to the fish ladder but the big salmon run had already passed through. This is what a salmon looks like before the journey upriver gets arduous:

And this is what the female looks like when she is at the spawning ground; with a swollen red body, protruding snout, and sharp teeth. The salmon ladder allows the fish to pass by the Locks heading for their spawning grounds in the rivers upstream. There the females dig shallow depressions in the gravel where they deposit their eggs. These spawning beds in the gravel are called redds. They use their tails to sweep away the gravel. You can see in this picture that the tail is white. That’s because she has scraped away all of the skin, leaving only bone, in the process of preparing her redd. She deposits her eggs in the redd and the male fertilizes them. She then covers the eggs by distributing gravel from the upstream side of the redd. Redds can be as long as 25 -30 feet and contain roughly 5000 eggs. She may make as many as 7 redds before she exhausts her supply of eggs. Next year I think we’ll take the kids to the Cedar River to see the real deal.

We had a really good day at the locks. We learned how boats get from the Lake to the Sound. We learned how the salmon get past the Locks and how they prepare their redds. And everyone got to burn off some kid energy.

On top of that it was a beautiful autumn afternoon.

More tomorrow…

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1970: Brela, on the Adriatic coast of what is now Croatia. That’s me on the right, Darryl Hart on the left and Abby Grosvenor in the middle.

There’s a lot of history packed in this picture. Darryl and I met in 1962 at law school in Berkeley. We shared a house with some other law student friends briefly, and often played guitars together though he was much better than I was. His rendition of the Theme from Black Orpheus was famous for bringing the sun up on Scenic Avenue in those days. We graduated together in 1965; worked at Loeb & Loeb together in Los Angeles; and quit L&L at the same time in 1967. He went to Washington DC to work on the staff of California Senator Thomas Kuchel and I went to NY to work for Pan Am. In 1970 I was on medical leave from Pan Am so Abby and I went to Europe. Darryl was between jobs so he joined us there for a couple of months. We drove and camped in our VW bus from Paris to St. Tropez to Brela and on up to Vienna where he left us for awhile. He rejoined us for Christmas/New Year at our rented house in St.Tropez and then he headed home. On the flight home he met Martha, his wife to be, and they have been married 40+ years now.

We don’t get to see much of each other these days, but last night he was in Seattle for some American Bar Association meetings and M and I met him for dinner at Loulay. I love catching up with him whenever we have a chance. Our lives have been so different but our friendship has endured for more than 50 years.

Loulay was an inspired choice for dinner. It’s the successor to Chef Thierry Rautureau’s iconic Rover’s, which closed in 2012. Thierry IS “The Chef in the Hat,” and we love The Chef in the Hat.

He’s a smart, charming, talented man who has been a major figure on the Seattle restaurant scene since 1987. That year on a visit to Seattle he discovered, while dining at Rover’s, that the small home-like restaurant in Madison Valley was for sale. He purchased it and the rest is history. Rover’s was the nationally acclaimed home of The Chef in the Hat and for many years it was the benchmark location for innovative Northwest cuisine with a French twist.

Rover’s closed in 2012 but not before Thierry had launched the next phase of his culinary career – Luc – a French bistro named for his father and – Loulay – a larger French restaurant named for the small town near the Loire Valley where he grew up. Both are booming successes thanks to the quality of the food, the service, and the personality of The Chef in the Hat.

M and I have a special connection and affection for the Chef in the Hat. When we decided to get married, after ten years together, we were living in Saigon. A friend who worked for the US Consulate in Saigon told us the red tape for getting married at the Consulate was onerous. He told us to go home and get a judge to do it. So that’s what we did, but we added a twist to it.

We asked M’s Seattle assistant, Beth, to find a judge in Bellevue and arrange a time late on a Friday afternoon for the formalities. It had to be Friday because Rover’s served lunch on Friday (and only on Friday). So, on the day we got married we had a champagne lunch at Rover’s and then drove to Bellevue with Beth and her husband. The judge, Janet Garrow, is a lovely woman. She made sure we knew what we were doing, read us our rights, and we drove home.

The wedding day lunch is only one of the reasons we have such affection for The Chef in the Hat and his food. His wife Kathy is equally charming. A year later lunch we were able to have our first anniversary at Rover’s, but alas it’s closed now. Nevertheless, we still have Luc and Loulay to choose from.

Over dinner Darryl and I reminisced while M took in all this information about our friendship. We talked about St Tropez, Berkeley, Brela, and a fishing trip we took 16 years ago to the Green River in Utah. He fished while I read on the bank, except for the day we floated the river with a guide in a drift boat. Darryl says that was his best fishing day ever. I had fun too. It’s part of our bond.

Another 1970 photo: This one was taken just outside of Avignon. Wow! I had a lot of hair in those days.

Eagle – It was great to see you. Thanks for stopping by.

More tomorrow…

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