I’ve got a new travel piece in the works, “The days we ate Seattle,” and thought I’d post a few of Peter Frank’s images. This was a trip we took last month, five days of coffee and Washington state wines, of trying restaurants that cook with local ingredients (red skinned potatoes, steelhead and halibut, leeks, ciders, cracked wheat, greens), such as the 30 to 40-seat Tilth with the young female chef, who since we ate there is up for a James Beard. We visited farmers’ markets for samples of soup and cheese, bread and milk, and then went out to a couple of the farms to see where the food was produced.

We boarded ferries, and we tried restaurants. There were a lot of high points, including our stop at The Monkey Tree on Vashon Island, a vegetarian cafe and bakery that serves huge portion open face sandwiches on fresh bread, bundt cakes, beet soups, much more. There were big mixing bowls on the countertops and flour in the air. You get to Vashon by ferry ride… a dreamy boat passage the day we went, on smooth water with sunlight at nice angles in window-lined passenger areas of molded aqua seats. We stopped, too, at the Loki salmon boat (west wall, Fishermen’s Terminal) to talk fish stories. And we ordered our toasted crumpets and jam in the cozy Crumpet Shop, watching the batter poured and baked.

I’d Seattle again anytime – the farm-and-sea-to-table scene is very cool to see, delicious to taste. Our article is due to be published in June in Charleston Magazine.

– Sandy Lang, April 2008