Volunteer Park Cafe on Capitol Hill offers Sunday suppers once a month

My latest article for The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine, Family-Style Supper’s On at Seattle Restaurants,  featured my reflections on several Seattle-area restaurants that offer Sunday suppers around the communal table to their guests.

It makes me hungry just thinking about the good food and wine we had researching the article. Standouts include Tavolàta’s Roasted Chicken and Pear Bread Pudding during it’s Roman Feast in December and Volunteer Park Cafe’s flatbread with a luscious Lebanese roasted-red-pepper/walnut/pomegranate-molasses spread followed by Chicken Tagine.

The comments on this one were really interesting. . .lots of _itching and moaning about this form of dining being similar to a commune or cafeteria. Think they kind of missed the point!

I was thrilled that the article was picked up by RestaurantSmartBrief, a daily email service that aggregates interesting articles for its nationwide audience.

Photo by Spencer Johnson

Several Sundays ago, my article on Mary Karlin, a Sonoma, California-based cheese maker, ran in The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine.

Although I prepared a sidebar containing Mary’s top-10 cheese-making tips, it was too long to print with the article. So here is that list, along with some additional photos, for all you do-it-yourselfers who want to try cheese-making at home.

Mary Karlin’s Top-10 Cheese-Making Tips

1. Everything in cheese making is gentle. Don’t dump or pour or shake the milk.

2. Use a whisk with a specific up and down motion.

3. Raise the temperature of the milk gently because slower is better.

4. Ladle the curds gently.

5. Use a gentle pressure when pressing the curds.

6. Use the highest-quality milk you can find for cheese. Raw milk—the closest to the animal—is best. Reliable local sources for milk include Puget Consumers Co-op, Whole Foods Market, Central Market and Ballard Market.

7. Let the milk sit out for at least one hour, and preferably a few hours, before making cheese.

8. Cookware is very important, including non-reactive pots that don’t react to acid. Stainless-steel or ceramic pots with heavy-core bottoms and heavy walls are good; don’t use nonstick, cast iron or copper. A six-quart Le Creuset stockpot is a good choice. A flame-tamer or heat disburser is good for pans with less heavy bottoms and sides.

9. The longer the curds stay in the whey, the more firm and dry, with less moisture, they become. Drainage accomplishes the same thing.

10. For specialized cheese-making products, Karlin recommends two Seattle-based companies: The Cellar Homebrew (located at 14320 Greenwood Avenue North or online at http://www.cellar-homebrew.com/) and The Cheese Connection (online at www.cheeseconnection.net).

Artisan cheese maker Mary Karlin, left

Cheese curds ready for draining and pressing

Artisan cheese-making class

Hard at work making cheese

Mary Karlin assesses and pulls the curds to make cheese

Photos Courtesy of Spencer Johnson

This time of year, it seems like just about every newspaper and magazine publishes their Top-10 lists of what’s been good or memorable or horrible during the past year.

So in that vein, I’d like to offer up links to the nine Taste columns I’ve penned for The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine in 2011.

Many of the columns contain recipes you might find useful and inspiring now or in the future. And, in a weird way, looking over the past year is a good way to understand what’s happening in the Seattle, and greater global, food scene.

So here goes, from December back to Valentine’s Day 2011:

A Christmas Wrap

Downtown in December

Spinasse’s chef shares secrets for roasting vegetables

Dinner is superbly home grown, served at the Willows Inn

Chuckanut Shellfish farm rises when the tide goes out

A gorgeous photo from “Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral”

Cooking with salt blocks and bowls is hot — and cold

Clearing up the stir-fry misunderstanding

Graham Kerr at a media interview at the Northwest Garden Show

Chef Graham Kerr gallops into edible gardening

For the love of cocktails

Salted photo by Jennifer Martiné

Once a month I write a book review of a favorite cookbook, wine, or cocktail book that posts on Amazon.com’s Al Dente blog.

These are books I really like to read and cook from, with doable recipes and (often) great wine- and beverage-pairing suggestions. In other words, I really recommend these tomes!

Just in case you’re still in need of practical and useful gift ideas for family and friends, here’s a listing of those dozen books (and accompanying recipes and reviews) that made the cut in 2012.

AND you can purchase the books directly from Amazon by following the links.

Talk about easy gift-giving!

Candle 79 Cookbook

Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz

Kitchen Simple

Food Lover’s Guide to Seattle

Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It

Super Natural Every Day

100 Perfect Pairings

Grilled Cheese, Please!

Fried Chicken & Champagne

Gifts Cooks Love: Recipes for Giving

Double Take: One Fabulous Recipe, Two Finished Dishes

My last Taste column of 2011 for The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine focuses on Maria Coassin, the owner and founder of Gelatiamo, the popular gelato and pastry shop in downtown Seattle, just a few blocks up the street from our condo.

I enjoyed interviewing and writing about the stylish Italian beauty (who cooks in high heels!), and who started at the “corner of First and Hell” (Union Street) in 1996. It was the same year she introduced fresh panettone, the traditional sweet bread of Italy made during the holiday season, to Seattle.

Maria Coassin of Gelatiamo with her famous panettone

Here’s a photo of her proudly holding one of her “babies”–her 27-hours-in-the-making panettone.

The crumb 0f the bread is so fragile, the loaves must hang upside down for several hours lest they collapse under their own weight. They remind me of bats in a cave!

Panettone leftovers (if there are any!) are great in bread pudding or French toast.

My latest Northwest Edge post for Amazon.com’s Al Dente blog features a review of San Francisco author and friend Laura Werlin’s latest book, “Grilled Cheese, Please!: 50 Scrumptiously Cheesy Recipes,” along with her recipe for Hog Island Grilled Cheese sandwiches. Yum!

Cooking a recipe or three from Laura’s book would be a good lead-in to the Seattle Cheese Festival at the Pike Place Market, May 14 and 15.

My latest Northwest Edge column for the for the spring issue of Wine Press Northwest features URBAN enoteca, a totally cool new “wine center” just south of downtown Seattle.

My latest blog post for Amazon.com’s Al Dente blog features Seattle chef and caterer Lisa Dupar’s new book, “Fried Chicken & Champagne: A Romp Through the Kitchen at Pomegranate Bistro.”

This terrific tome has been nominated for two International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) awards: First Book and American.

It includes Lisa’s recipe for Fried Chicken, which she’s been making since her high-school years.

Graham Kerr and fellow panelists at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show 2011

My latest article for The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest magazine features a story about Graham Kerr, a.k.a. The Galloping Gourmet, who lives in a small community outside of Seattle.

Graham Kerr, a.k.a., The Galloping Gourmet, being interviewed at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show 2011

He planted a kitchen garden and, by so doing, hopes to change the world (again) thanks to his latest book: “Growing at the Speed of Life: A Year in the Life of My First Kitchen Garden” (Perigee, $27).

(Second photograph courtesy of Amy Muzyka-McGuire)

My latest Seattle Times article for Pacific Northwest magazine features a love story about local cocktail king A.J. Rathbun.

He and wife Natalie, and their two 80-pound dogs, Sookie and Rory, set out for Italy last fall, and will be back stateside in April.

Meanwhile, they’re enjoying la dolce vita in a rented villa in Italy.

Here’s their story and a recipe for a Spanish-Cava-based cocktail called “The Very Vernalagnia.”

Cin cin to lovers everywhere!