UnRecipe: Summer Scrounge

I had one of those moments recently where I looked in our refrigerator, pantry and even our backyard and said: That's it! No more buying anything -- we need to use what we have!! I don't even know why that statement needed to be said, as I'm the one who handles all the household upkeep and it's my own foolish overpurchasing during sales that leaves me with three pounds of bell peppers, two cases of canned tomatoes and no idea what to do next. But the biggest bounty has actually been from our own backyard, and figuring out how to use it.

You can be my huckleberry (yes, I'm gonna say that every summer) - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I found myself with several containers' worth of wild red huckleberries. Teeny-tiny red berries that grow wild in our backyard, from bushes that grow from rotted tree stumps. I know, sounds sexy, right? But they're fun berries to use -- a sharply acidic tart-flavored berry, kind of similar to cranberries but more tender and not as bitter. Lots of vitamin C, so no worries about getting scurvy if you eat them. It takes me about a week or two to gather enough to make jam. And when I say make jam, it's one small jar of the stuff. The berries cook down to nothing, but you're left with a super-concentrated paste of sour stuff that works as good as lemon juice, but with a bright red color.

Taking a cue from a previous post, where I made beet tarts, I made another batch of beet tarts, this time with the swirly Chioggia variety of beets, as we got a bunch in the CSA box and as we all know, they're not Mr. Wasabi's favorite, so it's on me to enjoy them. They're beautiful vegetables and the swirl of white and red means it stains your prep surface and hands much less. Barely at all, in comparison to the bloody murder of standard red beets. I spread the tart red huckleberry jam over the puff pastry, with cream cheese, and laid the roasted beet slices over that to finish in the oven. The sweetness of the beets were a nice companion to the sour berries, with the richness of the cream cheese and puff pastry to bring everything together. Just like buttery flaky pastry and creamy cheese to make a party, right?

Swirly-good beets for another colorful tart - Photos by  Wasabi Prime

I've been herb-harvesting in the yard as well -- before the heat totally baked our mint plant, I pulled handfuls of leaves, as well as a small bouquet's worth of lemon balm. I've done herb pestos with them in the past, but the latest thing that I can make easily and helps prune down the plants is herb-infused iced tea. I buy a supply of caffeine-free iced tea bags, usually a weak black tea blend, and steep a few bags with handfuls of cleaned mint and lemon balm. I put the whole thing in, stems, leaves and all. They just cook away with the tea bags, infusing the liquid with fresh flavor. I strain the liquid and let it chill in the refrigerator. I sometimes add sugar, but it tastes fine without it. If I have citrus, it's nice to let the rind of a lemon or orange sit in the mixture as well. It's one easy way to enjoy the garden every week, right in a glass.

Garden herbal tea - Photos by Wasabi Prime

UnRecipe: Three Easy Peasies

The oddball summer we enjoyed/griped about has at least given us one good thing at Casa de Wasabi -- a bumper crop of snow and sugar snap peas. I did a post a little while back about using the greens when I was thinning some of the rows, but for the last couple of months, we've been eating our veggies and then some.

Eat your greens -- we've got a garden full of 'em! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

There's been some weeks where I've been able to collect several pounds' worth of peas. It's more than I know what to do with them, but luckily they last for a while in the fridge before Wilty and Slimy take over. They make for great snacks, dipped in hummus, and when sliced into matchsticks, I like to sprinkle a handful over salads for a nice, fresh crunch. My favorite way to use them is tossing into a stir fry. I know that's kind of a de facto move, but I really do like tossing together whatever vegetables I have on-hand into a hot wok and making an ad hoc spicy finishing sauce. It's fast, but it's also very comforting to me. Especially when along with the peas from our garden, we still get our big ol' box of mystery veggies from our CSA delivery. How's that for roughage?

Mind your Peas and Qs - Photos by Wasabi Prime

When I cook with the peas, I prefer the flat snowpeas, saving the sweeter sugar peas for snacking. Not to be Captain Obvious, but if you've never really noticed the difference between sugar and snow peas, just take a gander above to see how the shorter, more rounded sugar snap peas differ from the flat, wide snow peas. You'll notice the flavor as the season moves along and the sugar snaps have a heightened sweetness. They're one of the easier things to grow in a garden, especially for lazy gardeners like myself -- once you have the pea plants going and preferably climbing upwards on some sort of trellis (I'm super lazy, and just had them scrambling up stakes), they'll flower with these delicate white blooms and before you know it, the plants will be awash with peas. They grow quickly and you'll be surprised how fast your crisper drawer will fill with peas. It'll go from a handful here and there to bagfuls of a pound or two a week, depending on how many plants you've got. I've seen people puree the peas to make a smooth hummus-type dip, but I really like them whole and crunchy. If you throw them into a stir fry as the last ingredient, they'll keep their crispness.

Several dinners, thanks to the backyard produce supply - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As I blah-blah-blah about how great they are in a stir fry, you're probably wondering, what kind of sauce are you making for these mystical magical stir frys, Wasabi? I've mixed things up -- I like using jarred tamarind paste and making a sour, savory Pad Thai-like sauce, mixing a bunch of vegetables with scrambled egg and finishing with crushed peanuts. I also enjoy using black bean paste -- really rich, deep flavor, and you don't need to use a lot of it to mix up a fast sauce that holds up nicely with sliced beef and green onions to go with the peas. The latest bag of peas went into a vegetarian stir fry with a ton of cremini  mushrooms, tofu and chili sauce; kind of a Szechwan inspired stir fry that tasted extra good on one of the oddball rainy, cool days we had in between the heat spells. I'd recommend getting tamarind or black bean paste from your local Asian market -- you can usually find these in the sauces/flavorings aisle. These are ingredients that are probably added into other sauces you've had before, but it's nice to have them at your disposal, and not already mixed into a pre-bottled sauce, as you can control the flavors. I would say you could control the salt, but these are packed full of sodium, so just keep an eye on the labels and you can water them down as needed. I use sodium/sugar-free rice wine vinegar to loosen a sauce as well as add a tart, sharp flavor. Use a corn starch slurry to thicken, since ingredients like fresh vegetables and tofu can give off quite a bit of liquid.

Mushrooms, tofu, bok choy and peas, perfect for Meatless Mondays - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: It's Not About the Food

One of the latest food blog-related headline of note was the kerfluffle in New York City, when a PR firm pulled what it thought would be an edgy stunt, inviting a gaggle of influential local bloggers to an exclusive dinner party, offering them a taste of something cutting-edge and amazing. The big reveal was that – surprise – the cuisine wasn’t some painstakingly prepared gourmet feast, but artfully plated TV dinners. It sounds like a joke, and maybe it would have been funny if they really did serve a bunch of Hungry Man meals and Bud Lite to a room full of bloggers, but the stunt was bankrolled by a national frozen food conglomerate under the guise of serving fresh, “real” food, trying to fool sophisticated palates that processed food can be gourmet. No need to name names, everyone knows what I’m talking about, but needless to say, there was the requisite umbrage, nutritional outrage, and public relation poopstorm that followed. If this happened to a bunch of random restaurant-goers, it wouldn't have been a blip on the news radar, but because it was bloggers, the squeaky wheel got the grease and kaboom, it's gracing the New York Times.

My own "underground dinner party," last minute BBQ over Labor Day holiday - Photos fr Wasabi Prime's iPhone

It got me thinking about transparency. Not just about what weirdo chemicals lie in wait on packaged food that will likely outlive a nuclear winter, that's kind of an easy target. Transparency in blogging and the role bloggers play as influencers. This was something I’d been thinking about for a while – I first saw this discussion appear over Twitter a while back, kicked off by the smart and thought-provoking @KitchenMage. The banter brought up a good point: Are we blogging the life we have or the life we’d like everyone to think we have? Is there a need to have a persona when blogging, or is it better to just “let it all hang out?” And how does that affect the ability to be transparent as bloggers who wish to position themselves as influencers? I think that’s a personal question on so many levels, so I’ll just leave that dangling in the wind, as it were.

Other people's lives are way cooler than mine, I just show up to their parties - Photos from Wasabi Prime's iPhone

But as to the sticky subject of transparency, one should always start with themselves, so this is Wasabi’s Two Cents: blogs aren’t real news. We are not Walter Cronkite, 2.0, revealing brilliant truth to the masses. We're sending editorial messages out into the ether and thanking our lucky stars there are people generous with their time who will read it. While there are influential blog voices of the moment, there are hundreds of hungrier pundits out there who will devour them whole to take their place, and no one will be the wiser in three months. And the most important point, no one's getting rich off blogging (unless you’re Perez Hilton, but really, who wants that?). So I don't judge someone for getting thrown a few bucks to do a sponsored post now and then, because guess what? Bills suck. There, I’ve said it, my ugly truth. Because that’s what I remind myself every day. “We’re not saving lives,” was a favorite saying at an old company, to keep us focused on the work, but not allow the work to be so self-important that we give ourselves too much credit. I don't seek fame from blogging because I know I'm not interesting enough, and I think celebrity is the Devil incarnate, as it's the Monkey's Paw that inevitably takes too much. And many times, I don’t cook to create the music of food so me and my imaginary flaxen-haired children can dance in the kitchen – I do it because I’ve had one cup of coffee all day, worked too long for too little, and if I don’t eat something simple and fast, I’m going to pass out. There’s my transparency, the daily life of not a food blogger, but a person who happens to write a food blog. How you like me now? *Insert rap star swagger*

But this is still a very good life, albeit a simpler one from earlier times. I'm thankful for it, and I do whatever I have to do to maintain this quiet little corner of the world. Cooking is relaxing for me, and this blog keeps me sane when there’s more doubts than hopes. And in a lot of ways, while I call this a “food blog,” I would argue it’s more about a blog that explores how food influences a normal life and how it can bless that life with a little specialness. For myself, I find what's on the plate less interesting than what series of events made that meal happen. We’re taught from early on that meals are a hallmark for special occasions. It’s not a birthday without cake, holidays aren’t truly festive without a big dinner – in many ways, it’s not about the food at all, it’s just a centerpiece for how we come together and celebrate the people in our lives.

Snapshots from a partially-charmed, but pleasantly normal life - Photos from Wasabi Prime's iPhone

I’m in a constant state of questioning what Wasabi Prime is supposed to be. It was a byproduct, formed after one too many martinis and being in a criminally insane job. I often feel lost and worry this blog is terrible and not fancy or trendy. I think that’s a good analogy for life, as that’s pretty much how I am as a person, and honestly, aren't we all like that? For answers, I look to the perennial influences behind this blog. They are not the celebrity darlings of the culinary world, cookbook sets that cost the down payment of a car, exotic ingredients that come with their own political statement, or even the latest en fuego restaurant bursting out on the local scene. My most valued resource for material and inspiration are friends and family, ones who quite honestly, couldn’t give a toss about this blog or anything food culture-related. It’s the ones who hate or don’t know how to cook. The ones who are picky and only eat grilled cheese sandwiches. The ones who come home so tired after a long day, want to cook, but have to hit the “pass” button and eat cold yogurt and beef jerky before falling dead asleep. I feel like these are the most important people to take note of, because this is most of the people out there. They don’t relish in the obscurity of food, which I think can be a turnoff to many who don’t want to wax poetic about the balanced flavor notes of a rare heirloom tomato grown by albino pygmies in a greenhouse community in Upper Mongolia. Not to burst anyone's bubble, but in mixed company, you sound like a douche, and not convincing anyone to improve their eating habits. And that's why friends and family are important, because they remind you who's really eating the food and how lives shape choices. They also keep you grounded, they support your efforts but never let you get caught up in your own BS, and they don’t care if you can't make a perfect soufflé because that’s not why they were friends with you to begin with. They won’t judge you if you say, “eff it, we’re getting drive-thru and eating burgers and drinking cheap beer.” If anything, they’ll be the ones to say, “PBR or Red Stripe?”

Food as a means for developing community - Photos from Wasabi Prime's iPhone

I don’t know how people treat their blog around others, but mine is like Fight Club. I don't talk about it. It’s a different life from the one populated with lifelong friends and relatives; it’s easily and gladly compartmentalized and put aside. It’s a thing I do, a private escape, but not who I am. And hearing about others’ lives that are very real, with new babies, new jobs, serious issues with relationships and worries about an uncertain future – it puts blogging in perspective and makes it less about making food serious and obscure, but how can we make it welcoming, approachable, and a release for people who just need a break. Food in and of itself, isn’t interesting. We give it value and create our own stories around it, and for as many opinions as there are stars in the sky, that’s where the relevance lies. And as for blogging and food writing in general, I’ll take it seriously to a point, but in the end, I ultimately write for myself. I genuinely enjoy the activity, and once it leaves my brain to live on this blog or magazine, I don't look back, because I've moved on to something else. I always defer to my favorite line in Platoon: Opinions are like a$#holes, everyone’s got one. So there you go. Transparency.

UnRecipe: Berries Gone Wild

The end of summer signals one significant thing -- load up on Vitamin D pills, because the sun is disappearing for months and you don't want to get rickets. Oh yeah... and there's lots of berries in season!

Berry gory looking dessert you've got there - Photo by Wasabi Prime

While an alarmingly gory color and texture, this is blackberry jam spooned over some Greek yogurt, and not some disturbing dessert that one of the vampires from True Blood might eat. And contrary to the name, the berry is not black at all, but, duh, like that's a surprise. It's wickedly magenta-hued, especially when you start cooking the berries down for jam, which is what I did recently. The nice thing about blackberries is that they are free, minus a little bit of manual labor. I was off the hook, as Mr. Wasabi's family was in town and while I was out, they spent an afternoon picking blackberries from a wall of scruff that's growing down our street on an empty lot. It's probably private property or city-owned, but everyone heads there, as it's got full-sun, the berries ripen there pretty fast, and no one's called the Duvall Five-0 about our renegade gang of berry pickers. Yet. Having three people picking berries at once means you end up with several pounds of the stuff. They weren't super-sweet, but they were super-free and even tart berries can make for good jam.

We be jammin' at Wasabi's - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So I jammed-out for a morning, washing the berries and just throwing them into a large pot to cook down. I like keeping it a little chunky, so I don't totally cook them into a smooth pulp, plus I keep the seeds in, so it's quite a textural wonderland. Just remember to floss. Because they were tart, I added sugar, maybe a cup's worth to several pounds' worth of berries; not to make it candy-sweet, but something to take the edge off that sourness. I didn't have a primary goal in mind for the jam, I just knew if I didn't cook them down, blackberries are so delicate and moisture-prone, they would mold wicked-fast. Lately, we've been using it on yogurt and ice cream. At the moment, I have a batch of peanut butter custard chilling out, awaiting the final churn to make it into ice cream, and I'm going to mix ribbons of the last bits of jam in the final stage, right before it freezes. While I've never been a fan of PB and J sandwiches (I was more of a PB and honey sandwich kind of girl), I think as an ice cream, it will be quite a treat. Unfortunately the finished product wasn't ready at the time of this post, but stay tuned, I'm sure I'll post pictures of the peanut butter and jelly ice cream on Twittter, Flickr and/or Facebook. (Post Script - since this post was written/published, the ice cream has been made and nearly gobbled up! Will likely do a post later, but here's a peek, if you want to see an early photo, on my Flickr page.)

Farmers market Smurfberry ice cream - Photos by Wasabi Prime

A berry ice cream I made a little while ago and did take photos of, was a boysenberry and blueberry ice cream. This was supposed to be a vanilla ice cream with ribbons of boysenberry-blueberry jam mixed in. But I got overeager and churned the jam with the ice cream and wound up with Smurf Ice Cream. Lesson learned; drizzle the jam in after the ice cream is churned, layering and swirling the jam with the churned ice cream. Got it. Much thanks to Alexandra Hedin for the tip; she's always got the good kitchen advice! The color was a very intense purple-blue, but the ice cream was good. It just looked a little unreal and I think your brain kept sending signals to the tastebuds to expect bubblegum grape flavor. I had picked up several containers of enormous blueberries and a basket of ridiculously large, plump boysenberries at the farmers market and was so excited to use them. So excited, I made an ice cream that looked like I ground up Smurfs to make it. Have a Smurfy day yourself, you annoying little blue buggers.

Do you know the Muffin Man? Would you like to? - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I saved enough of the blueberries to make my favorite blueberry pecan muffins. This is a bit of a nostalgic recipe for me, as it was featured on one of my earlier posts. It wasn't my recipe, it was originally from one of my favorite blogs, Omnomicon, who offered it up as one of the best blueberry muffin recipes EVER. And I have to admit, it's pretty dang good. Crunchy pecans with big bites of blueberry, all mixed in with a really moist, dense cake. Granted, my first attempt at it was a fail, as I fooled with the recipe, using whole wheat flour and yogurt instead of buttermilk. Don't mess with baking recipes, they bite you in the derriere. I made it again, they came out great, and since then, this has been one of my favorite "company" recipes, when people are visiting and it's more than just Mr. Wasabi and I to eat these dangerously delicious things. I think they bake up especially well in the giant Texas-sized muffin tins, since the larger size is in better proportion to the big berries and chunky pecans. They also photograph nicely. But then you wind up with muffins the size of small cakes, and you feel twice as guilty for eating a whole one all by yourself. Well, maybe not that guilty...

Berries for all... even a stalking Indy - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So, that was our berry season in a nutshell. It's nice to enjoy fruits in the height of their season, you take full advantage of their freshness and kind of wear yourself out from the experience until the next year, which is sort of the point. It keeps you from being tempted to buy blueberries in the middle of winter, which probably came from some other continent. Until next year then, berries...So long and thanks for all the antioxidants.

FoodTrek: Along Came Some Cider, That Sat Down Beside Her...

If a bottle of cider saunters over and settles down beside you, it's probably a sign you've had too much to drink, so let's just write that blog title off as, "Well, it rhymed...sorta..." On what truly felt like the last weekend hurrah of summer, we managed to jam whatever vitamin D we could into our systems, along with some cool, crisp cider, at the second annual Cider Summit NW, held over at South Lake Union Discovery Center Park.

Cider coming together for world peace at the Cider Summit in Seattle - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Don't be sad you missed the Cider Summit over the weekend, as Washington Cider Week is still in full swing, from September 10-18. Both the Cider Summit and the Northwest Cider Association are making sure people raise a glass to cider for a week, as it's a way to celebrate a lot of really delicious ciders and discover some local cidermakers. The full list of events and participating locations for Washington Cider Week are on NW Cider Association's site, if you want to track down what's going on throughout the week. I had a chance to meet David White of OldTimeCider.com, whose love of the fermented apple brought him and several local cidermakers, including Tieton and Snowdrift, to put together the Northwest Cider Association, which is like a Justice League of Cidermakers, made up of local, Washington and Oregon-based cideries. His mission is to bring cider out of the shadows of obscurity and sugary-sweet macro-brewed Girl Drink Drunk-ville, and show it off for its true merits -- a refreshing alcohlic beverage with as much flavor complexity as beer or wine, with an equally rich history. And given our Northwest status, we have the added benefit of enjoying something that is truly locally made, with the apples coming from the orchards, right into the glass.

A local haven for cider lovers - get to know the NW Cider Association - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As to the subject of cider, we're talking about grown-up alcoholic apple juice, not the squeezebox drink you jam a straw into for snacktime as a kid. Although if the alcoholic cider could be put into a squeezebox, more power to 'em. Cider is made all over the world, but probably most associated with the United Kingdom, where it's most popular. Cider is made from apples that are ground up into a pulp or pomace, then the juice or must is pressed, just like how you'd make regular apple juice, except that the blend of apples generally used are a mix of apples you would eat and cider apples, which have a higher sugar content -- that comes in play for the fermentation process, where the yeast will need something to nosh on while it produces alcohol. Or as I like to call it, yeast farts. Or burps, whatever end you prefer. Cider is a little like the half-sibling of beer and wine, as it uses the juice from fruit, like a wine, and the fermentation process is similar to beer in that this process yields carbonation. This is a really simplified way of describing the process, I know, because I'm not trying to bore you with the numbers, temperatures and the finer points of a particular strain of yeast. Cider is a bit like the porridge that was just-right that Goldilocks settled on when she did that smash-n-grab job on the Three Bears' house. Beer drinkers can at least appreciate the process and history of ciders, even without the bitterness of hops to punch them in the face with IPA-umbrage. Wine drinkers can take off the "wine only" crown for a spell and give one of the dry ciders a sip, as I think they'll find it as clean and crisp as a good Viognier or Chardonnay, minus the buttery notes. Cider is the drink that says, Can't we all just get along?

Summer fun with man's best friend (cider, of course). The dogs were cute, too - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Cider generally attracts more of the beer fans, as cider and beer are closer in association -- a lot of the beer-friendly restaurants and bars around the city will have more cider options as well. And even on the shelves in stores, ciders will be placed near beer versus wine, if you happen to be out shopping. If you're a beer fan, you're a single dude and you're still shaking your single-dude-head about the merits of cider, how's this for convincing -- chicks dig cider. Even Mr. Wasabi observed the sharp difference in attendance at the Cider Summit. At the beer festivals we attend, it's a strong male presence, with female attendance probably being girlfriends and wives stuck with DD-duty. More beer with your sausage? At the Cider Summit, it was a mix of people, but definitely lots of ladies in a happy cider-sipping mood, so let this be a Wasabi Wing-person tip to the beer dudes out there -- keep going to the beer festivals with your bro's so you can pass out on the grass by noon in a brewski-haze, but put on a nice shirt (with buttons) and put on the charm when you're at a cider festival.

See that sunny day? I think that was the last one in the NW - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Aside from the stellar sunny weather and over fifty different ciders to try, the festival was dog friendly! That's not why we went, of course, but it was a fun way to give Indy a little adventure and just see all the other doggies in the park. Imagine a dog park that served alcohol. Not as chaotic as you'd think. But as to the important facts at hand -- Wasabi, what frosty beverages did you partake in? Had some lovely sips from Alpenfire out of Port Townsend -- nice range of lightly sweet to dry with their Ember and Spark organic ciders. Methow Valley Ciderhouse's Honeybear had a balanced sweetness, also from Washington, in Winthrop. My old favorites, Snowdrift Cider, out of Wenatchee, were there with their ciders, including their Orchard Select, which was a little more robust than their typical Dry and Semidry (I like their Semidry). The ones from Oregon I liked were from Blue Mountain, from Milton-Freewater, who had a mix of fruit blends, a cranberry and a cherry, but I stuck with their Dry Creek, a nice, clean apple cider, which was like having champagne. The it-factor probably had to go with Wandering Aengus Ciderworks from Salem, OR. Their lines were the longest as they had nearly a dozen to sample, and they had unusual ones like their Oaked Dry (obviously oaked, so with the flavor notes from the wood), and their Anthem Hops, which yes, had hops in it. There were a couple of ciders that used hops in the flavoring. It's really light, so the bitterness isn't as apparent in the flavor, more in the aroma, and it gives the flavor a citrus, almost lemonade tang. I personally enjoyed Sea Cider, which came all the way down from British Columbia in Canada. They had their Pippins, a more traditional dry cider, and then one unusual one, their Rumrunner, which had a darker caramel color and had notes of molasses in the flavor. It had a rich depth of flavor unusual to cider, so it definitely caught my eye, er tastebuds. While I think most ciders are perfect for a hot summer day, their Rumrunner would be good on a chilly winter night.

Dog days of summer - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Overall, it was a really good occasion to celebrate both cider and the fact this summer is ready to pack its bags and get outta Dodge. We're already seeing the days shorten and the heat from this weekend may have been the last of the 80-degree days. But that's OK. We had our summer fling with summer, as short andn weird as it was, and this was a nice way to enjoy the heat -- in a park, with friends and dogs, with a glass of something bubbly in hand. Cheers to Cider Summit NW and the NW Cider Association -- keep raising a glass to cider for the rest of the week and looking forward to next year's festival!

Indy meets cider, runs afowl, meets Mike Tyson, and wonders what happened - Indy Photos by Wasabi Prime

As for Indy, she had a heck of a hangover from the weekend's activities. No, we didn't get our dog drunk. But from these photos, it sure looked like she did! She was very pleased for a dog-friendly event and the chance to totally blow her mind with sensory overload from all the people, dogs and just walking around Seattle for a day. Whew. The pup was pooped.

UnRecipe: The Bay Harbor Beet Butcher

Don't be alarmed. There wasn't much suffering involved. Nary a scream, nor a pitiful whimper for help. Only silence...

Call Dexter, he knows spatter patterns like a mofo - Crime Scene Photo by Wasabi Prime

Scary, isn't it? This is the biggest reason why I don't prepare beets very often. They literally look like bloody effing murder on every prep surface in your kitchen, including your hands (Out, damned spot!). Even when you scrub everything, it just turns the stains Barbie-pink and it winds up looking like you slaughtered Hello Kitty. That's not much of an improvement. I probably should have saved this post for Halloween, it would have been so ghoulishly appropriate. But then it wouldn't have been as seasonally fitting, as this meal was brought to you by the Magical Mystery CSA Tour, and the latest deliveries have been Beet City, USA.

Beet-cheese/cheese-beet; obscure fast food reference attack! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

But really -- look at how a root vegetable murder scene can turn into pure deliciousness? I think it's more about how puffed pastry pretty much makes everything better. It's got that universal "mo' bettah" mojo that bacon has. Bacon fat, butter fat -- put your hands together for a sandwich of awesomeness. Or truly greasy fingers. In this case, the Herbed Cheese and Roasted Beet Tart remained meat-free, and therefore bacon-less, but it was still pretty enjoyable. Who says you have to go without on a Meatless Monday? If it were a Calorie/Fat-less Monday, you'd be doomed, but no one's suggested that dreadful food theme day yet.

So how, exactly did this crazy concoction come about? The CSA delivery box was the spark, I always keep a package of puff pastry in the freezer, and I had fresh herbs and cream cheese at the ready. Shouldn't we all? Mr. Wasabi is not a fan of beets, although he oddly admits to enjoying borscht, which is the soup that takes beets to Eleven. But beets in a non-borscht form usually inspires his scrunched-up five-year-old-face of FAIL. To be honest, I wasn't always a fan of beets either. It's one of those vegetables where you probably had them for the first time in one of their worst possible prep scenarios, like from a can, sitting around way too long on a salad bar line. It's no wonder they get such a bad rep. But I've been thankful to have beets prepared in truly beautiful ways by local chefs -- roasted and paired with creamy goat cheese in salads, pickled and served simply with fresh bread and butter; the farther from fuss, the better. I like how the natural sweetness of beets further intensify when you roast them, plus it makes it easier to remove the tough outer skin. Even if it means your hands will look like you've been fingerpainting using only magenta ink all day.

Dexter is darkly dreaming of beets right now - Photos  of food by Wasabi Prime

The combination of the sweet, butter-soft roasted beets on a layer of melty herbed cream cheese and crispy, flaky puff pastry was pretty heavenly. And likely ruined whatever health benefits beets are supposed to have, but hey, baby steps for this newbie-beet-appreciator. The Dexter reference was just too irresistable, given his character's expertise as a blood spatter specialist. I haven't even seen every episode and we're still stuck on a DVD from season four that has yet to be returned to the Netflix queue, so no spoilers! He may not even be the Bay Harbor Butcher anymore for all I know, but I do have to commend the series for creating one of the most clever opening sequences, with the making of breakfast looking totally terrifying. If you've seen this, you know what food/murder double entendre I speak of! I think that would be a wonderful way to spend a macabre evening -- bloody murder cheesy beet tart while watching Dexter episodes.

FoodTrek: Set Hunger to Warp Ten and Geek Out for a Weekend

I've made no bones about what a total smelly nerd I am. Science fiction, comics, movies, television shows, it all fits in my repertoire of nerdiferous geekitude. One odd realm I've never ventured beyond a casual visit now and then is video games; it's just never totally sunk its gryphon-like talons into me. Which is odd, as Mr. Wasabi works at a game company and we have more game consoles than televisions to attach them to. But I do make it a point to jump headfirst into the mad world of Penny Arcade Expo, an annual game convention that happens at the end of every summer in Seattle, to take some fun photos and support the company my Mister works for (Go Runic Games and Torchlight II!). This year, I decided I'd eat like a nerd, but in a fabulously Seattle way, heading over to Local 360 to geek out with one of their tasty burgers and one heck of a spicy Bloody Mary.

Eating like a locavore/nerd queen at Local 360 in Seattle - Photo by Wasabi Prime

There can be as much geek-ness about food as there are arguments over who would win a fight, Superman or Green Lantern (neither, as Wonder Woman would smack them down with her hotness). Local 360 is one of those places that's straight out of a Portlandia skit, the one where restaurant patrons ask how the chickens were raised, were they local, did someone snuggle them and tell them positive things before their necks were unceremoniously wrung for the sake of dinner. But it's not a mean joke, it's like a "funny, because it's true," joke, because the whole idea behind Local 360 and their adjoining shop next door is that everything came from within a 360 mile radius, which is pretty fantastic. It's part of the growing trend everywhere, but especially in the Northwest, to emphasize the need to eat and live sustainably. It's not just about the resources, but the businesses as well -- it's local people, working at small to mid-sized companies, farms, etc. who were involved in getting the food on those plates. Local food, local jobs -- quite frankly, this is the American Dream needing to be readjusted towards. At Local 360, there are no mass-produced products spit out of a factory from a continent away; the bread came from a nearby bakery, the produce came fresh from a local farm, and I'm sure someone said some soothing things to the cow before it was made into the tasty hamburger I just chomped into.

I have to say, in the words of Jules from Pulp Fiction, this is one tasty burger. Fluffy bun, a bit like a potato bread; pillow-soft and not heavily fussed-over, the perfect doughy cradle for the burger. The beef patty has lovely charred smoky bits, cooked medium with a bit of pinkness in the middle, and my favorite is the sweet/sour spice of their pickled peppers they add as a relish. That tangy kick makes it distinctive. You can add cheese or bacon, but I wanted to enjoy the burger on its own. Besides, I wanted to save the bacon for... the Bloody Mary. Awww yeah. I wanted to live large, Big Pimpin' Geek style, so I went to Local 360 in the morning, killing time before the Seattle Convention Center opened for Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). The restaurant is in the perfect spot, as it's within reasonable walking distance in the Belltown neighborhood, but far enough to where the hordes of people dressed like Sailor Moon probably wouldn't think to head a few blocks north. But that's fine, all the more Hot Monkey Bloody Mary for me. Yeah, when you want a Bloody Mary with bite, absolutely "Hot Monkey" it, as it'll be a wicked kick of spice and they jam a huge spear of pickled asparagus and a hefty wedge of crispy bacon as a garnish. For them, it's a garnish, but if they could somehow introduce an egg to this drink, it's a whole damn meal.

Do you covet my Hot Monkey? Of course you do - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I couldn't even finish the whole thing. I finished off my Hot Monkey (I just like saying that) and wiped a bit of spicy sweat off my brow and scooped up half the hamburger and fries to high-tail it midtown to the convention center and the PAX epicenter. I bequeathed the leftovers to Mr. Wasabi, who was literally propped up on coffee and slightly zombified from the lack of sleep -- he spent the night in the office the night before after working the first day of PAX. What a trooper, right? Of course he deserved slightly cold locavore leftovers! Such a saint, I am.

What, your weekends don't look like this? - Photos by Wasabi Prime

The belly-filling, geek-approved breakfast powered me through the whole day and then some, as I wandered through the halls filled with gamers willing to wait three hours for ten minutes of precious play time on unreleased games. I wasn't there to play so much as be an eager observer. A fly on the wall with a big, heavy camera. And copious hand sanitizer usage, because a couple of years ago, swine flu hit PAX pretty hard, no joke. Not a surprise, considering over seventy thousand bodies wandering about, questionable hand-washing habits, lack of sleep, and a diet consisting mainly of pizza and nachos. Welcome to PAX, where the P should stand for Penicillin.

That's not to say it's a bad experience, just a health warning should you decide to revel in this celebration of all things that would have gotten your butt kicked over in grade school. Where else are you going to see a walking slice of bacon, Power Rangers, Star Wards droids, and every imaginable craft-class-gone-awry homemade costume the imagination could dare to consider? It's a plethora of crazy, to be sure.

Games, delicious swag, tons of people...and a dragon - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So, what's a game convention like? A bit like a refuge for the socially awkward damned, but oddly fun. There was a zombie makeup table, which meant everyone was having their cute little cherubs get turned into the bloodthirsty undead. Any girl wearing a figure-hugging costume was getting serious play, being asked for photos that are by now all over Facebook with the tag, "my hot girlfriend." You could get super-modded computers that looked like scooters. Yeah, so that's a thing. And after several years of attending PAX, I finally saw Wil Wheaton. Yeah, Wesley Crusher/Star Trek Next Gen, Gordie/Stand By Me Wil Wheaton. But lately he's been busy as the amusingly douchey Dr. Parrish on the erroneously cancelled SyFy series Eureka (seriously, SyFy - WTF?). Walking through one of the vendor rooms we literally almost ran into him. He was wearing a fan-made cape that had fleur de lis shaped like penises. Long story short, there was a longstanding joke about not being a dick at sci-fi/gamer conventions, so that's where the cape came from. Note, the cape is meant to be ironic, he's probably one of the cooler dudes out there in Hollywoodland. And if you're aware of nerd/gamer stuff, Felicia Day was there, too. Damn, that girl is tiny! But cute as a button, and super awesome for giving the good folks at Runic Games some shoutouts over Twitter and Google +.

Droids, scooter-computers, steampunks w/ smartphones and Wesley Crusher - Photos by Wasabi Prime

So there was the epic meal and gamer-fest that was. Don't ever say that this food blogger doesn't take you to some deliciously bizarre places.

Happy Labor Day - Stop Reading Blogs and Relax!

Follow our dog, Indy's lead, and do... nothing. Seriously. If you don't have to work today, if you're lucky enough to have the day off, get away from the computer until Tuesday morning rears its angry Monday-like head.

Let sleeping dogs lie this Labor Day - Pthoto by Wasabi Prime

I realize it's Labor Day, but I'm all about being contrarian and doing the exact opposite, so for the Prime, it's Non-Labor Day. I'm not doing anything. I'm probably still sleeping. And if I'm awake, I'll likely not change out of my jammies for a full 24 hours when I'm forced to peel my tree sloth-like form from an indentation in the couch. Ewwww. The blog/social media world doesn't often take breaks, it's kind of a 24/7 gig of constant broadcasting of mundane daily information, but I'm betting everyone else is kickin' it lazyschool today, so back to the crucial main point of this rather lackluster post: be like Indy and be a lazy dog today. Happy Do-Nothing Day.