Eating. ice cream sandwiches.

I grew up on a tree-shaded street, along which children ran down the sidewalks or rode their bikes, and people took their dogs on daily walks. The seasons ran together, blurred, and years slid by, and I wonder, where did they all go? Fall came, and leaves carpeted the streets; winter came and rain pounded the dead leaves until they disintegrated and disappeared; spring raised a cloud of white blossoms and soft green leaves, and summer turned the lawns spotty brown from the heat (particularly if you forgot to water the grass). In the summer ice-cream trucks drove through the streets, tootling their irresistible song that drove my dog crazy (she would start barking when she heard that tinkling music; like doorbells and the Blue Angels during SeaFair it seemed to flick a switch in her brain permanently to ON). You would hear the music of the ice-cream truck coming ever closer, block by block, signaling the beginning of summer, the promise of sunny days and multicolored popsicles that left your tongue striped in reds and blues.

Actually, I preferred ice-cream sandwiches to any kind of popsicle. (Although a friend's mother would give us the kind that came as a solid tube of ice encased in plastic; it was pinched in the middle, like two linked sausages, and you broke it in half like an old-fashioned ampoule of medicine and sucked the melting ice from the hole. And sometimes you just need a popsicle, although I can't remember the last time I had one). No, I preferred the ice-cream sandwich, an oblong block of vanilla ice cream between two chocolate cookies, wrapped in paper-lined foil. I loved that minimalism of it, white ice cream, dark brown - almost black - cookies. As in an ice-box cake of wafers and cream, the ice-cream softened the cookies, and the sandwich became one smooth whole as you ate it, bite by bite, melting slowly. (Or quickly, if the day was hot).

Like barbecues and s'mores and watermelon and the first handful of Rainier cherries of the season, ice cream sandwiches are for summer. Not like regular ice cream, which can be eaten even in the dead of winter, and I do. Somehow ice cream sandwiches belong to summer, to the little white trucks with their tinkling melodies, even if you buy them in boxes of six or eight from the supermarket freezer and not from the ice cream truck, one by one. And summer has come, or is almost here, the sun shining; it is time for barbecues and s'mores and watermelon. And ice cream sandwiches. On an impulse I buy some at the supermarket, I curl up on my sofa and watch the sunset change the colors of the sky outside the windows. Peel away the paper, take the first bite, soft chocolate biscuits, cool, creamy vanilla ice cream. As it happens whenever I eat something I associate with my childhood, I feel the years fall away, then flash forward to this moment again. Summer is here.

eating. sack lunch.

Some time ago B. mentioned a nearby café which made egg-salad sandwiches, the best she had ever tasted. I am very fond of an egg-salad sandwich, either plain, or with a little curry. Y. taught me to put finely chopped dill into the egg-salad when she brought an enormous pile of sandwiches sliced into perfect triangles and neatly arranged on a platter to one of our infamous lunch parties. I don't slice my sandwiches into perfect triangles, but then Y. is the sort of person who frosts her cupcakes with pink frosting and then pipes white flowers on top (or perhaps it is the other way around). Still, I had been thinking of those egg-salad sandwiches that B. mentioned for weeks now, but somehow had never made time to stop by and buy one, until I found myself with a little extra time in the morning and took the rather more circuitous route to work. This took me past the aforementioned café, a tiny place with a few tables and a very small counter from behind which two women made espresso drinks and handed out packets of cereal and scones.

The café is the sort of place where the same neighborhood people come in every day and order the same thing; the barista seems to know everyone who walks in and has their drink going even before they reach the counter. While eyeing the small cooler filled with cans of Pellegrino and bottles of BibiCaffé (my favorite thing in the world) I notice a small blackboard propped up against a stool proclaiming "SACK LUNCH." (Includes sandwich - tuna or egg salad, a cookie, and a piece of fruit). With my brown bag in one hand (BibiCaffé - an espresso soda - in the other) I continue on my way to work; waiting for the light on the corner I stop to open my bag and peek at its contents, and I am swamped by a wave of nostalgia.

I can't remember the last time I had a lunch packed in a brown paper bag. Sure, I usually bring lunch to work, a plastic box of leftovers, a sandwich (or the ingredients for one), or packets of instant noodles, carried in paper tote bags emblazoned with the logos of various shops (the more expensive the shop, the fancier the bag). I feel curiously young as I look at my plastic-wrapped sandwich and cookie, a ripe banana lounging insouciantly on top. It brings to mind school trips, lunches of ham or turkey sandwiches, with a bag of chips and an apple, perhaps a cookie or two. How many of those lunches have I eaten in this lifetime? Hundreds? Thousands? Would those bags stretch around the world? (Later, the sandwich eaten, every last cookie crumb devoured, the empty banana skin disposed of, I would smooth the brown paper bag flat, remember how I would sometimes reuse them until the sharp creases of each corner would relax into a rumpled softeness).

The egg salad is made with almonds, a sweet crunch with every bite; the multi-grain bread is spread with more mayonnaise before the sandwich is assembled, which I try not to think about too much. It is everything B. mentioned, and better. I eat my sandwich and drink my BibiCaffé and think about past brown-bag lunches eaten on a grassy lawn instead of at my desk in front of the computer. But instead of memories there is egg salad with almonds, and it is enough to make me happy, and I am.

Eating out. Lark.

Another Saturday at work, another chance to have dinner at Lark, alone. I am early, as usual, and because it is a warm and sunny June day the shades are drawn and the door closed against the bright light. When I step inside at first it seems the room is empty, and then K. (one of the owners) appears from behind one of the long curtains that curve along the length of the restaurant. In the quiet before the dinner rush I am given my choice of tables along the banquette that stretches down one wall, and I move farther into the coolness of the room. Slip onto the hard wooden bench, flip through the menu with all its enticements. The cheeses and charcuterie need a party of friends to share with; so does the carpaccio of yellowtail, one of my favorite dishes. I ponder the salads, and then the waitress arrives to tell me about the two specials of the night, the second of which is a flatiron steak. Ooh! Sold.

Some bread-and-butter comes as I wait, and a tall glass of soda tasting faintly of lemongrass. A cold soup of ajo verde arrives in a Staub soup plate, the heavy black cast-iron cold to the touch. Ajo verde is a green garlic; in Spain they make a cold soup of garlic and almonds, and this seems like it might be the chef's reinterpretation of it. It is smooth and creamy - very creamy - and cold; it tastes green without being grassy, not like garlic at all, and that green smoothness is interrupted by the textures of blanched almonds and the sweetness of (I think) spot prawns. As I eat my soup I trace the letters that run around the rim of the plate - S T A U B - like the hours of a five-hour clock and feel as though summer has arrived. I eat my bread and my cool soup and watch the table in front of me - two couples of a certain age - as they mutter their way through the wine list and the menu and converse easily with K., one of the three owners, who oversees the dining room (the chef and his wife are the other owners), and three waitresses. One of the men is the sort of diner who talks to everyone, introducing himself to the waitress, to the owner, asking questions about various dishes on the menu. It is like watching a show, dinner theater.

My steak arrives, perfectly grilled and sliced. It occurs to me that I ought to have asked for the pommes de terre Robuchon, so K. glides off to get me some. It might take a little while, she warns me. It's ok. I'll eat slowly, I tell her. Which is hard, because the beef is juicy and flavorful, rich and tasting the way you think beef should taste, and I want to eat it all right away. I distract myself with a tangle of wild asparagus, each stalk no thicker than a strand of spaghetti; I wonder how such a frail stalk could hold the weight of the feathery tip. (The waitress tells me that they come from Provence, and I have a sudden mental image of some farmer flying first-class, a basket of those fine green wild asparagus bundled into the overhead bin). The green strands are slippery and sweet, electrified by the crunch of sea salt. A few porcini mushrooms huddle to one side, quartered and sautéed until golden around the edges, each one as savory and intensely flavored as the steak. The potatoes come in a black cast-iron cocotte, and they are like whipped butter flavored with a little potato. According to Jeffrey Steingarten, Joël Robuchon (for whom these potatoes are named) runs his potatoes through a food mill and then rubs the puree through a sieve; these potatoes have that same smoothness.

My plates are whisked away as I lean back on the banquette and think about dessert. A different waiter stops by - the adorable one, who wears glasses and has a little bit of an accent which I have yet to identify - and suggests the Meyer lemon parfait instead of the rhubarb crisp. It's perfect for this weather! he tells me, and I watch the next table ooh and ah over a succession of dishes - fresh oysters, the yellowtail carpaccio, a beet salad, the burrata which I love but certainly can't contemplate eating alone - while waiting for my parfait. And then I see it, almost floating through the air towards me, a round of frozen lemon mousse capped with a drift of whipped cream, topped with an enormous tuile, the most perfect, most delicate tuile I have ever seen. The parfait is not too sweet, but at the same time not too tart; the creaminess of the mousse tempers the tartness of lemon, without being too creamy. It is like diving into cool water, and I drive home in a lemon-scented haze.

Eating out. Lark.

Tonight I leave work at 5; the question looms, where will I have dinner tonight? There is La Spiga, where I usually go on Saturdays when I have to work. There is the little café next door, which I have often wanted to try. There is 1200 Bistro, around the corner and down the street from the lab, whose menu I stop and read whenever I am waiting for a light to change so I can cross the street. And there is Lark. Ordinarily I avoid Lark, unless I am with my parents and they are paying. It is a simple restaurant with small plates and even smaller portions, and ordering with reckless abandon from each page of the menu (it is four narrow pages long - perhaps five, not counting dessert - with a dozen or so choices on each page, cheese, vegetables/grains, charcuterie, seafood, and meats) is a dangerous exercise. But it has been a long week, and I feel deserving of something a little different, so I find myself inside the door, asking for a table.

It is early, and only a few of the booths that line one wall, or the small tables against the banquettes that run along the opposite wall (more tables run the length of the room, in the middle), are occupied. The manager - I think she is one of the owners, with a beautiful, open smile and easy manner - shows me to one of the banquette tables, where I settle in and think about the menu. The good thing about eating here alone is that I don't have to share anything with anyone else. The bad thing is that I am limited to no more than two dishes. I am in an agony of indecision - salad? No. Pork belly, perhaps? Sounds good, but I've had it before. Foie gras? No. Carpaccio of yellowtail or striped sea bass? I spy a rabbit salad, think that perhaps I will have the sea bass and the rabbit salad. And then of course, the waiter comes to tell me about tonight's special: roast rabbit loin, wrapped in bacon. And I am sold.

With the rabbit I order a dish of farro, that chewy grain that has become popular, like rhubarb and pork belly, in the past few years. When we had dinner here last summer A. had given me a bite of hers, the earthy nuttiness of the grains sweet against the almost floral taste of chanterelles; I think there were some greens in there but I can't remember what. I am too tired for wine, and ask for a kumquat soda, which actually tastes a little like Fanta, only not as sweet. (And not bright orange). The bread arrives, some slices of baguette and what looks like pain au levain, which has a dark sourness to it. (Why is it that bread-and-butter always tastes so much better in restaurants? Especially the butter, which always seems to have a freshness that I have never quite found in supermarket butters, although the organic cultured stuff is mighty tasty, I must admit). I prefer the baguette, which is about as perfect as a baguette gets, sweet and golden with an interior that has some stretch to it and a crisp crust that crackles most satisfyingly when I eat it.

And then my meal arrives and I forget everything else. The rabbit loin is wrapped in bacon so finely sliced that it hugs the meat like a crisp, savory skin; the rabbit meat is tender and juicy, both the loin and the tiny rack that sprouts wee little bones. My brain had stopped listening as soon as I heard the words "rabbit" and "bacon," so I am surprised by the salad of shaved asparagus and what looks like arugula, on top of a sort of buckwheat cake, rather like a blini, which I find delightful. It takes a few bites before I realize that the heady perfume lingering over my plate is the truffles in the sauce. The farro comes in a black cast-iron dish, the coarse grains in a buttery, creamy sauce, with the ruffly dark morels and the green astrigency of ramps (at least I think they are ramps; something green, anyway). I sit and eat my dinner and listen to the threads of conversations that become more and more complicated as the tables fill with diners. Some people have dined here before, like me; they are familiar with the menu and order quickly. The young couple next to me are here for the first time; I can't resist leaning over and telling them that they are right to order the yellowtail carpaccio, which comes with preserved lemon rind and green olives, a scattering of black pepper. I tell them to order the duck leg, to try the sea bass. I wish I had room to order the burrata, which the couple to my left are having, that white, mozzarella-like cheese that has a softer, creamier texture even more addictive than your traditional fresh, milky mozzarella. But I want dessert.

The first time I came here I eyed S.'s tarte tatin with envy; each time since I have had to order the same. The fruits change with the seasons, and tonight it is pineapple, sweet and acidic and unctuous with caramel. The pastry is perfect, crisp and buttery, like the best croissant, only with fruit and the cold shock of vanilla ice cream melting on top. I have not drunk any wine, but I feel flushed, flushed with good food and happiness and the sensation of having the weight of the day slip away...

Eating out. again.

For our sixth meal out since Friday, we find ourselves at Daniel's Broiler, the one situated at the south end of Lake Union, overlooking the water (and the nearby Hooter's). Outside is the marina where people who can afford to spend exorbitant amounts of money on yachts dock their boats. Across the street is the brick-and-glass compound where my father used to work, the job which he finally concluded a few months ago in order to spend more time on his other job and other life in another country. He will be crushed to learn that my mother and I have been eating our way across Seattle for the past several days, and that tonight we are having beef. Without him.

It feels strange to eat out every single night; when I was growing up restaurants were something ordinarily reserved for special occasions, unless it was a quick meal at a noodle house before a baseball game or a movie, or down to Chinatown or out for sushi when no one felt like cooking. Now that I live within walking distance of work - and dozens of restaurants all over the neighborhood - it is not unusual for me, perhaps once a week, to stop somewhere on the way home for dinner, a bit of a splurge, a break from the busy week. (Sometimes it still comes as a surprise to me that I have money in my pocket, what my high-school English teacher once referred to as "disposable income;" that I can have a cocktail and an appetizer as well as dessert and put it on a credit card or use the last of the week's petty cash that I allow myself).

But this is different; my mother's in town. There are friends who want to see her and meet up for dinner, to congratulate on selling her home of twenty years, who only see her briefly, every few months when she breezes into town on a cloud of jet lag and Créme de la Mer. So far we have hit some of my favorites - Nishino and Harvest Vine and tonight's Daniel's Broiler - and have discovered some new ones - Sitka & Spruce and Volterra, where we ate brunch a few days ago and will be having dinner again tomorrow. It is a welcome luxury to be able to go to good restaurants and sit around drinking good wine and eating good food and laughing at everyone's stories with friends. And yet I feel rather like a goose being fattened up for foie gras. I go to bed full and wake up full and skip breakfast and pick at my lunch and at the dinner table feebly push away the bread basket, and still I eat too much and the whole cycle continues. But tonight there is prime rib.

Daniel's Broiler is a steakhouse, one of the finest in the city, full of dark wood and big windows and high ceilings and modern glass light fixtures. It smells of steak and money. There are private rooms and tables outside on the deck with heat lamps keeping diners toasty if the night turns cool, but we are inside at a window table, and they've reserved several orders of prime rib for us. There are cold appetizers to start - I snag a few giant prawns - and breads and salads, which I avoid - and at last giant cuts of prime rib, perfectly medium-rare, each one, as I've said before, the size of War and Peace, with a mountain of garlicky mashed potatoes and a little horseradish sauce on the side. Perhaps there was a sprig or two of parsley, but I can't remember. There is a confused medley of desserts, as well, but I came to dinner with only one thought in my mind: Prime rib, and I go home with the memory of it in my mouth...

Eating out. La Spiga. (again).

C. and I have taken to occasionally going out to dinner on nights we both work late. Sometimes it's someplace nearby we can walk to - the lab is on Capitol Hill and there are tons of restaurants within walking distance - and other times we hop in the car and drive downtown or over to Madison Park. But yesterday morning I walked past La Spiga on my way in to work - as I do every morning - and looked in the window at the empty restaurant, all the lights turned off, a broom leaning against the bar, the flowers on the narrow little table next to the door drooping a little in their vase, and thought, maybe I'll have dinner here tonight. (When I walk past the empty quiet restaurant, I think of that line from Ungaretti's I Fiumi, where he describes the sinkhole that is listless/as a circus/before or after the show).

All day long yesterday I thought about the quiet cavern of that restaurant which would no longer be quiet by dinnertime; it would be like the circus during the show, not listless as it is before or after. When the day finally ended it was past seven, and I had been at work for over ten hours. I needed food, and a drink, and off we went, turning the lights off and the alarm on, walking briskly towards our destination. Of course the tables are all full, of course there are no seats open at the bar. But there is a waiting area in the middle of the restaurant, with upholstered sofas and a low coffee table (there are also other chairs and benches by the door, but they are all occupied), and just enough space for the two of us to sit down and wait for a table.

On the recommendation of our waitress I ordered a basilico, a drink that combines lemon vodka and fresh basil and...something else, I can't remember what. It is cool and clean-tasting, like falling into a hidden spring, and as I drink it the weight of the day seems to float away. A table opens, one of the leather-cushioned booths I love so much. Paper-thin slices of prosciutto come arranged like rumpled sheets of rosy silk on a piece of waxed paper spread across one of those wooden peels bakers use to slide pizzas into the oven. I drape a slice of prosciutto over a wedge of grilled flatbread, savor my drink. I've ordered pork tenderloin braised in milk (or perhaps it is marinated in milk, or something), with a sauce fragrant with porcini mushrooms. The sauce melts into the pale meat, worlds apart from the slightly dried-out leftover grilled pork chop (an experiment gone awry from a few nights ago) I had for lunch. It is moist and tender and savory and contrasts perfectly with the translucent wedges of fennel on the side, with their sweet anise flavor. I want more, but at the same time I feel that I have had just enough.

And then it is time for dessert. I zero in immediately on the chocolate grappa cake, which I ordered the first time I ate here. The cake is warm against the cool drift of whipped cream that floats on top, leaving a tiny burn of grappa with each bite. I steal a little of C.'s gelato; she has asked for one scoop of pistachio and one of chocolate-hazelnut, and they are sweet and airy and nutty. We talk about Italy, the meals we had in Rome (at different times; C. studied abroad there some years back and I was there with my mother a few summers ago), the way people talk about meals past during meals present.

*Updates are happening, randomly. New posts are here and here

Eating out. La Spiga.

I hate working on weekends. No, that's not true; I love the solitude, the quiet. (Not entirely alone. A co-worker is on hand as well). I have time to catch up on paperwork, to take care of all sorts of small tasks that I don't have time for during the week. And I treat myself by eating out. On Sundays I head to the pub down the street for a burger or spicy pork tacos or wiener schnitzel, and I spend Saturday thinking about what I will order for lunch the next day. But Saturday nights I often head to La Spiga, which I have written about before, many times, and will again, many times, because I try to eat there as often as possible. Like Vi Bacchus, the Japanese restaurant that now occupies the old La Spiga space (three blocks from my home), it has become a place I can stop on my way home from work (six blocks) for dinner before walking the rest of the way home.

It is only 5:30 but the tables are all booked for later in the evening, so I take a seat at the bar, so tired that I order mineral water instead of wine. The owner is sitting at the far end of the dark wooden bar, talking to some staff members before the evening rush begins. He is there every night; I have seen him sitting in the window before the restaurant opens (once, on a surprisingly warm day, the entire front window of the restaurant had been rolled up, like a garage door), and I have seen him chatting with customers or friends in one of the booths that line one side of the front room.

They used to only serve a limited menu at the bar, but now the full menu is available and I am dizzy with indecision. Should I order a starter? A pasta, or a main course, or both? A wild tangle of tagliatelle, or the lasagne I had last time, or a filetto of beef? I perch (ungracefully) on my stool and watch the two bartenders move around behind the bar, against the backdrop of a bank of gleaming espresso machines and an endless wall of wine bottles beyond that. There are bottles of whiskeys and scotches and vodkas and liquers and digestifs and aperitifs and rows of stemware, hanging from the rack above my head as well as along the shelves; the bartender moves away to mix drinks for someone else as I decide what I want for dinner.

Finally I choose the grilled sausage with polenta, and a side dish of braised escarole. The sausages arrive piping hot, sliced in half and crusty from the grill; the golden triangles of polenta are crisp on the outside and creamy inside. The braised escarole is so tender it seems to melt before I have a chance to chew on it; it is a meal of contrasts, salty and crunchy and soft and creamy and every-so-faintly bitter. It is the perfect end to a long day, a brief moment of respite before the long week to come. But to make it complete I need dessert. The other bartender recommends the rhubarb crostata, and I order it, the memory of Serious pie.'s rhubarb crostata lingering from that dinner a few weeks before. La Spiga's is different, more like a French tart than the homely turnover I'd had at Serious pie. It has a scoop of brown sugar gelato melting into the warm fruit, sweet and tart and with that slightly caramelized taste of brown sugar against the buttery crispness of the crust.

I'll be back, soon.

Dinner. Nishino.

I only come to Nishino when my parents are in town, and while they are here I try to persuade them to eat there at least once, twice if I am lucky. Tomorrow my father returns to Taipei; it is my last chance for sushi, perhaps until summer comes and they are here again. We were just here a few weeks ago for dinner with friends, but that was different, a long meal of varied dishes and many courses, a chance to catch up with friends we don't see often. Now it is just my father and I, popping in for a quick bite after work. Our timing is perfect; there are several seats open at the bar, which fill up not five minutes after we sit down, and we congratulate ourself on our good luck. There are younger couples, a trio of older guys who have probably just come from work, and a father with two young children, an increasingly familiar sight here. It's always a father with the kids at the sushi bar; the mom is always off playing tennis or just not in the mood for sushi. They're regulars; they drink 7-up and eat shrimp tempura with their tuna rolls, and politely ask the sushi chef for another order of maguro.

Nishino, as I've said many times before, is one of my favorite restaurants, and sushi is one of my favorite foods, something I can eat and eat and never tire of, unlike, say, foie gras or or even pizza. It is located in a small strip mall off a busy intersection in the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle. Across the street is another strip mall and a video store we used to frequent, back when Nishino was an Italian restaurant called Trattoria Carmine. Now when you walk into the restaurant there is a small waiting area, cushioned benches arranged around one of those Zen gardens that is really just a shallow box of sand and a handful of stones. The walls are a pale peach, hung with large modern paintings, a bit like Matisse, a bit like Chagall, not quite what you would expect in a Japanese restaurant. As you walk in you are immediately hailed by the sushi chefs, behind the counter to your right; they nod and call out a greeting that I have never actually been able to understand.

There is something strange and wonderful about eating at a sushi bar. That long counter of pale wood, polished smooth, the gleaming fresh fish behind glass. Feet braced against the rungs of your stool, chopsticks at the ready, a steaming earthenware cup of tea or glass of saké at your side. Your sushi chef greets you as you sit down, waits for you to decide what you'd like. (There are two or three sushi chefs at Nishino, standing at the sushi bar, while further back in the kitchen another battalion of chefs handles the cooked foods). We order toro, as always, and unagi, and various other old favorites. The white tuna is never quite as good as we think it will be, and the white salmon is what we actually meant to order, and the toro is absolute perfection, as it always is. The kids next to us are debating over what kind of ice cream to order as we finish our sushi. It's time to go home, time for my father to resume his life on the other side of the world, time for me to return to my solitary life. But for now there is one more bite of sushi, one more sip of tea.