Minecraft cake!

This is a Minecraft cake, if you haven't seen one. Here's some info about it:

Cake is a special food item that allows for multiple uses. Cake must be placed to eat.

To enjoy a cake, once it is made, you must place it on the ground. Each use of it will take off a slice (6 slices total). Destroying a cake will yield nothing in return. If you are already at full health, no cake will be consumed.

Cake cannot be moved once placed.

Empty buckets will be retained after cake is made.

What does a 12-year-old want when he celebrates his birthday? Why, a Minecraft cake, of course. Here's what ours got, thanks to the efforts of his dad. It was declared to be the Best.Cake.Ever.

    

A buttery plate of rigatoni?

No. It's pineapple twizzler candy. Very, very good.

Night Kitchens

Walking through Belltown the other night, I passed the Macrina Bakery kitchen vitrine. I became used to seeing this kitchen bustling with baking and whatnot in the mornings when I passed by on my way to work a few years ago, but I'd never thought about it being visible at night. Nothing unusual about the kitchen, just a fun sight. Made me think of In The Night Kitchen, which I now learn was controversial because Maurice Sendak's illustrations showed a naked little boy. Sheesh.

Oysters, old school

Somehow, among all the other things going on, this weekend has been about oysters, some I had this weekend and others I have had in the past or will have in the future.

Saturday found us for the first time at Emmett Watson, in Pike Place Market, a remarkably hard-to-find oyster joint stuffed into a crawl space at the foot of a big engineered cliff. Menu on a paper bag, condiments in a Red Stripe 6-pack holder, and oysters on the half-shell adorned with nothing more that a plastic thimble of ketchuppy sauce and lemon. Rating: 2 stars. Rationale: The oysters were too big and not cold enough. I rank red sauces lowest on the totem pole with oysters, as I like to taste the liquor and will always prefer vinegar if I need tang. Points for charm: neutral; the vintage promise was appealing but the delivery was a little, well, (Calling Nina Garcia!) sad. Scuzzy is a word I heard bandied about.

In contrast, let's reminisce about just a few past oyster high-water marks:

1. Hitchcock: This is the very recent past, but Hitchcock has shown me a new oyster dimension in which herbs and a few molecules of berry or granita can bring into focus the plain oyster like no other dressing, even a shallot mignonette, which I also am a fiend for.
2. Oysterbar in Grand Central Station: Pan Roast. Perennial, though I am not lucky enough to keep going back; geography intrudes. Sigh.
3. Reading about the introduction of oysters into pre-revolution French Court life: barrels came, and hundreds were consumed with abandon in short windows of time. No restraint. Here's a blurb about the excess among nobles in 16th Century England:

In a period of three days, Elizabeth's court managed to consume 67 sheep, 34 pigs, 4 stags, 16 bucks (used to make 176 meat pies), 1,200 chickens, 363 capons, 33 geese, 6 turkeys, 237 dozen pigeons, 2,500 eggs and 430 pounds of butter, plus a cartload and two horseloads of oysters.

What/where are my oysters of the future? At the Taylor Shellfish Farms outpost in the Melrose Market. While I was up on Whidbey Island this weekend for some very fun hijinks, others were having a glass or two of wine and having delectable oysters on the half-shell brought to them with a choice of lemon, mignonette, and a tomato-based cocktail dressing — with the option of Tobasco. Buy 'em for $7/dz and they're shucked for $2.

The touch

Update from fellow diner, since we're picky around here: The smoked meat we had at Bisato wasn't Parma, it was Speck. Austrian-style, not Italian.

So yes we went to Bisato the other night, and yes it was as divine as always.

What was interesting? The menu had a lot of the same presentations as before, and yet each one was changed to suit the season and the whim of the chef. Cool.

(I also willfully made it happen hat I hugged Scott Carsberg, and though he seems distinctly non-huggy, he absolutely got it. I am a fanboy seeking expression of my gratitude, and there you have it.)

Here's what's amazing about this restaurant: Every little thing you order is a surprise, in a loud or quiet way. Some things that seem simple enough on the menu (which uses blessedly few adjectives) are a revelation in construction and finesse. Other things are as simple as they could be, but strangely not. I know I'm expressing myself poorly, so look at the grainy iPhone picture here. Is a plate of paper thin Parma ham simply a plate of paper-thin Parma ham? Not here. Here, it is even thinner, and fluffed up into a cloud of heaven that transports. You thought you knew and loved Parma ham. Now, you will always seek THIS Parma ham. It's a complicated equation, not just dining well. You lose your delight in all Parma ham, but you gain a new dimension.

That happened to me with Armandino's salami*, and now it's happened again with how Parma ham should be put on a plate.

* A couple of things about that last link and Salumi in general:

ONE — I have a friend who is a vegetarian of the Indian variety — has never, will never eat meat — and this is her favorite lunch spot: they make fresh mozzarella daily and have 2 choices of sandwich roll taste/texture, and care about the tomatoes, peppers, etc. enough that you get the best damned sandwich on the planet whether or not meat shows up to the party. And they always have vegetable sides that are OMG so good. 

TWO — Why must Absolutely Monica, whoever she might be, obscure her photos with a massive watermark?! Give me a break.

Now that's a brioche!

Thank you, Le Pichet!

Lucky me!

Going with superfriends to Bisato tonight!

Then off to Whidbey Island bearing gifts for a new baby: A wardrobe of Atelier Daguerre tshirts, quilts I sewed (kind-of, I used quilt tops made by the industrious ladies of South Whidbey!) back in the day for my own babies, and some instructional and fairy tale pillows.