Good Eats of WSU - Ferdinands!

How is it possible that we have lived here for so long (9 years total...to be sadly exact) AND love ice cream AND I have a blog where I love to post about food; but have never posted about the best place ever?!? It seems impossible, but it has happened.

What am I talking about? Don't worry, this question is often asked. And I will tell you...this time. I am talking about the WSU Creamery piece of heaven called Ferdinand's. It is this cute ice cream shoppe (yup, so cute it's spelled all weird) on the WSU campus, and attached to the Creamery where they

make world famous cheese. It is so popular that they ship it around the country. Gotta love Coug Gold cheese. The mere mention of Coug Gold will yeild one of two reactions: 1) you know what this is and are drooling right now (or) 2) you have no idea what this is, but part of your heart is sad because you are missing out.

So back to Ferdinand's. They have the best ice cream. Period. There cannot be any argument about this. And there doesn't need to be. If you argue against this, then I know you have never had any Ferdinand's ice cream. Classic favorites

include: chocolate peanut butter, tin lizzy, and mint chocolate chip. Seasonal yums: pumpkin, lemon chiffon.

Why is this ice cream so special? First, they make it there. So it is fresh. And creamy, none of this low-fat/fro-yo stuff. Second, you can get them as Grabbers. What is a Grabber? A scoop of glorious ice cream squished between two fantastic oatmeal cookies. Therefore, it is the best ice cream sandwich ever!

So this post totally sounds like an advertisement* for Ferdinand's. It's really not meant to. Really this is me reminiscing, and realizing that soon I will not be able to have this tasty treat for much longer. And how will Poppy Seed ever know the glory that is a lemon chiffon waffle cone on a hot summer's day? Maybe it is better to never know, to never suffer. Who am I kidding?!? Better to love and then lost, then never have loved at all.**

*Please read this in a British accent. It makes the blog classier.
**I'm pretty sure this quote is about ice cream. Isn't it?

Good Eats of Pullman: Mexican Food?

Yea for spicy foods!! Now that I can eat pretty much whatever, I am enjoying all kinds of food again. It was definitely a strange event early in this pregnancy when Taco Del Mar burritos were too spicy for me. Seriously, it made me sad and brought a tear to my ear (also because it was so hot!). But now my taste buds are back to normal, and we are back to trying new places.

There is a cute new place in town called Abeulo's Fine Mexican Restaurant. Now we have been reluctant to try it, especially since it was in the old Taco Bell. That just doesn't bode well for Mexican food. But some friends tried it and liked it, so we thought we'd give it a go.

Good thing we did! The food was yummy, the place was cute, the staff was super friendly! The favorite part was the salsa bar. They had seven different types of salsa that we could try, ranging from super mild to crazy hot. This is not including the normal salsa and chips they give you. So really, there were eight kinds of salsa to sample! And they had freshly made corn tortillas - all included with the meal!

The mildest is on the left...the crazy hot stuff is on the right.

I started with the more mild stuff and Keith ventured into the hotter stuff. The mild stuff had such great flavor, but very little zip. The hotter stuff was a great mixture of flavor and spice. Finally we both tried the hottest salsa. This is the salsa that the waiter (and maybe owner?) said that he couldn't handle. That definitely scared us. Let's put it this way: I swear I tried the equivalent of three molecules of this stuff...and my tongue let me know that those three molecules were screaming hot!

Keith was braver and tried a decent amount. Note: the picture I took after he tried it. This is not a posed picture, he did this for a few minutes afterward! It was so hot we both don't even know if there was flavor to it. We both found our favorites, which we scarfed happily with our dinner. Even though we have only a month or so left, we will definitely be back. It's just sad that we are finally finding some decent Mexican food in the Palouse. Hopefully they will be around a long time, so people can learn about real Mexican food!

Good Eats of Spokane

So I don't know how I haven't mentioned this place, since it's a fantastic place to have lunch if in Spokane. I have to admit though...the only reason why we tried it was because of architecture of the building. That's right, we tried a restaurant based on the building. Don't judge me; if you read this you know how random I can be. I had to convince Keith to try it out, since he agrees with you (the reader) on my logic. And the name of the place is so obviously kitschy that I loved it instantly: The Milk Bottle.


Thank goodness this place rocks! They serve pretty good burgers and stuff. And they make it all fresh, which is cool. It really is a nice Mom n' Pop place. But the reason why we always plan on eating there when we trek up? The milkshakes. It may seem pretty obvious that this place would know how to do a milkshake correctly, as you do eat inside a milk bottle. But this is actually some kind of fusion of ice cream and awesomeness. I can't even describe how wonderful they are. Not only do you get a milkshake in the cute glasses, but also the tumbler they made it in. This basically equals TWO milkshakes for the price of one. How can anyone turn that down? The answer: You can't. Besides...what sound like more fun than eating in a giant milk bottle!?!

Some of My New Favorite Things

1. Blaming my baby for things: Like wanting ice cream. Or when I lose my Cougar Card...for the second (or was it third) time in a week.

2. Speaking of ice cream, I lov that ice cream is a good source of calcium. And that I need calcium. So the logical argument is: I need calcium. Ice cream is a good source of calcium. Therefore, I need ice cream.

3. Reading books, websites, and other stuff all baby-related. And skipping the scary sections, such as labor and birth defects. Scary stuff. But I like the happy stuff, like knowing their heart rate (range is the same as a cat's), when their ductus arteriosus closes (a few days after birth - I knew I heard a murmur at the ultrasound!).

4. Being done with my senior paper and internship applications. Now I can focus on other things: my research project, my case report, and sleeping.

5. Olympic curling. I am sad that it's over and can only hope curling gets more ESPN coverage.

6. Ultrasounds! I don't really love doing them, but love getting them...so far.

7. Being back home after a month away and spending time with my husband.

8. The twinkle in his eye when I remind him (like he forgets!) that I am pregnant.

9. Standing barefoot in the kitchen. (Think about it...) It cracks me up! Of course Keith said this was how it should be. I kicked him in the behind, literally. Good thing he was laughing when he said it!

10. La Casa Lopez in Moscow, ID. While it won't compare with the Mexican food we had in Tucson, they do serve a decent tamale. And apparently some good margaritas...so I've heard.

11. Being able to eat Mexican food again! So far, no more morning sickness and no more heartburn with spicy food. I can't believe there was a time when I found Taco Del Mar spicy. Sad, sad day.

12. Lists. Okay, this isn't a new thing. Just be glad I haven't figured out how to do charts on this blog...yet.

13. Nicknames people have for the baby (and me):
a. Poppy seed - keith & liz
b. Chicken Wing or CW - brynne
c. Critter - jenny
d. Leon - sam
e. Preggo (for me) - john, knappster, and burien vet hospital

Bad Eats: Seattle

Here is an outline of an adventure I had in Seattle, with some photographs* for visual aid.  (*Not all events were photographed for soon to be understood reasons.  You are welcome in advance)

1.  Keith and I went to a Seattle Mariners game.  This is an annual event, where I take him to a baseball game.  I always have fun and Keith either (a) has fun because they win or (b) gets mad that they lose, but claims he still had fun.

This is Keith lying to my face that he is having fun.  

This is how he really feels.  You can guess the outcome of the game.

2.  Afterward, we meet up with Doug and Beth (Keith's folks) to try out a new restaurant.  We have all heard how good it is and it's down by the waterfront, so it sounds fun.

3.  We sit in the bar area to await seating, and catch up with them.  So far so good...it's fun to chitty-chat!

4.  We get seated and order the most fun thing on the menu - seafood where they dump it onto the table and we dig in like little piggies.  Sounds great!  We are excited at the novel idea.

Plus we get tools, i.e. a mallet and a cutting board.  This is fun!

5.  The food arrives!  It looks and smells great!

6.  I have more fun, doing some shrimpy dissection.  You can take the girl outta the OR, but you can't take the OR outta the girl!

7.  We eat.  And eat.  Basically, we gorge.  That's all.

8.  We drive to Doug and Beth's house to spend the night.  We are lucky since they have a guest bedroom and actually have 3 full-sized bathrooms in their dome home.  We are so glad we went out to dinner.

9.  Three of us get sick, from presumably food poisoning.  We spend considerable amount of time not together.  (remember: the house has three bathrooms).  It is still unclear why Doug never got sick...but thank goodness he didn't. 

**Note: This is not any of us or what happened to us.  But you get the idea of where we spent most of the evening and it wasn't with the kitty.

10.  It has taken me about 4 months to blog about this, since the thought of it still makes me queasy.  But it seems like an isolated incident, so I'm sure someday we'll try it again.  As Keith says: once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

11.  Moral of the story: Fun food does not always mean good food.  But mallets in dining is still fun.  We still had a great time together, inspite of it all.  And spending time with loved ones makes the memories better, even if you get food poisoning.

**The alternate title of this post was: Learning about Viruses, Bacteria, and the Digestive System.  Now you know why.  

Good Eats of Seaside Oregon

I have been going through some of our photos from our recent trips and realized I haven't blogged about some really great places that we visited.  Especially some of the restaurants that we went to while at Seaside.  Can you tell I'm totally a foodie?  And while we may not go back for a while, we really found some great places.  So let's go down memory food lane...yum!

One of the places we frequented was The Goose Hollow at the Cove.  It was an unassuming restaurant that was near our hotel.  The main reason we went in was that they were open and not too busy.  Were we in for a surprise!  They had some great music, great food, and great atmosphere. And they have some of the best sandwiches and clam chowder.  Their menu was divided into half: the ruben sandwiches and the non-ruben sandwiches.  Can you tell what their specialty was?  They were fantastic!  We never got to see/hear them, but they had live music every weekend too, which is pretty cool.  

We also walked around the Boardwalk of Seaside, window-shopping and just being touristy.  And when we saw the elephant ears, we had to have some!  After all, what is more memorable from goofing off as kids at a fun place than yummy elephant ears?  And the place we found drizzled all kinds of yummy toppings; of course Keith chose chocolate!  I had strawberry jam with confectioner's sugar: yummy and enough sugar to keep me shopping for hours.  Poor Keith!

What else did we do?  We found the only Bayou restaurant in Seaside, which is creatively called Lil' Bayou.  And of course we had to eat there.  Wearing fake Mardi Gras beads (note: Keith chose the red beads to go with his Coug shirt).  Drinking sweet tea, which I had never had before.  It's actually pretty good, and maybe someday I'll learn how to make it.  So if anyone has a good recipe, feel free to send it my way!

And don't worry, Keith isn't eating all that food...the yummy one in the bread bowl is mine (note: I am wearing blue beads, after Keith switched them for the purple beads I had originally.  Purple beads + yellow shirt = a big no no*).  I have to admit I was kinda nervous to try this famously spicy food, but since it was in a restaurant I think they made it kinda mild.  I only had to drink a few glasses of sweet tea to make it through dinner.  I mean, Keith didn't even break into a sweat...so I know it wasn't that authentic. 

 

Geez, it sounds like we just eat on vacation...but really we do much more.  I mean, look at my other blog postings!  The thing is that I love to take food pictures, especially of really good food.  And even more of places with really good food and cute fake jewelry!

*For those who don't know: the colors of UW, the hated rivals of the beloved WSU Cougars, are yellow and purple. 

Sous Chef in Training

Not only am I budding photographer, I am also still learning how to cook.  I can cook, but only with a recipe in front of me.  I would like to be able to really cook, you know, like just adding a dash of this and that or whatever inspires me.  Yes, I know...sad, but true that I am still learning.  Remember, I am also that girl who learned how to drive at 19 and how to ride a bike at the more mature age of 22.  (That's right, I learned how to drive before riding a bike)  Now don't feel too bad for Keith, since I am a baking goddess (self-appointed title).  Pie, cake, cookies...I can make you love baked goods in so many fabulous ways.  I am adding bread to my repertoire, and some day I will learn to bake tarts.  Oh and fondant...I want to master fondant.  Then I will conquer cupcake decorating, like this awesome picture.  But I digress...

In order to learn more cooking tips, I decided to be Keith's sous chef.  For those who don't know, according to the infallable Wikipedia: a sous chef is the direct assistant of the executive chef and is second in command.  Which makes sense in our house, since there is only two of us.  So I am second in command...over the cats.  Yeah, right.

Anyway, this was a way I could not-so-sneakily observe his mad cooking skillz (that how bad-ass they are, his skill has a "z").  So when he decided to try out a new mac 'n cheese recipe, I was eager to help him out.  We had just returned from our trip to Seaside, and during our trip had purchased a Tillamook cheese cookbook.  The cookbook is great and has an entire chapter devoted to the mac 'n cheese!  Plus we were using our new fancy baking dish we bought in Seattle for the first time.

I figured if I watched Keith cooking with a new recipe and unfamiliar dish I could learn a lot.  So I was in charge of shredding chicken, which takes forever!  But it definitely is yummy.  And I was in charge of the important cheese shredding.  Big jobs!  I was so impressed; Keith is able to manage multiple pans, keep track of what I was doing, and keep following the recipe...all at the same time!  I was impressed and overwhelmed.  I mean, who can keep up with all that!?!

But I did learn some stuff, but most importantly we learned some things together:

1.  We can totally work together, even in a small kitchen.

2.  Quality cheese is important.  Period.

3.  Our baking dish is fantastic.  I heart Le Creuset.

4.  We have a great mac 'n cheese recipe. 

5.  Pulling any meat can take a long time, but goes faster if the meat is still hot.

 

Good Eats of Pullman

That's right. It's another food-related entry. Get over it. If you don't wanna be hungry and jealous, then move on. If you know us, you know we love food. But we especially love good food from local, unique eateries. You can't get more local or more unique than Sella's. It is truly an institute in Pullman. Why? Because I said so! Spunky mood, eh? Seriously though, not only do they have fan-freakin'-tastic food, but also because they are the manifestation of WSU Cougar spirit. They have Coug-named dishes and are Crimson and Grey decor (WSU colors, obviously!). Doesn't hurt that they are located in the heart of Pullman and just off campus!

One fun thing about Sella's is that they have paper placemats and crayons on each table. Not only is drawing a fun way to wait for your food, but if you could also have them added to the permanent rotation of Sella's artwork. It is always fun to look at all the artwork from the years, and the art is from all ages. We have never had or known someone to have their artwork placed on display, but we definitely enjoy all the creativity found here (especially the anti-Husky ones!). 

 

Of course, the food is fantastic too! They are a total pizza joint, but with a specialty that we have never found anywhere else. The. Best. Calzones. Ever. Don't get me wrong, their pizza and salads are fantastic. But we have never had calzones like this. 

They are two meals worth of yumminess. Let's put it this way: my dad will visit us and take two of these bad-boys home with him. Not that I blame him, I used to crave calzones when we lived in Tucson. In fact, all this talk about them is making me hungry now. Darn it. We better get our fill before I graduate!  Better go get some now...so hungry, aren't you?

Cooking Shows are Evil

If you ever watch cooking shows, you know what I mean. Just add these few ingredients, that everyone should have - presto & alakazam - a fabulous meal in under 30 minutes. Of course, I never have all those ingredients and never, ever have all the tools they have either. So this means at least a trip to the market, if not to our shiny Bed, Bath & Beyond. (remember: small town so this is a big deal that we have one!). What has triggered this out burst, you may ask? Watching a cooking show (Simply Ming) where they made all these fantastic looking tempura. Yum!

As a novice cook, they inspire me to try things that I would never think of trying. I've tried making tempura once before, and it was...well, okay. It turned out to be such a mess with batter and oil splashing everywhere too. Luckily, Keith stepped in and made the remaining tempura for me (which of course was significantly better than mine). Now back to my rant - after watching this show it has reignited my desire to buy the most useless and space-wasting kitchen appliance ever - a deep fryer. I love the idea of being able to control the temperature of the oil, keep everything neat, and make frying things so much easier. And supposedly you can store the oil in it too, but seriously that sounds like a mess.

Every once in a while I will see a show or a recipe and feel the urge to run out and purchase a deep fryer. For some reason it sneaks into my mind that it is this one appliance that will launch me from a hit or miss cook to one that really knows what she is doing with all those random spices and ingredients. And I blame cooking shows for giving me such hope. I have even looked and lusted over them at various cooking stores, but thankfully reason always wins. But if I didn't watch these darn cooking shows, with their three course meal made in minutes I wouldn't feel like such a goal would be so reachable.

So you must think I hate all cooking shows. Not true. There are two that are worth their spit. One is Good Eats with Alton Brown. If you have seen it, you know why I love this show. If not, here's the best summary of it: sarcasm + science + food. Seriously a must watch. The best cooking show ever? My O'bachan*. Watching her cook and present a five course meal gives me hope of putting together my own fabulous meal. Then she teaches me recipes that are yummy and insultingly easy that even I can manage. My favorite lesson was when she asked if I knew how to make rice. Of course! Have I not been making rice since before time?!? Apparently not the correct way, and after a short lesson now I can make the BEST RICE EVER. Seriously. I may not always be able to make a full meal, but I can now make the best rice you'll ever have.

The conclusion of my rant: Cooking Shows are Evil, but O'bachans are Saints.

*O'bachan is Japanese for Grandmother.

Good Eats of the Palouse

Living in a small town for so many years has had its ups and downs. We have lived in Pullman for a total of - dare I say it - nine years! The limitations are pretty obvious. But I have learned to enjoy what this small town has to offer, mainly a sense of local pride and community. Plus, local festivals and farmer's markets are more fun since that local flavor is unmistakable.

One of the hardest limitations of living in such a small town is trying to find new places to eat. You know it is a small town when the new Applebees is big news! We have learned from living in a small town that local restaurants have so much more to offer than those franchise places. Our new favorite place is this great cafe in the little town of Palouse, the Green Frog Cafe.

The Green Frog Cafe is a little oasis in the middle of wheat and lentil fields*. Driving through the farms is relaxing as we cut through the pretty rolling hills of The Palouse**. The Cafe is found in a small community 20 minutes away from the fast-paced Pullman. They have a great cafe menu, with a bunch of great sandwiches. And more importantly, The Green Frog Cafe has some of the best locally baked goods. Seriously. Best. Scones. Ever. Plus it's funky decor and fun staff make the place a fun place to visit. After a great lunch, there are a bunch of cute antique stores that are fun to wander through. Overall, it makes for a great little afternoon trip for us to get away and enjoy some local community flavor!

*Note: Pullman, WA is home of the National Lentil Festival. And the World's Largest Bowl of Lentil Chili. Why? Because this area produces 1/3 of the nation's lentils. Don't believe me? Check it: The National Lentil Festival

** For those who may be confused this area of Washington and Idaho is called "The Palouse". The town where this cafe is called "Palouse". Glad to clear that up. :)