Pre-Iceland Photo Dump

I am leaving for Iceland in an hour - and since I know there will be a LOT of photos to process when I get back in a week, I want to post up the photos I am behind on. Granted I do not have a photo of the day for the last two days... but that is because I kept forgetting to put in a new battery into my camera. Whoops? Maybe I'll upload some camera phone pictures later... but that just seems lame..?



This was at afternoon tea at Queen Mary's Tearoom for Rama's baby shower. Delightful! What a classy place! Perfect place for a baby shower, or just a place to chat and spend some time. Beautiful decorations and tea cups, delicious teas, sorbet, tea sandwiches, scones and all so much more. Wonderful. I am definitely going to return there (or find some more tea rooms in Seattle). It has been oh so too long and makes me think of the amazing tea in London when I lived there.



Next up is Quirkle - a new boardgame. I've been researching games that do not involve much or any english that my family can easily play and this one was recommended to me. Love it! The tiles you see here are the ONLY component to the game. The game can be played with kids of adults and is extremely simple but.... sly? A scrabble with tiles possibly? Anyways - I really recommend it. It is great both with two and four people.



Then there are my first homemade truffles. I have wanted to make them for a while and decided to start off with a classic chocolate recipe. Of course I will turn first to see what smitten kitchen has to offer - and it delivers! Absolutely soft middle, a bit of a hard coating and delightful cocoa powder to top. They are not too sweet - even a bit bitter if you inhale the cocoa powder first. Perfect. I want to try some more iterations - with pistachios, mocha and hazelnut to start? So much to try! It did involve latex gloves and getting the kitchen covered in chocolate... but worth it in the end. I may add that even Ryan (who does not like most of my sweets) loved them and ate about 70% of the almost one pound batch. :)



The above photo is one of the many murals on the fence around my neighborhood construction project - the future CapHill light rail tunnel. I love how they decorated the walls - it made the project look so much more friendly. This particular mural is on the other side from where I usually walk so it was the first time I saw it. On that sunny day it really shone. :) I am looking forward to the light rail tunnel, but for now I am excited to look at the fun paintings.

Natury snippets

Ryan has digested the hint that I love flowers so he picks me up some when we go to the market on Sundays. I love that the bouquets that the sell every week are different. This particular one had a lot larger flowers than usual and awesome 'twigs'. I am not sure what they are called but they are great. :) And the bouquet lasted in good shape for a while - I am only throwing it out today after a week and a half of gracing the apartment.

Also have I mentioned that I get a bit obsessed with the 'vibrance' slider when I am editing photos? Yeah....



This was a shot while sitting in happy hour. It is simple - but I really like how the leaves sort of blend with the background. It has a beautiful eerie feeling for me. And didn't involve any post-processing, something that makes my life easier at the end of the day. :)

Seattle goes to Parade time: Solstice and Pride

Summer in Seattle means finally nice weather and lots of parades. One of them is the Solstice Parade - known by many as the 'Naked Bike Ride' (ps, if you put naked in the title of your flickr photo you'll apparently get an intense amount of views). Unfortunately, the past two years that I have gone... the weather has been less than stellar. This year - it was positively cold (as you can see from the spectators in the back) and I could see the goosebumps on some of the riders. But they kept going!

I love the intricacy with which people 'dress' for the parade - that is some awesome ideas and painting. No, that is not clothing they are wearing there - they just pain it good (though I think the woman in the middle has some clothes on).

After the bike ride - the parade continues in similar fashion - lots of insane floats and crazy costumes. By far the best parade I have ever been to. Love it. :)



The parade last weekend was much less interesting. It was part of Pride Week in Seattle. I thought it would be of the similar plan as the Solstice Parade - freaking crazy. No... not really.

There were fun floats - like this amazing Flying spaghetti Monster. I got to be touched by his noodely appendage. :P

Most other groups were just various companies in the area marching down with their support. That is all great and stuff... but not very interesting to watch. BECU, Alaska Airlines, Starbucks, Orbitz, Amazon, Microsoft... etc. When will it end...? After two hours of watching I bailed on the parade. It is fun and I love the energy but if I am going next year I'll march with the Amazon float and then go home - no need to watch the whole of the parade.



Maybe if I march I could even be one of the box dudes? Pretty awesome indeed. :P

Daring Bakers June 2011 Challenge: Baklava

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.





The main challenge here was... rolling the phyllo dough. That is some THIN dough that has to be amassed. I was not very successful in rolling - I was supposed to get 18 sheets and I only managed to get 9 or so. This means my sheets are twice as thick as needed... whoops? But they kept ripping and falling apart if I tried to go thinner.





I did like how their recipe called for a huge amount of different nuts - I'd only made it with walnuts before and it added a little something extra... at least in the smell (I never tried the finished product). Something I would try in the future. 


This is most definitely not something I would try again. I enjoy baking baklava, and I want to try making one that does not involve honey (honey sends me into a spazm of itching). But I will not be rolling my own phyllo dough. Too my effort for something I can buy in better quality in stores. My counters were way messier after this adventure than making my own truffles and that was MESSY. So I'll take truffles over baklava. 


You can find the recipe (as well as photos of people who made prettier baklava than me as usual) here. 

Rainbow bright

Ever have one of those days when the world is spinning in color? Everything is swirling all around. Spiiiin!

In other words - this was my attempt at taking a creative photo where the colors of the rainbow that I have on a glass paperweight can really shine. It does look colorful but I do not think I spun it enough. Also I should have tried it somewhere that the glass would not get so much reflection on it.

A glimpse of Eastern Washington

The change in the scenery of Washington state is astronomical when you cross the Cascades. From green and wet to dry, flatish and yellow. An intense contrast. I keep joking that in the winter I need to take a trip out to eastern Washington to get more sun. But that also means that I'd have to drive over the passes - might be just easier to fly to Hawaii or Cali?

Two of my teammates and I went on a day trip training in Kennewick and decided to make a road trip out of it. Kennewick is 3.5 hours from Seattle drive, and in addition to that we took the long way back through Leavenworth. The trip to the training started at 5am and was made without stops - got to make it to training. :) After a fun day of training (this was a 'customer connection' training where we listen in to call center calls - I found it super interesting), time to head back.

The first detour was taking the Yakima Canyon Road instead of the highway. Not that you would have noticed, because we were driving at highway speeds. If somebody has a BMW, you should drive it as such, right? Anyways - it was a roller coaster, but oddly fun. The above photo was taken in the canyon.

The next detour was driving up to Leavenworth instead of taking the I-90 pass over the Cascades. There was 'rock-blasting' on I-90 so the northern pass seemed like less stops - and going fast was one of the requirements for the trip (one again, the BMW). Leavenworth is a "Bavarian" village in the northern Cascades. Adorable, and a complete tourist trap. But it has a great Munchen Haus with bratwurst and beer. I've stopped there on every pass through Leavenworth and loved it. Not expensive sausages, and amazing mustards and sauerkraut to cover them in. Fun trip. :)

Featured vegetable: Asparagus

Asparagus only entered my regular diet about a year and a half ago. It is an odd looking veggie, and one I stayed away from because of ignorance. That was of course before I discovered just how amazing it is grilled with some oil and then sprinkled with a tiny bit of salt and pepper. Delicious!

Now asparagus is something that it is hard for me to resist when I see in the store. Especially when it is now in season and everywhere. What to do? Buy it, eat it and adore it. :)

Hike report: Wallace Falls

Wallace Falls is the hike I have been to the most in Seattle. Last Sunday was my third time there - pretty impressive considering how long I've been living in Seattle. This is a hike I like returning to. It is easily accessible in both summer and winter, and is enjoyable in both rainy and sunny weather. Perfect for the PNW area. Not a long hike (and the upper falls are not necessary), but it does have enough elevation gain to keep things interesting.

Unfortunately, most of Seattle was of the same opinion last Sunday. The parking lot was jammed with no chance of getting in without waiting an insane amount of time. We had to park a quarter of a mile or so from the start of the hike (and down a fairly large hill). I was terrified that the hike would be spent elbowing people out of the way. Surprisingly - people seemed to spread out fairly well and though I didn't get to experience the solitude that I so enjoy when being out in the woods, there was no mob-attacking-waterfall feeling.

I was trying to practice taking photos of waterfalls... naturally. Unfortunately I couldn't get the tripod to fit together in the morning so I had to leave that behind. Balancing on a railing on holding a camera makes waterfall photos a lot more difficult. I have not figured out the right set of settings for a good waterfall shots. I can get the shots exposed fairly well... but I cannot get them to have the beautiful running strands of water. This just means I need to go on more waterfall hikes. :)



This photo is actually from a year and a half. I really like how I captured the running creek on that trip. The water was even more impressive last weekend - the spring runoffs are in full swing (yes, you heard me... spring).

Seattle Eats: Sushi and Steak

A new sushi discovery for me last week was Nashino. It is located by the Arboretum (aka not in my usual walking radius) so it was exciting to get out there for a girls night.

This is now my favorite place for sushi in Seattle. A little problematic since it is more expensive than the places downtown and is further away and you need a reservation, but I am willing to deal with this. Special trips out there must be made.

The sushi was amazing. Extremely fresh and melting in my mouth. It was a little sad that the rolls came as 4s instead of 6s, but I was willing to deal with this to get more of a variety. I was especially amused by one roll that had asparagus in it.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the sake there. We got one of the frozen bamboos full of sake. It was so good! Whenever I've gotten cold sake before it has just come in a wine glass. Maybe the bamboo is what does the trick to make it delicious? :)

And pictured is the dessert. Do I really need to explain that it was delicious?



My love of the Metropolitan Grill is well documented.  Amazing steak. Chill atmosphere. Great lemon drops. What more does one need for a date night? :)

Trip report: Mt.Rose

On a super sunny day, all of the hikes right near Seattle are bound to be filled with people and allow no privacy or solitude in the woods. Therefore the solution is to go further: the Olympic Peninsula. On a particularly beautiful day we headed over to Mt.Rose which is on the south-east corner of the Olympics (aka, no need to take the ferry!) The trip reports said there was snow on the top, but they were hard to read as the last two were written from the POV of dogs (who does that...?).



The hike itself started off beautifully. Starting from a beautiful intensely blue lake and immediately heading steeply uphill. This is a steep hike: 3500 ft elevation gain over 3.25m trip up? That would be a lot. But elevation gain I can handle - intense amount of snow and no trail? Thats something different.

The top of the trail was a loop so we saw some people come out the left side when we got there and we decided to go right (since that MUST have been what they did). Oh no. At first I was convinced that we were not on the trail at all - there were lot of fallen trees and only one pair of footprints every once in a while. A little further on, the trail completely disappeared under the snow. You could still see the markers every once in a while, and the lone footprints at times.

Apparently at this point in time the trail had lots of switchbacks. Well this is not easy to tell when everything is covered by thick snow, so we just plowed straight with no switchbacks. Super steep. When we got to the ridge, we lost the trail completely (but came upon two guys who were also looking for the summit and way up). The summit appeared to be on the left so we followed the ridge for a while.



Ridges and lots of snow are not my friends - I do have a bit of avalanche fear. And when I am walking on an overhang in super deep snow, sometimes sinking to my waist in it, a little bit of fear exists.

Thankfully, after a long trip along the ridge we finally found the summit, and a much more footprint defined and marked trail down on the other side of the loop.



The summit itself is nice in that it is a giant rock in the snow. Aka - you can sit on a dry spot after a long, long trip on snow. Very enjoyable. The view was a little covered by trees, but still amazing. I enjoyed the fact that there were not many people out. No crowds = awesome.



The way down was also painful on the knees. To mediate that we slid down a bunch of the snow-covered part. Though once the snow became patchy that was too dangerous and then it was down to walking carefully up the steep trail.

Overall, a fun hike. I am not sure I'd return - I am more excited to try the neighboring mountain: Mt.Ellinor, which is supposed to have a super-duper amazing view from the top. A little to much snow there for now, but maybe later in the season. :)



The mountain we hiked up is in the middle of the frame here - not covered in snow on top (or so it appears). I believe Mt.Ellinor is one of the peaks on the right side.

Lanterns and Flowers

I often return to Pike Place Market and find fun things lurking around the corner. One of the new discoveries of my last trip was super quirky light fixtures on the south side of the market. Love them! They had various guys walking around on all sides of the staircase holding the lights. I love the combination of practicality and art. :)



These beautiful flowers are in the Cascade Community patch which I've wandered by before to see the great scarecrows they have. Right now the whole thing is blooming all over. Absolutely beautiful. I see some veggies starting to come up also - hopefully they'll get to wait until the owner gets them. It is hard to resist the deliciousness. :P

Baking my way through Breadmakers Apprentice: Brioche

Moving along in the alphabet of breadmaking: brioche. Brioche is mainly one thing: butter. Lots and lots and lots of butter. It is like a croissant in a different shape. One of these little guys was enough to fill me up.

There are actually three types of brioche - rich, middle class, and poor mans. The only distinguishing factor is... butter. Rich folk get more butter. Duh. I was going to make the middle class one but... I accidentally added too much butter (thought a stick was a quarter cup instead of half a cup... whoops). So it turned rich. And boy was it rich.

I don't think I'll be making this guy again. It was delicious... but way too rich for me. I can't handle it. On the plus side it is fairly easy to make. I also made it in loaf form because I only had enough brioche pan space to fit about half of the lot.

I used the Breadmakers Apprentice cookbook recipe which you can see that people wrote up here or here.

I also really like my portrait of this Brioche. I like the colorful background instead of my normal black counter. It gives it a little something extra. I need to start making more creative photos of my baking projects and I think this is the starting point.

New camera, meet blog

This lovely Canon Rebel t2i joined my camera family last Wednesday. It was a long and turbulent joining. First there was the long debate of whether the family needed to expand. Then there was a lot of delay in delivery... something about tornadoes in Illinois making the poor Rebel get stuck there for a while? Oh the horrors of refreshing the tracking notifications with the words "delayed due to natural disaster". First world worries definitely.

But here it is! I've been thinking about getting a new body for a long time. My current body has been the Canon EOS 20d. It is a great camera, but it is getting old. Not responding very fast, images not crisp when I am trying to view them and horrid auto-focus. Not wanting to spend two grand on the high end Canon cameras (and being attached to Canon because between the lenses I inherited from my dad and the ones Ryan has, there is quite a Canon lens army in this apartment), I went for the Rebel line. True they are often considered flimsier and criticized for their sensor, but I think that this camera is a great improvement over my old regardless. Definitely worth the price.

I am very excited to take the Rebel out more - but I am protective of it. Don't want to get it all scratched up... and the camera 'purse' I ordered is not getting here until this Friday. The horror! It has so far only gone out on a hiking trip and a very careful trip in my current purse. Want to make the new addition feel welcome. :)

So yes - camera, meet my blog. :) We'll have lots more adventures to come together.

First time thinking about frosting

I've been eying the pumpkin cupcake with maple cream cheese frosting recipe on smittenkitchen for a while. I enjoy making pumpkin pie, and it seemed like the maple would go well with it.

But the main thing I was eying was the beautiful roses on the cupcakes. Why just make cupcakes and dab some frosting on them when you can make them beautiful. I should note that this was my second ever attempt at cupcakes - the first was the previous Sunday making hazelnut cupcakes, which I did not attempt to frost in any beautiful day (especially since they used whipped cream frosting which just doesn't style well).

So this was my big project. Line out the bag and all of the tips. Some parchment paper to practice on and bring it on!

I'd say my result was not too bad for a first. I started off trying for the roses, after a couple of practices. What I couldn't figure out was how to twist the cupcake, hold the bag and hold the tip all at the same time! I do not have three arms, and somehow everyone in the videos made it look so easy. Not so much. The rose cupcake is hidden in the back of this photo. I got better as I went along but decided to switch to some other tips instead of doing more roses.

My favorite frosting way is the lots of "dots" version that is in the front. It is super easy and looks super cute. I was not very good at the swirly thing because I have not mastered the art of not having any air bubbles in the bag and then accidentally having the line break. Whoops.

Anyways - this was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to trying more decorating. I doubt I'll be very good considering my complete lack of perfectionistic tendencies, but at least it will be fun. :)

Food not baked by me

I prefer pasting photos of either food I made, or food I bought. But I will make an exception for this beautiful lemon meringue pie made by Angel.

I love the focus on this shot - the crisp focus on the very front and fade out to the back. It really accentuates the perfect peaks coming off the pie. Love it. Oh and it was delicious. Perfect blend of sweet and sour.

Now I really want to make this pie myself. But since most of my food gets sent to work so I don't become a fat-ass eating it all at home. And since I walk to work... Pretty pies are out of the question. Carrying them there is too difficult. This will have to wait until either a definitive drive day (thanks Ryan!) or a potluck. Oh the joys of not owning a car.

Summer has started in Seattle

Maybe proclaiming that summer has started is going to make it dreary again, but that is fine. We have finally had a couple of absolutely beautiful days of summer. Everyone is outside, the mountains are super crisply seen and everything just seems happier.

This photo is from Friday, which was dubbed even on the radio as "the first day of summer". My team had lunch on the rooftop of one of my work buildings that has a magnificent view of Seattle. It turned out a little shaky and I should have tried taking more photos, but I love the reflection of the needle in the window of the building.

Summer here is so wonderful I wait for it all year and jump at it when it arrives. It is not too hot - it was around 75-80 high this weekend. Not humid unlike the horrid east coast. And the sun stays out LATE. Granted we have the solstice coming up, but summer mornings and nights are extremely long. The only problem with this for me is that I am awake, though not of any form of mental capacity, sometime around 5-7am. Way too early for me.



But the early awakening leaves more time to enjoying summer. :)

Bird caught in action

I was just coming up to this bird to take a photo of it sitting on the sidewalk when it started flying away - and I was still taking photos. Got to love continuous photo taking. The result - a view at some pretty amazing wings.  I am especially amazed that they stayed in focus from a distance (though this is fairly zoomed in). I am quite famous for very shaky photos.



Honestly I am a little confused about what the bird is doing in the second shot - its further wing appears to be on the other side of its body...? Very odd?

Weekend in Coastal Oregon

A little bit late posting about it, but my pre-Memorial Day weekend was exploring the northern shores of Oregon. The weather was not supposed to be spectacular that weekend so I opted for a trip to a place where it is beautiful no matter what the weather is like.

We drove down the coast stopping at Disappointment State Park while exiting out of Washington. Not disappointing at all! A beautiful cape and place to watch giant ships go by.

Then we slowly made our way down the coast to Cannon Beach, the lodging for the night. The photo above is on the beach right in front of the hotel. Beautiful boulders all around. Ryan took 99% of the photos for the day so I have little to show for my work... just a couple of shots I snapped while wandering the beach. Still waiting on him to process the rest of the beautiful photos from the trip.

I'd recommend Cannon Beach as a place to go to relax. I'd personally only survive a night there. Any more would be torture and boring, but that is me. There are lots of cute shops, walking trails and restaurants. I do regret not having a fire on the beach.

I'd recommend Crepe Neptune for food - super delicious crepes and super small and cozy. Perfect breakfast/lunch snack. For dinner we went to Wayfarer Restaurant. I thought that place was delicious - I had steak with shrimp on the side. Perfection. And some mushroom dip to start? Oh yes. We were there after dark but it is right on the water so at most times you get a beautiful view (and amazing sunset!). I would recommend that place very much to passerbys. :)


On the second day of the trip we drove south along the coast. Our first stop was Neahkahnie Mountain. There is a three mile loop to the top of the mountain which has the most amazing view down the Oregon Coast. You can get a similar view from the road, but being in solitude on top of the (small) mountain with a view from above is a lot more delightful.

After that we headed out to the Tillamook Cheese factory for some lunch. The factory has a 'tour yourself' area where you can watch the cheese being made and packed (though mostly packed... cheese making is a hands off process for the bulk of the time). It was quite fun to watch the production line.

The cheese itself was surprisingly good. Or more like I really enjoyed the cheese curds (the squeaky cheese!). Their normal cheese is a little bland but the garlic/spicy ones are wonderful. I'd recommend this is a stop if you're driving along the coast. :)

From there on it was a drive back up through Portland to Seattle. The Oregon coast is surprisingly (well sort of) far away. I miss the east coast, where states are smashed together so closely. I liked the trip to the coast, but I think I prefer weekend trips to the mountains, or at least more outdoorsy adventures when at the coast. :)