I was running errands in Redmond the other day on my lunch break, and I drove by what has to be the most pathetically-named city park in the history of pathetically-named city parks:
(To be fair, there are indeed grass lawns throughout this park.)Coming next month: “Wet Water Lake”. Should be a friggin’ riot.
Let’s see if it sticks.
I’ve never been a huge fig person before — not because I don’t like them, per se, but more because I have no idea whether I like them or not. I guess they don’t seem to have a particularly distinctive flavor, at least according to my palate. I know they’re all the rage with foodies, though, and I was feeling hungry, bored and adventurous. And Grant was off at some football thing, so I was left to myself to figure out dinner plans.
Enter Pagliacci. Their current seasonal offering is the Prosciutto Fig Primo, and it made my mouth water when I heard the description over the phone (text doesn’t do it justice):
PROSCIUTTO FIG PRIMO
The thought of a sweet fruit on a pizza is often considered a foreign concept. We pushed the boundaries of pizza making with our Pear Primo and thanks to its continued popularity, we knew figs could be a hit too. We combine figs with prosciutto, basil and fresh mozzarella on an olive oil base for the perfect balance of lightly sweet and salty flavor.
Our usual standard is their Parma Primo, which has prosciutto plus basil, tomato, olive oil, mushrooms, fontina, mozzarella and goat cheese on an olive oil base. So this was close to home while still being adventurous and fun. And I actually think there’s a higher ratio of prosciutto to other stuff with this special.
At the end of the day, the fig primo had definitely won me over, even though it was a bit pricier than our usual (extremely expensive) favorite. The only improvement I would make is to add some tomatoes. It was so very sweet that it seemed like it could use something tangy to balance it all out. Still, it turns out that a) I like figs in some contexts, and b) I’m not yet over the fruity pizza trend. Mmm mmm!
So my most recent Costco run yielded a box of chanterelles, of all things. (I think of Costco as more of a bulk mouthwash and paper towels kinda place, but hey… they were cheap, fresh, wild-harvested, local, and bright orange with gills, so how could I refuse?)
I’d never cooked anything with chanterelles before, so I decided to just sautée them in a bit of butter and chicken broth, and let their natural flavor shine. Ahem, that was LET THEIR NATURAL FLAVOR SHINE. (They didn’t hear me.)
Turns out chanterelles don’t really *have* much of a natural flavor. In fact, I had to drizzle a bit of white truffle oil on them just to make them fun enough to eat!
Lesson learned: while the name may sound all French and elegant compared to, say, oyster mushrooms, the latter is actually much tastier. Now I know!
Trumpet, like most cats, can be a bit of a picky eater. But I have been wanting for ages to try and switch him to a more natural brand.
A couple years later, I’m *actually* getting around to doing something about it. I got him using Wellness brand dry food that’s well-geared for his particular needs (he’s UTI-prone). But I tried giving him wet food from that same company, and it was a no-go — he only likes stuff with a sliced/chunky texture, and not that godawful horrifying pastey mixture that most wet cat foods possess. (And I totally sympathize. We don’t want to have to open cans of that shit for him, either.)
Thankfully, I’d bought those cans at a small, locally owned pet food store in Whitecenter, near my old work. They guarantee all their foods, so they reimbursed me even for the cans that we had opened up and rinsed out — no hard feelings! Given that I figured it would take a few more tries before I found a natural wet food that Trumpet would touch, I was bummed that this refund-friendly place was no longer convenient for me.
I popped into a local Mud Bay Granary just to see if they could be of any help, and they very much were! They lay out all their cat food brands and the reasoning behind them on their site, which is very helpful. And they gave me three free BIG cans of wet food for free, just to see if he liked them. And they said if he didn’t, I could come back in and get three more free cans. And then they gave me free salmon treats to try out on him. And they have a zillion convenient locations all over western Washington.
Have I mentioned that Mud Bay is awesome?
