Madeleine

Southern Comfort: Three Sisters Barbeque

In my line of work, there's a lot of people I talk to, & often our conversation centers on the food & wine world. There's customers of course, & sales reps who are often the core of my social life as we won't bore each other with incidental gripes, gossip, & winespeak that would probably put others to sleep or at least elicit a well-meaning huh?

But on Thursdays & Fridays, enter some of the hardest working guys in the biz--the delivery drivers-- & they offer some of the most candid conversations I encounter in the workplace. One regales me with his near-death experiences as a ditch-digger, another his gambling spread on the Superbowl, one seeks flamenco music recommendations, while another reveals his secret recipe for mac 'n cheese made with leaky bottles of Moscatel sherry I return to him. There's one guy to consult on low-carb diets, & another to ask for film reviews. To say the least, it's a rich & envigorating education in life.

So when my driver-friend Lemar talked up Three Sisters BBQ in Renton, I was all ears. To be honest with you, it's been a rough week, especially with some heart-wrenching conversations about the violence inflicted upon a member & friend in our tight-knit community. I started to write about it all last night, but decided that it was better to leave pause for a moment of silence instead.

Three Sisters has not been without strife itself, as racial slurs were spray-painted on their business at the beginning of March. What stirs the soul is a wall of letters & cards that line the south wall of their restaurant, offering prayer & support. Local children have penned notes as well as complete strangers who all seem to love the staff as much as their bbq'd ribs. The palpable heartbeat of community is strong here, & as regulars lined the take-out counter, it made me feel a little pride to have ventured down south with our new home.

So ultimately this blog is about food, right, thank you very much Pete Wells. I'll try to say focused. The dining area at Three Sisters does its best to be bright & cheery in a take-out joint kind of way, but with no other sit-down diners we opted to go the styrofoam route. I use the term "smokey" plenty in my wine descriptors, but Ken's rib dinner left the truck smelling like a Mississippi bbq pit shortly after hitting the road.

In what seemed a salivating eternity to reach home, we quickly took the tops off our little tubs of comfort & dug our forks in before reaching the table, *sigh*, to disappointment. While the greens were solid enough with slow-braised tidbits of pork appearing every-other forkful, the baked beans were sweet enough to triple your glycemic index, and the down-home mac & cheese I'd dreamed of all day was down-right pasty.

As for our dinners, bbq'd pork ribs & hot links, we both felt the spice factor could've/should've been kicked up a couple of notches. I felt a mild burn, but when you want hot, give it to me! I never know if the purveyor thinks I can't handle the heat, so it usually takes a couple of tries to figure out any rhyme or reason to the star system when it comes to Asian, but perhaps the same applies. Is there an extra-hot button, please? Ken rated the rib meat as "okay" after (unbeknownst to me!) a few months of sampling local bbq joints on 1st Ave here & there on his lunch hour. But apparently even Peco's medium sauce is fiery as the devil.

Lemar had talked up the hot link "sandwich" (it's your job to load the quarter-sized bites of sausage onto slices of white bread) he ordered after playing ball with his buddies last weekend, but I couldn't get my game on a pound of sliced pork in a puddle of sticky sauce without crying uncle. Maybe I'll recycle my leftovers & make some jambalaya, ala Three Sisters. Speaking of which, I will definitely be back to try Tony's Special, Crab & Shrimp Gumbo with rice & crackers, their featured Friday only special & I've yet to sample their yams & potato salad. It could be the winning combination... Afterall, I want to love ya like family!

Three Sisters Bbq

509-b South 3rd Street, Renton  425.277.5076   

Back to Basics: Chow Foods Goes Forward in Time with Mioposto

When I moved to Seattle a decade ago, nothing roused me out of bed quicker on a Sunday morning than the promise of a Tuscan Farmhouse Rumble at Wallingford's Jitterbug. Lines often left us dodging the rain under its narrow awning, seeking comfort at a nearby coffee shop many a weekend until our name was called, craving those thick pieces of rustic toast, crazy egg-concoctions, & chin-dribbling pineapple slices with post-Saturday-night urgency.

Perhaps while the days of cow-hide lanterns & triple scrambles are over, our memories of Jitterbug remain & it's time to move on... Enter Mioposto, the newest Chow Foods outpost, presenting a different angle on this most successful & Seattle brunch empire.

For one, Mioposto doesn't do brunch, but offers pastries & espresso for the morning crowd. Also, don't expect the usual/unusual Chow multi-cultural bent with monthly international features. This new setting is as streamlined as the decor, straight out of Rejuve's catalog, with an aim to please the now-stylish Mt. Baker neighborhood. In the Bermuda triangle of Craftsman bungalows & water-view mansions, the south-end is strangely devoid of anything remotely gourmet until you reach the Columbia City strip, but I predict that it shan't last too long the way things are going.

Just a few doors down from one of our favorite local wine shops, Urban Vines, we were more than happy to bypass the crowds at Tutta Bella after a long day of painting the new house & get a bite out where fleece is preferred to fashionable attire. While most of the clientele seemed residential, it remained a mish-mash of young professionals, teenagers on dates, & well-heeled families in outdoor garb. Perhaps pizza is the great common denominator in life--to make a great pie it takes all kinds.

Transplanted senior Chow staff ushered us gracefully to a table at half past six, while the walls seemed to crowd with wine-sipping patrons waiting for tables shortly after seven. Since there's no reservations to be had, things moved along quickly with our beet salad & pizzettes served all in one course--oversight on the kitchen's part or sudo-efficiency, but I'd gamble on the former.

Hunger is placable, & so we were all happy as clams once plates began to fill the table, each with its own charm. The Roasted Beet Insalate we chose left a rosy hue on the plate & transformed my dad into a beet believer. With crushed Marcona almonds (not a cheap ingredient these days I might add), wild greens & nubs of goat cheese, it fed three dutifully with the hopes of adding a healthful element to our trattoria meal. If it's green, it's got to be good for you, right?

Moving on to greener pastures, behold the Prosciutto e Arugula pizza with sweet onions & reggiano crumbles, exhibit left. Not that our server wasn't sweet, but she somehow thought that reggiano was "a different kind of mozzarella." We knew better, but those salty bites kept my husband happy, while my fave in this category always goes to La Vita e Bella, where the pizza is superbly authentic but the parking is, well, Belltown hell.

Our young bohemian server steered me away from a few pizzettes, so I ordered the Polpette Molto Piccolo (mini-meatballs) on her recommendation & was ultimately glad for it. While it got the "plain jane" vote from everyone else, I thought that a healthy dash of crushed pepper left me feeling like a happy Sicilian. Dad loves mushrooms just like me, so naturally he went for the Fungo Stagionale which blended ordinary buttons with portabellas & oysters as far as one could tell at the rate it was devoured. This got a big thumbs up from Ken who steered clear of mycological offerings seemingly until a few years ago. All I can say is welcome to the club!

Wine prices are steep in comparison to pizzettes--my glass Masi Pinot Grigio/Verduzzo was poured at $8.00 a glass which I found online for $9 to $13 a bottle. Ouch! Those highschool sweethearts probably saved half off their bill by not ordering birra or vino. Oh well, a small luxury afforded after a week's hard work... 

A short but necessary word about the critical pizza criterion:

Crust- foldable when freshly served, bubbles present, cracker-thin with pillowy edges but obviously uneven. As I walked around the room, there was a definite variance in blackening from the oven, & some folks had pies erring on the charred-side. They're new, accept the fate handed to you. The pizza gods make every little thing alright.   

Sauce- Not too sweet not too salty, neutral is what I'll leave it at, but a great foil to strong elements in their pies. Simple & not over-applied so our leftover pie crisped up nicely in the toaster oven the next day.

Looking at the Chow Foods site, there's a neighborly feel to their mission & in a very neighborhood oriented town, that sentiment is a huge part of their success. As owners Peter & Jeremy put it, "...we hope you'll find comfort in one of our restaurants." And indeed we did.

Mioposto

3601 S. McClellan Street, Seattle 206 760-3400

Ahead of the Curve: The Red House Beer & Wine Shoppe Tapas Bar

It's X-mas every day at the Red House, or at least for wine lovers! With my dad out visiting from the east coast to help us with the new place, we decided that dining out in the historic district of Renton would be the perfect way of *promoting* our new neck of the woods. After some online perusing of menus from a few southend eateries, Red House seemed like our best bet to impress & so it did.

While I have a list of likes & dislikes about the place I'll say this--Red House got heart & is the closest thing to a true wine bar we have in the greater Seattle area aside from Portalis in Ballard. Truly indulgent with their selection of over 400 wine & beers (so said our server), you can pop open a new discovery for a nominal fee ($4.99 corkage for wine, & I think a buck a beer from anywhere in the world) while ordering up some hearty Mediterranean fare.

The place itself is welcoming & expansive with loads of little nooks, chalkboard specials & Tiffany lighting adding up to an eclectically packed house with little room to spare on a Saturday night. Our server was casually effusive while counseling her tables, but apparently lost her balance coming up the stairs to Red House's new second-floor addition, causing much chuckling & sharing of plates. But perhaps that's how it should be if you are to call yourself anything tapas...

Our plates arrived intact & well-spaced as we decided on small dishes for sharing. I can't say there's a focus, it's more like someone left the kitchen on *tumble* & wanted to go for it all. What happens when I peruse a menu like this is to go with what seems to be the strong point overall--in this case Med-fusion. I'll pass on the oddball item Red House Crab & Pork Rolls but since one of the owners appears to be Vietnamese, that might be the pick of the list! But would I want to chase that with Spaghetti & Meatballs paired with Pino's (yes Pino's!)sausage? Probably not. But if I was feeling breezy in the lounge area up top with some Asian-friendly wines, porque no?

The unbiased lowdown on the kitchen: Almost everything we ordered was accompanied with a uniform tomato sauce, be it Croquetas or Polenta Fries, albeit slightly spicier when surrounding the Lamb Meatballs. The croquetas themselves were more than golf ball-size, resembling arancini, but creamy with a certain starchiness that makes two more than enough. The problem is, I'd be hard pressed to detect Manchego cheese or prosciutto in the actual presentation, as the ham lacked any rustic flavor & the fried element simply takes over whatever subtle qualities a cheese may have. So I'll take their word on this one, but would like some reassurance what you see on the menu is what you get.        

The Warm Wild Mushroom Salad was a blast from the past with copious balsamic-saturated funghi nested above a toss of smoked pork & spinach with a large knob of very peppery chevre waiting in the wings. But while I was thinking dated, my dad was saying delicious! And that dear reader is what Red House is all about, not an epicurean's dream, but a little something for everyone.

Our picks? Dad raved over the Green Olive Tapenade Crostini, Ken loved the grilled olive-oil brushed bread that came with just about everything, & for me? I have to say that the idea of having a meal that verges on gourmet just miles away in a little whistlestop town totally excites me & invites return. What greatness there could be on the southend if people weren't looking for huge piles of penne on a Saturday night. (By golly I hate reheated cream sauce the next day...so why are pasta entree's always Marlon Brando sized?)

Maybe some day I'll be tempted enough to try out the Red House Paella with chorizo, duck, clams & shrimp, but until then, I'm apt to put my trust in Gene's wine selections. But with Italian being the predominant *ethnic* food of choice in Renton, I'm glad that someone's branching out & taking some chances. I'm all for a kitchen that can match the wine list...and them some.

The Red House Beer & Wine Shoppe Tapas Bar

410 Burnett Avenue South, Renton 425 226-2666

Celebrity Profiling: A Lesson in Vino Vocab

What do you want from your wine? If you are like two-thirds of the customers I converse with daily as wine manager at Seattle’s Spanish Table, you *know* what floats your boat, rocks your world, lights your fire, but can’t begin to tackle the precocious idiom of wine vocabulary that goes from geeky to plain esoteric.

While I wouldn’t call Cooking Light the most gourmet periodical on the newsstand, author Karen MacNeil’s latest “Wine Tasting” column in the March 2006 issue sheds some useful light on the subject of vino vocabulary. MacNeil dials in on an extremely pertinent point—not only does a basic toolkit of tasting vocab help you describe what you enjoy, but it also helps you to remember what you’ve imbibed.

As tonight was Oscar night, I’m intrigued with the idea of aligning taste-profiles with celebrities as MacNeil suggests. One of the most illustrious wine seminars I attended had me convinced that indeed the ports of Fonseca were akin to Marilyn Monroe—full-bodied voluptuous fruit even after thirty years in bottle—vs. the wines of Taylor Fladgate which retained the feisty elegance & lean frame of Audrey Hepburn (see above.) Hey so if her idea works & Jamie Lee Curtis is your moniker for Sauv Blanc, & Schwarzenegger represents your love of Zin, that’s great, I’ll get a clearer picture of what you want to walk out with… Personally I don't want to think about either of those characters having anything remotely to do with my mouth.

What words are your best friends when selecting wine? Forget about the old "I like Cab's & Merlot's" routine, nothing confuses me more. Both varietals are so different from one another & run the gamut depending on the winemaker's style, the terroir it's grown in, etc. Stick to qualities you like & dislike rather than terms like dry or sweet which are in the mouth of the beholder. Here's a few useful concepts I run by folks when trying to figure out someone's palate:

Smooth or Chewy- Are you looking to kick back with an after-work glass or do you have something beefy stowed in the meat drawer for dinner… Look for low-tannin wines with cheese & bread for pure enjoyment. Do you prefer velvet or leather or both? (I see this kind of talk could get me into a lot of trouble taken the wrong way...) Think about tannins as those acids that leave your mouth feeling like a dental hygenist just sucked all the liquid out of your mouth. But tannins give wine structure another wine term that's quite useful, especially when you're considering the architecture of your meal. Big wines love big flavors & need a Cajun in the kitchen, or anything thrown on the grill. These days, however, anything goes so ask & you shall receive.

Old World/New World- If some tiny bar in Toro was your last watering hall, where a televised bullfight held the attention of five five-feet-tall men smoking profusely, you know what Old World is all about. Wines in the old world tradition tend to emphasize earth elements, while the new world puts fruit right at the tip of your tongue. If you crave vanilla beans, pots of raspberry preserves, & toasty marshmallows? You know where *not* to go (a $15 bottle of ’96 Gran Reserva from La Mancha) but a good wine purveyor should be able to steer you across the continents for wines that suit your whim. And remember that you can find plenty of new world flavors made in the old world, just watch Mondo Vino if you want to witness the Gallo-ization of the international wine market.

Some of my favorite quirky wine lingo (although not necessarily appetizing) includes:

Forest floor aromas- Okay so if you live in the NW & have ever hiked anywhere, you know this smell. Think of damp cedar logs, a little moss, & rich earthy dark fruits.

Sexy body- Sexy applies to any aspect of a wine that’s lush, sensual, the kind of glass that makes you want to lick the rim even though there’s no Margarita sugar involved… Full of fruit with the hourglass curve of Monroe herself, often a dark seductress. Oh yeah.

Treacle flavors- This term is found in the realm of port, where obscurity is the norm. For whatever reason, treacle which is the British coinage for molasses, sounds like a medical procedure mixed with the appendages of an octopus. But it does have a clingy ring to it though, doesn't it?

As for tonight’s Oscar party I attended, a big Bravo! goes out to hostess Sue McCown, pastry diva of Earth & Ocean and a west coast legend. A gaggle of film-loving industry folks happily sampled Sue's experimental savory bread pudding concoctions, roasted tomato canapes, & other delectables she's playing with for her new project. Stay tuned for news of what she's cooking up next & I look forward to following the further adventures of her spoon & spatula. Good food & good company goes a long way when the Academy leaves you wanting to leave the country. Good night, & better luck next year.