Eat

By Sally Clark, Seattle City Council

Ed. Note: This article originally appeared in Sally Clark's newsletter "Seattle View."

Do you have a favorite taco truck? Have you tried a sandwich from the roving pig truck? Have you tracked down Skillet? Did you vote for Marination Mobile when it won the title "Best Food Cart in America?"

Some people in Seattle are still nervous about lunch or dinner from a mobile van, but more and more of us are venturing out to try street food.

Mobile food vendors are big business in cities all over the United States, and Seattle's scene is no slouch despite archaic rules for what you can sell on the sidewalk.

I am part of work underway to modernize our city rules and our city/county health codes to better reflect the boom in creative street food.

The first Spoke and Food event will combine bicycling and dining to raise funds for Solid Ground's Lettuce Link program.

The main goals of Spoke and Food, which takes place on June 29, are to motivate the community to use bicycles as they dine out and to improve access to healthy food fro all by supporting Lettuce Link, an innovative food and gardening program started in 1988, according to a Spoke and Food press release.

Lettuce Link creates access to fresh, nutritious and organic produce, seeds and gardening information for families with lower incomes in Seattle.

Residents can bike to any of the following Ballard-area restaurants June 29, and they will donate 15 percent to 20 percent of their proceeds to Lettuce Link.

• Dad Watsons
• The Stepping Stone
• Snoose Junction Pizzeria
• Naked City Brewery & Tap House

Other participating restaurants around the city include The Scarlet Tree, Montlake Alehouse, Fiddler’s Inn, Muleadys Irish Pub and Cantinetta Restaurant.

Sunset Hill's Ristorante Picolinos debuted its new 25-foot-tall, patio-covering tent, the first of its kind in Seattle, May 11.

Picolinos owner Tom Bailiff said that kind of tent has not been done before in the city, and Teatro Zinzanni has the only other structure that comes close to it.

Bailiff said the uniqueness of the tent, which covers the backyard garden, dining area and pizza oven for the restaurant located at 6415 32nd Ave. N.W., made the city very cautious, leading to a year-long permitting process.

The green-and-white stripped tent is anchored by a 30-foot-pole. Bailiff said despite its size, the tent can be opened and closed by him and two bus boys and is easy to take down to repair and clean.

He said the climate in Seattle is good but it rains too much, and a series of small table umbrellas would not cut it.

The tent has a height that umbrellas can't match and can withstand hurricane-force winds, Bailiff said.

He said customers have mostly been very happy with the new tent, and he has several parties already scheduled to eat under it.

On April 30 Café Revò unveiled its new spring menu which includes fresh fish, and risottos and other items to go with fresh vegetables in season. The restaurant, just south of the West Seattle Bridge on Avalon Way, has been open for 14 months.

“We still have all of our old favorites specific to Revò, in Northern Italy where my family is from,” said owner Sofia Zadra Goff. “And my husband, Sean, who opened the restaurant, all of his recipes are still on the menu, too. Half the menu has new items on it. The fresh halibut is in season now and is very Italian.”

As many Revò fans and other area residents know, Sofia’s husband Sean Goff passed away last September 17 at age 43. He was stricken with a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. There was an enormous outpouring of warmth for the beloved chef from the community.

"We are definitely carrying on with what my husband and I originally wanted for the restaurant,” Sofia said. “He got very sick just three months after we opened. He realized his dream before he died, the legacy of what we created together. The tables, drywall we laid, everything in this space we did together so I will always have that, and my children will too.”

Overcast skies and a slight drizzle May 1 didn't keep Ballardites from flocking to the first-ever Ballard Urban Picnic, or BURP, where lines for some of the premiere street food vendors in the city were occasionally 40 people deep.

The Ballard Chamber of Commerce created BURP, which featured mobile food vendors, a beer garden, live music, inflatable bouncers, community booths and more, as a way to bring more community activity to Ballard Commons Park.

"We all thought we had this great park and it doesn't get as much use as it could," said Beth Miller, Ballard Chamber of Commerce executive director.

Miller said she thought this would be a small event that would be easier to organize than the multiple-day Seafood Fest.

While it was still easier than Seafood Fest, it was not easy, she said. They started out with an idea to have food vendors in the park for a day, then decided they needed entertainment, then something for children and all of a sudden there was a lot of organizing to do, she said.

Miller said the turnout at the event was great, especially because weather on May 1 is always a toss up.

Chef Colleen Steele, award winning chocolatier is the star of Dessert Extravaganza! an event set for Sunday April, 25 at Bridge Park Retirement Community 3204 S.W. Morgan Street.

Steele, who trained in Europe, is the Head Chef at Bridge Park and is preparing an incredible array of dessert treats for the event.
"We will have used 166 pounds of Callebaut Dark Chocolate, 33 pounds of white chocolate, 360 handmade praline cups, 250 patechoux and more," Steele said.

All the ingredients come from Switzerland, from Albert Uster.

"We're going to be doing chocolates with 'transfer sheets'," Steele continued which are food grade images that can be transferred from a sheet to the outside of chocolates to give them any appearance the artist chooses. Many are wildly colorful, others are subtle sophisticated patterns. "The chocolate has to be perfectly tempered," she said, "and we've got all the avant garde patterns." Some will be decorated with 24k gold leaf, which is edible. "Gold is actually good for arthritis," Steele said. These special chocolates will be used for a "Golden Ticket" chocolate that will be hidden around the room. Those that find them will win a special prize.

In a tribute to its 1982 establishment in Ballard, Redhook Ale Brewery will host a release party for its Big Ballard Imperial IPA from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on April 22 at The Old Pequliar.

The Ballard News-Tribune was invited to learn about and sample the new beer April 21 in preparation for the official release.

The April 22 party, which is open to the public, will provide IPA lovers with some of the first sips of Redhook’s new imperial IPA.

The Big Ballard Imperial IPA release party will feature happy hour pricing, live music and prize give-aways, including a grand prize of a $1,000 Redhook Ale Brewery Gift Certificate.

For residents unable to attend the release party, Big Ballard Imperial IPA will be available in 22-ounce bottles and on draught in the area beginning in late April.

The Old Pequliar is located at 1722 N.W. Market St.

The Ballard Chamber of Commerce is offering the Ballard Urban Picnic, or BURP, for the consideration of the neighborhood's collective stomaches.

BURP, which runs from noon to 9 p.m. on May 1, will cram Ballard Commons Park with a lineup of mobile food vendors, a beer garden with proceeds going to the Ballard Food Bank, live music, bouncy toys, skateboard demonstrations, community booths and an outdoor showing of Pixar's "Ratatouille."

Food vendors include Dante's Inferno Dogs, Anita's Crepes, Veraci Pizza, Skillet, Here & There and Parfait Ice Cream. The beer garden is being furnished by Maritime Pacific Brewery.

The Ballard Chamber of Commerce is looking for volunteers for BURP. Click here to sign up.

The third annual Community Oyster Roast is on May 9 at the Golden Gardens Bathhouse with two seatings at the shoreside location with a spectacular view of the Sound are from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Proceeds will go to the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance to support its work to keep the Puget Sound clean.

Tickets, advance purchase only, are $50 for all the roasted oysters you can eat, CasCioppo Bros. sausage, coleslaw, baked beans, beverage and rhubarb crisp for dessert. Slurp up at the Oyster Raw Bar as an added bonus.

Foot stomping entertainment will be provided by The Tallboys.

The Oyster Roast, based on the popular roll-up-your-sleeves southern tradition, features sacks of fresh Taylor oysters in the shell dumped on hot metal plates over outdoor grills and covered with wet coffee sacks until juice starts to bubble out of the shells.

Then they are shoveled onto platters and delivered to tables where they need a nudge from an oyster knife to release the top shell and seductive aromas.

Attendees are urged to bring a favorite oyster knife; oyster knives can also be purchased onsite.

Sausages and side dishes are served family style.

The Fremont neighborhood has attracted the unusual for a long time, and The Flying Apron Bakery at 3510 Fremont Ave. N. is no exception.

The Flying Apron is Seattle’s only organic, gluten-free and vegan bakery, and this week they held an informal gathering to thank their friends and talk about their future plans.

In January, the business was sold to a group of three investors who share a strong commitment to maintain the bakery's unique status as well as expand it's business.

The new owners are Ethan Hernandez, Erik Chelstad and Jeff Silva. Silva and his wife previously owned a bakery and café in Seattle, and his ongoing management of Crohn’s disease has given him a very real perspective on food and nutrition.

Hernandez is from a family of Seattle-based entrepreneurs, and having a daughter with severe dietary restrictions has strengthened his commitment to helping others that need to be mindful of their eating requirements.

Chelstad, like Ethan, has had a hand in many Seattle-based startup companies and is excited to be working on organic, sustainable food production.