Another quick week and we were back on the road for a weekend outside of Seattle. This week felt pretty similar to the last week; there was:
- Dance class followed up with one dinner at home together
- FareStart Volunteer Appreciation Party showcasing delicious food and drink and opportunity to spend time with our friends outside of Guest Chef Night
- Special movie screening with fellow cooks from Hipcooks for City of Gold at the SIFF Cinema in Queen Anne. I got a great sushi dinner before the screening which was something I hadn’t had in a long time and the documentary was so fascinating to me. It shed a whole new level of culture awareness through one man’s restaurant criticism in L.A.
- Another busy night at FareStart for the Italian restaurant Assagio. We had a pork shank osso bucco, gnocchi marinara, seared polenta with sauteed mushrooms, and an olive oil citrus cake for dessert.
- And another late night after FareStart packing for the weekend
City of Gold movie
Pork osso bucco at FareStart
Ricotta gnocchi at FareStart
Orange olive oil cake at FareStart
And the weekend was a weekend well spent with friends/family! After I picked up some flowers at the Market for Rachel on Friday afternoon, Bryan picked me up from the Eastgate Park and Ride and we headed east to Spokane. With very little traffic we made great time to Spokane and pulled into the Air Force base at 8 pm to await Rachel and Max and check ourselves into the base for the weekend. After quickly seeing their house and catching up the four of us piled into the car and set out for The Flying Goat pizza joint in Spokane. The pizza was really good as were their beer list for the boys. We shared two very interesting pizzas; one with Thai curry flavors and the other with arugula, sausage and an egg. We spent a long time sharing stories about life until we reached last call for the restaurant at 11 pm and managed to still keep our table until we left just before midnight. The boys shared a few more beers once home and it was sometime after 1 am that we all called it a night.
Saturday morning Bryan and I slept in until a little after 9 am. Max was already waiting for us and Rachel was off to get her hair cut. Max wanted to take us to this cute old railcar diner for breakfast but the wait for a table was so long that he led us to another spot called Ferguson Diner for breakfast. Ferguson serves typical diner food but I have to say the staff was friendly and the food was really well cooked; best crispy hashbrowns I have had in a very long time and a great homemade blueberry syrup for their pancakes. Once full we set out for downtown Spokane to do some leisure walking along their riverfront, across their many bridges, and catching many different views of the awesome falls. We did see many fans and cheerleaders in town for the first round of the NCAA tournament but otherwise the city was not at all busy. Early afternoon we met back up with Rachel at the house and the four of us set out for Couer D’Alene, Idaho for the afternoon.
Just over a 30 minute drive away, Couer D’Alene is scenic and trendy, with a beautiful large glassy lake set underneath some mountains and a cute downtown with lots of restaurants and shops. The city did remind me of a lakeside city in Michigan. We walked down to the boardwalk and basked in the sun for a while. We then heading back up the main street and stopped at the outside patio of a new swank beer garden called Crafted. The boys again each tried a beer and we got an order of the sweet potato fries to nibble on. After more time chatting we set back towards Spokane with plans to stop in Post Falls, Idaho at a Greek restaurant called The White House Grill that had come highly recommended to Rachel with warnings of intoxicating amounts of garlic. As soon as you stepped foot in the restaurant you had an intense smack of garlic aromas and a feeling like you had just been transported into the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I was excited! We got our table shortly and all had no trouble picking an entree. We started with Greek salads that were pretty good but then shortly our entrees came out and were all amazing. I went with the Turkish platter; sliced and perfectly cooked lamb on top of fried eggplant with tzatiki sauce and really garlicky green beans on the side. Rachel had the gyro, Max the steak with lemon fried Greek potatoes, and Bryan a lamb and feta pasta. We all finished our meals and were left no room for baklava. We headed home from there and were all much more tired than the night before we were basically all in bed by 10:30 pm.
Sunday morning we again got to sleep in a bit. Once we were all up Rachel and Max started making us a great weekend breakfast. French toast, bacon, and eggs many ways. It was a great breakfast in. We lounged for a while watching some basketball and just generally being lazy until at nearly 1 pm Bryan, Max and myself set out for a 4 mile run around the base. Max was a good leader and a good tour guide. The temperature was perfect for a run and boy did I need it. After showers Bryan and I were ready to set back home to Seattle. We left their place about 2 pm and made it with great time, pulling into the driveway exactly at 6 pm. We made chicken tortilla soup for dinner and chilled out to Sopranos before ending our weekend.
It was a great time spending time with Rachel and Max and we are praying for them in their last three weeks until their due date.
Evolving in the Emerald City 