Save the Date, Seattlites: June 4, 2011 - the Renton Stop and Swap is back!

This is a garage sale gone wild, except that everything is FREE!  If you have extra crap, or need more, this is the event for you.  You can just unload it and leave - there's no setting up a table to hock your wares.

Last year, I got a beautiful, solid wood, hand-painted room divider, a nice chest of drawers, Mom got a really ugly chair that she loves (which is probably going BACK to the S&S this year), and I can't remember what Lou got.  Tools?  Not sure.  I know that we had to make two trips in the Land Rover (RIP Salty Bob) because we snatched too much stuff.

If you want to know more about it, here's a link to the City of Renton's webpage on the S&S.  Ignore the date - it was for last year, but I just confirmed the date for this year over the phone with the coordinator.

http://rentonwa.gov/living/default.aspx?id=24324

Have fun, reuse, and recycle!

Things That Make Zanne Go Mmmmm...

Things That Make Zanne Go Mmmmmm...

In no particular order (because I'm a dual-minded Gemini incapable of making up my mind), and for no other reason than being opinionated and treating myself to a bit of self-promotion, here are some of the foods and drinks that curl my toes and straighten my hair:

MOJITOS:  Definitely, a well-made concoction featuring fresh mint, limes, sugar, and white rum, muddled so roughly that you forget ole What's His Name after the first plunge of your wooden phallus.

MARTINIS: A healthy - very, very healthy - pour of potato vodka, just breathe across the top of a bottle of dry vermouth, and make it dirtier than a gangbanged porn star on the "outtakes" menu of the dvd.  If I can see through it, I'll send it back.  If it doesn't make my ankles swell in one sip, I should train you better.

GINGER ROGERS: Yes, I'm a dancer who worships at the taps of the silver screen legend, but in this case I'm talking about a drink invented by Mike and Kat, who run The Driftwood Room at the Hotel deLuxe in Portland, Oregon, our home away from home.  It's such a complex recipe that even with my advanced bar-bitch/lush skills, I haven't been able to replicate it in my home.  It's sweet, hot, filled with ginger and Domaine de Canton, Bison Grass Vodka, Fee Brothers Rhubarb Bitters, and SUGAR!!!!!  If you like sweet and hot together, this may be the drink for you.

SHOES:  Docs and dance shoes...  I have 21 pairs of Docs.  Oh, wait, you can't eat shoes, unless you're adrift at sea and are adverse to chomping down on the rest of the residents of the lifeboat.  On to the next...

JOSH GATES:  Damn, did it again...  Wait, there's a lot of white meat on that one - still off-limits culinarily (I think I just made up a word, and it sounds really dirty)?  And he's Kosher!


BEER: Yeah, yeah, chicks and beer.  Piss off.  I don't sip Bud Light longnecks through a straw with a napkin wrapped around it.  I love beer - the darker, the chewier, the better.  My husband and one of my dearest friends are homebrewers.  GOOD beer, I should specify.  Porters, stouts, hearty cream ales, and just about any British, Irish, Scottish type of beer.  I'm not such a a fan of the Belgian/German types, but I do love a lot of Eastern European beers, like Sarajevo and Baltika 6 and 9.  Brains Dark from Wales and Kilkenny from Ireland are my very top choices, but both are impossible to get stateside.  Thank you to my friend Tim Adams from Medicine Hat for introducing me to Kilkenny on holiday several years back in Vancouver.

BREAKFAST FOR DINNER: Scrambled eggs with cheese, thick slices of bacon, and fried potatoes.  Nothing better.

MASHED POTATOES: What could be better than butter, cream cheese, boiled tatties and garlic?  I could eat them every day, except I might gain back that 114 pounds.  So, as part of a well-balanced diet, mashed potatoes kick ass.  That's my nutrition tip for the week, kids.

STEAK: Grilled, thick, well-seasoned, medium rare.  I used to be a well done kind of girl, but I've given in to my inner Cro-Mag in the last few years.  Always good with potatoes, or my homemade strawberry-balsamic vinaigrette and wee little tomatoes.

CHAYOTE:  This is a recent find, and I eat it raw almost every day.  Firm, tangy, possibly some sort of squash, but I just slice it thinly and snack on it.  It looks like a pear, but it's a vegetable.  Great crunchy snack, sweeter than a carrot, and about the consistency of a very firm apple.

SQUASH:  Any kind.  I didn't appreciate squash when I was a kid, but an ex got me excited about them about a decade ago.  I guess people who live on Lake Michigan eat squash all the time, because he knows a dozen ways to cook acorn squash...

MEAD: This lovely honey wine is actually the reason that I'm married (finally, at 33 - now I'm nearly 37).  I met my husband (http://www.blueloulogan.blogspot.com/) when he was dressed like a pirate in the pub at a renaissance festival.  We drank mead all day and all night, and even though I tried very hard, I couldn't shake the barnacle in the weeks that followed.  Almost 4 years later, we're still sharing bottles of mead.  Sky River Meadery is our favorite (http://www.skyriverbrewing.com/).  Since then, we've shared the sweet nectar during bath nights, upstairs nights, trips away to the Hotel deLuxe in Portland (http://www.hoteldeluxeportland.com/), and anytime we want to remember why we love each other.  Okay, go take your insulin shots...  Even I feel like throwing up...

BITTERS:  Not the old man beer that you get served warm in England, the herbal digestifs that you have to hunt down online and through bartenders.  Angostura Bitters is the most well-known, and we have some - we have nearly 20 varieties - but we have some great locals here and in the rest of the States.  My favorite (not surprisingly) is Cardamom Bitters from Scrappy's, from right here in Seattle (http://scrappysbitters.com/), but they just came out with a lavender bitters that would be heavenly in a Ginger Rogers, with vodka and Domaine de Canton (a spicy ginger liqueur).  I'll be purchasing both this coming weekend.  They can be a bit on the spendy side, but Fee Brothers are a lower-priced but well-made alternative who offer several varieties: Old Fashioned (sweeter than Angostura), Rhubarb, Mint, Aztec Chocolate, Orange (Angostura also has an orange), Grapefruit, Cherry, Cranberry, Peach, Lemon, and Whiskey Barrel Aged.

BBQ: Who doesn't love barbeque?  Okay, maybe vegans, but people strong enough to fight back...  I love it on a baked potato.  Nothing better.

Just to separate Zanne from the generally accepted ideal of the rockabilly princess, I do not drink PBR from a can, have molded hair, cuff my jeans, wear 6-inch platforms and dance like gazelles, and survive solely on baby carrots and ranch dressing.  Oh, and I sweat.  Yeah, I said it, I sweat.  My dress is soaked and my curly red hair is even kinkier by the end of a night on the dance floor.  I wear Docs with dresses and dance like, well, a professional dancer.  I have fun, I make mistakes, I laugh on and off the dance floor, and I don't pick my partner based on the height of his pomade-smothered duck's ass.

Damn, this started out about food and drinks.  Sorry for the digression.  Enjoy your late night snacks, and I'll chat with you later...

What You Can Expect from The Zzyzx Road Kitchen Chronicles

Well, my name is Zanne, and I cook. A lot. Really, a lot.

For the most part, I create my own recipes, using prior cooking skills or just winging it with a bowl and whisk. Sometimes, it's a disaster (we don't talk about the Carrot Cake Wreck of 2010), or the smoke alarms go off. It's all about experiments with interesting, unusual, and tasty fresh ingredients. I'm Quebecois (French-Canadian), Shoshone, British, and Cherokee, so I use a number of traditional family recipes, as well (usually with updates), but I also get inspiration from middle eastern, eastern European, Latin, Caribbean, and northern African cuisines.  I am at that point in my life where I will try anything that I'm not allergic to.  Okay, maybe I'll draw the line at deep-fried tarantulas. 

I'm a spice nut. Goddess. Expert. Spice Whisperer, whatever. I just "know" how to blend, my husband says. He calls my cooking style "jazz," picking a vegetable or ingredient I've never tried, some exotic grain, or spice, and just go with it, like pickup jazz. He's a music professor, in case you were wondering.   Technically, he's an ethnomusicologist, but he's also an archaeologist, which totally fulfills my childhood Indiana Jones fantasies.  We also have a daughter, 11-year-old Bev, who is taller than me and is the most adventurous eater that I have ever seen.  She's funny, slightly dorky, beautiful, and

So, expect a lot of unpretentious, easy to understand recipes, with lots of tips on "in case you don't have this" or "you can totally substitute this," and maybe some techniques explained, where/how the meal came to be, and shortcuts, if you're a working gal or guy, like using canned instead of dry beans.  Not my preference, but not everyone works in front of their cable box, able to whip, mix, stir, or mash at a moment's notice.

I try not to use canned or prepackaged food very often, and my kitchen and recipes are chock full of dried beans, chickpeas, gorgeous grains, and fresh vegetables and fruit.

I don't really focus on low-fat, but most of my dishes are healthy. Most of what I cook IS low in fat (and sodium), just because of my tastes, but I can fry chicken, make a kick-ass pot roast, and love a great cheeseburger just as much as the next girl (or frat boy).

I guess it just boils down to me loving the entire process of cooking, from planning to shopping at farmers' markets and other shops to whisking to seeing my husband grin when he takes the first bite. I'm rarely happier in any other place.  I'm not sure that I can explain it any other way.