"puget sound" news and stories

• How to select rice from your local market.
• A toxic "red tide" has shut down Northern Puget Sound's shellfish industry.
• Elemental Next Door offers the refined Elemental@Gasworks food -- think hazelnut-studded wild boar pâté -- without "the attitude."
• Coffee City: With falling traffic at Starbucks, Safeway looks toward a better latte future; Dilettante opens a second Mocha Cafe location; pour-over coffee is big at Port Townsend; a Stumptown producer's panel; Clover machines start disappearing from Starbucks and Carly Simon sues the chain.
• Georgetown's Daimonji offers good food and massive bento boxes in a strip-mall setting.
• All You Can Eat finds another Blue C Sushi location, Town Hall Seattle's Food Summit and a recipe for rice calas.
• Recipes: Flip-Over Apple Cake, Pulled Pork on Soft Polenta, Grilled Zucchini Pasta, Two Pepper Chicken Chili, Crisp-Crust Cinnamon Apple Pie, Chickpeas in Coconut Sauce, a Trio of Dips, Angelina's Restaurant Crab Cakes.

Health officials in Washington State are warning people against eating raw oysters that were harvested in Puget Sound. The warning came after 45 people reported violent illness - including two hospitalizations - in two weeks. Usually, there are only 20 such cases in an entire year. The oysters were contaminated with a bacteria strain called Vibrio parahaemolyticus and five oyster harvesting areas have already been closed.

The oysters from the Sound are often available in other parts of the Pacific Northwest, along the Pacific coast and in several other Western States (where a handful of cases have been reported already), so if at all possible, find out where the oysters are your market came from before deciding to down them uncooked. Health officials say that cooking the oysters to an internal temperature of 145F should prevent any health problems from the bacteria, in the event that your oyster is contaminated.

Source

When my boyfriend said the Pacific Northwest was "cool," I thought he meant it was "cool" in the sense of "hip." I didn't realize he meant "cool" in the sense of "bone-chillingly cold."

It turns out that May in the Puget Sound is a lot like February here in Virginia. In other words, wintry.

I should explain. We were just at a wedding on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. After a day of cross-country flights, shuttles and rental cars, we then had to take a ferry for an hour-and-a-half from the mainland to Orcas itself.

I suppose that if you live in the Pacific Northwest, you understand the trade-off: beautiful landscapes for chilly weather.

Thankfully, for everybody else, there's Portofino Pizza in the village of Orcas. We ordered the Tuscany: gouda, garlic, fresh roma tomatoes and salami.

Maybe it was just my hypothermia talking, but I think it was one of the top ten pizzas I've ever had.

In any case, if you're on Orcas, get a pie at Portofino. Even if you're not freezing, you'll be glad you did.