"seattle food" news and stories

It wasn't a rash of espresso-guzzling Italian immigrants or even an enterprising chancer like Starbucks founder Howard Schultz who turned Seattle into America's coffee HQ: it was the weather. The damp, London-esque climate here has been an overpowering influence on its food scene, according to Seattleite Ethan Lowry, co-founder of urbanspoon.com. "Our notoriously grey weather, coupled with those long, dark winters - we're one of the most northern cities in the continental US - means we need things that are pick-me-ups. Coffee was a natural fit."

Food writer and cookbook author Cynthia Nims agrees. "Sitting down over some great coffee was one of those things you could do easily on a misty winter day," she laughs. Lowry goes further, suggesting that Seattle's warm, unfussy vibe is also meteorological. "In so many cities, there's the option to sit outside. But here, there's a dearth of outdoor cafes and a cozy feel to a lot of Seattle's restaurants," he says. The city is as ingredient obsessed as San Francisco, yet without its showoffish snobbery - chanterelle mushrooms or Dungeness crab, both staples here, were foraged casually rather than farmed and marketed to foodies. Nims sees the influx of Scandinavians as underscoring that understatement, in all aspects of local life.

Read on about Seattle's coffee, salmon and more, after the jump...

Imagine that on your lunch break you purchase gourmet food from the window of a 1962 Airstream trailer. In Seattle, the chefs from Skillet are making this possible. Skillet goes to different street corners every day concocting meals depending on what's available locally and seasonally. They've become famous for their Kobe-style burger served on brioche with bacon jam, blue cheese and arugula. Besides tasting delicious, the food is also reasonably priced, between $6 and $10.

According to an article from Forbes, Skillet sells about 200 lunches daily. Chef Danny Sizemore states that he opened up Skillet, with his partner Joshua Henderson, in order to fill a void in Seattle: high-end street food. The Forbes article points out that the concept is not entirely unique. In Minneapolis, there's Chef Shack that sells bison burgers topped with homemade condiments. And, in Marfa, Texas, Food Shark offers homemade hummus and falafel with crisp romaine lettuce from a truck.

To find out where Skillet's Airstream trailer is going to be and what they're going to serve visit their site.

I am not generally one to put butter onto my muffins, especially if they start out as sweet as the Blueberry and Currant Muffins from Cookbook 411 sound. Usually, the richness of the muffin is sufficient, although L says that she makes her own butter, which does make the idea of buttering the muffin tempting. The muffins are stuffed with locally grown (from Seattle) fruits, the blueberries adding a juiciness and the majority of the rich color that is evident in the picture above, and the tiny red currants adding a slight tartness and a flavor that is similar to that of gooseberries. The best thing about the muffins, however, is that they stand as a reminder to the fact that a muffin does not have to be as large as your head, unlike some bakery muffins, to be either delicious or tempting because these are both.

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It was eight years ago, and still I remember every bite. I was in Seattle for one night and I was going to live it up. We ate at Wild Ginger, and we feasted on what was then still on the very edge of food fashion: Pan-Asian fusion cuisine.

Today Seattle shares the Pan-Asian food title with its Canadian sister just across the sound, Vancouver, B.C., but Wild Ginger is still heralded as one of the best restaurants on the West Coast.

Sarah Gim may think that she's discovered great things in the Eastern European heritage of Pittsburgh. But nothing's ever been made out of a potato that even approaches Siam lettuce cups with sea bass in a spicy peanut sauce (swoon!). It's sweet and salty and fishy and tangy and the heat rises behind your ears and OH MY GOD I need to eat here every night.

I've been a Seahawks fan since I was old enough to say "football," and couldn't be happier that my favorite NFL team is finally taking its rightful place in the Superbowl. But what matters more than a city's fortunes on the gridiron? Well, their food, of course.

This week, Sarah Gim and I will be comparing and contrasting the foods of the two super cities, Seattle and Pittsburgh. We'll be butting heads in an all-out food war. I may be a tad bit biased... but I think I know who's going to win.

Seattle is a city characterized by its position on the great Puget Sound, and as such the city's cuisine is based on the seafood available as near as the sound and as far away as Alaska. Thanks to the huge ocean-going vessels that come and go from the downtown ports, the city also is flavored by the rich food cultures of Japan and China.

When I think of Seattle, the first food I can taste, raw and salty in my mouth, is the oyster. I like to think it's what real seahawks would eat.