Tai-ho’s in Kenmore, WA
“If she didn’t have a refrigerator, Intlxpatr (only she calls me by my real name), what did she do about laundry and diapers when you came along?”
I just looked at her stupidly. That had never occurred to me.
“I remember our next door neighbors had a barrel-shaped washing machine with a hand cranked wringer,” I responded, “but I think by that point my Mom had a more modern washing machine. I don’t know what she was using when I was born.”
Then, over noodles at Tai-Ho’s, where you watch the noodle-maker man in a specially built window, surrounded by Chinese, Chinese-Americans and Chinese-food lovers, we reminisced about our own babies, and laundry services. We were mothers of the hip generation, back-to-nature, and for eco reasons, we used a diaper service, which was considered much more earth-friendly.
“Oh! The smell of that diaper pail!” I groaned. We both moved on to Pampers after a few months with the soiled diaper smell.
We were rescued from any further contemplation of those pungent smells by the arrival of a delicious Hot and Sour Soup, a big bowl, which we divided, followed quickly by the Green Beans with Meat:
And then – one of the specialities of the house, the Seafood Basket, which is served in a basket of those noodles we saw the noodle-maker-guy making, filled with delectable scallops, shrimp, fish, fresh steamed crispy broccoli and water chestnuts, covered with a foam of egg whites – magnificent.
My friend had recommended the Green Beans, but she didn’t know about the Seafood Basket – we just ordered it to see what it was like. After it came, we saw other diners asking the waitress about it and several more came out of the kitchen. It was DELICIOUS.
Tai-Ho Restaurant
http://www.taihorestaurant.com
6312 NE Bothell Way
Kenmore, WA 98028
(425) 485-4020
If you are coming from Kuwait – or elsewhere – and want to eat like a local, you want Tai-Ho’s. It is purely wonderful.
“We Didn’t Have a Refrigerator”
We were eating breakfast together, my Mom and I, when she dropped a bomb. I had no idea she could catch me by surprise that way. We’d been talking about fresh peaches, and preserves.
“When your Dad and I got married, we didn’t even have a refrigerator,” she said.
Not have a refrigerator? You can get married and not have a refrigerator?
“How did you get one?” I asked, still reeling from astonishment.
“Your Dad inherited $100 from some very distant relative,” she related, “he got like 1/32nd, which came to $100. We used it to buy a refrigerator.”
“What did you do before you had it?” I asked, still a little disoriented.
“Well, it was Alaska,” she said. “We had these sort of pantries that had shelves with little holes opening to the outside, covered with screen to keep out insects and mosquitos, but it would let in the cool air. It didn’t get that hot, even in the summer. In the winter, we had shelves on the outside porches, too.”
Holy smokes, I thought to myself. How would I function without a refrigerator? We would have to go back to shopping every day. If there weren’t refrigerators, maybe stores wouldn’t have frozen sections, too? Maybe we would have to be buying meat just as it was slaughtered, only vegetables that could travel from not too far without refrigeration, we would be using a lot more grains and things that didn’t need refrigeration to preserve them.
Maybe we would be drying more foods? We would probably, in Kuwait, be eating more dates and rice, eating more locally raised foods – what, sheep? camel meat? We would probably be eating a lot more fish. We would probably go back to canning foods while they were abundant – tomatoes, fruit jams, maybe we would even pickle some fish and/or shrimp for out-of-season eating. Our food might be saltier, as salt is also a preservative. Maybe we would eat more rice, more pomegranate . . . maybe occasionally a boat would come in from Ethiopia or Kenya bringing rare coffee beans, and only very special, very lucky people would have access to the little luxury we all take for granted.
Ooops. Well, I am getting carried away. I was so amazed to hear my mother had initially kept house without a refrigerator that I sort of spaced out.
She went on to tell me that as she was growing up, her family had an ice box, and they would put out a special piece of paper when they needed ice from the ice man, who would drive by every day to provide ice for the cool-boxes. The ice came in different sizes, depending on the size of the ice box.
(I found this picture and a fairly clear explanation of ice boxes on on Wikipedia.)
It gets better. As I was reading the Wikipedia information, I came across the Pot in Pot refrigerator , known in Arabic as a “zeer” for which Mohammed Bah Abba was awarded a Rolex Laureate (Rolex Awards for Enterprise) in 2000. You can read about Mohammed Bah Abba, the Nigerian teacher who developed this simple, but effective refrigeration technique, by clicking on the blue type above. You can read more about the Zeer pot, and see a photo of how they work, by clicking here: Science in Africa.
Significant Birthday
We stopped by a Party Store to pick up some things for my Mother, and we saw this truck loading up with balloons:
Inside the store is chaos, as all the employees have the nitrous oxide tanks going, filling up balloons, which the guys then tie into groups of ten.
“Three hundred and fifty balloons!” they responded, when we asked how many they were doing. “It must be some great party!”
I guess so. You wouldn’t think you could get any more balloons into a the truck, but here come some more!
Hard Times
I noticed it right away, driving home on the Seattle freeway – a significantly reduced number of cars, and NO one is speeding. Seattle has outgrown it’s freeways – even early mornings the roads are packed. Or they were – they aren’t now.
At first, I thought I might be imagining it, but the trip down to the ocean cabin in Oregon and back up and through and into Seattle several times have only driven the point home – there are fewer cars on the road.
The Starbuck’s have fewer customers. This is mid-summer, normally a carefree, free-spending time, but not this summer.
There are also fewer shoppers in the stores – and, in downtown Seattle, many of the shoppers were foreigners, here to take advantage of the bargains provided by the weakened dollar. I have to admit, it’s humbling to be a bargain destination. I know many Kuwaitis headed for the USA this summer, enjoying an improved exchange rate.
Sitting in Barnes and Noble with a friend, we heard a very plummy voice giving directions to friends who were to meet them there.
“We drove through the most amazing rural area,” she trilled, “SO picturesque, you must try to find it, it is called Bothell.”
Bothell picturesque? Bothell rural? Bothell is a bedroom community to Seattle, full of sub-divisions where there used to be farms. I wanted to give her a dirty look, but I remember saying the same things – glowing about the desert and camels or sweet little French villages, and I just figure what goes around comes around and I am just getting a little payback.
It’s also scary seeing how much prices have gone up – eggs! The same problem Kuwait is having – eggs are more expensive. Rice is more expensive. My Mother thinks some merchants are just marking things up because they can, and they can blame it on oil and it’s all just GREED.
I think all this has a lot to do with perception. Right now, people are feeling insecure and are trying not to spend too much money, not knowing what is around the corner. Americans have an irrepressible sends of optimism, and I suspect that a more positive approach will take hold in the next few months. Once it does, markets will rise, people will be spending again . . . and I wonder if the prices will go down, or just keep going up?
Geraldine Brooks: March
Geraldine Brooks knocks my socks off. If she writes a book, fiction or non-fiction, I will buy it and read it. The first one I read by her was Nine Parts Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, and the second most memorable book was her Year of Wonders, a book about how the plague comes to a 17th century English village and how the villagers cope with it – how some survive. She has a knack for keen observations, and for writing so as to place you squarely in the scene she is describing.
So when she came out with a new book extrapolating from the experiences protrayed in Louisa May Alcott’s classic favorite Little Women, why didn’t I rush to buy it? March is described by Publisher’s Weekly as “the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.”
Didn’t you love Little Women when you read it? What’s not to love? Those wonderful sisters, their saintly mother, working together, suffering together, prevailing through sheer grit and determination – we can read that book over and over again, loving it every time.
Geraldine Brooks takes us with Mr. March into the grim realities of the American Civil War, the “war to free the slaves,” the war to keep the United States united, or the war between the states. This is not the idealized world of Little Women, this is not the memory we have of the nice letters he writes home from the field, this is the reality of war and all it’s ugliness. As the book opens, Mr. March is fleeing a massacre, struggling to survive, he is surrounded by the dead and seriously wounded, bullets are flying past him and he has to cross a deep, rushing river. A man grabs him who can’t swim, and he has to push him away to gasp for air. The man drowns, March survives, feeling deep guilt. When he finally finds a group of his men, drying out by the side of the river, he sits down and writes to his girls about the sweet breeze in the air. Not a word about the horrors he has witnessed, not his personal despair about having failed a wounded comrade.
As we experience the horrors of this war with Mr. March, we experience with him the brutality, cruelty, and crudity of all conflict. There are no good guys. There is no “just cause,” just winners and losers, and it’s very hard to tell what they are fighting for. Seeing this war from the point of view of the combatants, we realize that no-one will remain untouched; that this experience will resonate through the rest of their lives.
Geraldine Brooks knows how to grab us and keep us gripped. Every chapter reveals a new facet – how March and Marnee met and married, how they built a life together, how, in their idealism, they lost everything. Most discouraging of all is how, below the surface, they understand themselves and one another and their relationship so little.
I dare you to read this book. It isn’t an easy book, and at the same time, it is a book with timeless qualities, and a book that will get you thinking and keep you thinking for a long time. Isn’t that the definition of a good book?
Summer Sunday at the Pike Place Market
We have a great favorite tradition – hit the early service, 0800 – what my friend calls “speed church”, the one hour service instead of the longer family services – and then head straight for the Pike Place Market. Things get started there slowly on a summer Sunday morning, and we even found a free parking space – totally amazing.
First stop is breakfast at Campagne. We don’t have reservations, but they find a place for us:
The sun breaks forth and the market is teeming with people by the time we are finishing up:
In the 1970’s, the market was a little run-down and shabby, and many business people wanted to raze it and use the space for office buildings. Seattle residents said “NO!” and instead, the market was revitalized. It is one of the major tourist destinations in the city, and a lively spot every day of the week.
A long time ago, before the big Seattle fire, my family lived just up the street from this market.
Photo Nuts
My two sisters and I all have the same camera, and my niece, and my son and his wife, so we all share information. Like on our trip, EnviroGirl explained that if you made the picture size smaller, it extends the optical zoom, so if you don’t need a really vast photo, you can focus on something and get this huge telephoto. I had no idea until she explained it. Like yes, it is in the book, and I even read the book, but there is SO MUCH in the book.
My sister Sparkle told us about using a feature called Fireworks. She tried it for fireworks – it works! It also works on moon shots, although there is another feature called Starry Nights for that.
One thing totally cracks me up. There used to be a Simple Mode indicated with a heart, it was simple and automatic, and no one liked to use it. The newer models have something called Intelligent Automatic, and we all use that mode because it gets the best photos. We would never dream of using something called “simple” but “intelligent!” That’s very different!
Mariner Man, Sparkle’s husband, doesn’t use the same camera but he showed us a new technique he says is working for him, getting interesting and new photos: put your camera really near the ground or on the ground.
Sand Castle
Good tip, Mariner Man!
So I’m kind of waiting for sunset, and photo ops just keep happening. There are wonderful kids flying kites, and I wait, and I get the shot I want – what joy!
And then, as the sun continues setting, along come a couple surfers.
This isn’t such a great shot, but it is the only shot I got of one of them up on his board. He wasn’t up for very long.
This hasn’t happened to me for a long time – my memory card is full. I have to quickly go through and delete anything excessive to have room for the sunset. And then – the sun goes into a fog bank. I had thought it would shine through, but no – the fog EATS the sun! And, just at that moment, the surfers decide to go home and I get my last shot:
Rolling Thunder
Astoria, Oregon is a city on the border between Oregon and Washington, and one of the oldest explored areas on the West Coast. They have their own trolley line for tourists, to take them to various sights:
They also have a BBQ place called Rolling Thunder. Rolling Thunder, my brother-in-law Mariner Man says is an event in Washington DC where all the war veterans get on their motorcycles and tour all the Washington monuments. I didn’t know that. Adventure Man said that Rolling Thunder is also one of the code names for the US attacks on D-Day in WWII. I didn’t know that either.
I do know I love barbecue!
I guess I must have been really hungry. . . I didn’t get any pictures of the FOOD! Mom had the pulled pork sandwiches, and I had the smoked chicken. Yummmmm.
Teriyaki Flank Steak
I keep meaning to post some food photos for Puratory but the problem is we get everything on the table and we start eating. Mariner Man has been the best at documenting our meals; I only think to take a photo too late, and the camera is far away.
Finally, I remembered, just in time for Teriyaki Flank Steak, my Mother’s speciality that everyone loves. She bought three huge flank steaks, put them into plastic bags with the marinade and froze them. They thawed as we drove to the beach, and were ready for the grill when we got there:
Here is my Mother’s marinade recipe for Flank Steak:
Teriyaki Flank Steak Marinade
Most recipes will tell you to marinate a flank steak for an hour – we thing overnight is even better. Sometimes two or three nights, or marinate it in a plastic bag and freeze until needed:
(per 1 – 2 lbs flank steak)
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sake or sherry (optional)
1 cup pineapple juice (use two if you don’t use wine or sake)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbs sugar
1 large chopped onion
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
1 t. shredded fresh ginger
Grill flank steak until there is no red in the middle; some people like no pink in the middle. Slice thinly against the grain and serve.
Here is a platter of the finished flank steak:
Let’s Go Fly a Kite
There is so much to do!
There is a long walking promenade along the beach, wide enough for bicycles, moms with strollers, people skating, people walking their dogs, and people just walking or jogging.
On the beach, people are swimming, sunning, building magnificent sand castles, fishing, and . . . flying kites.
Some of the kites are purely magnificent. Here is my favorite – a pirate ship!
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