Here are a few iPhone apps I’ve got on my phone, and am loving:

Big Oven - There are dozens, really, of recipe-compilation iPhone apps, but so far, this is my favorite. It speedily accesses its online database of 170,000+ recipes and classifies by dietary restrictions, ratings, type of cuisine, and more! It will even pick a random recipe from its trove if you ask it to, so if you find yourself stuck at the grocery store with no brilliant ideas of what to cook, you’ll find a shopping list appearing in your hands. Photos of their recipes are rather inspirational, too…

Cocktail Compass: Seattle - This is all about finding hours and specs on Seattle’s Happy Hour. It uses location services to show you what’s closest, and then goes on to tell you how much time you have to get there before Happy Hour ends. Tap on an interesting-looking entry, and you’ll get details on what that location’s Happy Hour involves, as well as a map to them, a call button, and an option to add them to your favorites list. No longer must you wander downtown like a lost, thirsty puppy!

Yelp - It’s just as good as the full website is, with hundreds of restaurant reviews, hours, phone numbers, and details. Even better, it integrates with maps and location services to tell you what’s nearby, and how to get there. You can search by ethnicity, price range, and more, and build up a list of favorites to come back to.

Open Table - So you’ve found a restaurant that looks great, is nearby, and in your price range. Of course, it’s only two in the afternoon, and you need a table for six, but no one’s answering the phone at the restaurants. Open Table will allow you to make reservations online instantly, for free. The one caveat I’d have for this is that the selection of restaurants available via Open Table, while large, is not Every Restaurant in Seattle. Yet.

Just sayin’.

After posting the invitation to the open picnic both on my blog and on Craigslist, I got so few replies that I was ready to throw in the towel on Friday morning, but at the last minute, several of my friends opted in (and recruited others), so that by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, I had seven people attending. The lovely M—- helped me transport my goods to sunny Ravenna Park, where after a brief search, we found an open picnic table at which to set up. I decided I couldn’t really do fancy food on paper plates, so I purchased some relatively cheap alternatives: Bambu plates, which look outdoorsy without being really expensive, and then reusable (but cheap) Tag glasses, bowls, cloth napkins, and place mats. Everything was green and purple.

When I started planning, I had a few things in mind for the menu. First, my dishes had to be things that I wouldn’t be afraid to cook — that is, nothing that I’d be likely to ruin, like a custard. Second, they had to be things that I wouldn’t have to cook there, since cooking facilities would be nonexistent unless I was prepared to pay a $140 shelter fee (and even then, it’d just be a grill). And third, I wanted to play with summer Seattle flavors. I made a list of ingredients that I think are especially summery: heirloom tomatoes, fresh spearmint, avocados, blueberries, cilantro, cucumbers, goat cheese. Then I simply started searching/brainstorming interesting recipes. Here’s what I came up with:

The week of the picnic, I put in a large order to Spud, and they provided pretty much all of the fresh vegetables. They delivered a ton of Purple Cherokee heirloom tomatoes, which are very mild and sweet, and went perfectly in the Bruschetta and Caprese. I served the Crostini and Caprese family-style and just let people dig in before I started piling courses on them. I liked that skewering the Caprese made it easy to transport and serve, but I’m not sure it was the optimal way to serve Caprese otherwise.

The Gazpacho was an easy call, since I could make it the night before and simply chill it until I served it. The Gazpacho recipe I chose was from the Herbfarm Cookbook, and it was amazing — I highly recommend it. Very zesty, very flavorful; the fresh herbs all managed to shine without overwhelming each other, and the green color was bright and cheerful.

The Mushroom/Asparagus Risotto was also based on a recipe from that book, but I was not as impressed with it. I like the idea of a mushroom risotto, but the asparagus wasn’t that exciting, and the trio of mushroom/asparagus/lemon thyme flavoring just didn’t work for me.

The Seared Ahi was based on a recipe from the same cookbook, but I changed the salad up so that it had a few tablespoons of lime juice, a little olive oil, a little salt, four avocados, two cucumbers, and a handful of chopped cilantro. Coriander and cilantro, as they are sold here, are two parts of the same plant, so that shared flavor tied the Ahi and the salad together.

Finally, the Goat Cheesecake was based on Abbey’s infamous cheesecake, which was featured by the Daring Kitchen, and therefore, by food blogs everywhere. It really is a great recipe; I used goat cheese for half of the cheese, and instead of using graham cracker crumbs for the crust, I crushed up some lavender shortbread that I’d made about a week before, so that there was a subtle lavender flavor in it.

Now, to answer the question which I got seven times that day: What is a coulis? A coulis, as I understand it, is some type of sauce which is made by forcing fruit or vegetables through a sieve, so that any particular materials (seeds, skins, etc) are either crushed up unrecognizably or strained out of the final product. At any rate, that’s how I made mine. I gather some people puree and then strain these sauces, but I didn’t really want lots of dribbly seed bits getting into mine, so I didn’t puree the blueberries. It’s very simple, and you wind up with a sauce that is 100% fruit, has a light syrupy consistency, but it hasn’t been cooked and has no added sugar. The blueberry went great with the lavender and cheese flavors, so I’ll definitely be making that again.

A final note I’d like to make isn’t about anything I cooked. As you may or may not know, public parks in Seattle do not allow alcohol unless you restrict the consumption to a covered shelter and pay some kind of huge - like $300 - fee for it. Now, I’ve seen people openly drinking, a lot, at parks all over the place, and I’ve never seen this enforced, but I didn’t particularly want to tempt fate, especially since this would be going on my blog. So while I’d normally serve wine with a dinner like this, I couldn’t. What I wound up bringing instead were: plenty of still water, Pellegrino, and a couple bottles of Golden Star Tea. At $12 a bottle, it was not exactly the cheapest drink choice on the block, but it was a big hit! It complemented the food well, was refreshing in the hot sun, and delicious. So if you’re looking for a no-alcohol alternative to wine, check this stuff out. We gave it two yums up.

For those of your who are familiar with Seattle, last Friday night (July the 3rd) saw the Red, White, and Undead Zombie party in Fremont. They broke the world record for most zombies in one place (3,848), had several zombie walks during which they humorously terrorized local citizens and businesses, and performed an enormous performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance. I went, not for the brains, but for the photos and fun.

I loved the folks who dressed up not just as “zombie,” but as, “_____ zombie” — Lady Liberty zombie, priest zombie, Marilyn Monroe zombie, etc. — not to mention the adorable zombie flower girls and puppies. I took about 500 pictures, of which these ones are pretty much my favorites:

Seriously. Flower girl zombie. SO CUTE.

I have a problem. I love to cook, lots of food, and I haven’t got enough people to eat all the food I want to cook. I need more gastronomically-adventurous guinea pigs. And I like meeting new people.

July 11th, at one of Seattle’s parks (to be decided and announced), I’ll be serving a mid-afternoon picnic. With any luck the weather will hold.

I invite you: the first four Seattle-area replies I get. E-mail, Tweet me, comment, whatever. It’s okay if I’ve never met you before. It’s okay if I have. If you have specific food allergies or dietary restrictions, let me know. I’ll take into account all factors and construct some sort of menu that’ll fit your needs.

…who’s interested?

If you’re interested, but can’t make it, let me know — maybe I’ll do it again, and I’ll keep you in the loop. And please re-post or show this to friends you think would be up to it!

I’ve been wanting to go to Spur for awhile, and after eating there last night, I can safely say that it is so worth it. If you visit their blog, you’ll see all their notes about what they’re trying, awards they’re receiving — and their menu right now, because it changes monthly. (I guess that means I’ll have to go back in May.)

Their décor is a sort of industrialized cowboy look, and tucked as they are in a narrow front on Blanchard, they didn’t seem to be getting much traffic (though it was only a Tuesday night). The atmosphere was friendly, though, with lots of communal seating available, and the whole menu made up of shareable small plates. With the lunar, offbeat menu, the whole place has an experimental feel, but it’s obvious that the chefs know what they’re doing. A note at the bottom of the menu proclaimed that substitutions would absolutely not be offered; it seems that the chefs have decided exactly what they want to cook this month, and they’re not going to allow anything else.

A friend and I ordered a bunch of these small dishes, including the Sockeye Salmon Crostini (with mascarpone, capers, and pickled shallot), the Fried Potato Dumplings (with a Tasmanian peppercorn sauce, fondue, and chives), the Warm Spring Artichokes (with Fromage Blanc, sherry, and miners lettuce), and the Hamachi Crudo (with chiogga beet, champagne vinegar, and horseradish leaf). The Fried Potato Dumplings were very warm and welcoming, with a mild, creamy fondue, while the Warm Spring Artichokes made up a fresh, buttery salad. The Hamachi Crudo felt like a German take on sushi; the vinegar and beet were tangily delicious, but somewhat overwhelmed the fish itself. But the star of our evening was the Sockeye Salmon Crostini: the mascarpone had been made in-house, and it showed; it was silky smooth, and the smoked salmon it was paired with had a great taste that shone through without being overly salty, as smoked salmon so often is.

The cocktail menu was mostly devoid of standards, which I did find a little daunting — for some reason I seem to think that experimental cocktails are more likely to Go Wrong than are experimental foods. Still, I’m willing to give it a go, and next time I go back I think I’ll be trying out the “Lover’s Lock” — made from Aperol, grapefruit, and absinthe.

The whole experience felt more like the opening of an art show than a meal; the food was so unusual that it was not terribly conducive to conversation about something other than the food. It’s certainly not somewhere I’d like to go all the time, but as Seattle restaurants go, it was a bit further out on the edge than I’m used to, and therefore a lot of fun. Besides — I do like conversations about food.

Via Wessel and Liebermann (Seattle antiquarian and rare booksellers) comes the tale of how the CPSIA is resulting in a crackdown on old books. The long and short of the story is that because of the broadly sweeping (read: oceanic) terms of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the government is now authorized to force booksellers and libraries to dispose of books — some of which may have been on shelves for the last century or more — if they test positively for containing lead in their inks.

I understand that they’re trying to make the world safe from lead poisoning, but I think it’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These books represent not just literary development for our children; they represent centuries worth of work, of authors’ lives and dreams and hard work. And even if they didn’t, they’d still be works of art and part of our history. Are we really going to let the idea that ravenous, bibliophagic infants may have a small chance of ingesting a tiny amount of lead into their systems lead us to burn or otherwise destroy 200+ years of children’s literature? What about books that had small runs, books that were never reprinted?

It’s just ridiculous. I’m not even sure I support the act at all (it crack downs on independent artists and craftspeople as well, and has slammed Etsy down already with a wave of legal headache), but even if I could buy into the idea that we need to protect ourselves from all the wicked chemicals of the earth, it seems like vast overkill to have this enacted retroactively.

After all, how much damage have these books actually caused? Don’t you think we’d have heard about it if this were a major cause of lead poisoning? If any harm had come from them, wouldn’t they have been pulled from the shelves long ago?

It just all feels like some bizarre back-door entry to Farenheit 451…

All the snow that was pretty and white (albeit unnavigable) is turned to grey slush; you can’t walk on the top of it, you can only step through it to the disgusting, sandy cold puddle that apparently runs throughout the entire city beneath the slush.

I’m writing this on the bus, where I am making my way back to Bellevue. Maybe I’m getting sick, maybe it’s the dark weather or the cold or something else, but I’m crashing. Is this what people talk about when they say how the holidays make them sad, or stressed? I’ve always loved the holidays; my family gathers happily, and exchanges presents, and eats great food. We have a well-worn set of holiday traditions all our own, which usually involves talking late into the night, playing board games, watching a lot of tv, and, of course, the silliest and most organized of present-openings. And, of course, I get to spend whole days with the four most important people in my life. Two of them I haven’t seen for half a year, so this is indeed a special treat, and maybe that’s part of how I feel now, the sadness at knowing they’ll be gone in 24 hours, and who knows when I’ll see them next?

It’s all a sign of something good, though, I know; if I’m sad that they’re leaving then it’s only because I love them so much. Better that than the alternative, right?

Of course, we’re also creeping up on New Year’s, and this hasn’t necessarily been the best year for me. I remain stuck in a job which I hate more and more, which has no future for me careerwise; but the time when I started really looking for something new was roughly the same time that the economy came crashing down like a shellful of China in Southern California. Of course, it’s a good job in many ways — it pays adequately, has great benefits, a fair amount of security — but it’s also a waste of my time. I’m learning nothing anymore, and spend more time being told what *not* to do than actually doing anything.

I want a do-over.

Today:

Zombie movies: I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, which are basically the same movie in certain ways.
Dinner at Wasabi Bistro; tons of sashimi. I’m still stuffed. And I still don’t love scallops or sweet shrimp, but I did love the Yellowtail cut they had going on.
Watching “Heroes,” and then reading Hiro Nakamura’s blog on the Heroes Wiki. I heart the internets.

I slept too late today, and therefore am still wide awake at 3:30 AM. Clearly going to bed is not going to be necessary tonight, as I’d just have to awaken at 5 AM anyhow in order to catch my bus.

Yeah. Coffee tomorrow.

I gotta admit it, I miss the days before Facebook and Twitter, when blogs were the one-stop shop for both short, random updates and longer, educated rants…

Best places in Fremont? I’m going on a year of living here, so I’ve definitely found some awesome places. These include:

Fremont Vintage Mall. Quite a large antique place with an intriguing collection of furniture which occasionally includes bizarre things such as barber’s chairs, or bars on wheels…

Chiso Kappo Sushi. Chiso has the kind of traditional sushi that is my favorite — less cream cheese, less deep-frying it, more really fresh fish, and veggies, and unusual Japanese ingredients such as pickled plum, or reconstituted gourd. They keep on top of what fish is seasonally available and freshest, too, so be sure to take a gander at their specials, because you’ll probably find at least three things you’ve never heard of before.

Chillies Paste Thai. I probably have *ordered* from them more than I have actually *eaten* there — they have free delivery on orders over $15, and take orders until 10 PM. They have a solid Phad Thai, sweet and sours, and an AMAZING peanut sauce and veggies. Their Corn Cake appetizer seems like it could as easily have come from the Deep South as from Thailand… but that doesn’t make it any less tasty.

Geneve Cafe. Quite aside from their totally cute, art-deco-ish interior and how wonderfully quiet it is in the afternoons, they’ve also got some of the best espresso in the city (Italian style), and a pretty good selection of wine by the glass. Their sandwiches are priced like you bought them at a grocery store, but are about 10x as delicious…

The Buckaroo Tavern. What can I say? It’s a classic. The names carved on the tables, the saloon-style bathroom stalls… it’s so divey! But then, they have a great selection of some quality beers, including Old Rasputin on tap. Not to mention a neverending parade of bearded bikers, flanneled weirdos, and terribly amused indie kids.