Immersed in the World
We are thrilled to announce The Innkeeper is now open!
I think this quote from Don Quixote sums up perfectly what The Innkeeper is: a cozy local place to relax and find respite.
The menu was designed to offer comfort. Some items are modeled after our time in the Caribbean, like spicy goat [...]
It’s early Saturday morning, the kids are asleep, and I’m typing away at the table.
I’m writing a scene in my memoir where Brian and I return by boat to our off-the-grid resort after two open water dives that’ll go toward our diver certification and we find the private bay full of yachts and the beach swarming with people. We had given all of our staff, [...]
Today is a big day in my family’s life. Black Bottle Postern opens its doors to the public for the first time today. My husband, Brian, is the chef, and he and I are partners in the venture.
We moved to Seattle six years ago to open the first Black Bottle. It was a pretty sweet [...]
The prep work and the dashi were finished so the chef instructor at the cooking school in Tokyo moved on to the main courses.
First up was Braised Meat and Vegetables, Japan’s take on beef stew, which used dashi for the broth.
We moved into the kitchen to start the teriyaki chicken stuffed with asparagus, which reminded me not to complain about the [...]
Besides eating our way through Japan, Brian thought it would be cool to cook alongside a Japanese chef to learn some local techniques. Bill, our restaurant partner in Tokyo, found this sweet cooking school, and he came along to translate. I got to come along to admire the handiwork (another bonus of having a chef for a husband!).
They started out [...]
Being a chef entails hovering over burners when the summertime kitchen temp is 120 degrees, working when your friends are out socializing, and being expected to gracefully receive criticism of your work from the public.
But once in a while, being a chef has its rewards. Those rewards are even greater if you’re married to the chef.
We’re co-owners Black Bottle, a gastro [...]
At 8:30, my girlfriends and I are finished with our telemarketing shift at Olan Mills Portrait Studio. We jump into a car and head to 7-11 to find out what’s happening tonight. We park in the lot and soon two cars pull in, one of them a chocolate brown BMW 320i, both full of testosterone-fueled guys. Two of them saunter into 7-11 and exit with a [...]
Brian has pined for guavas since we left St. Vincent. The only place we’ve found them in Seattle is Uwajimaya, a fantastic Asian grocery store, but they’re never ripe and they’re always expensive. Once we landed on Kauai, the hunt began.
We had high hopes for the Hanalei farmers market. We saw no guavas, we [...]
After seeing my last post, Brian said matter-of-factly, ”That’s not a great picture of you. You look kind of weird.” I took a second look and, yeah, I think I need to say something about it.
That picture shows what happens when you go from living in a house in the city, your main job being taking care of kids [...]
Summer 1992, Lopez Island, Washington
During a week long family reunion spent kayaking, playing volleyball, hiking and hanging out around the bonfire, Brian and I decided, with flight vouchers in hand, “Let’s get married!”
We also decided that if, for some reason, things didn’t work out for us in the Caribbean, [...]
