Foraging For Good Food In The Pacific Northwest

Not too much is going on here. Yeah, I know; every time I say that, Mrs. Lion gets out the spanking bench and paddles my bottom. I suppose I’m due. I keep forgetting to get my pill packs after my shower. It is a rule that I get them each night. I don’t know why she isn’t enforcing that rule. We’re going on a doughnut run on Saturday. Voodoo Doughnuts is a small chain of amazing doughnut stores. We placed a huge online order for about eight dozen assorted doughnuts. We probably won’t eat them all on the way home (about a two-hour drive). The leftovers will be frozen.

We did a little research and learned that almost all sorts of doughnuts can be successfully frozen for a long time. VooDoo makes wonderful and sometimes unusual doughnuts. They are so good that there is usually a long line out the door waiting to get treats. By preordering online we can just pick up our treasure without waiting. If all of this sounds weird, it isn’t that we are crazy doughnut fans. We like them, and good doughnuts, like good pizza and good bagels, are nearly impossible to find in the Pacific Northwest.

While I’m on a food rant, I have to mention delis too. Believe it or not, there was only one “real” New York-style deli in the entire Seattle metro area. It closed a couple of years ago. It’s hard to believe that the biggest city north of Los Angeles has no real delicatessens. None. Nada. Holy crap! You can’t get a good corned beef on rye or other deli delights. Mrs. Lion and I have to import them from Katz’s Delicatessen in New York City. Shipping is free on orders over $100; not an insurmountable amount for us once or twice a year. Their corned beef and matzoh ball soup are to die for.

Pizza is a staple food in New York. That’s where I come from; well, I mean New York City. Mrs. Lion is from upstate New York. Anyway. in my New York, it is nearly impossible to get a bad slice of pizza. In Seattle and its surrounding area,  it’s impossible to get a good one. What the hell! Pizza isn’t that hard to make. Seattle pizza is overdone to the point that the tomato sauce is turned into a solid. The crust is too thick and flavorless. There is one small chain of pizza restaurants that serves true Neopolitan pizza. It’s very good and expensive. It isn’t the same as New York pizza, but is the same as the delicious original I ate in Naples.

Bagels and Kaiser rolls are basic breads in New York. There is only one bagel bakery in the Pacific Northwest that bakes true New York-style bagels. It’s Blazing Bagels. Unfortunately, like Voodoo Doughnuts, they don’t ship. Their product isn’t very popular up here. The locals prefer soft, bread-like bagels in weird flavors that range from blueberry to chocolate. Yuck! Blazing Bagels makes the traditional favorites. I love onion bagels, and Mrs. Lion is fond of “everything” bagels. We can get Philadelphia cream cheese here, and if we search, we can get good smoked salmon–that’s what they call lox up here.

Usually, different areas of the country have specialty foods that the natives love, and us foreigners learn to enjoy. San Francisco has abalone and sourdough bread. I love both. The Pacific Northwest has several species of salmon that are more difficult to find in the East. Other than that, I haven’t found anything special. There’s on “treat” that is the absolute hit of the Washington State Fair. Are you ready for this? Scones! Holy shit, scones! I’ve been eating them for breakfast forever. Folks, scones are not exotic. That doesn’t matter. The locals line up for freshly baked scones at the fair.

There is a good reason we live here: the climate. Western Washington has its own special climate. It’s very much like the climate in Italy. We have mild winters. The average temperature from fall through spring is between 40 and 50 degrees F. Our summers have warm (85 degrees F) days and cool (50-60) nights. It’s the best summer climate in the world. Due to our unique location, we have clouds for nine months of the year. Total rainfall is about the same as New York City. According to climate scientists, we will be relatively unaffected by climate change for the next hundred years. If we could just get a decent bakery, pizza joint, and deli, it would be perfect!

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