Much of Seattle is in mourning over the closure of Paseo, a very popular Cuban/Caribbean sandwich joint. Paseo had a couple of locations, one in Fremont, and one in Shilshole(Ballard). Nobody's quite sure why they closed, but a lawsuit is ongoing filed by employees who said they weren't paid,weren't allowed breaks, and were discriminated against because they were Hispanic. The owner was Cuban, a guy with the best name ever of Lorenzo Lorenzo, and the employees were Mexican. Both locations had lines out the door, so I don't think it was a case of the old Yogi Berra line " Nobody goes there anymore, it's too popular." In Renton, many are mourning the closure of A Terrible Beauty , the Irish pub on S 2nd ST in downtown Renton. It too was very successful, often crowded( in a large space, even), had a great selection of beer, and very possibly the best Reuben sandwich in the Seattle area. Really out of this world, maybe the best Reuben on the planet. After op

I'd been meaning to post something about Seattle's Hitchcock Deli since I tasted their pastrami a few weeks ago. While I mostly avoid meat for health and ethical reasons, if a place is supposed to have good pastrami, I'll give it a try. And being originally from the east coast, I grew up eating pastrami and know it well. I've eaten Katz's from the lower east side in New York City, and Langer's in Los Angeles( which is really insanely good). But you know what? The pastrami at Hitchcock Deli might be the best I've ever tasted. It's not lean, as good pastrami should not be lean. They cure and smoke their own meats at the Hitchcock Deli, and they know what they're doing. But then, a few days ago, I read that Hitchcock Deli now had a 3-7 PM daily Happy Hour( Monday-Friday), which features discounted beer and wine, fresh mussels, fresh oysters, as well as their home cured meats. So resistance is futile, and I could not resist writing about them any longer.

If you enjoy drinking beer as I do, it's a real blessing to live in the Pacific Northwest, which has many hundreds of small breweries. Washington State also has the second largest number of wineries in the country, and probably ranks in the top two or three in total number of marijuana dispensaries. You want intoxicants? You've come to the right state. Washington is also the largest producer of hops in the country by far. Washington's hops get dried or pelletized and shipped to breweries all over the world. But not all of them. Some of them are used fresh to make fresh hops beers, something that can only be had for a short period of time. Like right now. Over a hundred years ago, the Seattle area grew most of the country's hops, in places like Kent and Puyallup, just southeast of the city. In the early 1880's, hops blight destroyed most of the European hops crop, and Western Washington became one of the world's major hop growing areas. But ten years later, aphid

About five days ago, I read on Smoking Monkey Pizza's Facebook page that they were issuing a challenge. Eat an entire fourteen inch "Scorpion Ghost" pizza within 25 minutes, you'll get the pizza free, and they'll throw in some gelato as the prize. The Scorpion Ghost pizza is topped with Trinidad Scorpion peppers, ghost peppers, habanero peppers, and the marinara sauce is infused with cayenne, hot pepper flakes, and Tabasco. I'm a pretty good real estate agent. But I'm a great pizza eater. About 33 years ago, The Broadway Merchants association on Seattle's Capitol Hill sponsored a bunch of eating contests as part of their street festival. I ate an entire sixteen inch pizza then in four minutes and thirty seconds, so it seemed to me that even if I've slowed down with age, twenty five minutes seemed generous. What I didn't account for was how quite hot it was. Dang! But I did it, yesterday. Ate the whole thing in fourteen minutes. It was painful,

Thirty five years ago, I brewed several batches of beer, with mixed results. I recall sleeping upstairs, being awakened to exploding bottles downstairs after one of these batches was made. Fast forward thirty five years, and I'm back in touch with my inner bootlegger. When we harvested thornless blackberries a couple of months ago, I put three cups of them in a quart size Mason jar, and added sugar and vodka. I shook the jar daily. Today the berries got strained out, and strained again a couple of times more, and it was time to sample: I'm very pleased. Very nice blackberry flavor, but also very potently alcoholic, without it being intensely sweet. We may have the technology to all kinds of things, but berries ripen at a certain time.They ripen when they're ready. Last night Diane and I stopped in at the Lowercase Brewery in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, a fabulous neighborhood community gathering spot. They don't have a kitchen so there are only a few foods

Recently, livability.com came up with their hundred top small to midsize cities in the US, and six of those cities are in the Seattle area. This list is different than a lot of these kinds of lists because it includes things like housing affordability. Most of the "best" lists are looking primarily at test scores in the schools, education level of the population,median household income, etc., but not some things that just make a place interesting. http://livability.com/best-places/top-100/2015 Renton, Washington is on the list, to just about everybody's surprise. I live there. I was surprised,too, even though I like living here a lot. I'm a native of New Jersey. New Yorkers regard New Jersey as Seattle regards Renton. Uncultured. Working class. But like New Jersey( which had zero cities on this best list, and that's a shame because NJ has some wonderful places), Renton is vastly underappreciated, and a way nicer place than it's slowly changing image. Anyway,

Most people would say that trying to grow melons in Seattle is an act of futility. To grow melons successfully, the soil must be warm, and there needs to be a lot of hot, sunny days. Seattle is more known for cool, cloudy days. Still, I make the attempt every year, and not just stick the plants in the ground. I start them from seed in the City of Renton's public greenhouse, which is a commercial greenhouse with heat and ventilation. Then, when I put them in the ground, it's in plastic covered soil with drip irrigation, lots of compost, organic fertilizer, water, and energy devoted to their success. Still, it's Seattle. And even though the backyard gets all kinds of southern and western exposure, my batting average isn't that high. Last year was phenomenal. 17 melons. This year, it looks more like 4. Many years, I get nothing, or melons the size of marbles. Every year we get a bumper crop of tomatoes, Diane's making salsa, I made pizza sauce, we've given a bunc

You've seen aronia berries but haven't given them any thought, right? They grow on big bushes,often wild, and they're very tart if you eat them right off the bush. But if you cook them? And add sugar? Yum. We planted a couple of small aronia bushes a few years ago, mostly for their decorative and screening value. Didn't really think about eating them, especially after tasting one off the vine. But this year? They're so prolific. The branches are just teeming with these berries that look something like a purplish blueberry. I looked up recipes. We made aronia berry pie. We made cookies: I will shortly be making some aronia berry liqueur. They are also the highest source of antioxidants of any berry, even significantly higher than the superfood blueberry. That aronia liqueur I'll be drinking? It's for my health. I've read that they were a part of the regular diet of Native Americans hundreds of years ago, and that they grow prolifically in Wale

Of all the people I know, I am clearly the most pizza obsessed. The obsession started young, from the time I first tasted pizza at age five from the now long defunct pizzeria Luigi's in Hightstown, New Jersey. If my wallet and arteries allowed it, I'd be eating pizza daily. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be pizza, no question. Unfortunately, however, there's a lot of bad pizza out there. I'm in the Seattle area, where there is good pizza, and I enjoy going out for good pizza. Most recently I frequent the close to home and very good Smoking Monkey Pizza in downtown Renton. Their Bolognese pizza , made with sausage, sun dried tomatoes, and roasted peppers, is a favorite. But I also make pizza at home. It's cheaper, and it's fun to make. And if you're in a place without good pizza, that is your only option. But how? First, get a pizza stone, or unglazed tiles, or a cast iron pan. Those things help the texture and crispness

There aren't very many restaurants I go to where I feel like screaming "OMIGODTHAT'SGOOD!" I go to a lot of restaurants that are pretty good. And pretty good is good enough most of the time. But when you taste that once in a while food that's just so exquisite, you have to tell people. I've eaten food that good recently. The place is Shuga Jazz Bistro, 317 Main Ave S, Renton 425-274-3074, www.shugajazzbistro.com. There's live jazz there five nights a week, and the place is very pleasant place to hang out in. The missus and I have been there twice, both times for Happy Hour, which runs 4-6( weekdays only?). The chef and partner is Wayne Johnson, who most recently was the executive chef at Ray's Boathouse in Seattle. Before that, he was the main man at Andaluca in downtown Seattle. He was a contestant on Iron Chef three years ago. He knows what he's doing. He's one of Seattle's hot shot chefs,and now he's in Renton. And in Renton he'

Flour, Sugar, and More From 2006 to about 2011/2012 I used to write about food fairly regularly on a blog called " A Displaced Hipster's Guide to Renton". It wasn't my blog. I sort of inherited it from my neighbor. The subheading was something like " My wife and I moved from Seattle to this noncultured backwater about twelve miles southeast called Renton, and this is how we survive." That was never the way I felt. We were coming down to Renton to eat at Gene's Ristorante years before we moved there, and I've always liked Renton. It never felt like a noncultured backwater to me, but maybe that has more to do with my being a noncultured slob myself. In any event, I reviewed a lot of Renton restaurants. And I still want to do that, but I want to do more. I also like to cook. I like to garden, and grow things to eat. And I don't limit every meal I eat to Renton. Food tastes good in other places too. Food obsessed. Moi? I'll get on to cooking an