Burgers

A few weeks ago, I commented that Buckley's and Palace Kitchen were on my short list of venues that can properly cook burgers to temperature.

My husband and I used to go out for burger night once a month. We stopped doing that a while ago. But in our adventures, we both were disappointed in many our informal "taste tests". One joint (which actually thinks they are an upscale restaurant) wouldn't even cook their burgers less than medium well, even though doing so is not in violation of the Washington State health code assuming fair warning is duly noted. Perhaps we shouldn't have started with the Palace, which I think of as my burger mecca. Anyone around this neck of the woods knows that Tom, ET, Sean and staff create more than just burgers at Palace, but boy do their burgers rock.

Since my Buckley's post, we've found one more. The Pig and Whistle's burgers over in Greenwood sure stood out. It was just what we needed on a Friday night after a busy work week and and had some downtime from the holiday madness. Not only were the burgers grilled to medium rare, they were damn tasty too.

So, I've started a new feature to make up for my dissing. If we taste a burger that is not only tasty, but also properly cooked, the restaurant name is added to my burger list over on the right. See for yourself. Oh and even though the focus on the list is primarily Seattle, I do reserve the right to add burgers from my hometown and other favorite haunts across the country.

Don't be shy, let us know who you think serves great burgers.

My Christmas List for the Foodies in Your Life

A week ago Nancy inspired me. I thought I wouldn't have time in the midst of all my planning and holiday baking. It was easy though in the end to come up with a list of gift ideas for our foodies.... here they are:

• Macrina's panettone. It's listed under Holiday Breads...actually any of these are sure to tickle the fancy of your friends. Would make great hostess gifts. Just be sure they like/can tolerate a little gluten in their lives.
• Rivera pears from Harry & David. My mom sends these out to me when I don't travel back to the hometown for the holidays. This fruit is melt-in-your-mouth good.
• How about a gift box from bumble B design? A thoughtful co-worker turned me on to them. Finding one of these boxes on your door stop is a lovely thing...I promise.
• King Leo Peppermint sticks.... Besides you need them to make your own peppermint ice cream cake if you're anything like my mother. And they come in festive tins. I've found these before at Marshall's and Restoration Hardware.
• Market Spice Tea. A perennial favorite in the Northwest.
• The ultimate: Fran's Grey Salt Caramels. Oh my! If you're as lucky I am, your local grocery story carries them conveniently located by checkout aisles. And she's joined the wired and put up a shopping cart on her site. Lucky you!
• The Seattle Chinook Book. Environmental deals at a steal (price wise that is).
• Feeling charitable? Make a donation to FareStart. It's one of my favorite local charities; what better way to honor your favorite Seattle foodie. While you're at it, make a reservation for an upcoming Guest Chef Night.
• The Chef'n Pepperball. I have the Dual Grinder in stainless and I love it. But the magnetic mini-balls would make a perfect stocking stuffer or hostess gift. Besides, we Seattle-ites must stand by our local inventor.
• Seattle Time's cookie recipes. Order several copies to share with friends. Better yet, make a batch of one of these and give the recipe(s) along with your cookies.
• Homemade: anything coming from you will be made with love. It's time to make and share your mustard, pickles, cookies, spiced nuts, or family eggnog recipe (yep, we got one of 'em…stay tuned).

What about you? What are your foodie gift recomendations? Giving is the fun part, after all.

Sorbet For Dinner

One of the great things of all time is eating what you want for dinner. Yep, in my 40s and still reminding myself that's okay. I had a late lunch of some homemade split pea soup (the perfect thing to make with a left over ham bone) and wasn't too hungry when dinner time rolled around.
Seeing as the husband was on the air working for the evening, it was a great opportunity to cozy up to the Christmas tree lights in my PJs, plop in my Netflix oldie "Mildred Peirce," scoop up some pomegranate-lime sorbet and a couple of cookies and enjoy.

In one of many diversions from my cookbook project, I made this tasty sorbet last week. My pomegranate centerpieces from Thanksgiving needed some attention. I ate the seeds out of one fresh. And I just don't enjoy pomegranate seeds that way. I suppose they are okay in a salad or other side dish, but the mini-pit of each small seed is too bothersome. They scratch my tongue, they taste funny.....I try about once a year and it's time to give up. So I opened up 5 ginormous pomegranates, popped out their seeds and used a large pestle to push the juice through a sieve. It was fun in a get your aggression out kind of way.

I threw in left over fresh gimlet ingredients (minus the gin/vodka of course). Well because those gimlets were just so good I could have drank my way into a frenzy over the next several weeks. I took the left over lime and simple syrup and threw it in with the pomegranate juice after I'd cooked it down a bit with some sugar.

It may have been a cookbook diversion, but using up left over ingredients to make something new is definitely something I learned from my mother. Can't let anything go to waste after all...

Pomegranate-Lime Sorbet
makes a quart

• 3 or 4 cups unsweetened pomegranate juice (fresh is always best so if you have time press the seeds from the fruit).
• 1 cup sugar (some sorbet recipes have a 1:1 ratio of juice to sugar; I don't like mine too sweet, but if you do, you can add more sugar here).
• lime juice
• simple syrup
• 1 egg white

1. Dissolve the sugar in pomegranate juice in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Let cook for a while. You could use a candy thermometer to ensure the liquid heats to 225 degrees.
3. Take off heat and add a mixture of lime juice and simple syrup (equal parts of each). I honestly just did this to taste with my left over gimlet mixture.
4. Leave in refrigerator overnight.
5. The next day add to ice cream machine and let it mix for about 20 minutes. Or follow manufacturer's directions.
6. Pour in a container and set back in to the freezer.

Got to mention the cookies. They taste great, but they didn't really bake well; I messed up the part where you roll them in sugar after they bake. Either I baked them too long or this part of the recipe needs to be re-examined. It could very well be me; I did throw them together in a hurry, so I rushed things quite a bit.

You can hardly blame me, it was a Saturday in December. I was busy getting through my to-do list, which has been laden with holiday musts, and we were dashing out to meet a friend to enjoy the luminarias around Greenlake. The cookies were the Citrus Snowballs from the Seattle Times cookie recipes I ordered last year. It's still not to late for you to order this years and an arsenal of the recipes from the past. They arrive nice and tidy and already three-hole punched for binders.