Sylvia's Scenario

Tonight I made some homemade spaghetti sauce that turned out great!  I usually make spaghetti sauce this time of year with all our tomatoes and now I'm starting to wonder if different varieties of tomatoes make for more sweet sauce and less acidic sauce because this year my sauce was super sweet! Sometimes I make homemade sauce and I have to add sugar to tame the acid from the tomatoes but this time not at all and the sauce was so sweet.  We gobbled it down!  We used Big Beef tomatoes and Early Girl which are two common varieties. Then I wondered if simmering the sauce all day will turn out more sweet sauce because that's what I did.  It started getting a little too thick so I added 8 ounces of chicken broth to thin out the sauce.  I'm not sure what the trick was this year but this was the best spaghetti sauce I've made so I'm keeping this recipe.  Serves 4 3-4 pounds of Big Beef and Early Girl tomatoes picked right off the vine 2 Tbsp. olive oil 8...

Broadway - Seattle, not New York, that is… This is Lauren's neighborhood so when we come to Seattle to visit - like we are now - we spend a lot of time on Broadway, a main north/south arterial on First Hill and Capitol Hill. Broadway is only one street but it's more like a district of a six block shopping strip with trendy boutiques and restaurants. Our favorite breakfast cafe is located here called Julia's where we ate today. We've been eating breakfast here for at least 25 years, usually at the Wallingford location, but now that Lauren lives on Capitol Hill we often stop in at Julia's on Broadway. Julia's offers the ultimate comfort food for breakfast, we love everything on the menu.  My favorite is the green chili and pepper jack cheese scramble. Bruce likes the Eggs Benedict. Inside is always a cozy atmosphere and always inviting. Julia's on Broadway comes alive at night, however....

It's that time of year again where blackberries are everywhere so time to indulge. We had blackberries on our waffles at Nick's house where we are staying during a visit to Seattle this weekend.  I forget about blackberries until we come back to visit and see how abundant they are here.  They grow wild in all of the 400 parks in Seattle so how can you not be tempted to pick them!  And they show up everywhere to remind you it's the season again for blackberries…  like at bakeries and restaurants and the  market where I had to go yesterday to check out the scene The market is overflowing this time of year with everyone's delicious harvest. They even had tents overflowing into the streets to accommodate the abundance. But where ever you look, you will always see more and more beautiful blackberries. Our favorite picking spot was Magneson Park and my favorite thing to make wa...