Sylvia's Scenario

 I noticed recently that our neighborhood grocery store, Metropolitan Market, had Seville oranges.  When we visited Nick in Spain, there were orange trees everywhere and the city of Seville was known especially for their orange trees.  Nick lived one hour south of Seville so we were very familiar with the oranges.  I couldn't believe it when I saw them in the grocery store here.  The thing about Seville oranges is that they are really sour and if you want to eat them, you must make orange marmalade so that's what I did.  I remember when we picked one off the tree in Seville to eat, we had to immediately spit it out because it was so sour!  That was hard because the trees are EVERYWHERE in Seville and they looked so inviting.  I thought we just got an orange that wasn't ripe because the trees near Nick's house had super sweet oranges. He had a park behind his house and we would pick the oranges and throw them over the fence into his pool. The kid...

This is a French recipe that I got from the Seattle Times developed by Chef Jim Drohman who worked at Cafe Presse, a very popular Seattle French restaurant.  Cafe Presse was one of Lauren's favorite neighborhood spots and one that we would all go to frequently.  So, needless to say everyone was devastated when it closed (after the pandemic).  Seattle has lots of French restaurants but Cafe Presse was the darling of them all.  Last year, the memory of Cafe Presse came up when Bruce and I went to the Bite of Seattle.   One of our favorite dishes was at a Spanish booth called Maripili where they were making paella to sample.  We had just returned from visiting Spain and we were still into all things Spanish so this turned out to be our favorite of the Bite.   We told them we loved their paella and wanted to come to their restaurant but guess where they were?  In the same spot where Cafe Presse was!  When the cook told me that, I didn't say a wor...

I'm still enjoying the berries that are in season, especially the raspberries.  They are super big and plump right now and we're buying two containers every time we go the grocery store.  I came across this recipe by Driscoll's Berries, the same company as the berries we buy.  This recipe reminded me of strawberry shortcake except the berries are mixed into the cake and meringue is used instead of whipping cream.   I was going to substitute whipping cream but I'm glad I didn't because the meringue was even better!  I should have whipped my meringue more so it's a little flat but it didn't effect the taste at all.  I just didn't have the glorious peaks that meringue is known for.  Here is what the cake looked like from the recipe photo:  I also used all the raspberry syrup that the recipe instructs you to make but in the photo, I think they must have just used a dab of it since most the meringue is white and not red like mine. ...

We're already having a heat wave and it's only April!  The temperature reached 89 degrees at the airport today and it was pretty close to that at our house, too. That broke an all time record around here and we're expecting another one tomorrow.  Yesterday, it was also in the 80's so we went down to Alki Beach to enjoy it all.  We weren't the only ones, as you can see... But it's always fun going down there, especially when we stop into our favorite  Cactus  for a little refreshment.  That really hit the spot on a hot day.  So, today we barbecued chicken in the backyard and I made this lovely Spring salad that was perfect for a hot day. The quinoa made it very light and fluffy and high protein, too. (1 cup of cooked quinoa provides 8 grams of protein). I got this recipe off another blog Two Peas and Their Pod and loved the aparagus and avocado in it. I also loved the basil in it because we just planted our basil in the ba...