The National Lentil Festival

Well, it's not the Gay Pride Parade, but the Lentil Fest of Pullman generates a good deal of buzz. And by buzz I mean there are signs up all over the place weeks, maybe months, in advance.

So of course we went to check it out on Friday. I was most excited to see the world's biggest bowl of lentil chili. That guy has to climb up a ladder just to stir it around! It would look a whole lot more quaint if they scooped the chili from the top instead of using a messy spout at the bottom, but the good news is I saw the chili tap AFTER I grabbed a free sample, so there's that.

 

Next we hit the food stand. It wasn't Smorgasburg and could have used a leeetle bit of creativity (A Coke truck??) but we had a nice pork sandwich from Spokane's Smokin' Romes BBQ. We sat and ate under a tent while we watched a little band play in the gazebo. Then when I saw a lady use the dirty picnic table as a changing table I decided it was on to our next stop: the 21+ beer tent.

 

 
We had a few brews from a handful of different breweries. We met a bunch of local people. One gave me a temporary lentil tattoo -- that is, a round lentil woman dressed in high heels and a bow. Someone else gave me a bag of dried lentils. I guess we missed the freebie tents, but new friends made up for it.

We skipped the parade the next day -- something new to look forward to next year, perhaps.

Food Depression and Food Redemption

"I'm trying to figure out what stage of grief you're at right now," he says to me.

We're at our first attempt at Saturday brunch: the Old European restaurant in Pullman, Washington, which is just as kitchy and carpet-y as it sounds. There are signs about Jesus on the walls. In front of us are wobbly eggs that still have the shape of the bowl it was cracked in when they placed it in the microwave. We'd ordered them poached. His breakfast sausage was cold, and came back two minutes later, plate hot from another go in the microwave, bite mark still intact. The syrup is watery and I'm juggling the pourer around, trying to figure out how something that's supposed to be thick and heavy is sloshing around like dish water.

What stage of grief am I in? Well, it's certainly not acceptance.

Back in Brooklyn, we went to brunch every Saturday we could. Usually Brooklyn Label or Egg or somewhere hipstery where we'd wait forever on the hot sidewalks and groan about hunger. But then we'd sit and get our food and coffee and the mood for the weekend would be set. We'd have huevos rancheros and eggs benedict or sausage gravy and challah french toast. Then we'd set off for a day of museums or parks or art openings or whatever our friends were up to that day. We did this for eight years straight, and we loved it. And now here we are in a college town where slobby people rave about a place that doesn't seem to have a stovetop.

Again, it set the tone for the day. But this time, it was a mopey tone. 

Luckily, we're learning the ways of finding our own cheer. And we're learning our best bet for joy is seven miles away in Moscow, Idaho.

First, some coffee by the pound at the Moscow Food Co-Op. It reminds me of the Garden that was at the end of our street in Brooklyn, the only place for organic food and acceptable coffee.

Then a stop at the Camas Prairie Winery, where we picked up a bottle of red, a bottle of white and a bottle of beer. A consolation prize for when dinner fails. Or, a celebration.

But these were old tricks. Now onto our first dinner spot in Moscow: Maialina.

I had hopes for this place the first time I heard about it. It reminded me of Maialino, one of my favorite spots for Italian food in the city. Now of course I wasn't expecting fresh suckling pig over handmade pasta here. I'm not gonna read THAT much into the name. I just wanted affirmation that I could find artisanal pizza that reminds me of home. Just pizza. That's it.

I'm so glad it delivered and exceeded expectations. I wasn't ready to down all three bottles in sorrow tonight.

We started with some perfectly cooked mussels with white wine, garlic and guanciale. Guanciale! Rejoice.

And the pizza was fantastic, too. Puffed up at the crust, with a thin interior topped with mozz, fennel sausage and chili oil. It was supposed to come with rapini, which is supposed to be broccoli raab, but got kale. Rob asked the waiter, "Is this kale?" Waiter says, "Yes, good taste!" Ok, well, we can't all be perfect. 

I'm feeling huge relief knowing that pizza as good as Fornino and maybe even as good as Robertas is only a short drive over the state line. As good as Motorino? I'm not that far into the denial stage yet. And hey, instead of waiting for the bus or subway to come and take us home, we get pretty views of the Palouse as we breeze on by in our car. We have wine tonight and fresh coffee for tomorrow. We're good to go.

Farmers Markets & Huckleberry Cobbler

It's funny when you move across country from a big city to a rural college town. You think every aspect of your life will be completely different. And it is. But life stays the same, too. The same values -- music, love, food -- follow you. Instead of wild concerts, its the familiar albums you play in the new car. We still have each other, but now there's a spastic hound dog to love, too. And instead of five courses at four-star restaurants, we're cooking. Pretty much every meal. 

In a way, this kind of rural accessibility is like living the Brooklyn dream. I don't need to plant gardens on my roof -- I have a garden in the yard! We have enough space in the kitchen to try pickling experiments on the weekends. And the farmer's market in Moscow Idaho brings us the best organic deals in town every Saturday.

Yeah okay, so I know in NYC we had the Union Square farmer's market and the food share at McCarrren Park. But it's a whole other plantation on this side of the country. It's impossible to find fresh fish, but you can buy some nice plants and flowers here. And you know what else they have out west? Huckleberries! That's right, it's not just a character in a classic novel anymore, kids.

I bought a pint and had no idea what to do with them. I did a reduction sauce on some pork chops and they were okay. But I wanted to bake something sweet. I wanted a cobbler. I've never made a cobbler before so I did what any 30 year old woman would do.

I texted my mom.

She came to the rescue with an old cobbler recipe that she said must have been printed before the second World War it was in such bad shape. It was in rumpled shape when Grandma followed the recipe even then.

Lucky for me, the Internet's a big place. I found it online. One problem though -- the cobbler was apple.

So I took out the apples and cinnamon, added some other berries to tone down the huckle, tossed in a bit of personal knowledge about maceration and ta-da! Huckleberry cobbler.

Huckleberry Cobbler

Ingredients:

1/2 pint of fresh huckleberries
1 pint of fresh blueberries
1 pint of fresh strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
dash of salt
juice from 1 lemon
1 Tbs. butter
1 cup flour
1 Tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbs. shortening
1/2 cup milk

• 
  
• Instructions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and chop strawberries and huckleberries to match the size of the blueberries. Add lemon juice, 3/4 cup sugar and a dash of salt and let sit until softened and juicy. Pour into a baking dish, dot with butter. Cover with foil; bake 15 min. Meanwhile, sift flour, 1 tsp. sugar, baking powder and 1/2 tsp. salt. Cut in shortening, then stir in milk. Drop by spoonfuls on hot berries. Bake uncovered 25-35 min. Serve hot, with plain vanilla ice cream.

Brews Across America

What's that you say? You enjoy beer? And you like to travel?? Well, friends, I have a nice list for you of all the great breweries we love from Brooklyn to Pullman (ahh! The title! She said it!). Here's my list, from east to west:

Brooklyn, NY - Six Point Brewery
Cleveland, OH - Great Lakes Brewing Company
Chicago, IL - Goose Island
Madison, WI - Ale Asylum
New Glarus, WI - New Glarus Brewing
Sioux Falls, SD - Monks House of Ale Repute (not a brewery, but they have a good selection, including this beer Ghostface Killah from Twisted Pine Brewing in Boulder CO that you should totally not drink ever unless you enjoy spicy painful heartburn, but otherwise they have good beers at Monks)
Jackson, WY - Snake River Brewery
Red Lodge, MT - Red Lodge Ales Brewing Company
Missoula, MT - Big Sky Brewery
Pullman, WA - Paradise Creek Brewery 

We realized that favorite brews happen to be a pretty local thing. Our Brooklyn friends are sad for us that there's no Six Point here. Our Pullman friends have no idea what Six Point even is. Maybe this post will widen the perspective of IPA and stout lovers across America. Maybe. Probably.

Forest Fires, Coeur d'Alene, and a New Home

Re-packing up the car became a familiar ritual after every stop. A ritual that I typically left to Rob. It was usually in a dirty parking garage or an ugly Motel 6 parking lot, but packing up after our stay at Buck's T-4 never looked so peaceful.

We took a nice countryside drive back to I-90. We hadn't been on the main drag since South Dakota!

But as soon as we got back onto it, we saw smoke in the distance. As we got closer we saw it was a pretty big forest fire. 

I guess forest fires in Montana aren't uncommon, but it was a pretty crazy sight to us. 

Anyway, they seemed like they had it under control, so onto Idaho!

Where ironically, we immediately saw this sign.

We spent the night camping at Coeur d'Alene, a mile or so away from this gorgeous lake. I can't wait to go back here for a legit day trip with beach time and swimming. John K, get ready! :)

The camp site was one of the weirder ones we've stopped at, and the personnel was a new level of slow. Let's just say I got some free firewood out of the deal and called it a win.

The next morning we were only an hour and a half away from home!

"Home" wasn't totally what we were expecting. With the hour-long landlady conference calls about maintenance and cleanliness and rules of the like we've never head of in Brooklyn, I guess we were expecting a little more.

But, we're making the most of it. 

We've grown a garden in that grassy area on the left. We made friends with the downstairs neighbors -- they're awesome. There's a brewery a half mile down the street. Every night or so we walk to a nice park up the hill and visit the llamas and sheep. And there's a big schoolyard next door where Caly loves to run around. She pumps with her head instead of her arms.

The transition has been a little rough at times, but I'd say overall, we're doing ok.

We also have a washer/dryer, so I have enough clean clothes that match now. Don't worry about me.

More on what we're doing, drinking and baking to come! And maybe even a new Martha Stewart style recipe or another crafty idea or two. Forced ruralism will do that do a Brooklyn gal. 

Log Cabin Lodging & Dining in Montana

Montana was actually one of my favorite spots on the trip. I know! Who would have thought that. But I liked the mountains, the road that followed alongside a river. It had a nice peaceful feeling to it. Not lonely and creepy like parts of Minnesota or South Dakota or Wyoming. I'm hoping we can do a long weekend here again. 

Our stop at Big Sky was kind of like the luxury portion of our trip. We stayed at a lodge called Buck's T4, which, after 2 weeks of Motel 6 and camping, seemed like the most luxurious place in the world. We took Caly for a nice hike at Porcupine Creek down the street, and since it was empty, we let her off leash. She had so much fun chasing little animals around, but we had more fun watching her. She'd run into the deep brush, emerge in the air front paws first, like a dolphin, and disappear back legs last. 

Then we came back to the lodge, dropped the pup in the room, and went to the outdoor hot tub. Oh man! We turned on those jetsprays and felt like brand new people. It was as though tiny dirty particles from camping back in Pennsylvania were finally coming loose. Back to the room to dry off, get dressed and go to dinner! Like people do.

The on-site restaurant was supposed to be pretty good, and while it was on the pricey side -- for anywhere, not just Montana -- I'd say it was pretty worth it. We started at the bar with some local beers. No Big Sky Brewing Co beers, which we see all the time over here in Washington. Just small local breweries. I had the Bent Nail IPA from Red Lodge. (Yeah, I'm linking to Beer Advocate, I'm turning into that person, I'm sorry).

Then Dinner! OMG dinner. Take a look at this portion of the menu and tell me you aren't drooling.

We started with this sampler of house cured duck bacon, cherry chutney, Wagyu pastrami, huckleberry grain mustard and a trout cheesecake that was surprisingly delicious. We used up all the sourdough piling this stuff up. 

Rob got the duck 3 ways, where the duck bacon made another appearance, along with duck breast and confit. These "gingered baby carrots" were the most memorable for me. I don't know what they did to them to make them so carrot-y. and also, aren't they huge for baby carrots?

This red deer with truffled risotto was one of the best things I've eaten all year. And that's saying a lot! I asked for the deer cooked however the chef recommended, and it was so rare on the inside it was like really good sashimi. I haven't had meat that rare in a long time, and when its safe, its my favorite. It was so super tender and flavorful I feel like I can't even talk about it anymore because the craving will be too much.

Dessert was locally made mint fudge ice cream.  

The meal was so heavy that when we got back to the room, I turned around to say something to Rob and he was already passed out.

Buck's T-4, easily the best lodging of our trip!

A Drive Through Yellowstone

Man, we thought we'd seen some good wildlife on the trip thus far between deer and coyote, but in Yellowstone we got to see some real wild animals. Like bison and elk. Lots of 'em!

After we left Jackson we had to pay admission both to Teton and to Yellowstone. It wasn't much -- maybe $10 at each? -- but it gets you a week at both places. I guess we should have planned it out better, but when we checked from Jackson the night before, all the campgrounds were full. So we just made it a leisurely drive up through Wyoming and into Montana, where we spent the night. 

There were lots of spots to stop along the way. Most were just roadside pullovers where you could step off the beaten path a few steps to get a nice view of land or water.

It's funny, I dontt think we would have made this stop at Old Faithful, but we hurried on our way over there because Rob had to go to the bathroom. And we just barely made it on time! For the geyser, that is.

It seems like its always smoking, and then once every hour and a half or something, the mist gets higher, a trickle of water comes, and then its a full explosion into the air.

The pictures always make it seem like you're the only one there, but believe me, you're not.

 

Caly barked at the kids here, so we waited for the crowd to file away to take this picture with her. Note that the geyser always has a little somethin' smoky goin' on.

 

Anyway, our first animal stop was for this buffalo. I think he was getting tired of the people getting out of their cars to look at him because he started rocking back and forth to get up. It took a good five minutes for this poor heavy guy!

Obviously, we had to stop to have a pic-a-nic at Jellystone park. The dog tried to hunt a crow the entire time. 

Each picnic table has this warning hammered into it. Imagine getting a bear citation for leaving out a bucket.

Anyway, I felt like we had to get a few pics with the animals so it doesn't look like we're just snapping buffalo pics in a zoo.

What a glorious place.