Capitol Hill is a Seattle neighborhood near my workplace. I taught for a quarter at Seattle Central College, in the heart of the neighborhood. Capitol Hill has become highly gentrified in the 15 years we’ve been here. It’s also the traditional LGBT neighborhood in Seattle, with many businesses catering to this demographic. We hadn’t been up there together for a while, so that was our Saturday adventure this weekend.
First challenge: Parking. We wound up on 12th Avenue near Seattle University. Second challenge: Lunch. We settled on sandwiches at a French bakery/café called Sémillon. Both of us brought half of our sandwiches home. We also purchased two macarons for after-dinner eating. Julian said his passionfruit macaron was the best he’d ever had. My mint chocolate one was close to the best I’d ever had. The mint cookies had a layer of chocolate buttercream in the middle rather than a thin glaze of jam.
Following lunch, we went to Eltana Bagels to pick up provisions. Eltana makes Montreal-style bagels, which are thinner and chewier than your standard poofy bakery bagels. We also got some za’atar and scallion cream cheese to schmear on the bagels.
The next stop on our stroll was The Elliott Bay Book Company. This bookstore moved from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill in 2010. It’s the only full-line bookstore on Capitol Hill since Bailey-Coy Books on Broadway closed. Naturally, I went straight to the cookbook section. I was disappointed at the large amount of shelf space devoted to Paleo and ketogenic diet books. Three years ago I blogged on the diets that made the most sense and had scientific evidence to back up the claims. I restrained myself and bought three foodie lit books, suitable for bus commutes.
I’ve been waiting to get this book since before we went to Paris last year.
It’s unusual to have a chef go after pseudoscience, which is why I bought the one on the left. History has always been an interest of mine. Culinary history even more so.
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