I remember as a kid looking outside during the winter and hoping it would snow. I made the mistake of bringing that up to my grandpa however, as he looked me in the eye and scolded me, saying that I should think of all the homeless people that are going to freeze.

As you can probably tell, my grandpa was a nice guy at heart, but had a certain way about conveying the message. But, to his credit, I never forgot that lesson about snow or thinking about those less fortunate.

If you’re doing well and getting by, consider those less fortunate, especially in these rough times. Children and families are a large part of the homeless population, while medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy, so the true face of hunger isn’t exactly that stereotype of the old grouchy guy with the bottle of 40.

Here’s a list of food drive locations around Seattle:

University Food Bank
December 12th to 24th, food barrel locations all around the University of Washington.

Northwest Harvest
8th Annual Hometeam Harvest event this Sat, December 6th, from 7am to 3pm. Locations are:

ALL US Bank locations
Everett Mall
Northgate Mall
Redmond Town Center
Tacoma Mall

West Seattle Food Bank

Asking for holiday foods that include:
* Frozen turkeys
* Hams
* Stuffing mix
* Mixed salad greens
* Canned cranberries (whole or sauce)
* Canned gravy
* Yams or sweet potatoes (fresh or canned)
* White potatoes
* Pumpkin or apple pies
* Dinner rolls (frozen or packaged)

Metropolitan Market
2320 42nd Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98116

West Seattle Thriftway
4201 SW Morgan St
Seattle, WA 98136

PCC
2749 California Ave SW
Seattle, Wash. 98116

Don Jones Foundation
Toy and coat drive to sponsor families of the Ballard Food Bank. Event is on December 7th and at the Ballard Brothers Seafood and Burgers:

5305 15th Ave. NW (South of 15th and Market)
Seattle WA

Seattle Human Society - Pet Food Drive

Don’t forget pets! The Seattle Human Society is taking pet food donations at just about every Safeway grocery store in the area. You can also drop off dry or canned food at their offices in Bellevue:

13212 SE Eastgate Way
Bellevue, WA 98005

Seattle Food Banks

White Center Food Bank
10829 8th Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98146

Rainer Valley Food Bank
4205 Rainier Ave S
Seattle, Wa 98118
(Donation times: Wednesdays and Saturdays 8am-2pm, Fridays 8am-11am)

Food Lineline
Needs volunteers for food packing
1702 NE 150th Street
Shoreline, WA 98155-7226

North Helpline and Lake City Foodbank
Need volunteers Friday afternoons from 1:30 - 3:30pm for unloading food trucks
12707 30th Avenue NE
Seattle, WA 98165

If we missed any, please let us know. Thanks.

• Andaluca (Downtown, NW/Mediterranean)
• Barking Frog (Woodinville next to The Herb Farm, Northwest)
• Barolo (Downtown, Italian)
• Bin Vivant (Kirkland, American/Wines)
• Boka (Downtown, American)
• Brasa (Belltown, Spanish/American)
• Cafe Campagne (Pike’s Place, French) Not to be confused with Campagne Restaurant
• Crush
• Dahlia Lounge (Downtown, Northwest)
• Earth and Ocean (Downtown, Northwest)
• Etta’s (Pike’s Place, Seafood)
• Eva Restaurant (Green Lake, American)
• Fish Club (Downtown, Seafood)
• Hunt Club (Capitol Hill, American)
• Lola (Downtown, Greek)
• Nell’s (Greenlake, Northwest)
• Nishino (Madison, Japanese)
• Ponti Seafood Grill (Queen Anne, Seafood)
• Portage (Queen Anne, French/Northwest)
• Ray’s Boathouse (Ballard, Seafood)
• Restaurant Zoe (Belltown, Northwest/American)
• Serafina (Eastlake, Italian)
• Shuckers (Downtown, Seafood)
• 6/7 Restaurant (Downtown, American)
• Steelhead Diner (Pike’s Place, Northwest)
• Szmania’s (Magnolia, NW/German)
• The Georgian (Downtown, Northwest)
• Third Floor Fish Cafe (Kirkland, Seafood)
• 35th Street Bistro (Fremont, American)
• Veil (now closed)
• Yarrow Bay Grill (Kirkland, Seafood)
• 0/8 Seafood Grill (Bellevue, Seafood/Steak)

Happy eating!

Fans of the Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” may be happy to know that Seattle is going to be in one of the upcoming shows early next year. The show, which predictably features diners, drive-ins and dives, with host Guy Fieri, travels around the country looking for good grubbing in both the classic and most unlikeliness of places.

I mention this because we were contacted a few days ago by someone on the crew of Page Productions who was essentially asking us for some recommendations for restaurants in the Seattle area to be on the show. We thought it was pretty cool for a show on the Food Network to ask us, so we happily obliged with a list of places below. So if you see any of these on the show next year, you’ll know who got them there! :)

• Dick’s Drive-In (We don’t need to tell you why)
• XXX (Triple X Rootbeer in Issaquah)
• Red Mill Burgers
• Beth’s Cafe (12 egg omelette anyone?)
• Gorditos (For those baby sized burritos)
• Ezell’s Famous Fried Chicken (Because everyone besides us seems to like them)
• Market House Corned Beef (Making their own corned beef since 1948 and on our must-review list)
• Dixie’s BBQ (”The Man” sauce is all you need to know)
• Paseo (We just went here and the review is up soon, but those Cuban pork burgers do live up to their rep)
• Fu Man Dumpling House (Handmade dumplings from scratch)
• Jade Garden (Arguably the most popular dim sum in Seattle)
• Top Gun

We even asked the crew member to send us some promotional materials that we can give away to you, our foodie readers, but we’ll see if they play ball with us. After sending a two-page, food passionate email, the production company returned the favor with a one-lined, “Thanks for the suggestions” email, ha! That’s like asking a waiter to list every recommendation across three menus and then saying, “Hmm… I’ll go with a hot dog!”

I guess I’ll refrain from the ripping unless we get some goods :)

Black cod, also known as sablefish or butterfish, has a naturally oily meat that flakes apart with buttery smoothness and flavor. I prefer black cod over over Chilean sea bass, especially due to the overfishing that sea bass has seen over the recent decade (grocery stores like Wholefoods offers sustainably harvested sea bass). Black cod is mainly fished out of Alaska and Canada, both of which have generally good sustainability practices for their fisheries.

One of my favorite dishes in the world is black cod kasuzuke. Traditional recipes marinate fillets of black cod for up to seven days in sake, mirin (Japanese cooking wine), brown sugar and miso. Like yourself though, the idea of marinating a meat for seven days, while appetizing, is a little too long for my taste (literally). In my experiments, I’ve found that you can achieve a restaurant quality flavor in three days and if you’re really impatient, perhaps even two days. To those of you who think you can get away with marinating for a few hours in the fridge - don’t even think about it (you’ve been warned).

Ingredient List for: Black Cod Kasuzuke

- 4, 3 oz black cod fillets
- 1 cup sake (I use sweet sake, you can use dry)
- 1 cup mirin
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3T miso paste (I prefer white shiro)
- DO NOT ADD SOY SAUCE

On high heat, combine sake and mirin in a pot and bring to boil. Don’t leave the pot because it will boil quite fast. Once boiling, immediately turn heat down to simmer and let stand for 2-5 minutes. Depending on how strong of alcohol flavor you like to your fish, you can let it simmer for longer to take out more alcohol flavor or take it off earlier for a stronger taste. I like to take it off around 3 minutes.

Reduce to low heat. Add brown sugar, stirring until well mixed. If you don’t have brown sugar, then you can use white sugar, but only use 1/4 cup instead, otherwise you’ll be eating candied fish.

Add miso paste and mix in well. You may find chopsticks helpful to help poke apart the clumps of miso. I use white shiro, but that’s also because I have access to dozens of varieties since I’m within close driving distance of Uwajimaya. You can use most types of miso, so if you have some generic yellow miso sitting in the fridge, feel free to use it, but the general rule of thumb is: the darker the miso, the heavier the taste and vice versa. Because black cod is so buttery, I find a light miso works best, but your own taste may prefer a salty version. In any case, DO NOT ADD SOY SAUCE. Miso is made with fermented soy beans and is naturally salty, so there is no reason to use soy sauce as I’ve seen in some recipes.

Let the sauce cool, place fish in a wide, shallow pan or container and then pour in sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and then toss and forget in the refrigerator for three days.

Cooking Instructions

Place fillets on tray and bake in oven for 325 degrees for 15 minutes. While grilling might be possible, I don’t recommend it unless you foil your fish - otherwise it will come apart very easily.

Garnish with some chopped green onions and serve. Enjoy!

I almost forgot - if you’re too lazy to make your own black cod kasuzuke, Seattle is lucky to have a score of restaurants that make an excellent version. Here’s some restaurants to name a few:

• Ginza Japanese Restaurant, Bellevue
• Yarrow Bay Grill, Kirkland
• The Oceanaire, Seattle
• Ray’s Boathouse, Seattle
• Ponti Seafood Grill, Seattle (look for the “smoked sablefish”)

Inspecting my hatchet job of the innocent sushi rolls above, I may just be a little more humbled the next time I see some perfectly cut sushi at a Japanese restaurant. Luckily, our sushi teacher Naomi from NuCulinary, was far more lenient of my aesthetically challenged California rolls, given that it was an introductory sushi class.

NuCulinary is a Seattle based Asian cooking school that offers classes for Thai cooking, Indian, dim sum as well as sushi classes of various skill levels. While I’ve eaten plenty of sushi in my life, I thought it would be neat to gain more knowledge of the skill and art that is sushi. Today was part one (basic sushi rolling) out of a three part series that culminates in learning the art of nigiri directly from chef Hajime Sato of Mashiko in West Seattle. Each class is $65 and lasts for 3 hours, which is a fairly reasonable deal as far as cooking classes go.

Not having rolled sushi before, everything being shown to me was going to be brand spanking new. I learned the proper way of making sushi rice (always important), selecting the right nori (seaweed sheets), ingredients to use and of course, how to roll sushi. As you’ve already seen though, even with years of Playdoh experience behind my fingertips, it’s not quite as simple as simply tossing ingredients on a bamboo mat and rolling it into circles. But, the good news is that looks aside, sushi is easy enough that anyone who can follow a recipe can easily pick up sushi rolling as well. As for nigiri, well, that’s a totally different story unless you happen to be accustomed to gutting and filleting 30 pound fish (and even then, that’s still a stretch!).

Some interesting tidbits I learned about proper sushi etiquette that I’ve heard before, but never “officially” until now, is the right way to eat your sushi. Apparently, the common American tradition of drowning those poor sushi rolls in vats of soy sauce is a serious faux pas to a genuine sushi chef. To the chef, this signals that the sushi apparently isn’t good enough on it’s own that it needs to be marinated in salt in order to be consumed. So just like you wouldn’t put A1 on your filet mignon at The Metropolitain, hold the soy to a minimum when possible. To impress your sushi chef, use those fresh and ample slices of ginger to soak up the liquid, then dab your rolls with the sauce to show that you know the fine line of moderation.

Another way to become part of the sushi elite is to hold off on the wasabi as well. This might not make sense, given that you are always offered a large green dollop with your sushi, but sushi purists only use as much wasabi as the chef has already put into the dish. Normally, there is just enough wasabi to help glue the fish to the rice, which avoids any overkill of wasabi flavoring. So in a nutshell - trust your chef and you’ll gain his/her respect.

If you haven’t rolled sushi before, it’s definitely good fun, so give it a shot either through a class like this one or pick up one of the many books on the subject. At the very least, it will give you a much better appreciation of your sushi chef when you’re sitting at the bar eating omakase (prix fix) style!