The thing I like best about living in Pioneer Square, Seattle’s oldest, prettiest neighborhood, is being a five minute walk from The London Plane.
It’s a thoughtfully-curated, eclectic establishment in a beautiful high-ceilinged, turn-of-the-20th century building on the east side of Occidental Park. One of the owners, Katherine Anderson, has a family farm near Carnation. A conservancy, actually: Oxbow Farm in the Snoqualmie River Valley.
We drove out there last weekend, roughly an hour’s drive east of Seattle past Microsoft’s drab suburban campus. It was lush and green and fabulous, and I’m looking forward to exploring its history to write about in a future post. But right now I want to write about some behind the scenes stuff I’ve been doing as part of my writing process:
Not only is Seattle renowned for its food, it is also renowned for its literary prowess. We have a kick-ass library designed by a bad ass architect. I walk two blocks east, then four blocks north and check out a lot of books for research.
I read stuff, get really excited, then work through my ideas by talking stuff out with Will. My husband has an incredible breadth of general knowledge always at the tip of his tongue. It’s amazing, really. He’s the kind of guy you want on your team when playing Trivial Pursuit. Below is a clip of us talking about air and fog in bed on a recent Saturday morning after I’d been reading about Washington state’s diverse climate:
Places like Oxbow Farm and The Bread Lab. Damn. There are a wealth of food resources here that I’m so looking forward to delving into.
Town Hall Seattle. I don’t know what prompted me to check their events page on the very day they happened to be hosting a talk on soil science, but I did. I walked up to 8th and Madison on an afternoon’s notice to hear two scientists from the University of Washington talk about how we are what our plants eat.1
Facebook. I frickin’ hate Facebook2. But there’s a Seattle Foodies group there and I’ve already learned stuff about the Filipino influence on Seattle’s food scene that I never knew before and was introduced to a book that’s similar to what I’m writing.3 I also gained a lot of subscribers4 via posting there, too, so…it’s a love / hate thing, I guess.
The Northwest Climate Hub via the USDA. I emailed them questions about Washington’s climate. One of their staff responded and directed me to experts at the Office of the Washington State Climatologist and NOAA. They haven’t responded yet.
It’s late now and I’m going to bed. Early row in the morning. But anyway, thanks for reading. I’m so glad you’re here!
Next Up
The rain shadow phenomenon, as planned.
What other sources of information should I know about? Please comment if you have any ideas for sources I should be exploring: people, books, articles, podcasts.
Food is about dialogue. Let’s start a conversation.
In Washington state our plants are nourished via Tokul soil.
I also cuss a lot, so don’t be surprised if I refer to him as Mark Fuckerberg.
I checked it out from the library and while interesting, it doesn’t have a clear narrative arc and doesn’t tie what happened in the food scene to what was happening in the world at that moment. For example, what were Seattleites eating while Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam were making grunge famous? And while there was some self-awareness around the lack of diversity in Seattle’s culinary scene, it was still very White dude focused.
Hello! Welcome to all my new subscribers. I’m glad you’ve decided to take this journey with me.