Catching Luck

There’s lots of useful things on the internet—maps, newspapers, free music, the Tickling Slow Loris video; but when it comes to finding information it’s often full of useless information. 

I have a tradition which dates back to I don’t know when: the Lucky Horseshoe Over the Door.  It’s something which is universally recognized as lucky, but I’ve never heard a plausible explanation for why it is so lucky. 

To Google!  Lots of variations on the lucky theme: an article from the Detroit Free Press in 1889?  Check.  Numerous search results from websites like luckymojo.com and merciangathering.com?  Check.  Anything really useful?

Nope.

Most websites, reputable or not simply say that it is lucky to hang the horseshoe over the door; according to many, it has it’s origins in Gypsy cultures of Hungary and Romania which suggested that the horseshoe would ward off evil spirits.

While most agree that it is lucky, there is some dispute as to which “direction” to hang the shoe.  I’ve always thought it should point up like this:

Fill up with luck

In this figure (as many agree) I always thought that the shoe would fill with luck and overflow that luck on you—I’m not sure why I think luck can fill anything, or overflow at all; is luck even liquid?

Much to my dismay, my ramblings around the internet gave me to pause when I saw this in an ever reliable yahoo question chat room:

          Totally up to you -
          People sometimes point it up so that it is like a cup, collecting good luck for you
          Others point it down, so that the good luck "rains down" on you.
          I am from the northern midwest

I want good luck to rain down on me!  Thant makes sense!  it should look like this:

Rain down luck on you

To further complicate things, the same yahoo chat room had this as well:

          It varies...
          1) Points up, to keep the luck in.
          2) Points down, to pour luck over those passing under the door.
          3) Points at a slight angle (still upright, but not quite sideways).
          It's said that #3 is to protect from witches.
          I'm from Britain, but these come from both Britain and America.

 

Yeah, now I’m really confused.  I got a real used horseshoe from one of my students (props to Maggie!) but I want to hang this thing.  What do you think?  Up?  Down?  At an angle?

Happy Memorial Weekend Everyone!  Ponder this for three days!

PLEASE VOTE FOR US!!

We’ve been selected for Small Cool Kitchens 2010 on thekichn on Apartment Therapy!!  Please vote (give us a thumbs up) for us here!!!  Voting ends on Wednesday!!!

Catty VS Kitties

I know, I know.  You thought all the talk of cats was done.  So did I.  I was OVERJOYED when someone came and took the cats away.  I was jumping up and down when I saw that there were only 3 kitties left.  I finally went out and planted my long overdue veggie garden and azaleas, and Micah made plans for our raised bed.  And then something happened.  I saw 5 kitties.

5 kitties?  No biggie.  That’s way better than 20.  And then something else happened.  I saw 8 kitties.  Great, here we go again.  On Sunday I went outside to take off the plastic covering the seedlings and replace it with chicken wire when I saw that one of my azalea bushes was dead.  As I was investigating my sad, dead bush, I noticed a yucky smell and then I saw it, kitty poop.  And then I saw that they had been digging and pooping around all the bushes. 

I marched upstairs and told Micah what happened.  He said he’d just put some chicken wire around the bushes.  What’s the point of pretty plants if I have to wrap it in ugly chicken wire?  In a fit I went upstairs to pout.  I came downstairs and decided to email Seattle Tilth about my kitty problem.  Seattle Tilth is a nationally recognized non-profit educational organization dedicated to inspiring and educating people to garden organically and conserve natural resources. (from their website)  They have a help email address you can write to. 

OK, let’s fast forward to today.  This morning I came down the stairs and I noticed one of the kitties lurking around my veggie garden.  I ran down the stairs and outside so I could spray it with the hose.  The hose is my new thing.  I can spend hours waiting like a cat by the window for them to walk across the yard.  I’ll be playing the Wii, see them out of the corner of my eye and take off for the hose.  I’ve left in the middle of a movie, cut a phone conversation short and left dinner unattended to spray the cats.  They say it’s suppose to work.

Anywho, this morning I head for the hose to spray the cat (who I got good) when I noticed a steamy pile of poop ON TOP of the chicken wire.  That’s right, on top!  See for yourself.

Cats are suppose to be afraid of chicken wire!   I can’t believe it.  Seriously.  I went upstairs steaming (like poop) and sent Micah an email and this picture.  I noticed that I had a response from Seattle Tilth.  See my comments in red.

Hi Catherine,
I’m glad the chicken wire is working – it’s most important to keep cats out of a vegetable bed where edibles are being grown. (This was obviously written before the Poop on Wire incident of 2010)  We have a list of things here that collectively we tried and they seem to work. 
Cat Deterrents for your Garden:
    * blood meal fertilizer
    * toothpicks
    * plastic forks
    * coffee grounds (highly recommended) (I tried this around the azaleas – clearly it didn’t work)
    * black pepper (tried)
    * aluminum foil (tried plastic)
    * cinnamon (tried)
    * bramble, barberry,hawthorn, or rose bush cuttings laid on the soil surface (tried on the slope)
    * heavy bark mulch or wood chips (tried on the slope)
    * motion sensor sprinklers
    * chicken wire (See above)
    * gutter covers
    * crushed rock
    * citrus peels
    * river rock or stone mulch over the exposed soil (tried)
    * garlic
    * carpet tack strips
    * "Scarecrow" -motion sensor automatic sprinkler device
    * six-inch bamboo skewers (pointy side up)
    * short twigs throughout the planted area about 6" apart
    * holly leaves
    * Rue
    * Essential Oils of Orange, Lemon, Lime, Citrus, lemon grass, citronella, mustard
    * pine cones strewn on surface
    * lavender
    * keep your area damp, they like dry soil (tried)
    * jam jars or clear plastic bottles half full of water left at intervals in the flower beds. Put lid on and place in the middle of the lawn. If you have a big lawn then put a few about. Leave out and see if it works! Cats are suppose to be scared away by the bottle, but how you ask? It works best at night and if there a breeze. Take a light say from a street lamp, car or one of your windows. This light travels through the bottle and the water which is then reflected away like laser beams in different directions giving off little flashes. The cat sees these flashes and Zap! He's away. There you have it so go out and try it out on your lawn.

OR

Give them their own areas: to keep them out of where you don't want them:
(Heck, ask your neighbor if you can add some plants to their yard that the cat will like! You get to garden, the cat stays in it's own yard, and you may make a new friend!) (Like hell I’m going to give them their own area in my yard.  And have you seen my neighbor’s yard?  They have taken over that too!)
    * give them their own areas to dig in: loose soil and/or fine-textured mulch
    * give her her own plants - ie., pots of grass for her to chew on and a place in a large planted container on her balcony with some miscanthus grass in it (the cat likes to curl up in that for some reason)
    * pick the cat up and bring it to eye level with the plant to see and smell it up close. She noted that once her cat has seen and sniffed at the plant, she usually doesn't bother with it later.
    * purple fountain grass
    * Barley Grass
    * Oat Grass
    * Wheat Grass
    * Flax
    * Wheat Berries
    * Catmint cultivars
    * Carex elata 'Bolwes Golden' but put it in some shade
    * Valarian
    * Jacob's Ladder
    * Lemon Grass
    * Striped Ribbon Grass (only in a container! they can be invasive) (Phalaris arundinacea)
    * Cat Thyme (Teucrium marum)
    * Silver-vine (Actinidia polygama)
    * Mints (only in a container! they can be very invasive)
    * Sweetgrass
    * Various Varieties of Cat Mints (relative of Catnip)
    * Catnip (Nepeta cataria)

Good luck-

Good luck indeed.  I sent Seattle Tilth the picture above and asked them if I used the chicken wire right.  I’m willing to try the garlic and the citrus thing but really, how much more am I suppose to do?  I am not putting forks and bamboo skewers in my yard and garden that I or a guest my step on. 

So I decided, I was worried before about the neighbors and what they would think of us, but I’m not so sure I care now.  I called animal control back and told them that I want them to set traps.  I don’t care if the neighbors see them.  If I see a cat, it might get pelted (or at least scared) by a rock.  I even contemplated buying catnip seedlings and throwing it over (along with the chicken wire poop) to the neighbors “garden.”  Of course Micah came up what a rational plan that he thinks (and I hope) will work.

He wants to build one of these

image

He found directions online.  If it works, it will take care of the side of the house veggie garden and the raised beds we still hope to build.  If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what else we’re going to do.  I don’t know if i can take much more of this.  How much money and time are we expected to invest to keep someone else outside cats out of our yard.  We’ve thought about a dog but then it would need to be an outside dog and we’d need to build a fence so it would go off and poop in our neighbors’ yards.  I don’t do outside (only) dogs.

What do you think?  I’ve been contemplating sending my neighbor an email outlining the amount of money we’ve spent to keep their cats out of our yard.  All the plants they’ve killed, the soil we have to remove and replace, the seeding that aren’t good.  The money for chicken wire, plastic and cement blocks.  Too much?  Too crazy?  I’m telling you this is driving me insane!

Again, what would you do?

Doing Our Part by Decorating

After the Nashville floods, we decided we wanted to do something small to help (we have a mortgage now) but couldn’t decide what.  I was surfing around the web and found some posters of which the proceeds went to flood relief.  Here are some of my favorites:

 buy here

buy here

buy here

 

buy here

We ended up with the last one.  We think it will look good in Micah’s band room or maybe one of the spare bedrooms upstairs.  We feel good because the money went to a good cause and we can use the poster.  I love the whole 2 birds, 1 stone thing.

Speaking of which, there are two other posters I really want.  This:

and this:

The proceeds from the first poster go to New Orleans Musicians' Clinic who provides affordable health care to local musician.  Micah is happy to support a cause that helps musicians and I’m always happy to support a cause that provides affordable healthcare.  Someone in our house (not me) might be getting this poster for a birthday.

It’s not clear to me which cause the second poster is for (I don’t think they’ve decided) but I bet it will go towards an organization aimed at fighting Arizona’s recent immigration law (which I’m all for).  I also love the pretty design!

You can get both posters at The Poster Cause Project, my favorite new place to buy poster art.  If you are one of our friends and you have a birthday coming up, then you might be getting you present from the Poster Cause Project.

If you need a little art in your house, why not do the whole birds-stones thing too?

Shameless Promotion

Here at fortytwentyfour, We don’t often promote our own stuff.  In fact, it makes us pretty uncomfortable most of the time.  It’s much easier talking about the wonders of Hardie Board, or pointing out other cool things that we found on Ikea Hacker.

We’ve now officially broken this streak of modesty with a blatant attempt at self-promotion.  I (Micah) am in a band; The Tailenders.  We play shows fairly often in the area, but we have a very special show this week here in Seattle.  It’s the CD release show for our album “Koro! Koro! Koro!”  The really cool flyer (made by Catherine) is below, but here’s the details:

Thursday May 20th

Music starts @ 9pm (we go on at 10)

Skylark Cafe and Club
3803 Delridge Way SW

West Seattle, 98106

No cover (0$!)

Obviously, we’d love to see any and all of you there.  But feel free to send this on to as many Seattle area folks as you know—we’d love to see them there too.

If you can’t make it to the show, but want to check out some of our music, it’s on iTunes, and CDBaby.

 

Thanks!  Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

Changing It Up!

Look what’s different in the cork bathroom!

Yep!  We finally have a door for the shower.  I’m a little annoyed with myself since I didn’t make sure the metal matched all the other fixtures in the bathroom (shower – brushed nickel, everything else – chrome) but it’s done now.  It’s a nice change in the bathroom and is motivating us to finish up the last little decorating details in there.

We’re also really excited because we have a lot of changes to share and not just related to decorating.  A new blog look is coming, a new contributor and a few life changes.  We’re very excited!

Have a great weekend.  We plan to enjoy as much of the sun as we can!

The No iPhone Zone

We were getting ready for bed on Monday night when I suddenly realized I don’t like my iPhone.  OK, it’s not the iPhone, it’s any phone used for more than just texting and calling.  Why did I need to check my email in bed, look at Facebook or check out the latest apps?  I don’t have a job that requires it.  It was useful and very much needed when we were building the house but not so much now.  Then Micah’s iPhone started pinging (he got an email) and I suddenly wondered why he needed one.  If I don’t need it for my job then he definitely didn’t need it for his job. 

This got me thinking about all the time I waste on my phone.  Pre-iPhone, I would check my email a few times a day and would really only visit the internet when I needed to look something up.  I spent time reading the hundreds of magazines we get (a post for another time), making something or other, watching TV or reading book.  I used to read on the bus a lot more.  I always had a continuous line-up of books ready so I would never get caught on the bus with nothing to read.  And now?  Who cares, I have my phone.  And my emailing is no longer efficient and Facebook?  I didn’t really check it before my iPhone. 

 

And you know what else?  We’ve become those people that sit next to each other and play on our phones – a lot.  We’ll finish breakfast and one of us will reach for an iPhone while we’re both still sitting there.  What is that?  We’re better in public, but still.

I’m not completely opposed the iphone.  It’s very useful when we’re in the car and need to find something.  Since getting it, we rarely have a bad meal out.  It’s nice to quickly look something up instead of writing it down and forgetting about it.  I also really like having a camera since I never remember to bring or use our actual camera.  And then there’s the whole phone aspect to it.  We don’t have a home phone, so we do need phones.

But, BUT, I’m not a huge fan.  I actually don’t like phones in general.  One of my favorite things about being abroad is not having a phone.  I have an old Nokia from 1998 that I bring and use locally by buying local SIM cards.  Sometimes I forget the phone in my hotel room and it’s no big deal.  I don’t miss checking my email or making calls.  It’s very peaceful.

So, I’m thinking all these things and then I tell Micah that I think our bedroom should be an iPhone free zone.  I think it’s OK to take calls but nothing else.  If we need to email or check something out on in the internet, then we go downstairs.  He agreed.  Then I said that I think the dining table should also be a no iPhone zone – even when we’ve both finished our meal and are just sitting there.  He agreed.  Then I suggested the passenger seat should be a no iPhone zone unless we need it to find a location.  He happily agreed.  He hates that I look things up as he drives.  We also decided that there is no iPhone action (except in-coming calls) when were watching something we both really wanted/planned to watch like an episode of Treme or a Netflix movie. 

Now we had a plan for the iPhone.  I was happy and he was happy.  Then his phone pinged and I grumbled, ‘damn the iPhone,’ and went to bed. 

Do you have a no (i)phone zone?

p.s. I just found out that Oprah’s endorsing a No Phone Zone. I had no idea. 

This Is Going To Be A Long…

…mortgage.  We got our first mortgage bill today and already we’re a little frustrated with Chase.

Reason #1

Micah has an account with Chase but I don’t.  We got a letter from them today that looked like a credit card offer.  I was just about to shred it when I realized that it was addressed to both of us.  I decided to open it and it turns out it was our first mortgage bill.  I guess we should have known that Chase was our mortgage lender (our bad) but I also think there should have been something on the envelope indicating it was from the Home Loans division.  Or maybe something like this?

Reason #2

We knew that our monthly payments would include our property tax payment and home insurance.  When we looked at the bill, it was $400 more than what we anticipated our actual mortgage payment (principle + interest) to be.  We have the money for taxes and insurance budgeted but it wasn’t clear from the bill whether the escrow fee was the insurance, the taxes or both.  It took 30 minutes to figure out what the payment includes.

Reason #3

We plan to pay more than the monthly payment.  We have the money now and we’re better off paying off 5% interest than making 2% interest in the bank.  We noticed on the bill that we had to specify how any extra payments were to be used and if we didn't, Chase would just hold the money and not apply it to anything until told to do so.  This means we can’t use automatic pay from our account because there isn’t a notes field on the automatic payments page where we can enter where the money should be applied.  We thought we could create an online account and pay directly that way but we ran into Reason #4.

Reason #4

I (Catherine) tried to create an online account but I kept getting error messages.  It said an account already existed for the loan but that I didn’t have access to it.  Chase attached the loan to Micah’s online account because he’s the primary on the loan.  The funny thing is that I take care all the financial stuff for us and now I have to go through his personal login to sort out our house payments.  There wasn’t any way online to create a new online login for our mortgage.

Reason #5

We got our statement today, May 11th and it says:

Statement Date : May 1, 2010

Payment Due Date: May 1, 2010

Um, anyone see anything wrong with that?  I tried calling in to ask about it and customer service was closed at 6pm.  Hmm.

So here we are.  All I know is that this initial interaction with Chase and our mortgage statement has made us want to pay this as fast as possible. 

We’re going to spend tonight going over our monthly budget.  Sounds like fun right?  But I guess there’s a silver lining, we owe money for a house we own. 

Hanging Around

I really want this chair.  It doesn’t go with the style of our house but I want it.  Actually, I think it would look really good in the craft room.  Would it be weird to have it indoors?  If only is was $49.80 instead of $498. 

Anthropologie, why do you tease me?

Sunday Suppers: A Mother’s Day Lunch

Instead of doing our usual bigger than normal Sunday dinner, we decided to make Sunday lunch for Momager (and Dadtractor).  We wanted them to enjoy a nice family meal at fortytwentyfour but also, I had forgotten to make reservations for Mother’s Day and all her favorites were booked solid.  I also didn’t order her gift early enough and we sent Micah’s Mom’s gift too late for her to receive it by Mother’s Day.  I know, we’re bad kids.

I had a pretty elaborate lunch menu planned but then had to scrap most of it at the last minute because the recipes were stored in an email on my work account which was of course down for the weekend.  We ended up with broiled asparagus and broccolini, baked salmon with lemon and fresh dill, lemon risotto and to finish, ricotta cheesecake.

We of course don’t have many pictures from lunch because in addition to being bad kids, we’re bad bloggers.  We always forget the pictures.  We did manage to get a few disjointed ones though.

The dill is from our kitchen herb garden.  I just sliced some lemon, cut some dill and drizzled the whole thing with olive oil, sea salt and pepper.  15 to 20 minutes on the low rack in the oven with it set to 350 degrees and it was done and yummy.

The recipe for the lemon risotto came from Smitten Kitchen.  I love that blog.

My parents and Micah enjoying lunch.

Ricotta Cheesecake for dessert.  My Dad recently found out he was borderline diabetic so I took the Martha Stewart recipe and substituted the sugar for Splenda.  I’ve made this cake before and it’s usually fluffier but it was just as good.  Here’s the recipe from Everyday Food (I got mine for the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook).  I also halfed the recipe since there were only 4 of us.

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter, softened for pan
• Plain dried breadcrumbs, for pan (this wasn’t in the original recipe)
• 1 cup golden raisins (I omit these because I don’t like raisins)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 2 containers (15 ounces each) ricotta cheese, preferably whole-milk (3 1/3 cups)
• 1 cup sugar (substituted for Splenda)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Butter a 9-inch springform pan, and dust with breadcrumbs, tapping out excess. In a small bowl, stir together raisins, flour, and zests; set aside.
2. With an electric mixer, beat ricotta, sugar, and salt until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture, and beat just until smooth (don't overmix).
3. Pour mixture into prepared pan; place on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until cake is browned and jiggles only slightly when shaken, 60 to 70 minutes. Cool completely in pan; unmold to serve. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

It’s a really delicious and light cake.  It’s not very sweet even when you use real sugar and it’s ALWAYS a hit. 

It seemed like Momager really enjoyed the lunch.  She loved the cake and I hope she’ll love the gift that should arrive today.  We also hope that Micah’s Mom had a lovely Mother’s Day and enjoys her gift when it arrives soon.

Catastic News!

We're sure all of you know about our small kitty problem next door and how we were agonizing about calling animal control.  Well, we ended up calling animals control and reporting the problem.  They weren't sure what to do so they decided to send an officer out to the house to assess the situation and make a game time decision.

The day after the call, we noticed all the kittens were gone.  Then we noticed all the cats but the black ones were gone.  Of course, as the week went by, missing cats started to appear.  By Sunday morning we had decided that a call on Monday to animal control was in order.  We wanted to know what they had decided.

This afternoon I left for a walk about 10 minutes before Micah left for a bike ride.  As he was leaving he saw some people (we think PAWS) with crates take all the cats away.  THEY ARE GONE!! He overheard someone tell someone else that there had been a complaint about the cats. They smiled a said hi as he left the house, so we don't think they think it was us or they aren't mad about it.

We were so happy that we went to Lowe's  later in the evening to buy the extra soil we needed to plant our first vegetable garden.  There's just one cat I have to worry about now (northern neighbors) but it runs as soon as it see me and avoids our lawn area.  It likes Cecilia's empty space much better.

We're so excited about the recent kitty development but we do hope they all go to good homes.  The grey ones were SUPER cute!

Housewarming Re-cap Part Two

We’ve been thinking a lot about immigration here at fortytwentyfour…no not that; although Los Suns are now our favorite basketball team. 

We’ve actually been thinking a lot about the recent group of immigrants who appeared during our housewarming.  Our friends Andrew and Jen (possibly with accomplices?) bought a bunch of odd little plastic figurines and hid them around the house for us to discover over what appears to be the rest of our lives.

Typical of our recent conversations:

Me: “I found another figurine”

Catty: “Where? I found another one as well.”

Me: “In the spare toilet paper rolls, where was yours?”

Catty: “Hidden inside of the salt pig.”

We’re fairly certain we’ve found most of these little guys—there’s a fairly massive collection on the kitchen island.  But we’ve already started to make plans on how to use them—we have a plan, but it’s top secret.

Here’s a few examples of what we’ve been finding:

 A small ice-skating gentleman

A frightened (and frightening) cat

  

A Canadian Mounty and Red Rooster

Kitchen suprises

A shocked…nun?

Keeping watch over the CD collection

Escapees from Canada and China

 

Crazy cat lady 

Kitten amongst the jewelry

Mini toothpaste and another nun

A soldier and a tiny rabbit

This was a Just Add Water growing alligator (we found it in a spare bathtub)

A very creepy baby inside a vase

These were definitely the most interesting (and odd) housewarming gifts we received, and can’t wait to implement our plans for the future with these little guys.

Cats Got Our Tongue and Our Yard

I know you’ve heard us complain about this before and this will be the last time we promise, but we’re looking for some advice.  I’ll catch you up just incase you haven’t been following the kitty trail.

Our neighbors who have lived in their house FOREVER have 20 cats (yes, it was 16).  They are outside cats that seemed to be loved by several of the kids but, well, they are sort of wild in a tame kind of way.  They aren’t aggressive but I have seem them put down an entire Costco pizza and more recently hot dogs.  They get dry cat food too.

We recently laid sod down and filled garden beds with dirt.  We had hoped to plant over the weekend but the weather was awful on the days we had time.  Today Dadtractor came to check on something and told me the cats are pooping everywhere.  In our flower bed, in the vegetable garden bed, on the new grass and even on the slope we worked hard to net and cover with beauty bark.  So we’re ready to do something, but what?  I think there are three incomplete options.

1. Email the neighbors.  I have their email address because they found out about the housewarming party (the kids asked), so we invited them.  They didn’t come but sent us an email that wasn’t mean but wasn’t super nice, it just was.  They did “officially” welcome us to the neighborhood.  If we do email, what do we say?  Please put diapers on your 20 cats?  They are cats and are more free than dogs (why is that?). 

2. We could try and catch one of the neighbors in person (my preference is one of the kids) and ask them about the cat situation.  Again, not sure what to say.

3.  We call animal control and tell them that there are too many cats, and they are disturbing the slope on our land.  I think you are legally allowed to only have 7 animals.  This option is the easiest as long as it stays anonymous.  That family will be there forever and so will we.

I’m leaning toward option 3 but I am wary of getting on the neighbors bad side.  I’ve seen and heard the Mom get mad and it’s not pretty.  Plus, Micah’s band practices at our house and I don’t want them complaining about the noise.  It’s not loud or anything but I’m sure they could complain if they wanted to.

So here we are.  Honestly, what would you do?  HELP!

Sunday Suppers – Flexing Mussels

Growing up, my family ate a lot of seafood.  We were all huge oyster lovers; we had fish or shrimp 2 or 3 times a week and every few weeks, my would make crab depending on the season.  We were always more clam people than we were mussels people.  We ate mussels, but it wasn’t as common as clams. 

Micah is a mussel person.  He loves them and would eat them a few times a week if I let him.  When we were in San Francisco a few years back, we celebrated my return to the states (I had been living in England) by eating a restaurant recommended by his parents, Plouf.  I think that meal forever turned me into a mussel girl.  They were plump and delicious and perfect with a side of pommes frites.  I think it’s in our top 5 restaurant dining experiences which isn’t too shabby when Ad Hoc, Cochon, Pair and Tilth are up there too.

On Sunday mornings I make our menu for the week and put together my shopping list while Micah makes plans for the day.  As I was flipping through a cookbook for ideas, I suddenly realized we hadn’t had mussels in a very long time.  I suggested it for Sunday’s big meal and Micah flashed a big, happy grin.

After a few errands we stopped at one of our favorite markets in Seattle, Mutual Fish.  It’s been in our area since 1947 and is the seafood supplier to many Seattle restaurants.  I love the place because they know EVERYTHING about everything they sell.  We used to get our mussels at Costco but 5lbs is way too much for 2 people.  Plus, we found that the mussels were small and we’d get a lot of duds (ones that don’t open).  At Mutual Fish they always hand pick the mussels for me and I never have more than 2 duds in a 2lb order.  Plus the actual mussel meat is always plump.

Our recipe is pretty simple: shallots, butter, olive oil, white wine or beer and mussels.  Sometimes we add bacon, sometimes we add Italian parsley.

Flexing Mussels Recipe:

• 1 large shallot
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 cup dry white wine or cheap beer (bud light or PBR works great)
• 2 lbs of mussels, cleaned and de-bearded
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped Italian parsley (optional)
• 1 fresh baguette

Place large stock pot on medium heat and then add butter and oil.  You can omit the oil and add an extra tablespoon of butter but we like the combo.  Add shallots and sauté until soft.  Add the wine or beer to the pot and stir to get the shallots loose off the bottom.  Then carefully add the mussels.  You don’t want to just drop them in because you don’t want to chip or crack the shells.  They won’t open if they are damaged and you shouldn’t eat unopened mussels.  Cover the pot and leave to steam for 3-4 minutes.   When some of the mussels open and look cooked (firm and dark orange or white), I take them out to make room for those who haven’t opened yet.  You can cook them in batches too, I’ve just always done it this way.  Once all the mussels have opened and look cooked, I put them into a large bowl, pour the broth over them and then cover the bowl with the pot lid for a minute or two.  This warms the early openers.  Right before I serve, I sprinkle some chopped Italian parsley over the top and serve with good bread.  One of the best parts of this meal is sopping up the broth with the bread.

If you are using beer, I like to add 2 or 3 strips of bacon (chopped) to the recipe.  I omit the olive oil or some of the butter, add it before the the shallots and cook as the recipes says.  The beer isn’t as flavorful as the wine, so the bacon gives the mussels good flavor.  I’ve tried this recipe with good beer and it doesn’t taste as good as when I do it with a cheap light beer.

Like the napkins?  I always bust them out when we have mussels.  It makes the meal more festive.  Do you have a favorite mussel recipe we should try?