eli's asian salmon.

After all the cooking and feasting I recently blogged about, we were ready for something easy and (insert gasp here!) healthy, for a change.

lowell's.

Pike Place Market is one of my favourite places in Seattle.  I love it on a sunny summer's morning and a crisp winter afternoon. I love wandering the crowded aisles and eyeing the rows of colourful fruits and vegetables; hearing the calls of the fisherman in their rubber overalls wrapping up their catch of the day in brown paper and tossing it at the lucky person purchasing it. 

christmas nibblies.

For me, Christmas means food. 

And family.

And parties. 

And presents. 

But one of the main things I think about when I think of this lovely time of year is the feasts, feasts, feasts, feasts.

No-matter that by the time Christmas morning rolls around, I can barely fit into all the clothes that looked so lovely when I tried them on a mere three weeks ago. The food is pretty much worth risking that humiliating moment which, like Santa, somehow always manages to arrive.

hernande'z cocina.

Burrito de Pollo with black beans, wild greens, seasoned rice, sour cream, salsa and pulled chicken at Hernande'z Cocina, Victoria, B.C.

nana's shortbread cookies.

Everyone has a Nana or Grandma recipe that, to them, is the best in the world. One of my nana's "best in the world" recipes is her shortbread cookies that she makes every year at Christmas time. Now, I'm sure there are some out there that would be willing to fight me to the death on this one, and to them I say: bring it. I'll come out guns a'blazing.

snow globes.

So I got kinda crafty.

azuma sushi.

Azuma has been a girls' lunch staple for years. In fact, whenever I'm back in my hometown Victoria, it seems my group of girlfriends and I always settle on it for our 'reunion meal.' And we did again last night. 

thierry.

Croissants (ham and cheese, left, plain with house-made jam, right), latte art
and fresh-squeezed pear-celery-apple juice at Thierry, Vancouver, B.C.

ahi tuna nachos.

Need a new appy? Check these out.

chicken milanese with endive & cambozola.

After such a heavy meal at Brasserie L'ecole on Tuesday, we felt like something yummy-but-light on Wednesday night. And who did we turn to? ... Gwynnie, of course! And again, our girl delivered.

brasserie l'école.

I had an inkling Brasserie L'école would be good when I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a while outside a bar at 2 am this past summer and all he would slur talk about was this restaurant. 

WVRST

Tuesday was kind of a sausage fest.