The Kaleberg Journal - May 2012

05/10 - A Local River Otter

We were taking an easy stroll along the Olympic Discovery Trail west of Morse Creek. A bit past the dike we saw a river otter, first crossing the road, then on the rocks offshore. This looks like a lucky otter, chowing down.,

A river otter

Keywords: morse creek, animals

05/08 - Revel in Fremont

We have been big fans of Joule and its fusion Korean cooking for a while now, so we decided to check out Joule's sister restaurant Revel. We went for lunch, but the dinner menu is the same or at least similar. It offers much simpler food than its sophisticated sister, but in the same vein, Korean fusion comfort food. This means wonderful noodles with oxtail ragout and even more wonderful dumplings stuffed with beef short ribs or, for vegetarians, cauliflower, chick peas and yogurt. The latter are curried and reminded us of wonderful samosas.

There are also the amazing savory pancakes. Think excellent egg foo yung, not iHop. We tried two, one with pork belly and kim chi, and an even more spectacular one with asparagus, feta cheese, almonds and kalamatas olives. The pork belly was just wonderful, but in the Korean fusion tradition. The later pancake was Korean-Mediteranean and would not have been out of place in a Greek fusion restaurant. The cheese and olives came through nicely and set off the seasonal asparagus.

403 N 36th St., Seattle, WA 98103 206.547.2040
We only tried one of the salads. We had to balance all the other dishes a bit with some greenery, so we ordered the salad of argula with thin slices of corned lamb. The arugula was great, and the corned lamb was wonderfully spicy. It was a great combination.

To be honest, we liked every dish we tried at Revel. Interestingly, our two favorites were the Greek - we'll call it that - pancake and the samosa, which combined ingredients and spicings from two widely varied cuisines with Korean techniques, and married them perfectly. We'll have to keep our eyes open and see what the folks at Revel come up with next. Until then, we'll be coming back for neo-traditional comfort food.

We should note that the restaurant is a bit noisy with a lot of hard reflective services, and it fills up for lunch and probably for dinner. We were able to converse once they turned down the music a bit, but this could be a problem for some. Despite this, we plan on coming back for our next fix.

Revel, poorly photographed

Keywords: seattle, restaurants

05/02 - Like a Snout

When we put a roof over the front steps of Lake Crescent Cottage, one of the items in the statement of work explicitly stated that the result "should not look like a snout". Then, there are those times you do want something to look like a snout. For example, this Maximus Minimus pulled pork food truck on Pine Street. We didn't try any of their pulled pork, but we can imagine the statement of work given to the body shop.

It does look like a snout.

Keywords: seattle, art

The Kaleberg Journal - April 2012

04/28 - Spring Comes to the Port Angeles Farmers' Market

It's starting to look like spring at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market. Westwind Farm has their first asparagus along with potatoes, winter squash and their wonderful eggs. Johnston Farms is back with fresh coriander, squashes, braising mix, sunchokes, potatoes and other goodies. The Korean garlic lady has her garlic and greens, and Nash Huber's stand is loaded with a broad variety of raabs - flowering kales, cabbages and so on. In other words, the long winter is over.

Johnston Farms

Westwind Farms asparagus - We bought most of these, but there will be more next week.

Nash Huber's stand

Keywords: farmers' market, johnston farm, nash huber, port angeles, spring, westwind farm

04/27 - Elwha Open Again

We are building up again after a long slow winter. The trail out of Whiskey Bend is open again, so we pushed ourselves past the cabin and up 400 feet to the first crossing. This is maybe halfway to Lilian Camp, our eventual goal, but one must crawl before one can walk, though in our case it feels as if we walk first, then crawl back.

There were a couple of trees down, but the trails are in great shape. Even better, the trilliums and other spring forest flowers are coming out. Next time, the second crossing, for sure.

Self portrait

Trilliums

The green way

The stream at the first crossing

Spring waterfall

The forest

Another trillium

Keywords: elwha, flowers, spring, trails, trillium

04/25 - Low Tide at the Dungeness Spit

There have been some really low tides at the Dungeness Spit recently. That means that there's been lots of beach there. Unfortunately, there are also lots of little stones. Still we managed to pick our way finding a not too rocky path across not too sandy or too wet and soft sand. We haven't made it out to the lighthouse yet, but we'll keep trying.

We also saw some salamanders on the walk down to the spit proper. This is a great season for spotting them right on the path.

The path to the beach

Lots of sand ...

... and lots of little stones

One of the little salamanders ...

... and another

Keywords: dungeness spit, salamander, tides

04/20 - Hurricane Ridge Report

We recently were up at Hurricane Ridge to see if we could do some snowshoeing. There was lots of snow up there, but it had been melted and refrozen and compacted so many times that it was rough going. We had traction, but it was hard to take more than a few steps before breaking through the crust or having to climb up or down one of the folds in surface. We didn't get very far, but we enjoyed some great scenery.

Amazing views

There was a sign warning about snow sliding from the roof - and snow sliding from the roof.

More amazing views

There is still a lot of snow.

The hours for the lodge store - open May weekends, then every day starting Memorial Day weekend

Keywords: hurricane ridge, snowshoeing, winter

04/18 - First Trilliums at Lake Crescent

This has been a cool, slow spring, but our most recent hike out at Lake Crescent gave us a few signs of spring. The trilliums are starting to open. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled.

One not quite open

One wide awake

Other blooms

Keywords: lake crescent, spring, trillium

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