Over the holiday weekend Stephanie and I traveled to Seattle to visit two friends from grad school, Patrick and Christy. The last time I visited Seattle, which was also my first time, I went to catch Gillian Welch in concert with Christy and her daughter Chloe. At the time Patrick was still in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, but now with them both in the same place, it only made sense to visit them together. As it happens, Christy and Chloe would be taking part in the Tall Ships festival in Tacoma, providing us all with a built-in 4th of July event.

We arrived Thursday night. Patrick grabbed us at the airport, brought us to our hotel downtown, and then we wandered towards the market for a place to sit down, have a drink, and catch up. The next morning we had a filling breakfast at one of Patrick’s favorite spots, Atlas Foods, before heading down to Tacoma to meet up with Christy and Chloe.

Of course by “meet up” I mean find their tall ship, the Yankee Clipper. Only recently the boat was owned by the Boy Scouts of America and used for their Sea Scouts program. When the Boy Scouts decided it was time to divest themselves of the boat, Christy along with Daniel Joram, the boat’s captain, expanded the role of the Yankee Clipper Foundation to take ownership of the boat and continue to maintain it for the Sea Scouts. Or at least that’s how I understand it.

Update: Christy wrote in to tell me:

Also, while we host a Sea Scout crew on the YC, we have launched a non-scouting youth-maritime training program to provide equal access to interested youth, without discrimination. Our new website is:
www.tallshiptraining.org

What this all means is that Christy, Chloe, Daniel, and a number of teens have been living and working on this 40 foot sailboat for the past several weeks, as well as a few to come. And by “living” I mean navigating, sailing, sleeping, cooking, eating, and of course going to the bathroom. It sounds kind of like Outward Bound on steroids. For teens. When we found them, Christy was below deck kneading dough to make bread. Once the dough was set to rise, we got off the boat and explored the festival a little bit more. Periodically the boats went out for little cruises with passengers. We’d hoped to do the same on the Clipper, but their launch times ended up a too late for our schedule.

We let Christy get back to her dough (and her boat) and then the three of us went over to Patrick’s parents’ house, where they’d prepared for us a veritable feast of smoked ribs, marinated grilled chicken, and sausage. I was in barbecue heaven! After a lovely dinner in their backyard garden, we returned to Seattle with plans for a hike Saturday on Mt Rainier.

Jason Griffey, an LS friend of mine from grad school (part of our original blogging cabal) has just written a book called Library Blogging. How friggin’ cool is that?

That should probably get him into the SILS alumni hall of fame!

I must have been at the right party last night because at least two people there knew that my funny camera existed. The occasion was Tony Stubblebine’s 30th birthday (hmm, am I allowed to blog that?) which we celebrated with ribs he smoked himself and an amazing strawberry cake that Sarah made.

Saturday night we invited some friends over for a pizza party. Not unlike the ravioli party, we provided the dough, cheese, and sauce, and asked everyone to bring a topping…

…And everyone brought something different. We had pepperoni, pancetta, fancy mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, zucchini, sun-dried tomato pesto, chili peppers, fancy cheeses, artichoke hearts, spinach, caramelized onions, and pears. Stephanie even had some anchovies on hand.

Though we had the capacity to produce 15 pizzas, it turns out it only took 4 to feed the ten of us. So we didn’t manage to incorporate every possible topping (sorry, no anchovies), but we tried. Here was the menu for the night:

1. Pepperoni
2. Fancy mushrooms and pancetta with fresh tomatoes and garlic
3. Caramelized onions with pears and blue cheese
4. Garlicky spinach with artichoke hearts

I was thinking pizzas would be easier than assembling raviolis (and they are), but after doing some research I realized that proper use of a pizza stone required preheating it for an hour at 500°F—which, thanks to our lovely gas oven, meant the kitchen felt like a furnace all night. Didn’t stop folks from braving the heat to lend a hand.

I made a day-of decision to make my own pizza dough (rather than using the pre-made bags from Trader Joe’s). This was a risky proposition, as it was something I’d never done before (involving yeast), but I was happy I did. There’s just something transcendent about biting into homemade bread. It didn’t just feel like we were eating Pizza, it felt like we were eating something we made, soup to nuts. Which feels pretty good.

Here’s the recipe I used, which makes enough dough for two New York-style 14″ pizza crusts.

1. Dissolve 1 tsp sugar with 2/3 cup of 110°F water
2. Stir in 1 packet of yeast, let sit for 5-10 minutes
3. In a large bowl combine 3 1/2 cups of bread flour with 1 1/2 tsp of salt
4. Combine the activated yeast with an additional 2/3 cup of water with the flour
5. Knead for 5 minutes
6. Put in a bowl, cover (with cloth or saran wrap), let rise a warm place for 45 minutes

So we cooked, we ate, we drank, we talked, we drank, we laughed, we drank! Oh yeah, there was wine too. And Dawn brought homemade lemon scones! It was a time. Here are some pictures:

…by Rocketboom!