Seattle, day 2

The next day dawned clear and beautiful - perfect for our plans for the morning, a Savor Seattle tour of the famous Pike Place Market. At nearly 103 years old, Pike Place is the oldest continuously-running public market in the country. Our tour, led by David Goldstein (on the bottom of the page at the link), included tastings at many of the more popular places in the market, including:

• Doughnuts at the Daily Dozen Doughnut Company;
• Market Spice tea at Market Spice;
• Several types of smoked salmon and salmon jerky at Pike Place Fish Market;
• Fruit from Frank's Quality Produce;
• Clam chowder and seafood bisque from Pike Place Chowder;
• An assortment of goodies from Chukar Cherries;
• Cheese samples and mac 'n' cheese from Beecher's Handmade Cheese;
• Two types of piroshkies from Piroshky Piroshky; and
• Mini crab cakes from another Tom Douglas place, Etta's.

Here are a few shots from our tour:

These doughnuts are pillows of warm, fluffy heaven.




David serving up the Market Spice tea.


Pike Place Fish Market.

The fish market is high in entertainment value; when somebody orders a fish, the order-taker shouts the order loudly, then the rest of the fishmongers all shout it back to him in a loud chant. Then the fish is basically hurled through the air from the original fishmonger to an area behind the counter, where it is hopefully caught, then packaged up for the customer.




Gorgeous produce...check out those massive pomelos behind the pineapples in the bottom right corner!


Tray o' delicious soups from Pike Place Chowder.


Cramming in behind the counter at Chukar Cherries. I especially loved the dark chocolate cabernet cherries and the black forest Cackles, but really, everything here is fantastic.


Watching the cheesemaking process at Beecher's.


Hula Hoopin' musician!


Crab cakes from Etta's.

After the tour was over, we walked down the waterfront to catch a ferry to Bainbridge Island, where we wandered about, poking around in all the cute little shops. Chris miraculously became hungry again and we snacked on some wonderful flatbread from Blackbird Bakery, and I bought a ridiculously comfortable pair of purplish patent leather Romikas for 75% off.








Mount Ranier!




And...back to civilization.

We had planned to dine at Rover's that evening, but after a day of seemingly endless walking and eating, we were exhausted and really wanted something lighter, so we opted instead to stumble to a little sushi joint a block or so from our hotel. It was just what we needed at that moment.



And I discovered that Chris' new book light makes a nice little spotlight for food photos.



Perfect day. I love vacation.