Seattle Public Libraries

For the first time in my life I am using a public library- frequently. When I was a kid we didn't live in town and my parents bought a library card (don't pay city taxes no free library) and we would venture into town and then the (air-conditioned) library. When I got older and we were in school we stopped going to the library so much and then it was over. I had access to libraries in college, and graduate school do I didn't have the need for public libraries until now.

The Seattle public libraries are rumored to be one of the most well funded library systems in the US. True or not I think they do a great job.

Fees

Fees are minimal, check out lengths are somewhere between finishing the book and forgetting about it.

Book requests

As far as I am concerned they could be a tad faster but pretty much every book I've requested and under every topic I have found something (from Phillipino short stories to Catholic Feminism)

Diversity

Our neighborhood is fairly diverse. And the book options cater to that diversity at our local branch. I am frequently picking up novels (with pretty covers or intriquing names) and finding that the characters are minorities. Or that the books are translated from the original language.

Service

Good. Real people with answers. And they are downright good to kids.

Building

The Columbia City Branch (our branch) is a Carnegie library- so it has interesting architechture. But the flagship is the downtown library. It's just cool. Take the elevator up and walk down the ramp that goes down all the floors. It's a nice weave through the world of literature.

-So obviously I haven't eaten out recently. But I've been reading a lot.

St. Cloud's in Madrona

I love St. Cloud's in Madrona. I have never had anything bad there. In fact, I have never had anything less than wonderful. My problem with St. Cloud's is that I want to eat everything on the menu. They do an amazing brunch, but what inspires me to write this is not their (amazing) brunch but is their amazing dinner. Beloved and I were invited on a whim to go to St. Cloud's. It was late but we hadn't eaten so we shared a dinner.

So my review.

St. Cloud's for dinner ain't cheap. Entrees range from 14-21 (there are a couple things that are market price so periodically more than 21). With a salad or a drink this could add up fast.

We only got one entree: the Parmigiano-Crusted Pork Tenderloin - served on a bed of penne tossed with bacon, spinach, capers & tomato, topped with spinach aioli for 21.00. It was amazing. The flavors mixed well it was definitly comfort food in terms of having carbs and meat- but resisted boring!

The service, as always, was great! After all the same people have worked there for what seems like generations. We happened to be there when there weren't very many guests and we were treated to a piece of birthday cake that had been served in the bar. It was an impressive amount of generosity.

Finally, St. Cloud's feels kind of like you enter into a family when you eat there. Servers remember people, they give back generously to their community. And frankly, I think they love what they do.

Me Gusta St. Clouds. 5 *****

So my beloved and I have eaten here a couple of times since being here. Let me be frank. I think that it is overrated. I think the pizza is okay- but it is soggy. I think that it is reasonably priced but it is not exceptional. Honestly, what I think is the best is the

Beloved and I got the special with broccilicini on it.It was perfectly fine but the broccili was was overcooked, and frankly it didn't blend well with the flavors. Their canolli is pretty good. Their coffee is very good. Even though the place is down the street, I don't think we'll make a habit of it.

Goodwill

Wow, I love the Seattle goodwill on Dearborn Street. It is first of all an amazing gathering of humanity. Many languages, creed, ethnicities, colors. It is a little bit like being in Cambridge- with more real and less education. Oh speaking of colors, I LOVE how GoodWill stores organize their clothing according to color. It makes my heart leap with joy when I see it. I love rainbow organization of clothing.

Okay but beyond my emotional response, the Goodwill has just an amazing amount of stuff. It changes over a lot. The furniture selection there is relatively interesting. Beloved and I got a Nintendo 64 and some controllers their for very cheap- some baskets, fabric, and other decent housewares.

As with all goodwill stores it is hit or miss. And though I celebrated the electronics they had it can be a real bear digging through all the baskets and baskets of cords, adapters etc. It's brutal. Some stuff there is crap like cameras and CD's.

As a fan of garage sales, consignment shops, trash, and salvation army/goodwill stores I highly recommend.

Review of Lark Resturant

My beloved and I had a date night on Friday night. We got dressed up and headed to Lark. A resturant in Seattle, near Seattle U.

Building, Space, etc.

The building, tables, and general ambiance was good. It was VERY conducive to conversation being that there was almost no (if any music) the space had charming wood. It was intimate without feeling crowded.

Food style:

The food style is New American and they have many small plates under different topics. Topics like: cheese, vegetables/grains, charcuterie, fish, meat. So what is charcuterie. I don't know (I'm going to google it as soon as I finish this). And the reality is that the menu is chock full of foods that you should google before you eat. I have a masters degree, I am well read, and I love foods, words and am no fool. But parts of the menu were off putting because language created a distance.

Food- let's get to the nitty gritty:

Cheese: we didn't order cheese. We are a little over cheesed these days.

Charcuterie: First we had Landjäger with two mustards. Don't know what Landjager is. Neither did I. However, I now know that it is basically a dried sausage I don't know what animal it originated from (it tasted a lot like deer sausage) it was served with two mustards. Both were very good. In all honesty I was impressed. The meat was sausagey (salty, fairly plain) but not boring as hell.


Vegetables/Grains and fish together

We had a lemon sauted escarole. It was served with the eel (we'll get to that in a minute) it was terrible. I hated it. It didn't taste sauteed it tasted boiled. I didn't want boiled escarole. We paid enough for it but I didn't touch the stuff. We did have the Roasted eel with saba and new potato salad. It was beautifully sweet and tender and the potato salad relaxed the sweetness. I am not convinced the potato salad was the perfect match for the eel. But this was the best dish of the night! It was very well done.

Our final main course was Pork belly with chanterelles,cabbage and Heirloom bean ragoût they served this with our grain order of Bluebird Grain Farms farro. The pork belly was good. It was a nice cut of pork belly. The cabbage was presented and folded beautifully underneath the pork belly and the ragout was an afterthought. The dish was fine. I was hoping for better but I have no serious complaints. the cabbage disappointed me. The farro dish was very good. When it arrived at the table it smelled like popcorn.I realized that the smell was so much like popcorn because it was smothered with butter. The mushrooms atop the farro were downright yum. So even thought it wasn't the most interesting dish I liked it a lot.

My beloved had the apple, ginger, walnut crisp for desert. It was a pretty ordinary crisp. I had the tartine. I seem unable to remember what it was like. Maybe it was all the wine.


Review of Staff:

Our waitress was pretty good but had not tried everything on the menu. So she couldn't offer comparisons very well. That was hard. The host of the night was akward. We tried to ask him about wine. He checked out. He didn't really seems that interest in helping us-and there was no eye contact.

Okay. That is my review of Lark