Food for a Pandemic

February 27, 2021 Taylor Seidel

The food critics at the Seattle Times recently shared their favorite takeout food experiences, which inspired me to share a few of my own recommendations! Food is a huge part of my life and the pandemic food experience has been bittersweet. For every sad story I’ve read about a restaurant struggling or going out of business, there have also been wonderful stories about chefs harnessing their ingenuity to create fun and delicious takeout experiences. Here are a few of my favorites:

Delivery

Fremont Bowl

Located right next to one of my favorite places in the city (Book Larder), Fremont Bowl has a simple concept - “homestyle Japanese comfort food” - and executes it perfectly, every time. My favorite dish is the Sake Don, a deceptively simple preparation of raw salmon, rice, and soy sauce. When a dish is this simple, it has to be absolutely perfect - and at Fremont Bowl, it is. The salmon is exceptionally high quality, melting in your mouth like butter. The rice is even better, as if every grain of rice was individually cooked to the perfect amount of doneness. Happily, because this dish is served at room temperature, it travels well; it’s the perfect pandemic delivery meal. On nights when I am craving protein and Japanese food, this is my go-to order.

Takeout

Flora Bakehouse

The weekends are when I visit my favorite bakeries and check out new ones. I think everyone who knows the wonderful vegetarian restaurants Cafe Flora and Floret was eagerly anticipating the opening of Flora Bakehouse. And it totally delivers! The Bakehouse is located in an up and coming section of Beacon Hill, so it’s fun to visit and explore a new neighborhood. When you enter, the interior is beautiful - I loved the huge windows to look into the kitchen! They have a huge selection of baked goods, including tons of vegan and alternative options. I sampled a plain croissant and an empanada filled with roasted corn, chard, and chilis. Both were top-notch. Highly recommend!

Take Home & Cook

Sea Star

The best deal out there for a meal to bring home and prep is from Seastar. For less than $100, my family of four was given enough food to last us multiple meals. None of my photos do justice to the quantity - but perhaps they can almost do justice to the quality. Everything was TASTY and the amount of home preparation was always the perfect amount - just enough to make me feel like I was making a contribution, but never so much as to feel even an ounce of stress. We ate several meals from Seastar and each was better than the last. I will be very curious to see if this new kind of meal - the “take home and prep yourself” will continue after the pandemic. With food this great from Seastar, I sure hope so.

noma

June 17, 2019 Taylor Seidel

(image from Rene Redzepi’s instagram - check it out for gorgeous food pics! Not sure why they’re so anti-kayakers!)

Once in a Lifetime

I couldn’t tell you when I first heard of noma. As I learned more about the food world during high school and college, noma was always somewhere in my imagination, some miraculous place, impossible to get in to, practicing the most exceptional cuisine, and visited by the most urbane (and wealthy) foodies in the world.

The first time I visited Copenhagen in 2016, noma became only slightly more real. We walked by noma’s first location and I remember taking a picture of the sign. It was so close - so public and open, situated on a pier facing Copenhagen harbor - and yet the high-concept, glorified cuisine it represented felt miles away from me. This location has since closed and the entire operation has moved to a nearby location, as seen in the photos below.

noma 2.0 from the street. The greenhouses have spaces for growing small plants, as well as space for socializing, researching, and lounging for the chefs.

Since that trip, I learned more about noma by reading American food critics (then writing about the noma popup in Mexico) and had the privilege of listening to Rene Redzepi and David Zilber at a Book Larder event in October. Seeing Rene and David up on stage, I was starstruck and incredibly inspired. Here were two masters of the culinary world sharing their stories and a little bit of the inspiration behind noma. In starting noma (in the spirit of the New Nordic Food Manifesto), Rene abandoned tradition and national cuisine - he was determined to cook the very best food possible using Scandinavian ingredients. Since noma was founded, he has explored new ingredients and new technologies, creating previously unimaginable dishes and repeatedly earning the title of number 1 restaurant in the world. Despite the acclaim and accolades, listening to Rene speak you can tell that he continues to explore food not for fame or glory - but out of a genuine curiosity to learn and for the unmitigated joy of sharing his food with others. (I also took home the book, which inspired me to acquire and nurture my very own kombucha scoby!)

When planning a new trip to Copenhagen this spring with my friend Danielle, noma was at the top of our wishlist. With all the spring reservations gone within minutes, I put my name on the waitlist for the entire week of our visit. Five weeks out, I started receiving alerts that reservations were opening up. Unfortunately, the availabilities were still first-come, first-serve so the spots were long gone by the time I even opened the email. Then two weeks before our trip, while in New York, I woke up to another noma email. I clicked the link and my heart skipped a beat - there were openings! I registered and paid as fast as I could, with only one credit card malfunction. I could not believe it then, and would not believe I was actually going to visit noma until the second I sat down at the table.

Your intrepid author BEFORE his sumptuous meal.

When we arrived on our bikes, we were greeted and brought into a greenhouse that was both a lounge and a place for the chefs to grow little herbs and edible flowers. We were sitting at a shared table with 18 other people, so once we all gathered in the lounge, we were brought into the restaurant itself. From the second you step in the door, two things are clear:

This is a temple to the craft of cooking. There is a beautiful, richly-decorated, and high-tech kitchen in the center of the building. The main dining room and the private room (where we sat) are arranged around the kitchen and all guests have a prime view.
noma takes hospitality extremely seriously and wants every guest to feel special. When our group walked in the front door, every single staff member lined up on either side of the hallway to greet us: Imagine a chorus of “Hello,” “Welcome to noma,” “Thank you for coming.” From the kind and generous host that led us through our dinner to the sous chef that put down his tools to take our coats, it was clear that all staff member at noma are empowered to do whatever it takes to make your experience exceptional. Even though this could be a scary or intimidating experience, this warm welcome made me feel comfortable to ask all my questions about the food, architecture, and philosophy of noma - I even started asking for the tricks to get into noma again!

The Food

And the food... where to begin? For every dish, I could write paragraphs - the ingredients, the cooking method, the presentation, the smell, the intricacies of the taste and texture, not to mention tangents touching on noma’s philosophies of food and cooking. Instead of writing exhaustingly about every dish, I’ll focus on 7 special courses (of about 18 total) that, for me, exemplified significant themes in noma’s food.

A note on the menu: after moving to their new location, noma has divided the year into three “seasons” - vegetables in the summer, meat in the fall (specifically game), and seafood in the spring. We had the pleasure of experiencing the seafood menu. Although the seafood menu ran the risk of presenting us with foods or ingredients that were truly out there - we also agreed that we would eat anything that was put in front of us, no questions asked. We were also lucky enough to have a juice pairing alongside the food. I won’t reflect on it here but it was, like everything else, truly exceptional. Of course, for anyone curious, I will post all of the courses in the gallery below with a description of what it is.

We started the meal with a Norwegian Scallop, served attached to its original shell with its own roe. The scallop was essentially untouched - the gentle, lush flavor of the flesh stood on its own, and the red roe was a perfect salty complement. For me, this dish demonstrated noma’s commitment to exceptional ingredients. Our host explained how these scallops were harvested by hand in Norway by a single diver who has been working with noma for years. When weather conditions prevent the diver from harvesting shellfish, noma doesn’t compromise with other scallops - they have a backup dish planned. As reflected in the New Nordic Manifesto, the chefs at noma want to celebrate the incredible ingredients that Scandinavia has to offer. By leaving this dish raw and absolutely unseasoned, the chefs seem to acknowledge that it’s impossible to improve a scallop that’s already perfect.

After a few dishes of clams and shrimp, we had our first fish - a Danish turbot. The fish was cured for 3 hours in a corn miso and finished with a smoked butter. The two beautiful slices of fish were served on pine skewers. The fish was soft and gentle, with the flavor of the miso permeating the flesh but only enough to bring out the rich, buttery flavor. In contrast to the naked scallop, the chefs were clearly starting to show off their skills and yet the ingredient was treated tenderly and the great technique was all in service of its intrinsic flavor. Other dishes were deceptively simple, like the King Crab. The crab was flown from Norway and kept alive until cooking. It was hot smoked, then barbecued with beef garum sauce (a fermented sauce similar to Worcester), then served with a sauce of sonicated horseradish. When the dish arrived in front of us, it looked so simple! It was even displayed in the original shell. But once you took a bite, all of the nuances came out - the sauces and the horseradish brought out exceptional flavor in the crab. The simplicity of display belies the fact that this dish probably took many hours to prepare (not counting the time required to “sonicate” the horseradish sauce).

Halfway through the meal, we had a few courses with cod from the Baltic Sea. One of the most interesting was a Cod Bladder cooked with quince, other fruit, and chili oil. I can’t say I’ve ever had fish bladder before, but it tasted as fresh and delicious as any other part of the fish. Apparently few people are keen to consume bladder… so when they decided to cook with this ingredient, the chefs at noma had to convince the fishermen to keep those parts and not toss them. Now, fishermen bring their catch to noma, the chefs extract the bladder and the other components they use, and then they return the remains of the fish to be processed for other uses. A recurring theme at noma and other restaurants in Copenhagen (most notably Amass) was this obsession with making the most of every ingredient and reducing the food waste as much as possible. I look forward to seeing bladder on the menu the next time I eat seafood!

Even the dishes that displayed extreme skill and innovative techniques were fundamentally delicious and often playful. One of my favorites was essentially a take on an empanada. The little fried pouch was full of salt cod and arrived with oyster leaves on top. Here’s where it gets interesting - the casing was made of milk skin - the film you see on the top of cream. They figured out how to reduce it, thicken it, and make it robust enough that it could withstand deep frying. But despite (or probably because of) the virtuosity of cooking, this dish was absolutely delicious - salty and hot with buttery fish on the inside set off with slightly bitter greens, and, of course, a perfect crunch! Another favorite was the crab cracker. In this dish, there was boiled crab placed on top of a very crunchy buckwheat cracker - a technique developed during Noma’s time in Mexico - which was also filled with a rich crab filling. While the display of this dish was verging on corny to me - it’s simply too cute! - I love to see the chef’s having fun.

Many of our dishes at noma and most of the meals we ate in Copenhagen included fermented ingredients and products, an addition that leads to an exponential increase in flavor and complexity. While not unique to noma or Scandinavia, I believe noma is doing more complex and interesting fermentation than any other restaurant in the world - they even have a dedicated fermentation lab that develops new ferments! Not content to stick with traditional pickling and salting techniques from the region, Noma adapts fermentation techniques and products from around the world - like miso from Japan or garums (fermented fish and meat sauces, like Worcester sauce) from the Mediterranean - and uses them to ferment traditional Scandinavian ingredients. For example, the turbot I mentioned above was cured in a corn miso. While miso is traditionally made in Japan with soybeans, noma used the same “recipe” and the same inoculation of bacteria to culture a bean native to Denmark. The results are richer, darker, more complex, more distilled - tasting like the inspiration (miso) but not the same. Since no one has ever tried to ferment most of these Danish ingredients one could imagine that these flavors are brand new to the human palette. Even more exciting is that when they’re used in combination with other ingredients and seasonings to create composed dishes, the fermented flavors imbue a deep connection to the landscape, the country, and the national cuisine. In my mind, these flavors deepen the terroir of the food and create a richer experience of time and place. In a time when food is becoming increasingly international, it is these innovative techniques that will ensure food remains fundamentally connected to its region. Noma will surely run more and more fermentation experiments that will lead to even more exciting developments!

We ended our meal with a wonderful treat - a caramel sea star, flavored with cardamom and saffron, with layers of white chocolate and carrot. The adorable little stars came on a bed of seaweed. I am not the biggest caramel person, but these were some of the best caramels I have ever had - creamy and flavorful, with the sweetness balanced by the fruity carrot and smooth white chocolate. Besides being tasty, these stars were absolutely beautiful. No matter what was put in front of us, the plating, display, and delivery of each dish was perfect. At noma, this miraculous temple to food, it was clear that the ultimate aesthetic beauty of each dish is intrinsically representative of the quality of the ingredients, the deliciousness of the food, and the ingenuity of the chefs. The experience at noma is a gesamtkunstwerk - a total work of art in which every component - from the architecture to the silverware to the food - contributes to the beauty of the whole.

Below is our entire meal in a gallery format. After trying everything and learning about the special techniques and fermentations that the noma team uses, I have no doubt that noma deserves to be the number one restaurant in the world.

Scallop still attached to the shell with its own roe. We used the scallop’s flat shell to scrape the meat off the shell and into our mouths!

A platter of clams: * Carpet clam from Norway with a soft, creamy texture with Kamut and other grains beneath. * Venus clam from Denmark * Large mahogany clam, probably 65-70 years old. With cream and barley. * Small piece of quince in the middl

Marinated sweet “shrimp” made of fruit leather, with a mixture of shrimp and fermented plums inside with fennel and golden star flowers.

Grey shrimp fried and wrapped in sea lettuce. Package was filled with sauce of cured egg yolk and beef garum sauce with a little bit of chili.

Lumpfish roe with cured egg yolk sauce, including an emulsion of yeast and butter with elm seed pods and roasted seaweed salt.

Grilled, wild ramson shoots. Picked from the forest, cleaned, and grilled outside. Finished with a paste of clams.

Danish turbot lightly cured for three hours in a paste made from fresh corn miso. Finished with smoked butter.

Medium rare blue shell mussel with a little caviar. Underneath is a fragrant broth of mushroom and seaweed, to be sipped.

Beginning of series of cod. Bladder of cod. Noma had to convince fishermen to keep the bladder and not throw it out. Cooked in quince with quince paste, fruit, and chili oil.

Cod tongue schnitzel coated in sourdough and fried with green strawberry and wasabi flowers from Iceland. The cod’s tongue is attached to two jaw bones, so each of us received one side of the tongue still attached to the bone.

Salted cod pie. Cod from the Faroe Islands mixed with leeks, packaged in a casing of milk skin, and fried. To create the milk skin, Noma chefs heat up milk and cook down the skin that forms on top. A short stack of oyster leaves on top.

Beach crab gel and pine cones. Danish crab turned into a gel with horseradish cream, herbs, and cured pine cones. Displayed in a “shell” made of beeswax.

Displayed in a “shell” made of beeswax (flipped over)

Boiled Danish brown crab on a flatbread of malted barley. In the frying process, the flatbread puffs up and is filled with a ragu made with the head of the crab. Learned this technique when in Mexico.

King crab from Norway. Kept alive at Noma until cooked. Hot smoked, then barbecued and seasoned with a sauce of sonicated horseradish (displayed inside a lovely shell).

Warm crab salad with garden greens, rhubarb, and spring flowers. Seasoned with a little more horseradish.

For dessert: A mousse with sheep’s milk yogurt with salted berries from the previous summer, pickled pine cones, and seaweed marinated in Arronia berry. Everything was in a white currant broth.

Front: Sea star caramel flavored with saffron and cardamom, layers of carrot on and white chocolate on the bottom. (no actual sea stars on the menu - the chef said they weren’t actually very tasty) Back: Cod skin fried to a crisp, covered in dark c

In Conclusion

It’s hard to sum up the breadth and complexity of my experience at noma in just a few words, but I’ll give it a shot.

Integrating global traditions and techniques with uniquely Scandinavian ingredients, I believe noma is cultivating a more meaningful definition of regional cooking. The Danish beef garum sauce that we had in our crab is a prime example: the chefs at noma follow traditional fermentation techniques - Danish beef is fermented using the same methods as Southeast Asian fish sauces - to create something that is no longer Southeast Asian but is not fully Danish either. Mixing ingredients and methods like this yields concoctions that are much more interesting and important.

With noma 2.0, Rene Redzepi pushes his philosophies of food far beyond the original definition of New Nordic Food. Since founding noma, Redzepi has also contributed to the founding of the MAD symposium, MAD Dispatches, a soon-to-be-launched MAD Academy, and countless spin-off restaurants in Copenhagen and beyond (“Mad” means “Food” in English!).

The philosophies that began at noma and are shared through Rene Redzepi’s cooking, writings, and advocacy work around food issues, are inspiring chefs and foodies around the world. Even in our backyard, Blaine Wetzel is bringing the noma tradition to the Pacific Northwest at Willow’s Inn on Lummi Island. With noma’s model of elevating and focusing local ingredients through international techniques, today’s chefs can draw from their multifaceted cultures and identities, creating hybrids and mashups of food that represent a new kind of “local” cooking, one that better reflects the diversity and nuance of our modern world.

As I hit publish on this post, the seasons are changing: spring is turning to summer and noma will be switching from the seafood menu to the vegetable menu. Having completed months of research, the staff will begin serving an entirely new selection of dishes, with recipes, ingredients, and ferments that the world has never tasted before. While I envy the diners who will sit down to a symphony of food next week, I have turned to my own kitchen since coming home from Copenhagen - reading recipes, tasting ingredients, and visiting my local farmer’s markets to find what’s in season. I am testing some new dishes of my own and I can’t wait to have friends over to eat with me. Although my food won’t be quite as beautiful or delicious as the food at noma, it will be uniquely mine. And for that, I think Rene would be proud.

Many thanks to my dear friend Danielle Kleiner-Kanter for her companionship throughout our trip to Copenhagen. This post would be half as interesting without her thoughts and edits. Hear some of Danielle’s thoughts on Danish Food on the Hartman Group’s podcast! Danielle, Thank you for eating everything with me!

Food: Pujol

October 15, 2018 Taylor Seidel

I’m sure it’s no surprise to those who know me, but one of the biggest factors that inspired me to go to Mexico City was the food. And not just any food… Pujol. Made famous by it’s high ranking on the world’s 50 best restaurants list, a charismatic Chef in Enrique Olvera, and a beautiful episode of Chef’s Table, Pujol is one of the top culinary destinations in the city. I booked my reservation at Pujol the same day I booked my flight - AKA 3 months in advance.

I had a 6:30pm reservation at Pujol and I decided to spend the hours before at the National Museum of Anthropology (which I highly recommend!). It was just my luck that as soon as I was done walking through all the great exhibits of pre-Hispanic artefacts and was ready to walk over to the Polanco neighborhood for Pujol, it started POURING. The benefit was getting to see the amazing way the rain flowed off the roof of the anthropology museum (pictured above!). But it also meant I had to sprint from the museum to a street to try and catch an Uber. I couldn’t imagine showing up to the fanciest dinner I’ve ever attended soaking wet! Fortunately, once I made it to the neighborhood the rain had decreased to what a Seattlite might call a “mist.” The rest of my walk was pleasant and refreshing and when I made it to Pujol I was only a little moist!

From the second I was greeted at the door, I felt transported to another world. This was the closest I’ve ever come to a religious experience. The building is gloriously modern with a stunning covered courtyard and some warm touches. Pujol moved into this new location just a few years ago and it really feels like they distilled the best aspects of the experience and punched them up a few levels.

The food was every bit as good as I imagined - thoughtful, complex, and delicious. As I sat down, I was handed a menu sealed with a custom wax seal. I broke this open to see my options for the evening. A few of the options were set - like the infamous “mole madre” - but I wouldn’t have wanted to try any other dish anyway.

I started with the street snacks - a mouthful of pork on a corn fritter and some pickled vegetables. It was so small and yet so evocative of all the tamales and street tacos I’ve ever eaten. It came with a beautiful hollowed out gourd that had a single baby corn nestled in the interior, which was still swirling with smoke. The baby corn is gently cooked and then coated in a fabulous aioli with local chiles and ground ANTS! I later saw these ants for sale in the market - a highly ingenious way of getting extra protein, in my opinion! I continued with a beautiful octopus dish that included hummus, beans, and some of the most delicious, sweet tomatoes I’ve ever had. The octopus itself was rubbed with black habanero “ink” and was perfectly cooked - not too tender or chewy.

In the spirit of Mexican street food, the next two dishes were intended to be turned into tacos! First, I had a cauliflower roasted in chicken fat with chicken chicharrones, pickled red onion, and a red sauce made with chiles. The soft cauliflower and the crunchy chicharrones made the best contrast of texture, and the red sauce cut the richness of the other ingredients. Next I had beef tongue, which was unbelievably delicious and soft. My helpful server explained that this tongue was slow roasted for 8 hours to get the smooth texture. (Again, this was meant to be turned into a taco, so I included a photo of my taco-ified version instead of the gorgeous plating as it was delivered from the kitchen!).

I finished with a coffee tamale with honeycomb and ginger ice cream. The tamale was tender and barely sweetened and went beautifully with the sweet floral of the honeycomb and the bright, creaminess of the ice cream. Last but not least, my server brought out a cinnamon-y churro that I was told was a “gift” from the chef. I accepted this gift happily! It was the perfect end to my meal. I left Pujol stuffed and happy. The host helped me find a taxi in the pouring rain and I made it home and laid down on the couch, perfectly content!

Pujol also offers a taco-only tasting menu at their bar, where you get 8 tacos paired with 8 beverages (including non-alcoholic options!). Apparently this menu changes much more frequently depending on the whims of the chefs and the ingredients in season. I am definitely doing this experience next time (and hopefully a dinner at Quintonil, Pujol’s less flashy but equally accomplished competitor).

Side note: in my tentative Spanish, knowing that Js are pronounced as Hs, I was tempted to pronounce the name of the restaurant as “poo-hole.” After asking several Mexico City locals, I learned that it is indeed pronounced like it looks in English: “poo-jawl.” Fun fact: it’s pronounced this way because it is a word from Spain, not Mexico! It was actually a childhood nickname of Chef Olvera because he loved soccer so much. Don’t make the same gringo mistake I made!

Food: Che Fico

October 11, 2018 Taylor Seidel

I am returning from a wonderful week of travel, spending a few days in one of my favorite cities - San Francisco - and the rest of the week exploring a city brand new to me - Mexico City! As always, most of my travel involves food and architecture. If you were to browse my itinerary, I mark all of the cafes, coffee shops, restaurants, and bakeries that I want to visit… and then slot in other cultural or social experiences in whatever time is left. In both San Francisco and Mexico City, I had some remarkable food - this post is the first of a few :)

Che Fico - San Francisco

When an event I had been planning to attend in SF got canceled at the last second (long story), I was determined to find another experience to make my weekend extra-special. It didn’t take much googling to find a suitable replacement! Just in the past few months, Che Fico has been named as one of the 10 hottest restaurants in the country by Bon Appétit and has been featured in glowing reviews by Eater and others.

When I first plugged in my information to get a reservation, I got a funny output - the next reservation was 3 weeks later at 10pm. There is crazy high demand to get into this restaurant… and that only made me want to go more! After some internet research, I discovered that they save 44 seats for walk-ins. So when I landed in SF I made my way straight to the front door of Che Fico and claimed my spot. Let me tell you - it is well worth the 45 minute wait.

From the entrance, the restaurant has a beautiful, open design that embraces the stunning wood structure of the ceiling. The open kitchen is huge and beautiful. There are some beautiful glass cases that display curing meats and other beautiful products. From the ricotta in our salad to the mortadella in our pizza, almost all of the ingredients are sourced locally or are handmade in-house.

And the food… When I think back on some of the best Italian I’ve eaten in the past few years, I can think of some fantastic pasta, some incredible pizza crusts, and other beautifully executed dishes, but I can’t think of anything that felt exciting. Che Fico proved to me that Italian could be as revelatory as any cutting-edge new fusion cuisine.

We started with a gorgeous chop salad with homemade cheese and salami, decorated with bright red flowers. In its simplicity - every ingredient played its part perfectly - this was seriously one of the best chop salads I have ever had. We then had a dish wish house-cured anchovies, tomatoes, and a soft cheese. Again, the quality of the ingredients elevated this dish beyond what I could have possibly imagined. Everyone knows I’m not the biggest fan of tomatoes, but these were sweet, soft, and deliciously roasted. I also love eating anchovies and other sustainable little fishes!

Next we had a pasta and a pizza. The pasta had a lovely lamb ragu and some other stuff, but it was unfortunately my least memorable dish. I couldn’t even tell you what it tasted like today! The pizza, on the other hand, was perhaps my favorite dish of the evening (even though it was definitely not the prettiest!). Like the anchovy dish, the pizza was simple and all of the ingredients were perfect - just homemade mortadella, pistachios, honey, and cheese. This combination of ingredients - nuts and ham together!? - was something I’ve never even considered before, but once it was in my mouth, it felt like an instant classic. I can’t wait to taste other innovative pizza toppings here and at other Italian restaurants!

We ended our meal with an olive oil cake with a strawberry reduction and elderflower ice cream. Hard to believe, but this was the first time I’ve ever tried olive oil cake! Besides the fact that the strawberry sauce overwhelmed the delicate elderflower ice cream, this was a bright, refreshing conclusion to our meal. I loved my meal at Che Fico and I can’t wait to return with more friends!

P.S. Please let me know what you think about this post! Do I have a future career as a food writer? Or are my thoughts better relegated to a yelp comment? Either way, you’re going to have to listen to what I think about food!