Wednesday, 19 June
It was lunchtime by the time we’d made our way across another ferry and into Seattle. We had lunch in the hip Ballard neighbourhood, where there were lots of well-reviewed restaurants including the north-eastern Thai one we chose. Alfie and I shared a wild boar ‘salad’ of incredibly fragrant sliced meat fried and tossed with herbs, hot green chillies, and toasted rice powder, as well as shrimp-infused fried rice that came with sliced omelette, fresh mango and galangal, and caramelised pork jus for tossing. Yum.
After lunch, there wasn’t much time left before Alfie and I were scheduled to meet with our new friends Erik and Storie, owners of Press Then Press cider shop, who live in north Seattle. Thus, we hung around while the rest of the group headed to our Airbnb across the bay near Alki Beach. I enjoyed the hour’s bus ride across the top of the city (even though it took a very long time considering how far we were going), as I knew I wasn’t going to have that much other time to get a feel for the place. I’m not sure I did get ahold of its character; it felt larger and more anonymous and ‘big city’ than Portland. Maybe I was just longing for the narrower streets of my home continent; it was hot and sunny out in a way I hadn’t felt for a long time.
We passed a wonderful evening (and night) in our friends’ fledgling orchard (impressive given the size of their tiny city garden). Adam and Elizabeth, who make Empyrical Cider and live close, stopped by for a few hours to chat cider and eat cheese. It’s really lovely falling into a community of enthusiasts where you can go to far-flung places and feel immediately welcomed, where there are people with whom you can easily talk for hours. I didn’t count the single-variety American ciders we tried; Erik and Storie were so generous and enthusiastic about our desire to learn.
Thursday, 20 June
I wouldn’t say Thursday was a write-off, but Alfie and I were certainly sleepy. Fortunately, it seems the others were too, and we decided to take it slow in the morning before taking the ferry over to see Pike Place Market and walk around Downtown. We tried two overhyped food outlets; Beecher’s for mac and cheese and Rachel’s for ginger beer. I think Pike Place is fun to see, but I would never go to there on a sunny day around lunchtime again; perhaps a rainy Tuesday morning in February. I shudder to think what weekends are like.
Our next stop was the admittedly awesome original REI store (Recreation Equipment Inc.), a wood, metal and concrete edifice improbably hidden by scenic evergreens on its little traffic island. However, none of us needed tent pegs or hiking boots (or, if we did, we weren’t going to be buying them now), so we mainly used it as an opportunity to doze while browsing coffee table books on Olympic National Park. I once again experienced the disappointment, frequent on this trip, of coming across a super cute souvenir tshirt which was only available many sizes too large for me.
After REI, we were all too exhausted to do much else, and so headed back to the Airbnb for a nap. Sunset was spent at Alki Beach, a hotspot of summer activity about half an hour’s walk away. This neighbourhood was quite different from the rest of Seattle I’d seen; lots of Spanish could be heard on the sidewalk, and Mexican seaside treats were being sold from identical stalls every few minutes along the beach. The long stretch of sandy shore was full of family and friends hanging out, playing volleyball, skateboarding, and walking dogs. It certainly wasn’t the most picturesque beach, being right in the city and surrounded by pavement, but the water was a wide open, inviting deep blue, and the prospect of my first real chamoyada was tempting.
Was the chamoyada worth it? Certainly, as an experience. The mango needed to be much riper and less fibrous, and the presentation in a tall plastic cup was not ideal for beachside eating. However, I did find the flavour combination of sweet tropical fruit, brine-fermented spicy tamarind sauce (chamoy), and lots of lime-chili seasoning (tajin) fascinating. I think the Thai equivalent of intentionally crisp green mango sprinkled with chili-sugar-salt just tops it, but both are excellent ideas. A perfectly ripe quince-yada should be next…
Friday, 21 June
Today, Eleanor left for Guatemala (some people!), and the rest of us turned back on ourselves toward California. The road trip was over. The most memorable part about the morning was likely the delicious sesame cream-topped Vietnamese drip coffee I procured at Aroom on the way out. There have been untold numbers of specialty coffees on this trip — not for Alfie’s or my tea-drinking sake — but this was my favourite one. It was a delicious start to a very long and hot drive. We stopped for amazing waffles from a whimsically painted truck at a road-side rest area which also included two taprooms and various other restaurants — amazing — and I was able to finally pick up a bottle of the fabled Finnriver. Again, I was not able to get the tshirt I wanted: a super-cute design of a chicken pecking at the Finnriver logo while apples rain from a friendly cloud above only came in children’s sizes.
One of the big attractions for Alfie and me about this road trip was getting to the heart of north America’s cider and wine country. However, what was pragmatically planned as a visit each to one cidery and one winery ended up being no winery at all — traffic on the I5 meant we missed our appointment at Johan Vineyards, and they were closed for tasting and tours by the time we got there. I’d chosen this organic and biodynamic winery for several reasons, including the fact that Dan from Art+Science used to be the vineyard manager there, so I was disappointed to miss the full experience. Still, it was very kind of Amanda, the employee I’d been communicating with, to duck out of the distributor tasting she was busy with to let us quickly sample a few of the tasting’s wines.
The tasting room and cellar — it’s not a big operation — were a beautiful spot among trees and ponds, with gently sloping vineyards rolling away on every side. All of this was hidden from the main road; I was wondering when I would start seeing vines in Willamette wine country! It seems they’re all off the main drag, whether that’s to avoid the many-lane roads or for shade and shelter. As we approached the tasting room, I got all excited by seeing squiggly-branched oak trees lining the road — just like Cornwall! We purchased a crowd-pleasing Melon de Bourgogne pet nat, but my favourite was definitely the $55 (this is America) 2021 Pinot: incredibly delicate, perfectly ripe raspberry notes and a silky palate, this was low-intervention wine making with tons of class.
Dinner was had at what seems like the most popular spot in Salem on a summer’s evening: Minto Island Growers. An organic farm with lots of benches selling pizzas, salads and booze to all the young eco families, it reminded me in some ways of Potager, the community food-growing operation where Alfie and I volunteer. Unlike Potager, however, it came with live music (from a just-endearing-enough father-and-son cello duo to really quite good blues band) and sea buckthorn kombucha on tap. Reviews of dinner varied from ‘Isn’t this just lettuce?’ to ‘That’s one of the best salad dressings I’ve ever tasted’, but fun was had by all.
The extremely mediocre motel in Salem where we stayed the night is nothing to write home about, but the way Alfie and I spent the evening was. Brandon Buza is a photographer and hardcore rare pome enthusiast whom I connected with over quinces when we judged red-fleshed ciders together at the NW Cider Cup. He invited us over to his parents’ gorgeous house overlooking the Willamette Valley, where we shared, among other interesting things, some of his homemade 100% quince wine (all-Russian varieties, this one) and talked like old friends. It’s true that most cider is not very good; I just hope I’ll soon find a way to convince others how fascinating real cider can be. The people who understand it and are super deep in the rabbit hole, like Brandon, are just such fun to be around! And they tend to have linguistically and aromatically delightful drinks like ‘Birdbrain Perry’ on hand…