by Jo Alex | Travel in Washington |
Craving for Donuts
Where to get donuts in Seattle for the first time visitor?
I am writing a road trip novel, called One Light Year Road Trip. Every time I write about a character eating sweets, I have to take a break. And because I have been seeing Halloween cookies, candies, cream everywhere these past few days, an intense craving for donuts hit my tongue. After I had gone through a period of purging sugar, I don’t get the cravings like before. However, the past couple of days, I was dreaming of donuts. I grew up with donuts, fresh out of the shop. My dad would get us a dozen for the family. Everyone in my family had their preferences: the plain, the twist, chocolate filled, cream filled, and strawberry jelly filled. Oh man, thinking of those sugar cakes makes my mouth salivate sweeter! Those iced and glazed delights were served warm at 5 p.m on Saturdays. When I think of those donuts, it’s tough for me to resist fried doughs with holes.
If you are new to Seattle, and you are craving donuts, these are good three places for donuts. Of course, there are more donut places here, but these are the three that I go back to satisfy a quick crave or when a celebration is in place. I could categorize them several ways, but this is the way I am going to do it.
Three places for donuts
- Craving light and an airy donut. Krispy Kreme would be a good place. There are only three places, two in Seattle and one in Issaquah. They have gotten pretty crafty with decorating their donuts for holidays.
- If you are looking for dense and heavy donuts, Top Pot is a good stop. When I have added walnuts on top of their donuts, sometimes that would suffice me for lunch. They are located all over Seattle and the outskirts of the city.
- If you are a foodie and don’t mind spending money on morning desserts, then open your mouth and your wallet for a mini donut with all that. There is a place called Lola located in downtown Seattle. That is a place to go when you are celebrating an event or if you are looking for a different kind of donut. Though a bit on the pricey side, they have good food. Have brunch or breakfast if you want their specialty donuts with jelly and mascarpone cheese.
By saying that, the music man and I, the research girl drove to Krispy Kreme after an errand. When we walked into Krispy Kreme, their donuts were cooling off on the belt. At the display side, it was cute to see that they had the Halloween theme going on their donuts.
Fresh donuts in Seattle coming up
I choose what I craved: chocolate iced and plain glazed. He chose the donuts with cream and sprinkles. My limit for donuts is two. All my three donuts disappeared in under five minutes. Those donuts went very good with my coffee. Speaking of road trips, a quick stop to a donut place would be definitely good road trip food when you are in the mood for a quick snack.
Tidbits:
If you are are hunting for donuts Downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill you would have to pay to park if you are driving.
For Lola, you might need reservations if you are going there on the weekends or brunch.
by Jo Alex | Travel in Washington |
Take a drive
If you are a new visitor or a local, and you are wondering what to do in autumn, this is a good time to take a drive through see autumn colors in your favorite neighborhood.
Today the music man and I went grocery shopping to grab some bread, milk, and eggs. As soon as we drove by a pumpkin patch, I was reminded to get a pumpkin for Halloween. We stopped at the pumpkin patch. The chain link security fence was locked. Since it was a small patch, I gather they probably will open on the weekend.
We decided to proceed to the grocery store. On our way, I just couldn’t believe, how many green trees were changing to autumn colors. I had never seen the trees rich in color like this. Maybe because on most of my drives in the fall, it was cloudy and sometimes sunless. Or may because I realize that I need to do these fall drives in the autumn more often. The weather today was sunny and splendid, all day. I had to grab my camera and take a few photos of the drive to the grocery store. We drove through alleys of autumn trees. Leaves of green changed to burgundy, yellow, and orange colored leaves. It was like seeing a Christmas tree with fall lights.
There are plenty of areas where you could see changing fall trees in Washington and near Seattle.
Capitol Hill
Issaquah
Lake City
Bellevue
I am happy to be seeing the fall leaves on these little drives.
Shop for a pumpkin to paint or carve
As soon as we got to the grocery store, there were sizeable pumpkins of various sizes sitting outside, and some on top of each other. We looked through bright orange, white, and striped pumpkins, actually six or seven kinds. The pumpkin fever got to us. We decided to go to another store, to look through pumpkins.
Both of the places we went had good selections. Once we started looking at the pumpkins, we were trying to decide to carve or paint. The music man preferred to carve; I wanted a small pumpkin to decorate. Some of the pumpkins even came decorated. I started looking at Pinterest for inspirations. I think, this year, the prize goes to the paint job.
What to do in autumn? A thought from the image
by Jo Alex | One Light-Year (OLY) Road Trip Novel, Travel in Washington |
Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery
I have always admired the epic journey of the Pacific salmon ever since I read about it as a teenager. I have eaten plenty of salmon, and I have learned about salmon throughout the years from both Seattleites and transplants, which gave me a deeper appreciation for them. Today Eric and I took a field trip to learn more about salmon spawning in the autumn at a salmon hatchery in Issaquah; known as Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, also known as FISH.
A lot of useful information was provided on tour. This is what we learned from the Docent, the educator, who presented the tour.
Tour hours for F.I.S.H Check their website for changes.
Main Points of the tour
The hatchery started in the 1930s to restore salmon to the river. At the time, the hatchery didn’t’ have any fish because it was decimated by logging, mining, and coal.
They got the salmon from another river.
In the 1970s, they were going to close the hatchery, because it was expensive to run it. However, the people of Issaquah volunteered to run it for free.
Now, volunteers do most of the work. If you like to volunteer, they are taking volunteers, now.
On our day of the visit, the water was muddy. Muddy water was filled with silt this year, which is very bad for salmon. The silt in the river covers the salmon eggs and suffocates the eggs. It is possible that few eggs if any will hatch, this year due to the silt flowing down the creek.
Issaquah Creek
The reason for the silt was because of the recent logging and development. The water no longer gets a chance to sink into the ground and instead flushes dirt into the river. There isn’t enough trees, grasses, bush or other vegetation on the surface to slow down the water to sink into the ground before entering the stream. Instead, it rushes over the surface and carries with dirt into the creek.
And the recent rain stirred up more silt.
It is hard for salmon to swim through the fish ladder when the water is muddy. The water irritates their eyes because they don’t have eyelids to protect them against the dirty water
A female salmon lays thousands of eggs. Most eggs will die, or predators will eat them. Ducks, kingfisher, raccoons herons (that must have been why we saw a heron hanging out on the roof, it smelled the salmon), and even other fish are all considered predators.
Of those eggs that reach maturity and swims to the ocean, only a few dozens make it back due to barriers and predators.
The hatchery let some of the salmon go upstream not all of them because the holding capacity of the river isn’t that great for all the salmon coming back.
salmon trying to jump the weir
The hatchery fertilizes the salmon themselves.
Before salmon are released from the hatchery, their adipose fin is removed. This helps identify them as hatchery-raised fish. When a fisherman catches salmon, they are supposed to release any salmon that still have their adipose fin. This helps protect the wild salmon population. Removing the adipose fin does not affect the salmon’s ability to swim and is an easy way for them to mark the salmon as hatchery-raised.
They chop off all the tails of the dead salmon that they used to fertilize after they get the eggs, and throw the dead salmon without tails in the river. This is so that they can fertilize the river with the dead salmon bodies.
There were questions about fish farms and wild salmon from the audience.
There was not much talk about fish farms other than they are not helpful for the wild salmon.
One of the audience members brought up the recent release of Atlantic salmon around the Pacific Northwest.
The conversation continued that the Atlantic salmon is bad for the Pacific salmon gene pool. Atlantic Salmon should not be in the Pacific Northwest. Having Atlantic salmon fish farms threatens, the native wild salmon. If they mate, they produce sterile offsprings.
The government says that you are free to catch as many Atlantic salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
The wild Pacific salmon is at a threatening low number which raised another question
What can a regular consumer do to help protect salmon?
One of the ladies in the group said, call your congressperson to fight for environmental protection.
Tidbits: you can schedule a tour during the week. You are free to walk in during the weekends of the salmon spawning season, which is in autumn. Check their website for updated times.
Tour hours for F.I.S.H
FISH accepts a donation. There is a sign that says, “Feed Finley.”
Donation sign
Parking: we parked on the street.
by Jo Alex | Travel in Washington |
Working up the Matcha crave
After seeing two different Japanese gardens this year, the taste of Matcha was calling me, the calling of the crave. My tongue was craving subtle matcha.
There are three Japanese Gardens in or near Seattle
There is a small Japanese Garden in Olympia. It’s a quick stroll, like a ten-minute stroll. We went there when it was raining, hard. We still did the cover the entire garden. There is nothing like the sound of rain on your parka hood, or on an umbrella in the fall.
There is also Kubota Garden, which is a good size walk. The smartphone recorded me in the health App that I only walked 1. 3 miles. Hmm, thought it was much a longer walk. I think it was just me standing around admiring the fall colors. It just seemed like I was walking longer, but I was standing. They have a good variety of trees and plants and a Koi Pond.
Then there is the Seattle Japanese Garden, which I had written about in another blog.
After learning and strolling through Japanese gardens, I was inspired to have a dish of Matcha. Since I have never cooked with matcha, I was shying away from cooking with it. I thought I would leave it to the expert right at this minute; to learn a little bit more about Matcha before I start mixing it in with dishes.
Giving into the Matcha crave for Green Tea Tiramisu
A better thought, how about going to a Japanese Specialty Pastry, which would fill my crave and allow me to see what else can I do with Matcha?
Yep, wonderful idea.
The specialty bakery is a small place in Wallingford. I got introduced to this place by a friend of a friend. She bought the Green Tea tiramisu to a party one time, and half of that cake was gone as soon as she brought it. No, I didn’t eat half of the cake, although I could have. Thank goodness at the time I was learning about sugar and was keeping an eye on that. Now that I allow myself to have one good cake, I can only still have up to one good slice.
At Hiroki, two of their specialties are making this subtle Green Tea Tiramisu and Matcha Tea. I love places that specializes in sweets. I went with a friend, and we split the cake, and every bite of it was subtly delicious.
The vanilla part of the cake consisted of an angel cake texture. Pale lime green frosting with sprinkles of Matcha powder topped the cake nicely with another green layer in the middle. The whipped cream on the cake tasted fresh.
What to have with cake: they have a pretty good selection of loose teas. My friend had the Darjeeling tea. They also serve specialty coffees and variety of cookies and other cakes. I keep meaning to try their other goods, but the times I go, my crave gravitates towards the green stuff.
Extra tidbits: if you are going out that way, they do have a parking lot right outside their store. Sometimes, the lot gets full, and there is street parking (free for now) with two-hour parking limit.
Cost: specialty stores are slightly pricier than a regular coffee shop. Celebrate an occasion.
Also, their hours are different than a coffee shop. They don’t open until noon.
Enjoy your occasion and the desert and the tea or the latte.
Green Tea Cake
by Jo Alex | One Light-Year (OLY) Road Trip Novel, Travel in Washington |
Road trips can be fun. Some people take road trips on the whim, the sponateous kind. Others must plan every details. Some are in between. Come to think of it, I like to travel and all three suits me just fine.
Where to go road tripping in Washington?
There are plenty of places in Washington that you could go on a roadtrip. You can do weekend roadtrips or long road trips. You can climb Mt. Rainer, attend a concert at the Gorge, you can dip in hot springs, or go fishing in a creek or the lake.
Mt. Rainier facing us on the road
The landscape of Washington state is so diverse it comes down to what do you want to do or see once you arrive at your destination? If you want to just rest and relax, there are hundreds of spas in the city and the mountains. For those who love to eat, Seattle and outskirts of Seattle caters to your tongue. If you want to just drive there are great scenic byways that runs through here.
When to go road tripping?
Most people say the best time to take a road trip here is the summer. I do agree; however, in the summer it can get pretty crowded. National parks in Washington can get full even with advanced reservations.
The other good times are are autumn and spring. Winter is iffy, spring and fall can be iffy, too due to windstorms and other weather conditions. Last year in autumn, we had heavy wind storms where branches on the trees fell, blocking the road.
Right now ,I am writing a novel as I do road trips. The setting of the novel: long road trip. I will start posting updates about the novel, One Light Year Road Trip. Going back to the type of road trippers, which ever kind you are, bring water because you never know where you may end up sometimes.
If you are excited about going on a road trip and now figuring out what to pack for the road. Here are some ideas.
