We all scream. No, really. We do.

According to the internets, Seattleites consume more ice cream than almost any other city in the country. The only two cities that top our ravenous gluttony are even-more-rabid Portland, OR, and St. Louis. In the last year we’ve had a lot to celebrate, then, as at least three new ice cream and ice cream-esque parlors have thrown open their doors.

There’s been talk of “ice cream wars” and neighborhood creameries pitted in death struggles against each other, and every person you meet will tell you their extremely erudite opinion on the subject. So, I will, too.

(Does this gif discomfit anyone else, too? Good.)

First, there’s the most revolutionary of the bunch: Molly Moon’s, about whose ice cream much, much, much has been written. (Yeah, it’s…popular.) After your dinner of deconstructed ceviche with lime foam, you can head to Moon’s for offbeat ice cream flavors that suit the most nouveau tastes: pomegranate curry, salted licorice, strawberry balsamic vinegar. The kids want plain chocolate? Tell them to eat their $4 salty caramel scoop and suck it up.

Then, there’s the frozen custard phenomenon. Sneaking into town and quietly setting up shop, Peaks Frozen Custard opened last year in the Roosevelt area. With no such thing as a “small” on the menu (the small is about the size of your head. You could bathe in it. You could sail it into the Sound) and custard as light and silky as whipped cream, it provided a new experience with humble charm. Plus, its comfortable chairs and big tables allowed for big groups and belt unhooking.

Peaks’ crosstown rival opened its doors this past weekend with flash and pomp, giving out free scoops to sweaty hipsters on Capitol Hill. (hint: if your thighs are tingling and you’re about to pass out from heat, it’s probably due to your tight pants. Think about your circulation and look into shorts.) With higher prices, smaller portions and less impressive custard, Old School Frozen Custard will probably still end up the more popular option, due to its better publicity and location.

What’s the moral? Don’t settle for a tub of Breyers in your freezer. Get your fat ass to any of the amazing locally owned gelaterias, ice creameries and custardiums.

Delicate dessert

A little house sits on busy Phinney Ave, cars whizzing past its distinctive Japanese torii gate. Beyond the gate lays a tiny rock garden raked in patterns, and the slate covered roof of Tokara, a Japanese confectionary.

This isn’t your normal sweet shop: open only one day a month for exactly four hours, Tokara is a secret even unto its neighbors.

No wandering in, no browsing, no kids stuffing their mouths with day-glo lollipops. Chef Tokara’s wagashi are for adult palates and adult prices. Their menu changes monthly, following the Kyoto tradition of reflecting the seasons with each delicate bite. May’s offerings include the beautiful and sumptuous piece on the right, as well as the “violet’s whisper,” the “iris” and other evocatively named delicacies.

For a brief background on wagashi and to order (or admire) the sweets of the month, check out their simple and elegant website.

(The only thing I’m still not clear on is why this quaint, traditional little shop needs a magenta pink dune buggy with its logo stenciled on the door to make its deliveries!)

Cooking the Books

This weekend was the much awaited (by me) Edible Book Festival, whereupon our creation was unveiled: The Inedible Hulk. Baked and frosted (and gummy wormed) by my best friend and myself, the Hulk was a glowing green and brown masterpiece of…uh…looking queasily inedible. (However, this didn’t stop people from lining up to eat it after the judging was over).

Dozens and dozens of edible entries descended upon the beautiful Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford, as “Warren’s Peas” and “The Audacity of Gorp” vied with “Huckleberry Flan” and “Chow Mein Kampf” for prizes. Some plates were obvious puns on book titles—“Coldcut Mountain” was exactly that—and others attempted to resemble books as closely as possible: the winner of the “Most Book-Like” category was a bound book made of rice paper and written with edible dust. (The Hulk did not win “Most Drop-Dead Gorgeous.” I was hoping.)

For photos of some of our favorites, check out the new cloudherder photo gallery!

Rich Harvest

Harvest Vine — 2701 E Madison St
Seattle, WA 98112

Tonight was our second meal at Basque cuisine restaurant Harvest Vine, located on the back side of Capitol Hill. Serving small plates in a tapas tradition, the Vine is a great venue to try a few bites of each dish that comes to the table.

The first time around, four of us sat scrunched tightly around a tiny beaten copper table in the upstairs, shouting over the noise from the open kitchen and the sounds of other diners. It was too dark to be entirely sure what was on your fork, but the overall impression—as we stumbled out, full and happy—was quality and creativity.

Our second meal was a different story. Seated downstairs below the hubbub of the kitchen in their new set of rooms, the atmosphere was far more relaxed and quiet, allowing conversation and concentration on the food. We decided on seven small dishes to share all around, aware that each of us would only end up with a few scrumptious morsels per dish. Would that there were more of some and less of others: the dinner ended up split between 4 fantastic plates and 3 sub-par.

The highlights were dishes that combined perfect texture and preparation with just the right mix of flavor or creativity. Everyone at the table agreed on their superiority:

• Transparently thin slices of marlin with tiny shreds of pickled watermelon and bitter orange sauce, combined perfectly for a fresh, citric starter. Could have eaten a platter-full.
• Ribeye beef carpaccio with a medley of bright, vibrant peppery spices, quail egg and a bit of mahon cheese grated on top. A burst of eye-popping flavor on each medallion of beef, and managed to avoid being greasy like many carpaccio dishes are.
• Strips of squid with fava beans in chocolate sauce. This was our wild card, and ended up being a great surprise. The very salty quality of the squid, the warmth of the food and the richness of the chocolate sauce almost hinted at the taste of blood, but was delicious in spite (or because) of it.
• Duck wrapped in bacon with creamy parsnips was the least creative dish of the four, though the smokiness of the bacon paired very well with the almost-potatoey parsnips. Straightforward but well executed.

The lowlights ranged from boring to bland to practically inedible. At $14-$19 a plate, these failures were really unacceptable, and put a damper even on the great dishes:

• Grilled leeks with tomato, almond and red pepper sauce were the best of the worst, being exactly as advertised and not an iota more. A dish you could make at home on an off night.
• Tuna belly in broth, with uh…peppers…and…er…something…zzzzzzz. What? Oh, yeah, this dish was so unsalted, unspiced and uninspired that I fell asleep midway through.
• Blood sausages on caramelized cabbage with a chick-pea/bone marrow sauce. The last plate of the night, and by far the most disappointing. The sausages were the consistency of charred coal (no, really, they crunched) and barely tasted like meat. The dollops of chick pea sauce were barely notable, and the caramelized cabbage—as good as it was—could hardly make up for the blackened lumps of sausage.

Those seven dishes added up to quite a bill, yet at the end of them we were all still hungry enough to want individual desserts. Light on the wallet this place is not. The food is creative and well prepared for the most part, but clearly falls short often enough for the diner to be wary. Perhaps the best way to avoid the inferior dishes is to consult the server and stick with the specials, but the fact that almost half of our meal was disappointing (and equally spendy) proves that Harvest Vine still has a way to go.

Thus Baked Zarathustra

Ever since I stumbled on the Seattle Edible Book Festival, Leif and Nick and I have been brainstorming what punny book-themed dish would be best. Some of our favorites are below, though my entry will hopefully be unveiled at the Festival proper!

• No Chutney for Old Men / No Country for Old Men.
• The Bars My Mastication / The Stars My Destination. (Lemon bars will take you wonderful places).
• Eggs-Men / X-Men. Hard boil some eggs, then run wild with markers.
• Tequila Mockingbird / To Kill A Mockingbird.
• Lime and Rum-ishment / Crime and Punishment. (Pairs well with Tequila Mockingbird.)
• Pie in the Last Pan / Y:The Last Man.
• A Million Little Pizzas / A Million Little Pieces.
• The Little Blintz / The Little Prince.
• Trans-Fat Neapolitan / Transmetropolitan. (Thank you, Nick, thank you for this.)
• Veal for Vendetta / V for Vendetta.
• Gyromancer / Neuromancer. (The Gyrophage is near.)
• The Acidity of Coke / The Audacity of Hope. (It’s really just the tooth-in-cola test.)
• His Dark Ingredients Trilogy: The Golden Crumpets, The Subtle Spice, The Amber Piecrust / His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass. (Leif is totally doing this one, because he rules).
• And, the biggest stretches yet:
• The Pie and the Blintz on the Warm Stove / The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (or, Pho-Piled-On, Pho Rich, and Pho-on-Stove)

To Each…

Tonight, I saw a man order a glazed donut and an iced chai. He then proceeded to dunk the donut fully into the chai, submerging it, and then break it into smaller chunks with a spoon. Once this donut chai mush was thoroughly mixed, he then began to spoon gulps of it into his mouth.

It was simultaneously the most disgusting but most creative thing I’ve seen in a long time, apart from the woman who was—at the same moment—tapdancing to hiphop across the cafe.

I really like Greenwood.