Seattle, in cups of coffee, of course

I'm in Seattle for a divided vacation/work trip. I got here Sunday, and we watched the Steelers game and ate vegetarian Primanti Bros. sandwiches for dinner, assembled by my brother.

Yesterday morning I hung around and stayed in my PJs till late and skyped into a meeting for the grocery co-op in Madison where I serve on the Board. Then I went out for a walk, and sat in the sun and read and drank coffee and ate a baby cupcake.My sister-in-law drove us over to one of the many PCCs, where we bought just a few things, so I could make dinner. We ate:

• Jo Jo "Deluxe" potatoes, a flour- and seasoning-coated baked French fry
• Delicata squash rings, one of my faves, the idea came to me from Deborah Madison - you cut the squash in rings; I like to peel but with Delicata this is not necessary - and then cook them slowly in butter in a skillet, truning as necessary, until they are caramelized on both sides
• Kale with garbanzo beans and tomatoes - used up a bunch of Lacinto Kale from the fridge and Russian from the garden. Cooked onions slowly in olive oil, add garlic, blanched the kale, squeezed it out well, chopped it and added it too, along with peeled and diced tomatoes and a can of garbanzo beans, drained.

Today I got up earlier and went over to the University to sit in on a friend's library science class. He had an interesting exercise where the students listed about 75 aspects of the book, and then categorized them as Content - the author getting his point across; Structure - like the binding; and Metadata - externally applied information about the item - like the bar code. We had lunch, salads at the Hub, and then I walked back to my brother's, navigating by iPhone. I'm not sure if the additional information in hand (ha) provided by the phone is a good thing, or if it only makes me more nervous - I would have found my way anyway, without incessant checking of the little screen to make sure I was still on the purple line - and it was running out of juice, to make it even more nervous making.

This evening, my brother had to work late, so me, my sister-in-law and my niece went to Serious Pie, and then to see Whip It. I didn't get any very good pictures of the pie (we ate one that was sausage & little cherry peppers, and one that was potatoes and rosemary) but I got a good shot of my cup of espresso.