Seasons by the Sea: Four Days in Seattle

“Why Seattle?” asked so many people when I told them I was whisking my son away for a long weekend recently. “Well,” I’d explain, “I was born in Northern California but have never been to the Pacific Northwest.” But the real answer is that it’s one of the few places my offspring was willing to explore with his old, old, uncool mom.

Ninety percent of my research beforehand was on where to eat. Guidebooks are always out of date, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and OpenTable are usually skewed by the restaurant’s own employees and therefore not that reliable, and our host was not a foodie. I found one grand establishment for our last night, Canlis, for which my son would be required to wear a jacket. Other than that firm plan, we were free to explore the city and all of its culinary offerings.

We stayed four nights in two different hotels, the first two at the Palladian, a recently restored Kimpton hotel that had weird portraits in the lobby of Kelsey Grammer (Frasier!), Dave Matthews, Bill Gates, and Jimi Hendrix, dressed as Napoleons. Our last two nights were at the Edgewater, the only waterfront hotel in the city built for the 1962 World’s Fair and famous for a visit from the Beatles in 1964 during their first world tour. All other hotels in the city refused them. Both hotels are downtown, and more important to me, within walking distance of the Pike Place Market.

The Pike Place Market was established in 1907, but even earlier than that, in the 1800s, the native tribes of the Puget Sound region — the Duwamish, Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot — traded and shared their goods. It is now a publicly owned national historic district that supports local farmers, small businesses, and fishermen from the area, including Cambodians, Chinese, Danes, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Filipinos, Greeks, Hmong, Italians, Koreans, Japanese, Laotians, Malaysians, Mexicans, Russians, Sephardic Jews, South Africans, Thais, Turks, Vietnamese, and more. There are also numerous homeless shelters and a lot of low-income housing in the surrounding area, interspersed with a gazillion cranes building high-rises for Amazon, Expedia, and other big companies. Seattle is, without a doubt, the most egalitarian city I have ever visited.

To say I achieved nirvana (Ha, ha. Seattle grunge humor, get it?) at Pike Place Market would be an understatement. I went several times a day: in the morning for breakfast apples, in the afternoon to admire the flower vendors and fish tossers, and just about anytime to sample things I have never tried before, like tayberries, marionberries, and Chukar cherries. I have never seen such a staggering array of mushrooms: cauliflower, lobster, fresh porcini, and chanterelles. There were Kusshi, Totem Point, Kumamoto, and Mirada oysters, averaging $12 to $18 per dozen! Dungeness crabs were in season, but alas, Walla Walla onions were not. Lavender grows well in Washington State as do palm trees. Go figure! Finding good restaurants was a hit or miss experience. There is a local chef, Tom Douglas, who has an empire of eateries, from Greek to Italian to fish to biscuits. We sampled his Dahlia Lounge on our first day and tried Tibetan “tingmos,” steamed breads stuffed with eggplant and other goodies. Most excellent. Another lunch was at Matt’s in the Market, where a little piece of super fresh halibut was served with cauliflower puree, romesco cauliflower, toasted pine nuts, sultana raisins, and a garlicky parsley sauce.

Another great score, food-wise, was Cafe Campagne, renowned for its cassoulet this time of year, which is exactly what we had. It was perfect, served in a piping hot, individual cast iron casserole full of white beans, sausage, and duck, and topped with breadcrumbs.

However, not all of my research resulted in success. On an evening foray into the Chinatown-International District, comprising Chinatown, Japan-town, and Little Saigon, no doubt an area full of delicious restaurants, we experienced an epic fail at a Thai establishment called Green Leaf. A good rule of thumb is go where there are a lot of people. This place was packed. Good sign. Another good rule is: If the place looks filthy, don’t go! We made the mistake of eating there anyway. The dismal food and a staff freakout over a toilet overflowing into the carpeted dining room added to the whole charming experience.

At this point, I realized I couldn’t just keep going to Pike Place Market and admiring the local delicacies. I had to cook. Our host was aghast. “You shouldn’t have to on your vacation!” he yelped. But cook we did, and it was such a treat to fill a bag with pounds of fresh chanterelles and sautee them in butter with shallots. It was heaven to pick out a supremely fresh piece of wild salmon and marinate it with ginger, garlic, honey, and soy sauce.

My son whipped up a spinach salad with pomegranate seeds and toasted walnuts, and we feasted withsome Washington State wine. Other than these food adventures, we did explore the aquarium; the Experience Museum, a Frank Gehry-designed music, sci-fi and whatnot museum; the Dale Chihuly Garden; ride the monorail; stare in wonder at the Gum Wall (yes, it’s an alley covered with chewed chewing gum); visit the Fishermen’s Memorial and the Seattle Locks, and glance at the Space Needle. We only got a brief glimpse of majestic Mount Rainier one day, as it was predictably raining for a good part of our visit. For each tortuous activity my son in-dulged me in (shoe and umbrella shopping, wheeee!), he got to choose another activity. One was a visit to Archie McPhee’s, a crazy shop of gag gifts, costumes, and novelties. Who doesn’t need a Sasquatch Research Kit? Another stop on his list was a bar called Shorty’s, where the walls and ceiling are decorated with creepy clowns and marionettes, the P.B.R.s flow like water, and the booths are pinball machines.

I’d like to say we bonded over a visit to Hashtag, one of the legal marijuana dispensaries, but I probably embarrassed him by proclaiming to the tattooed and pierced salesman that I am a pastry chef, and asking which of these cookies or chocolates was actually tasty and not just some T.H.C.-laden way to get high.

On our last afternoon, we returned to our hotel rooms exhausted and not very psyched for our last meal, at the best restaurant with the best view in the whole city. So we agreed to cancel it and just wallow in our bathrobes enjoying the noisy seagulls outside our windows and order some salads and burgers from room service.

I had hoped our last night would be an opportunity for a mother-son talk, a little delving into his heart to see how he is faring since his father died last year. But that talk didn’t take place. Or as he reminded me on the plane ride home: “Mom, we can do that anytime you want when you come into the city.” Yes, we can, and I suppose we will.

For now, I am just grateful that he was willing to spend four whole days and nights with his mama, exploring, tasting, and learning. Together.