What We Talk About When We Talk About Quiche

Seattle, obviously, was insane. We started driving at 7 am, where the day started with donuts and an iphone application where you can record yourself sining T-Pain songs and then play them back, all auto-tuned up for your enjoyment. We reached Seattle at 10, parked in front of a strip club, and marched immediately to Le Pichet. We ordered a bottle of wine and most of the menu, and proceeded to show Seattle how it's done. When we had finished our meal, they put the specials board up for the day so we ordered those too. That was when we encountered the quiche. The quiche... It was tall and jiggly, full of leeks, ham and gruyere. The crust was buttery and flakey, and the very presence of it removed the last scrap of dignity that any of us were clinging to. We became hideous, wild animals. Not all of us had silverware at that point, but by the time the waitress got back to us with a few extra forks the quiche was gone, our fingers were greasy, and we were sweaty and disheveled.

After that we walked around and looked at some stuff, and then proceeded to Txori for tapas and wine cocktails. We ate fried peppers stuffed with blood sausage, squid stuffed with squid, chorizo with chocolate, and drank a cocktail called "The Little Red Penis." Then we went up to Capitol Hill to pretend to be anything but bloated fatties from Portland, but ended up drinking coffee at Stumptown despite ourselves. From there we drove out to Ballard and had more cocktails and waited for our reservation at Delancy.

Delancy is in Ballard, but not right in the downtown area. It is on what appears to be the cutest street ever. The restaurant itself is tiny and simple, with horizontal wine racks lining the back wall of the dining room. We were delighted to find that they are already getting nettles in, and we had a nettle and ricotta pizza with red onion. The nettles were so dark and rich they tasted like seaweed. It's only february! What are nettles thinking?!? We ate 4 pizzas and they were all perfect. We had dessert too, and I squealed to think I might be eating one of Molly Wizenberg's desserts. We had the meyer lemon budino with sables, and 2 chocolate chip cookies with grey salt.

I haven't always felt a lot of love for Seattle, but this trip made me feel like I could love it if I was fed pizza from Delancy and quiche from Le Pichet frequently enough.