The Year of the Tear Down

This isn't our house, but it could be. This one will be torn down soon, along with many others just like it across the city.  There are thousands of these in West Seattle: medium-sized craftsman bungalows, built at the beginning of the last century and a modest family home for almost a hundred years.  Like ours, it has original siding, lathe and plaster walls, clear fir (old growth!) molding and real hardwood floors.

Sure, the bedrooms are pokey, the closets pretty useless and the yard is larger than anyone wants to keep up these days. In fact, that lawn is nothing but a wasted footprint. This charming little house will probably be replaced by several townhouses or "modern box" that covers every foot of the valuable lot. You see these now on nearly every block in Seattle, looming over the neighbors. 

Seattle is experiencing the greatest building boom since the Great Fire of 1889.  Go up the Space Needle on a clear day, and there are more construction cranes on the horizon than you can count.  The West Seattle Blog is calling 2015 "The Year of the Tear Down."

And of course, it isn't just Seattle. With economic prosperity and rising real estate prices, this is happening everywhere.  About 15 years ago, savvy developers snapped up many of the cute Spanish-style bungalows on the fringes of Beverly Hills and replaced them with the biggest new boxes allowed under code.

In Hollywood, these are known (sarcastically) as "Persian Palaces."

Well, we don't have that kind of festooned architecture in West Seattle, but our urban village has plenty of steel and glass, multistory apartment buildings with retail space (and no parking.)

Above is an artist's drawing of a new development going up a short distance from our house.  The block is being demolished now.  I guess you could say that tearing down a couple of cute beauty parlors, a mom and pop insurance office and an old-fashioned brick apartment building isn't that much of a loss to the neighborhood.  But then again, you don't know what you've lost till it's gone.
Which in our case, might be the ability to park in front of our house.

Can of magic

My friend Julie, an excellent cook, gave me this can of panang curry paste a while back, along with her recipe.  What took me so long to make it?

Well, this isn't a dish I'd ordinarily attempt at home, so I was waiting for a special occasion.  I finally made it last night for a dinner with our friends George, Terri, their daughter Misty, and her little daughter, Verity.  Even the 2-year old liked it!

Julie said it was easy and now I believe her.  Flavorful, but not too spicy, panang curry with chicken or shrimp is sure to become a weeknight dinner staple around here.

Just three tablespoons of that thick, canned paste flavors the coconut milk base. Since this was a company dinner, I used a can of thick coconut cream along with the light coconut milk, making it extra rich. 

The only unusual ingredients are fish sauce (essential in Thai cooking, keeps forever in the fridge) and kaffir lime leaves.  You won't find these at Safeway, but you can buy them fresh at the Asian markets, then store in the freezer until you need them.  Another neat trick I learned from Julie during one of our food-shopping, recipe-sharing excursions.

Her recipe made a big yummy pot of chicken curry, served with brown rice.  This looks like it came from a fancy Thai restaurant.

For a side dish, cucumber, cilantro and peanut salad with a sweet-sour rice vinegar dressing.  Another Thai recipe from the Internet.  Refreshing in the summer and perfect with spicy food.


With bread from Trader Joe's...

And rum cake with whipped cream for dessert.  We had a fun evening and a nice meal that I'll look forward to making again and again.  Thanks, Julie, for nudging us into the Land of Panang Curry.

Embrace the (cold) season

In today's rush,
we all think too much,
seek too much,
want too much, 

and forget about
the joy of just being.

Eckhart Tolle

 

Back to reality

I always take the Christmas decorations down on New Year's day, and carefully pack seven large plastic tubs and assorted cardboard boxes.  This puts me in a crabby way for a few hours, instead of starting the new year with a joyous, thankful mood as every lucky person should, but at least I get it over with fast--  the job and the bad mood.  Then I take a long nap, and usually wake up ready to face whatever the new year brings.

John hides in the basement playing with his toys and sharpening knives until it's time to chop up the tree and hoist the boxes and tubs up the ladder into the attic space. Suddenly the house seems bigger, and the empty space is easy on the eye. I have to admit, this annual process is becoming a bit over-whelming for two senior citizens. A super nice roasted turkey breast dinner and a bottle of champagne revived us in the evening.

Speaking of things like turkey bones, starting yesterday it's against the law in the City of Seattle for home owners to throw paper towels, dirty tissues, napkins, crab shells, apple cores, potato peels, spoiled food, dirty pizza boxes, meat scraps, tea bags, etc. into their regular garbage can. All compostable materials (no matter how icky) must go in the yard waste bin along with the grass clippings and pulled weeds, where they become even ickier until picked up once a week.

The overworked trash men will police this new law by examining your garbage before they throw it on the truck. If they can see that more than 10 percent of your trash is stale bagels and paper towels, they attach a shame warning to your can for the neighbors to see.  Eventually, repeat offenders will be fined $1, added to their already enormous garbage bill.  (I don't know if that is a dollar per bagel, or per can.)

This is such a perfect example of the well-intentioned but basically unfair and unenforceable laws our city council likes to pass.  You can still go to any city park and legally throw a bucket full of Colonel Sanders chicken bones into the public trash can.  Go figure.

Happy New Year

May this new year find you
healthier and happier,
peaceful, content, satisfied,
looking forward
to fresh, revitalizing interests,
a variety of pleasures,
interesting new people,
material and personal successes
to make this new year
the best one yet.
Happy New Year!

By Joanna Fuchs

The first duet

Well, we're not quite ready for prime-time viewing, but Amanda did a great job with her new video camera, especially with one of the performers dashing back and forth across the room.  This was so much fun and hopefully the first of many other  "musical productions."  

Little Maya is so cute, taking it all in.