Last week we went down to Gretchen’s to help with Knut Christiansen’s latest cooking class. Once again the theme was tapas and paella, but he mixed it up with some different dishes and approaches this time. Sadly for me, a lot of this meant almonds, but I was hardly in danger of starving.
As usual, Knut did his shopping on the way down to the class and arranged his ingredients as beautifully as possible. It almost seems a shame to chop the things up to cook them.
First off, can I just say that any restaurant that gives you crayons to draw on the table is a great place. You don’t even have to bring children, and if the staff really likes your doodles they’ll hang the table covering in the hallway. We amuse ourselves drawing pictures of the food, or trying to incorporate olive oil stains into our illustrations. Why be a grownup all the time?
Flats is one of our favorite local restaurants (local being a relative term around here, meaning less than an hour’s drive away). We first discovered it a few years ago – we had gone to Bellingham to celebrate my birthday at our then-favorite restaurant, Calumet, only to discover it had gone out of business. Disconsolate, we headed to the Fairhaven district, discovered a new tapas restaurant, and ended up having a wonderful birthday dinner – good food, great ambience, impressive wine list, fantastic service. We’ve been back many times since. Continue reading
