Farmers Market – Gas Works Park

July 31, 2016 – We spent the morning with Ari and Mary at the Farmer’s Market in the Seattle, WA area.  Not only did they have a wonderful selection of organic fruits, vegetables and meats, but they also had all sorts of eateries and street entertainment.  First, of course, we have to have a selfie – all of us squinting into the sun.

We made a video – it’s not for the musically sensitive, however.

This is an adobe pizza baker, not very different from the horno (adobe ovens) we saw in the San Felipe Pueblo in New Mexico.

Below, see a front view with the pizza baking inside.  They were wonderful and suitably messy.

We had bought several pints of organic blackberries, but we ate so many of them when we stopped for a snack that we had to buy them all over again.

Tom disappeared for a while – it seemed he found a poet advertising $2.00 poems, and commissioned her to write a poem for Ari and me … about a young man’s freedom with certainty of a mother’s love.  At least I think that’s what the poem is about.

Ari and Mary disappeared for a few minutes on their own mysterious mission, bringing me back some lovely flowers.

We spent the afternoon at the Gas Works Park, a large public park on the site of the former Seattle Gas Light Company gasification plant, on the shore of Lake Union.   You can see there the remnants of the only remaining coal gasification plant in the United States, which had operated from 1906 to 1956.

Here is a picture of Tom with Ari and Mary in front of part of the Gas works

Across the lake you can see Seattle, and even the Space Needle (right of center, where the hill just begins to rise).  The place seems to be a popular spot for romance…

… family picnics (note the sea plane) … and even a newlywed couple and their photographer. Then, of course, there was Ari … attempting to inhale (or kiss?) the Space Needle.

A hill, also known as the “Great Mound,”  was created by covering thousands of cubic yards of rubble from building foundations with topsoil.  At top is an elaborate sculptured sundial made of concrete with rocks, shells, glass, bronze, etc.  The sundial tells time by using the body of the visitor — if standing at the right spot, the viewer’s shadow tells the time of day and the season.

More views of the Sundial

Speaking of time … as the sun began to set over Seattle, it cast a shining line across the lake (see the Space Needle at the far right)

As the light faded, people were still slow to leave … including us

We finished off the evening with dinner at the restaurant Din Tai Fung.  Here’s a picture from the menu:

The Legend of Din Tai Fung

(From the Menu) Din Tai Fung was originally founded as a cooking oil retail shop in 1958.  As the consumption patterns of cooking oil started to change in the early 1970’s, threatening the survival of the business, Din Tai Fung was transformed into a restaurant specializing in XiaoLongBao (soup dumplings).

In 1993, The New York Times named Din Tai Fung among the top ten restaurants in the world, distinguishing it as the only Asian restaurant on the list.  In 2010, the Hong Kong branch was awarded one Michelin star, and it received this recognition each consecutive year, a distinctive  honor shared by no other Taiwanese restaurant.  In 2013, Din Tai Fung was ranked No. 1 in the “101 Best Restaurants in Asia” list that was released by The Daily Meal, a renowned US-based food website.  This recognition further confirmed Din Tai Fung’s achievements around the world.

Although founded in Taiwan, Din Tai Fung has grownn to include branches in Japan, the United States, South Korea, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and Thailand, and it continues to spread in hopes of allowing people from all over the world to experience the exquisite cuisine of Taiwan.

Below is a video Tom took of the cooks in the restaurant, making the dumplings where they could be seen behind a glass window.  It was amazing … even the deserts were dumplings!