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Feature Article

Chefs, Foodies and Farmers

Heirloom tomatoes, sugar snap peas, lobster, shitake and porcini mushrooms - Chef Kelley's menu takes shape.

Meet at Pike Place Market

The seven couples gathered around the brass piggy bank sculpture at the entrance to Seattle's Pike Place Public Market and got acquainted while waiting for their tour leader.

Nobody knew what Tim Kelley looked like-just that he was a trend-setting chef at the upscale Painted Table Restaurant.

Most were Seattle area "foodies" intrigued by the idea of following the chef as he shopped for supplies at the Market's seafood and produce stalls, then watching him demonstrate how to cook the ingredients back at his restaurant kitchen.

Best of all-and the draw for the out-of-towners-the morning would end with a three course luncheon Kelley created using the market specialties for that particular day, the food served with appropriate wines in the elegant art-themed restaurant.

"We called and made reservations for this class as soon as we knew we were coming to Seattle," one young woman confided. "We wanted to see the famous Pike Place Market and this seemed the perfect way to get to taste some of the things we've never even seen before." (The tour/luncheons, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings July-September, are popular with locals so it's wise for outlanders to book well in advance.)

When a laid-back, shaggy-haired guy in beat-up denims ambled up, nobody would have guessed he was one of Seattle's star chefs. Kelley confessed he has a hard time getting up on Saturday mornings after frenetic Friday nights at the restaurant.

The mood was set,

Chef Tim Kelley explains the heat rating of various chilies offered at the Market

pretensions discarded and the tour began with questions flying, opinions exchanged and appetites teased as the young chef moved from stall to stall to chat with the owners about their wares. Tour members learned the taste difference between species of salmon; heard ways to cook scallops; sniffed a variety of wild mushrooms; picked up tips on culinary bargains ("Chanterelles at $5 a pound? Go for it!"); and sampled juicy heirloom tomatoes grown from seeds dating back to the 1800s.

Along the way, Kelley explained his specialty of vegetable-themed cuisine. "We come down to the Market and hang out with the farmers, check out what they're growing, check out what they'll be harvesting a week later, then design all of our menus around what's in season right now," he said.

"Say chanterelle mushrooms are in season. What goes good with chanterelles-tomatoes, asparagus, corn… Then we put two or three of those things together and make a dish out of it. We'll make a nice stock out of the mushroom stem-mushroom syrup… That's how my mind works," he explained. "I think that's what we're going to do for lunch today. We'll go through the stalls talking about what goes with what. By the end of the day, you'll say enough about vegetables, I want to eat meat!"

Back at the restaurant, kitchen the tour members sipped pale pink Bloody Marys made with pulverized heirloom tomatoes as they watched Chef Kelley work in his kitchen, then moved to the dining room for the main event. First, an eye-popping vertical salad of layered goat cheese, grilled eggplant, oven-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions on baby lettuce with balsamic dressing. Then scallop cerviche seasoned with red pepper juice.

Not all the tours of Pike Place Public Market are as festive (or as expensive-Kelley's package of tour, demonstration and lunch is priced at $70 per person) but all offer the visitor insight about the way food moves from its source to the consumer's table.

Vendors are happy to sing the praises of their wares and, if they aren't too busy, (avoid Saturday visits, if possible) welcome questions. Foodies should plan on spending lots of time just browsing the stalls where produce is displayed like jewels.

Fresh flowers and craft stalls share space at the far end of the Pike Place arcade.

Those stalls are rented by the day so the displays change frequently. Ideas for small gifts for friends back home range from a package of sun-dried sour cherries to herbal bath oils, hand-hewn boomerangs to rustic wood kitchen utensils. And connoisseurs find ways to get those bargain-priced exotic mushrooms home safely.

The Pike Place Market was established in August 1907, when farmers decided to bypass the middleman to sell directly to Seattle customers. The first Market Arcade opened in November 1907 with 70 farmers renting stalls by the day. More permanent "high stalls" were built so that retailers could offer fresh fish, meat, poultry, dairy goods and fresh produce year-round. Now there are more than 164 stalls on the Pike Place level, hundreds more shops on two levels descending to the waterfront and the parking lot entrance on Western Avenue. Warning: those stairs are a steep climb, even with the distraction of street performers entertaining along the way. Look for the elevators.

When urban renewal threatened the end of the Pike Place Market in the 1960s, Seattle voters passed an initiative preserving the area as a historical district in 1971. Now the multi-level market and surrounding shops and businesses cover nine

Pure Food Fish Market owner displays prize catch- king salmon.

acres with the immense sign on the arcade roof, one of the city's most beloved landmarks. The annual Memorial Day Weekend Pike Place Market Festival draws thousands of revelers.

The historical district includes shops and restaurants across Pike Place from the arcade. The original Starbucks is still there. Generations of Seattlites say the Three Girls Bakery pastries and Piroshky Pirosky pierogies are equally worthy of gustatory fame.

Natives know to follow the corridor through the maze of ethnic shops to its end to one of the best under-$10 lunches in the city. It's hard to beat a big bowl of fresh-made seafood chowder at Emmett Watson's. The wooden booths, overhead lights and no-nonsense servers don't compare with the atmosphere at the swanky Painted Table, but then neither does the price.

Participants on Chef Kelley's tour probably weren't thinking about the money, though, when it came time for dessert: "Oh My God peaches" to die for (yes, that's really what they're called). By the time the last drop of wine had been consumed, the last crumb devoured, new friends were vowing to meet again.

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