Tuesday at the Table

"My goodness, that was good!" My words, after having an unplanned lunch at Serious Pie in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle. Hubby and I were on a one-day holiday downtown, and had already been to a new Starbucks, a drive-by of the houseboat community along Lake Union trying to get a decent photo of our fair city, and Pike Place Market.

Now back to lunch. Remember when I told you about the Tom Douglas restaurant empire in Seattle {see here} and my goal of eating at all of the restaurants? Well, this visit to Serious Pie made it complete. Flavourful, thin-crusted, charred pizza like this:

alongside a lovely salad of arugula, pickled beets, and figs like this:

with a ring-side seat view of the Dahlia Workshop like this:

All in all, a delicious, fun completion to my foodie goal.

A few weeks before, our next-to-last stop on the Tom Douglas empire tour was at Cuoco, where we took a fun little cocktail class, followed by dinner. It was there that we tried an unusual salad with grilled corn, sweet 100 tomato, calabrian pepper, fried parmigiano, and balsamico. Good enough to try duplicating at home, and now to share with you.

Roasted Corn Salad
2 ears of fresh corn, husked, rubbed with canola, salted and peppered, and grilled - keep rolling over till most of the kernels have some color; cool and then remove kernels into a bowl
1 pkg. grape tomatoes, sliced in half
some diced onion (I used Walla Walla sweet)

Make a quick dressing:
squeeze juice of one lemon into a small jar, removing seeds
add about twice as much olive oil
squeeze in a clove of garlic
add pepper and a pinch of kosher salt
Shake like crazy and pour over your salad.

Add some basil chiffonade & stir it all up.

Ok, I also did this final step and I know most people wouldn't go to the trouble. But hubby and I thought it would be fun to try this component of our inspired salad.
Cut a hunk of fresh Parmesan into bite-size pieces; not too think (maybe 1/3" or so). Roll chunks in flour. Toss in a bowl of buttermilk. Roll again in flour and shake off excess. "Deep-fry" in a small pan of hot canola oil until slightly golden, but not long enough that they melt. Drain chunks on paper towel, cool slightly, and add onto your corn salad. Can you say, "Yum"?