Yesterday, Michael Ruhlman posed a question on Twitter as to why food bloggers cook. It’s short and bullet-pointed, but this is why I cook.

• It’s fun and relaxing (especially if you have a glass or two of wine while cooking).
• Otherwise, my husband would eat dry ramen noodles & take-out burritos. (Probably not all the time, but sometimes, yes.)
• I love eating.
• It’s a creative outlet.
• It seems familiar and comforting — I have fond memories of my mother and I watching Julia Child on TV every Saturday afternoon.
• It’s healthier. I know what I am eating and how much fat/salt is in there. And, if there is a lot of fat in there, I put it there on purpose. Ha!
• The successes are really great feeling. When I baked my first loaf of French bread, (last month!!) even if it wasn’t perfect, it was still recognizable as bread. And it tasted like bread. That was so awesome.

Bonus Question Why I blog about it:

• It’s nice being part of an online community of people who are passionate about food and love cooking too. I also just really, really like taking pictures of food.

Mostly all pictures from our trip to Roslyn, WA. We stayed at Huckleberry House, right near downtown. We were in the Cicely Suite. Breakfast was delicious — smoked salmon and vegetable egg scramble, pepper-honey bacon, huckleberry pancakes and fruit. If you are looking for a place to stay in Roslyn, this was very nice. We aren’t normally B&B kind of people, but we enjoyed it.

Okay, now the pictures.

The drive there, along 84/30.

Where we stayed.

The Cicley Suite.

The B&B’s library.

Northern Exposure location guide!

A poster from MooseFest, a NoEx convention kind of thing.

The Brick Tavern!

Dr. Fleischman’s office. Now it’s a gift store, but his name is still there.

The Roslyn(’s) Cafe mural. They’ve taken out the ’s.

Me by the mural!

The door to KBHR. The text is still up! Minnifield Communications Network! This is a 2nd door to a furniture store. You can’t go in this way, but they’ve kept the DJ area intact too.

KBHR from a distance and a mining statue.

The DJ area, without Chris waxing all philosophical.

Records!

Totem pole in town that was used in the show. We just re-watched the episode where that guy died in Joel’s waiting room. They put the body out by this totem pole and then people walked by to see if any one recognized him. No one did…

Looking down the main street.

Another view of the familiar buildings.

Ruth-Anne’s store (Sundries).

Maggie O’Connell’s house (the first one).

The building that was used as the church. I read that the crew constructed it just for the show. It’s abandoned now.

Watch that first step.

Part of the Roslyn Museum’s coal mining exhibit.

An outhouse in the exhibit.

Huckleberries?

Just an arty shot in town, outside an art gallery.

More arty.

The Brick at night.

Roslyn(’s) Cafe mural at night.

Columbia Gorge area, on the drive home.

Become a fan of Stash Tea on facebook.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I made peanut butter cups a couple of day ago..I’ll try to post that tomorrow night. Also, seafood chili. Even jwa liked it! That’ll be (hopefully) this week too. If you become a fan of Stash Tea. ::evil laugh::

I have always wanted to learn how to sew on a machine and make stuff. So, I got myself a birthday present and got a great deal on this sewing machine. jwa and I found a used desk at a resale shop on Hawthorne for a very reasonable price and … voila! It’s my new crafty set-up. Look out Etsy, here I come.

I’ve been taking a sewing class at a place by work (we use their machines — super nice and pricey Berninas) and so far I have a pillowcase.

I even had extra material and was able to then use my machine and whip up a matching pillow case at home on Sunday! So far I really like my little sewing machine. It’s not too complicated and it seems to work well.

The machine and desk fit super nicely in my office. I think next, I’ll try to do some pillows or something like that.

I haven’t forgotten the food. Coming up next - Vietnamese salad rolls!

But not before one more sewing machine shot.

No market this Saturday because of the STOOPID SNOW!!@!@

More info at Lemon Basil.