The Great American Bakery Hunt travels to the great food city of Seattle

The Great American Bakery Hunt recently visited Pike's Place farmer's market in Seattle and found it extremely hard to leave. There was an abundance of great food going on throughout the permanent year-round market, and we just happened to visit during the overwhelmingly delicious Seattle Cheese Festival. (These people had such a passion for cheese that I found myself close to making a career switch to dairy farmer.)

The same day I visited the festival, and my last day in Seattle, we prepared for a food marathon.

I insisted on stopping at a local grocery store, PPC, which seems to be the Seattle version of Whole Foods. I was on a coffee hunt for Newman's Own Organics coffee, which is difficult to find by the bag in Southern California. I also ended up buying a few bags of Cafe Laddro's brews. After reading that kids are entitled to one serving of a fruit or veggie at PCC while their parents shop, I'm glad I bought a few bags of java from them.

Before wandering down to Pike's Place market, our next stop was Macrina Bakery, a charming bakery and cafe whose cookbook I immediately purchased.

They had an impressive selection of breads, pastries, and overall baked goodness that satisfied the bakery hunting soul. The Parmesan, ham and rosemary biscuit had to be my favorite, half of which I saved for the plane ride and then devoured after takeoff-- instantly becoming the envy of the crackers and peanuts crowd. (I always think ahead to the plane snack.) Macrina is the kind of place I would frequent weekly (daily?) if I lived in the area, and I look forward to testing out some of their recipes.

Sadly, after arriving at the market & cheese festival, we realized we missed the owner of Macrina speaking by only an hour! We were too busy leisurely enjoying her food to know any different.

Later that afternoon, we were pacing ourselves through the cheese festival after having already made a sinfully good grilled cheese stop at Beecher's handmade cheese the day prior.

We made our last meal stop at Emmett Watson's oyster bar. This place was billed as the local, laid-back oyster bar, which is exactly what I was looking for. It's nothing against the fancy-shmancy waterfront seafood joints, but this is my kind of place-- the every woman's oyster. There's a tucked away patio where you can sip your hefeweizen in the sunlight and slurp oysters to your heart's content, menus written on brown paper bags, and malt vinegar to put on your french fries. Friendly service, charmingly unglamourous, this one is for the people!


Below, my token tourist shot with the "Rachel" the famous market pig...In the background, the fish market famous for coworkers flinging fish orders at one another.


Thanks to my friends in Seattle, new and old, who introduced me to a truly great city! There was a lot of culinary ground to cover in one weekend (not to mention copper river salmon season), but I think we did Seattle proud!