Flowers on display at Pike Place Market, Seattle

Shedding Winter Weight

With the mountain of snow outside my window, it's hard to believe spring is almost here. But I know it's true because I just got back from a whirlwind tour that included stops in San Francisco, Seattle and San Diego where the tulips are in full bloom. I didn't need snow boots, a coat heavier than my nightstand, mittens or a scarf to keep warm.

The worst thing about spring is the wrapping comes off the mummy. The mummy as in me. The wrapping as in the layers and layers of deliciously warm clothes that hide every single fat flaw and the fact that my legs are ten shades whiter than snow.

When apples show up in the markets, it's a signal to pile on the clothes and pack on the pounds. It's a primal thing. I can't help it. I don't even realize my portions are getting bigger and my pants are getting tighter until I can't breathe sitting down. And then it's too late. I should know better. I've been at this weight loss gig half my life. But who am I to resist the call of hot buttered buns and macaroni and cheese winter suppers?

On tour, I ate like a dieter sentenced to boot camp enjoying the last days of freedom. Knowing I was heading out to some of the greatest food cities in the world, I behaved myself leading up to the tour, maintaining a strict eating and exercise regime. But as soon as we landed in Seattle, it was a culinary free for all.

I ate my way through Pikes Place Market, stopping first at the Pike Place Bakery for a raspberry bar cookie and a homemade almond joy. My friend and I polished off the bar cookie but passed on the almond joy after the first bite. It wasn't up to par and not worth spending calories on. Thank heavens the market is mostly famous for it's seafood or we would have gone home humpty-dumpty heavy. Instead, we splurged on salmon jerky, mandarin oranges like we've never tasted and an order of fish and chips at the Sleepless in Seattle diner. When in Rome...

We decided to cruise the market for decadent desserts. After a high and low search, I splurged and on a (non-edible) lamp. Okay, so it wasn't dessert but it was just as dreamy and more satisfying. Besides, I'll never have to work it off. It was made by a local artist and I couldn't resist. My New Year's resolution is to finish furnishing my house. As it stands, it looks un-lived-in. I can't make design decisions. Two years after moving in, I still have the 5 dollar paper blinds I got at Home Depot on all the windows. And yes, they're water stained and falling down. If you squint, they look like really cool Japanese rice paper blinds.

I think I did the most damage at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market in San Francisco. I stood at the Acme bakery bread counter and ordered like I was responsible for feeding a family of 12 breakfast, lunch and dinner. I ordered pain au chocolat, almond croissants, pumpkin rolls, sticky buns, green onion bread and an open faced savory tart. I don't really eat bread at home. Not because I don't like it but because I can't get really good bread unless I go to Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor which isn't very often. I'm not willing to compromise my culinary standards and eat mediocre bread just because I love bread. The thought of having to whittle off Wonder bread calories on the treadmill isn't my idea of productive fun. So I eat bread like it's going out of style when I'm in San Francisco. And brownies too.

The only time I eat brownies is when I have good cause to bake a batch out of Richard Sax's famous fudge brownies, lifted straight from the pages of his must-have-in-every-home, Classic Home Desserts, or when I'm at the Ferry Market doing my best to pass up handmade chocolates and truffles. A perfectly reasonable reward for such self constraint in my opinion is a deep dark chocolate brownie. After all, they're a perfectly legitimate source of protein, calcium and cancer fighting antioxidants. Okay, not. Described by their maker, Recchiuti Confections, as "little devils that will make seasoned chocoholics swoon." I bought two and managed to save one till I got back to Michigan. But not long enough to share it with my siblings.

It has been just eight years since Sue Conley and Peggy Smith launched Tomales Bay Foods in a renovated barn in Point Reyes Station, California. After successful careers as Bay Area Area chefs (Sue owned the popular Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley; Peggy ran the kitchen at the renowned Chez Panisse), the women shifted their focus to Tomales Bay. Their new market would carry the region's finest natural foods and other products, from prepared dishes, fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, wines and cheeses. Sue and Peggy began to make cheese from the pure, natural, organic milk produced by Straus Family Dairy, and Cowgirl Creamery was born. Oak Hill Farm has been growing flowers and greenery organically since the 1960s. Otto Teller, the farm's founder, was a pioneering conservationist. Until his death in 1998 at the age of 92, Otto Teller was a passionate protector of wildlife habitat, watersheds, and open space. Today Anne Teller, Otto's widow, and her family carry on with his ideals. The 700 acre farm on the western slope of the Mayacamas Mountains grows more than 100 varieties of annual and perennial flowers and shrubs.

Armed with a cup of Peet's delicious decaf coffee, I wound my way through the market plucking up anything and everything in site. I passed on the Cowgirl Creamery cheeses but only because I had to catch a plane to San Diego and though I've traveled home with a suitcase full of their cheeses in the past, now they have a beautiful website and you can order online. I picked up a jar each of Frog Hollow Farm apricot and peach conserves and took a million pictures of the glorious flower display at Oak Hill Farm's marketplace flower shop.

We had a long drive to catch our plane to San Diego. Okay, so it was only 45 minutes to the San Jose airport from the market but we'd missed lunch and would surely miss supper. So we feasted on Ferry Farmer's Market provisions and went to bed fat and quite happy. San Diego was in one day and out the next so there wasn't time to do much damage though we did go to Old Town for handmade tortillas.

I ate a lot on the road but I also walked a lot. Having left mad winter weather behind, anything above freezing was balmy to me. I basked in the warmth of the sun and welcomed the sea breezes. I wanted to be outside every free minute. In Seattle, I took a run along the water and walked to all my appointments. In San Francisco, Miho and I walked to China town and clear to Japan town the day we arrived. Mostly because it was our first taste of spring but also because we knew we were having supper at Foreign Cinema, owned and operated by my friends and culinary mentors, John Clark and Gayle Pirie, authors of Country Egg, City Egg, one of my very favorite cookbooks, a perfect non-edible treasure to tuck in your Easter Basket.

We walked to and from and all throughout the Farmer's market and to each and every meal partly because we wanted to be outside but also because we wanted to make room for the once in a lifetime delicious eats.

Back home in Michigan where spring hasn't quite sprung, it's back to the basics. Time to refocus and buckle down.

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