Sunday, March 15, 2015

An Early Spring in Western Washington

It's been an incredibly dry and warm winter, and I kept expecting winter to actually hit. I made a valiant effort at being wintery, and made sure to eat lots of waffles, cheese, and cookies.
My friend from Texas actually has a
Texas waffle iron
My roommate turned 30 and had a birthday
party with 30 different kinds of cheese
A roommate was on a low-carb diet, and
proceeded to bake lots of cookies and
muffins and ask us to eat them.
I also went on a Marsala kick. What's more wintery than cooking with wine? I made Chicken Marsala, Marsala-poached pears with vanilla ice cream, and a mushroom Marsala pasta bake.

Try as I may, winter never actually came. It's been consistently mild with barely any snow in the mountains. Local meteorologist Cliff Mass called it The Winter Without Seasonal Affective Disorder. Maybe I'm ungrateful, or a glutton for punishment, or just a true Pacific Northwesterner, but I don't feel like I've earned spring yet.

But nature didn't take my sentiments into account, and it's actually been acting like spring since about mid-January. Rhododendrons were already in bloom, and many other flowers followed.
 
A few weeks ago I rode my bike along the waterfront in downtown Seattle toward Magnolia, and over the Ballard Locks. It felt like summer with all the people out and about, and all the boats going through the Locks. Check out these pictures from our Golden Gardens picnic-- you would never know this was February.
 Now that it is really almost spring, I'm pretty excited to start getting outside more. What are you looking forward to this spring?