a perfect day

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After a lazy morning of sleeping late and then surfing the web, Gerald and I headed downtown to spend some time at Pike Place Market. We parked at our favorite little lot right across the street from the market, then wandered inside. We were hungry, so walked into the first restaurant we found, a lovely little French (vraiment!) café called Maximilien in the Market.

Unbelievably great food. Brioche and croissants that taste the way french pastries should--light, buttery, delicious. Entrées like my to-die-for croque-madame (basically a ham and cheese grilled sandwich with fried eggs on top,m but that doesn't come close to describing the flavors), and Gerald's crêpe stuffed with scrambled eggs, Dungeness crab, tomato, basil, and cheese. All served on an outdoor patio with a view of the harbor (where the cruise ship we'll be traveling on in August was docked) and the Olympic mountains. Decadent, delicious, and delightful. We'll definitely be back.

Then we shopped at the market, picking up my favorite kind of honey in the whole world (fireweed), a pound each of jumbo sea scallops and wild sockeye salmon, and a bouquest of fabulously fragrant sweet peas.

On our way back to the apartment, I mentioned that we were going to need to bring the rental car back this week, since we only had it for month, and then decide what we wanted to rent for the rest of the trip. I couldn't remember exactly which day it had to go back, so I looked at the paperwork--and realized it was due back in an hour! So we dropped the fish off at the apartment and headed back out to the airport.

When I got to the Avis counter, they didn't give me a hard time at all about getting the corporate rate, which was great. But they didn't have any of the intermediate size cars that you get for that rate. At first, she said that all they had were SUVs, and that we could have one of those for the intermediate rate, which I wasn't thrilled about. But when I said that I'd wander down the aisle and talk to Enterprise about their options (a bluff, since I knew full well they didn't have any cars available today), she told me that we could get a Prius for the same rate! w00t!

So we drove home from the airport in a brand-new 2007 Prius with only 1200 miles on it. I haven't driven it yet, but Gerald was very impressed!

All in all, it was an excellent day. And it promises to only get better when Gerald cooks up the seafood for dinner...

(Oh, and I took pictures, especially of the beautiful flowers.)

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I just read the opening of a novel (Pike Place) and between that and your description (and the Dungeness crab), I'm booking a trip to Seattle ASAP.

Book opening: "It had been a while since I rambled across the cobblestone streets of downtown Seattle. I was early, so I took my time and allowed myself to be drawn with the crowd into Pike Place Market.

Stall after stall was laden with a Thanksgiving harvest: apples and peaches, asparagus, potatoes, pumpkins, early-winter squash, and – of course – the day’s catch. Besides halibut, prawns, and Dungeness crab, I saw at least five types of salmon: Chinook, Sockeye, Coho, Pink, and Chum. That’s what I wanted for lunch, the Chum.

In just a few minutes, I would be meeting my family at Café Sport, a restaurant that everyone was talking about. It was good to be home."

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This page contains a single entry published on July 1, 2007 8:43 PM.

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