Pumpkin Pie: Another holiday tradition with varying recipes. Besides the filling and the crust the spices in this dish include, allspice, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg. What better way to enjoy this then with an Elysian Night Owl.

Chocolate Cake or Brownies: It's a little over-indulgent, but you might consider a Pike Entire (bourbon barrel aged and blended stout). For a more inexpensive option, try the Elysian Dragonstooth, Hale's Troll Porter, Baron Doppelbock, or a Ram Mocha Stout (currently on draft at Northgate).

Beer Floats: There's a common misconception that you can't make a float without soda. But beer also contains a great deal of carbonation which contributes to its aroma. Paired with the right ice cream and the right beer one can enjoy this adult dessert while your little one enjoys their soda variant. A couple of tasty beers include the Trade Route Pandan Brown (with Vanilla Ice Cream), and Elysian Night Owl (with Pumpkin or Eggnog Ice Cream). Check with a local Baskin-Robbins to see if the Egg Nog is in stock.

Spent Grain Pancakes: This is a bonus recipe. Made from grains that previously were used to produce beer, all you need to do is contact a local brewery (ie, Elysian, Maritime Pacific, Hales, Big Al, Pikes, Big Time, Fremont, Two Beers, Schooner Exact). Warning, breweries dispose of grain all the time, so call and find out the day they are brewing in order to get the freshest leftovers. The recipe will work after you have dried the grains (in the oven on low heat). You make the same way you make your garden variety pancakes.

1/4 cup natural granulated sugar (evaporated cane sugar)
1/4 cup real-deal, PURE, maple syrup
2 tablespoons water, 2 cups spent brewery grains
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder,
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup natural granulated sugar (evaporated cane sugar)
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
2 1/4 cups organic buttermilk
2 large organic eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Cheers!

Mixologists, of course, don't just "tend bar;" they combine the elements of a cocktail with the skill and understanding of ingredients you'd expect of a creative chef. Hence this unusual Negroni, with Amaro Ninino substituting for Campari. (By coincidence, this very morning, Eric Asimov's column this morning in the New York Times covers the range of Italian amari.)

Some folks find Campari too bitter, according to Shawn, though it falls into the same general category as Jäeger, dude. Add shots of Punt è Mes and Beefeater 24 and you've got yourself a Negroni on steroids, flavorwise. He also makes a sort of Negroni Light, with a Campari-flavored egg-white foam, which Seattlest found singularly unappetizing.

One of the bar toys at Clive's is an absinthe fountain, which Shawn put to good use with a Canadian absinthe, Taboo, distilled in the Okanagan. Flavors of star anise, hyssop and fennel here, rather than licorice. There's an extensive post in our archives about absinthe, part of our review last year of the Arctic Club Hotel's Polar Bar, which is worth rereading. It quotes cocktail authority Robert Hess, who is also reverently cited in Clive's menu as the savior of the Trident cocktail.

In his spare time, Shawn is associate editor of Chilled Magazine and runs a company called The Liquid Revolution, which sells a professional-quality, 12-inch muddler of his own design. Among the muddler's most enthusiastic supporters are Shawn's cross-town competitor, Solomon Siegel (who runs Solomon's, another serious cocktail bar, sorry we missed you this time around) and Kevin Brauch, aka The Thirsty Traveler, whose show is seen on Food Network in Canada and Fine Living Network in the US.

Sorry, too, that we were a couple of weeks too late to attend the Art of the Cocktail, a two-day fundraiser for the Victoria Film Festival, which drew dozens of star mixologists from BC, Washington and Oregon. Named best mixologist of the Pacific Northwest was Vancouver's luminary David Wolowidnyk, bar manager at South Granville's West. Solomon Siegel finished third. Among the judges, Seattle's Murray Stenson.

We warned you: everything is connected. Six degrees of alcohol, no doubt.

Clive's Classic Lounge, 740 Burdett Ave (ground floor, Chateau Victoria), Victoria BC, 250-361-5684

Enter the developers in the form of Northern Dynasty, parent company of mining project called the Pebble Partnership. A wealth of minerals lies beneath the tundra, and Pebble wants it. Gold, copper, molybdenum silver, rhenium, palladium. The land was opened to mining in the waning days of the Bush administration, and the project had the enthusiastic support of Alaska's former governess, Sarah Palin. Trouble is, getting at the riches would require a vast open-pit mine, the world's biggest, on the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The pit would measure 15 miles across; the dam to hold back the mine's toxic tailings would be 700 feet high and 4.5 miles across, the world's most massive, bigger than the 3 Rivers dam in China, and built on a seismic fault.

Kevin Davis, the chef at Steelhead Diner and an avid fly fisherman, is alarmed. He's gone to Washington DC to lobby against Pebble Partnership's plans. (Sunday evening he was being interviewed by Q13 News.) Seth Caswell, owner of Emmer & Rye and president of the Seattle Chefs Cooperative, is worried about the threats the mine would post to Alaska's native culture. John Shively, on the other hand, CEO of the Pebble Partnership, says the chefs don't understand the project or appreciate what it could do for the people of the region. Going a step further, Gail Phillips up in Anchorage is outraged by the behavior of the 13 Seattle chefs who are sticking their noses into Alaska's business. Boycott them, she says!

Seattlest agrees. By all means boycott these restaurants. Show 'em who's boss. Seriously, Ms. Phillips, are you nuts? Every single visitor and every single local knows Seattle is famous for salmon. Like it or leave it, salmon is at the heart of Seattle's restaurant economy. Thanks to "activist chefs" like Caswell and Davis, we now get some of that wonderful Alaska fish down here in the Lower 48, and we serve it to visitors from around the world. You should try some.

For the record, here are the restaurants Ms. Phillips would have you boycott: Art of the Table, Chiso, Emmer & Rye, Flying Fish, Persimmon, Ponti Seafood Grill, Rover's, Steelhead Diner, Tilth, Tilikum Place Cafe, Pike Brewing Co., Palace Kitchen and Etta's Seafood.

Are you counting? The floor is made up of 18,000 Italian mosaic tiles. Are your eyes open? The bar is inlaid hardwood, the lamps are blown-glass, the walls hand-plastered. Artisan sculptor Eddie Gulberg created original metalwork for the windows, doors, tabletops, and fixtures. Chef Eric Donnelly, last seen at Oceanaire, built the kitchen and laid the tiles himself. Six other craftsmen are credited on the menu. Oddly, despite having tasted over 1,500 wines to assemble a list of perhaps 200 bottles, GM Shing Chin (formerly of Wild Ginger and West Seattle’s Ovio Bistro) comes up with not one wine within 100 miles of Toulouse (nothing from Fronton, Madiran, Cahors, or Gascogne). Okay, so you're all about Nawlins (NOLA's Abita Amber's a good start on the beer side), not France, but how hard would it be to give your wine list a regional focus as well, the way Le Pichet does?

The menu is the most ambitious Seattlest has seen for some time, with salads, soups, fresh oysters and shellfish platters, foie gras, tartare, housemade charcuterie, artisan cheeses, 10 seafood standards and 5 more seafood specials, half a dozen poultry items, ten steaks, 6 accompaniments (béarnaise, bleu cheese, horseradish-veal demi-glace). The bar offers 7 absinthes, 6 pastis drinks, 5 sherries, and a dozen house cocktails. For the bitter or the lovelorn, there's a cocktail called Bitter Love (Plymouth gin, Campari, strawberry syrup, orange bitters, prosecco, $9); alas, it's too sweet.

If this is supposed to be Toulouse Petit, we can only imagine what Toulouse Grand might be. A stupendous Vieux Carré breakfast, perhaps? Or just beignets? "Previously accepted limitations no longer apply," says the menu. Stay tuned.

Toulouse Petit, 601 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, 206-423-9069

"Dick Smith was one of those characters you just don’t find anymore, along the lines of restaurateur Ivar Haglund or politician Charlie Chong," Park recalls. "He was outspoken, political, and had a wicked sense of humor."

Says Meinert: "Dick knew how to capture attention, and was a real rabble-rouser. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have met Mandy, so I owe him a lot." Park began working for Smith in late 1996, as a server at the 5 Point. It was there that she met Meinert, while on shift. The couple recently celebrated 11 years together; their first child is due in December.

Smith's tongue-in-cheek marketing slogans are part of the 5 Point's dive bar appeal. Bartenders are outfitted in t-shirts bearing the tagline "Alcoholics Serving Alcoholics Since 1929."

"The last thing we want to do is screw up the menu, or ruin the classic appeal of the 5 Point," Park says. The chicken fried steak will still weigh in at 11 ounces ("the biggest in Seattle"), the meatloaf sandwich is 9 bucks, and breakfast is available 24 hours a day.

On the other hand, there are now a handful of vegetarian offerings, along with an old-time favorite, Liver and Onions, which is now listed near the "Green Cat" Curry Tofu Scramble. A Senior Citizens discount will launch with the new menu, and cocktails will remain generous in their portion. "We call them family-sized," Park laughed.

The 5 Point will officially celebrate its 80th anniversary in December, with a party that's slated to include 10-cent beers and 30-cent Blue Plate Specials. That meatloaf san on white, with mashed potatoes & gravy, by the way, was just fine.

Your cooking will get more creative. Some CSAs allow you to pick the vegetables you get each week. Some do no not. (Seattle Market Gardens doesn't.) Either way, your CSA's stock of produce is limited by what can be grown locally. The contents our CSA box varied according to what was available that week. You'll get used to not knowing what's coming each week, and you'll learn to quickly change your dinner plans to account for something new and interesting. Besides the unpredictability, there will be mind-numbing regularity: there will probably be certain vegetables you get each week, and you will find new ways to cook them so you don't get bored to death. After two months of wracking our brains to find a way to use all the mizuna we were getting, we discovered the joys of mizuna pesto. We're still looking for a way to 4 heads of lettuce each week besides salads, though.

You'll eat organic, local food, and you'll do it cheap. Full shares at Seattle Market Gardens are $520, and half shares $310. A half share more than feeds two people, with some left over for the neighbors. At two people at 22 weeks, a half share works out to $7 a person, which is an incredible deal considering how much produce you get each week. You'll ignore Whole Foods, shun Town and Country Markets and sniff haughtily at PCC, because you'll be eating truly local food. This is produce that's grown in the backyards of Seattle.

Cons
You lose your freedom of choice. You might not get to pick what vegetables you eat with each week. Like we said above, this forces you to get creative. But the key word here is "forces." If you're used to bringing the same sandwich to work for lunch each day and cooking the same roast with root vegetables every Saturday, this is going to cramp your style. You may get potatoes, carrots, kale, and tomatoes one week, and basil, bok choy, beets, chard, and lettuce the next. You won't get to plan the week's menu until you open up your CSA bag.

You're going to get some bugs. Bugs are gross. Bugs eat produce. The produce in your CSA was probably bagged by the person who picked it, and it might not be as clean as supermarkets and fruit stands have led you to believe produce is. Aphids eat kale, beetles eat tomatoes, and slugs eat everything. You'll have to remove them from time to time.

You'll be sad when it ends. Freedom of choice is overrated, and we're willing to deal with a few bugs if it means our crisper is overflowing with good, local produce every week. Time to start looking for a winter-season farm to tide us over until May.