I talk too much. I definitely eat too much. And I write too much.

Back in July I vowed to do shorter posts. Heh…see the novellas that ensued. Since the excess of Christmas looms and a guest post that I’m VERY excited about (substance! travel! food! humanity!) is in the works, let’s try this again.
We rented a cottage on Hood Canal for Thanksgiving. It was adorable, well appointed, a great deal and takes dogs. (w in K’s kayak, photog’d from our deck. The gull is real.)

BB did the bulk of the cooking and turned out amazing meal after amazing meal. Since he has a blog I will respect his rights and let him brag about his insane short-ribs, lamb shank pasta, turkey and mashed potatoes. Much of them are already here at Eat. Think. Drink. but I think he should brag some more. If nothing else, about w’s amazing pumpkin cheesecake and ginger snaps.

I just wanted to share two things:
1) The grilled stix lunch / app we put together, inspired by snax at Biwa and Tanuki. Simple, quick, all using some combo of: lime, fish sauce, garlic, brown sugar, chili, soy. Pretty unanimously I think they ranked: pork belly #1, quail #2, tofu #3, scallops #4. Sliced Japanese turnips and a mix of turnip tops and Chinese spinach that I pickled added a bit of acid. Together, they were a nice complement to refreshing beverages…and how nice to have our own mix-masters, instead of paying $10 a drink. Beer and / or sake would have been great, too.

2) The oysters, we plucked off the beach just steps from our house.

The triplet we threw back.

The bowl we ate. At 10 pm. After a huge dinner. (Tides were super high during the day, so we had to wait til night.)

That’s cool: a dip in the icy waters and a salty slide down our throats is just what we needed to chill out between heated rounds of Mille Bournes.
Normally, I’d find more to say to fill up the annoying gaps left by the photos, but that would just lead to……