The Slow-Cooked Sentence

My summer vacation

Rachael Conlin Levy
Courtesy of OneGreatClick.
My recent trip to Seattle was a delightful detour from life, an escape from the hustle and bustle of a big family to the hustle and bustle of a big city.
In my suitcase I packed baby carriers so I could hop buses, a chocolate chip cookie recipe from the New York Times, and a list of Seattle chocolatiers and Japanese dollar stores. And for just shy of a week, two sisters and their two sons crisscrossed downtown, sampling chocolates recommended by the blog Chocolate Speak, dropping by Daiso to check out its bento collection, and then returning home to work on a cookie recipe.
Theo Chocolate won the taste test hands-down. A tour of the small company, which in one location transforms cocoa bean to bar, impressed me. Theo’s commitment to organic and fair trade cocoa is well and good, but it was knowing that its Fig, Fennel and Almond bar involved soaking figs in a local merlot and stirring all that goodness into rich chocolate that made it divine. This is one craving I can continue to satisfy because I’ve discovered that Reno’s Whole Food’s carries Theo’s chocolate bars.
My desire for the perfect bento box took me to the Japanese dollar store Daiso where I picked up some tiny squeeze bottles for soy sauce, and some equally small and cute forks and spoons. But I hit the jack pot at Uwajimaya, a larger Asian market that carries Lock & Lock, the Korean Tupperware by Hanacobi Co. These utilitarian boxes have taken the madness out of the morning lunch assembly. Woohoo!
In between the shopping we took a ferry to an island, watched the salmon run, and then returned home to work on the cookie recipe, which promised perfection after three days and a sprinkling of salt. Did it deliver? All I can say is: nirvana.


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