Conscious Choice Seattle: Dining out

January 2004 | Local Food

Dining out

Delicious and nutritious food is an art form at Still Life Cafe

By Nora West

Eating is a pleasure. One of life’s greatest pleasures. If it isn’t, it should be.

For centuries, in many cultures eating a meal is an event. It’s a gathering of family and friends with equal parts loving preparation and eating with gusto.

In our fast-paced society eating on the go becomes a necessity at times—probably less than we would all like to think—but I think eating still needs to be a pleasure. Slow and languorous is better.

So if eating is a pleasure, eating healthy, fresh and, optimally, local organic food is the ultimate pleasure. I’ll always opt for local and organic food yet give me fresh (even it it’s not organic) over processed organic health food all day long.

I believe food can be delicious and nutritious. The two results are not mutually exclusive events.

Food can be healthy and taste delectable. Healthy eating has been burdened at times with the reputation of unpalatable, bland, even brown food. Not so.

I’ve met food militants. Lots of them. These are people so rigid and uptight about everything that goes in their mouths—or children’s mouths. It’s hard to believe these food militants can experience nourishment, never mind pleasure, from their food.

Stick with me. No food militancy allowed in our dining ventures.

I once heard a kindergarten teacher tell a roomful of parents that the occasional treatment (her example was a doughnut) was not going to corrupt their kids. She urged these parents to lighten up a bit.

This was a gorgeous, fit woman with 20 years of early childhood teaching experience. Her point, which I endorse: Food prepared with care and comes from a place of love has a significant place in our lives. Or at least it should.

Her philosophy was let the child have slice of home-baked birthday cake rather than a rice cake that day.

There is a place for everything edible. Well, almost everything.

On a recent rainy lunch break I landed at the Still Life Café in Freemont, where I ate my first meal in Seattle years ago. Established in 1986, the café is often covered in the local media, probably because it continues to pass the test of pleasurable eating over time.

I started with a tomato/artichoke soup that was substantial and vegetarian, served with a dense peasant-like sourdough bread. A meal in itself, the soup and hunk of bread were perfect for the damp chill of the day.

If I had been feeling the need for more decadent soup, I would have called for the potato corn chowder with bacon. Other diners seemed to be mixing pleasure with spoonfuls of the chowder.

Next I dug into a small salad ($6.75 for the soup/salad special) that was really not small. It was fresh, fresh, fresh.

Did I say fresh? I always appreciate fresh ingredients in a salad. In fact, I crave them sometimes more than any coconut dessert, which, for me, is saying a mouthful.

The salad’s foundation was crisp, fresh romaine lettuce—just say no to iceberg, or better yet, ask the kitchen if they will make, say, your next Greek salad with romaine or mesclun greens only. It was accompanied by red peppers (love the extra boost of betacarotene), tomatoes, red cabbage, toasted almond (get your omega-3 good fats) and a Gorgonzola vinaigrette that was absolutely delicious.

Sounds odd, maybe, but the dressing was the single best part of my meal at Still Life. I would even eat a salad if only iceberg was available. I sat there devising ways to get a container to go.

Sandwiches run the gamut from several vegetarian choices (veggie sub, roasted eggplant and vegetable, foccacia creations) to the Still Life burger with white cheddar replete with all of the trimmings, right down to Tim’s Cascade chips. The turkey sandwich holds middle ground with a highlight cranberry chutney as the condiment.

This is why I love the place. Still Life Café has something for everyone on your list of dining companions. As its menu board suggests “for the vegetarian and the carnivore.”

Dining here is what pleasurable eating can be, lunch break, dinnertime or during a fabulous weekend brunch (that starts at 8 a.m. for early birds). You peruse healthy choices and the vegetarian can peacefully co-exist with the meat-eater companion.

Service is cheerful and accommodating. The ambiance is fit for solo lunchtime reading or group conversation. The walls, of course, feature still-life paintings. If you are driving, parking is tight during lunch hour.

The dinner menu ranges from vegan lentil cakes (with sauteed spinach and fresh tomato relish for $7.95) to Still Life meatloaf (sides of mashed potatoes, green beans and peppercorn gravy for $11.50). I can’t see getting through the winter with sampling the braised lamb stew with lemon, thyme and root vegetables ($12.95).

Brunch takes you from homemade granola and fruit ($2.25 small and $3.25 large) to biscuits and sausage gravy with eggs any style ($6.95). I hope to persuade a special companion to share the smoked salmon hash with me some Sunday morning soon. It comes with a poached egg, cheddar cheese sauce and either toast or warm coffee cake. My pleasure index says go for the coffee cake.

I once heard a radio host say that in a given day he never puts anything in his mouth without feeling guilty.

Poor guy. What a way to go through life.

On the way out the door at Still Life, I grabbed a lemon coconut pistachio cookie. Lucious.

Well, pleasure has to be guilty once in a while.

Nora West lives and eats with pleasure in the Puget Sound area.

Do you have a favorite “conscious eating” restaurant? Is there a place that supports locally grown food, organic farming and your palate. Send your suggestions to the editor.

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