**Iris:** *stares off into space pensively*

**Me:** What are you doing?

**Iris:** Thinking about sausage.

**Me:** What kind of sausage?

**Iris:** Link.

When I am in a funk, there are two things sure to help: listening to Cotton Mather’s 1997 pop masterpiece Kon Tiki, and reading Jasper White’s 50 Chowders.

It’s not that I make chowder very often, but chowder is a reassuring idea. Whatever you’ve got, counsels the voice of Jasper, boil it up with some bacon, onions, and broth, add some cream, and things will turn out okay. I’ve made three chowders this year: clam, corn, and last night’s chowder, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Iris doesn’t seem to really register the emotion of disappointment yet, and I envy her this. Today, for example, we packed up our stuff, got on the bus, and went to the science museum. We have a membership, and Iris likes the butterflies and the robotic dinosaurs and scorpion. So we got over there and I realized that the museum is closed on Monday. I explained that the dinosaurs and butterflies were resting, and she totally bought this, and we went to the children’s museum instead.

Similarly, sometimes Iris will get very excited about eating something, and then she will end up not liking it. When this happens to me, it’s totally depressing. When it happens to Iris, not only does she not seem to mind, but sometimes she continues talking about it the next day.

Such was the case with clam chowder. I announced with much fanfare a couple of months ago that I was going to make clam chowder. I’d never bought or cooked a clam before, so this was part of the adventure. I went down to the market and bought some cherrystone clams—not very many of them, since they’re huge. (Doesn’t “cherrystone” sound small?) I brought them back and showed them to Iris, and then I steamed them open and we looked with awe and a little horror at the weird clam meat within, especially the green part that looks like frozen spinach and is presumably some sort of liver tissue. I liked the clam chowder a lot; it was especially briny and almost metallic because of the big clams. Iris didn’t think much of it. Then the other day when I asked her what kind of chowder we should make next, she said, “Clam!”

More recently, last Saturday I attempted to roast a duck. This was far from my first time cooking duck (I wrote an article about doing so for the Seattle Times), but it was my first time roasting a whole duck. It was not very successful, and there was a point where I was wrestling with a half-cooked duck on a too-small cutting board and spewing duck juices everywhere that is very funny in retrospect. Iris was talking about the roast duck all day, but she ended up eating about three bites while Laurie and I pecked at crispy bits on the legs.

For a while we’ve had this running joke where Iris or I will tack on “…and a lobster” to any list of things. I’m not sure who started it (it’s probably related to Lobster Magnet), but the basic idea is:

**Me:** When we get home, we’ll have some crackers, some oranges–

**Iris:** –and a lobster.

The joke pretty much ran its course, but then while we were talking about chowder, I said, “I could make lobster chowder…” Iris said, “Lobster chowder? IRIS EAT SOME.” So I’m sure she would be very excited if I did make lobster chowder, but she’s not very good at eating soup, and when I gave her some shrimp recently, she wasn’t so into it (title of guaranteed bestseller: _She’s Just Not That Into Your Shrimp_). Then again, maybe it’s the process of making lobster chowder or roast duck that interests her as much as the eating. In other words, maybe she’s a cook.

Tonight’s chowder, from _50 Chowders_, was chanterelle and leek with a little curry powder, the chanterelles (purchased at the farmers market for $10/pound, which is a steal but still $10/pound) bulked up with some creminis. It was excellent, and it went great with some special crackers that I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

Something both good and bad about Seattle is that everyone pretty much goes to the same places. If you’re a foodie, you pay your dues in the line at [Salumi](http://www.salumicuredmeats.com/) and argue the merits of *Å“ufs plats* at Le Pichet versus *Å“ufs en meurette* at [Cafe Campagne](http://campagnerestaurant.com/cafe_home.html). (I love them both, but the fact that Cafe Campagne’s eggs are served with fries tips the scale in their favor.)

In New York, every gourmand inhabits a different world. You can live in New York for years and suddenly hear about a bakery or sushi place that has been open forever but nobody told you about it. We lived there for a year and never went to City Bakery, maker of the world’s finest tarts, because we didn’t know it existed. I’ve still never been there, although I’ve made some of the tarts from chef Maury Rubin’s brilliant Book of Tarts. If you drew a Venn diagram showing gourmet destinations of a few dozen New Yorkers, there would be a tiny spot of overlap in the middle corresponding to Katz’s Delicatessen, and even then there would be one cranky guy going on about how Katz’s isn’t what it used to be.

The center of the Venn diagram in Seattle is obviously Pike Place Market, and here’s where things get interesting, because the market is old enough, vast enough, and weird enough that every shopper has their own signature market trawl. Recently I told someone about the brilliant apple fritter at Three Girls Bakery, and I’m always getting similar recommendations.

Iris and I go to the market about once a week. We hit Delaurenti for cheese; it’s the best cheese counter in town and one of the only ones that doesn’t precut the cheese. Actually, we hit Delaurenti for cheese for me and Laurie, because Iris doesn’t like cheese. People are always saying they wouldn’t change anything about their children. These people must have kids who love cheese. Here is a conversation Iris and I have had many times:

> **Me:** Oh my god, this is some delicious cheese.

> **Iris:** Iris want some.

> **Me:** You want to try some?

> **Iris:** No. (Walks away.)

Iris’s favorite stops at the market are [Bottega Italiana][1] for gelato (she usually chooses lime); the crumpet shop for a crumpet with butter and honey (“sticky!”); Rachel the Pig for a kiss; and the viewpoint to the right of the fish-throwing stand, a viewpoint I never knew existed until Iris pointed me to it one day. You can see ferries, cranes (container and construction), and Western Avenue, where one time Iris saw a cement mixer with some chipped paint on the side. “Mixer messy. Dada wash it,” I was told.

Iris has never shown any interest in the fish-throwing, because she is exceptionally cultured and doesn’t go in for lowbrow entertainment. (Later, we go home and watch [Strong Bad][2] cartoons.) She does like to pick up tortillas at the Mexican Grocery and look at the staggering array of dried chiles at El Mercado Latino. And we always hit Alvarez Farms, the newest produce stand at the market and one of the best.

[1]: http://www.bottegaitaliana.com/
[2]: http://www.homestarrunner.com/

It’s easy to love the Market, and I’ve rarely heard anybody speak ill of it. There’s the feeling that it’s constantly teetering on the brink of having to reinvent itself as South Street Seaport and cater only to tourists, but it never happens. If it does, Iris and I will still go, as long as there are apple fritters.

Iris has been eating yogurt almost as long as she’s been eating solids. We started out buying Brown Cow plain yogurt and mixing it with Gerber fruit purees, which are really good, especially the pear. In fact, a 50-50 mix of whole milk plain yogurt and strained pears with a shake of cinnamon would be a good breakfast for anyone.

“Yogurt” was also one of Iris’s first words, but it came out sounding something like “yoingyoing.” Sometimes she would say, “Dada. Yoingyoing. Dada. Yoingyoing,” nonstop until I began spooning yogurt into her mouth. Now she says it more like “nongurt.”

I’ve gotten too lazy to mix up fruit yogurt first thing in the morning. Sometimes we buy Brown Cow flavored yogurts, but these have many drawbacks. They’re expensive and too sweet, and they’re fruit-at-the-bottom, which I’ve always found kind of gross and hard to mix. Finally, Iris and I prefer a less runny yogurt. Sometimes we get Tillamook, especially Key Lime Pie flavor (which is more spoonable because it’s made with gelatin), but it’s hard to pretend that this is nutritious.

Then Laurie introduced us to Greek yogurt.

Greek yogurt has no gelatin, but your spoon will stand up in it because it’s strained. This also means that it has more fat than whole-milk yogurt. People under two need a high-fat diet for healthy brain development. People over thirty have less of an excuse, but Greek yogurt is awesome. At Trader Joe’s they sell Total brand, which is the smoothest and has a little pot of honey integrated in the cup. They also sell their own brand, which comes in a bunch of blended flavors, including strawberry, strawberry-banana, honey, and fig.

The fig yogurt is awesome. It’s probably what that “figgy pudding” song is talking about. It’s full of chunks of dried fig and crunchy fig seeds, which Iris calls “bumps.”

Iris is of the age where she can pick up phrases out in the world (most often at Grandma’s house). The other day I sat her down at the breakfast table and gave us each a bowl of fig yogurt. I took a bite and said, “Mmm…fig yogurt.”

Iris said, in a tone of mock astonishment, “Wait a minute! That’s not fig yogurt!”

She was wrong, so I don’t know if this makes her really smart or just the opposite.