My husband Kenneth and I recently celebrated our sixteenth anniversary.  We flew to Seattle and spent four days exploring the city and doing what we do so well: eating great food.

Kenneth started cooking when he was four years old, following his grandmother around the kitchen.  He never uses the word "chef."  He's the real thing, a cook.

A few Sundays ago, we had friends over for a dinner party.  Kenneth cooked for the entire day, preparing the meal.  We also had a wine-tasting.  A friend brought over bottles of exquisite wine.  All fantastico.  For five hours, we ate and talked under the balmy August sky.

Kenneth is from Denmark where sitting at the table and eating and talking is an art, a way of life, it is Life!

When I met Kenneth, I knew how to make three dishes, mostly cheese: cheese cut into squares; scrambled eggs with cheese; and my specialty, a cheese, mustard, and potato chip sandwich.

Maybe you're thinking I was a young lass when I met Kenneth.  No, I was thirty-eight.  The first time I met him.   We met again when I was forty.  But that's another story.

Actually, when I met Kenneth, I could also cook fish and vegetables.  Grilled fresh fish and steamed organic vegetables.  I easily obtained these fine foods--I lived in the Berkeley Gourmet Ghetto.  But I ate pretty much the same meal every night, unless I was going out or chomping on cheese.

Now, my repertoire of meals is incredibly varied.  These past sixteen years with Kenneth have been a tour of the finest cuisine on earth.  He knows how to cook anything and everything.  Early on in our relationship when I asked him how to make hard-boiled eggs, he bought me a cookbook titled How to Cook Everything. 

He thought it was a good idea I own this book, not only because of my hard-boiled egg query, but because of my lasagna story.  I told Kenneth I once made lasagna and thought a clove of garlic was the whole bulb.  The recipe called for three cloves of garlic.  The apartment complex where I lived at the time had to be evacuated.

I must confess: I've opened How to Cook Everything about twice in the past sixteen years.  Instead, I watch Kenneth cook, and I write down on a yellow legal pad what he's doing.  I've learned a few tricks of the trade, but will never be able to do what he does, or even master cutting an onion Kenneth-style.  He does that amazing, magical cook-chop, the knife slicing at the speed of light right next to his fingers.

In Seattle, we dined in terrific restaurants.  I'll list a few of them below.  We had weather-luck: about 85 degrees day and night.  We stayed at a wonderful hotel, The Inn at the Market, right on the blue Seattle bay, and next to Pike Place Market.  What a fabulous open-air, food-shopping extravaganza!  And as usual when we go to another city, we walked everywhere, taking buses or taxis now and then, and stopping here and there to, of course, eat!

The people were so friendly, I wondered if they were high on something.  Honestly, I would move to Seattle, but I'm Californian to the breast-bone, wish-bone, T-bone.

Kenneth and I also traveled to Victoria, BC.  Rode the ferry, played cards, got seasick.  But it was great to see a little of Canada, and the Butchart Gardens with its acres and acres of every flower under the sun.  However, the round-trip took twelve hours--ferry ride, bus ride.  Too cooped up for us.  And the horrifying ferry food.  Ghastly, what's sold as "food."  Off the boat, we staggered back to the Inn, still wobbly from seasickness. 

Kenneth said, "Look, there's a flower.  We could have stayed in Seattle and seen flowers.  I mean, you have to ask yourself, how much do you really care about flowers?" 

"I like flowers," I said.  "But you're right.  There's another flower.  Wow, and over by that fence, like, ten." 

Laughing, we picked up the pace and ran to Le Pichet for a delicious meal and bottle of wine. 

Seattle is a mecca of music: the street musicians make a constant summer concert.  I loved listening to the violin, particularly, and came home with many cds in support of the young artists' art.

Kenneth's favorite find for food was Salumi, a tiny storefront café that specializes in artisan cured meats.  Armandino Batali, father of cook Mario Batali, owns and operates the café/factory for producing these high quality meats.

When we're in New York, Kenneth and I always go to Mario's restaurant, Babbo, in the Village, so we had to check out his dad's place.  We arrived at Salumi when it opened, and there was a line around the block.  We took our food to go, and headed off to see Waterfall Garden, a waterfall right in the middle of downtown Seattle, in Pioneer Square.  Lots of ferns.  And flowers. 

Seattle was a treasure of an experience.  On our last day there, we stopped by Place Pigalle in Pike's Market for a glass of wine before our taxi ride to the airport.  We sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender.  He told us more about life in Seattle, his family, his daughter's wedding, which was happening the next week.  We told him how much we'd enjoyed his town.  He said, "It looks like you two enjoy each other, so no wonder."

I love going places with Kenneth.  And I love staying home with him.  Who knew I would enjoy marriage this much?  For most of my life, I despised domesticity, I hated marriage.  I changed my mind.  But marriage doesn't really matter. We are two people who found each other, and being together made sense.

Or maybe it's the food?  Well, that's certainly a bounty of fortune, but no.  It's the mystery between us that never stops being a mystery.  Respect, admiration, passion, and laughter.  I think you have to think the same things are funny.

Life is lyrical in its essence, comic in its existence, tragic in its fate.  Or so said the Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, and Kenneth and I agree.

I have a few love poems for Kenneth in my new book, but not enough.  More!  More!  Maybe I can slide one more in before the book is published.  The book is dedicated to Kenneth.  My cook. 

And I'm his dishwasher.  Give me the dishes, sweetheart.  Oh, I wanna scour your tongs, clean your colander.

Here's a list of our fav restaurants in Seattle:

Le Pichet

The Pink Door

Salumi

Café Campagne

Olives and Anchovies

The Tasting Room

Volterra:  the best!  You walk in and want to eat the walls and furniture, it smells so good in there.