Hot Dish

LOOK OUT, POPPIN’ FRESH

Dust off that rolling pin and put on that apron, it’s time again to pop something in the oven and win big prizes in the Home Arts division of the Puyallup Fair. Contests this year include “Best Quick Bread” (win up to $50!), “Best Biscotti” ($100!), “Best Yeast Bread” ($150!), and (our favorite) Best Homemade Pie Filling in a Pillsbury Refrigerated Crust ($125!). For a complete schedule and rules, call 253-841-5063 or do a search on www.thefair.com. (Sadly, registration for the patriotic-themed Tablesetting Contest has already closed.)

COOKING WITH PAPA

Ernest Hemingway a gourmet? Who knew? You will if you attend Chow Foods’ benefit for Richard Hugo House at the 5 Spot. Some of Hemingway’s favorite foods will supplement the current Key West dinner menu (which includes conch fritters and the Baxter Road fish fry), and aspiring Hemingwoids are invited to vie for prizes (worth up to $300) for essays in the master’s laconic style. There’s also a prize for most macho replication of Papa’s appearance. Half the evening’s proceeds will go to Hugo House’s writing programs. If you’d like to be a contender, call 285-7768 now; fun begins at 9 p.m. Tues., Sept. 3 at 1502 Queen Anne N.

AT THE MARKET

Face it—it’s almost fall. Make the most of it; hit your local produce stall and look for hard, crisp, tart, juicy Gravensteins, the earliest local apples and the absolute ultimate apple-pie apple. You don’t make apple pie? Come on, you could manage a biscuit-crust cobbler, at least, all sticky with cinnamon-scented, bubbled-over juice. The Gravenstein season’s short, just a month or so—so make your move. Also just approaching prime: local tomatoes. Sample all the many varieties after 4 p.m. Thurs., Sept. 5 at the Lake City Farmers Market heirloom tomato tasting (Lake City Way at N.E. 127th and 30th N.E.).

OUR FOUR-HOOVED FRIENDS

While the National Audubon Society tries to make diners conscious of endangered seafood species, our own Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) is taking on another culinary issue: factory-farmed veal. To produce the pale flesh and butter-tenderness chefs consider desirable (and to keep cost down), calves often spend their entire four-month lives confined in tiny, unsanitary “crates.” PAWS is asking local gourmet restaurants to take a pledge to refuse to use crated veal. So far some of the finest, including Brasa, Cascadia, Chez Shea, and Place Pigalle, have agreed. Others, equally top-drawer, have refused. PAWS is listing veal good guys on its Web site (www.paws.org). If others continue to resist the campaign, their names may soon be posted too, says campaign coordinator Jennifer Hillman.


Food and/or beverage news? E-mail Hot Dish at food@seattleweekly.com.