The Savage Vine

Savage Plants and Landscape has long been my favorite North Kitsap nursery.  It's not the largest in the area, but it has remarkable diversity, outstanding grounds, and personable and knowledgeable service.  Well, they have improved on all this by adding a wine shop!  The Savage Vine  is located on the premises, in a peaceful and refreshingly non-hipster setting.  They are open daily and do tastings on Saturdays, with the price ranging from free to $5, which sounds reasonable to me.  They expect to add outdoor seating as the weather warms, which will make it all the more divine.  I quite like the idea of drinking wine while shopping for ground cover.  It's also located conveniently between my house and my shop...nice!

I'm really pleased to see so many quality small businesses opening in the last year or so in the area, especially in the face of an uncertain economy.  It seems that the worst things got, the more courageous and creative many people became; resulting in flurry of business openings and reinventions, cool new events, and fledgling non-profits.

Poulsbo Mini Pub Crawl

Katie, a fantastic server, behind the bar at Tizley's. 

I left work with beer and sausage on my mind, so after rendezvousing at home, Drew and I decamped for Tizley's Europub in Poulsbo.  Sitting on their comfortable old furniture on the second floor with late day sunlight filtering in, life begin looking pretty good.  I had a sample of a delicious coconut porter from Maui Brewing Company, and a glass of a refreshing Kristallweizen from a new Poulsbo brewer, Sound Brewery.  We also had mounds of sausage, sauerkraut, a lamb burger, bread sticks stuffed with cheese, apple strudel, and other wholesome delights.  And it's OK, because I had raw spelt flakes for lunch!  With green tea!

Front Street in Poulsbo from Tizley's deck.

The tasting room at Sound Bewery.

Inspired by the Kristallweizen, we then set out for Sound Brewery's tasting room.  After driving haplessly around an assisted living center for Alzheimer's patients, we finally found it in a small warehouse tucked beyond an automotive center.  It was as unpretentious as you get.  Some breweries go out of their way to promote a gritty industrial feel, but this was an authentic bare bones tasting room.  It was fairly crowded but pleasantly low key, and the beer and service were both friendly.

We came home and with a mixture of hope and dread turned on the Mariners game.  Bless their incompetent hearts, they actually won the game.

It has been a stressful year and little pockets of goodness like tonight feel really sweet.

Kitsap Spring

The last year or so has been a big one for me, and I'm just now feeling that I'm settling into my new routine.  I'm a lazy writer, and the more complex and momentous life events often seem too hard to write about.  It's not a good trait for a blogger, since I end up chronicling the mundane and skipping the interesting stuff.  I'll work on it.

Anyway, spring is supposedly here, and the farmer's markets are beginning to open around the county.  Kitsap Cuisine does a fine job of writing about the local farm and food scene, including good articles on the local farmers markets.  A full schedule of local markets is below.  It seems like they're getting bigger and better every year, which pleases me no end.  I have tomato seedlings happily growing in the laundry room and all the onions and most of the greens are in the ground.  My snow peas are up and looking vigorous.  So, yeah, it must be spring.