Summer Fun: Pike Place Market + How To Cook Summer Crab

Summer! If you’ve been reading the blog over the last handful of weeks you’ll know that we’re pleased as apple pie {topped with vanilla ice cream!} that summer is here. What are you most looking to exploring, tasting or experiencing this summer? If you’re in the Seattle area you must visit Pike Place Market. A favorite haunt of ours growing up, we had a hankering to stop by to savor the summer freshness amidst last week’s client meetings and snapped away. It was as delicious and as fun as always!

The fresh fruit is like no other market, hands-down. It’s been plucked at that perfect moment and the result is always juicy sweetness.

Especially in the Pacific Northwest, Rainier cherries are something of lore. When they’re ripe and fresh people go crazy to enjoy them. This weekend Aleah tested them out for the first time. Ever. Yep. A childhood alergic reaction to cherry flavoring was put to the test and….it went away! Oh, to enjoy cherries at leisure is incredible! How amazing is this display in just one market stall? So beautiful!

To us summer means fun. It means family. Adventure. It means fishing for salmon, grilling up fish and noshing on endless Dungeness crab. Casting large crab pots over the boat and eagerly anticipating them to fill with tender crustacean goodness brings back the best memories. If you’ve ever strolled through Pike Place Market in Seattle you’ve surely experienced the overwhelming atmosphere: the freshest berries, huge blooms and seafood like you’ve never imagined. This seafood is beyond amazing. Huge shoulder-sized Alaskan King Crab knuckles {the best crab in the world} plus so much freshness plucked fresh from the chilly Northwest waters mean the perfect ingredients for a warm summer night.

Simply incredible, right?

At a most special birthday party dinner-in-a-field in late summer, we’ll be serving up salmon candy as an appetizer from this stall. So naturally we had to stop for a sample. This smoked salmon treat is extra sweet and caramelized and will go perfectly with the setting in September.

The peonies alone are one of the best reasons to visit the market in June. They’re just out-of-this-world spectacular and sunflowers and other blooms go for $5 or $10 for a stunning bouquet!

If you venture downstairs more magic and mystery are in store. You can pay fifty cents to peek at the curiosities behind this curtain. We’ve done it and it’s worth the quarters!

You’ve heard us rave about Mt. Townsend Creamery cheeses  before. We were thrilled to see this delicious creamery has its own space in the market.

 …and the doughnut holes. Need we say more? Cooked up on the spot, these little delights are such a perfect treat to end a stroll through the market. Bonus: the awesome Seattlelite street magician who serves them up!

Remember how much we raved about crab? Well, we like to think of ourselves as crab connoisseurs. Growing up in a place where these sweet delights are in abundance at summer tables, we’ve developed a method for cooking up our own that focuses solely on the taste of the crab meat itself, with the perfect enhancement of a few herbs and shallot butter. Add a squeeze of lemon and a garnish of parsley and what more do you need?

Lemons | Shallots | Parsley

How have you celebrated summer? What’s your favorite summer recipe?