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William came to Seattle last Wednesday for a bit of a Northwest tour. As mentioned before, we had three events planned. 

 

First off was Island Books, on Mercer Island. This is the kind of bookstore that gives bookstores a good name. The kind that inspires people–Amy’s mom among them–to look at books on Amazon.com, just so she can go over to the brick and mortar local bookstore and buy the books there. And happy to pay full retail for the honor of having a good shop in the ‘hood.

Roger Page, who runs the place, was a very generous host. He also had very kind things to say about our book. He himself had once worked on a fine art documentary book of words and pictures, and so it meant a great deal when he told us what a fine and unique book we have. 

Roger’s good natured optimism meant he had many (many) more copies of Edges on hand than what our audience was able to consume. Okay, seriously here, there were only two people in the audience that we didn’t already know. (At least one of them bought the book, thankfully!) Thank goodness for the folks you know and love pulling in to help!

Co-owner/Chef Ericka Burke introduces the evening, and the menu, but not the book!

It was a good thing that Roger had all those extra copies on hand, as the next night we had our Very Cool Author Dinner at the Volunteer Park Cafe. Through a miscommunication, there were no books on site when we got there, and I didn’t think to ask about this until about 10 minutes to 7, when our event was to start.

William Emery, my pal and co-author, with the only copy of the book in the restaurant. The drama!

“I’ll get on the phone,” I told Ericka, one of the owners. Quick call to Island Books and we arranged to have 30 copies boxed up and ready to load into the car–we got Amy scrambled to go and pick them up. On an empty tank of gas. Oof. 

No big though. Amy strolled back in leisurely about the time the last of the Duck’s egg pizzetta as being served. Amazing and beautiful grub. I’ve had egg on pizza before, but never from a duck. The rich, almost sweet egg, and the little bed of shaved brussels sprouts it was on–seriously great. And pretty much all the food was locally grown. 

Did you know Washington is responsible for something like 80% of domestically grown lentils in the US? Neither did I.

Some time after Amy got back, after a couple courses, we finally passed the books around. William and I got to chat with all of the 24 or so people who were there. I guess of that number a few were ourselves. Our friend Traca was there, she of SeattleTallPoppy blogging fame–and well she should have been, as she lined this gig up. 

We were honored and excited to have Linda Derschang in the house. Among countless other buzzy and venerable Seattle eating and drinking spots, Linda is also co-owners (along with Ericka) of Oddfellows Cafe. Kind of the new hotness around here I guess. 

Thursday night was the first time we ate at Volunteer Park Cafe, and I have to say I was really impressed. And I’m not just saying that because they treated us so nice. The food really was quite remarkable. And all the more so because it was prepared in this tiny little kitchen where they don’t even have a range. It’s smaller than our kitchen here at Casa NonFiction. 

Ericka gets busy with the lamb. 

There was no question that the evening was going well, but any worries I might had were truly dispelled when, about halfway through I stepped into the restroom to wash some spilled wine off my hands, and all I could hear were peals of laughter, clinking glasses, excited talk across many conversations… the sounds of a killer dinner party! It was very satisfying. 

Thanks, Volunteer Park Cafe!

 

That was Thursday night. Friday we had off, and then we had our big ticket reading at Elliott Bay Book Company on Saturday afternoon. We were pretty excited about this one.

That’s our book in the lower left there. Hasn’t stopped being exciting to see our book in bookstore windows!

The reading space downstairs is super friendly, and they had a nice projector and a mic set up for each of us. We were actually kind of part of a program, and we followed the writer, recipe-chef and photographer of Chefs on the Farm. Pretty good match if you ask me. 

Amy had coached William and me a bit on giving a better presentation, which I believe we did. Or so the nice people said. It was fun. I can’t speak for William, but I was pretty nervous. Reading at Elliott Bay is kind of like getting on Def Comedy Jam or singing your arias at the Met or something. Well, maybe not the Met. But still.

I hope I’ll get a chance to do it again.