We did spend the weekend in The Pearl. The cold weather made the warmth of the Mediterranean sound so inviting.

For Sunday lunch I took inspiration from the roulade I did for Thanksgiving. We had a lone chicken breast in the freezer so I used gruyere, and spinach for a filling and did another roulade – I like roulades. Tricia made a Caesar salad and we had a perfect meal. Our entree was polenta fries with truffle mayo.

On Wednesday we headed north to the Puget Sound region to visit some friends and family, but especially to celebrate our anniversary – 38 years as of today.

Our first stop was La Conner, we leave here tomorrow. La Conner is a place full of memories and history for us. We first came here about 37 years ago and have come often over the years. My mother lived in nearby Mt. Vernon. Every year around her birthday we would pick her up and come here for lunch – there are a lot of good memories from those trips.

We are staying at The Channel Lodge, which if you are looking for a place to stay in La Conner we can highly recommend it. We stayed here two years ago when we took a trip back from France in 2023.

It is great to stay in a place with plenty of sketching inspiration right out your window.

For lunch on Wednesday we went to the La Conner Brewery, mom’s favorite place. We wandered around a bit then went to The Fork at Skagit Bay for happy hour. We met a few locals and connected with the bartender. Went back yesterday – it was so good.

This trip, as most of ours are, is about food. When we were here in 2023 we discovered Nell Thorn, a wonderful restaurant right on the channel, we have no idea how we ever missed it in the past as it is so good. The service and the food is exemplary. We had a booth by the window and both had Dungeness crab pasta, with crème brûlée for desert.

For many years we have gone to one of our favorite restaurants in the world for our anniversay, the Oyster Bar on Chuckanut Drive, so today we have reservations, can’t wait.

I hope your week went well, that you had a chance for some good food, good friends, and a bit of laughter. Thank you as always for following. And thanks to the couple of followers who have recently said they are getting motivated to do some sketching, I still believe it is the best way to capture the moment. Have a good week.