Bellevue

Last week Amazon.com had just sent me my new Sichuan cookbook, Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop. Fuchsia Dunlop, isn’t that just a great British name? Almost as good as Fionnula Sinclair. Anyway, the pork pot stickers that I wanted to make called for black Chinese vinegar. Knowing that my scary Rainer Valley Safeway would not have this, and that the only somewhat better QFC down the road would not either, I had to think about where to go. Uwajimaya certainly would have black Chinese vinegar, but it was a Saturday and parking in the ID is impossible on Saturdays.

Hmmm…didn’t a new Whole Foods just open up in Bellevue? I hear myself hiss and the hair stands up on the back of my neck at the same time. Ugh! Whole Foods and Bellevue in the same thought? From my previous travel logs you know that Whole Foods is just overstimulating, the beautiful people who work there are mean, but I am strangely fascinated because I know I will have to work for them when I move into my terraced condo in downtown Austin someday. I’ll probably end up rolling out POS systems because that will be so challenging for me.

OK, back in Seattle now. Road trip to Bellevue? I am against Bellevue. I hear myself say out loud my standard Eastside putdown, “If God had meant people to live on that side of the lake there would not be a lake there.” Of course I don’t believe in God, so that argument doesn’t really work here.

I am worried about the wildlife however. Remember a few years ago when giant mountain lions were walking though people’s backyards over there? I saw on King5 News these drawings that had been put up in the post office, "Have you seen this mountain lion," and I remember thinking some silly Eastside housewife saying to her husband, “Gee honey I don’t know. Does that look like the mountain lion we saw in our backyard?”

If I go over there will bears or wolves try to bit my car tires? I just got new ties last year. That would be terrible, the tire bites.

After some soul searching Mark and I decide to take the plunge and head on over. We get on I-5 and take the exit that says Bellevue. Soon we are plunged into a dark tunnel (scary) and then we emerge onto what appears to be a bridge. A floating bridge. Now this is just silly…and wrong. We drive and drive, the water is pretty and I can see volcanoes to the south and to the north. We drive and drive. Finally we see land. It's covered in trees. We take an exit and drive around. Lots of big old trees, some very big houses, and a synagogue or two. It's warm out so we open the windows. We keep driving around looking for Whole Foods. Hey, didn’t we already see that giant house? And that one too? Suddenly Mark and I both realize we that we are on an island and we have been going in circles. A giant spider has gotten into the car, clearly these giant trees are filled with them, so I scream (girly scream). We are dead and this is hell. Stuck in the wilderness, giant spiders falling from the tress, the same giant ugly houses going around and around. What can we do!?!

Eventually we see a plump Hispanic-looking woman pushing a baby carriage. We pull up and ask her where Whole Foods is. She looks us up an down and says, “in Roosevelt you silly mo’s.” No, no we know that, we tell her, we mean the one here in Bellevue. Rolling her eyes she explains that we are on Mercer Island, not in Bellevue. "You means that’s different?" Lucia points us to the freeway and we are back on the road.

We drive and drive and eventually there is more water, followed by another freeway. We take a left and then see a little cluster of high rises. This must be the real Bellevue. Why do these people need their own office buildings? Can’t they work downtown like normal people?

We are on the other freeway for a bit. Everyone drives too fast here. The speed limit is 60 yet they all drive over 80. Soon we take a right and there is Whole Foods. There is ample parking. This is not like the Roosevelt store. We go into the store. There are a lot of fat ugly people shopping here. Did all of Bellevue get hit by the ugly stick today? People at my scary Safeway are much more attractive that this. There are small multi-colored colanders scattered throughout the store as decorations which I think is an interesting choice. The store is busy but not packed like the Roosevelt store.

We go to the Asian foods section to look for black Chinese vinegar. They don’t have this. They have lots of different and expensive kinds of peanut sauce and pot sticker sauce and teriyaki sauce, but no basic ingredients. Do people over here not cook? On a hunch we go look in the vinegar section. There is some expensive Balsamic vinegar here, and Zinfandel vinegar, and Sherry vinegar, but no black Chinese vinegar.

Well this just sucks. Driving over a scary bride, lost in the wilderness, attacked by giant spiders all for naught. We can at least get pot sticker wrappers, pork, and some vegetables here.

We go to the meat section. Some large hippy chick wearing purple is having poor meat boy mix up ground pork, ground beef, ground lamb, ground veal, in disproportionate amounts. Then she says that she only needs a quarter of a pound total after he has mixed everything together. What is this, meat loaf for her cat? Die hippy chick, die.

We get the pork from meat boy and go to the wine section. With Chinese, one should have a slightly sweet white I think, but there are a bunch of new roses here. In Seattle I don’t even think about buying pink wine anymore. We are educated. We are evolved. We are better. Here people look at the plethora of pink I have picked and give me these sad knowing looks, "Oh that poor man drinks White Zinfandel". Go home and drink Cabernet with your free range organic chicken you Republican fools. See if I care.

The vegetables are OK. We get some of those long Chinese string beans, garlic, ginger, and some very black mushrooms that look like, well, fungus. At the checkout, checkout girl does not know what the mushrooms are. She asks and I explain that they are mushrooms but I do not know the code or the price. She pulls out her fungus lookup aid and we go though the list. No I assure her, these are not morels, not chantarells, not crimini. Why don’t we just put in a Joe button mushroom code? She agrees. That saved me about $17.

Walking back to the car we can see that little cluster of high rises in downtown Bellevue. A quick check for fang-induced tire damage (nope, we’re good) and we decide to head over to downtown Bellevue to see what is there. This place is weird. It’s a mixe of old strip malls, some new high-rises, and what appears to be a large mall. In fact it looks like this town was built around this mall. Why would these people not go shopping in downtown Seattle?

We see a mountain lion and decide it is time to go back home. There is a sign for Seattle and we hop back on the freeway, take a left and then we’re back on that floating bridge. We drive and drive but there is no little island this time. Has Mercer Island sunk? Was it all a dream? Is it a special place like Avalon or Shangri-la that only appears at special times? Whatever. Soon we are back in Seattle and everyone begins to drive at a normal speed. Hi UW! Hi Space Needle! God it’s good to be home. Lets go drink pink wine!