Kale Pie and Oh Yeah, I Live in Seattle Now

Furniture sold? Check. Tenant replacement found? Check. Car serviced? Check. These were just a few of my to-do list items recently. You see, nearly a month ago…damn, has it really been a month??... I spent my final hours as a Virginia resident, packing up my Honda civic with the bare essentials, readying myself for my cross county road trip and move to Seattle.

So as you can imagine, the move, the process leading up to the move, really the last two months in general, feel like the craziest dream I’ve ever had. And maybe it’s because I really am living what has been my dream for nearly the past 2 years. But here I am and every morning I leave my little studio apartment, walk out the door, and am still in shock. My view is the entire cityscape, the Space Needle directly in front of me, mountains peeking through on particularly clear and crisp days. I walk to work now (small tech company, and yes it is amazing), splurged on a nice raincoat because that’s now what I consider an “investment piece,” and do things like write food blog posts at a communal table in a coffee shop while wearing all black on a Saturday afternoon. Yup, this is life now.

It’s hard to put the past few weeks into words. In a weird, and I suppose reassuring, way it feels as though I’ve been here for years, as if settling in was the most natural process I’ve ever had to endure. As my dad put it, “I’ve never seen you make a decision so quickly and with so much finality for someone who can never seem to make a decision at all.” But it’s true; I never doubted it once. Though having good friends and a cousin here helps. And yet, there’s the constant feeling of being so new. Listening to people talk about traffic and the surrounding neighborhoods and their networks of Seattle-native friends makes me realize I have a lot to learn, a lot of catching up. The exhaustive list of things to do and see is beyond daunting. The inspiration I see each day has me itching to spend each waking moment immersed in creating. Combining that with the eye-opening road trip through landscapes I didn’t even know existed in the U.S. makes for that crippling sensation of being very small and without enough time to experience the world in its totality.

When I get into these phases in my life were I feel very introspective, driven, and motivated and inspired to go after my goals, I settle back into a routine of dishes as a means of saving time and mental space for other things. You’ve seen some of them here, most notably the coconut and kale rice, the curried peanut stew, the braised carnitas. But one I have yet to divulge is a cheat version of spanakopita that I’ve so lovingly named “kale pie” because nothing says “look at me, I live in Seattle-fucking-Washington now” like “kale pie.”

In short, you take a frozen pie crust, you fill it with a pound of kale from the frozen section of your local whole foods that has been mixed with sautéed onion and garlic, eggs, feta (in brine, duh), parm and red pepper flakes. Then you bake it until the eggs are set and the crust is brown and flaky and hopefully devoid of a soggy bottom. Boom, done. While it bakes, you pop on some reruns of Top Model and build yourself a particleboard desk from Target and then you sit on the floor (because you don’t have a table), taking in each savory bite until it’s time to return to crazy life-ing again.

So here we are, Honeycomb is now a Seattle-based food blog hidden and buried amongst the plethora of other Seattle-based food blogs. I don’t know what that means for this here journal of my cravings and thoughts, if it will survive now that life is throwing my attention at so many other things art and experience-related. It starts to feel trivial and outdated in ways, faddish almost, and beyond the point in time where food photography required more effort that switching to portrait mode on an iPhone and a person’s attention span was longer than the length of an Instagram story.

It’s an interesting time for the creative food world and I’m starting to feel lost in it. It’s become a medium that is so accessible.  So instead I’ve been working on growing and thriving in the more “American craft” and traditional medium of macrame. This is by no means the end of blogging but I’m afraid that Honeycomb will have to take a back burner position to other things for now and exist more for occasional journaling and travel photo documentation. The piles of fiber and wool and cotton await me now. As is with life right now, the change of it all is hard but it feels right. Onward and upward!

Kale Pie
Makes 1 pie
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
1 frozen pie crust, defrosted
1 lb frozen kale, defrosted and drained of moisture
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
4 eggs
6 oz. feta in brine, crumbled
½ cup grated parmesan

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Use a fork to poke a few holes in the bottom of the crust and pop in the oven for 10 minutes until lightly colored. Meanwhile, heat a large sauté pan over medium with olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Season with salt and pepper and stir frequently for about 10 minutes until the onions are soft and translucent. When the onions are cooked and the pie crust is par baked, set both aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, combine the kale, the onion and garlic mixture, the eggs, crumbled feta, and the parmesan and stir to combine well. Mix in a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Pour the mixture into the piecrust and press it firmly into place. Crumble some extra feta overtop if you have any leftover.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the eggs are set and the crust and top of the pie are nicely browned. Let cool for 15 minutes before cutting a slice.