At least Betty Friedan had Friedan

That picture is so 5 minutes ago.

Owen and I are in Seattle for the long weekend and day before yesterday we drove out to the Quimper Peninsula where the writer Betty MacDonald lived for a few miserable years in the late 1920s and raised chickens. I'm sorry she suffered, but the experience did provide the material for The Egg and I, and I'm not sorry she wrote that great book. MacDonald's literary reputation is essentially nonexistent today, which is a mystery and a tragedy given her wit, talent, and enormous popularity back in the day. Is it because she was named Betty? It's hard to take a Betty seriously these days. And I don't think MacDonald helps. Nor, come to think of it, does a masterwork called The Egg and I.

MacDonald's onetime hometown of Chimacum, Washington is forlorn and depressing, at least in January. We drove the length of Egg and I* Road and somewhere along that stretch sits the farm where MacDonald was so memorably unhappy. No landmarks, but you get a strong sense of clamminess, chill, and dank houses inhabited by men with bushy gray beards. After our brief tour, we went to Port Townsend and wandered through antiques stores where I refused to buy Owen a $28 vintage Star Wars kit that he insists is a canny investment and will be worth hundreds of dollars in a few years. "When I'm an adult it will sell for $180," he said. "You just don't understand."

a meaningful sight, at least to me

At dusk, we returned to Seattle and ate dinner at Delancey. I've wanted to eat at this Ballard pizzeria ever since I watched it come to life on Orangette. It was exactly as I had expected -- studiously simple and handsome and urban-rustic. There were battered concrete floors and candles in jelly jars. Our young waitress was beautiful, soft-spoken, and tattooed; a lesbian couple with their baby sat at a nearby table. It could have been San Francisco, except that too many of the young men were dressed like lumberjacks. We felt right at home.

The salad -- radicchio, green leaves of something, blood oranges, and pistachios -- could not have been prettier. It was also very delicious, though I might have toasted the pistachios.

proof we were there

The pizza that followed was a nearly perfect rendition of the austere Neapolitan pizza so popular now.

For dessert, Owen ordered the cannoli. Looking back on it, I think the menu might have said "cannoli" not cannoli which should have tipped me off that it was going to be a playful deconstruction rather than a strict interpretation. Instead of crispy pastry tubes filled with cream, he got a few lace cookies sitting atop blobs of cream. No, no, no! That's like serving sliced ham alongside two pieces of bread and calling it a "sandwich." Or putting some raspberries on a plate next to a shortbread cookie and calling it a "tart." Bad trend, this.

Still, other than the cannoli bait-and-switch, thumbs up on Delancey.

Apparently the diet is on hold this weekend.

*can't get Blogger to accept ampersands