Recipes & Tips Blog

The Tulalip Resort and Casinosits alongside I-5 just North of Seattle. A place I’ve driven past countless times having no particular reason to stop. I visited for the first time a few weeks ago and now I feel a little silly for never having taken the time to explore this place. I was invited to participate in a Tweet-up event for the upcoming Taste of Tulalip. You don’t have to twist my arm to get me to participate in a food and wine event, so I accepted the invitation having no idea what to expect.

Taste of Tulalip Preview Tweet-up

The evening was one pleasant surprise after the next. Walking into the casino and being greeted by the 25 foot hand-carved house posts, then spotting the gigantic canoe light fixtures mounted on the ceilings, and seeing Northwest Coast Salish artwork on the walls as we wondered through to the ballrooms, all gave a nice sense of the cultures of the allied tribes that make up the Tulalip Reservation. Hospitality is at the core of the Tulalip culture and throughout the evening it was spoken about but most impressively demonstrated.

The Taste of Tulalip is a weekend of food and wine activities that kicks off with a five-course Celebration Dinner on Friday Nov. 12^th  and Saturday is filled with events to educate and entertain. Let me tempt you with a little taste of what the Celebration Dinner will include. When I arrived for the Tweet-up pre-view and saw the place setting I knew my decision to have a designated driver was spot on.

Taste of Tulalip place setting

Each course of the Celebration Dinner is prepared and presented by the different chefs from the resort and Sommelier Tommy Thompson selects wines for each course. Dungeness and Alaskan Crab Sushi; Chanterelle, Smoked Boar Bacon and Aged Cheddar Soup; Grilled Quail Salad with Blackberry Vinaigrette; White and Red Miso Salmon with Miso Rice, Lemon Butter Tamari Mushroom Medley, and Inari-Nori Slaw are all on the menu along with…

Wagyu beef Short Ribs & Beef Tenderloin, Blue Cheese Potato, Shiitaki, Sundried Cherries, Cabernet Demi Glace

There were so many exquisite tastes on this beef duo plate with the most luxuriously creamy bleu cheese potato puree. If I didn’t need to save room for the rest of the evening’s food I would have absconded to a dark corner of the room with as many of these plates as I could carry.

Pomegranate Aspic with Orange

With course after course of beautiful and delicious plates arriving, the intermezzo of pomegranate aspic with orange mesmerized me. Slight tartness, hint of sweet and delicate whiffs of cedar from the garnish all played to the fruity pomegranate flavor. It wasn’t just the bright clean flavor that made this so good, it was the texture. Set, but only just enough so it easily melted in my mouth rather than sheering into crumbly Jell-O-like bits.

A Study in Chocolate

For all of the culinary talent at Tulalip Resort, it was Pastry Chef Nikol Nakamura that really won my heart. Present me with a platter of sweets and you have my undivided attention! The White Chocolate Cream with Pistachios was astonishingly good. I say astonishingly because I generally find white chocolate uninteresting. Both the flavor and texture were lovely and when paired with the Graham’s 6 Grapes Port, it became a whole new kind of lovely.  I moved onto the Milk Chocolate Cremosa drizzled with olive oil. I think my heart skipped a beat with the first bite. I’m not generally wild about milk chocolate, but I was a little wild over this and somewhat distraught that the spoon was too big to get the last bite out of the bottom of the glass. Luckily I brought my clever friend Julie with me and she employed her expert problem solving skills and utilized her spoon handle to excavate the last treasured taste. I happily copied her technique. Etiquette be damned, this dessert was too good to leave a bite stranded in the bottom of the glass.

Milk Chocolate Cremosa - Good to the last bite!

 As part of the Grand Taste that will be served as a platter buffet on Saturday afternoon Chef Nakamura presented another great line up of sweet treats. The Passion Fruit Macaroons were the most adorable little cookies filled with a bright punch of passion-y flavor. Chocolate Nougat, Pistachio Bon Bons, Financier, Mousse Au Chocolate, and Chocolate filled Beignets rounded out her dessert offerings. This Saturday at the Grand Taste I’ll likely visit the dessert station first! My prevalence to eat dessert first shouldn’t be interpreted that the other offerings are to be overlooked. I am just as excited to sink my teeth into the rest of the menu of Butter Poached Sea Scallops, Apple Lacquered Pacific Halibut with Savory Fennel-Butternut Squash Bread Pudding, Pulled Duck Slider, Smoked Duck Chanterelle Lasagna Roll, and Seared Ahi Wonton Cup.

Apple Lacquered Pacific Halibut over Savory Fennel-Butternut Squash Bread Pudding

Saturday’s Grand Taste Pass runs from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. with a variety of wine seminars, Chef quick-fire challenges, 60 Washington wineries and 20 Napa Valley wineries being represented. Here’s an overview of the fun:

• 11:00 a.m. Riedel Glass Seminar
• 1:00 p.m. Syrah Superstars – The West Coast Wine Educator for Wine Spectator, Gwendolyn Wilson Osborn, will be giving a seminar on Syrah with tasting that represents Syrahs from around the world and Washington State.
• 2:00 – 7:00 p.m. Grand Taste Pass – A buffet of tasty bites from the talented resort chefs and an impressive sampling of Washington and Napa wines. Chef Quick Fire Challenges, Retail wine shop, and Marc Mondavi bottle signing.
• 3:00 p.m. Marc Mondavi leads a vertical tasting that covers three decades of history of Charles Krug Winery. Also, taste the 2007 Charles Krug-Peter Mondavi Family Reserve Generations and try your hand at creating your own reserve Bordeaux blend from the 2009 varietals.
• 5:00 p.m. Port 101 – Christine Solga Bradburn will cover all the ins and outs of port including pairing tips and a tasting selection that represents the spectrum of Port styles.

Visit the Taste of Tulalip for more details and to purchase tickets. I hope you will treat yourself to this fun weekend event and if you really want to indulge, plan to stay the night. The hotel rooms look absolutely gorgeous.

I appreciate the opportunity to have been invited to participate in the Taste of Tulalip to not only get to experience the great food and wine that are a part of the event, but also to discover what a nice property Tulalip Resort is. I have no need to host a conference or plan a wedding, but after meeting the staff and experiencing their hospitality I wish I did have the need. A weekend get-away for more of the Milk Chocolate Cremosa isn’t out of the question. Did I mention they have a spa?