It’s that time again, Seattle! The Pacific Northwest’s favorite winter warmer is on tap around the city, with local microchowderies pumping out piping hot pints of creamy, clammy New England nectar.
We asked five locals what they’re doing to get ready for maximum clammage!
“I’ve got my chowder growler and I’m camping out in front of Skippers until they open,” said self-described “chowder head” Walter Finley. “A fresh bowl of that hot white first thing in the morning really gets my day started right!”
Megan Cortez, 34, of Wallingford used the Starbucks app to skip the line at her local shop and pick up this season’s hottest new treat, a venti single-origin Chowdercino! “Sure, sex is great, but have you tried sipping on a hot mug of creamy clam juice?” Cortez gleefully shouted after picking up her order.
At Gasworks Park, Tom Wesley was running wind sprints up Kite Hill, with a mouthful of piping hot bulletproof chowder. “I chug some bulletproof chow from my thermos and hold it in my mouth until I get to the top of the hill,” he said. “It’s great motivation, because I get to…excuse me for one second.” Wesley then proceeded to vomit chowder all over the ground before taking another swig and jetting back up the hill. What determination!
Anita Wells, 46, was headed to teach her fourth-grade class when The Needling interrupted to ask how she was getting ready for chowder season. “Can’t talk, clamming,” she yelled, as she ran to the parking lot and filled her Toyota Tercel with steamy, creamy, oh-so-dreamy chowder!
As dusk approached, and this Needling reporter began dreaming of a cozy waterbed filled with a smooth slurry of clams and oyster crackers, it appeared on the horizon: the perfect chowder bod.
Dripping with the dew of Seattle’s late-fall mists came forth a man stout and round of shoulder, wide at midsection with two pale, girthy legs. Dressed in blue, the color of the sea and hue of the kingdom of clams, 43-year-old Rod Stanley’s gaping maw screeched to the heavens, beckoning a torrent of snow-white chowder. This magnificent specimen, this New England-style Adonis, is what we should all aspire to this chowder season.
