~ Honey ~

My fascination with honey began at a weekend market in Seattle's university district, where I came across a woman selling two kinds of honey from her hives in the Snoqualmie area. The first was a "wildflower" honey, creamed for extra-heavenly lightness. But the second really got me: a very dark buckwheat. I had never seen a honey that dark, let alone put such a substance into my mouth, and when I did I remember standing there thinking... "wut?" It was very strong and smelled faintly of cat piss, but somehow I liked it anyway. I took it home and found that whatever was offensive about it went away when I spread it on heavily-buttered toast.

From there my personality kicked in. Wherever I went I made a point of seeking out the local honey. Soon I had quite a few on my shelves, maybe twenty even (hint: that was nothing). At a particularly low point in my life, discovering that the world's many types of flowers result in a huge variety of honeys was just the thing to focus on, instead of, well, things I probably should have been focusing on. I made a website, where I posted interviews with beekeepers and honey tasting notes. I started keeping track of every source of raw honey in Seattle, and posted a list. I even held a honey-tasting fundraiser for wildfire relief. I may have been slightly nuts, but I'm not sorry for what I learned or for meeting the people I did.

More recently I've focused on less-crazy pursuits ...like writing a novel. The book isn't about honey, but honey does make a sly appearance. I hope you will read it.

I've moved some of the best content from my old honey website here, where I can maintain it and even add to it. And if you know of some interesting honey, I'm still here, so let me know!