Grillaxin' with Boat Street Kitchen's Renee Erickson, Part One

photo by Adriana Grant

Renee Erickson is the owner of Boat Street Café and co-owns Boat Street Kitchen, a pair of French, country-inspired restaurants tucked off of Western Avenue and Elliott Way, at the edge of Lower Queen Anne. (Erickson shares ownership of the Kitchen with Susan Kaplan, the owner of the the original Boat Street Café.) This airy pair of restaurants are white washed, decorated with antique prints of Babar (yes, the elephant), and serve some of the most indulgent, straightforward cuisine in the city. This is the first of a three-part interview that will explore Erickson's background and what's happening at Boat Street. Part three will conclude with a recipe.

SW: Tell me a little bit about your background, what you want people to know about you.
Erickson: I've been cooking for twelve years and started not intentionally. Kind of happened into it, ended up buying the restaurant when I was really young, which was good and bad. It was good that I didn't know what I was getting into and bad that I had to quickly figure it out. I never really planned on owning a restaurant at all. I had an art degree and thought I wanted to teach, as I think many people in the industry end up in it, they kind of get sucked into it. I bought it from Susan Kaplan who owned it for many years, and then owned it for five years before they tore the building down, and then we looked for quite a few years before finding this place.

What are your culinary inspirations?
Most of my inspiration comes from country food. Foods that are not precious and that have been generationally passed down. As far as techniques, I am not at all interested in fancy new ways of cooking foods. The science part of it does not inspire me to cook. I'm an aesthetic person. I really love the way things look. Lots of traveling and reading books and searching out things that make me feel good, or are super seasonal. I really try to pay attention to that.

I am currently focused on seafood. In terms of a culinary memory, what made me feel really good or happy, was spending time at the beach. My parents have a property up on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, and we would spend summers there. The salt water and clams and shrimp and fishing and being in a boat and that smell. Just being in or near the water is something that is so perfect to me. Even freezing cold water, I love it. I love being on the water. The Sound is something that I am most comfortable with. And I think part of that is that's just where I was, but it is so beautiful. It's pretty in a scary sort of way because it's so vast. The Puget Sound is just gorgeous.

Is there an ingredient or dish that you're particularly into these days?
Turnips. We've been getting turnips from Local Roots, and we've been serving them as a side, just because they are so perfect. We are just sautéeing them in butter, cutting them in halves or quarters and we sautée them with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. In the end we put marjoram in, and the marjoram gets crispy. I could eat a pile of them. I love them. They are just so good. They are just little white turnips. Last night we had turnips and French Breakfast radishes and turnip greens with roasted halibut. Spring is kind of ridiculously wonderful.

Check back tomorrow for more of our conversation with Erickson, including her tips on cheap as well as super indulgent meals.