5 Things You Need to Eat and Drink in February

Who else is cheering for the fact that all those resolutions about less booze, fewer carbs, no sugar in January can be tossed out the window now? Life’s too short to not have the occasional (or regular) mid-day cookie or whiskey after work. Enjoy yourself, and check out these food-and-drink highlights in February:

Get your burger on.
Li’l Woody’s is again running their much-anticipated Burger Month, where four chefs create masterful specials for the local burger chain, one for each week in February. First up is Café Juanita’s Holly Smith, with her Ranch Lamb Burger: organic lamb, curry lime mayo, pickled red onion, arugula and (the wild card here) raw cauliflower, available through Feb. 5. You can check out the full lineup here—I’m most excited about Adana chef Shota Nakajima’s burger because it involves my favorite Japanese potato chips. 

Learn the wonders of paczki.
Paczki (pronounced PONCH-kee) are filled Polish doughnuts eaten before Lent, another excuse for people to deprive themselves of delicious things. Bakery Nouveau gets out the deep fryer for paczki every year in this short window—find them at all three locations until Feb. 13, when they’re gone for another year.

Up your pre-flight meal game.
Sea-Tac is in the middle of a major restaurant overhaul, promising offshoots of popular local businesses to keep us well fed prior to a flight. (Someone told me my first year in Seattle to take a sunny vacation sometime in February, and no advice has been more valuable.) Café Flora is launching Floret between terminals A and B starting Feb. 6; the 2,000-square-foot space will be the first vegetarian and vegan restaurant at the airport and serve all day. Dine in is available, when your flight to Palm Springs is inevitably delayed because the weather is terrible here, but take-out will, of course, be an option as well.

Celebrate our local ladies.
On Feb. 11, the Northwest Women Stars of Food and Wine will bring female chefs, sommeliers and winemakers for an epic feast, and $50 gets you in. Look for the likes of Chera Amlag (Hood Famous Bakeshop), Carrie Mashaney (Mamnoon), Nicole Matson (How to Cook a Wolf), Tamara Murphy (Terra Plata), Lisa Nakamura (Gnocchi Bar) and Rachel Yang (Revel, Trove, Joule) plus dozens of lady wine-and-beer makers and talented sommeliers.

Blow out the candles.
Tavolata is celebrating 11 years in Belltown—a lifetime in restaurant years—with a birthday-themed Sunday feast, also Feb. 11. If you haven’t been to one of these monthly communal dinners, I highly recommend it: It’s a steal at $55 per person (for an array of salads and salumi, multiple pasta dishes and proteins like pork chops and swordfish) and I’ve made some really excellent friends by striking up a conversation with strangers around the table. Plus, this one involves confetti cake and party hats. Make a reservation here.