When it comes to people’s tastes in dessert, some lean sweet, others lean salty and a few, like me, lean cheesy. So when I’m hoping to stretch the night for one more drink and I’m in the mood for a little “dessert,” the cheese plate at Matt’s in the Market does the trick. Five artisanal…

“Try us on toast,” reads Deluxe Foods’ preserve jars. But how about the spiced plum jam stirred into your tea, Russian style, or shaken in a gin cocktail? What about the pear butter with vanilla mixed in with steel-cut oats? Deluxe Foods’ Rebecca Staffel has a long list of uses for her award-winning preserves, and…

I should have known this wouldn’t be a typical food festival. There were dogs everywhere: riding the Hilton Eugene elevators, pacing the lobby, even practicing in a park across the street. Luckily, they were trained only to find gourmet edibles, not eat them. These are truffle dogs, the working animals of choice for truffle hunters…

“You know how James Brown says he gets ants in the pants and he needs to dance?” Morgan Perkins asks the customer sitting in the shoeshine chair. “Well, I’m the same with shoes.” The smartly dressed 72-year-old has been putting his famous military shine on Seattle’s shoes for 41 years—ever since he first walked into…

If it seems like you can’t take a walk in Seattle without encountering an enormous set of stairs along the way, there’s good reason: Our hilly city features approximately 600 publicly accessible outdoor stairways, many of which have been around for more than 100 years. A new guidebook, Seattle Stairway Walks (Mountaineers Books, $15.95), celebrates…

Say you have a brilliant concept for a new lampshade or laptop bag or xylophone. All of your friends agree it’s a terrific idea, but you have no clue as to how to turn your napkin sketch into a prototype. Enter MakerHaus, a membership-based design studio and idea incubator scheduled to open early this month…

Imagine having a frank conversation with your elderly father about familial guilt, parental love and impending death. For some, that prospect is terrifying enough. Now imagine having that discussion in front of a couple of hundred people. Further imagine that at some point during this conversation, your septuagenarian father is stripped to his underwear. The…