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For years, Tom Douglas’ restaurant empire has managed to walk a delicate line, pleasing locals while welcoming tourists. As Seattle’s premier restaurateur, he has given us a half-dozen places—Serious Pie, Palace Kitchen, Dahlia Lounge, Dahlia Bakery, Lola, Etta’s—where we can find reliably tasty and sometimes downright superb food. Douglas and his team were ahead of…

There are some chefs whose cooking just hits the spot for me. Renee Erickson is one such chef; her Frenchified dishes at Boat Street Cafe have a rustic unfussiness that comes off as tasting so effortless. I’ve enjoyed many a candlelit dinner, and too many brunches to count, in the chic hideaway on Lower Queen…

Inside a cinder-block building tucked between a tattoo parlor and the Azteca Mexican restaurant on Ballard’s Market Street, a candy maker wraps shiny squares of freshly cut salted caramels. Down the hall, vegan caterers put the final touches on raw to-go lunches. Manning the stove, a street-food vendor preps ingredients for his taco truck. Home…

Mioposto Caffé e Pizzeria (Mount Baker, 3601 S McClellan St.; 206.760.3400; seattle-eats.com/mioposto) is a regular stop for me since I live in the neighborhood. At night, the place fills up with parents treating their kids to the chewy, wood-fired Neapolitan pizza. In the morning, muffins and lattes satisfy the takeout crowd and the stroller pushers…

Ryan Molenkamp’s work is instantly captivating, but not always immediately clear. His large-scale oil and graphite paintings beckon viewers to look closer. Is that a desert? Or a city? Are those buildings or boxcars? Is this a place that’s cracking open, or healing itself? In the case of his new series, The Flood, it’s essentially…

Meet Your MakerArtist:: Dayna Hanson choreographer, filmmaker, musician, performance artistShow: Gloria’s Cause, a contemporary dance-driven rock musical about the American Revolution and modern inequality see it: 12/2–12/5. 8 p.m. $20. On the Boards, 100 W Roy St.; 206.217.9888; ontheboards.org B.D. The American Revolution as rock musical. How did we get here?D.H. Specifically, it was the…

Pioneer Square experienced a jump in its dragon population this past fall. At the same time, the International District saw a sudden increase in dinging noises. These strange spikes can be traced to a new pilot art project called Storefronts Seattle, in which local artists—such as Dan Reeder, who meticulously crafts papier-mâché dragons, and Charles…

It’s funny to look back at all the Y2K hand-wringing that was done when the calendar flipped from 1999 to 2000. Who knew we’d close out the decade worrying less about whether our computers would work than whether we could ever afford to retire? Or that we’d be surfing the Web on our cell phones…

One man close to me seemed nearly paralyzed with fear. The man to my left had turned a grayish color, almost matching his hair. He sported a sheen of sweat across his forehead. And me? My stomach was clenching. We were sitting in a King County Superior Court courtroom as part of a jury pool…

Seattle writer Sam Howe Verhovek has a fascinating new book out called Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World. It tells the story of how the Boeing Company conquered commercial jet aviation. While we take Boeing jet travel for granted today, it was no sure thing that the 707…

WHY WE LOVE HER STYLE: Shiramizu, the owner of Momo boutique in the International District, has a very short style icon: her 7-year-old niece. So she often looks to girlhood’s flowy skirts and comfortable fabrics to pull together her easygoing style. “My style is a mix of Tinkerbell and Morticia from The Addams Family,” the…

 Picture this: you’ve just learned that your newborn has internal organs that seem to indicate maleness and external organs that seem to indicate femaleness. It’s not as uncommon as it sounds, but it is an issue fraught with complexity and social trauma.  If it’s one your family is facing, you have a world-class resource in…

Get a Whiff1. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in Smell-O-Vision See the classic 1971 film the way it was meant to be experienced: in Smell-O-Vision. Courtesy of kooky film-enhancement team The Action Pack, the treats on screen leap to life in the form of goodie bags filled with aromatic, edible sweets, while an audience…

Travel: Sketch Books Wondering how to occupy the little ones during holiday travel? Greenwood-based John Skewes (best known for children’s books Larry Gets Lost in Seattle and Seattle ABC) introduces the clever Washington Doodles ($12.95, Sasquatch Books), which will keep their little minds and fingers busy on the airplane or during the “Are we there…

While pundits ponder the future of the novel, Seattle author Neal Stephenson has lodged it securely in the past. Stephenson (Snow Crash; Cryptonomicon), whose avant-garde science-fiction sagas explore cryptography, math and philosophy, recently released the first installment of his latest work, The Mongoliad, a parallel-world version of the Mongol invasion of Europe co-authored by several…

When How to Cook a Wolf opened on Queen Anne in 2008, locals couldn’t stop remarking on the restaurant’s obscure name (it’s the title of a book by the legendary food writer M.F.K. Fisher). But in the past year, multiple restaurants have opened under names that make it hard to tell whether you’re going out…