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Category: Eat + Drink Articles   Open wide: July is an unofficial monthlong celebration of the foods we Northwesterners love best. First up are dueling berry festivals on the same weekend: The Vashon Island Strawberry Festival (7/17–7/19; free; times and locations vary; along Vashon Highway; 206.463.6217), celebrating its 100th anniversary with a “berry” grand parade…

Category: Arts + Events Articles   The ’90s revival may be in full swing, but teenagers and hipsters, take note: Combat boots and flannel weren’t the only things born from the grunge movement. Art took a turn in the mosh pit as well. Seattle photographer Alice Wheeler gained acclaim for her vibrant, sometimes shocking portraits…

Category: Arts + Events Articles   Keira Verlee and Ellie Rose are two local 15-year-olds with one busy summer—and it bears little resemblance to the usual teen schedule (work, mall, party, repeat). Verlee, a spunky blonde with a huge grin, and Rose, a sweet, bubbly brunette, will be playing gigs around the state and promoting…

Category: Arts + Events Articles   The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but the mouth says a lot about a person, too. Nowhere is this more evident than in Seattle sculptor John Grade’s new piece, “Preserve,” at the Bellevue Arts Museum. It’s part of the 40-piece group show ÜberPortrait, which explores and…

Category: Articles   Slender and 45 miles long, Whidbey Island—a 20-minute ferry ride from the Mukilteo dock—is one of the region’s most accessible getaways. Though Whidbey is more populated than many of the more remote Puget Sound islands, the laid-back island vibe isn’t hard to find on quiet roads and in tiny villages. SEATTLE’S BACKYARD VACATION LAND: WHIDBEY ISLAND Browse…

Harking back to the days of the unpopular 18th Amendment, Capitol Hill’s new hot spot, open since March, flies way under the radar. The Vibe Most of us weren’t around to hit the real speakeasies during Prohibition, so this is as close to the experience as we’ll get. Knee High hides behind an unmarked door…

Category: Eat + Drink Articles   The time is ripe for Billy’s heirloom tomatoes When the calendar page turns to July, customers start lining up at Billy Allstot’s farmers’ market stall to choose from his harvest of organic heirloom tomatoes. Allstot chats with customers (some of whom he’s served for 15 years) as they choose…

Category: Eat + Drink Articles   Dig into delicious guacamole at these Seattle restaurants When Seattle summer is in full swing, there’s nothing better than digging into fresh-mashed bowl of guacamole. Agua VerdeA zesty guacamole, this one is chock-full of habañeros, onion, cilantro, lime juice and salt (plus a secret ingredient), made daily by Grandma Guadalupe (the…

Category: Articles   Author Roger Sale, who wrote one of Seattle’s must-read histories, Seattle Past to Present, argues that we’re at our best during busts, not booms. Seattle boom times tend to bring out our worst qualities—a tendency to overdo development and be derivative, copycatting New York or Los Angeles with “world-class” ambitions. Economic busts…

Category: Articles   Can the once-proud Snoqualmie Tribe regain its heritage and future by following the casino path? According to a Snoqualmie legend, Moon the creator, on his way upstream in search of the people from whom he was snatched as a baby, came upon a place in the river where a large weir obstructed…

Category: Articles    The rock felt like real granite. Scoping out the route ahead, I marveled at the variety of holds and the coarse texture of the surface, perfect for frictioning with rock shoes. Ten feet up I clipped into a bolt, ensuring the rope would catch me if I fell. Taking a deep breath,…

Category: Green Living   I recently received a brochure from the City of Seattle explaining the new recycling program, and according to my calculations, I should have them figured out by 2020 or so. One of the most confusing changes is new pick-up days. As I found myself dragging my giant-ass carts and cans to and…

Category: Articles   On a clear blue Saturday morning in June, when the Palouse was still green from the spring rains, two friends and I were bicycling northward on Middle Waitsburg Road, 10 miles outside of Walla Walla, in the farm country of southeastern Washington. The sun shone brightly on the rolling hills. The wheatgrass…

Category: Articles   Patrick Pitcher dips down and then rides the rim at Lower Woodland Park’s new skatepark, turning left and criss-crossing the bowl once again before flipping his board end-first back into his waiting hands for a finish smooth as butter. Waiting patiently for his next turn, he cheers and jeers a buddy who…

Category: Arts + Events Articles   On a Friday in Ballard—one of spring’s first sunny, warm days—Jason Verlinde has taken a booth just inside the dark cave of Hattie’s Hat. It’s a fitting backdrop for a discussion about his passion, the guitar-geek magazine Fretboard Journal; the debut issue (in 2005) featured a story by alt-country…

Category: Tasting Notes   Lake Chelan’s most picturesque winery, Tsillan Cellars, sets the scene for the state’s newest AVA The Lake Chelan area is the sleeping giant of Washington wine regions. With 15 wineries and 260 acres planted (of the region’s 24,040 total), this newly minted American Viticultural Area (AVA) around Lake Chelan is emerging…

Category: Eat + Drink Articles   Stellar burritos, two-buck tacos—and a warm, dry place to eat them—at the Capitol Hill Rancho Bravo You gotta hope this is a trend: A chain restaurant (in this case, a Kentucky Fried Chicken) closes, only to be replaced by the first brick-and-mortar outpost of Rancho Bravo, the beloved Wallingford…

The composed amberjack sushi ($6) at Moshi Moshi, which opened on Ballard Avenue in February, is picture-perfect: a fine finger of sticky rice dressed with a frilly green shiso leaf under a sliver of sweet, rosy amberjack and finished with a dot of momiji sauce, which provides just a blink of tongue-searing heat. Kevin and…

Category: Eat + Drink Articles   The splendid white peach thyme Bellini at Ballard’s Volterra, ideal when summer finally makes its dazzling debut Bloody Marys and Irish coffees are ideal salves for chilly gray mornings, but when summer finally makes its dazzling debut, the splendid white peach thyme Bellini ($6) at Volterra is like a…

Category: Articles   Thanks (actually, no thanks) to this year’s countless layoffs, many Seattleites are finding themselves with a lot more time on their hands Thanks (actually, no thanks) to this year’s countless layoffs, many Seattleites are finding themselves with a lot more time on their hands—and consequently going stir-crazy. Those job offers will eventually…