Seattle Mag

Waterfront for Dummies: Knute Berger's Plea For Kitsch Conservation

Waterfront for Dummies: Knute Berger’s Plea For Kitsch Conservation

An excellent contribution today to the city-wide ponder over the future of Seattle’s waterfront: Knute Berger’s “Mossback” blog today on Crosscut. Our editor at large—who is also a regular Crosscut contributor and the writer-in-residence at the tippy top of the Space Needle—is hoping our city will resist the urge to tidy things up too much…

Questions for a National Geographic Underwater Photographer

Questions for a National Geographic Underwater Photographer

For thirty years, Brian Skerry has explored the planet’s oceans, publishing his findings frequently in National Geographic. He’s captured some of the most fascinating creatures under water, including whales the size of metro buses, Leatherback sea turtles and Tiger sharks. But his work has also led him to witness devastating problems like overfishing and marine…

Seattle World’s Fair is Cool Again (Thanks to Café Nordo)

Seattle World’s Fair is Cool Again (Thanks to Café Nordo)

Visiting the Space Needle was not on the top of my “must list” when I moved to Seattle six years ago. To be honest, it seemed like one of the city’s miscalculated impulses—like getting a lower back tattoo or a car phone. Maybe that’s because my vision of future worlds is more fired up by…

An Exclusive Musical Tribute to the Viaduct

An Exclusive Musical Tribute to the Viaduct

Our offices are right next to Phase 1 of the Alaskan Way Viaduct demolition, so we’ve had a front row seat to all the machines pick-pick-picking away at the doomed highway. In a surge of nostalgia for the concrete disaster-waiting-to-happen, I wrote a little song about the Viaduct. My husband Daniel Spils, a music producer,…

Queen of Norway Opens in Ballard Next Month

Queen of Norway Opens in Ballard Next Month

In our November issue, we named restaurateurs and nightlife empresarios (Po Dog, Grim’s, The Social) Laura Olson and Chris Pardo to our list of Most Influential Seattleites. And they seem determined to prove us right on that call: Not only are they opening Manhattan Drugs on Capitol Hill’s already restaurantific 12th Avenue in the next…

A New Book Offers Helpful Advice for Parents

A New Book Offers Helpful Advice for Parents

A local mom has published a helpful guide for preserving time, energy and money while parenting.

Ballard mom and publishing consultant Kerry Colburn has a knack for dispensing the kind of useful, no-nonsense advice that every parent wants and needs. Her newest book, Mama’s Big Book of Little Lifesavers: 398 Ways to Save Your Time, Money, and Sanity (Chronicle Books, $14.95), published this past April, is an easy stocking stuffer for…

The Must List: Visqueen's Last Show, Holiday Shopping and...Skiing?

The Must List: Visqueen’s Last Show, Holiday Shopping and…Skiing?

MUST SHRED…MAYBE?Ski Season Kicks Off at Mt. BakerGood news, snow bunnies. Mt. Baker opened last week! Healthy snow fall and freezing temps are predicted in the next few days, which means regular holiday operations from Mt. Baker’s White Salmon Base Ski Area. Of course, we can’t guarantee what the weather will be (we’re smart, not…

Thanksgiving Cheat Sheet, Part 6: Let the Turkey Rest

Thanksgiving Cheat Sheet, Part 6: Let the Turkey Rest

Remember that the turkey can sit, cooked, under foil on the counter for 45 minutes and be perfectly fine (actually better!) than if you’re rushing it to the table and cutting into it right away. Meat that is allowed to rest is juicier, so err on the side of having the turkey done early: just tent…

Love Thy Neighborhood

Love Thy Neighborhood

Meet five volunteers who are bringing meaningful change to their beloved corners of Seattle.

THE CENTRAL DISTRICTSean Conroe, founder of Alleycat Acres Photo by Hayley Young If you cruised down East Union toward the Central District this past summer, you may have noticed something different on the northeast corner of 22nd Avenue. Tucked between Cappy’s Boxing Gym and a gas station mini-mart were beds of verdant greens, planter boxes…

12 Local Spirits You Must Taste

12 Local Spirits You Must Taste

Our picks for the Washington state top shelf.

Ebb+Flow Vodka$32 A big, full-bodied vodka whose 100-percent malted barley construction doesn’t keep it from leaving a little sweetness and vanilla on the tongue. Sound Spirits, Interbay, 1630 15th Ave. W; drinksoundspirits.com Headlong White Dog Whiskey$34.95 An unaged whiskey, this dog cuddles up close with its bright combination of butter cream, grain and smooth spiciness.Woodinville…

Explore Seattle's Distillery Boom

Explore Seattle’s Distillery Boom

The explosion of distilleries in the Northwest is yielding delicious results.

After recently living in Italy for seven months, I returned to Seattle and made a trip to my local liquor store. (I do write about cocktails, so it’s not solely that I was thirsty.) As I browsed the shelves, the number of new bottles boasting local distillery addresses struck me. It seems that in the…

Shiro Worship: Celebrating Seattle's First Sushi Chef

Shiro Worship: Celebrating Seattle’s First Sushi Chef

Local publisher Chin Music Press has a gorgeous new illustrated memoir and cookbook. We bring you an

Seattle’s legendary sushi chef, Shiro Kashiba—still a self-proclaimed “sushi bartender” at age 70—was a locavore long before it was trendy. In his beautiful new memoir, Shiro: Wit, Wisdom & Recipes from a Sushi Pioneer (published by Seattle’s Chin Music Press; $20), he speaks of the bounty of Puget Sound when he arrived here in 1966,…

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