March 2012
Reuse, Recyle, Retreat!
The many new uses for discarded cargo containers now include camping structures.
Looking out the bus window on her commute into work at King County Parks’ downtown Seattle headquarters, Sujata Goel kept noticing more and more shipping containers piling up on the outskirts of the city’s sprawling port complex. Meanwhile, news stories started surfacing about how our trade deficit with China was leading to a glut of…
Does Seattle Need to Go to Transportation Fat Camp?
The city wants us to treat our cars like pizza: an occasional treat, not a staple. Knute Berger muse
I came across an ad in The Seattle Times from 1962 touting the advantages of going to Portland by train instead of car. “More fun and a lot safer,” reads the ad. “Only $4.95 Seattle to Portland Round-Trip.” And the kicker: “Costs less than a tank of gas.” Fifty years later, in an era when…
Crime Central: Can Belltown Make a Comeback?
Can this downtown Seattle neighborhood bounce back from a serious crime wave?
When Tim Gaydos takes visitors on a walking tour of Belltown, where he lives with his wife and two small children, he’s always a half-step ahead at a pace that can leave an out-of-shape companion gasping. As you catch your breath at a crosswalk while waiting for the light to change, he speaks in language…
Hunting the Wild Stinging Nettle
In Langdon Cook's world of scavenging for fresh ingredients,no pain means no nutritional gain.
Imagine our early hominid ancestors exploring outside the cave after a long, cold winter and enough jerked mammoth to convert the first vegetarians. The snow has melted, yet the ground is still brown—except for those fetching emerald shoots down by the river. Craving fresh greens, the hominids rush to pick these first signs of spring….
The Ladies Behind BroVo’s “Lady-Made” Liquor
These locally-made liqueurs put your palate in touch with nature.
With backgrounds in marketing and sales, Mhairi Voelsgen and Erin Brophy may not be your typical team of craft distillers, but then, their self-described “lady-made liquor” is not your usual Jack-and-Coke happy-hour drink. When Voelsgen and Brophy decided to create their own liquor brand, they aimed at setting themselves apart from other craft distilleries by…
Goodies Made with Green Tea
Thanks to green tea’s antioxidant-rich, metabolism-boosting superpowers, this is one craving you don
HIROKI For more than 10 years, chef Hiroki has been putting his own twist on the traditional Italian dessert, creating green tea tiramisu by blending matcha flavors into a secret-recipe filling to layer with the chiffon cake. A decade later, it remains the restaurant’s most popular item. Price not available. Wallingford, 2224 N 56th St.;…
Seattle’s German Food Invasion
Several new German-themed restaurants in Seattle give diners the chance to pick a wiener.
Seattle’s German-pub-loving Chris Navarra—owner of popular bier destinations Feierabend and Prost!—is in good company these days. German hot spots are cropping up all over town, saving you a trek to Leavenworth (or Berlin) for German grub. Don’t let the name fool you: The Wurst Place (510 Westlake Ave. N; 206.223.5528; thewurstplace.com) may just be the…
Greenwood’s Made Sewing Studio
This new SYO (sew your own) studio invites novices and expert seamsters to rent machines, take class
Sewing shouldn’t be just for pros—or just for those who own fancy equipment. So say the creators of Made, a fully equipped sewing studio and retail space in Greenwood (8408 Greenwood Ave. N; 206.552.9632; madesewing.com). Open since November, Made offers plenty of sewing machines to rent, worktables to spread out on and, in case you…
Burn Design Lab’s Eco Stoves
A Vashon Island company is saving lives—and the planet—one stove at a time.
In a design studio on Vashon Island, Peter Scott is cooking up solutions to big problems. His company, Burn Design Lab, is on a mission to reduce global warming and respiratory illness by creating highly efficient and affordable stoves that can replace the open-fire cooking pits used in developing countries. Those pits pump out emissions…
Personalized Pillows from PillowMob
A Capitol Hill company makes your face puffy--in a good way.
Forget Photoshop: If you can’t be there for family photos at the reunion this summer, send a head-size pillow with your face on it instead. Open since August and headquartered on Capitol Hill, PillowMob puts a high-res image of your lovely mug on a circular- or oval-shaped pillow ($25, includes shipping), sewn on-site. Creative pillow…
A Real Tricorder on the Horizon?
A health scanner similar to the one McCoy used on 'Star Trek' may be in the works.
Proving once again that science fiction can generate science fact (given enough time and money), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently partnered with Grand Challenges Canada (a nonprofit health organization) to pony up $38.5 million to fund the invention of a health diagnostic tool not unlike Dr. McCoy’s “tricorder” from the original Star Trek…
Jean Griffith, Seattle’s Patron Saint of Pottery
It took just one ceramics class at the UW to inspire this clay maven to cofound Pottery Northwest.
If you’ve ever considered taking a pottery class, heed this gentle warning from local clay maven Jean Griffith: “All you have to do is touch it and you’re hooked.” She would know. After casually taking a ceramics class at UW in 1957, the now 93-year-old Griffith ended up cofounding Pottery Northwest in 1966 and serving…