What does a guy who grew up in Richmond Beach and Mercer Island know about folk and bluegrass music? As the owner of the Folkstore music shop in the University District and a talented musician in his own right, Stuart Herrick knows quite a lot, thank you very much.
March 30, 2008
Before recently, the closest I'd ever come to a casino experience was hanging out with my dad in the smoky back rooms of pool halls in Kentucky when I was kid. He and his colorful gambling mates — who had nicknames like Skillet and Kool-Aid — shouted, taunted and cursed their way through boisterous games of craps, using the bare floor as their playing surface and a combination of prayers and pleas to make the two white dice hit that lucky number.
February 1, 2007
The moment I heard chef and truffle-worshipper Kevin Blaylock yell, "Holy crap, I found a really big one!" as he scanned the fluffy, upturned soil in a patch of Douglas firs south of Olympia, I knew he'd hit pay dirt.
He knelt and picked up a dingy white orb about the size of a gumball, brought it to his nose and took a whiff so deep and passionate I thought he was falling in love with it.
From an aesthetic point of view, the ugly little truffle seemed hardly worth all the excitement.
January 4, 2007
WHIDBEY ISLAND — The Fishmonger seafood market is one of the things I love about island hamlets like Bayview Corner, a pioneer-era business hub near Langley that recently got a facelift.
On a recent visit to this newly prettified crossroads where the market is a popular draw, I asked manager Mary French which fish was fresh that day. She shot back a look that practically purred, "It's all fresh, sweetheart." Of course, all I had to do was read the store's motto behind the refrigerated display case: "Only wild and Always fresh."
November 2, 2006
PORTLAND — My first impression of North Mississippi Avenue, the latest off-the-beaten path business district to undergo an extreme makeover here, was that its combination of refurbished storefronts, turn-of-the-century wood homes and good-looking young hipsters slumming at streetside tables resembled a movie set.
As I would soon discover, the makers of a new film starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear thought so, too.
October 26, 2006
Every autumn, just about now, when the deep purple syrah grapes of Eastern Washington burst with telltale blackberry, leather and Asian spice notes, and when bright-green sauvignon blancs make growers' cheeks pucker at hints of gooseberry, grass and lime, Woodinville's winemakers put out the call: It's crush time.
The term means what it suggests.
October 5, 2006
TACOMA When pioneer Job Carr sailed by the cozy little bluff west of present-day Tacoma in search of the best terminus for the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1864, he cried, "Eureka! Eureka!" He'd found it.
Today, the tiny area that captivated Carr is known as Tacoma's Old Town, and visitors looking for the city's charming side may share his reaction.
April 11, 2002
LADNER, British Columbia - A resident corrected me right away when I asked about the houseboat community that stretches along the Fraser River in this historic delta town.
"These are `float home' owners; houseboats have engines," she told me in a teacherly tone softened by Canadian politeness. "They're very particular about that."
As for the kind of people I'd find here, "very upscale," she said, leaving me to make my own assumptions.
So I primed myself for a place full of image-conscious, well-to-do urban escapees.
August 2, 2000
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