Category: seattle

The last bacon sale

It really is amazing bacon. You’ll be happy if you get some.

In Gabe’s own words…

Hi Everybody,
So the great news: KCHD is fully approved our bacon. Period. 100% legal. No exceptions. If any haters out there would like to call Larry Smith to verify this: 206-218-9021. YAY!!!!!!!!

The bad news: Because of all of the stairwell drama, we have lost our lease and will be for sure out of the building by the end of the month. Lunch Counter is closed. Swinery will be closed, for at least a while (while we look for a new home, which may or may not be in this state).

The Sale: We have about 24 days to make and sell some bacon. I would love to fill your homes and senses with the wonderful smells of our bacon frying. Bacon is $12/# and the same great All Natural, Hormone Free Berkshire Bacon (Noelani’s Favorite). While we are at it, we have some fresh sausages, some bacon burgers, and probably THE BACON EXPLOSION. Sausage is: $8/#, Bacon Burger Patties: $12/#, Bacon Explosions: $20 ea.

Pre Orders Start Now, email me at sales@swinerymeats.com; We will be open 9am-5pm, April 19th – April 24th for pick up.

Please forward this on to EVERYBODY and we have special BACON PIMP shirts for anyone who organizes/buys 50# or more. Also T-Shirts are half price with a purchase of 5# or more. Spread the word. Not a secret anymore.

“Pictures and Poems” returns by popular demand

David and I took the boys and our camera to the SAM Olympic Sculpture Park. We loved it.
The Richard Serra installation is so gorgeous we could have stayed all day. So much art hard against the rocky shore, open to the warm air in spring’s cathedral… it was unforgettable, and we will be back often.
Serra

The whole experience reminded me of this Kenneth Slessor poem:

Fixed Ideas

Ranks of electroplated cubes, dwindling to glitters,
Like the other pasture, the trigonometry of marble,
Death’s candy-bed. Stone caked on stone,
Dry pyramids and racks of iron balls.
Life is observed, a precipitate of pellets,
Or grammarians freeze it into spar,
Their rhomboids, as for instance, the finest crystal
Fixing a snowfall under glass. Gods are laid out
In alabaster, with horny cartilage
And zinc ribs; or systems of ecstasy
Baked into bricks. There is a gallery of sculpture,
Bleached bones of heroes, Gorgon masks of bushrangers;
But the quarries are of more use than this,
Filled with the rolling of huge granite dice,
Ideas and judgments: vivisection, the Baptist Church,
Good men and bad men, polygamy, birth-control . . .

Frail tinkling rush
Water-hair streaming
Prickles and glitters
Cloudy with bristles
River of thought
Swimming the pebbles—
Undo, loosen your bubbles!

The rest of the photos are here.

Enjoy your commute

As they say, you know you live in Seattle when you think of a floating bridge as a pain in the ass instead of a marvel of engineering. So, ever wondered what would happen if the 520 bridge got hit by a windstorm?

Or maybe an earthquake?

Enjoy your commute.

Stormy in Seattle

There was a huge windstorm here in Seattle last night. It began with heavy rains early in the evening, and then the wind really started to pick up after midnight. We lost power soon after, and it still wasn’t on when we left for work this morning. Apparently much of Bellevue still lacks power; we’ll see if the lights are on when we get home. Other than a bit of water coming in the back door from a flooded gutter we came off unscathed. This slideshow shows the damage around the region. Four deaths have also been reported, including a woman drowned in her basement about a mile from where we live, after a holding pond flooded an apartment complex.

I’ve lived in Seattle for almost 7 years now, and this has easily been the worst month of weather … and it’s not even winter yet!

The Stranger Endorses Stephanie Pure for the 43rd!

Just like I knew they would!

The obvious standout in this crowded field is Stephanie Pure, a longtime aide to Seattle City Council Member Peter Steinbrueck, who is making her first run at elected office. (Ed Murray, whom she’s looking to replace, also started out as a council aide, as did current King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.)

Pure, a quick study, has a long history of working to preserve the rights of people who aren’t often heard in politics: tenants (Pure organized the citywide Renters Summit with Judy Nicastro in 2000) and youth (she was a founding member of the Vera Project; she served for several years on the city’s Music and Youth Task Force to overturn the Teen Dance Ordinance; and, as an aide to Steinbrueck, she worked to increase library hours).

To winnow the candidates, the SECB held our own “primary,” narrowing the field to three: Pure, Preston Gates & Ellis attorney Jamie Pedersen, and former City Council Member and Superior Court Judge Jim Street. Pure, who’s focused on density and smart growth, is most in line with the SECB (and her district) on a wide range of issues. She supports public financing of campaigns; she says full marriage equality, not just civil unions, is her goal; and, saying the city’s commitment to meeting Kyoto standards “seem[s] to stop short when we talk about the viaduct,” she supports the surface/transit alternative for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. (Pure’s opponents all support the mayor’s unaffordable, environmentally unsustainable $4 billion tunnel.) And Pure was the only candidate of the three to mention education and reproductive rights among her top priorities.

Voters in the district should not be swayed by the desire to “send a message” to the supreme court by sending Pedersen, who is gay, to Olympia. Pedersen—an attorney who will stay on the Preston Gates payroll even if he wins a seat in the legislature—is too compromised and middle-of-the-road to be truly effective. (During the SECB’s interview, Pedersen argued credulously that money has no influence on politics. “I don’t think there’s a problem with the system,” he said.) His constant bragging about “saving” PacMed on Beacon Hill (work he did in his paid role as a lawyer for Preston Gates) also turned us off. Street, who initially struck several members of the SECB as the brainiest and most knowledgeable of the pack, quickly started to grate on us with his know-it-all demeanor. We’re worried he’ll turn off his potential colleagues in Olympia, too. Pure, a young woman who has lived in the 43rd (mostly on Capitol Hill) her entire adult life, best represents the full diversity of her district. A smart, effective young woman would be a great addition to the Ed Murray–Frank Chopp power axis in the 43rd. Vote Pure.

I love it! And let’s face it, we all love Stephanie Pure. I’m so looking forward to saying “I knew her when!”