July 2010

The former Tully's coffee at the corner of Morgan Street and California Avenue, has been converted to an AT&T store and will open July 12.
Workers from an Oregon based sign company were busy putting up the sign on the building. The inside is ready to go.

The store address is 4205 S.W. Morgan Street.

The store will be open Monday through Friday 10 to 7, Saturday 10 to 6 and closed Sunday.

While they did not show the new iPhone in a display, you will be able to buy one directly as shipments permit.

The store has a "live phone bar" lets people test phones and see how they work, sound, and behave.

The White Center July Jubilee Days got underway with the staging of a Golf Tournament Saturday July 10.

For the second year in a row golfers enjoyed the bucolic setting at Foster Golf Links in Tukwilla, WA.
The weather was perfect and golfers set aside their competitive nature to have a relaxing round of golf in the 4 man scramble format.

CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT

The White Center Garden Tour is on (after skipping a year) and starts at McLendon's in White Center.
This year’s chosen gardens have been specially selected for their beauty and varied plant species. Part of the event asks you to look for unique treasure hunt plants to win one of 10 prizes.

This year’s title sponsor is McLendon Hardware.

To take the tour go to McLendon's Hardware in White Center at 10210 16th Avenue Southwest at 12:00pm. Pick-up your garden map and garden walk passport to begin your journey. Once completed visitors are asked to return to McLendon’s by 5:00 pm to vote for their favorite gardens and to see if they are one of the first 10 to have found all the correct treasure hunt items and claim a prize.

As the sun set on the West Seattle Junction Saturday, July 10, people made their last minute purchases, enjoyed the warm air, and gathered to listen to the music.

At the north stage, Neil Diamond tribute band Cherry Cherry entertained a large crowd and the beer garden was packed with people enjoyed cold beer and good wine. Down at the Elliott Bay Brew Pub people relaxed out front and listened to a Dixieland Jazz Band while kids danced nearby.

CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS

Saturday, July 10's low morning tide transformed the edge of Elliott Bay into a temporary mushy pool that became overwhelmed quickly with the rising tide , to the delight of sun-baked waders, many awaiting the Seafair Pirates Landing.

CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT

Ballard SeafoodFest 2010 kicked off July 10 with sun, crowds and not just a little lutefisk.

Stan Boreson, accordion player and humorist, opened the day with some Ballard-style jokes – "A Swede asks a Norwegian how many chickens he has in a bag. The Norwegian says if he guesses how many chickens he has in the bag, he'll give him both. The Swede guesses five. The Norwegian says, 'You missed it by two.'"

Elsewhere, children made boats with help from the Center for Wooden Boats, and salmon after salmon was slathered with butter and cooked to perfection.

As always, the annual Lutefisk Eating Contest was a major draw.

State Representative Mary Lou Dickerson said she remembers participating in the challenge 18 years ago.

"Well, I didn't throw up," she said when asked how she did.

After a moment of silence to remember fallen contestants of years past, it was time to meet the 10 souls brave enough to guzzle down 3.25 pounds of gelatinous, lye-soaked fish for the chance to win $250.

The contestants were split between those who had eaten the Scandinavian delicacy before and loved it and those who were lutefisk rookies.

While pirates are generally all about taking what is not theirs, the Seattle Seafair Pirates' 2010 Alki Landing was all about giving what was theirs, an unforgettable experience to Joseph Rackham, 13.

He became an honorary crew-member thanks to the pirates, and Make-a-Wish Foundation. See our previous coverage of his initiation here.

He got to ride with the pirates and, before their craft landed on Alki Beach, he and Captain Kid XVI (Mike Knowlton) hopped onto a modern motor boat with wheels that glided them ashore.

Although the tide was lowest at about 10:20 a.m., and ankle-deep out near the staging area for the landing, it would rise above the knees, and was even waist-high to some, when the pirates finally arrived two hours later.

Top Food & Drug sponsored the event.

If you’d like to see screenwriters do some serious mental gymnastics just to get a pair of lovers to meet cute, then “Letters to Juliet” may be worth a look.

Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is an aspiring writer and a girl in love. But wait, her fiancé, Victor (Gael Carcia Bernal), is soon to open a restaurant forcing them to take their honeymoon trip before he’s tied up running the place and conveniently, for the purposes of our plotline, before they tie the knot.

Sophie and Victor head off to Verona, Italy, city of Romeo and Juliet and a solid choice for a romantic get away. But wait once more, Victor’s heart has been stolen by his beloved restaurant. He keeps running off to taste truffles and attend wine auctions leaving poor Sophie to wander the streets of Verona alone.

I love the saying "everything old is new again,” and I think it really applies to food. I am constantly amazed when food magazines showcase recipes or techniques that my grandmother taught me years ago.

If you check, many of these new foods and ideas are very similar to those in the “Joy of Cooking” or one of Julia Child’s cookbooks.

Homemade ice-cream makers fall into this category. I remember when I was a little girl, my grandmother made the most wonderful sorbets, sherbets and ice cream.

My Nana lived in a tiny apartment and didn’t have much room, but she made wonderful frozen treats, right in her tiny freezer compartment. It was just big enough for three ice cube trays.

No electric machine, no hand-cranked bucket with rock salt. The tools she used were simple – a fork and an ice cube tray and the technique of “still-freezing.”

Although it is now trendy for a restaurant to serve you sorbet between courses, this tradition has been around for a long time. The Chinese, Mongols and Romans all had frozen treats long before freezers existed.

In the annual kickoff for Seafair the Seafair Pirates will storm Alki Beach (near the bathhouse) today "around 11 AM" (though likely a bit later) so get there early because the crowds for this event are always large.

On the beach ready for the event, local band "Shelley and the Curves" will be ready to play on the "Car Toys AFTERSHOCK stage". A variety of merchants selling beads, dubloons and other merchandise will be in booths beachside and new this year is a Dunk Tank sponsored by CitiLights Electric.

Also on hand for kids are the inflatable rides from Clown's Unlimited.

The first 500 kids (starting @ 10:30 am) will get a free toy pirate kit. Kids are encouraged to dress the part and visit the West Seattle Kiwanis tent to get a free sample of root beer brewed by the local Ellersick Brewing Co. As part of the festivities kids can dress up in pirate garb to join in a "Pirate look-a-like" contest. Prizes are sponsored by the West Seattle Kiwanis.

You're invited to stop by FM Radio Sponsors 102.5 KZOK FM - 96.5 Jack FM who will have some giveaways, and AM 1090 will have bumper stickers.