July 2014

By Gerardo Bolong
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Superb pitching owned the night for Pac West in a 4-2 provisional championship game victory at the 2014 Washington District VII Little League Majors 10-11 age All Star tournament held at the Pac West complex in Sea Tac. This completed a comeback through the loser-out bracket.
"We had great pitching," Pac West manager Mitch Stone said. "We were confident all day long."

Following two complete scoreless innings, which included a bases loaded scenario for Pac West in the second inning, the Pac West stars broke through in the third inning. From his lead off spot, Tyler Gilpatrick legged out an infield single on a hit deep into the shortstop area. Teammate Ryder Leahy then reached first on fielder's choice ground out that was misplayed. One out later, Zeek Pastana singled to right field. The throw home sailed over the catcher's head, allowing a run to score.

By Gerardo Bolong
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Superb pitching owned the night for Pac West in a 4-2 if-necessary championship game victory at the 2014 Washington District VII Little League 10-11 age All Star tournament held at the Pac West complex in Sea Tac. This completed a comeback through the loser-out bracket.

"We had great pitching," Pac West manager Mitch Stone said. "We were confident all day long."

Following two complete scoreless innings, which included a bases loaded scenario for Pac West in the second inning, the Pac West stars broke through in the third inning. From his leadoff spot, Tyler Gilpatrick legged out an infield single on a hit deep into the shortstop area. Teammate Ryder Leahy then reached first on a fielder's choice ground out that was misplayed. One out later, Zeek Pastana singled to right field. The throw home sailed over the catcher's head, allowing a run to score.

information from SWSHS

West Seattle author Harold Taw and the current Washington State Poet Laureate, Elizabeth Austen, will each be featured at the July 11th event (postponed one week because of the July 4th holiday). Taw is the author of the novel Adventures of the Karaoke King (Lake Union Publishing 2011), a karaoke grail quest about transplanted people from around the globe who keep falling just short of their dreams. Austen will be reading from her debut collection, Every Dress a Decision (Blue Begonia Press, 2011), a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, which tests the boundaries between the known and the unknowable.

Alison’s Coastal Café and Bakery at 5404 Leary Ave. N.W. celebrated its grand opening last weekend.

The new restaurant has moved into the space on Leary Way where B & O Espresso used to be.

Owner, Alison Soike, said she plans on doing a few things differently than the previous owners like offer breakfast all day, lunch, specialty desserts and eventually take home meals.

“Breakfast is probably my favorite meal of the day, so we want to serve breakfast all day, and then throw in a lunch menu because the previous owner said they had wished they had done it but ended up only doing crepes and desserts.”

Some of the items now offered on the all day breakfast menu are breakfast sandwiches, eggs benedict, buttermilk waffles, Apple pie waffles and a quiche of the day. And of course, Soike plans to make crepes with savory and sweet options available.

“We kept with the crepes because people seem to like them here, and no one is doing it besides when they do it at the market on Sundays.”

Indeed, Ballardites love their crepes. After a soft opening last week Soike said that the majority of her sales were crepes and breakfast sandwiches.

By Chef Jeremy McLachlan

In a perfect world, the Pacific Northwest sun would allow me to eat local produce year-round, but unfortunately it does not. Although I vary my eating habits seasonally to take advantage of the freshest local produce, occasionally I compromise.

So let me get to the dirty little secret — when you buy produce from Chile or Mexico, it is not fresh! It’s picked at least three weeks before hitting your plate. To ensure veggies do not over-ripen during transit, they are picked green or under-ripe. This is why winter tomatoes taste acidic and lack sweetness! On a happier note we are jumping into local Pacific Northwest produce season and some great veggies are ripening all around us!

Believe it or not, ten years ago I couldn’t give you local produce at Salty’s because there wasn’t enough of it around. Happily, now we have tremendous growth in local farm production — we now buy local. We couldn’t get amazing local produce to you without the help of Charlie’s Produce.

By Chef Jeremy McLachlan

In a perfect world, the Pacific Northwest sun would allow me to eat local produce year-round, but unfortunately it does not. Although I vary my eating habits seasonally to take advantage of the freshest local produce, occasionally I compromise.

So let me get to the dirty little secret — when you buy produce from Chile or Mexico, it is not fresh! It’s picked at least three weeks before hitting your plate. To ensure veggies do not over-ripen during transit, they are picked green or under-ripe. This is why winter tomatoes taste acidic and lack sweetness! On a happier note we are jumping into local Pacific Northwest produce season and some great veggies are ripening all around us!

Believe it or not, ten years ago I couldn’t give you local produce at Salty’s because there wasn’t enough of it around. Happily, now we have tremendous growth in local farm production — we now buy local. We couldn’t get amazing local produce to you without the help of Charlie’s Produce.

by Kathryn Kingen

The Pacific Northwest is in its prime growing season and our colorful local bounty is coming to market. We have fabulous farming here, our soils are dark and rich providing fertile ground encouraging vibrant growth. With the carefully timed planting of seeds, delicate sprouts carefully nurtured, cooperation of weather, all fingers crossed and farmer prayers said — mature plants are now bearing their fruit. It's harvest time.

By Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

West Seattle made uncharacteristic mistakes in the field and that led to a 7-1 loss to Rainier despite out-hitting the foe for the game in the Little League All Stars Tournament, which was a winner's bracket final at Valley Ridge's turf baseball fields Wednesday.
Now West Seattle must play the Pac West-Renton winner Friday at 10 a.m. and, if they win that game, they will get another shot at Rainier.

But they have to beat them twice to go as the District 7 champ to state.

West Seattle, actually, outhit Rainier, 9-7, for the game and so losing by six runs really doesn't make a whole lot of sense until one puts the hits into a different perspective -- one with errors.

The game for West Seattle included too many errors, some good Rainier hits, no doubt,and, some good West Seattle hits, for that matter, but the early fielding errors by West Seattle set the tone for good things to come for one and not good things to come for the other..
Six of the seven Rainier runs were unearned.

By Georgie Bright Kunkel

Don’t you hate people who are always giving advice? Advice is offered by people who are thinking of what they themselves need in their own lives. They may not have known about the Native American advice that one needs to walk a mile in another’s moccasins before giving them what they consider their own words of wisdom. Such words of wisdom come from personal experience. Take it from me. I have lived long enough to have a treasure trove of experiences to draw from. And as you may already know, I have always walked the road less traveled even before I even knew who Robert Frost was.

Notice that it is usually men who can afford the luxury of traveling this road.

While women are saddled with monthly cycles and pregnancy and babies, men are free to contemplate their navels on a mountain top. Then after meditating and envisioning a better world they created religions to pass on what they had learned while sitting cross legged on that mountain top.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray today named former deputy commissioner of the City of Chicago Department of Transportation and former associate director of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation Scott Kubly as his appointment for director of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).

“Scott is a transportation visionary,” said Murray. “He has a proven track record in Chicago and Washington, D.C. of advancing innovative solutions that address the full range of transportation needs of residents and businesses. He’s also a transportation renaissance man who’s virtually done it all: he’s worked on bikes issues, car share programs, traffic management and pedestrian safety strategies, rapid transit and street cars; he’s done long-range budgeting, strategic planning, cost reduction, major capital project development, and performance measurement and accountability. Scott is the transportation leader this city needs to take us to the next level in creating more livable, walking communities.”