According to an article on King5.com, local Whole Foods stores are offering "value tours" of the store. Led by a "value guru," customers are shown an affordable way to shop for organic goods at Whole Foods. Considering our experiences and sticker shock at the store, we imagine this tour involves leading customers to the exit.......

Construction on the Magnolia/Interbay Whole Foods will be delayed for up to a year thanks to the shaky economy and "cash flow problems" for the fancy grocery chain, reports Magnolia Voice. In four or five weeks the site's workers will pack up and head out, leaving behind a mostly-finished exoskeleton of what will ultimately be a 12,000 sq. ft. smaller grocery store than planned. The store was slated to open in three months, just in......

Well, no wonder. Here's a huge floor display, at the Whole Foods on Westlake, devoted to Italian wines. Great idea. Terrific promotion. All for it. But what's the tie-in to Vespa all about? Is the idea that a sexy scooter promotes wine consumption? What fun! Alcoholic beverages and a motor vehicle? Gulp! What's the next step? A Kenworth semi filled with cases of Maker's Mark? Stihl chain saws and Knob Creek? Evinrude outboards and......

Clinton, of course, would be a Boca-Burger. We all know the drill: you are what you eat. But does who you are also determine your presidential candidates? Are the late-night comedians right? Is Clinton butter to Obama's olive oil? According to a story in today's New York Times McCain's supporters shop at Safeway, Clinton's at Whole Foods, Obama's at farmers markets. (We have the feeling he'd do better in Fremont than Magnolia.) All too easy.......

Local drink maker Jones Soda lost more than $10 million during the fourth quarter of last year, according to the PI. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the company posted a 39-cent-per-share loss -- 13 times the 3-cent loss that analysts were expecting. During the same period a year ago, the company posted net income of $2 million, or 8 cents a share. That's a mighty big change in fortunes for a company that last......

To many beer lovers in the Northwest, this time of year means one thing: It's barley wine season. This style of beer can be very flexible, but it usually signifies high alcohol and a big flavor profile. The Alaskan Barley Wine has been a local favorite since 2003, but this was the first year that it was released in bottles (about $8.50 for a 22-ounce bottle). This barley wine is ready to enjoy now......

According to an article today's PI, it looks as if the city will be spending some money to study the possibility of adding more streetcars to the city's streets. The Transportation Committee passed a bill approving a feasibility study for six lines yesterday. The study, as approved by the committee, would estimate construction costs per mile and yearly operation and maintenance costs for the six lines. Among other issues, it would identify detailed street corridors,......

We stopped in at the Bellevue Whole Foods today to pick up a breakfast burrito with bacon (best on-the-go $5.49 breakfast in town) and a salad for lunch (to balance out the bacon) when we happened to walk past the beer aisle at 8am. OK, so maybe we didn't walk by on accident; we check out their beer selection every time we stop for breakfast and often end up buying a few bottles next......

This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs One of our best friends from college spurned her native Portland to live in a......

With all of the people that live/work on the Eastside, it is really surprising to not find more beer spots to explore. Granted, we probably haven't found everything worth visiting, but it just seems there is plenty of room for more good beer on the Eastside. Below is a summary of what you can enjoy on the other side of the lake. Breweries: Rock Bottom Bellevue is about the only place if you want......

Foul weather holds off until Sunday afternoon, leaving plenty of time under cool gray skies for Seattlest & friends to launch a Flexcar and sail out to the farm. Once we get past Redmond, the familiar trappings fall off: shopping malls, housing developments, the last Whole Foods, the last gas station & mini-mart. We ford the Tolt River at Carnation and sail into a vast theme park called Remlinger Farms. Indoors, a country market......

Our single favorite taste characteristic in a beer is possibly smoke.....or hops.....or coffee. Well, for today it is smoke. For those of you that stick to macro beers and the like, this may sound a little odd. But, to those of you who enjoy craft beer and wine, this flavor profile should not be surprising. Smoke flavor can get into beer from essentially two methods: using malt that was roasted over an open fire, or......

Seattle. Portland. Which one's better? You may say: "How can you choose? Each has their good points. It's like asking which religion is better." Guess what, asshole, that Negative Nellie attitude is the reason nobody ever asks for your fucking opinion. Jerk. Yesterday, Jeremy Barker advocated the pro-Seattle position. Now, it's Portland's turn. Why Portland is better than Seattle, by Katie "The Kalama Quickdraw" Tiehen Before we get into this, let's just lay out what......

Sometime around 1987, we plopped a big scoop of canned beats from the Burger Master salad bar onto our plate, tasted, and then promptly took a break from beets for the next twenty years. Thankfully, in the past couple of years cold roasted beets have appeared on pretty much every Seattle restaurant menu (Full Circle Farms baby beet salad, anyone?) and at last, beets have worked their way back into our hearts. While canned beets......

When Amazon.com announced Amazon Fresh last week, it piqued some bloggers' curiosity, but we didn't spend much time thinking about it. Grocery delivery? Interesting, but we weren't going to dive in. Then this weekend we read about the "thug"-infested Safeway -- in Rainier Beach! Crap, we thought to ourselves. That's our Safeway, literally just a few blocks from our house. Apparently we're risking random parking lot beatdowns every time we visit. (It's not the closest......

The cholesterol in butter, whole milk and organ meats is good for you, nothing short of brain food, while industrial food makes you sick. That's Nina Planck talking. Modest, funny, spiritual godmother to farmers markets from New York to London, she came to Seattle to promote the paperback edition of her bestselling book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why and stayed an extra day to have dinner at the Volunteer Park Café with a......

What would most modern-day companies do if they found out that a competitor had a product with the same name as their own? Most companies would sue the hell out of each other. Two breweries, Avery of Colorado and Russian River of California, have each distributed a Beligan style strong ale with the name Salvation for a few years. Should this be a problem? Should one of the breweries relinquish the naming rights? Um,......

Donna Giordano, a 25-year veteran of the of the grocery wars, has a lot to say about what's for dinner. As president of QFC, she runs 77 supermarkets in Washington and Oregon. But QFC is part of the giant Kroger Corp, and only a tiny part at that, so she has to convince the bean counters back in Cincinnati that Seattle shoppers care about quality. The newest QFC, which opened this week at 5th and......

Jesse Thorn, member of sketch comedy group Prank the Dean, produces his public radio show from his own living room in Los Angeles. At first, Seattlest thought that was code for "I am unemployed and play a lot of XBox" but it turns out he actually does have a radio show (this is still ambiguous on the "unemployed" detail), and even more to the point: it is very good. For many, even those of us......

It's a huge menu, somewhere between "too many notes" and "there's got to be a pony in there somewhere." Chef Bruce Dillon, most recently in Florida, offers an almost overwhelming panoply of Indian, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Cuban, and Carribbean flavors at the soon-to-open Marazul. Perched atop Whole Foods, adjacent to the Pan Pacific Hotel, the restaurant's 170 indoor seats focus inward on a wood-and-copper décor that suggests palm trees and a whiff of the exotic.......

Redmond High School boys' basketball team, we're sorry. Please let us supply some explanation for why grown men, with jobs and credit ratings and retirement accounts, a couple of whom have been to second base with a girl, would heckle a group of teenagers. We really meant only to have one beer before the game, but our choice of Jolly Roger Christmas Ale tapped out the keg at Pies and Pints, so the bartender gave......

We were planning to write some posts this week on Pair (we love it) and Columbia City (we really love it). But then our car burned up, so we thought we'd put that at the head of the line. About two minutes before this photo was taken, we were headed to a service station. My wife was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and our daughter was in back. Then, BANG! Someone grenaded......

KARAOKE: Wednesday night is always karaoke night at the Little Red Hen, an outpost of country music that's inexplicably smack dab in the middle of Volvo-driving, NPR-listening, holiday-tree-owning Green Lake. The crowd veers toward the early-20s spectrum, so if you need a break from parties where people discuss mortgages, the new Whole Foods, and their fucking jobs, this is the place to go. Tip: Bring cash so you can buy beer from the guy with......

You don't have to worry about turkeys, luckily, because if you're leaving the city like Seattlest is your hosts probably have better access to enlightened turkeys that lived a fuller and more organic life while ranging free than the ones you're likely to find on the shelves of Whole Foods. Ditto all the other fixin's, although you might want to stop for bread. City bread beats country bread hands down. Alternately, make your own. Your......

--Looking for that perfect holiday gift for your favorite barista? Something that says "You're the reason I drink twelve cups of decaf a day," without being really creepy and icky? Check out this thread at Starbucks Gossip. --Nordstrom is about to go all Starbucks on us. They'll soon be selling CDs, including two holiday collections, some jazz, and a Marvin Gaye retread. --Quick, someone resurrect Chris Penn and the career of Kevin Bacon and......

Rains have stopped, mostly. Dems have won, mostly. And Whole Foods has finally opened in Allentown (Westlake & Denny). Nearly 50,000 square feet of groceries. Plenty of free samples. Three sit-down eating stations (seafood grill, Asian bistro, market café). About 200 employees. Makes Trader Joe up on Queen Anne look like a miner's shack. Whole Paycheck? Not if you shop carefully, not if you're willing to spend more for "organic." Lotta Birkenstocks in evidence. "That's......

On Tuesday, the American -ists will be celebrating democracy and hitting the polls, letting politicians know what they really think. It just made us wonder: if it were up to the -ist-a-verse, what would we be voting for? Londonist votes for better skincare, alternative spaces for art, cute little birds and the men who keep them, and concrete. Lots of concrete. Shanghaiist votes for one of the Bee Gees and Air Supply (it's a double-ticket),......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

So ya tighten border controls and make it tougher for farmworkers to sneak into the country, and what happens? Duh: not enough Meskins to pick the lettuce. Not just any lettuce, mind you. Organic lettuce. High-margin, climate-sensitive, no-pesticide organic lettuce sold by Wal-Mart. Lettuce some of you asked for because it's healthier. Lettuce some of us want because it's better for the environment. The industrial food complex listened, and the corporate food giants like General......

We only got into mangos this year. We're not big tropical fruit fans, so when we got one in one of our first SPUD boxes, we pureed it for our daughter. And that was the first time we confronted the nightmare that is dissecting a mango. We also discovered that, unlike pineapples and coconut, mangos are really tasty. At first, we assumed our clumsy dissection efforts were a product of our ignorance. Surely someone out......