I really was excited to see this type of place in Parkland. The wine on tap is an awesome idea, I tried the Sangiovese and it was tasty. The food seemed upscale and the prices were great. We split the cheese plate and the White Bean and Garlic Spread, both were tasty. My husband was excited to see the Wingman P-51 porter and really enjoyed that! We will definitely be going back, it has the potential to become a neighborhood hangout.
1. An inspirational, real-life-story about a British royal overcoming a disability during wartime? Of course The King's Speech won top honors at the big Oscar shindig. Tom Hooper's film is a handsomely made, well-acted story that, for the most part, wins hearts by transforming a potentially mega-watt historical story into a low-key dramedy and mismatched buddy movie. The film hits the big screen again for a 9 p.m. showing at the Capitol Theater in Olympia. En-en-en-en-enjoy it.
2. A pile of Tootsie Rolls. Sliced bread and some bottles. A porcelain pig holding a lasso. Anything can be the subject of poetry if you just turn your head and point your ear at it. Poet Tim McNulty chooses natural history as his subject, and he's damn good at it. The Olympia Poetry Network welcomes McNulty to Traditions Café at 6:30 p.m. to share his words. And open mic will follow.
3. Sci-fi/fantasy author Robin Hobb is a lot like Sci-fi/fantasy author Megan Lindholm in that she. ... Now wait a minute ... Hobb is Lindholm! What the hell is up with both names on the novel The Inheritance & Other Stories?! "This is a story collection by both of my writing names," HobbLindholm write on her website. "I wrote as Megan Lindholm long before I became Robin Hobb, and to this day, I continue to write as Megan Lindholm. The short stories in this book are old and new, previously published and never before seen, and include a couple of Nebula finalists and a Hugo finalist." Oh. Well someone is showing up at 7 p.m. inside Garfield Books in Parkland to discuss and sign the damn thing. Drop by and discover which one shows up. Wait. What?
4. The Gruv Lounge hosts the Jerry Miller Band in a dinner show setting beginning at 8 p.m.
5. Jazzbones continues its Wednesday Sessions free shows with the righteous reggae band Northwest Sons beginning at 8:30 p.m.
New Spice Blends: Chef William Mueller of Babblin Babs Bistro has released his own Culinary Spice Blends. His blends of New Orleans, Thai, West Indies, Lonestar, Everyday and Greek add exotic flavors to your home-cooked meals and barbecue. The all natural herb blends are available at his Proctor District restaurant, Smooth and Juicey (1121 Court B, Tacoma) and Harbor Green (5225 Olympic Dr., Gig Harbor). See Chef Mueller and his spices in action at 5 p.m. Friday, May 20 at Harbor Greens. The spices may also be ordered online at babblinbabs.net.
No Doze Diner: Gruv Lounge and Nightclub received the thumbs up from the Liquor board to bring back their 2-4 a.m. breakfast. It's only $5 with the club stamp as well as industry folks.
New Lounge: The BullsEye Bar has opened inside the Black Angus Steakhouse in Lakewood (9905 Bridgeport Way SW). From May 19-23, the lounge celebrates its grand opening with $3 16-ounce drafts and $5 off the bar menu.
Future Things Are Coming:Primo Grill hosts a cooking class with the bounty of local farms at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 4. The cost is $65 per person. Reserve your spot at 253.383.7000.
And while I didn't get to Big Tom's last month for the maple-bacon shake of the month, I hear it's not too late to throw caution to the wind and indulge. (And, by the way, it's not bacon but a milkshake that's a rare indulgence for me.)
And yet there is such a thing, even for me, as too much bacon. Which brings me to the bacon bomb - a bacon-wrapped sausage or meatloaf mixture, sometimes studded or stuffed with more bacon and then slathered with barbecue sauce. Find out how to make one at home (if you dare) in this video by International BBQ Competition organizer Matt Grate.
Teams competing in the second annual BBQ by the Lake Championship BBQ Days this weekend will be cooking up the aforementioned bacon bombs in addition to the usual ribs, chicken and such. Most of the competitive teams will also be selling their wares as part of the competition and associated Spring Garden Fair. Also on the menu: live music, a beer garden, face painting and much more.
The fair ignites Friday, May 20, at 5 p.m. with a dinner and auction at Black Lake Grange, 6011 Black Lake Blvd. S.W., Olympia. Admission is free, and the donation of two cans of food for the Thurston County Food Bank gets you a raffle ticket. Dinner can be purchased for under $10, and there'll be live music and a dessert contest ($5 to sample everything and vote for your favorite).
Saturday and Sunday, festivities will be cooking from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Columbus Park, 5700 Black Lake Blvd, Olympia, on the shores of Black Lake. The price of admission is the donation of a nonperishable food item for the food bank. (For two donations, you also get a raffle ticket.)
[Black Lake Grange, Dinner and Auction, Friday, May 20, $5 p.m., donations for Thurston County Food Bank gladly accepted, 6011 Black Lake Blvd. S.W., Olympia]
[Columbus Park, BBQ By The Lake Championship, May 21-22, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m., admission with donation of nonperishable food item, 5700 Black Lake Blvd., Olympia, 360.754.2868, www.afabworld.com]
Why would you pay $25 for a shave when you can do it yourself? It's a luxury. It's a manly way to be pampered. It's grooming nostalgia in the best way possible. Why buy clothes when you can stitch them yourself? Or why pay for food when you can farm yourself?
Because there are talented people available who are artists at what they do.
Last July the Supernova Barbershop somewhat inconspicuously opened at 632 St. Helens Avenue, an offshoot of the original Supernova Hair and Tattoo on Division Street. Initially, the Supernova/Satellite partnership of Donny Hales (drummer for the band Zeke), wife Jana Lencioni-Hales and Pat Brown were not looking to expand to another location, but through a series of unexpected events the Supernova Barbershop materialized.
"It went so easily. We had it in two weeks," Hales explains excitedly. "When things go A, B, C without any struggle, it was meant to be."
To read the Joshua Swainston's full article click here.
[Supernova Barbershop, 632 St Helens, Tacoma, Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays by appointment, 253.572.9977]
Three nationally prominent Native American artists and one quickly rising new Native art star are featured in the latest show at B2 Fine Arts.
Joe Feddersen, of Colville heritage from Omak and an art teacher at the Evergreen State College, is best known as a printmaker, but also makes baskets, glass art and sculpture. Readers may recall his recent outstanding solo show at Tacoma Art Museum. In the current show at B2, Feddersen has an installation called "Codex - 2009," consisting of 11 amber-colored, cylindrical vessels, each decorated with patterns and symbols that the artist says can be read in any number of ways, suggesting landscape, street signs and a forest of tree stumps. The symbols are very sparse and the colors muted. It is a quiet, contemplative piece that in a different setting could be seen as a sacred meditative alter. Feddersen acknowledges that it was influenced by a similar work by Eva Hesse.
Feddersen is also showing a couple of small prints (nice, but nothing like the amazing prints in his TAM show), and a beautiful large vessel with a mirrored surface. I wish there were more of his prints in this show.
To read Alec Clayton's full review of Coyote Forward click here. ‘
[B2 Fine Art Gallery, Coyote Forward, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, till 8 p.m. Third Thursdays, through June 18, 711 St. Helens Avenue, Tacoma, 253.238.5065]
Go for the talent!! These actors are amazingly talented, and are fabulous in their roles, regardless of the script. That is what I always look forward to seeing, so I enjoyed the show. It is especially sweet to see so much talent in these young kids... what a treat!
1. What's considered chic one week is trashed by the trend setters the next. It's in this blink-and-you-missed-it environment that Tacoma's Third Thursday ArtWalk has become something of an institution. Nothing more than an intermittent and amorphous congregation of people who enjoy original art, the monthly night has managed to snowball into a downtown Tacoma support system for the visual arts. Or something like that. From 5-8 p.m., officially, galleries, museums, businesses and restaurants welcome the public to tour their hanging art with open arms. Be sure to check out the Oliver Doriss and Galen McCarty Turner Pr3v1ews & PrOtoTyp3s show at Fulcrum, the Invitational show at Brick House Gallery, the contemporary Native American Coyote Forward art show at B2 Fine Art Gallery, and the Seven Wonders of the West show at the American Art Company.
2. Tacoma's Little Engine That Could continues to chugs along offering another tour of Third Thursday ArtWalk via a yellow school bus. Pay your $10, jump on the Art Bus at 5:45 p.m. in front of the Tacoma Art Museum and tour Embellish Multispace Salon, Brick House Gallery, Jazzbones, Tacoma Art Place, Proctor Art Gallery, Evergreen State College and The Swiss Pub. Friendships are born. Flasks are passed. And an occasional sing-along busts out. RSVP here.
3. Community Cinema Tacoma hosts a free screening ofWelcome to Shelbyville - an inside look at America at a crossroad at 6 p.m. inside the Washington State History Museum. It's a fascinating look at a small Tennessee town grappling with changing demographics. Shelbyville's longtime African American and white residents are challenged with how to intergrate a burgeoning Latino population and arrival of Somali refugees of Muslim faith.
4. Similar to the famous A Great Day in Harlem photograph of famous jazz musicians snapped by Art Kane, A Great Sway in Tacoma was snapped of the famous Tacoma Thursday Runners at the Harmon Tap Room last year. A great day, indeed. And a helluva party. The drinking club with a running problem is back tonight, logging in a 3-mile jaunt beginning at 6:30 p.m. in front of said Stadium District watering hole only to return and pound beers until someone loses a shoelace. Bonus: United Way party animals Project:U will also be in the house.
5. The United States of America, as a nation, is perhaps the most charitable in the history of the world. Despite its flaws, the philanthropy that flows from our country is unmatched. Our country is full of folks just itching to pitch in and do their part to help their fellow man. We also love mud wrestling. At 9 p.m., at Surreal Ultra Lounge in Tacoma, the club is promising "a sexy night and an amazing cause!" And, yes, what they're talking about is chicks wrestling in mud to raise money for the leukemia. DJ Pedro will provide the jams - surely a gig he's dreamed about since childhood.
A handful of local artists are suddenly out of luck as property owners in downtown Tacoma have announced they will stop participating in a program that provided artists with free studio and gallery space.
You've likely already seen some of the fruits of the program known as Spaceworks Tacoma - an arrangement between downtown property owners and the City of Tacoma that puts would-be career creatives into perpetually vacant retail spaces. As told, artists get help building their business and a space to show their work, and property owners don't have to try to lease storefronts in a ghost town. Best case scenario, participating artists grow into thriving businesses and begin paying for the space. Worst case, the downtown retail environment doesn't look so pathetic all the time.
But as commercial real estate markets start to pick up again, empty space also sends the message that storefronts are available for lease. Commercial broker Dominic Accetturo says his clients decided to cancel their agreement with one artist because of concerns that a prospective paying client might drive by and think the space is already leased because it's full of artists. In this case, the space is in Tacoma's historic Provident Building, owned by LinMar Properties, a San Diego-based investment group.
Charles Barkley is officially a role model --- whether he likes it or not.
According to ESPN, drawing from an interview Barkley did with WJFK Radio in Washington DC, the former NBA great recently attempted to stomp out the notion all male athletes are homophobes. Barkley, no stranger to the powerful sound-bite, told the WJFK he played with multiple gay players during his time in the NBA and it never bothered him.
"I didn't think it ... they were gay," ESPN quoted Barkley as telling the station.
"First of all, every player has played with gay guys. It bothers me when I hear these reporters and jocks get on TV and say: ‘Oh, no guy can come out in a team sport. These guys would go crazy.' First of all, quit telling me what I think. I'd rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can't play," Barkley continued, perhaps the smartest words ever to roll out of his mouth. His comments came on the heels of Phoenix Suns president and CEO Rick Welts going public with his homosexuality.
"First of all, society discriminates against gay people. They always try to make it like jocks discriminate against gay people," Barkley was further quoted by ESPN as saying. "I've been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can't be in for any form of discrimination at all."
Check that - those were the smartest words ever to roll from Barkley's mouth.
To read this week's full Cup Check column click here.
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