February 2011

Rewards-based Health Plans Aim to Keep Workers Lean

Rewards-based Health Plans Aim to Keep Workers Lean

Local employers discover that giving employees incentives to stay healthy helps everyone’s bottom li

When former King County Executive Ron Sims, now deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, launched the Healthy Incentives Program in 2005, he started biking to work. He lost an impressive 60 pounds and dramatically reduced his blood pressure, cholesterol levels and body mass index (BMI). “And he did all of…

Navigating Washington State's Medical Marijuana Maze

Navigating Washington State’s Medical Marijuana Maze

Legal users of medical marijuana in Washington still have to break the law—hazy as it is.

Whether people smoke it, bake it into a cookie or spread green butter on their toast in the morning, medical marijuana use—and the controversy surrounding it—is growing in Washington state. Cancer patients are using it to alleviate nausea caused by chemotherapy. AIDS patients smoke it to help regain their dwindling appetites. And grandparents who once…

Ethan Stowell's New Pasta Project

Ethan Stowell’s New Pasta Project

Ethan Stowell’s Lagana Foods partnership honors tradition in conjuring the shape of things to eat.

Ten years ago, before he was a Seattle superchef, Ethan Stowell met specialty-food-market veteran Kaela Farrington while cooking on the line at Nell’s Restaurant in Green Lake—and the makings of a future partnership began. Before opening his pasta-focused restaurant Tavolàta in 2007, Stowell bought an Italian pasta extruder. Farrington, enamored of the device­­, began urging…

Prickly Pear Cactus: It’s What’s for Breakfast

Prickly Pear Cactus: It’s What’s for Breakfast

Looking for a green pepper substitute? Columnist Lorna Yee shows us a South American substitute.

What it is: Prickly pear cactus pads, also known as nopales (singular: nopal), are commonly consumed as a vegetable in Mexico and Central America. The cactus pads—the flat “paddles” that grow from the main stems—are sold both fresh and canned. Their flavor lies somewhere between green beans and green bell peppers, with a slimy texture…

Five Spots Serving Up Perfect Lasagna

Five Spots Serving Up Perfect Lasagna

Bubbling molten cheese layered between wide noodles and homemade sauce—lasagna warms us with a littl

Bubbling molten cheese layered between wide noodles and homemade sauce—lasagna warms us with a little extra love during chilly times. Here are five local favorites that have us exclaiming, “Deliziosissima!” Osteria La SpigaIn the lasagne verdi, layers of green house-made spinach noodles are smothered in a pork-and-beef Bolognese sauce (also made in house), doused in…

Noir City at SIFF Cinema, Feb. 11 - 17

Noir City at SIFF Cinema, Feb. 11 – 17

SIFF Cinema goes nuts for black and white classics

2/11–2/17 Listen here, skirts and palookas, it’s time to get off your keisters, put on your glad rags and high-tail it to the fifth annual Noir City, see? This year’s theme is kooks and goofs—crazies, got it? We’re talkin’ a coupla psycho twins (Among the Living, 1941, and The Dark Mirror, 1946), a sexy-creepy heiress…

Marination Goes Brick and Mortar

Marination Goes Brick and Mortar

Seattle's favorite Korean-Hawaiian taco truck is setting up a permanent shop in Capitol Hill. Alliso

We’ve long been fans of Roz Edison and Kamala Saxton’s Korean-Hawaiian truck, Marination Mobile. Now comes news that Edison and Saxton are setting up a stationary shop in which to sling their vittles, tentatively called Marination Station. It’s scheduled to open in early April in the Harvard Market, on the Harvard Avenue side of the building housing…

Sustainable City: The P-Patch Approach to Growth

Sustainable City: The P-Patch Approach to Growth

Pugetopolis is going to continue to urbanize, but we still lack key ingredients for success

I attended the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962, and it shaped my expectations for the 21st century. I expected to live in a world of atomic cars, video phones and Space Needle penthouses. I can take pictures with my cheap Nokia cell phone, but other parts of that future remain elusive, perhaps for the better….