RIP Christina's on Orcas

Will you kids please, please sit sill and eat your goddamn carrots and not try to kill each other? Can I not leave town for five effing minutes without the house burning down? Here I am in Nice, on the French Riviera, in a freaking thunderstorm, and I get word that Christina's, the restaurant that put Orcas Island on the map, food-wise, is gone for good. Damn!

You want the full story? Well, the last chapter's here, on the Islands Sounder blog. You want the earlier chapters, some of them are here, in the Seattle Times. Christina's hasn't been mentioned before in Seattlest's columns, which is a shame, but she's turned up in any number of local blogs (including Cornichon a few years back when her cookbook was published).

You might have seen it coming when Ms. Orchid sold her eatery two years ago to Maureen Mullen, a Seattle chef who'd worked for Tom Douglas. But still.