May 2010 Archives

Laurent Gabrel, quintessential French restaurateur, is bringing a corner of Paris to northeast Seattle. He's already well-established in Madison Valley with Voilà! (and its baby brother, La Côte). Now there's Chloé Bistrot; named for his daughter, chestnut-dark walls and rich, deep-red upholstery, and a menu that would be at home in any Parisian neighborhood: onion soup, escargots, mussels, bouillabaisse, steak-frites, a brief but welcome nod toward Italy (crab ravioli), and that staple of French desserts, Café Liègeois.

The decor, in the space previously occupied by Enotria (and, before that, by Union Bay Cafe) is by francophile Pam Robinson, whose Red Ticking (vintage interior design) has long been a tastemaking influence in the tony households along Lake Washington. Blaise Bouchand of Bellevue's Maison de France sourced the fabrics (Collection Boussac from Pierre Frey). Hw also designed and custom-built the banquettes and entrance curtains. Robinson also found a battered, paint-spattered contractor's table at a construction site in France and installed it at the hostess stand, where it contrasts perfecctly with Chloé's polished wood tabletops But it's that cherry-red fabric, on the banquettes and in the thick drapes at the entrance, that bring Chloé to life.

Gabrel adds a final T to bistro, an optional spelling in France. What's on the plate, on the other hand, is true to tradition: onion soup rich with beef, moules frites fragrant with leeks and crunchy fries. It's authentic, no-frills French comfort food, served in the genuine atmosphere of a bistro de quartier, a Laurelhurst storefront transformed into a simple corner of Paris.

Chloé Bistrot, 3515 NE 45th, Seattle, 206-27-0286  

A quarter of Seattle's tourism dollars come from international visitors, and the strong dollar seems to be keeping them at home. So here's an interesting take on the downturn: fewer of those (funny-lookin, funny-talkin) furriners coming to our shores...except it's not funny. We miss 'em.

Tourism is big business for Washington State, more than one might expect: $5.4 billion dollars a year for King County alone. Hotels, restaurants and retail shopping account for $1.5 billion apiece the rest is dividied between local transportation, entertainment and groceries.) That works out to a cool $4 million a day in restaurant revenues, just for openers, so when visitors go away, so do entire restaurants. Almost a quarter of those dollars come from international visitors, twice as much as business travelers spend, four times as much as conventioneers. And when the euro buys fewer and fewer greenbacks, that number drops dramatically.

Part of the drop in visitors is undoubtedly the world-wide economic downturn, but another significant factor is the strong dollar. Against the euro, the dollar is up by 17 percent since the beginning of the year.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the shifting exchange rate; from Italian fashions to left-bank bistros, European goods and services would be less expensive (in dollars), even as airplanes and other American hard goods become more costly (in euros).

Some of the local evidence is indisputable: international arrivals at SeaTac were down five percent in April. Some is anecdotal: Sunday brunch cruises on the Argosy ships, for instance, which would regularly sell out during the tourist season, are leaving the dock half full, if they leave at all.

One exception: the Space Needle, a must-see destination regardless of the economy, where all the numbers (guests, check average) are up. Also on the plus side: the 50-odd additional cruise ships coming to call in the 2010 season.

David Blandford of the Seattle Convention & Visitor Bureau (the folks who dubbed Seattle "Metronatural"), says it's too early to tell how much international tourism is down this year, if at all. Last year's drop (four percent fewer visitors nationally, a six percent drop in expenditures) may not carry forward. Still, Blandford cautions that there may be reasons beyond the stronger euro keeping visitors away. "Volcanoes and air fares, for example."

Just for comparison: France. Despite a six percent downturn in 2009, France remains the world's number one travel destination with 74 million visitors. Only four percent of them, 3.2 million, were Americans, by the way. Says Jean-Philippe Perol, who runs Atout France, the French Tourism Development Agency for the Americas, "If the exchange stays around $1.20 to the euro, we expect that results for American travel to France this year will be up 4 to percent."

Costco, headquartered in Kirkland, offers tremendous discounts on clothing, electronics, food (it's the third-largest grocery chain in the country, behind Wal-Mart and Kroger), so it's frustrating to Costco managers that they can't provide similar discounts in the sales of wine and beer, let alone hard liquor, to customers in their home state.

The trouble is the firmly entrenched, mutually supportive, State-run liquor establishment, starting with the Washington State Liquor Control Board itself, its employees, the landlords of its 300-plus stores, and the entire cumbersome appartus of wholesalers and distributors who feed on its arcane and byzantine structure. (Cornichon wrote about this back in January.)

The Liquor Board, all parties agree, is a relic of Prohibition, part of the "local control" concept that allowed states of all persuasions to vote for Repeal. On the one hand, its mandate is to control the sale of alcohol by restricting distribution, establishing uniform prices, and limiting the number of outlets outlets. On the other hand, it's a both an employer (all those Liquor Store workers) and a tax collector.

Costco tried three years ago to challenge the current system in the courts but lost. Bills surface periodically to dump the state system; one such proposal didn't even make it out of committee in the recent legislative session. So now there's a new notion, Initiative 1100, that would put the question of the state's involvement in liquor sales on the November ballot.

Will the tea-baggers support the initiative? They should, if they're in favor of more efficient government, of less government interference in our daily lives. They won't, however, if opponents can frame the debate as a public safety issue (more problems for law enforcement due to increased consumption of alcohol). The state's own analysis comes down on the side of privatizing the Liquor Board, even if the results are revenue-neutral, on the basis that the Liquor Board's operation isn't a core function of government.

The neo-prohibitionists will scream; that's their job. Look for testimony from the UW's Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute, and especially from Dr. Ann Streissguth, author of numerous studies on fetal alcohol syndrome, bewailing the dangers of access to booze. (Streissguth's initiative is responsible for the warning signs that pregnant women shouldn't drink, a concept that Cornichon considers mildly ridiculous, as do millions of women who find that a glass of wine goes a long way toward alleviating the stresses of pregnancy.)

For Costco to succeed, it needs to look at California (hard liquor sales in mom & pop grocery stores mean increased revenues for small businesses) as well as Vermont (no liquor taxes at all, without increases in per-capita consumption).

All this assumes that I-1100 supporters will round up enough signatures, and that two competing initiatives don't. Costco will supply the manpower: employees in 26 stores around the state will collect signatures, hoping to come up with 240,000 names by July 2nd. Then the real debate can begin.

Couple of foodie things going on this weekend. First, Dianne Jacob teaching a food-writing class at the Fairmont Olympic, part of a series of Foodportunity events.

Writing exercise: describe these Hot Tamales. Cornichon writes:

"Three torpedo-shaped suppositories as red as radioactive blood, edible only if swallowed, Dentyne-flavored cinnamon sugar, xanthan gummy chemical bomblets sent forth by a company titled Just Born to corral and subjugate the nation's young in a morass of corn syrup, modified food starch and carnuba wax. Who would eat these and where? In darkened movie theaters, one assumes, while watching action heroes take on the evils of the world."

Now, on to the latest gossip!

Yo, Nancy! Yo, Jason! What's the story, morning glory? What's tale, nightingale? Did you hear about Hugo and Kim?

But first, tell me quick about Brady and Eric! Like, is it true how they got into a fight down in Portland, and they were both drunk, and Brady's leg got broke and they both spent the night in jail? It's true? You've got mugshots to prove it?
Yes, the fight was between Brady Lowe, the promoter from Atlanta who runs these pig-cooking contests all over the country, and Eric -- that's Eric Bechard, who used to cook up here in Seattle, at that place on Queen Anne. Now he's out in the wine country in Oregon. He wasn't even in the contest but he thought an Oregon pig shoulda won, not some pen-raised porker from Iowa, and everybody was at this bar down in Portland, and then they were at this strip club, and then there was this fight, and they both ended up in jail. Of course I'm not making this up, you couldn't make this up. Read all about it! It's all over the blogs, sweetie.

Anyway, the whole porking show is coming to Seattle on Sunday (May 23), and if you've got a spare Benjamin or so lying around, you can still get in.

If you go: Cochon 555 -- five chefs prepare 140-lb. heritage pigs, snout-to-tail, Sunday (May 23), Bell Harbor International Conference Center, Pier 66, 2211 Alaskan Way, Seattle. Tickets cost $125 ($175 for VIP tasting, which includes oysters and premium wines) and are available online. Reservations also can be made by calling 404-849-3569.

Ethan Stowell, with his wife, Angela, his father, Kent, and his mother, Francia Russell

On concert nights, Union, the handsome, seven-year-old restaurant two blocks down from Benaroya, fills up quickly, then empties out five minutes before curtain. A short feast followed by a long famine, and Ethan Stowell, Union's energetic owner and chef, isn't waiting around any longer; he has finally done what everyone has expected and closed Union. He's already got three other restaurants (Tavolata, in Belltown; Anchovies & Olives, on Capitol Hill; How to Cook a Wolf, on Queen Anne) and is well into opening yet another, Staple & Fancy Mercantile in Ballard. So why suffer through the winter of downtown discontent?

Granted, his immediate neighbors seem to be doing okay. That would be Kerry Sear's grandly conceived Art (an elegantly decorated dining room and a three-meal kitchen, plus banquets and room service, that will survive regardless of the economy if only because it's part of the Four Seasons hotel), and Taste, in the Seattle Art Museum (a decent enough foodservice operation run by Bon Appetit Catering). There's also Wild Ginger, Rick Yoder's 300-seat, all-things-to-all-visitors pan-Asian restaurant, perched above the Triple Door a block away, doing well, we're told. But most high-end fine dining downtown is still reeling from the lousy economy, which boosts profit margins at local grocery chains but slashes paychecks for restaurant workers and owners.

Stowell tried valiantly. He tore up the high-priced menu and swallowed hard when the average check dropped below $50. Wanting to remain a focal point for the industry, he ran quarterly comfort food contests, inviting chefs and amateurs alike to cook meatloaf, chili, mac-and-cheese, lasagna at Union. His wife, Angela, joined him full-time to help. At one point, his dad, choreographer Kent Stowell, even acted as doorman up at Wolf.

But what about all those new bars and cafes opening? Well, hope springs eternal. As it still does with Stowell. He expects to open another spot, all of 43 seats, called Staple & Fancy Mercantile in south Ballard by mid-summer. The location is the Kolstrand Building, a refurbished industrial space at 4742 Ballard Avenue, just off Leary Way. He'll have company there: Renee Erickson's new oyster place, The Walrus and the Carpenter, is next door.

The plan is to serve dinner at Staple & Fancy Mercantile seven nights a week from a limited a la carte menu changing daily. that is printed daily. Stowell will also offer a four-course, chef's choice menu for $45.

In a press release, Stowell sounds upbeat: "I've spent the last few years bouncing around and cooking in all my restaurants, and I'm really looking forward to having my own kitchen again." Stowell says he plans to cook five or six nights a week at the new spot. "I can't wait."

There are hot dog carts all over Belltown, their steaming $5 Polish specials (with cream cheese at no extra charge) offering late-night sustenance to the tired, the poor, the hungry at the exits of clubs. Joe Jeannot once had the lock on this niche of glassy-eyed, danced-out twenty-somethings; he owned a string of carts on Second, First and Western before he went legit and opened a barbecue joint on Westlake, Slo Joe's, and found out how tough it is to run a real restaurant; he's now tending bar at Toulouse Petit.

There are still plenty of sidewalk hot dog vendors, and then there's Al Calozzi, whose cart once offered an alternative, Philly cheesesteaks, only to find the health department's thermometer-wielding inspectors on his case. But Al's had longer lines because, after all, you can only eat so many cream-cheese-smeared tube steaks before your body cries out for beef. To the rescue, a year ago, came Jennifer and Steve Good, the folks who own Queen City Grill and its First-Avenue neighbor, the Frontier Room. As well as Belltown Billiards, the den of 8-Ball propinquity lodged in the building's basement, which needed a chef for its kitchen lest its pool-playing, Jaeger-shooting patrons wander off the premises.

And the next thing you know, Big Al is cooking for money. Calozzi's Italian Kitchen is all cued up, sending plates of chicken piccata and vodka rigatoni across the passe and foil-wrapped cheese steaks out the b;blazing neon window on the Blanchard slope.

Calozzi, a former martial arts instructor, sounds like he's part of the cast of Jersey Shore. He grew up in an Italian restaurant across the river from Philadelphia, where he learned to make its signature dish, Philly cheesesteak. "I was about ten years old," he says. "My uncle Anthony takes me into the kitchen and stands me on a milk crate. He says, Now watch, this is how it's done. And shows me how to cook cheesesteak. To me that was just natural. I mean my whole family has always been passionate about food."

You sense the passion as Calozzi slaps a couple of slabs of frozen top round on the grill, seasons it, and starts chopping it with twin metal spatulas. He thwacks and turns, flips and chops some more as the meat fries in the rendered fat. (There's a culinary word for this: it's called frizzling.) A handfull of onions, no peppers unless you ask, and more grilling. When the meat resembles well-done hamburger, Calozzi slices an Italian roll and slathers it with the critical ingredient, Cheez Whiz. Emulsified, stabilized, colorized, it's the topping of choice (says Calozzi, says the New York Times) and scoops everything into the waiting maw of cheese-dripping bread. It's like eating spaghetti sauce without tomatoes or basil; it's like eating a cheeseburger without the ketchup, mustard or pickles.

Colozzi's cheesesteak is squarely in the tradition of guilty pleasures, like the lawnmower beer conusmed by elite winemakers, like reading the New Yorker for its cartoons. Though it's tasty, the flavors aren't particularly subtle or challenging, the texture is gooey (you get big wad of napkins), but the price is surely right, eight bucks. You want peppers with that, just ask. You want hot sauce, it's over on the condiment counter. People line up, dozens every night.

Belltown Billiards, 90 Blanchard, Seattle, WA, 206-448-6779   

Curtain up at Seattle Opera on Daron Aric Hagen's Amelia after 7 years of gestation, 105 costumes, 34 singers, 46 musicians, at a cost of $3.6 million (not counting staff time). And we see almost every penny onstage at McCaw Hall: a Vietnamese village, its inhabitants singing in Vietnamese; a huge airplane wing extending across Puget Sound; a full-scale Lockheed Electra. Amelia has all the elements of great story-telling: impressive sets, a powerful narrative, appealing performers. But it doesn't say much for a new opera that its music--with one great, soaring exception--is the least memorable part of the production.

So let's begin with that splendid moment, midway through the second half of the opera. Jane Eaglen, as Amelia's aunt, entirely credible as a heavy-set, bespectacled, middle-aged midwife, frumpy and fussing with her knitting, provides the vocal high point with a heartfelt prayer at the bedside of her comatose niece:

Oh stars, flung wide across the dome,
If only you could guide her home ...
...
O hear this prayer, extend her days
For this I'll give God endless praise.

The words themselves (sometimes grand, sometimes barely exceeding the sentiments of a Hallmark sympathy card) are by Amelia's librettist, the poet Gardner McFall, but the melody is actually "Eternal Father, Strong to Save," better known as the Navy Hymn, a solemn, uplifting piece of 19th century church music by the composer of "Nearer My God to Thee." Eaglen--one of the world's great sopranos, whose recent stage appearances have been less than convincing--sings her hymn with impressive musicality and a calm yet commanding stage presence. For that shining, breathtaking moment, she reminds you why we pay attention to opera.

Hagen is a well-regarded American composer whose original concept was an opera based on flight, inspired by McFall's poems. The story was developed by Steven Wadsworth from Hagen's original concept. In the end, McFall also wrote the libretto and Wadsworth directed. All three share creative credit, but it's Wadsworth's story-telling that makes the production memorable.

It's a complex structure, built around layers of time and space; reality, fantasy and memory: the disastrous failure of Icarus, the first flier; the disastrous end to the adventures of Amelia Earhart; the disastrous fate of countless military fliers in the Vietnam War. The feathers of Icarus's wings; the wings of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra (like Milton's angel, "with mighty wings outspread...brooding on the vast abyss"); the wing of a super-secret bomber. And more visual elements: a suburban tract house, the Vietnamese village, a hospital where a burned letter materializes.

That's a letter in which Amelia's father Dodge, a Navy aviator, reaffirms his noble sentiments: "If I am lost, do not despair. Keep faith, go forward, never forget." (This echoes Yeats's Irish Airman, "I know that I shall meet my fate / Somewhere in the skies above") Yet McFall's libretto doesn't explore the darker side of this code of honor. Dodge's mission was to drop bombs, after all. When he is shot down over North Vietnam and refuses to "talk," his captor threatens to shoot a girl from the village, a girl Amelia's age. Dodge replies "I have faith in my country. I will do my duty." The girl is executed, and the dying Dodge attempts to atone by showing her parents a picture of Amelia.

William Burden, last seen shirtless in Seattle as Nadir in Pearl Fishers, wears battle fatigues and dress whites this time as Dodge. His earnest delivery is echoed by Nathan Gunn as Amelia's husband, Paul. (Girls fall for guys who remind them of their dad, right?) Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey handles the title role with aplomb, building to her very own mad scene at the start of Act Two (virtually unheard of for a mezzo), then recovering and giving birth to her own daughter at the opera's climax.

Hagen uses a number of musical tricks and tropes, post-Wagnerian Leitmotiven, notably a tension-building, tympanic SOS to signal danger; trills to illustrate the flutter of wings; rhythmic cadences for beeping hospital monitors. No instruments at all for the birth, just five minutes of ecstatic voices. It's in the orchestral interludes between scenes that Hagen should really shine, but the music falls flat. Despite Gerard Schwarz's energetic conducting, these mini-symphonies (unfortunately marred by frantic stagehands noisily moving scenery) go nowhere. It's as if the orchestra were simply playing a loop of notes until a green light signals that the stage was set for next scene. And that's not far from the truth: Hagen's own blog describes, in excruciating detail, that he knows exactly how many notes he needs to write to get "from here to there:"

"Word came from Seattle that the production team needed three minutes to change the set and that my worst fear would be realized: a closed curtain -- which could bring the whole story to a screeching halt at the very moment forward momentum was most needed -- would be required. Although it felt like a lifetime was being asked for, what it meant practically was that ten seconds were needed for the curtain to come down, another two and a half minutes for the set change..."

And later:

"An orchestral interlude of at least 150 seconds' length would need to be wedged between the moment Amelia was wheeled out and the nearly five minutes of filmic underscoring that would serve as an apotheosis of the opera's various musical ideas."

Reading the blog gives you insights into the composer's creative process, and you can certainly admire his dedication and craftsmanship, though you can't help but think it sounds more like paint-by-numbers than Puccini.

Amelia is Seattle Opera's first commissioned work, but not its first world premiere. There have been several, most recently Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men in 1970. And the Amelia we're seeing started out quite differently; originally envisioned as a series of shorter pieces about flight to be called Icarus Flies. It was Wadsworth who argued for a stronger "through-story" that centered on the character of Amelia, while incorporating the Icarus myth along with a fictionalized Amelia Earhart (simply called The Flier). On paper, it might have appeared a hopeless muddle, but Thomas Lynch's sets allow the different layers of time and space ("here & now" as well as flashbacks to distant locations) to take form through the use of scrims, careful lighting and scenery like the suspended airplanes (even if his Vietnamese village looks a bit too Tuscan-sunny). It fell to lighting designer Duane Schuler to help the audience follow the non-linear story, adding (as he put it in the program notes) "a layer of clarity, rather than confusion" to the proceedings.

The linear nature of time, once upon a time, was the basis of narrative. Amelia's story breaks through those barriers, not because of the music but in spite of it. Amelia might make a reasonably entertaining stage play, but its real medium would seem to be the graphic novel, where shifts of perspective and focus, of time and space, are routine. Still, Amelia represents a defining moment for Seattle culture: a new and challenging piece of theater, a memorable production, and a solid, if not quite grand, opera.

Seattle Opera presents the world premiere of Daron Aric Hagen's Amelia at McCaw Hall, through May 22nd. Tickets ($25 to $176) online at www.seattleopera.org or by calling the box office at 206.389.7676 (outside of Seattle: 800.426.1619)

Photo (of Kate Lindsey as Amelia, holding her father's flight jacket) © Rosarii Lynch

It's a lively block, this stretch of Madison Valley: takeout pizza, takeout teriyaki, a dry cleaner's, a French bistro (Voilà!) a French creperie (La Côte), a fancy French dinner house (Rover's), an Asian cafe (Chinoise). There's vegetarian (Cafe Flora) a block in one direction, Spanish tapas (Harvest Vine) a block in the other. Good bread, too (Essential Bakery). There used to be a frame shop at the corner of East Madison and MLK; and you'd drive past it thinking it would be the perfect spot for a bar.

At least, Thierry Rautureau thought so. He knew the neighborhood, since he's been the Chef in the Hat at Rover's for nearly a quarter century.

A neighborhood bar, then, in the French style with a zinc-topped counter, open late, not expensive, with local wines (literally, from Wilridge just up the hill in Madrona) and familiar dishes like boeuf bourguignon available to go (on real china). Regulars from the Rover's mailing list were offered the opportunity to buy $1,000 shares (technically, gift certificates). The name? Luc, Thierry's father, who passed away four years ago.

The painting? A photo of young Thierrry, already thinking of his hat, surrounded by books, with chapter headings from the cookbook he would eventually write (with Cyntha Nims). The artist was Isa D'Arléans, a Madison Park neighbor, whose brother Cyril Fréchier was the sommelier at Rover's for two decades.

There's a simple à la carte menu, along with a rotating list of specials to be shared: a whole roast chicken, a Dungeness crab, braised beef tongue, a leg of lamb, a pork shoulder, portions large enough to serve three or four, for a perfectly reasonable $30.

Luc, 2800 E. Madison, Seattle, 206-328-6645  

Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure (which we wrote about when it came out five years ago), has a new cookbook, and she's promoting it in Seattle today and tomorrow to spread the good word on healthy eating. (A French person doesn't say, "I'm full." She says, "I am no longer hungry." End of story.)

The new book, The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook, has 150 simple recipes in addition to stories from Mme. Guiliano's childhood in France, her adult life in New York (where she ran the import arm of Veuve Clicquot champagne), Paris, and Provence, and her extensive travels for business and pleasure.

Among the words of wisdom on Guiliano's website is Colette's maxim: "Un homme qui n'aime pas le fromage ne peut être bien au lit," or "A man who does not like cheese cannot be good in bed."

Guiliano started her day on morning TV, followed by a meetup with food bloggers, a noontime demo and book signing at U Village, a mid-afternoon reading at McCord AFB (a first for the Air Force, one assumes), and an evening reading at Third Place Books. Tomorrow she joins up with the Alliance Française for a four-course luncheon prepared by Daisley Gordon of Campagne ($70 for members, $80 for non-members).

The biggest problem, Guiliano says, is America's need for speed. "When you eat fast, you eat badly, and when you eat badly, you get fat." Food, however, is not the enemy; yoyo diets don't work.

Four quotes:

• What did you eat last night? "Oysters at Elliott's."
• Her favorite pastime? "Breakfast, lunch and dinner."
  
• If you could eat whatever you wanted, what would you eat? "But I do eat whatever I want."
  
• Her best advice? "Go to the kitchen and cook."

Cameron Levin, my young next-door neighbor, scored a great coup last night at Amber Lounge with the first showing of her elegant evening wear. The collection of a dozen or so gowns, titled "Jewels," received its premiere at a fundraiser for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

What makes this particular debut all the more impressive is Levin's collaboration with urban landscape painter Ethan Jack Harrington, who rendered each design in an oil painting. (Such a brilliant idea! You may see other designers copying this concept before long.) Levin was featured alongside a who's who of emerging local designers in a recent Seattle Magazine poll titled "Seamless in Seattle." Earlier this year she was part of the hoopla for Seattle Fashion Week. Her new collection shows both elegance and maturity, and should launch an impressive career.

Cornichon has also been following the work of Belltown artist and illustrator Ethan Jack Harrington. Patrons of Whisky Bar are familiar with his cityscapes and his risqué pix of girls in their underwear playing pinball machines or videogames. But there's a whimsical talent lurking beneath the boyish surface of his work; just check out his take on Paris in the snow, on his handsome website.

My favorite gown was Pearls, but my favorite painting (as a painting) was "The Fitting," which allows Harrington to compose two related figures, model and seamstress (Levin herself), in a natural setting. It's not quite Degas, but it comes close.

The tulip country of western Michigan is home to one of the nation's foremost outdoor sculpture parks, Meijer Gardens, just outside Grand Rapids. (By coincidence, philanthropist Frederik Meijer and Portland's almost identically named Fred Meyer both made their fortunes with regional chains of grocery stores.) The Meijer estate seeded the 32-acre sculpture park, part of a 130-acre expanse, with Meijer's personal collection when it was founded 15 years ago. The number of sculptures in the permanent collection has grown, over the years, to include 160 monumental works by the likes of Alexander Calder, Alexander Liberman, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, Louise Nevelson and Dale Chihuly, in addition to world-renowned works by Rodin ("The Kiss") and Degas ("Dancer Looking at the Sole of Her Right Foot").

Now, the scale of Chihuly's designs demands a grand public setting. The individual pieces of "Over Venice," for example, would make no visual sense inside a museum. So Meijer Gardens is an ideal venue for a temporary exhibit (through September) titled "A New Eden," that features 15 Chihuly pieces. (There's a Facebook page with photos here and an effusive USA Today piece headlined "Chihuly sculptures invade Michigan" here.)

The pretentious "A New Eden" theme at least ties in with Meijer's goal was of uniting the visual art of humankind and the visual art of nature. There are extensive botanical gardens (including a mini-farm, a butterfly exhibit and a five-story conservatory) at Grand Rapids in addition the sculpture park. Some 600,000 visitors a year pay the $12 entrance fee, yet Meijer Gardens isn't a profit-making venture; it requires regular underwriting from private donors. And that's just one point of the difference between Grand Rapids and the proposed Chihuly building at Seattle Center.

One might complain that Chihuly gets insufficient respect as a native son (a valid point) and that Seattle "owes" him a museum (debatable). Living artists are surely entitled to make a living from their art, the argument goes. (Yes, that's what art galleries are for.) Chihuly, on the other hand, has found immense commercial success, enough to employ a small army of craftsmen to execute his designs. (I once invited Chihuly, on behalf of Chateau Pichon-Lalande in Pauillac, to create a wine-oriented exhibit in the vineyards of Bordeaux. He liked the idea. Then his staff sent me an $250,000 estimate just for an initial site visit. Pichon's owner balked; end of project.) Still, there's no doubt that many of Chihuly's works, in the proper setting, are simply stunning. Their unpredictable organic forms grow out of the earth; their vibrant colors echo tulip fields, mountain forests, spacious skies. This, you realize, is where great sculpture belongs: in the great outdoors. Seattle Art Museum already has a relative small (9-acre) sculpture park, open to the public free of charge; too bad it doesn't have room for more big-vision, outsize art.

Visiting the Meijer Gardens in 2006, Cornichon came to the rescue of this 20-foot bronze sculpture, American Horse, based on an original by Leonardo da Vinci. Photo by David Morgenstern

Cornichon spent a couple of days in Leavenworth recently as the guest of the Best Western Icicle Inn and Leavenworth Enchanted Tours (a wine-tour company).

There's a pair of golden arches in Leavenworth, though you might have trouble finding them. The McDonald's conforms to the town's sign code and is camouflaged beneath a German bonnet. The reason isn't idle aesthetics, the Bavarian motif is strictly business.

Hotels with names like Alpen Rose, Bavarian Lodge, Edelweiss and Ritterhof line a two-mile stretch of Highway 2; the turnoff to downtown Leavenworth is crammed with theme restaurants like King Ludwig, Gustav's and Gingerbread Factory. The bike rental shop is called Rad Haus, a pun on Rathaus, the German word for City Hall.

If you like sausages, sauerbraten and schnitzel, you'll be in heaven in Leavenworth. All but a handful of restaurants have a Bavarian, German or Austrian theme. Burger joints, of course, as well as a couple of Mexican taquerias and a couple of Italian trattorias. Among the better bets are two restaurants on Front Street owned by the Forchemer family, Cafe Mozart (upstairs) and Andreas Keller (underground).

The wurst thing here was the best thing here: weisswurst from Seattle's Bavarian Meats. Accompanied by a warm bretz'n (a slightly crisp, doughy pretzel) with homemade mustard, a pair of these made for a satisfying lunch.The usual German suspects at dinner.

Cornichon did not love the vaunted red cabbage served upstairs. Far too sweet, far too much clove and cinnamon. On the other hand, the schnitzel (in this case pork) was flavorful and tender. Spaetzle were dry, however. Music was Mozart for a while, then Bach, then Chopin. (Hey, just play Mozart!, for heaven's sake.)

You might be tempted, after a day or so of Bavairan fare, to hunger for something other than bratwurst or schnitzel. Don't give in! The only alternatives are burger joints, a couple of routine Mexican places and two "Italian" restaurants. The Alley Cafe, specifically, bills itself as Italian; the food surely isn't. Fettuccine Carbonara was unseasoned despite the limp bacon, irrelevant mushrooms and loads of cream. Where was the cracked pepper? Where was the crisp pancetta? Where were the eggs, for that matter? Accompanying beans & broccoli were nuked from a frozen state without even a dash of salt. Tasteless and grim.

Cafe Mozart, 829 Front St., Leavenworth, 509- 548-6000  
Andrea's Keller, 829 Front St., Leavenworth, 509- 548-6000  
Alley Cafe, 214 8th St., Leavenworth, 509 548-6109  

View from the deck at Christina's on Orcas Island. The new owner, Lisa Nakamura, will change the name to Allium.

Lisa Nakamura, the talented chef de cuisine at The Herbfarm, is taking over Christina Orchid's eponymous restaurant on Orcas Island. The new name will be Allium, and Nakamura is looking toward opening by Memorial Day.

After a quarter-century of restaurant cooking, Orchid thought she'd retired, two years ago, when she sold the place to Maureen Mullen, a Seattle chef who'd worked for Tom Douglas. But things didn't work out; Mullen closed the restaurant at the end of March and gave back the keys.

Nakamura heard through the grapevine that Christina's was available, took a trip to Orcas and fell in love with the place. Her new husband, industrial engineer Andrew Shiosaki, will continue to work in Redmond but fully supports her decision. (Andrew's cousin, Gregg Shiosaki, is on the faculty at the Seattle Culinary Academy, but the two hadn't met until just before the wedding.) Nakamura has impeccable culinary credentials, including a stint at the French Laundry in the late 1990s. Seattle diners first met her when she created the menu at the short-lived Qube in Belltown, then at binVivant in Kirkland. She's been chef de cuisine at The Herbfarm for the past year.

Allium will be a casual restaurant, without the trappings of fine dining. No tablecloths, for example. A small menu that showcases seasonal products from local farmers in the San Juans. Allium is, of course, the botanical name for onions. "The unsung heros of cooking," says Nakamura, whose degree is in botany. "It's my favorite vegetable."

"We found somebody wonderful," Orchid says of Nakamura. "Someone who understands how much work is involved in running a restaurant."

Allium, 310 Main St, Eastsound, Wash. 98245, 360-376-4904