I grew up in West Texas and did not experience a bagel until I left for college on the East Coast.  Early in my college career, I was in line to get breakfast when I spotted a basket full of, what I thought were, donuts.  I put the “donut” on my plate and saved it for last.  Having wiped the scrambled eggs off my plate, I picked up “the donut” and wondered why it felt, so crusty and kind of heavy.  I bit into it and was instantly horrified.  Not only was it not sweet, it had the consistency of lead.  I spit it out, all the while swearing.  My Jewish friends, laughed and laughed.  That was my introduction to the bagel.

Over time, I not only came to appreciate the bagel’s charms, but actually to become addicted to this wonderful food.  Little did I know that this bread, which I associated with the East Coast, would become the journeyman of foods: always ready to do proper service, no matter the occassion.  Bagels have improved since we used to get them frozen in Lender’s packets at the supermarket.  Today, we can feast on a real bagel, much as you would in New York City, 20 years ago.  As described by William Safire in the New York Times, the true bagel has the following qualities.

A bagel is a meal in itself.  Throw on some cream cheese and marmalade and you have a slice of heaven.  Which is why we always strive to keep pastry case full of fresh bagels at Cafe Rozella.  Nothing, in my view, goes better with a hot cup of coffee, on a cold gray day.

(Photo by Dina Johnson)
White Center Food Bank executive director Rick Jump made a guest appearance Monday night at the monthly meeting of the Highland Park Action Committee, whose turf stretches all the way to the WC line, and he shared numbers that won’t surprise you, but are startling nonetheless: Last month alone, WCFB served almost 1800 families – 6,000 people. That’s up to 80 percent more than this time last year, Jump said, describing it as “a bit of a crisis” while also noting that in addition to serving White Center, WCFB also serves Highland Park (and other areas of West Seattle’s south half). He elaborated: “We’re seeing a lot of people who have never visited a food bank before in their life, and they’re really embarrassed to be there … it really is a new face we’re seeing in food bank lines.” He says the Feinstein Challenge starts next month, with a private organization rewarding WCFB (and other organizations nationwide) depending on how much food and money is donated to the organization in March and April, so if you make a donation during the next two months, be sure to earmark it to qualify for the Feinstein Challenge. What they need most right now, he says, is “dry variety” food – macaroni and cheese, Hamburger Helper type of stuff. What they don’t need … tuna … they get that as a government commodity and, Jump smiled, “we’re swimming in tuna.” They have a “baby pantry” service as well, and while they don’t need formula – a private donor gives them all they could possibly need, according to Jump – they do need “larger size” diapers. You can find out more about WCFB, and donate money online, by going to its website, www.whitecenterfoodbank.org. (We’ll report more on the Highland Park meeting later today on our partner site West Seattle Blog.)

Just posted at partner site West Seattle Blog: Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg — who has longtime White Center ties and lives in nearby Normandy Park — is the guest at this Thursday night’s White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting; read about it here.

A new “edible garden” has sprouted at the White Center Food Bank; volunteers from Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle and SeattleWorks spent several hours Saturday clearing ornamental plantings from the plots where vegetables will now grow. Read more about it on partner site West Seattle Blog – including the need for one more volunteer – somebody to set up and tend a new worm-compost bin! Meantime, hours after we stopped at WCFB, it was off to the first open house at the artists’ studios on the east side of the old skating rink:

The party inside and upstairs was a little too crowded and dark for good pix but we had a great time wandering from room to room, viewing some of the artists’ creations, including paintings, sculpture, even a striking bench with an inset eagle-head carving. Next weekend, the artists will be involved in the first Rat City Rummage event – remember, you can look for the entryway from 16th:

Rat City Rummage is set for next Saturday, 10 am-6 pm at the old skate rink.

Those two photos represent the “chocolate” in the AmeriCorps-organized “Peace, Love, Chocolate” event at the Boys/Girls Club gym at Greenbridge today — top, Seattle’s own fair-trade, organic Theo Chocolate brought free candy; immediately above, volunteers made necklaces from Hershey chocolate kisses. And then, there were non-edible examples of peace and love, starting with kids creating art at this table – what you see hanging on the wall behind it is a “peace quilt” of paper:

Of course, you can’t have a “peace” event in this area without representation from West Seattle Neighbors for Peace and Justice:

AmeriCorps volunteers who work for Habitat for Humanity in East King County kept watch over a table where these young helpers were creating with clay:

And if you think 4H is just about farms, this table was there to remind you that’s not so:

The event was a service project organized by AmeriCorps members including Yichuan Zhao, who kindly showed us around to the various stations (he also works with the White Center Food Bank, site of another event today that we’ll be writing about later). He and his AmeriCorps colleagues also are very appreciative of the many White Center businesses and organizations that helped them out and promised to send a list that we can add to this report (among them, White Center Now‘s own Cafe Rozella, which donated coffee, and Full Tilt Ice Cream, which sent paletas). Yichuan was proud to say that, thanks to donations and volunteer help, the entire event cost only $200 to put on – and that was to procure a PA system for live music! ADDED TUESDAY: Here’s the list of sponsors they wished to thank:

Food:
Full Tilt
Salvadorean Bakery
Carniceria El Paisano
Castillos
Samway Market
Cafe Rozella
Theo Chocolate
PCC
Trader Joe’s Burien
Albertson’s
Little Caesar’s
International Market

Tables:
WSU 4-H
West Seattle Neighbors for Peace and Justice
Seattle Center for Peace
Powerful Voices
Solid Ground
Habitat for Humanity East King County (AmeriCorps Team)
ECOSS

And people who donated stuff:
Goodwill (mugs)
Seward Park Clay Studio (Clay)

Music:
Alex Kajumulo
Seattle Peace Choir

You heard about it here first, two and a half weeks ago – now the big night is here – the first White Center Open Studio Art Tour, 5-10 pm tonight:

Are you ready to serve? The search is on and maybe you can answer the call:

The North Highline Unincorporated Area Council is seeking applicants for council positions. Candidates must be 18 years and older, a resident of the area, and/or a business/property owner in the area or an official representative of a non-profit in the area. The council represents residents and business/property owners of the North Highline Unincorporated Area in their dealings with King County and surrounding cities. The council is comprised of 13 members representing the communities of Beverly Park, Boulevard Park, Glendale, Riverton Heights, Salmon Creek, Shorewood, South Park, Top Hat and White Center. To obtain a Candidate Filing Statement or to learn more about the open position’s contact Christine Waldman, cwaldman@northhighlineuac.org

The King County Sheriff’s Office sent this news release today:

The help of the public is needed to catch a robber who hit the Lucky 7 store twice in less than a two week period, and may have robbed a store in Seattle as well.

The Lucky 7 incidents occurred on January 27th and February 7th, at 1:40 PM and 8:15 AM respectively. The store is in White Center at 9618 – 4th Ave SW.

In both robberies the suspect violently pushed the 71 year-old female clerk to the ground then went to the cash register and stole cash and lottery tickets. No gun or other weapon was seen.

The suspect is described as an Asian male, about 5’ 2” or 5’ 3” tall, around 135 lbs, clean cut and 18 to 19 years old. He wore a NY Yankees baseball hat, and in one of robberies a hoody as well.

In the first robbery the man was seen fleeing the scene in a silver, 2-door, Mercedes or BMW.

If anyone has information about these crimes or knows the suspect they are asked to call the King County Sheriff’s Office at (206) 296-3311, or 9-1-1.

Here’s one of several images shared by KCSO (more to come) – the robber hopping the counter in one of the heists (not a big or clear photo, but best they have):

As we have elaborated on partner site West Seattle Blog, this same robber may be linked to a heist at a West Seattle gas station weekend before last (read more here).

If you live on the Seattle side of White Center – you just might want to check this out – the invitation’s from Highland Park Action Committee chair Dan Mullins:

Hello Neighbors!,

This Monday will be our monthly Highland Park Action Committee meeting. At each meeting in 2009 we will hold a raffle to win a prize donated by a neighborhood business. This Month’s prize is a gift certificate from Highland Park Favorite Jojo’s Espresso! Everybody in attendance that signs in gets a free raffle ticket. We are in the middle of the environmental SEPA process, so not much “Jail Talk”, but we have tons of neighborhood announcements, events, crime watch, etc. So please come to the Pot-Luck dinner at 6:30, meet your neighbors and and stay for the meeting at 7:00.

Highland Park Action Committee Meeting
Monday, Feb 23, 7:00PM*
at the HP Improvement Club
1116 SW Holden

*Pot-Luck dinner starts at 6:30

We reported recently that the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council had plans to help with a roundup of abandoned shopping carts – and now, NHUAC’s Heidi Johnson has sent us the flyer that has information on who to contact at which stores, and what their policies are. Download it here – and help clear those carts out of YOUR neighborhood!

Come check them out.

From Dick Thurnau from Friends of Hicks Lake — a followup to the call for ideas that we published 3 weeks ago:

Friends of Hicks Lake did a lot of research to reach what we feel are the best and wisest decisions for improvements to utilize the $25,000 allotted in King County’s budget for Lakewood Park / Hicks Lake to make it a most enjoyable place for all.

We enlisted the aid of whitecenternow.com and White Center Community Development Association asking for the community suggestions.

The responses were limited but the # 1 was a water feature in the lake. #2 was a walking path around Hicks Lake, as a large share of the present pathways are on a hillside, making it difficult for older people and the disabled to use. A Boy Scout troop volunteered to do the labor portion of the pathway. #3 was to have a fulltime caretaker in the park to oversee and control the concerning, costly problems occurring in the park — graffiti, vandalism and illegal alcohol usage on these premises.

Our recommendation is a water feature consisting of an attractive floating fountain and underwater air diffusers (bubblers) which will provide aeration to help cleanse this unhealthy water in Hicks Lake. Pricing for this equipment from Absolute Aquatics would be under $10,000, including freight with a 3 year warranty. Other services required: $7,000 for an electrical Contractor, $2,000 for miscellaneous material, $1,000 for electrical power for one year, $2,000 for unforeseen developments. Total, $20,000, using volunteer labor to construct concrete anchors (2 required) and dig a trench from power source to the Lake and place equipment leaving a surplus for other projects. Another supplier gave a quote which was much higher in pricing but did give us a listing of many users of aeration features.

Sent an information brochure pertaining to this equipment described above to King County’s Surface Water Engineering for their evaluation — the question of a possibility of electrical shock, being the sealed motor is submerged in the water. Yes, that is a concern; however, manufacturers could or would not be able to sell these units for all these years if that were the case.

The above-suggested project of aeration is an interim objective until the White Center Regional Storm Water Improvement project, which is planned for 5 years down the road, is constructed.

Friends of Hicks Lake’s purpose and goal is to have clean, healthy lake water in Hicks Lake once again for the community to utilize this facility.

We’ll keep you posted on what happens next.

I interviewed Dow Constantine this afternoon in West Seattle for a West Seattle Blog follow-up to the announcement last night that he’s running for County Executive. One of the questions I asked was about annexation, and what happens now that a Seattle City Council vote has thwarted the Memorandum of Understanding between Burien, Seattle, and two fire districts. While we try not to repurpose material too much between the two sites, it’s been suggested we repost the entire story here, so here goes:

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor/White Center Now news editor

Instead of a once-planned family vacation on a sunny beach, King County Council Chair Dow Constantine is spending this partly sunny Seattle day — the first official day of his campaign for King County Executive — doing interviews, answering phone calls, e-mails, and text messages. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“This is fun,” he insists, as we part ways after a conversation at West 5 (WSB iPhone photo at left), in a space the native West Seattleite also remembers from spending many a day there in boyhood, when it was West Seattle Speedway, slot cars and all.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the White Center Community Development Association website: All White Center residents are invited tomorrow night to a “community meet and greet” with Alma Couverthie from Lawrence Community Works, one of WCCDA’s “national partners,” who’s going to share successes around community organizing and networking. It’s 7:15-8:30 pm tomorrow at St. James Place (9421 18th SW).

That’s King County Council Chair Dow Constantine, who represents White Center and West Seattle (among other areas), announcing he’s running for County Executive. More details at our partner site West Seattle Blog.

That clip is a production of the Common Language Project, related to this story they have just published about federal immigration-violation detainees in Western Washington, and where and how they are held. A week ago, I met the three people who head up the CLP during a small-group conversation convened to talk about the hottest topic in my business: The future of journalism – who will do it, who will pay for it, what is in danger of being lost, what is being gained, all in a time of rapid change, with newspapers losing money and closing, and small independent news sites like West Seattle Blog (which my husband and I operate) on the rise, along with other new types of news enterprises. The CLP trio mentioned they were about to publish a story in the P-I; the multimedia clip above is related to that story. They also have published a blog-format item saying they’re a little unhappy with how the story was buried in the newspaper, while a story about a camera-wearing cat got the big play. Since one of the central parts of the “future of news” discussion relates to “will investigative journalism survive?” we thought we would do our part by calling attention to their story here. (And if you are interested in the future of news, please join us and many of our colleagues at an event coming up at Seattle City Hall’s Bertha Landes Room, 7 pm Feb. 26; read more about it here, RSVP – it’s free – and send questions in advance.)

Come down and have yourself a freaky St. Valentine’s Day.

Just received the new North Highline Unincorporated Area Council newsletter from Heidi Johnson. It’s not on the NHUAC website yet but we’ve uploaded it here so you can read it if you’re not on the mailing list. Among its articles: Alerts about the future of Evergreen Pool and some of the King County parkland that’s been under discussion lately (we have a followup on that in the works). Read the newsletter here. (The council’s next meeting – everybody welcome – is March 5, 7 pm, North Highline Fire District HQ.)

There is just something about the word Brunch that I detest. Part of it is the need to take two words, that are just fine on their own, and smoosh them together to form a new word when either of the old words would have worked just fine. It also strikes me as some pretentious activity taken up by the country club set after a rousing round of golf. I love breakfast, one of my favorite meals of the day really. Lunch is normally my first actual meal of the day, since I tend to sleep in a little later than I should and I end up running out of the house snacking on a piece of dry bread. With those criteria, one would think that I would love brunch. I like the concept, just not the name.

The name normally brings on a big fuss over something that should be very simple. Breakfast should be simple. Pancakes. That is a breakfast. Eggs, potatoes, some sort of fried pork and toast. That is breakfast. Simple, easy breakfast. Brunch is something like this: “Bob’s Red Mill “mighty tasty” hot cereal vanilla-pear compote, Bellwether Farms fromage blanc, crunchy pecans $10”. That is really just freakin oatmeal with cream and nuts, but with the “brunch” tag on it, it is some how now worth TEN DOLLARS. You could buy an entire silo of rolled oats for ten dollars. Yesterday morning I had a four-egg omelet, with cheese and bacon, a side of pancakes, and hash browns for $6.75. Sure, I did not get to eat that in Belltown. There you pay for the view. Like watching a junkie nod off on a bus bench on 3^rd Ave. No, I had that breakfast at Young’s.

Young’s is a family owned dinner on 16^th just north of Roxbury. It is the kind of place that brings you the newspaper after the last guy was done reading it. The waitresses will know your name after you have been in there a couple of times. Omelets are less then eight bucks, and the booths are comfy. They also serve Chinese food, that I have never tried. Own of the daughters told me that when they opened 35 years ago, they just did Chinese food, and some one suggested that they try breakfast. They moved into a bigger spot a few doors down, and thought they would give breakfast a try to pay for the bigger space. Mr. Young did something right, because he is turning out the best breakfast plates in town. Huge. Low on the grease, and simple. Breakfast does not get better than this. Brunch might try. but this is the pinnacle of breakfast.

Young’s 

9413 16th Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98106
(206) 762-3438

Tues-Sat 8 am-5 pm, Sun 8 am-3 pm CLOSED MONDAYS. Cause Monday is starve White Center day.