The Melrose Market street festival, part of a slew of summer festivals on the Hill this year, brought locavores and foodies out for a partly sunny Sunday of fresh and local artisan foods like gourmet cheeses from the Calf and Kid and BBQ sandwiches from Sitka and Spruce, among others.
There was also live music and fashion shows from Velouria Boutique but, for the most part, the day was about hanging out and enjoying local, sustainable, organic food.
With one more block party coming up this next weekend hosted by the Pearl Apartments next Sunday, we’re curious to know what you’ve thought of this summer’s selection and which events you’ll add to your calendar again next year.
In the meantime, it was a busy weekend for photogenic Capitol Hill moments. Here are a few images from us. We’ll watch for more from you over the coming days.
Look, the Melrose fair even had models:
Just up the street from the Melrose activities, we found a guerrilla garage sale underway around the edges of the People’s Parking Lot at Belmont and Pine. We talked to a couple of the people selling their goods and it sounds like the space works out nicely as long as you clean up your junk. You might give it a try if you are looking for a place to hold a little closet sale and don’t have a garage of your own.
Even farther up the Hill, we found St. Joseph’s parking lot filled with bouncy houses and cotton candy for their annual parish picnic.
Meanwhile, thanks to a connection we made at the Melrose party, we got a look at the Bunka Women’s University Japanese Fashion show that went down at the Broadway Performance Hall on Saturday afternoon thanks to Capitol Hill photographer @LawrenceLeung. You can find more images from the show at Lawrence’s site, CURIOUSANGLE.
Livestock (beef and pork) and livestock products (cheese) are the least sustainable foods in the world. Yes, even when they’re local or grass fed. It’s unfortunate the word “sustainable” is not legally defined, so anybody can slap the word “sustainable” on their products.
Coming soon, “sustainable” McDonald’s Big Macs and “sustainable” BP gasoline.
It’s interesting that you chose to use the words “least sustainable” instead of “not sustainable”. According to you, on the sustainability scale, livestock products are still sustainable just not as something else.
You’re wrong. There is an awful lot of land in the world which is not suitable for raising grains and vegetables. In addition to this, there is a lot of land which is only marginally productive for crops, but through the truly unsustainable practices of chemical alteration and irrigation can be forced to grow crops. Grass and other forage/grazing materials grow just fine on these lands. Your body can’t digest grass, no matter how green you think you are. Cows and other ruminants can, and therefore are able to convert grass into something humans can eat. Sustainable dairy and livestock operations are a reality, it just might be hard to see from the top of that horse you are on.
I will be interested to see how many of these street ‘festivals’ return next summer. I hope they do even though this year’s were mostly not that great. They need more stuff going on. On Sunday once I had my expensive but good sandwich, there wasn’t anything to do. The bands were cool but why not get some more stuff for sale and more giveaways. It’s a takeaway from the Puyallup Fair kind of crap but give things away for fun. There have got to be some governmental agencies with coloring books to pass out looking for something to do.
Yesterday’s Melrose Market block party was a heck of a lot of fun. It provided great entertainment, fabulous food, and a distinctive urban vibe that I haven’t witnessed anywhere else in Seattle. Russ of Rainshadow Meats must be the best butcher on the West Coast. He’s inventive, affirmatively pro-consumer, and absolutely invested in the humane treatment of the animals we carnivores consume.
I wish the creative genius behind Melrose Market, Liz Dunn, could become the city’s planning director in order to incentivize the creation of more vibrant community neighborhoods along the lines of her various small-scale developments on the Hill.
I really want to like that butcher shop but the meat I’ve bought from them is always way too tough, including the lamb in the sandwiches Sitka was selling yesterday. There is also a lack of flavor. The meats I buy from a large grocery store like Metropolitan are way more tasty.
The people who have organized the last couple are into the pure commercial sense, customers for the businesses. That means “new” visitors and keeping us who have been there, checking it out again. So far, they are weak on the amusement side. And face it, free concerts, events at Cal Anderson and Volunteer – tons of them this year – are going to be more fun, on the grass cuddling, good food near, couple of beers in the backpack ….
And, they, commerce related events, want all this “what an amazing, simply amazing” PR spin. So they don’t cotton to critics and ideas to improve.
The pressure is to buy and the same prices and commodities are there the day before and the day after …. that is another marketing problem. For this site it was a grand opening of sorts. I have been buying cheese good sandwitches there for months …. great cheese, nice cheese lady.
Ref: the meats …. very expensive butcher, even if he is a nice guy and skilled at his craft. Have bought meat twice, and both times it tasted like it had been on the shelf too long. Fresh is a big word in the world of meat cooks/ eaters. And many of us are doing less and less and less red meats …. bad trend for the steak and roast sellers.
So far the best of these events, and by far far the biggest was the Gay Pride Street Event at the end of June. No demands to buy, cheap good food at the street, room to walk around and TONS of music on every block, live and recorded, core street, and community based, and queers like to do Pride in any way possible …
So …. next, the holiday parties.
Same with organic stuff. When you have to throw away 70 years worth of agricultural innovation to get a label on your product, you sacrifice all sustainability.