I live in Seattle. So I can state with authority that out here if you want hipster street cred you’ll be rocking at least some sartorial remnant of the ’70s — be it a pair of groovy shades, nut-hugger jeans, a polyester dress or booty cut-offs.
What else is reminiscent of the ’70s? Hot tubs, baby. And now, chilly (but oh so cool) Seattleites and visitors alike can have a relaxing retro outing thanks to a fab new indulgence: Hot Tub Boats. You and up to six friends (kids count) can bob around scenic Lake Union in a wooden, diesel boiler-fueled floating hot tub boat with full steering capacity and a throttle. All boats come with coolers, locked dry storage, water jets and safety equipment. They are also United States Coast Guard standard approved.
The boats are also available for longer-term rentals and purchase, and can be delivered to alternate locations such as Lake Washington for an additional fee. The company is anticipating a May launch.
Alas, getting nekkid and sipping Lancers is not permitted; we’re not animals here in Seattle. And everyone knows drinking and boating (don’t) mix. Even though you’ll have to leave the booze at home and cover up your bits, there’s still something about steamy water, nippy weather and floating on a lake that feels a little bit naughty. Far out.
Most children don’t dream of selling cheese or hacking apart animal carcasses when they grow up, but it’s a popular fantasy for many adults. Like most romantic-sounding culinary vocations, making craft foods and beverages can be hard work, and a risky business enterprise. “No matter how passionate someone is about their product,” says Heidi Yorkshire, founder of Portland, Oregon’s Food by Hand Seminars, “without business skills, they’ll never survive.”
Yorkshire, a small business consultant and former food and wine writer, was inspired to launch Food by Hand in 2009 because she saw a niche. “Our courses are mini-apprenticeships in running a sustainable business.” Past curricula have included butchery and craft distilling.
Food by Hand offers two-to-three-day intensives that teach the “craft and business of artisan food.” While the courses are designed for prospective business owners, they’re open to anyone wanting to know more about handcrafted foods.
[Photo credit: Flickr user mystuart]Food by Hand has an artisan cheese program that teaches everything from tasting, buying, storage and shop design to creating a business plan. The course is led by esteemed Portland cheesemonger Steve Jones, the son of a Maytag Dairy herdsman. Additional instructors include an expert on business planning and a tax specialist.
Jones has been in the business for over 17 years and is now on his second retail cheese venture, Portland’s Cheese Bar. He’s an industry badass and the winner of the 2011 Cheesemonger Invitational (yes, it really does exist and let me tell you, as a cheesemonger, it’s a pretty intense occupation and competition).
Food by Hand’s fourth annual seminar on The Craft and Business of Retailing Artisan Cheese will be held in Portland from May 30-June 2, 2012, and costs $1,795 per person; a $1,595 early enrollment tuition fee is available if paid in full by April 1. Click here for details on how to register.
In Spokane, Washington, Dry Fly Distilling’s aptly named Distilling School teaches their “farm to bottle” ethos (they use only locally, sustainably-grown raw ingredients in their vodka, gin, bourbon and whiskey) in two-day and one-week courses designed to “provide a variety of hands-on training opportunities to aspiring distillers.”
Opening in Oakland’s Jack London Square in April is the Food Craft Institute. Supported by sponsors and partnerships with some of the Bay Area’s most renowned artisan food organizations, farmers and food artisans (some of whom are also the instructors) the new school aims to “reinvigorate the creation and success of artisan food craft business in the U.S. through a combination of…training courses steeped in technical techniques along with a rigorous entrepreneurship program.”
It’s easy to poke fun at the overuse of words like “artisan” and “handcrafted,” and even I cringe when I hear naifs dreamily speak of quitting their six-figure tech jobs and buying a goat dairy. The reality is that unless you put in the hard time doing internships and learning the business end of things — and that’s assuming you have real, honest-to-god talent and passion — you’re not going to succeed at any food business. Having seed money or disposable income doesn’t equal good product.
On the positive side, my former employer, a Seattle cheesemonger, did her homework and spent two years interning, developing a business plan and taking Jones’ workshop as well as making him her mentor. Her business has been a success from day one. If you’re serious about getting (food) crafty, you can run a viable business. Just don’t think it’s going to be easy.
Kickstarter and incubator kitchens such as San Francisco’s La Cocina have helped many craft food businesses get off the ground. If you’re considering a career in this industry, I highly recommend these and similar programs as resources. And don’t forget: craft foods make excellent travel souvenirs.
[Photo credit: lamb, Laurel Miller; cheese, Flicker user Mitchmaitree]
Why start a craft food business? Because you “can pickle that.”
Deep snow is blamed for the death of two skiers, and injuries to another, in three separate accidents that took place in the Sierra Mountains this past weekend. That region was hit hard with a late-winter blizzard that resulted in as much as four feet of fresh powder in certain areas.
The first incident took place at the Castle Creek ski area on Sunday where 54-year-old Yiwei Hu fell through a hole in the snow and was unable to get out. The deep snow that he was skiing across was hollowed out by flowing water underneath which resulted in the unstable conditions. It is unclear how long Hu was in the hole, but authorities say he had already passed away before they arrived on the scene.
Snowboarder Kynan Stanners suffered a similar fate when he landed headfirst into deep snow at the China Peak Mountain Resort on Sunday. Apparently the 30-year-old was unable to extricate himself from the fresh powder and suffocated on the spot before anyone could come to his rescue.
Finally, Michael Dalzell was snowboarding at Kirkwood Mountain Resort on Saturday when he was swept up in a small avalanche. The man was treated for minor, non-life threatening injuries at a nearby hospital and was later released.
Typically when you hear about fatal skiing accidents it is because the people involved were being reckless or had ventured out of bounds. In each of these cases, however, the men were on designated runs at each of the resorts they were visiting at the time. The heavy snow just happened to make the conditions unexpectedly dangerous and as a result two people lost their lives. The lesson to be learned here is that we should never ski alone, as both of the deaths could have been prevented had they had companions with them on the slopes.
Fortune magazine’s newest issue is out, revealing the results of their annual “Most Admired” list of businesses across the globe. The magazine asked businesspeople to rate companies in their own industry on nine criteria from global competitiveness to social responsibility. Overall, Apple took the top spot for the fifth year in a row, but our favorite names in hospitality also ranked high on the overall lists.
AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, was ranked as one of the “least admired” companies across a number of categories ranging from innovation to management quality and financial soundness.
In the airlines category, United Continental Holdings earned top honors, followed by Singapore Airlines, Southwest, Delta, Lufthansa, Air France/KLM, Cathay Pacific, All Nippon, Qantas and International Airlines Group. US Airways and AMR were at the bottom of the list.
In the hotels and resorts category, Wyndham Worldwide took the #1 slot, with a score of 7.77. Rounding out the list included the expected (Starwood, Marriott, Hyatt, Accor) and some interesting other choices, including Vegas companies like Wynn, Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment.
This is the latest sign of growing normalcy in the battered capital. Traffic cops have returned to the streets, the markets are thriving and there are now regular commercial flights to Somalia from Turkey.
The theatre closed in the early ’90s when Somalia spiraled into civil war. With rival clans fighting over every block, going to the theatre wasn’t a big priority. Al-Shabab certainly didn’t try to reopen it during their brief control of Mogadishu. The Islamist terrorist group banned all public entertainment as well as Western music, foreign food aid and bras.
Now Al-Shabab is on the defensive, being attacked on several fronts by the Transitional Federal Government, the African Union, Kenya and Ethiopia. This has allowed a period of relative peace in Mogadishu, although bombings do still occur. Somalis have been quick to rebuild and the theatre is the latest sign of renewed life.
The Somali National Theatre celebrated its reopening by entertaining an audience of about 1,000 with a night of music, drama and comedy. That’s right, comedy. The fact that Somalis are laughing is a good sign. Who knows, perhaps tourism will be next!
As further proof that absolutely everything ends up on YouTube, here’s a clip of a concert at the Somali National Theatre in the 1980s. It’s obviously transferred from an old VHS tape, so the quality isn’t the best, but how often do you get to see something like this?