Kaspar’s in Lower Queen Anne used to be one of the best restaurants in town. Still is, on one of their rare special-dinner nights. Chef Kaspar Donier ran the kitchen and created wonderful dinners with some of the best vegetables in town, while his wife Nancy kept an eye on the front of the house. Kaspar’s brother Markus Donier served as expert sommelier and general manager, and ran the popular wine bar attached to the restaurant.

Last year Kaspar’s converted to a catering business, with only the occasional special event to keep loyal patrons happy. Markus Donier left his position at Kaspar’s and went wandering.

Chef Kaspar won’t say much about Markus. “He’s off having adventures,” he told us. “Sometimes it’s better for a brother not to ask.”

But the Seattle Times was more forthcoming: Markus is back in town, available as a private chef and wine consultant:

If individuals are setting up their own wine cellars, Markus says, “it’s a wonderful opportunity, and someone should guide them through.”

For locals with a taste for wine and a few bucks to spend: talk to Markus Donier, quick, before he gets busy again. He can be reached, according to the paper, at 206-378-5886.

via Wikipedia

Under gorgeous blue skies and heavy security, China’s President Hu Jintao arrived in Seattle for a visit with local leaders, including Christine Gregoire, Bill and Melinda Gates, former governor Gary Locke, and Alan Mulally of Boeing.

I’d expected more protests, but apart from small demonstrations downtown and at Microsoft, protest was muted. I drove through downtown about 2 PM today and saw a hundred or so Falun Gong and Taiwanese supporters on the streets, orders of magnitude less than the immigrant-rights demonstrations.

In China itself, China’s government-controlled news agency Xinhua hasn’t yet taken note of the Washington state visit, but did announce a new round of copyright enforcement efforts. It’s probably not coincidental that this announcement came just as President Hu was meeting with Bill Gates.

Technorati Tags: news, seattle

… this Friday’s game is Ichiro bobblehead night! I said … Ichiro bobblehead night!

Hello? Is this thing on?

Oh, for those heady days when the promise of a free Ichiro bobblehead doll was enough to make Mariners fans line up overnight!

Texas Rangers at Seattle Mariners
7:05pm, KSTW (TV) and KOMO (radio)

I will not woof Felix Hernandez.
I will not woof Felix Hernandez.
I will not woof Felix Hernandez.
I will not woof Felix Hernandez.

OK, he hasn’t pitched all that well. But, here we are again, in the fifteenth game of the season, with a home start against the Texas Rangers.

I grew up in a town with a Rangers farm club, back when the Rangers were downright terrible. No one was a Rangers fan in my elementary school; they gravitated to the Royals (and George Brett) or the Cardinals (and Ozzie Smith). We called them the “Strangers.”

Anyway, another M’s game tonight. They’re 6-8 now and playing better than last year.

Bill Gates

The city of Chicago has a plan to cut their dropout rate, a plan to better their curriculum and prepare their students for college. A plan that’s going to be helped along by $21 million dollars from the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation that’s headquartered right down the street from where I’m sitting currently. You know, in Seattle.

That’s the same Seattle whose schools are going to be experiencing a budget shortfall of about $22 million dollars, which will force some schools to close. There are already 11 that are slated to close, pushing their students into other schools because enrollment has been dropping and test scores have been low.

I know that the Gates Foundation is committed to helping education all over the place. That’s their thing. And I know that they’ve given money to Seattle schools, and that they’re terribly helpful, and all of that. Still, you know the old line about shoemaker’s families going barefoot, right? Our curriculum could use a little boost itself, Bill.

A few years ago, my cousin lived in New Orleans and told me about bizarre South American rodents that had infested the city. Webbed feet, voracious eaters, hunted by locals for sport. My first thought was, “there is no possible way that this is true.” Rat-beaver hybrids the size of small dogs terrorizing a city? Who did he think he was kidding?

Later, I realized that this was no joke. My terror subsided only when I realized that as long as I vowed never to visit I had nothing to worry about. After all, Seattle is in the north, relatively swamp-free, and protected from these creepy creatures by at least a couple of mountain ranges. Certainly the Nutria would never be able to make it all the way to my doorstep?

Imagine my horror when this weekend’s news brought reports that the invasion was already underway — the swamp rats have been sighted in Lake Washington [ap]. Let’s just say that it was a rude awakening. Sure, they’re probably not awful as as rampant feral pigs [wesjones] or as good a subject for a made for television movie [scifi] as the killer fish terrorizing the east coast [nyt]. But unlike the threat of bird flu or killer bees, these things are already here. On top of that, they seem incredibly downmarket, don’t they?

Even worse: it turns out that they have a score to settle. Long, long ago, the beasts were brought to Washington to be raised fur. They weren’t suited to the winters and eventually died out. Or so we thought — like any horror flick villain worth his salt, they’ve come back to exact their vengeance. Our only hope is a fleet of cold-water sterile alligators. So until that happens, I’m printing up some t-shirts to stay on their good side.

Alright, everyone, it’s time for me to use you for my own devices again. I mean, um, ask for you considered and well-informed opinions. Hey, wait, where are you going? Have I mentioned how nice you look today?

The deal is this: my darling grandfather just sent me a piece of jewelry, and the stone on it is loose. I need to take it to a jeweler to have it looked at, but I don’t know from jewelers and I’m not sure what to look for in one. So what I need from you is advice, and if you’ve got one, the name of a good jeweler. Bonus points if they’re located somewhere easily accessible by bus.

So, can y’all help me out?

If you usually read this site through one of our syndicated feeds, you might be missing out on a bunch of cool things going on on the right side of the page. Along with the prettification that happened with the site’s redesign, the past couple of weeks have brought some hot new functionality.

Starting today, you’ll notice a new link: . This is pretty self-explanatory. If you notice something that we should check-out, click that link, fill-in the short form, and we’ll see what we can do. Obviously, some terms and conditions apply, but it’s probably the easiest way for you to get in touch with us with story ideas.

Another recent addition to our collapsible sidebar is a panel listing upcoming events. Appropriately enough, all of that content comes from users of upcoming who post listings of things going on in Seattle. If you’re not already using Upcoming, it’s a nice way of keeping track of happenings. Once you’ve signed-up for an account, you can add events [#], invite your friends, and keep an eye on who else you might run into once you show up.

Finally, an old feature being used in a new way. Once upon a time, the pictures in the Metroblogging Seattle Group Pool [flickr] were magically turned into our header image. Now, those pictures live on the side of the page. If you see something interesting, awesome, stylish, pretty, or some combination of the above, snap a picture and send it our way by dropping it into the pool. The most recent pictures automatically show up on the site.

Anyway, have fun out there! We look forward to hearing from you.

NBA Commissioner David Stern says that Seattle isn’t interested in the NBA.

At your prices? Mr. Stern, you’re absolutely right.

Here’s the backstory: The Sonics are mad because they didn’t get a new stadium like the M’s or the Hawks. The terms of the lease at the Key Arena are “the worst in the NBA,” according to Stern, since the Sonics have to share revenue with the city of Seattle. The Sonics claim they’ve lost $60 million in the last five years.

The Sonics want a new lease and a $220 million remodel mostly paid for by you, me, and every other tax-paying citizen in King County. Among the proposed terms for the new lease: the Sonics manage all the events and all the profits for Key Arena, basketball-related or not.

If the Sonics don’t get what they want, they’ll leave, says Stern. Best case: the Sonics move to a new arena in Bellevue. Worst case: the Sonics move out of town entirely.

So: let them.

Here’s why:

• The basketball is terrible. NBA players these days don’t bother playing much defense and, all too frequently, don’t know how to shoot. Scoring is down, field-goal percentages are terrible, and the players are slaves to the almighty Dunk. Many NBA teams have assistant coaches who are assigned to teach their multi-million dollar players basic basketball skills.
• The price is too high. We have at least two major road projects worth several billion dollars of tax money on the horizon. We urgently need a mass transit upgrade. Seattle has to close several schools. And we’re proposing to pay $220 million for another new arena? Bellevue can’t afford this either. They’ve got transportation problems too.
• The team isn’t that popular. The Sonics usually run about 90 percent of capacity, about 640,000 fans over a season. By comparison, the Seattle Mariners can pull in 2.72 million fans even when they’ve had two consecutive seasons of suck.
• The Sonics management are whiners. David Stern admitted to Olympia legislators that the Sonics felt left out of the public stadium dollars given to the M’s and Hawks. Hang on, guys, let me see if I can get the Seattle Symphony violin section to play “My Heart Bleeds For You.”
• The Storm don’t play often enough. The Seattle Storm are the heartwarming antithesis of the Sonics: the tickets are cheap, the basketball is great, and the Storm win. They are, in fact, the only championship winners of Seattle of the past two decades. But they have a shortened season and only play 17 home games per year, and sports fans are frequently forced to choose between M’s games and Storm games. They’d be sadly missed, but are they worth $220 million?

So. Due respect to Sonics fans, but in my humble opinion, the Sonics should sell their stake in the Key and use the proceeds for oversize FedEx envelopes to mail themselves to Oklahoma City.

My fellow Metroblogger Dylan may have a different viewpoint on the matter.