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Centerpieces and other decor like this is how you tell you’re near the waterfront in most Seattle-area restaurants.

On our way to Port Townsend for a whale-watching cruise.

American Brewing Company recently opened its doors to the Edmonds community, and University of Washington journalism student Allison Barrett developed the following multimedia presentation through an internship project for My Edmonds News.

While American Brewing Company may be new, head brewmeister Skip Madsen has a long history of crafting beers in the Pacific Northwest. His regional brewing experience includes time spent at Pike Brewing Company and Big Time Brewery in Seattle as well as at Boundary Bay Brewing Company in Bellingham and Waterstreet [sic] Brewing and Ale House in Port Townsend.

via myedmondsnews.com; links added by me

We enjoyed American Brewing’s Breakaway Caboose Oatmeal Stout just last week at the twice-yearly Brewmasters Dinner at Ray’s Cafe. Ray’s executive chef Peter Birk paired the beer with an excellent starter course of baked Penn Cove Select oysters with horseradish, aged cheddar, and tallgrass rye bread. It was an unexpected match that worked really well.

Very much looking forward to stopping by American Brewing and checking out their Breakaway Room tasting spot.

Check out the link to My Edmonds News for the multimedia presentation, it’s an interesting look into the brewery’s people and operations.

Classy as always.

1. Beautiful weather. This was all weekend, but it started Friday, so chronologically it goes first.
2. Drinks and dinner with Katharine and our coworker friend Ian at Macaroni Grill Friday night. Second time I’d been there in a week, but only once for a meal. And while we were there . . . .
3. Ran into my friend Matt and his roommate Liz, who were there to wait for their other friend Jason, who is one of the bartenders. So of course I had to hang out with them a bit once the dinner part of the evening was over, and somehow that meant a trip to the grocery store to buy a foot-long sub that was actually 14 inches (I called it “the baker’s foot”—I am such a card) and a 12-pack of Coca-Cola. For Jason, that is. I still had my lasagna leftovers.
4. SLEPT. Ahh.
5. Relaxing Saturday morning and early afternoon of household stuff. Never used to relax me, now I find it enormously satisfying. Damned adulthood.
6. A complete reset of my TiVo, which had been doing Spanish-language and cooking shows again, but oddly, no Spanish-cooking shows. Also insisted it was out of program info as of yesterday even though the listings actually ran through the 18th. The little TiVo dude may be cute and cuddly, but damn if I don’t want to slap the shit out of him sometimes.
7. Lovely happy hour and dinner with Julie Anne at Bell Street Diner on the Seattle waterfront. Watched some cruise ships pull away, watched some drama with a whole passel of Seattle Fire Department trucks and personnel including divers for a water rescue that wasn’t actually necessary. Also a lot of BYU fans who were just pleased as non-alcoholic punch by their football team’s one-point victory over the Washington Huskies, though the one set of blue-wearing jackasses on our left did spend a good part of their meal whining about how the Cougars beat the Huskies by “only” one point, woe are they, their team is better than that! The one guy ordered the salmon pot pie, which Julie Anne hates and would normally warn persons she likes against ordering it. This BYU-fan numbnuts she encouraged to order it.
8. Home by 21:00 Saturday so I had a nice evening of warm weather, lovely Seattle city views, and my new rope lights on the balcony to add a bit of ambience, and to blind me to the views of the closer neighborhood. Hadn’t quite thought that all the way through, but it works well enough for the light I actually want out there sometimes.
9. SLEPT more. Ahhhhh.
10. Woke up absurdly early, silly body getting used to the work schedule and holding me to it on the weekends. Drank 12oz Diet Coke, which seems like way TMI but is important a point or two down the line.
11. Met Matt for coffee at Borders in Alderwood Mall. Twelve ounces of non-fat white chocolate mocha there (again, not really TMI, just wait for it), ahead of
12. The 11:30 showing of The Dark Knight in Lynnwood, accompanied by roughly half of a 32oz (they call that “small”) Diet Coke at the theater, so that when the (3-hour!) movie was over
13. I could barely stand up, my bladder was so stretched. RESTROOM EMERGENCY, I walked out of the theater bent over like Igor from Young Frankenstein, but I made it with no lasting ill effect. Ahhhhhhh.
14. Late lunch with Matt in Edmonds at Anthony’s Beach Cafe, or Bell Street Diner North as I’ve decided to call it. Similar menu, similar waterfront experience (though the sandbox and screaming children added a whole level of Family Fun! to the meal), absolutely GORGEOUS afternoon.
15. Home to wind down the weekend with a few more householdy things while I get into the mindset for my first full five-day work week in what seems like months, but is really only a few weeks, after the last few work weeks were shortened by holidays and visiting family.

Seems like such a more happenin’ life when it’s listed in 15 items like this, go figure.