Ivar’s Acres of Clams
In Seattle, there are three restaurants, Ivar’s Acres of Clams (the original, established in 1938), Ivar’s Salmon House and Ivar’s Landing in Mukilteo, and several smaller, more casual, fast-food kind of Ivars, famous for fish and chips.
This was one very smart man. The first Ivar’s Acre of Clams was built next to the ferry terminal in Seattle and provided both oceanfront dining and a quick place to grab some fish and chips coming to and from the ferries. It was a Seattle landmark; everyone knew Ivar’s Acres of Clams.
He also did a lot of promotions, appearing on TV in his own ads, often singing. The ads were very very bad, so bad that everyone remembered them, so in fact . . . they were so bad that they were good.
(Photo courtesy Paul Dorpat from the HistoryLink.org collection of Pacific Northwest History.)
(Kuwait needs this Wikipedia kind of historical page, gathering data and stories before the old Kuwaitis are all gone, and their stories with them. This would be a great thesis program, getting this set up and running.)
Some of my earliest memories are meals at Ivar’s. As a child, visiting from Alaska, the whole of my father’s clan, aunts, uncles, cousins, would all gather at Ivar’s for a grand dinner. Later, as a starving college student, from time to time a kind aunt would invite us to dinner or lunch there, taking us out of the university environment. As a young married, it was the restaurant where my husband-to-be met my extended family for the first time. Ivar’s is full of memories, as well as good food!
To this day, I often meet my old friends at Ivar’s. The food standards remain high – good Pacific Northwest Seafood, prepared so that their flavors come through. Dungeness crab Louis, salmon and chips, prawns and chips, halibut and chips – even plain old fish and chips, fresh out of the deep fryer. Even Ivar’s fast food is delicious, and as well as the fish and chips you can get their great clam chowder, also smoked salmon chowder, and a salmon ceasar salad, or a shrimp or crab cocktail – at the fast food Ivars. Great quality food, not the supersize me kind of food.
These are photos of the original Ivar’s Acre of Clams:
This is what their seafood cocktails look like (YUMMMMMMM!)
This is one of their dine-in fast food places; there is a long line of people ordering!:
This is the Ivar’s motto:
The Mukilteo Landing Ivars suffered so much damage in a recent storm that they were closed for over a year as they remodeled to be able to seat more people:
This big fish is part of the interior:
You sit in this beautiful restaurant, inside or outside, and watch the Mukilteo ferry come in and out of the dock. The restaurant is right next to the dock, and also has a fast-food Ivars outside to sell fish and chips or chowder to all the people in line waiting for the next ferry.
Ivar Hagland isn’t alive anymore, but his restaurants live on, thriving, after all these years. The concept holds true – have a great product in a great location and the profits will follow. You can read more about his restaurants, and even look at their menus by clicking Ivar’s.
Anthony’s Beach Cafe, Edmonds, WA
These are the bathroom doors at Anthony’s Beach Cafe, in Edmonds, Washington. I am not going to show you any of their delicious food – they already have too many customers, and a long line of people waiting to get in and eat there, especially in this gorgeous summertime weather. Even in winter, Anthony’s is packed.
You would never see bathroom doors like this in Kuwait. But it would be fun to see a door with an abaya, and another with a dishdasha and gutra. 🙂
Father and Son Find Viking Treasure
A father and son in England, who spend their weekends treasure hunting stumbled across a treasure buried in a farmer’s field, worth an estimated $2 million. Buried more than 1000 years ago, the treasure has remained hidden in the ground all these years.
You can read the story <a href=”“> at Viking Treasure Found.
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What I don’t understand is why they believe it was buried by the Vikings, rather than buried by someone trying to hide the wealth FROM the Vikings?
Blue Angels in Pensacola
Today the Blue Angels are performing in Pensacola, over Pensacola Beach. Reports yesterday said it is harder for them to perform over water, because there are fewer “marks” to help them orient themselves.
(No, I didn’t take that photo, it is a Blue Angels PR photo)
Aerial displays have always thrilled me. There was a team that used to perform every year in Doha, too, I think it was a French team. Imagine, having a career as a stunt flier, in one of these powerful machines. Oh, what fun.
Our first worker arrived well before seven in the morning yesterday; fortunately I am still jet lagging and had been up moe than an hour when he drove up. He was followed shortly by the contractor, who took out my range top, in preparation for the tearing out of the kitchen counters on Monday, and later by the tile guy, coming in to measure and give an estimate on what he will charge to put tile on the wall, once the new counter and cupboards are finished.
We are putting in a Silestone countertop in Blue Sahara. It isn’t really blue, it is a variety of sand colors, with some blue flecks, the exact colors of their wedding china.
I looked at granite, but didn’t like all the upkeep, the sealing, the stains . . . someday, when I have a grown up house, I might have marble, which I had in Tunisia and loved, but I always worry about red wine spills. 😉 Meanwhile, I think the Silestone is going to be a great fix. The current countertop is an old white streaky laminate, reminds me of a diner from the fifties. They liked it so much, they ran it right up the wall to the underside of the cupboards.
Dear old friends who live nearby came for lunch, and we went to the Oyster Barn. They loved it. Said “this is REAL Florida!” which I totally love. We had grilled tuna, which had a smokey deliciousness, and grilled grouper sandwich, also looked good. We talked about our days together living in Germany, travelling in France – oh, the fun we had!
Flash for Sparkle: Atlanta 2
More from the Atlanta airport – just look at the texture in these statues!
This one is about the sea:
This one is my favorite. I wish you could stand closely with me and see the texture carefully incised in this piece:
Again, thank you Atlanta, you made my day.
Flash for Sparkle: Atlanta 1
My sister, Sparkle Plenty has a blog on which she writes about only GOOD things, the tiny light that defies the darkness. As I was enduring my trip back this time, I thought of her when I got to Atlanta.
In fact, I was so impressed with this flash of light that I stopped, unloaded my camera from the carryon, and juggling my carry-on, my venti and my camera, walked the kilometer or so that this exhibit was staged between the A concourse and B concourse in Atlanta.
I am so glad I did. It totally lifted my mood, and it felt like a gift from the city of Atlanta. These are all statues by Zimbabwean artists – yes, plonked down as a public art project in the middle of the Atlanta airport. They must have paid a fortune to ship these statues, to create the huge posters on the walls showing crafts and scenes from Zimbabwe, poor Zimbabwe, in it’s steady downward spiral, these artists pull miracles out of the hat.
This was one of the wall posters, featuring Zimbabwean hand woven baskets:
Bravo to all cities that spend a little so that we can be lifted out of our everyday doings and taken to another world of texture, ideas and line. Bravo, Atlanta!
Kuwait Minarets
I love mosques. I love the very simple old old ones, made with clay, that look like they are slowly melting back into the ground, and I love the new modern ones that look like spaceships about to lift off, and I love all those in-between. I have so many photos of mosques, mosques minarets and mosques at sunset, in moonlight . . .
So here is my question for you: Do any Kuwait mosques use LIVE muezzin to call out the Call to Prayer?
Here are some Kuwaiti mosques I have photographed recently.
This one is near the Sadu House, in an area being renovated:
And here is what it looked like before renovation:
I LOVE this one – it’s old, but it has STARS on the side of the minaret, going toward the top, cut out, probably to allow light to filter in where there are, I assume, steps or maybe a ladder.
This mosque is between fourth and fifth ring, where you used to turn to get to the old IKEA:
More Souk Mubarakiyya Art
There’s just something about this market that feeds the photographer’s soul! I love the public art . . .
Whoda thunk that the butcher would be wearing glasses? I love the quirkiness of this art.
The flag the man is carrying says “Kuwait” (for my non-Kuwaiti readers).I think this one has to do with the liberation of Kuwait, but I am not sure . . . anyone? I remember from reading Jihan Rahab’s book on the Invasion of Kuwait that the market was totally trashed and at least partially burned, and a lot of damage was done out of sheer malice.
I have this thing about ships!
Just look how CLEAN this place is. Every time I go into any of the markets, I think of France. These markets in Kuwait are cleaner!
Glitz, Bling, Flamboyance and Glam
Today when Adventure Man called at lunch, I was telling him I bought some bling for fun gifts. He said he didn’t think my family did “bling” and I said we didn’t, but this was just a little glitz, just for fun.
“What’s the difference between ‘glitz’ and ‘bling?’ he asked.
I said ‘glitz’ is like a little decoration, a little frosting, but ‘bling’ is ostentatious.
“I consider myself ‘flamboyant.’ he said.
“Oh no!” I protested. “Flamboyant is over the top, it’s that color that is just a little too bright, the gesture that is a little too large, the voice or laughter just a little to high, a little too loud.”
Then it nagged at me until I had to go look it up. As it turns out, bling MIGHT be expensive, but it has the origination of new riches that the owner is afraid he might lose, so he turns it into jewelry that he can keep close to his person, as well as showy and ostentatious. So, I was wrong.
As it turns out, all the following words have a connotation of excessiveness, ostentation and a little over the top.
glitz (glts) Informal n.
Ostentatious showiness; flashiness: “a garish barrage of show-biz glitz” Peter G. Davis.
tr.v. glitz·ed, glitz·ing, glitz·es
To invest with an ostentatiously showy quality: “have started to glitz up their shows with filmed backdrops” Bill Barol.
[Back-formation from glitzy, flashy, showy, probably from German glitzern, to glitter, from Middle High German glitzen, to shine, from Old High German glzan; see ghel-2 in Indo-European roots.]
glitzi·ness n.
glitzy adj.
From The Free Dictionary.
Bling
“Bling-bling” (usually shortened to simply “bling”) is a hip hop slang term which refers to expensive jewelry and other accoutrements, and also to an entire lifestyle built around excess spending and ostentation. In its essence, the term refers to the exterior manifestation of one’s interior state of character, normally displayed through various forms of visual stimuli.
The first apparent use of the term ‘bling bling’ in mainstream culture was in reference to the L-3 badge (real gold) and also a hip hop track of the same title, by rapper B.G., along with Baby Birdman, Juvenile et al [1], celebrating their wealth (as many of their tracks do). “Bling Bling,” released in 1998, led later in the 2000’s to the term proliferating through mainstream hip hop and eventually spilling over into popular culture as a sarcastic term used to mock the perceived vacuousness of hip hop culture. Comedians such as Ali G in the UK, exploited this for humour.
Bling can also be plastic, or fake, jewelry. Many people who cannot afford, or do not wish to buy, real diamonds, gold, etc, opt for fake glass or plastic jewelry. This makes them look big, and bling-bling.
In 2005, the rapper B.G. remarked that he ‘wished he’d patented the term’ so that he would have profited from its extensive use. In interviews, he has stated that the term refers to the imaginary sound that light makes when it hits a diamond. However, the term was in use for several years prior as a reference to getting rich quickly inspired by the sound made when collecting gold coins in popular Nintendo video games such as Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers and when collecting gold rings in Sega’s Sonic Hedgehog.
The culture of ostentatious display of wealth was ingrained in street culture long before the 90’s, however: it is thought that wearing expensive jewelry was the one way in which young previously impoverished men, who had acquired riches through crime, could be sure of holding on to their wealth by keeping it about their person. This marks out the wearer of such jewelry as a person with ghetto roots, as it shows that the source of their wealth or their personal prejudices prevent them from investing in more stable assets such as cash in the bank or property. Hence ‘bling bling’, while widely regarded as a faddish slang phrase, has been seen by some as manifestation of a deeper socioeconomic problem in the US, trivialised by mainstream media and hip hop. For comparison, see chav.
Related meaning
In the Middle East, counterfeit brand-name goods (such as Rolex watches) may be known as bling bling specials.
From The Free Dictionary.
flam·boy·ant (flm-boint)
adj.
1. Highly elaborate; ornate.
2. Richly colored; resplendent.
3. Architecture Of, relating to, or having wavy lines and flamelike forms characteristic of 15th- and 16th-century French Gothic architecture.
4. Given to ostentatious or audacious display. See Synonyms at showy.
n.
See royal poinciana.
[French, from Old French, present participle of flamboyer, to blaze, from flambe, flame; see flame.]
flam·boyance, flam·boyan·cy n.
flam·boyant·ly adv.
From The Free Dictionary.
Aren’t these great words?
And last but not least:
Definition:
Glam
Glamorous; wearing fashionable clothes and make-up, particularly when done to excess.
Example:
1) She’s so glam that people think she’s a model.
2) I love David Bowie and all of those glam rockers.
Etymology:
‘Glam’ is short for ‘glamorous’. Glam and glamorous refer to the magical attraction and excitement produced by celebrities.
From English Daily – Slang
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