Ballard - Features

By Amanda Knox In sixth grade the best English teacher I’ve ever had—and the only one to ever make me cry—asked my class to memorize and recite Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” He may have thought it appropriate for us newly-middle-schoolers…MORE

The Ballard Smoke shop is an institution among longtime Ballardites. It’s no wonder that its staff would also have the respect and affection from fishing village residents and patrons from afar. Among the cooks, waitresses and bartenders, there…MORE

By Peggy Sturdivant

“Everything hurts,” is what the illustrator Jan Harvey-Smith was saying as I let her hide her cold-ravaged face behind the seasonal middle children’s book “Frankenstein Meets Santa” in the accompanying photo. Both…MORE

By Amanda Knox

I was fourteen when I first learned the word, “Casualty.” It was September 11th, 2001, I was a freshman in highschool, and that word, louder than “Tragedy” and “Terror,” rang out to me. I didn’t quite understand it at first…MORE

By Pat Cashman

I remember it to this day---the most disturbing film I’d ever seen as a kid.

It’s a science fiction movie that was playing at the local flick house---a movie so terrifying that I couldn’t sleep for three nights. And…MORE

By Katy Wilkens, MS, RD

One of the best things about fall is being able to enjoy foods in the season, like nuts. Nuts are not only delicious, they’re healthy, full of good fats and omega-3 fatty acids. They can be high in calories though…MORE

By Amanda Knox

Accumulated experience has taught me to curate my thoughts, be mindful of when and how to share them, at least with strangers. It’s unfortunate and unfair when your words are purposefully taken out of context and used…MORE

By Pash Cashman While emceeing a fundraising event the other night, I thought back twenty years ago to another time I had hosted the same event---and recalled saxophonist Kenny G and the night I tried to impersonate him. More on that shortly.…MORE

Brewing and distributing beer has evolved dramatically. As one of the oldest libations made, the flavor, consistency and styles of beer have been mastered and sometimes changed. Following the beer, brewery branding has changed, too. The symbols…MORE

By Peggy Sturdivant

My husband can’t hear birdsong anymore, but he can hear the sirens that are increasingly the soundtrack of Ballard life. His early years of working with heavy machinery damaged his hearing. What’s left for him is the…MORE