Monthly Archives: September 2010

Off-Task

Seattle is 3rd Coolest U.S. City, Says Forbes

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I have a bone to pick with Forbes about their “Top 10 Coolest Cities” list. (I also have a bone to pick with the 2,000 Americans polled who thought Las Vegas was cooler than San Francisco.) There’s not much to the poll–people were literally just ask to rank cities by how cool they were–so Forbes decided to crank up the page view count by making it a “slideshow”–that you have to refresh the page to advance.

New York’s photo is an interracial couple in a park. Las Vegas has an Elvis in front of a Las Vegas sign. San Francisco has the Golden Gate. San Diego, a beach. Seattle gets…shopping bags. How cool is that?

Announcements

The SunBreak Turns One

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Whew! That was fast. A year ago a few of us pushed off from the shores of Seattlest on our own little raft of words. 165,654 unique visitors and 413,021 page views later, we know a lot more about the people and places of Seattle than when we started, thanks to a staggering amount of arts & culture interviewing from Jeremy Barker and Tony Kay–and of eye-catching contributions to our Flickr pool, which now has 3,200 glimpses of Seattle life in it.

Our top two stories, according to Google Analytics, were “An Atheist’s Defense of ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day‘” and “Who Killed Belltown’s McGuire? The Cast of Characters,” the latter a story I lucked into when our hiking contributor John Hieger emailed me to say he’d gotten an odd note from his property manager.

Seth Kolloen (who’s moving on to a life of even more sports) gave us a memorable, sometimes harrowing year in the life of a Seattle sports fan, while Audrey kept tabs on film and TV, especially Seattleites in film and TV, and Josh did everything humanly possible to introduce you to the work of Vincent Moon. We’ve just welcomed Constance Lambson for books coverage, and Jay Friedman of Gastrolust to our food section–and you’ll soon see more on jazz and Paris living (for reasons I’ll explain later), as we explore what it means to be a Seattle online magazine.

Seattle, Redmond, and Bellevue are our top cities for traffic. (Tacoma, Everett, Renton, and Portland are in the top 10.) A full 50 percent of our traffic came from Washington state. Who’s visiting us? Top business/institutional addresses include Microsoft, UW, Amazon, RIM, Boeing, Costco, and King County and the City of Seattle.

For the stats nerds: Our leading referrer (besides Google) is Facebook. Our top two keywords (besides “the sunbreak” are “pearl jam” and “soundgarden.” (That Seattle enough for you?) Firefox and IE visitors are neck-and-neck at 36 percent of visits each, with Safari at 18 percent and Chrome at eight. We’ve had 9,100 iPhone visits to 1,500 Androids (just wait ’til we get that Android app going).

Quantcast tells us that you, Gentle Reader, are slightly more likely to be male than female (56/44), and 70 percent of you are 35 and over. Over 80 percent of you have no kids at home, and about eight percent are Asian, which is about twice the internet average for the U.S. 65 percent of you report making $60,000 or more per year (35 percent say over $100,000)–and a whopping 25 percent of you smartypants have graduate school degrees.

Food

Upcoming Urban Picnic Packs a Stellar Chef Line-Up

Suddenly, it’s September, and though summer seems to be slipping away, here’s perhaps one last chance to salvage some sunny vibes.

Sunday, September 12, will be the fourth annual Seattle Chefs Collaborative Urban Picnic, from 1-4 p.m. at the Rainier Square Rooftop Courtyard in Downtown Seattle (between University and Union on Fourth Avenue).

Chefs Collaborative, founded in 1993, is a national network of more than 1,000 members of the food community who promote sustainable cuisine by celebrating the joys of cooking local, seasonal, and artisan foods. 

This mission is reflected in the food of the day, as you can expect stellar bites from:

  • Maria Hines, Tilth
  • Jason Franey, Canlis
  • John Sundstrom, Lark
  • Ethan Stowell, Anchovies & Olives
  • Seth Caswell, emmer&rye
  • Kären Jurgensen, Quillisascut Farm
  • Rachel Yang, Joule
  • Riley Starks, Willow’s Inn
  • Dan Braun, Oliver’s Twist
  • Autumn Martin, Hot Cakes
  • Tara Ayers, Ocho

Country band Carrie Cunningham and the Six Shooters will provide live entertainment for this casual and high-spirited event.

Admission is $60 (purchase tickets at Brown Paper Tickets), with free entry for children under 10. Note that Urban Picnic is an annual fundraiser for scholarships to the Quillisascut Farm School, a fountain of knowledge for many of our local culinary stars.

Picnic-goers are asked bring their own picnic gear (plates, utensils, cups, picnic blankets, etc.), although plates, silverware and cups will be provided. Local wine, beer and other beverages are also included in the price of admission. With past Iron Chef participants and other acclaimed chefs serving up some specialties, Urban Picnic promises to be a tasty affair.