Zergut

That first "F" in SIFF stands for film, not food, but there's plenty of onscreen eating at the festival to entertain the culinary-minded moviegoer. As a supplement to Seattle Weekly's coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival, Voracious will again this year highlight the program's films of particular interest to those viewers who spend more time in dining rooms than screening rooms.

For viewers willing to screen-hop, SIFF this weekend has interspersed a trio of surreal food quickies into its shorts programs:

Zergüt

Filmmakers Alisa Lapidus and Natasha Subramaniam challenge the notion that food slips submissively into decay with their stop-motion chronicle of the the hard-fought battles waged within a refrigerator. Lapidus and Subramaniam spent two years capturing the decomposition of cheese, fruit and fish, then set the images to Sergei Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights, a soundtrack which brings tremendous nobility to the ingredients' struggle to stay fresh and bacteria's drive to overwhelm them. Zergüt has been screened at the Chicago Food Film Festival and was named a winner of the New York Food Film Festival.

Animations for Adults
Saturday, 9:30 p.m., SIFF Cinema Uptown

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I've eaten most of my tongue sandwiches in Jewish delis, so I was somewhat taken aback when a counter staffer at Salumi asked whether I wanted my order with cheese.

"Do people do that?," I asked.

"Some do," she said. "But it doesn't really need it."

Beef tongue is always delicate and incredibly rich, no matter who's cured it. It needs cheese like gelato needs ranch dressing - even if the cheese is mild and housemade.

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Marciulionis, during his time with the Sonics.

The Dinner: Beef Stroganoff, with beet salad, a freshly-baked roll, spicy carrots and bacon-fried onions at Cafe Yarmarka in Pike Place Market--all for under 10 bucks.

The Movie: The Other Dream Team at Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy, Capitol Hill. Screens as part of the Seattle International Film Festival at 3 p.m. Sun., May 27 and 9 p.m. Thurs., May 31.

The Screenplate: In 1992, Lithuania participated in its first Olympics as a sovereign country. Its basketball team featured a number of marquee players from the old Soviet team that defeated the U.S. in '88, but had very little money for the Barcelona games. Having defected a few years earlier to play for the Golden State Warriors, star Lithuanian guard and ex-Sonic Sarunas Marciulionis helped convince the Grateful Dead to finance his team's journey. The band's generosity extended to the creation of tie-dye warmup shirts that the Lithuanians wore on the (bronze) medal stand, upstaging the gold won by America's "Dream Team," a squad that featured the likes of Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

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Illustration by Andrew Saeger, tHE ARTdept.

Hey fellow lushes! You ready to fire up the grill this weekend and char some flesh? My kettle cooker is on its last legs, sadly. But, then again, I did find it a couple of years ago, abandoned with a "free" sign on the street corner, so the price was right. Think it'll make through this three-day smoke out.

One of the best things about a long weekend is that there's three days to play that endlessly fascinating match game, finding just the right wine to drink with your cookout chow.

Relax, sleep in. Let The Wino show you the way to make seared meat and fermented grape juice bliss. Here are 5 wines that will help make you a hero at your Memorial Day weekend BBQ.

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Saxton (r) and business-real life partner, Roz Edison.

When Kamala Saxton isn't working the kitchen inside her nationally recognized food truck, Marination Mobile, or its brick-and-mortar sibling, Marination Station, she's working on the service side of another passion: education. During her off-time, she sits on the board of Powerful Schools. Both interests keep her challenged, humble and satiated.

What is Powerful Schools?

It's a non-profit that partners with Seattle Public Schools to provide after-school programs--tutoring, nutrition, literacy, academic and enrichment programs--for elementary and middle school families, but mostly disenfranchised. Ninety-percent of their participants fall under free and reduced lunch.

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West 5
4539 California Ave SW, 935-1966 
WEST SEATTLE

Hours: Saturdays, Sundays and select holidays 10 am to 4pm

Uptown, Downtown or Down Home: Downtown meets Down Home in 1962. Packed full of what was considered futuristic design in the Mid 20th Century, West 5's retro interior gives off a slightly kitsched-up Mad Men vibe.

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That first "F" in SIFF stands for film, not food, but there's plenty of onscreen eating at the festival to entertain the culinary-minded moviegoer. As a supplement to Seattle Weekly's coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival, Voracious will again this year highlight the program's films of particular interest to those viewers who spend more time in dining rooms than screening rooms. Michel Bras in 2009 decided to gradually retire from his legendary restaurant in southern France, a decision that might doom many eponymous Michelin three-star restaurants. But Bras planned to bequeath the restaurant to his son, Sebastien, just as his mother had given the restaurant to him. The turnover marks a happy new start for the kitchen, as Step Up to the Plate's many scenes of Sebastien contemplating sunrises make clear.

"I think Sebastien will be at his best when Michel actually retires," a longtime friend says in this French documentary from Paul Lacoste chronicling the year leading up to Sebastien's assumption of the head chef's toque.

Sebastien sometimes struggles to match his father's innate artistry - "I don't understand you," he says when Bras outlines a seed oil concoction - and headstrong attitude, but he harbors none of the unspoken resentment that pollutes the father-son relationships in Jiro Dream of Sushi, another recent documentary about a great chef nearing the end of his career.

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The Blind Cafe is making its first ever visit to Seattle on June 8 and 9, according to Seattle Met. The dine-in-dark restaurant, which provides employment to visually-impaired people and educates the public on blindness, has been traveling around the country since 2009. The restaurant will be set up at the Fremont Baptist Church at 717 N. 36th St. Tickets are on a sliding scale from $55 to $95, depending on what you can afford and will get you a meal full of different flavors and textures, plus a Q&A on blindness. You can purchase your tickets here, but hurry -- these events sell out quickly.

This isn't Mark Duplass, because there's no fucking way The New York Times Magazine would grant us permission to reprint its photo. This, folks, is Matt "Boz" Kinberg of Wong Doody.

This year's Seattle International Film Festival might as well be renamed the Mark Duplass Film Festival, seeing as the writer-director-actor is starring in two films and co-directing another with his brother, Jay. This past Sunday, the Duplasses (Dupli?) got their names in printed lights, garnering a short feature in The New York Times Magazine. But the photo was what caught our eye. In it, Duplass is wearing a retro Olympia beer t-shirt. Which begs the question: Might Oly be in line to become the next Pabst Blue Ribbon?

If you were to poll Northwesterners who grew up within a tap line's distance from the brand's original headquarters, the answer would be a definitive yes. Around here, Pabst, after a stealth surge to hipster prominence in the early aughts, has already become somewhat passé; Seattleites, Destiny's Children (aka Tacomans) and Olympians alike would rather grab an Oly, 'cause it's second to none. But Oly--which is part of the Pabst family of nostalgia beers, meaning the ruler would still reign--is only available in "a little less than half the states in the U.S.," says brand spokesman Lucas Murdock.

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Voracious this year is celebrating our local farmers markets with a series of poems extolling what's newly ripe and ready for sale. Each week during market season, we'll run a poem from a local poet who's found inspiration in the region's bounty. And should you find yourself feeling similarly inspired after reading their odes to romaine lettuce, nectarines, pea vines and gooseberries, the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance has provided us with recipes featuring each of the edible muses.

Green garlic is back, and so's poet Kate Lebo, who wrote the first poem in our Producing Poetry series. Just as she did with rhubarb, Lebo forged her green garlic poem by selectively erasing words from the vegetable's Wikipedia entry.

Lebo's poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2011, Poetry Northwest, Bateau, and The Pacific Poetry Project, among other anthologies and journals. Of special interest to Voracious readers is the University of Washington MFA candidate's Pie Stand, a semi-regular, semi-secret pie social she hosts whenever schoolwork allows. Check out her zine, A Commonplace Book of Pie, here.

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