The new Pike Place pub Mike Seely blogged about in August is in full swing.

Post, right next door to Kell's (in Post Alley if you couldn't guess), opened three weeks ago. The place serves late lunch and dinner (and offers a full bar) from 4 p.m to 2 a.m. daily.

I stopped by today to check it out, not knowing it didn't open until late afternoon. Fortunately, the door was open so I grabbed a menu.

It looks good. There's only nine items, including a meatball sandwich, steak & frites and fresh halibut fish & chips.

Have you been to Post? If so, what'd you think?

1914 Post Alley
443-2150

The Weekly's own Rocket Queen, Hannah Levin, just dropped me a note to say that she and her partner, JJ Wandler, finally signed a deal for a new bar in Greenwood, which they're planning to name Gainsbourg. It's going to be located at 8550 Greenwood Ave. N., where the former Northside Grill was. From her email:

We're doing a fair amount of cosmetic improvements to the space, including exposing more of the brick walls, putting in new floors, and recovering the bar in zinc. We'll be opening the first week of November with beer and wine only to start, but plan to add an extensive cocktail menu before the holiday season.

Wandler's been at Tigertail for a year or so now, where he introduced the brunchtime make-yer-own Bloody Mary bar, and before that he has tended bar at Chupacabra and the Tin Hat. (A third, minority partner is Scott Kannberg, otherwise known as Spiral Stairs.) The bar will will be serving little plates of echt French food, and Hannah promises me that patrons may catch sightings of Jane Birkin in the altogether.

I told Hannah that if she didn't name a drink after Serge Gainsbourg's most controversial song, a duet with daughter Charlotte, I would never speak to her again:

McCoy’s Firehouse Bar and Grill isn’t exactly a hotspot to watch the Hawks games at. Then again, the Hawks aren’t exactly a hot team. Maybe their lack of victories accounts for McCoy’s lack of rabid football fans. Either way, by the time we showed up shortly before halftime, the Hawks were already down by 30 points, and only two tables were paying attention to the game.

The game: Hawks 6, Giants 44. This is a rough year to be a Seattle sports fan.

The 12th man (and woman): Only one dude in the whole joint sported a Hawks jersey -- number 8, Hasselbeck. Needless to say, the level of enthusiasm was dismal at best, but it’s hard to stay stoked when your team is well on its way to starting the season 1-4. My lunch companion, a Midwesterner, was sporting a Chicago Bears T-shirt. I’m not sure anyone even noticed, let alone gave a shit.

MVP: The waitress. A solitary guy at the bar gave her his best lines but went home empty. His method of running game consisted of questioning the woman’s Hawks spirit. “I don’t really care about football, especially this year,” she told him. Amen.

TVs: One in every corner, which usually would be a good thing. Yesterday, however, was different. The Seahawks might as well have been a Pop Warner team, they were so overmatched.

Beers: Nada for me. Reverbfest was the night before, and I needed a break.

Halftime snacks: Bar grub, about what you’d expect. My lunch companion and I split a barbecue beef sandwich. Nothing to write home about, but sustenance nonetheless.

Memorable moment: Right after Seneca Wallace replaced Matt Hasselbeck midway through the third quarter, the dude in the Hawks jersey mumbled, “I can’t believe it. It’s my birthday, and I have to put up with this shit.” This was only notable because I felt the exact same way. It was my birthday, too.

I was just doing my daily blog scan -- god, Google Reader makes my life so much easier -- and came across this post on our fellow paper's blog:

Plan Your Culinary Rocktober

I didn't know that San Francisco has an entire Eat Local Month, with a logo and a website. Apparently, all throughout October there will be events all over the Bay Area. They range from restaurant menu specials and lectures to seed exchanges and choral concerts about food.

If there's one city in America that matches San Francisco's passion for local foods, it's Seattle. Sustainable Ballard, I think it's time to get cracking. You too, Cascade Harvest Coalition, Chefs Collaborative, 21 Acres, Slow Food Seattle, and the Neighborhood Farmers Market Association. You put it together, I'll publicize the hell out of it.

You might consider heading to Madrona to check out the new brunch at Cremant.

Owner Tanya Emerick tells me: "Our focus is different kinds of eggs -- chicken, duck, goose, quail -- and we will feature a different farm's eggs each month. The first month we will feature Morgan's Roost from Vashon Island. This farm belongs to Nicole Wilson's (Crush) family. We will be using their Hen's eggs which are free to roam outdoors and are kept in a small flock and fed natural feed."

The menu also includes things like Foie Gras Tartine with Fried Egg ($12), Bacon and Egg Pasta ($12), and Brioche French Toast with Hazelnut Praline and Crème Anglaise ($10). And what Cremant menu would be complete without a little morning booze? Several cocktails will be available for $8, including one of my fave Cremant offerings, the French 75.

Starting October 11th, brunch will be served Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m..

First come the royal purple, flowing short pants with gold pinstriping--too trendy. Next it’s the pink capris, babydoll tank and black heels with the effect of looking like I should be hostessing at the joint, not drinking there. Then I remember the suit. A sleek black number with silk pinstripes an old flame gave me when I finished graduate school so I could interview at reputable news outlets. I ended up here and never even took the tags off--I throw on the pants, a purple peasant frock, black jacket and favorite red suede stilettos--necessary because the legs are too long and I haven’t made it to a tailor. I dig out my silver hoop earrings, smudge a little charcoal around the eyes and hunt down a full-length mirror.

Shazam!

I’ve just gone from dorky, awkward, dive-bar boozing, alt weekly writer to Seattle sophisticate.

This rare transformation is the result of a trip to Canlis--Seattle’s answer to everyone who complains that khakis have gained far too much acceptance in this town. It features one of the most elegant, delicious, and expensive menus in the city and the patrons dress to match. Since we’re going for some East Coast swank, my friend Kimberly and I agree to meet at a New Yorkish 9 p.m. for cocktails and lounge music.

She arrives in a black wrap dress and striking boots--borrowed from a friend after a similar bout of wardrobe agony.

Kimberly and I go back to elementary school. We grew up on the same street. Our birthdays are two days apart. Other than that, we’re kind of a yin and yang pair, but starting in junior high we would meet for raspberry iced teas at a trendy Spokane bistro to dish, dream and feel like grownups. Getting to do it in striking black ensemble with fully loaded cocktails--we've really come full circle.

Anyshoe (and they were great shoes) enough about me. “Barkeep, bring me your best!”

But it's playoffs people, and I want to be surrounded by my relocated Cubbie brethren because there's no way a (scoff) Mariners fan can ever understand what I'm going through right now. No, seriously, you can't. 100 years, OK? My grandmother lived her entire life never seeing a Cubs championship--88 years.

So anyone know a really good bar that's showing the Cubbies or showing the MLB Playoffs with a particularly north side of Chicago bent? I don't give a rats ass about the other games, but I guess you could leave those in the comments, to be fair and balanced. I'll buy you a pitcher for the tip, and extra points if the joint serves nachos.

Much obliged.

Bus Stop, an easygoing Capitol Hill bar that had stood on the now demolished 500 block of East Pine Street, will rise again.

Stopping by their new location at 1552 East Olive Way at Denny (a block uphill from Dinette and Taco Gringos) a few days ago, I met the plumbers (who also plumbed the original space).

They were digging out cement, down to the dirt. The space has a visibly long way to go before it'll be ready to open, though, as one of the plumbers put it, "It's neat to see little businesses that don't die."

My grandfather used to drink something called Slivovitch which he called plum brandy, but I've tried a few fruit brandies and can't ever get anything like it. It's not sweet enough. Can I make an infusion at home with ripe plums, and I was thinking of adding pears for sweetness.

Weird, we all must have plums on the brain, just picked 10 pounds from my backyard. Slivovitz is a certain kind of plum brandy, manufactured mainly in Eastern Europe. It's very popular around holidays in American with the Jewish (a few are certified kosher) and Polish communities. It depends on what fruit brandies you tried. Maraska is the most common Slivovitz. Anything along the lines of Clear Creek is going to be closer to grappa, and anything labeled as a fruit brandy is likelier to taste like flavored syrup with alcohol. Although some cheap versions of Slivovitz fare no better.

But Slivovitz is more than brandy made from plums, the kernals of the plum are also ground and used in distillation. This gives Slivovitz an almond aroma and flavor, not nearly intense as amaretto, but it adds to the perception of sweetness in it and a really pleasing aroma. I'm guessing this is what you remember.

Of course you can make a Slivovitz, a version anyway. And of course you can use any fruit you like. Now is the time, though, if you want to make a homemade version with plums. Get a base brandy from the liquor store, like Christian Brothers, and add a pound of macerated plums (preferably Italian) per one liter of brandy. Let it sit for a week or two until you get the flavor you want. Strain the mixture through fine mesh and then a coffee filter; you want to get all the fruit out. If you want to add a little almond flavor, add a few drops of extract (Neilson & Massey's is best). You can also add almond syrup if you want to sweeten your Slivovitz. Start with small amounts, though; the almond flavor will increase over time.

I'd keep my Slivovitz-esque liqueur in the freezer and serve it in shot glasses with a slice of citru or mix it with sparkling wine. If you have a nagging booze question you want answered, email me HERE.

Food-Label Rules Finally Take Effect by Paul Rogers (Seattle Times): Finally, country of origin labeling (COOL) takes effect, after the government stalled it for years. Now you can check your packages to see if your beef was raised in Mexico or your peanuts were grown in Thailand.

The Steamy Way to Dinner by Julia Moskin (NY Times): Do I need another appliance? Perhaps I need another appliance. Do I need another appliance? Perhaps I need another appliance. (Bonus: The Times food section actually writes a piece about home cooking in which most of the people interviewed are not white.)

This Ice Cream Is Smokin' (Toronto Globe & Mail): Do I need a canister of liquid nitrogen? Perhaps I need a canister of liquid nitrogen. And some safety goggles. And a whisk.

Feeling the Pain by Sam Hurst (Gourmet.com): How the Wall Street meltdown is affecting the soybean harvest. Part of Gourmet's interesting series on farming -- if you have an afternoon, check out the first 13 installments.

Man Dies After Eating Chili Sauce (UK Guardian): Apparently, when they say, "Hey, kids, don't try this at home," sometimes they mean it.

Your bonus link for today. Warning: For a certain generation of music fan, watching this may leave you depressed for the rest of the day.

Speaking of rice-cooker recipes, here is the best cooking video of all time:

The ground work, that is.

I live a couple of blocks away from the impending amusement park of a grocery store, and this is the frist time I've seen something in the "pit" other than a bulldozer.

The management team behind the new Fauntleroy Place (which includes apartments, four stories of underground parking and a Hancock Fabrics) says they're on track for a February 2010 opening. You can see what the end result will look like here.

A brand new QFC is also opening up about a block away -- right across the street from the Jefferson Square Safeway.

It's official: I may never go hungry, but something tells me I might go broke.

OK, they're not telling us anything we didn't know already, but it's great to see our obsessions —coffee, local, seasonal produce, and a certain decided (perhaps weather-induced) bookishness— recognized and lauded.

As the magazine puts it: "The city is best in the country for cafés and coffee bars, farmers' markets, and intelligent people." Read where Seattle ranks in other categories here.

Macrina bakery owner Leslie Mackie has opened her third retail shop, but this time, she's gone sustainable.

Mackie's hoping to secure LEED certification for the new space (on the corner of 1st Ave. South and South Holgate St.) by year end. What does that mean? From the Mackie camp: "In order to attain a Silver-level LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, Macrina had to comply with a list of requirements that includes: natural light sources and vents, certified wood, motion sensor faucets and energy efficient lighting, low VOC paints and stains, low-flush toilets and re-purposed kitchen equipment. Macrina is also lessening their footprint by purchasing green power from Seattle City Light."

The SODO cafe is currently serving just pastries and lunch. But Mackie says as soon as she's settled, she'll throw a weekend brunch into the mix.

Every Sunday, starting in early August, I like to take a moment before my sister's family and I sit down for our weekly dinner to inspect the Italian plum tree out back of their house. It's a greedy kind of inspection, because for the past two years, the tree (on a vacant lot covered in brambles and spider webs) has been supplying us with six months' worth of jam, plus a couple bottles of plum liqueur and ratafia. The late spring had made the fruit sparse this year, but I figured we could still get 20-30 pounds off the tree. Until they started disappearing. Then they weren't there at all.

"Raccoons," said my brother-in-law. "A whole family of them. We've been hearing them in the trees the past month."

Chalk one up to nature, I thought. At least I have other sources. Maggie D. has promised me some from her tree. And my friend Anne said that she had a friend in Newcastle who had an overabundant tree. We scheduled a trip to harvest it on Sunday.

Until I got a call on Saturday evening. "Raccoons and deers," Anne said, sadly. "They've stripped the tree this week. My friend doesn't think there are any left."

Maggie, you are now my only hope. I expect you to be guarding your backyard with a pellet gun and a sneer. As for you, fellow opportunistic omnivores, someday I will exact my revenge.

Is this just a run of bad luck on my part, or are raccoons invading Seattle?

Last week, I went up to Capitol Hill to see what Linda Derschang, proprietor of Linda's Tavern, Smith, and King's Hardware, had going on at the corner of 10th and Pine in the old Oddfellows Hall. At Sub Pop's 20th anniversary bash on top of the Space Needle in July, Derschang told me she would be taking over the old Freehold space for what would be a "neighborhood hangout." She was dubbing the joint, appropriately, Oddfellows.

When I arrived, I found Derschang and her partner in Oddfellows, Ericka Burke of Volunteer Park Cafe, in the basement of the building, examining a sign that a member of their crew had just uncovered. It was the original sign used by the Oddfellows fraternal order. It had some damage, but Derschang hoped they could salvage it to use in her space.

Derschang and Burke took me upstairs for a tour. Naturally, it's pretty much just a dusty construction site at this point, but the two explained the whole layout they had planned. Oddfellows will open at 7 in the morning for coffee (provided by Stumptown), breakfast pastries, and other a.m. delicacies. It will switch over for lunch in the afternoon, offering sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, and the like. Derschang envisions people coming in in the mornings to order their coffee and food, which "they can either take it with them, or walk over with it and sit down and read their newspaper."

Then, in the evenings, they'll dim the lights for more of a lounge-y atmosphere. "And we're going to have beer and wine to go," Derschang said, mentioning the old shelving units they also found in the basement and hoped to use for this service. "People can come in, grab their chicken and a bottle of wine, and take them home."

Says Derschang: "Really, I just want it to be a really cool neighborhood hangout." She noted the lack of places like that in the Pike/Pine hood, and cited her frequenting of Burke's Volunteer Park Cafe as an inspiration.

Even folks that don't live on the Hill have reason to be stoked on the usefulness of Oddfellows: It will be one of the only places in the area where you can swing by and grab good food on the way to a show at Neumo's or the Comet. No more waiting for a table anywhere!

Burke explained that the aesthetic will be all vintage mercantile. Derschang added that, for once, "I don't think there will be any taxidermy." She expects to open Oddfellows this December. Fingers crossed!