Unlike Princess Aurora, if you snooze, you lose!
Now thru February 12, 2010, enter to win one of three Sleeping Beauty Dream Weekends and get the royal treatment from PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET and PACIFIC PLACE

SEATTLE, WA — Don’t miss this kiss: Pacific Northwest Ballet and Pacific Place, downtown Seattle’s premiere shopping, dining and entertainment center, are making an offer fit for a king and queen – or at least a prince and princess. Now through February 12, visit participating Pacific Place merchants and enter to win one of three deluxe Sleeping Beauty Dream Weekend prize packages, to be awarded weekly now through the run of PNB’s The Sleeping Beauty. No purchase is necessary, and the more Pacific Place shops you visit, the more opportunities you have to win! (One entry per person per store per week. See the Not-So-Fine Print, below.)

Each one of the three Sleeping Beauty Dream Weekends includes:

• Two tickets to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty, Saturday, February 13, 2010;
• Backstage tour of PNB’s The Sleeping Beauty, Saturday, February 13, 2010;
• A $100 Pacific Place gift card;
• Two-nights stay at the Hyatt Olive 8, located in downtown Seattle, during the weekend of February 13, 2010;
• Spa package for two at Elaia Spa, located at the Hyatt Olive 8, during the weekend of February 13;
• Haircut and color at Seven – the salon, located at Pacific Place in downtown Seattle.

Participating Pacific Place merchants include:

• a pea in the pod
• Aveda
• BCBGMAXAZRIA
• Brookstone
• Chico’s
• Gymboree
• Helly Hansen
• Il Fornaio Ristorante & Risotteria
• L’Occitane
• lululemon athletica
• MaxMara
• Mexico Cantina y Veracruz Cooking
• Papyrus
• Pike Place Chowder
• Red Mango
• Seahawks & Sounders FC Pro Shop
• Sixth Avenue Wine Seller
• Something Silver
• The Body Shop
• Top Ten Toys
• Twist
• United Colors of Benetton
• White House | Black Market

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Pacific Place shoppers can also visit the Concierge Desk on Level 1 with $100 in same-day receipts from Pacific Place and receive one free ticket to The Sleeping Beauty, plus a 20% discount on additional tickets! (Limit one free ticket per person.)

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s acclaimed production of The Sleeping Beauty runs February 4-14 at McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center. Show times are 7:30 pm February 4 – 6 and 11 – 13, with 1:00 pm matinees on February 6, 13, and 14. (Please note that all matinee performances of The Sleeping Beauty start at 1:00 pm and are special Dress-Up Matinees for princes and princesses of all ages. Arrive early for special matinee festivities: create a unique craft, take a magical dance class, and meet our dancers in costume.) Tickets may be purchased by calling the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424, online at www.pnb.org, or in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer St.

Check out pnb.org for all the details!

We came across this interesting article on CityArts, Artful Quandary by Tim Appelo, and wanted to share it with you.

Science and art collide in the mind of artist Julian Voss-Andreae. The Bravern reaps the benefits.

Julian Voss-Andreae’s new sculpture at the Bravern, Quantum Man, is beautiful to look at, but that’s not the point. The idea of the piece is to convey one of the most bewildering ideas in modern physics: that nothing is really the way it looks, that all matter can be seen as a bunch of particles or as a collection of waves. It cannot possibly be both, yet somehow it is.

Voss-Andreae, who grew up playing with Lego blocks in Germany, first decided to be an artist. Then, at the University of Vienna, he switched to quantum physics and started playing with buckyballs, tiny soccer-ball-shaped icosahedrons made of sixty carbon atoms. They’re called buckyballs because they look like the geodesic domes designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, the famous cousin of Seattle Art Museum founder Richard Fuller. Voss-Andreae’s team won fame by shooting a single buckyball through two openings at once, each a hundred times farther apart than a buckyball is wide. Impossible! But that’s quantum physics for you…

Read the rest of the article.

Your beloved will melt with delete from this delectable Valentine’s Day menu available at both Monsoon locations on Sunday, February 14.

FIRST COURSE

• Full Circle Farms Beet Salad, Thai Basil, Creme Fraiche, Green apple and Toasted Cashews
• Ahi Tuna Tartar, Passion Fruit, Cilantro, Puffed Rice
• Dungeness Crab Congee, Roasted Hedgehog Mushroom, Salted Egg and Ginger Relish

SALAD

• Butter Lettuce Salad, Vietnamese Herbs, Pickled Lotus Stem, Citrus

ENTREE

• Seared Weathervane Scallop, Fresh Rice Noodle, Coconut, Broken Rice Powder, Green Onion Oil
• Braised Lamb Shank, Tokyo Turnips, Lemongrass, White Beans
• Roasted Black Cod, Ginger Soup, Cellophane Noodles, Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Bok Choy
• Grilled Wagyu Flank Steak, Taro Root, King Oyster Mushroom and Watercress

DESSERT

• Happiness Dumpling, Red Bean, Mung Bean and Ginger Syrup
• Olive Oil Cake, Chocolate Mousse, Brandied Cherries, Mint
• Chocolate Eclairs, Coconut Cream, Thai Basil

The cost of the dinner is $49 per person plus tax & gratuity, with optional wine pairing for $20 per person. Please call 206.325.2111 (Seattle) or 425.635.1112 (Bellevue) for reservations.

Wine Enthusiast magazine honored Kenwood Inn & Spa’s guest-only restaurant an Award of Unique Distinction for their wine list, which was judged not only by the size of the list, but also on the quality and synergy with the cuisine offered.  Other judging criteria included creativity, service, staff education, presentation, stemware and value.

The Kenwood Inn and Spa is the only winning restaurant in the city of Kenwood and one of 3 winners in Sonoma. There were a total of 144 winners in the US overall.

There are 3 levels of awards given out to applicants, who ranged from small French bistros to big-name urban eateries, the Award of Distinction, the Award of Unique Distinction and the highest, the Award of Ultimate Distinction.

Judges included members of the editorial staff at Wine Enthusiast, as well as wine directors, buyers and sommelier’s from well-regarded restaurants and import companies.