Store-brand cereals. Observe; do not eat.

Trader Vic’s, that legendary tiki-lounge restaurant chain, is coming back to the metro area this fall, after 14 years away; specifically in the new Westin Hotel being built near Bellevue Square.

They had another of those University District Street Fairs last weekend, as they’ve had each year at this time for the past 37 years.

After all this time, there’s darned little to say about the event. Musicians played. Crafts items were sold. Political petitions were shoved in passersby’s faces. Food and beverages were consumed. Alternative-medical disciplines were hyped.

I hadn’t seen these craft items before–candles whch look like plastic replicas of food items (as seen in Japanese restaurant windows), and which smell like the original foods.

The U District Chamber of Commerce staged its first street fair way back in ’69. The intent was to show the rest of the city that The Ave was still an OK place, despite the presence of those longhair oddball types who looked like nothing many people had ever seen.

Today, the intent is to show the rest of the city that The Ave is still an OK place, despite the presence of pierced and spiky-haired kids who look almost precisely like pierced and spiky-haired kids looked in 1981.

Breakdancing wasn’t around when the street fair began lo those many years ago. But it’s become its own tradition by now.

A lot took place, including the fabulous Pike Place Market Cheese Festival. (I refrained from singing “Pinky’s Cheese Roll Call” during the festivities.)

Then came Ballard Bikefest, a tribute to all things wheeled, with or without motors.

The event was sponsored in part by the Sunset (officially no longer a “tavern”), and coincided with the monthly Second Saturday Art Walk on and around Ballard Avenue.

The above depicts a contest to change a race-car tire in the shortest possible time.

Our ol’ pals at the Live Girls Cabaret (not pictured here) also opened their new Market Street performance space that night. It’s a huge, lovely space, for some brash n’ bountiful performers. (Think sketch comedy, with a neo-burlesque attitude.)

But leaving Ballard, and (at least for now) Seattle, that night was the above-pictured Larry Barrett, alt-country singer-songwriter and, most recently, big guy at Hattie’s Hat. He’s off to housesit in Tucson, something I wouldn’t do over the scorchy summer unless I were paid.

The “world’s best fast food stops” are probably not simply off-model outlets of otherwise standardized chains.

This week, Capitol Hill’s food-shopping routines changed forever.

First stop: The new Safeway at 21st and Madison. It’s part of a “mixed use” retail-apartment megaplex, urged on by city officials eager to gentrify (i.e., white-ify) one of the last blocks of minority-owned retail north of Yesler Way. It’s across from Oscar’s II, the Af-Am restaurant/lounge that was infamously targeted for closure by former City Attorney Mark Sidran.

The new Safeway itself is large, of course, and designed to be a true “urban” shopping target. The ramp for the underground parking’s in the back. The building’s main corner entails a grand pedestrian entrance. In keeping with the L-shaped block it’s built on, the store’s been designed with alcoves and corners, breaking from the seven-decade tradition of the supermarket interior as a plain rectangle.

Even more un-square: The new Broadway Market QFC, which opened Sunday after a four-month remodel of the former urban mini-mall.

Because it was built from what had been several different retail spaces (Fred Meyer, Gap, Gravity Bar, Zebraclub, African Imports) and the central mall corridor, the new Q couldn’t help but pick up some of the old Nordstrom, collection-of-boutiques vibe. (Crossed, of course, with that Whole Foods luxury-nutrition vibe.)

The big surprise: The former downstairs Fred Meyer variety-store section was retained, as “QFC Home.” It’s better organized than it had been under Freddy’s, and retains most of the merchandise lines Freddy’s had had. (Among the missing: Paint, toys, TV/video, family apparel, underwear.)

The old Broadway QFC (above), and the old Broadway Safeway (below), along with the old Bartell Drugs next to the old QFC, stand vacant and awaiting redevelopment. There are enough people in this neighborhood with money and retail experience. Let’s put something together.

The old QFC/Bartell’s buildings add up to almost a full half block. Let’s start up a home/hardware/variety store there, along the lines of the old City People’s Mercantile with home electronics added.

At the old Safeway site, let’s have a no-frills apparel shop for ladies, gents, and kids. Jeans, tops, dresses, undies, casual shoes, hats, handbags, some local-designer consignments.

…this month to Second Avenue Pizza, which lost its lease earlier this month. For six years, it served the best slices in town and hosted hundreds of all-ages music and performance events (one of which involved me). Thanks and godspeed to original owners Jeffrey Smith, Darren Morey and Susan Robb, and to final owner Raine La.

…look at the cultural aspects of dieting.

WE SHOT A LOTTA PIX this past weekend. Today, the Capitol Hill Block Party. Tomorrow, other scenes.

If there was an unofficial theme to this year’s heat-drenched Block Party, it was woman-power, in the retro-burlesque and other interpretations. Between the Rat City Rollergirls, the naughty T-shirts for sale, some righteous lady slam poets, and some slammin’ rock bands, the party offered a cornucopia of saucy, sassy femme-empowerment visions.

The party’s chief expression of masculine energy was the closing set by those 20-year veterans of slow metal, the Melvins. I didn’t get any good pictures of their set, partly because these three young aggressive stoners kept stalking me. (Note to our older readers: “Aggressive stoner” ceased to be an oxymoron several years ago.) They insisted that I’d taken pictures of them, which I hadn’t. They semi-incoherently threatened violence, even after I showed them I had no pictures of them.

The host of public TV’s The Frugal Gourmet from 1973 to 1997, who died sometime this past week, was one massive heap-O-contradictions.

He popularized world-fusion cooking, and devoted many episodes to travelogue footage, yet lived in Seattle and Tacoma all his life. (Even when he made his show under a contract to Chicago’s PBS affiliate, he commuted from here to there to tape it.)

He was a mellow, genial personality on camera, but could be a pompous brute in person.

He promoted fancy, exotic, and often expensive-to-make dishes on his show and in his cookbooks, but also enjoyed some of Seattle’s moderately priced restaurants (such as Mama’s Mexican Kitchen).

He was an ordained Methodist minister, working in “noncommercial” broadcasting, yet amassed quite a little capitalistic empire for himself.

And he spoke of family values, yet was dogged by allocations of boy-abuse and rape that, while settled out of court, led him to retire in disgrace. (This was five years before ministerial boy-abuse became a national scandal.)

Smith had a long-term heart condition, and in the past few years had used a motorized wheelchair (complete with a horn, which he used to belligerently honk at cars), but from all accounts remained active, participating in charity events and researching new cookbooks—despite having lost his show, his endorsement deals, his kitchenware line, and his reputation.

…may be viewed at the UW’s collection of historical Seattle-area restaurant menus. See the mementos of meals gone by at such fondly-recalled spots as the Dog House, the Cloud Room, Frederick & Nelson, the Jolly Roger, Maison Blanc, and the original Olympic Hotel; plus the still-extant Space Needle and Ivar’s Acres of Clams. Bon Appetit!

…and a lot of hard work, last Sunday will have been the first July Fourth of America’s new independence movement.

Kerry’s election wouldn’t be the fulfillment of this new spirit, but it’s a first and most intensely necessary step.

The Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s management asked that no pix be taken of the on-stage performers. So you’ll just have to believe me that the Elvis impersonator was even dumber than most. (And claiming to be a wink-wink parody of a bad Elvis impersonator didn’t make him any less lame.)

Ahh, the two great tastes that taste great together….

This children’s break-dance competition was sponsored by Sprite, which also had a do-it-yourself DJ stratch-mixing booth.

For the big fireworks, we relocated to a high-rise rooftop party where, supposedly, both the waterfront and Lake Union pyrotechnics could be seen. It was a sort-of-just-barely case. Each show was mostly obscured by taller buildings. But we all had a smashing time anyway.

Unsorted shots for your pondering pleasure.

Now we know what Kroger will do with its adjacent QFC supermarket and Fred Meyer variety store on Broaday. It’ll move the QFC into the Broadway Market building, displacing the Fred Meyer operation and also some of the indie merchants there. The current QFC will close when the new one opens, and presumably would be available for retail redevelopment.

The losers, aside from the small businesses to be displaced, include everyone in central Seattle who buys any Freddy’s merchandise. It’s the only place in Capitol Hill/First Hill that sells paint, hardware, board games, VCRs, underwear, patio furniture and countless other products. No other chain that even bothers with these lines is situated anywhere near Broadway. (Walgreen’s and Bartell’s don’t come close to matching Freddy’s selection in most nondrug categories.)

If anyone wants to start a Save Freddy’s campaign, they can sign me up. If anyone wants to start a new store to replace it, they can hire me to promote it. (Come back, City People’s Mercantile! All is forgiven!)

I felt like a traitor to Fast Food Nation on Wednesday, when I got my “Go Active” Happy Meal.

The version I chose was the “Fiesta Salad.” For the same calories as a small burger and a small bag of fries, you get a whopping bowl of flavorless lettuce, sprinkled with some almost-as-flavorless corn-chip strips, a dollop of sour cream, and a few scattered ground-beef morsels. You also get a plastic packet of Paul Newman salsa, which is as mild as milk but at least adds need moisture to the concoction.

The package deal includes a bottle of Coca-Cola’s Dasani brand water (regular tap water with mineral flavoring added).

But the real reason I got the meal wasn’t edible (as if the salad was). It’s the li’l “Step With It!” pedometer, a friendly looking piece of clip-to-your-belt electronics encased in green and black plastic. The first thing, I trotted around the corridors of my multi-unit building until I reached the magic 2,000 paces (more or less a mile). As soon as we have a relatively rainless day around here, I’m gonna take the thing out and see how long it takes to reach the magic 10,000 mark just on my daily errands.