Tag: wine

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They’ve got your alibi

Cindy Hval

You never know when you might need a good alibi, and if you live in the Indian Trail Neighborhood, you have one handy.

Alibi is the latest venture from restaurateurs and real estate agents Bill and Deb Weisgerber.

The ’70s-inspired bar in the Sundance Plaza shopping center features craft cocktails, carefully curated beer and wine selections, shareable apps and light bites.

“I grew up in kitchens,” said Deb Weisgerber. “My dad was in the food and beverage industry, and he would take me to work with him.”

At 19, she bought her first house, outfitted it with a licensed commercial kitchen, and launched Sandwiches to Go.

“People faxed me their orders and I made and delivered their sandwiches – mostly downtown.”

When she hired an employee and learned how complicated labor and industry regulations can be, she closed the business.

In 2003, she and Bill opened a coffee stand on Northwest Boulevard. They painted the building pink and christened it Deb’s Espresso, eventually opening two other locations.

When she saw a space in the Garland District on Craigslist, she decided to try her hand at bartending and opened the Drinkery.

They closed one coffee stand, and the bar proved so successful that they sold the other two.

In 2015, the couple found a spot in the Logan Neighborhood and opened the Foxhole, a pizza joint.

“It was a flop,” she said. “We had pizza and jello shots, but nobody came in – the kids preferred Jack and Dan’s.”

So, they returned to the Drinkery.

“We fixed up the building and it was wildly successful,” Weisgerber said. “I worked there every day.”

After selling the business in 2020, she was ready for a different career and got her real estate license.

“I love real estate – I plan to do it far beyond retirement age, but it doesn’t offer me the creative outlet that the bar/restaurant industry does.”

While shopping at Safeway on Indian Trail Road, she saw a “for lease” sign on the door of the former Happy Trails to Brews tavern.

“I saw endless possibilities for this space,” Weisgerber said.

The biggest struggle was coming up with a name, so she crowd-sourced on Facebook and landed on Alibi.

“After that, everything came together,” she said. “Bill and I handpicked the furnishings, the dishes, the glassware and the furniture.”

The once red walls got a coat of black paint, and Bill added wainscoting and built liquor shelves behind the bar.

Weisgerber shopped for vintage furniture at local antique stores, where she discovered a painting of a ’70s-era girl that matched the vibe she wanted – a dark, moody hideaway.

Guests enter through a roped-off area advising the venue is exclusively for 21 and older, past a couple of rattan outdoor sofas and tables.

Backlit liquor shelves and soft, colored lights under the bar top create a welcoming ambiance. A big birthday wheel at the far end offers birthday guests an opportunity to spin it and win prizes. The cozy bar/dining area seats 49.

Craft cocktails made with high-end liquors serve as the drink menu’s centerpiece.

The Midnight Confession incorporates WhistlePig Piggyback Rye while the Cover Story offers a refreshing sip that includes Prosecco, St. Germain, lime and mint.

“We use fresh-pressed juices and herbs in a lot of our drinks,” Weisgerber said. “I’m also very passionate about wine, and we have a good selection of wine and bubbly. We have six draft beers, mostly local, but no domestics.”

A small kitchen meant creating a small menu that still offers bites to please every palate. House-made dips provide a tasty snack or starting point for a meal.

For example, house-smoked salmon stars in a dip topped with lemon and capers. Served with rice crackers and a selection of fresh veggies, it pairs deliciously with any cocktail.

“We smoke our own salmon and chicken,” Weisgerber said.

Handhelds include a smoked chicken quesadilla that comes loaded with black beans and pepperjack cheese and is served with house-made pasta salad.

The French onion grilled cheese features Gruyere, Swiss and caramelized onion jam. It’s served with a Caesar salad and a side of rich au jus for dipping. The buttery sourdough holds up well to the gooey cheese and savory sauce.

A trio of entrée salads offers hearty options and shareables include flatbreads and charcuterie.

“I’m proud of the menu,” Weisgerber said. “Keeping your menu and your hours consistent and providing quality service is the key to success.”

In addition to food and drink, Alibi offers plenty of evening entertainment options. There are a variety of events happening nearly every night, including live music, trivia and karaoke.

While Weisgerber would love for Alibi to become a neighborhood hub, she also hopes the classy venue will become a destination spot.

“It’s a beautiful space and pretty enough to make a drive worth your while,” she said.

Columns

Spokane Summertime Fun

Cindy Hval

I’m an unabashed hometown girl.

I love Spokane (except for the potholes), and in 40-plus years of living here, I’m still finding new things to do.

In July, Derek and I attended two quintessential outdoor Spokane events.

First, we finally made it to a Sunday summer concert at Arbor Crest. Though we’ve visited the winery many times, we’d never made it to an outdoor concert. When we saw one of our favorite local bands was scheduled for July 10, we quickly bought tickets.

The Sara Brown Band plays R&B tunes with a soulful edge that usually gets us out on the dance floor at least for a few songs.

At Arbor Crest, you can bring a picnic or buy a meal there. We opted to picnic and while I packed a cooler with salamis, cheeses, olives and chocolate, Derek fetched our folding camp chairs.

We arrived early to find a good spot. That’s when we discovered Derek had accidentally grabbed our bleacher seats instead of chairs.

No worries. The winery provides plenty of plastic lawn chairs.

With our spot staked, we sampled a wine flight and purchased a couple of bottles of Fume Blanc – one to enjoy with our picnic and one to take home.

The evening proved spectacular. Just enough sun to make us welcome sunset’s arrival, fabulous music and fun chatting with fellow concert goers.

A kiss at Arbor Crest.

The following weekend, we attended the final night of Crave! Northwest a three-night foodie extravaganza showcasing the best of the area’s food and drink. The event offers an opportunity for chefs, breweries, and winemakers to connect with each another while serving fantastic food to the public. It’s also a great way for attendees to discover local chefs and restaurants.

Saturday’s “Fire and Smoke” night at Spokane Valley’s CenterPlace quickly sold out, and no wonder. Billed as a “culinary adventure of smoked and fired foods,” my home-grilling king only stopped smiling long enough to chew and swallow.

Derek and Cindy Hval at Crave!

We sampled smoked ribs with apple chutney from Tracy Rose of the Coeur d’Alene Casino, smoked steelhead, from Peter Froese of Gander and Ryegrass, and beef and pork wood-fired meatballs with charred Pomodoro sauce, from Aaron Fiorini of Market Street Pizza.

Then we tasted pork shoulder, smoked tri-tip, grilled jalapeno poppers, and more!

Of course, there was plenty of swill to wash it all down with. We saw our friends from No-Li Brewhouse and Barrister Winery and grabbed ice-cold bottles of water upon entry.

We needed the hydration, as it was a sizzling evening, but the venue offered some shady spots and a cool misting fan or two.

Two back-to-back, action-packed weekends made us perfectly content to enjoy our own backyard the following week, but we’re so glad we got to partake of some of the best fun our area has to offer.

While I enjoy all four seasons in the Inland Northwest; Spokane truly shines in the summer.

Columns

Go home chicken, you’re drunk

Cindy Hval

Tears poured from my eyes as I thumbed through the pages. My sides ached with laughter. I snorted. I guffawed. I giggled.

Who would think a cookbook could provoke such hilarity?

Just when I caught my breath, I spotted a recipe for Pheasant- All Drunk and Spunky, and I howled again.

But first a little background. My mother collected recipes like there might not ever be another Dorothy Dean column or Campbell’s soup cookbook. She clipped them from newspapers, magazines, flour bags and shortening cans. She filed them in index card boxes and three-ring binders. Cookbooks lined a shelf in her kitchen and filled drawers in her buffet. Even after my dad died and she didn’t have anyone to cook for, she kept on clipping.

Her cookies were legendary. For years, she supplied my boys with enough baked goods to feed a small platoon. Her dessert plates were the first to be emptied at every church potluck.

In recent years, she tried to downsize. I’m not sure which sibling ended up with her battered copy of Irma Rombauer’s “The Joy of Cooking,” but she gave me my grandmother’s vintage “Good Housekeeping Cookbook” and her own copy of “Better Homes and Garden Cookbook,” which I still haul out every time I bake apple pies.

My recipe box is filled with her handwritten recipe cards.

When she moved into a retirement home, the cookbooks and clipping collection had to go. I didn’t have time to sort through her recipe-filled envelopes, but somehow I snagged a cookbook and brought it home before her house sold.

With the holidays approaching, I finally sat down to go through it. The 270-page cookbook has no cover, no back and no title. I have no idea who produced it. I think I grabbed it because it features Mom’s handwritten commentary. Some recipes had checkmarks or stars. Some said “try,” and others had “good!” written next to them.

The source of my amusement came from the many, many recipes that called for some kind of booze.

Mom is such a stringent teetotaler that she’s never even purchased cooking wine or sherry. She certainly never had the ingredients for Drunk Chicken, or Bourbon-Pecan cake, or New Bacardi Chocolate Rum cake. And even if she had the ingredients for Beer and Sauerkraut Fudge Cake, I can’t imagine that she’d inflict that on anyone.

It’s wasn’t only the alcohol-laden recipes that gave me giggles, just the names of some of the recipes induced mirth.

Creeping Crust Cobbler anyone? How about some Liver Surprise? (Spoiler alert, the surprise is cinnamon, or maybe it’s the applesauce.) Beef Birds with Olive Gravy gave me pause, but Carrot Loaf- a Meat Substitute made me queasy for hours. The recipe calls for rice, carrots, eggs, milk and peanut butter!

Not every recipe proved as stomach-churning. Amazed, I discovered the original source for Mom’s Five-Hour Stew, her Busy Day Chicken and Rice, and the zucchini fritter recipe I’d assumed was my grandmother’s. The titleless cookbook is proving to be a treasure.

My husband enjoys my culinary escapades, but he was a bit bewildered last week when he called and asked about our dinner plans.

“I thought about making Pheasant- All Drunk and Spunky,” I said.”But catching a pheasant and getting it drunk, seemed like a lot of work. And how can you tell if a pheasant’s spunky?”

“Uh…” Derek murmured.

“Nevermind,” I continued. “We had some poultry in the freezer, but you’d better come home soon.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because the chicken’s already drunk,” I replied.

Unlike my mother, I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the recipe.

Columns

Painting over art-shaming scars

Cindy Hval

My reaction might have been a little over the top.

“I would rather have my eyelashes plucked out one by one while listening to alpine yodeling and drinking beet juice mixed with cod liver oil,” I said.

My friend raised her hands in surrender.

“Wow! OK then. We’ll skip paint night and just go to happy hour someplace.”

Some people might think a suggestion to have a glass of wine and create art with a good friend sounds delightful.

I’m not those people, and I have Mrs. Pendergast to thank for that.

Mrs. Pendergast was my second-grade teacher. While my reading skills soared under her tutelage, my art skills plummeted.

I dreaded art time more than I dreaded dodge ball during PE, and that’s saying something. My undiagnosed nearsightedness meant I never saw that pink rubber ball coming till it smacked me silly.

When Mrs. P. directed us to don our paint shirts, I groaned. Wearing my dad’s old button-down dress shirt was mortifying. It was dirty for heaven’s sake! It was crusty and stained, and it didn’t match my carefully coordinated outfit!

Of course, the reason it was stained was because I could never seem to gauge the right amount of paint. I would think I had just the right quantity of yellow for my sun, only to watch in dismay as golden globs streaked down the paper and smeared into my already-crusty sleeves.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Mrs. P. scolded. “Your sun is bleeding all over your paper!”

With that she snatched my art attempt off the easel, crumpling it in disgust, commanding me to start over.

Her bleeding-sun comment inspired me.

I dipped my brush into what I hoped was just the right amount of scarlet, and painted a red sun, dripping droplets of blood from the sky.

“Good grief!” shouted Mrs. P. “That is disgraceful! What is the matter with you!?”

My classmates tittered as once again she ripped my paper from the easel.

When the class went out to recess, I stayed behind, waiting for the paint to dry so I could place my painting at the bottom of the stack, safe from mocking eyes.

So, you can see why my reaction to a friend’s suggestion of paint night was a tad vehement.

But a couple of years passed, and recently my husband came home and announced that we’d been invited to go to Pinot’s Palette with some friends.

Much to his surprise, I agreed.

It was time to silence the shaming voice of Mrs. Pendergast once and for all. My painting might stink, but at least I’d have a glass of wine to ease the sting.

On Jan. 26, I donned a paint-spattered apron, sat at an easel and picked up a brush.

To my joy I discovered we were going to replicate a painting of the northern lights. No sun in sight. And a perfect choice since we’d invited Derek’s sister and her Norwegian husband to join us. They’ve actually seen the northern lights.

I listened carefully to the instructor.

“The first lesson is you must learn the difference between your wine glass and your water glass,” she said.

That was easy. My wine glass was the one without any paintbrushes in it. Yet.

The next lesson covered what to do if we accidentally got paint on our clothes. It seemed like the instructions were tailored just for me.

In the event of a paint emergency, our teacher told us to, “Run to the sink, scream, flail, and use Murphy’s Oil Soap.”

She paused. “But if it’s been more than 15 minutes you have a new outfit.”

With that we were ready to begin.

I panicked a bit. But my husband’s friend said, “Just dip your brush into your wine and drink your water.”

I did the opposite, and soon I was well on my way.

My brother-in-law wandered over to check out my progress.

“Cindy, you are a born artist!” he exclaimed.

He is a bit of a hogwash artist, but his encouragement was appreciated nonetheless.

“By now your canvas is covered with paint,” the instructor said.

And mine was. I’d followed instructions. I’d mixed blue and green and made teal. And I hadn’t dipped my sleeve in my palette. Yet.

Shades of doubt seeped in when I had trouble blending the first swooshes of white into the night sky, but soon we were on to stippling stars and my true talents emerged.

“I am the BEST at stars,” I proclaimed.

Of course, one glass of wine had turned into two at this point, but isn’t that why they call it liquid courage?

At the end of the evening my evergreens were a bit wonky, and I hadn’t mastered blending, but by golly, my stars sparkled.

I sat at the easel and lifted my glass in silent salute.

Good night Mrs. Pendergast, wherever you are.

artist_Hval

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com. She is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories From the Greatest Generation.” You can listen to her podcast “Life, Love and Raising Sons” at SpokaneTalksOnline.com. Her previous columns are available online at http://www.spokesman.com/staff/cindy-hval/ Follow her on Twitter at @CindyHval

Columns

Lessons From the Bowl

Cindy Hval

Like most Seahawks fans we rooted hard for the Atlanta Falcons during the Super Bowl on Sunday. Birds of a feather flocking together, united in Tom Brady disdain.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

But in between kickoff and that stunning win by the New England Patriots we had a lot of fun watching the game with my brother David and his wife, Becky. We all enjoy football and are pretty much experts on the game.

Our son Alex was a record-setting kicker for the Mt. Spokane Wildcats, and David played defensive tackle for the Anderson Air Force Base Vikings in Guam. Obviously, we’re well-qualified to loudly shout play calls at the television. Our commentary is usually spot-on, too, though Derek did get himself in a bit of trouble.

As the game began he opined of the Patriots, “Once you’ve been to the Super Bowl so many times it’s not a big deal; kinda like being married 30 years.”

Sadly, I’d left my yellow flag at home and couldn’t call the foul.

But when I posted his comment on Facebook, friends took care of that for me. One commented, “Dude. Either stop drinking or stop talking.”

Another asked, “Have the flowers been delivered yet?”

Thankfully, we were distracted by the latest round of Super Bowl commercials. Many of the ads were positively perplexing, like the artsy ad for something called LIFE WTR.

“What on earth is Life Wtr?” I asked.

“It’s water with the vowels strained out,” my brother replied.

Then there was the 84 Lumber advertisement. I thought it was lovely and moving, but like many I didn’t have a clue what the ad was supposed to sell. Maybe compelling political statements are the new Budweiser frogs.

I missed some commercials due to using the break for what God intended commercials for, but I did see the adorable NFL Super Bowl Babies and the Melissa McCarthy Kia ad was hysterical. Also, I’m sure I’m not the only woman in America who has watched the Mr. Clean ad more than a dozen times.

However, we were all puzzled as to why Terry Bradshaw has to remove his pants to get a stain off his shirt and agreed that Spuds MacKenzie should have been left to rest in peace.

“How can he hold a beer can if he can’t open it because he doesn’t have thumbs?” Derek asked.

None of us had the answer.

Snacks are a big part of Super Bowl fun and Becky’s homemade pizzas were delicious. Alas, the Oregon-made amber I purchased for Derek was not. Apparently, it tasted like pine trees. Or turpentine. What can I say? I’m not a beer drinker. Anyway, it didn’t hiss forever like the Busch beer in the Super Bowl ad.

At least this year’s halftime show didn’t leave a bad taste in our mouths. Though none of us are huge Lady Gaga fans, at least her clothes stayed on and we could understand her lyrics.

When the game resumed we witnessed an epic moment when Patriot Martellus Bennett and Falcon Dwight Freeney got their helmets stuck together like two mountain goats locking horns. Talk about an awkward dance.

Speaking of dancing, upon the advice of friends I spent considerable time Sunday morning practicing the Dirty Bird – the Falcons celebratory touchdown dance. I didn’t practice this at church, which I’m sure my pastor appreciated, but had planned to break it out as the confetti fell on the Falcon’s victory.

We were so sure of this victory that David opined Brady was a shoe-in for MVP – for the Atlanta Falcons.

I replied, “I’m sure Tom Brady’s balls are pretty deflated right about now.”

Of course those words came back to haunt us, just like Tom Brady came back to rally his team to an amazing, unprecedented, overtime victory.

It was like watching Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown. The only comfort was that at least it wasn’t the Seahawks sitting dejectedly on the sidelines.

I’ve always found the Super Bowl to be educational and I learned several valuable lessons on Sunday.

No. 1: Don’t send a wine-drinker to buy beer.

No. 2: Men who mop are super sexy, even if they aren’t named Mr. Clean.

No. 3 And never, ever count Tom Brady out.

 

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com. She is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories From the Greatest Generation.” You can listen to her podcast “Life, Love and Raising Sons” at SpokaneTalksOnline.com. Her previous columns are available online at spokesman.com/ columnists. Follow her on Twitter at @CindyHval.

War Bonds

War Bonds in Walla Walla

Cindy Hval

Tomorrow I’ll be signing copies of War Bonds at the Book & Game Company in Walla Walla, Washington.

Famed for it’s wineries, downtown Walla Walla has a great shopping district. And if you haven’t bought your mom, wife or grandmother a Mother’s Day gift yet, come in and see me and get a signed copy of War Bonds 🙂

There’s more information in this write up from the Walla Walla Union Bulletin.