Tantri Wija

Santa Fe

Food and Lifestyle Columnist at Pacific NW Magazine

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Articles

Lake Wilderness Arboretum’s treasure trove of gardens delights the senses

1 week ago | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

THERE IS MUCH to love about the Lake Wilderness Arboretum. There’s its natural beauty, to begin with — situated in lushly verdant Maple Valley, the neighborhood known as Lake Wilderness (surrounding the eponymous lake) is a patch of soaring trees and vivid green suburban landscape. You might expect to see squads of Steven Spielberg or Stephen King-esque characters exploring on bicycles, a landscape tamed for the habitation of man but still flirting with the notion of being wild.
This West Seattle garden is a great place to learn about bees

1 month ago | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

MAN’S RELATIONSHIP TO bees has long been both sacred and regal. The ancient Greeks venerated Aristaeus, the god of beekeeping; bees have their own patron saint in Catholicism (St. Valentine); and even Napoleon Bonaparte chose the bee as a symbol of his reign.
Greenwood diner’s eclectic vibe makes it a neighborhood star

1 month ago | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

WHEN MAN FIRST sought an ever-fixed mark to guide his wandering bark, in the night-darkness of the past he had only to look up to find it. While the moon was changeable and fickle, the North Star shone brightly in the same place every night. This is the role that Travis Clark and Wolfgang Eastman, the married couple who own the North Star Diner (and the associated Shanghai Room) in Greenwood, hoped their space would occupy in the neighborhood when they opened in 2015.
Fort Ward, a former military base on Bainbridge Island, is peaceful now

1 month ago | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

YOU COULDN’T ASK for a more peaceful place to put a fortress. These days, Fort Ward on Bainbridge Island is a haven of daisy-covered lawns, wind-bent trees, quietly lapping water and seabirds having a constant klatch on crumbling wooden structures just offshore. But the site was long a place of vital activity, much of it military, as suggested by the disused, ghostly barracks that look out at one of the island’s many breathtaking views of the water. To continue reading, log in or subscribe.
A hike in Dead Horse Canyon isn’t nearly as scary as it sounds

2 months ago | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

A TRIP TO A place called “Dead Horse Canyon” feels slightly dangerous, evoking Old West adventure and a whiff of cinematic peril. Such a place sounds like it should exist somewhere like Utah (and indeed there is a Dead Horse Canyon in Utah, one in Arizona and even one in Oregon.) But Seattle has a Dead Horse Canyon of its own, located in Lakeridge Park (10201 Holyoke Way S.) in South Seattle, just south of Rainier Beach and a stone’s throw from the rather quotidian Renton Municipal Airport.
101 years later, Swansons Nursery in Ballard still blooms with romance

2 months ago | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

SWANSONS NURSERY BEGAN with a love story. And appropriately for a romance, it was a tale fragrant with the perfume of thousands of flowers. The stalwart swain of our story is Swansons founder August Swanson, who originally immigrated to St. Paul, Minnesota, from Sweden, paying for his passage with the proceeds from a pamphlet he authored about horticulture. In Minnesota, he opened an evocatively named greenhouse operation called “Swanson’s Land of Flowers” in 1888.
Kenmore Air brings the Northwest’s dream destinations within reach

Mar 17, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

IMAGINE THE Pacific Northwest of your dreams. Forget the traffic and the high rent and the tech gray goo and float away in a vision of mountains covered in spiny evergreens through which a Sasquatch peeks up at a bright yellow seaplane soaring across the clear blue sky from one island to another. And in real life, there’s a good chance that plane belongs to Kenmore Air.
Shoreline’s Hamlin Park is a surprising wilderness escape minutes from the big city

Mar 10, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. TolkienAND NOT ALL those who are lost wander. Some just walk in circles and give up from weariness, some sit down and wait for rescue, and some — perhaps because they went to summer camp and learned a thing or two about wayfinding — can ramble their way back to the path using the age-old tools of compass and map.
This Belltown military surplus store is geared toward our outdoorsy aesthetic

Feb 20, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

PEOPLE IN SEATTLE love their gear. This is the ancestral home of REI, after all, and Filson, and a certain Patagonia jacket is almost a uniform in some parts of town. But while the local aesthetic and the local elements call for waterproof boots, layered flannel, beanie hats and hardy wool socks, not everyone can (or wants to) pay a premium for the kind of famously expensive prosumer premium kit that stocks the shelves of many of those stores.
West Seattle Bowl keeps up with technology, but has vintage charm to spare

Feb 10, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Tantri Wija

BOWLING, LIKE SO MANY of life’s pleasures (including beer, paper and pyramids), supposedly was invented by the ancient Egyptians. Through the ages, people have continued to joyfully roll balls to knock over standing pinlike objects, though bowling as we know it probably originates from lawn bowling games played in medieval England, and counts among its devotees Henry the VIII.