Inlander 11/05/2020 by The Inlander

MARCHING MILITIAS

A STATE LAW BANS THEM. SPOKANE ASKS POLICE TO ENFORCE IT PAGE 13

BOB LUTZ IN LIMBO

STILL UNKNOWN: WHAT’S BEHIND THE EFFORT TO REMOVE THE REGION’S HEALTH OFFICER? PAGE 18

NOVEMBER 5-11, 2020 | ELECTION UPDATES ALL WEEK ON INLANDER.COM

A banh mi with jalapeño poppers and French onion soup at Prohibition Gastropub

COMFORT SEASON DINING GUIDE

We’ve earned it.

PAGE 20

Inland Northwest Strong.

If there’s one thing we’re certain of, it’s that we’ll get through this together. #AwesomeTogether

2 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

INSIDE VOL. 28, NO. 4 | COVER PHOTO: YOUNG KWAK

COMMENT 5 NEWS 13 COVER STORY 20

CULTURE 36 FOOD 41 FILM 44

EVENTS 46 GREEN ZONE 51 ADVICE GODDESS 54

EDITOR’S NOTE

e’re sending this issue to press a few hours before polls close on Tuesday, but we’re preemptively declaring this COMFORT SEASON, a time for stretchy pants, fuzzy blankets and hearty, stick-to-your-bones, makeyou-feel-like-everything-will-be-OK food. To that end, we have a heaping handful of dining-related stories for this week’s cover package that begins on page 20. Also, in Comment, contributor Lawrence B.A. Hatter is issuing a call for patience and restored faith in our electoral process as the country braces for the uncertain days ahead (page 6). Speaking of the election: We’ll have news and analysis in next week’s issue, but in the meantime, visit Inlander.com for the very latest on local and state races. If you’re feeling a bit anxious, know that you’re not alone. My advice: Pull out your favorite quilt, cut yourself another slice of pie and practice deep breathing until every vote is counted. — JACOB H. FRIES, Editor

LOVE CONQUERS ALL PAGE 36

CHEEZ, PLEASE PAGE 41

ElementsMassage_SpreadCheerGiftCard_110520_3H_ ADVANCING NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH IN THE INLAND NORTHWEST AND AROUND THE WORLD

Do you or a loved one have: • Parkinson’s Disease (PD) • PD Genetic Testing • Huntington’s Disease • Essential Tremor • Multiple Sclerosis

We also have genetic screening for many neurological diseases FAMILY PLOTS PAGE 44

HAPPENING THIS WEEK PAGE 46

Please call: 509-960-2818 to learn more about our clinical research trials •

• dining • • shopping • • culture •

WARHOL

PAGE 10

INLANDER

AT THE MAC

POP Power: from Warhol to Koons

1227 W. Summit Parkway, Spokane, WA 99201 PHONE: 509-325-0634 EMAIL: info@inlander.com

Masterworks from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

OCT 4-JAN 24

SPOKANE • EASTERN WASHINGTON • NORTH IDAHO • INLANDER.COM THE INLANDER is a locally owned, independent newspaper founded on Oct. 20, 1993. It’s printed on newsprint that is at least 50 percent recycled; please recycle THE INLANDER after you’re done with it. One copy free per person per week; extra copies are $1 each (call x226). For ADVERTISING information, email advertising@inlander.com. To have a SUBSCRIPTION mailed to you, call x213 ($50 per year). To find one of our more than 1,000 NEWSRACKS where you can pick up a paper free every Thursday, call x226 or email frankd@inlander.com. THE INLANDER is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. All contents of this newspaper are protected by United States copyright law. © 2020, Inland Publications, Inc.

Sponsored by Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup II: Cheddar Cheese (II.63), edition 174/250, 1969, screenprint. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer © 2020 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Cheryl Westerman

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 3

4 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

COMMENT STAFF DIRECTORY PHONE: 509-325-0634 Ted S. McGregor Jr. (tedm@inlander.com) PUBLISHER

J. Jeremy McGregor (x224)

HOW WILL YOUR FAMILY’S HOLIDAY GATHERINGS BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR DUE TO THE PANDEMIC? LAURIE MARIE CARLSON: Fam didn’t want to be together so I am going to a Mexico beach til December.

GENERAL MANAGER

EDITORIAL Jacob H. Fries (x261) EDITOR

Chey Scott (x225) FOOD & LISTINGS EDITOR Nathan Weinbender (x250) FILM & MUSIC EDITOR

Derek Harrison (x248) ART DIRECTOR

Chris Frisella COPY EDITOR

Wilson Criscione (x282), Daniel Walters (x263), Samantha Wohlfeil (x234) STAFF WRITERS

Young Kwak PHOTOGRAPHER

Caleb Walsh

EDITOR’S NOTE

Normally, we ask our question of the week of people we randomly encounter on the street. But with the coronavirus pandemic, we instead asked our followers on social media to share their thoughts.

ANNA BEER: Since we’re a high-risk family and have high-risk extended family members, it’s not worth the risk. For the computer-savvy family side, we will probably do a Zoom Thanksgiving/Christmas. For the grandparents, we will drive by and visit outside for a bit (with masks) and exchange baked goods/gifts. It definitely won’t be the same, but we’d rather err on the side of caution. STEPHANIE JOHNSON: We won’t be doing anything differently this Thanksgiving or Christmas.

ILLUSTRATOR

Amy Alkon, Lawrence B.A. Hatter, Will Maupin CONTRIBUTORS

Lauren Gilmore INTERN

ADVERTISING Kristi Gotzian (x215) ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Carolyn Padgham-Walker (x214), Emily Walden (x260) SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Mary Bookey (x216), Jeanne Inman (x235), Rich McMahon (x241), Autumn Adrian Potts (x251) Claire Price (x217), Wanda Tashoff (x222) ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Kristina Smith (x223) MARKETING DIRECTOR

Houston Tilley (x247) EVENTS & PROMOTIONS ASSISTANT

PRODUCTION & SUPPORT Wayne Hunt (x232) DESIGN & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Ali Blackwood (x228) CREATIVE LEAD

Derrick King (x238), Tom Stover (x265) SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Jessie Hynes (x231) GRAPHIC DESIGNER Frank DeCaro (x226) CIRCULATION MANAGER

Sydney Angove (x242), Charlotte Lepp (x242), Jess Kennedy (x212) ADVERTISING SUPPORT

OPERATIONS Dee Ann Cook (x211) BUSINESS MANAGER Kristin Wagner (x210) ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

STEVE WARNER: Won’t be any different whatsoever. ALICIA DAVIES: We are going to fly cross-country to see family we haven’t seen in a year, but instead of flying out of Spokane and taking a connecting flight we are going to rent a car, drive to Portland and take a direct flight, hopefully minimizing the risk some. ERIN HORWATH: Not having the big dinners for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Trying to squeeze pie and coffee in a short visit with my dad and grandmother. This sucks. BLAISE BARSHAW: I haven’t seen my family since March. It sucks, but I’m not going to risk anyone’s health for the sake of an afternoon of visiting.

On INLANDER Stands Now! Veterans & Active Duty Military Special

10% Off

All Dry Fly Products

NOV 9TH - 14TH *only at our Tasting Room

[drink responsibly]

Dan Nailen (x239) MANAGING EDITOR/ARTS & CULTURE

NANCY TITUS: Won’t change. I’m an essential employee, and I’ll be working. HEATHER CRANDALL: We won’t be traveling to visit family or having family travel to visit us. We will be doing something small and laid-back at home. LESLIE JEAN AMLAND: Definitely taking this time to have a more laidback approach to the holidays. No formal dinners or plans. Just blankets, PJs, and extra snuggles on the couch during movie marathons. n

LOCALLY OWNED | LOCALLY MADE | LOCAL INGREDIENTS

CURRENT HOME: 1003 E. Trent #200 | SPOKANE | 509.489.2112

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 5

COMMENT | ELECTION 2020

PitaPit.com

ORDER ONLINE

2 OFF Any Signature Bowl with Code: 2BOWL

Not to be combined with any other offers. One coupon per visit. Expires 11/14/20

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that he could only lose the election if the Democratic Party rigged the system.

Is it half empty or half full?

Its reﬁllable! OPEN Tue-Sat 10am-4pm for phone orders and curbside pick-up only

222 S. Washington St, Spokane 509.838.1229 vinowine.com

A weekly email for food lovers Subscribe at Inlander.com/newsletter

6 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

We Must Believe

GAGE SKIDMORE PHOTO

The most damaging legacy of the 2020 election could be the loss of faith in our electoral process BY LAWRENCE B.A. HATTER

y the time you read this, we may know the result of one of the most contentious presidential elections of modern times. With the exception of the debacle of the 2000 presidential contest, Americans are used to finding out the results on election night — particularly on the West Coast, where we can see results from the eastern swing states come in while we’re still eating dinner. This year may well be different. COVID has changed everything. States have scrambled to respond to the uncontrolled pandemic through a patchwork of measures, including expanding early voting and postal ballots. But the GOP has reacted to the pandemic crisis by launching an attack on democracy across a broad front, from attempts by the postmaster general to remove mail sorting machines to ramming through the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to ensure that the highest

court in the land is packed in Donald Trump’s favor to decide electoral litigation. The most troubling outcome of this relentless attack on voting is that it threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the election, no matter the outcome. Whether this takes the form of Trump supporters swallowing his spurious claims about voting fraud, or whether Joe Biden supporters are enraged by the GOP’s disenfranchisement of the people of color, the most damaging legacy of the 2020 election might be that Americans lose faith in the electoral process altogether. Most dangerously of all, President Trump has repeatedly claimed that he could only lose the election if

the Democratic Party rigged the system. He has refused to say that he’ll accept the result if he loses. This is unprecedented in American history. Americans have encountered bitter partisanship and contested elections before. But the republic has never had to face the terrifying prospect that an incumbent president would refuse to yield power when defeated at the ballot box. The election of 1800, which pitted the incumbent John Adams against his own vice president, Thomas Jefferson, was the first time that the peaceful transition of power was tested in the United States. While 1796 marked the first partisan election in American history, the victor merely replaced the retiring George Washington, rather than turfing the incumbent out of office. The hyperbole of politics in 2020 is nothing compared to the apocalyptic dimensions of Adams versus Jefferson. Followers of Thomas Jefferson accused the president of attempting to make America a monarchy again by marrying his daughter to a son of King George III and subordinating the United States to the British Empire. Supporters of Adams painted Jefferson as a blood-thirsty anti-Christ, bent on destroying religion and bringing violence and mob rule to Main Street America.

The republic has never had to face the terrifying prospect that an incumbent president would refuse to yield power when defeated at the ballot box. With no TV or radio, there was no election night coverage for Americans to follow in 1800. In fact, there wasn’t even an election day. Different states voted at different times, and the results slowly emerged between April and October. But the final tally was split. Not between Adams and Jefferson (Adams finished third), but between Jefferson and Aaron Burr of New York. Before the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, presidential elections did not accommodate partisan designations. Party caucuses nominated two presidential candidates in the hope of capturing both the presidency and vice presidency, which is what led to the Jefferson-Burr tie. The U.S. Constitution provides for the House of Representatives to break a tie in the Electoral College. But John Adams’s Federalist Party controlled the House. With the majority despising Jefferson and distrusting Burr, the House went through 35 ballots in January and February 1801 without breaking the deadlock. Fear and distrust spread around the country. Americans armed themselves, accusing one another of trying to steal the election. In the end, Alexander Hamilton helped to break the deadlock in the House by using his influence in favor of Jefferson. While Hamilton and Jefferson had been bitter rivals in George Washington’s Cabinet, Hamilton utterly despised Aaron Burr, his archnemesis in New York politics. Jefferson was the lesser of two evils. The Constitution worked: Adams left the White House peacefully, and Jefferson was sworn in as the third president of the United States. The peaceful transition of power is America’s most important political tradition. Even in the most partisan of moments and during the most trying of circumstances it is essential that we all respect the integrity of the electoral process and the U.S. Constitution. We must not lose faith in democracy. The result of 2020 may take some time to determine, but it is important that we reject the ranting of demagogues who groundlessly argue that a delay in announcing the result is evidence of fraud. And if Trump does lose, he must accept it. For in America, we don’t have kings. Rather, in the words of revolutionary Thomas Paine, “in America the law is king.” n Lawrence B.A. Hatter is an award-winning author and associate professor of early American history at Washington State University. These views are his own and do not reflect those of WSU.

mattresses are in stock! QUEEN MATTRESS WAS $

799

NOW

699

PLUS GET 2 COOLING ANTI-MICROBIAL PILLOWS

FREE TWIN, FULL & KING SIZES ARE ALSO IN STOCK &

AVAILABLE!

IT’S LIKE SLEEPING ON A CLOUD

We’ve taken the recent advances in mattress and fabric technology and run with them. Having figured out the optimal levels of firmness, coolness, breathability, and comfort - we put them all into one mattress, making it the best mattress you’ve ever slept on. Period.

TENCEL COOLING COVER

GEL MEMORY FOAM

Nectar’s Tencel cover is more breathable, softer, and better at absorbing moisture than any premium cotton.

Two layers of Gel Memory Foam help Nectar circulate air, distribute weight and contour to your body.

CERTIPUR-US® CERTIFIED FOAM

Nectar is made with the very best certified flexible foam. No ozone depleters, PBDEs, TDCPP, mercury or lead.

walkersfurniture.com Spokane

15 E. Boone Ave. 509.326.1600

Coeur d’Alene

“Your Style... In Stock... On Sale”

7224 N. Government Way 208.762.7200

walkersmattress.com North Division

Spokane Valley

7503 N. Division 509.489.1300

14214 E. Sprague 509.928.2485

Sandpoint

Moses Lake

210 Bonner Mall Way 208.255.5796

117 W Broadway 509.765.9766

JOIN US IN SUPPORTING OUR REGION’S RECOVERY Find fresh weekly deals, specials and business updates.

BTB.Inlander.com BACK TO BUSINESS PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 7

COMMENT | FROM READERS he has done for this community. Especially without a plan, details worked out in advance, and done with the utmost of care. This sends a very bad message to Spokane about public health at the worst possible time. If there was in fact a valid reason, they went about it all wrong. As a health care professional, I’m very disappointed. The ramifications this will cause will affect many.

Inlander readers respond to Friday’s news that Dr. Bob Lutz — Spokane’s health officer who’s managed the region’s response to COVID-19 — had been asked to resign:

JIM ALMY: Hell yeah! Now we can get someone in there that understands this all just a made-up hoax by Demoncrats to hurt our great and fearless leader, President Trump! And hopefully it will be someone who ain’t no fancy-ass, know-it-all “doctor.” CHARLOTTE ROGERS THACKER: We in the community of Spokane have put our trust in Dr. Lutz. We have not always been happy about his decisions and recommendations, but we know they have been based on science and the need to guard our health. We could never have that level of trust in a replacement, knowing that role was being filled by a person who was willing to be influenced by political pressure. A pandemic is here, and tough decisions must be made by medical professionals whom we can trust to put health first.

MATTHEW BAKER: The decision to remove Dr. Lutz is an absolute outrage. The citizens of this town deserve to understand how a decision of this magnitude could occur at this point time. … This is a disgraceful day for our community, and more importantly people unnecessarily will die as a result. It’s nothing short of criminal, and it’s time to reform an enormously broken Spokane municipality that seems to have utilized a backdoor loophole to push forward an agenda that blindsides the community when we are at the beginning stages of what is already early stages of a second wave that is worse than any part of the first! It’s not even winter! LISA WOLD: This is ridiculous! He’s done an excellent job trying to lead our community safely towards opening, but not wanting things to get out of hand so that our hospitals are overwhelmed. This has blindsided our community, and many will not trust a replacement (which they don’t have yet). All we need to do to see what happens when everything opens without a care is look at Idaho. Dr. Bob Lutz and our community deserve better. We deserve a trusted and experienced leader, now more than ever. MIKE SPENCER: We don’t need anybody to lead a pandemic

CHRIS CARAWAY: Good riddance Lutz. You done pissed off the wrong powers-that-be.

Dr. Bob Lutz response. What we need is leftists (Inlander) to put down the political football and walk away. JESSICA LUDLAM: They gave no one any clue why they would do something this drastic. I hope their reasoning was of extreme importance, but I highly doubt it. I can’t comprehend how such termination would happen in the middle of a pandemic after all

BRENDA JAMISON: We still need to show our support for Dr. Lutz and request that if anyone should lose their job, it should be the administrator, Amelia Clark, who made the original recommendation that he should be fired and did not have a backup plan in place. We are currently without a health officer a day after recording the most daily positive COVID results of the pandemic. Clark is not an epidemiologist (in fact, she isn’t even an M.D.) and couldn’t properly wear a mask during that terrible press conference. n

MORE COVERAGE SEE PAGE 18 FOR THE LATEST ON

THE TURMOIL INSIDE THE SPOKANE REGIONAL HEALTH DISTRICT.

thank you for your patience With our high voter turnout, it may take a little extra time to count every ballot. For up-to-date information, visit:

spokanecounty.org/elections

8 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 9

dining • shopping • culture Businesses are working hard to serve customers and stay safe: Support them and you support our region’s recovery.

ROCKET MARKET

Staying Focused on the Customer "I saw my life flash before my eyes," says Alan Shepherd as he recalls the panic and uncertainty of the early days of the pandemic. “This is all I’ve got. All my eggs are in the Rocket Market.” The Rocket Market is one of the area’s many ultra-local neighborhood businesses. These are the kinds of places that build strong, lasting and truly personal relationships with their clientele. Stopping by to shop is almost like dropping in on an old friend. For business owners like Shepherd, uncertainty is something they continue to wrestle with on a daily basis. Some of that comes down to the phased return of business, which hinges on COVID-19 case counts staying under control. It also depends on employees staying healthy both at work and at home. “If one of my employees gets sick, it’s over. If I have to close down for two weeks [for sanitization], I lose a lot,” he says. “These are the things that keep us up at night. That’s why we require masks, social distancing and regular hand

washing. We’ve been absolutely zero tolerance since the very beginning.” With so much on the line, Shepherd and other independent business owners have looked for new and creative ways to maintain strict pandemic precautions alongside their close relationships with their customers. Among other things, the Rocket eliminated its bistro indoor seating and installed a bulk foods section that met the urgent demand for staples like flour, sugar and rice. The market also moved to a more convenient model for customers who preferred remote shopping. “It started with people directly emailing me their shopping lists,” he says. By capitalizing on some of its point-of-sale system’s advanced capabilities, the Rocket was able to make its entire inventory available for online shopping. Customers can now shop and pay via the website, then pick up their entire order curbside. It’s been so well received that Shepherd has added a register designated just for online orders.

BACK TO BUSINESS PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

10 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

SPONSORED CONTENT

REIN IN CITY HALL

An armed citizen during a protest in downtown Spokane. DANIEL WALTERS PHOTO

ARMED PARADES A century-old Washington state law bans private armed groups from demonstrating and the Spokane City Council wants it to be enforced BY DANIEL WALTERS

t was the evening before the 2020 election, and with the potential of civil unrest looming, some members of the Spokane City Council were worried. “I have received enough emails from citizens who are truly afraid to be out tomorrow night, on election night, because they don’t feel safe,” Councilwoman Karen Stratton says. After all, the racial justice protests over the past few months, in Spokane and across the country, haven’t just involved clashes between police and unarmed protesters. There have also been private citizens with guns — patrolling the streets, keeping an eye on demonstrators or claiming to be protecting businesses against looters. Some of them, like those wearing camo and surveilling a June Black Lives Matter demonstration in Spokane, have identified themselves as official members of the Lightfoot Militia. Others represented themselves as from more loosely defined armed groups in the militia movement like the Three Percenters. Councilwoman Stratton says she doesn’t have an issue with people who own guns, but this was different. “I do have serious issues with those people who carry guns, who come down to our downtown core and other

areas to intimidate and frighten people,” she says. Back in June, Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward, the City Council and other local elected officials issued a statement that they “oppose the presence of armed vigilantes roaming the streets of our city.” Similarly, while Police Chief Craig Meidl defended the rights of citizens to open carry in public during protests, he also pleaded for them to leave their weapons at home. In the months since, clashes between armed protesters and counterprotesters in place like Portland and Kenosha, Wisconsin, have left men dead. On Monday night, the Spokane City Council considered a resolution that went further in condemning the presence of “armed militia groups,” but it didn’t pass any new laws. That’s because, the non-binding resolution argued, it already is illegal for armed private militia groups to march with firearms in Spokane. For more than a century, there has been a state law that appears to ban most civilians from organizing or parading together in public with firearms. But it’s a law that hasn’t been enforced in Spokane or anywhere else in the state in recent history.

Yet the council voted 6-1 to ask law enforcement to start enforcing the law, though law enforcement officials have publicly questioned how they could enforce such a restriction. “When people don’t feel safe, we have to step up,” Stratton says.

ANCIENT LAWS

It isn’t just Washington that has an anti-militia law on the books. Almost every state has a version of it. And there’s plenty of legal precedent justifying it. In 1879, a German citizen militia leader named Herman Presser was charged with violating an Illinois state law after leading a troop of 400 armed men through the streets of Chicago. His case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which concluded that the state’s law banning private paramilitary organizations didn’t violate the Second Amendment. Washington, like Idaho and every other state, has similar laws limiting paramilitary activity. Washington’s law has evolved over the years, however. The 1943 version banned citizens from organizing together in an ...continued on next page

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 13

NEWS | CITY HALL “REIN IN ARMED PARADES,” CONTINUED... armed military company, but made an exception for clubs who wanted to carry around swords. Still, the law bans most civilian groups from associating “together as a military company” to “organize or parade in public with firearms.”

Aryan Nations.” With the growing influence of groups like the National Rifle Association, activists may have not wanted to pick a fight with the gun-rights movement by taking on militias in general. That could be changing. Three militia groups were successfully sued for unlawful paramilitary activity after the infamous 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And today — with news that Michigan militia members plotted to kidnap a governor while Kansas militia members wanted to blow up a mosque — Burghart thinks that more people are waking up to the potential threat that armed and unaccountable groups pose. “I could spend all day running down the number of militia plots or militia violence this year alone,” Burghart says.

“I could spend all day running down the number of militia plots or militia violence this year alone.” In fact, Council President Breean Beggs points out, the very same section of Washington’s state Constitution that protects the right of individuals to bear arms in self-defense also bans individuals or corporations from organizing an “armed body of men.” A few decades ago, these sorts of anti-militia laws were occasionally used, says Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a nonprofit that tracks far-right groups. In 1981, he says, the Southern Poverty Law Center used a Texas anti-militia law on behalf of Vietnamese fishermen who wanted to stop the Ku Klux Klan’s paramilitary training activities. But since Burghart started tracking right-wing groups in 1993, he says, communities have rarely enforced those anti-militia laws. Even with all the controversies involving anti-government groups in the ’90s — the era of the Ruby Ridge standoff, the Waco siege and the Oklahoma City bombing — those laws weren’t being used. The issue, Burghart speculates, was that many of the activist groups fighting extremists “were narrowly focused on white supremacy and hate groups and the

14 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

DEFINE ‘MILITIA’

“It’s been around for a long time,” Meidl, the police chief, says about the state’s law prohibiting marches by armed groups. During his comments in a committee meeting on Monday, he defended militias against the notion that they were all white supremacists and was skeptical of how enforcing the law would work in practice. “We did some poking around last week. There’s no department [in the state] yet that has enforced this.” That makes things difficult for the police. There’s little in the way of guidance for how the law should be enforced or what burden of proof to apply. “If we see individuals out there, and they have rifles and camouflage gear, is that an element of being a militia?” Meidl asks. “What we’re trying to figure out is how do we ensure that we are honoring the rights of individu-

als, First Amendment, Second Amendment, freedom of assembly, freedom of association” while still following the state prohibition against armed groups, he says. That’s why City Councilman Michael Cathcart, who explicitly condemned white nationalists and violence and intimidation during Monday’s meeting, declined to support the resolution. There’s not enough clarity, he says. “There are just too many questions at this point in time, none of which have been answered very succinctly or clearly at all,” Cathcart says. In a legal analysis, Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell noted that the law still allows for “recognized militia organizations of this state” to parade in public with firearms. State law divides militias into the organized militia (the state National Guard) and the “unorganized militia,” a sweeping term that literally includes every ablebodied man over 18. Haskell argues that even if a militia is “unorganized,” they’re still “recognized.” It’s that rationale that groups ELECTION RESULTS like the 63rd Battalion Washington We’ll have news and analysis in next Lightfoot Militia week’s issue, but in the meantime, use to justify their visit Inlander.com for the very latest existence in a state on local and state races. like Washington. But a Georgetown Law analysis of Washington state law stresses that only the government can activate an unorganized militia. Citizens can’t just decide to start armed paramilitary patrols by themselves. “Even if you are unorganized and not a specific military regiment, you are still under governmental authority,” Burghart says. “You don’t get to play private army, full stop.”

Still, if the city starts cracking down on these groups, that worries local Second Amendment supporters like Tanner Rowe. He argues that militias, like gun owners, vary. Some are shady, but most aren’t bad people. He was open-carrying a pistol during the protests in downtown Spokane, but he was marching in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter cause. He says he knew people armed with rifles who stood outside downtown businesses at the businesses’ request. “I did have businesses that asked me to come down and help,” Rowe says, declining to name the businesses. “I did not.” But he argues that carrying guns in these cases were meant as a deterrent, not an intimidation tactic. “The guys that were downtown, the city said that they were vigilantes, that they were down there causing unrest?” Rowe asks. “Which one of them broke windows, tagged buildings, LETTERS tried to break into somebody’s Send comments to store?” editor@inlander.com. It wasn’t the armed citizens, in other words, who caused the damage during the protests. Yet the downtown business community officially endorsed the council’s resolution. At the meeting Monday night, Mark Richard, with the Downtown Spokane Partnership, enthusiastically supported the ordinance. He says that the DSP was taking this as an opportunity to fervently dispel the damaging and false rumors that they’d solicited help from armed groups. “We feel it’s clear that the presence of groups of individuals with long rifles did in fact intimidate and impede people’s ability to access their freedom of expression,” Richard says. “It looks as though gatherings of this type may be illegal. And I have to wonder if it isn’t for situations just like this — so that people aren’t intimidated from being able to express their views.” n danielw@inlander.com

Your Morning Wake-up Call DON'T MISS BRUNCH AT

come try our new brunch menu on Saturdays and Sundays

AT KENDALL YARDS

1242 W Summit Pkwy, Spokane • (509) 443-4410 • thewanderingtable.com open 7 days a week • Brunch Sat & Sun 9am-3pm

1248 w Summit Pkwy, Spokane • (509) 290-5952 • theyardsbruncheon.com open 7 days a week • 8am-3pm

SPOKANE 822 W Main Ave // 509.266.0000 COEUR D’ALENE 412 N. Haycraft Ave // 208.277.0000

317 E Sherman Ave. CdA, ID • (208) 930-1514 • honeyeateryandsocialclub.com open 7 days a week • 8:30am-8:30pm cosmiccowboy.com

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 15

NEWS | CORONAVIRUS

Hurry Up and Wait Volume 1, 2 & 3: restaurant Guides VOLUME 4: SHOPPING guide 1 VOLUME PRESENTED BY

VOLUME 3 PRESENTED BY

RESTAURA NT

NT RESTAURGA uide

Guide

LITY TING HOSPITA NITY A GUIDE SUPPOR OUR COMMU BUSINESSES IN

SUPPORTING HOSPITALITY BUSINE IN OUR COMMU SSES NITY

TIONS S PARTNER ORGANIZA BACK TO BUSINES

BACK TO BUSINES S PARTNER ORGANIZA TIONS

Spokane County, TO ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

Washington

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

TO THE INLANDER

THE INLANDER

Spokane County,

Washington

AVAILABLE AT:

AN INLANDER COMMUNITY CENTER AT THESE AREA GROCERY STORES

LEARN MORE OR CHECK OUT THE DIGITAL EDITION AT:

BTB.Inlander.com

The Inlander’s Top 5 events for the weekend - delivered to your inbox every Friday

Washington anticipates limited vaccine supply once one becomes available — so who gets it first? BY WILSON CRISCIONE

f everyone has access to a COVID-19 vacto distribute a vaccine. You can target the most cine, it could change everything. It could vulnerable groups or target those most likely protect teachers, health care workers and the to spread the disease. If there’s a shortage in most vulnerable in society. Things could get back the seasonal flu vaccine, for example, officials to some semblance of normalcy. could vaccinate young children and seniors most But whenever a vaccine is approved, a more vulnerable to the flu, or school-aged kids who are likely scenario is this: For the first few months, most likely to spread it in the first place. there’s not enough to go around. Vulnerable “We have a similar question being asked for seniors remain stuck helplessly in long-term care this pandemic,” May says. facilities. Only a portion of health care workers The difference with COVID-19, he says, is are able to get vaccinated, while everyone else that since it’s more dangerous than the seasonal must sit and wait, knowing it will still take awhile flu, the demand for a vaccine will be greater. It before things are normal again. also leaves a smaller margin for error. “That’s exactly the scenario we’re planning for,” says Michele Roberts, who leads the Washington Department of Health’s vaccine planning team. In that scenario, who should get the vaccine first? Washington has a general plan, submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month. But the details are still being decided. The plan — based on frameworks developed by the CDC and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and The details of how Washington would roll out COVID vaccines are still being decided. Medicine — gives first priority to health care workers, first responders, people with underlying health “Every time we prioritize one group,” May issues, older adults in congregate settings and says. “We’re denying, to some extent, another other essential workers. group. And we need to be mindful of that.” That’s a lot of people, however. And the In September, the Trump administration reality is that there won’t be enough vaccine asked states to be ready for a vaccine by Nov. doses for all of them at first, experts say. Roberts 1. States submitted their distribution plans to says the state anticipates receiving somewhere the CDC in mid-October, but those plans will around 300,000 doses of a vaccine in the first change as more is known about a vaccine. few months it’s available. But that wouldn’t be For COVID-19, the most vulnerable are enough to cover even the 500,000 health care elderly individuals with underlying health condiworkers in the state, let alone seniors in longtions. But the current plan has health care workterm care facilities or people with underlying ers likely receiving a vaccine first. May says that health conditions. makes sense because health care workers could Health care workers are still wondering if be spreading the disease, sometimes directly to they’d be first in line for a vaccine. older adults. “The biggest concern is obviously not having “I think you see a set of recommendations enough for all the health care workers, and then that is trying to walk a tightrope of consensus having to determine which health care workers acknowledging both of these values: protecting need to get it first,” says Jane Hopkins, executive the most vulnerable and slowing spread of the vice president of SEIU 1199, a union representdisease,” May says. ing state health care workers. “And then saying, Hopkins, who is also on Gov. Jay Inslee’s ‘We don’t have enough for everyone who needs Safe Start Advisory Group looking specifically at to have it.’” vaccine prioritization, says the thinking behind prioritizing health care workers is that nursing homes and hospitals can be COVID-19 hot Thomas May, a research professor at Washingspots. If there isn’t enough vaccine to protect ton State University with expertise in vaccines all potential hot spots, it at least makes sense to and pandemic planning, says there are two ways protect hospitals and nursing homes.

OFFENSE OR DEFENSE Promote your event! advertising@inlander.com

16 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

“We’re really trying to see it in a way that the people who get [a vaccine] will have the maximum effect of not spreading the virus,” Hopkins says. Still, there likely won’t be enough at first for all health care workers in those hot spots. That’s where more decisions need to be made. Anna Wald, a physician and the director of the University of Washington Virology Research Clinic at Harborview Medical Center, says nurses and people working in emergency rooms and ICUs should be among the very first to get a vaccine. If Washington really does have only 300,000 doses, it may not be enough for herd immunity at any particular hospital, but it will go a long way toward nurses being comfortable going to work. Wald adds, however, that there are other people who work in hospitals. Janitors, too, would be considered high risk. Roberts says the department is waiting for more guidance from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to decide which groups will be recommended for vaccination within the highest priority phase. She adds that the department is reaching out to communities and leaders across the state on this issue. (The Spokane Regional Health District, which last week asked Spokane health officer Bob Lutz to resign, was unavailable to comment to the Inlander regarding its priorities for a COVID-19 vaccine.) “We’re looking at our epidemiological data to help us continue to understand where the risk is the highest,” Roberts says.

THE NEXT PHASE

After a few months, if there is more vaccine supply available, the state may go to a second phase. But the decisions may not get any easier. Teachers, people with underlying conditions and people in homeless shelters or other group settings may have access at that point. The Department of Health wants to ensure there is racial equity among those who have access. People of color, including Native Americans, have been at higher risk to contract COVID-19 and have serious complications due to the disease. Wald says you could make an ethical argument for distributing first to people who are already disproportionately impacted by poverty and underlying conditions. “I think providing a vaccine to those communities first would not be inappropriate. In particular, you have to look carefully at the tribal nations, and there are several in Washington state. They have a high incidence rate and appear to have poor outcomes,” Wald says. May, however, says you can equitably distribute the vaccine without prioritizing certain racial demographics. “Minority populations are overrepresented within essential workers, they’re exposed more. So any of these strategies will end up prioritizing some demographics, even if not prioritized on the basis of their demographic themselves,” May says. Still, people with underlying health conditions make up a large percentage of the population. May says there isn’t enough known about the vaccines yet to know which conditions specifically should give a person first access. At this point, there might be some logic to vaccinating college-aged adults and adults in their 20s, since they have driven the spread of the virus across the country, even if they’re not high risk. That might be worth modeling, to see how that could reduce the spread of the virus, May says. Wald, meanwhile, suggests giving the vaccine to higher-risk populations and taking a different approach with younger adults. “College students, I think they should just be publicly shamed for spreading it,” Wald says. “I don’t know how else to say it.” While these decisions about who should get the vaccine first may be worth having, experts are also worried about something else: that people may simply not take the vaccine. A global poll recently indicated that 71.5 percent of people would be very or somewhat likely to take a COVID-19 vaccine. “Even if we decided that these people or these people are going to get it, it’s about compliance,” Hopkins says. “Are people going to actually take the vaccine? Are they going to trust that it’s actually going to protect them?” n wilsonc@inlander.com

November Spa Special 10% OFF WETLANDS BODY TREATMENT Revive dry skin this fall with our Wetlands Body Treatment. This 60-minute treatment refines the body contours and helps eliminate toxins, leaving a slimmer looking silhouette and smoother skin. 10% OFF FARMHOUSE FRESH PRODUCTS The FarmHouse Fresh product line is created using farm-to-table, organic ingredients that make your skin glow. A women-owned business, their products are proudly made in the USA. Stop by the boutique at Spa Ssakwa’q’n and start saving today!

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK CALL 1 855-232-2772 TO BOOK

W E LC O M E H O M E .

CASINO | HOTEL | DINING SPA | CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF 3 7 9 1 4 S O U T H N U K WA LQ W • W O R L E Y, I D A H O 8 3 8 7 6 1 800-523-2464 • CDACASINO.COM

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 17

NEWS | HEALTH

Unanswered Questions Still unknown: Why was Spokane’s health officer asked to resign during a pandemic? BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

s reporters logged into a last-minute video press conference Friday morning, everyone anxiously waited to learn exactly why the Spokane Regional Health District asked health officer Dr. Bob Lutz to resign. Was it partisan politics, scandal or palace intrigue? It had to be something big, many figured, to fire Lutz in the middle of a pandemic. The start of the press conference was delayed by technical issues for nearly 15 minutes, with the silence broken by intermittently unmuted mics and then a screeching feedback loop as the district’s spokeswoman dealt with audio issues. Finally, Health District administrator Amelia Clark and health board chair Ben Wick moved in front of the camera and, through their face masks, offered less than two minutes of prepared comments. They said Lutz was asked to resign Thursday after Clark spoke with the board about his employee performance during an executive session, which was closed to the public. That was the sum of it. Then reporters started to pepper Clark with questions. Did he step down, or was he fired? Is he still an employee? Who’s running the region’s pandemic response in his place? Repeatedly, Clark answered with some variation of this: “This is a personnel issue, so I cannot go into detail.” In the days since, the number of questions has only grown. As of press time Tuesday, it’s still unclear whether Lutz is technically employed, whether the Spokane region even has an acting health officer, and whether and when the Board of Health will hold a public meeting and vote on whether Lutz should be fired.

RESIGNATION OR TERMINATION?

Even as Clark told all Health District staff members on Friday that Lutz no longer works there — news that was met with tears among some employees who say they were “shocked and devastated” — Lutz had not, in fact, resigned. “To be clear, I have not resigned,” Lutz says in a prepared statement on Saturday afternoon. “The manner, timing and motivation underlying the request I resign is troubling, and I have hired Mr. [Bryce] Wilcox to assist me in pursuing all available legal remedies should the SRHD Board decide to terminate my employment.” Lutz later issued a statement Monday saying Clark told him he was fired “effective immediately” on Thursday afternoon. But confusion remains about whether Clark, the top employee at the district, has that authority, as the Board of Health bylaws state that the board has the power to hire and terminate the health officer. Lutz says in the Monday statement that he was given until 4 pm Friday to sign a severance agreement to “resign” while waiving any claims against the district and

18 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Dr. Bob Lutz has hired a lawyer to fight his termination.

DANIEL WALTERS PHOTO

signing a confidentiality agreement, in exchange for three months’ pay. He did not sign, in part because he does not think “Clark’s actions were justified or lawful.” Now, according to the district’s own rules, the health board must hear from both Clark and Lutz during a public meeting if it wants to fire him. “SRHD acknowledges that this is difficult timing for such a transition. Administrator Amelia Clark would not have sought the employment separation of Dr. Lutz during the COVID 19 pandemic if other viable options were available,” the Saturday news release from the district notes. “Administrator Clark determined that the performance issues were such that they needed to be addressed immediately for the benefit of SRHD and the community.” Many have questioned if the move to push out Lutz was made illegally. However, Washington Coalition for Open Government President Toby Nixon, who sits on the Kirkland City Council, says it’s possible to avoid violating the open meetings act while voicing support during an executive session for an official’s plans to fire someone. Nixon likens it to the Kirkland council’s relationship with its city manager, who has the power to fire all other employees. Theoretically, if there were issues with the police chief, Nixon says, that manager might come to council in executive session to explain why they’re thinking about firing the chief and to ask for feedback. Members could each voice their opinions without voting. “It really comes down to there never being a vote, because there doesn’t need to be a vote because the city manager is the one who has the authority,” Nixon says. “But if the board actually has to approve the firing, that should be done in a public meeting.” That’s where confusion remains with the current situation. The Health District board’s bylaws state that the board has the power to hire and terminate the health officer, but apparently they felt Clark could ask for a resignation without a vote. Spokane County Commissioner Al French, who serves on the health board, says the main concern he’s heard from citizens since Friday is about transparency surrounding the decision. He says that the special health board meeting — unscheduled as of press time — will hopefully offer that clarity for people. “People are crying for transparency right now,” French says. “They will get it.”

PUBLIC OUTCRY

With no details immediately given to the public about what kind of “personnel issues” led to Clark’s belief that Lutz should no longer be health officer, many community groups voiced their anger over the weekend with letters, official statements and even a petition to remove Clark from her job. (As of Tuesday morning, nearly 6,000

people had signed the Change.org petition.) Many say they’ve supported Lutz’s actions throughout the pandemic and note his measured, science-based approach. Some Health District staff members are concerned that undermining the official that the public has been told to trust during the pandemic could create further discord among those already questioning public health guidance. “Dr. Lutz has been the primary SRHD guiding beacon of light and hope, especially in the epidemiological approach to COVID-19,” writes epidemiologist Erin Whitehead, in a letter to the health board. “For countless individuals, Dr. Lutz is the dependable, reliable voice for meaningful, credible guidance and sound reason, and he enables a sense of stability at a very dark time.” Short of learning of some unannounced serious criminal behavior by Lutz, Whitehead writes, “we refuse to believe that anything of a ‘personnel’ nature warrants such an extreme reaction and measure of ‘discipline’ toward the highly-esteemed medical professional, currently leading our disease mitigation response for a deadly virus of epic proportion.” Some in the community wonder if politics might have been the driver. Was Lutz considering moving the county into tighter restrictions, and did that upset members of the board? French does not comment on why Lutz was asked to leave, but says the County Commission is not pushing to move the county forward from Phase 2 of the state’s reopening plan at the moment. Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs, who also sits on the health board, issued a statement questioning who is currently serving as health officer until a board vote can take place. While the district says a doctor who works in another program within the Health District could temporarily help with decisions and orders as needed, Beggs points out that the health board bylaws appear to state that Lutz remains health officer until the board votes to fire him. “I share the requests of the community to have that open public meeting as soon as possible, where each can present their version of events and opinions so that the Board can restore order and credibility at the Health District,” Beggs says in the statement. City Councilwoman Karen Stratton, who also sits on the health board, notes in a statement that “no formal vote” was taken during the executive session, and says she believes in the science-based approach to the pandemic taken by Clark and Lutz so far. “Many have been quick to assume the worst motives of the Board and, incredibly, to assume that the Board and District staff are not guided by science during this pandemic,” Stratton says in her statement. “The accusations unfortunately are a sign of the times we live in. Nonetheless, this remains a personnel matter, not a political issue. I am hopeful that civility and a due regard for the truth will govern future public conversations on this matter.” n samanthaw@inlander.com

ON INLANDER.COM

When the news broke on Friday that the Spokane Regional Health District’s health officer, Dr. Bob Lutz, had been asked to resign by Administrative Officer Amelia Clark, Kyle Unland, the Health District’s former division director of health promotion, felt a rush of déjà vu. “When I saw what happened to Bob, I said, ‘That looks so identical with what happened to me,’” Unland tells the Inlander. Unland was ousted from the agency in February, with Clark eliminating his position through an abrupt reorganization. In July, Unland filed a federal lawsuit. (DANIEL WALTERS)

GET BACK TO BRUNCHIN’! SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS | 9AM – 3PM

Call up your brunch bunch — your favorite special from Three Peaks Kitchen + Bar is back! Fill up on all your favorite breakfast and lunch specials. Don’t forget the mimosas!

SpokaneTribeCasino.com 14300 W SR-2 HWY AIRWAY HEIGHTS, WA 99001 CAUTION: Participation in gambling activity may result in pathological gambling behavior causing emotional and financial harm. For help, please call 1-800-547-6133.

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 19

COMFORT SEASON

20 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Order Online for Pick Up! go.Lavutogo.com/qqsushi • 1902 W. Francis Ave

–OR CALL–

509-279-2721

French Inspired Cuisine

PROFILE

Wiley’s Way Chef Michael Wiley talks about taking over a second restaurant during the pandemic, the importance of teamwork and a positive outlook BY CHEY SCOTT

An Al Capone burger and french fries at Prohibition Gastropub. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

n the middle of a global pandemic that’s had devastating economic impacts on the restaurant industry, Spokane chef Michael Wiley bought a second restaurant. At the beginning of October, the chef and owner of Wiley’s Downtown Bistro on Washington Street added Prohibition Gastropub to his repertoire after the pub’s owners, John and Jill Leonetti, decided to exit the business and move away. “‘You’re insane.’ That has been the overwhelming feedback,” Wiley says during a break at Prohibition on a recent weekday afternoon. “But about 30 percent see it as I do — ‘Wow, that is a great opportunity timing-wise, and if you can figure it out now and make it in these kind of times, when you get to the other side imagine what it will look like,’” he continues. “That is what we hope, when we get through this ‘covidity,’ there will be really great opportunities.” ...continued on next page

110 S MADISON ST | DOWNTOWN SPOKANE Corner of 1st Ave & Madison

Classic French Pastry • Casual Dining Espresso • Beer • Wine

Award winning pastry, breakfast & lunch served daily. 415 W. Main Ave. • (509) 624-2253 • MadeleinesSpokane.com DINE-IN, TAKE-OUT AVAILABLE • See our website for current hours

Dine In Take Out Curbside

BEST ITALIAN

DINNER WED-SAT STARTING AT 5PM

BRUNCH SAT-SUN 9AM to 2PM

509.459.6000 144 S CANNON ST

italiatrattoriaspokane.com

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 21

COMFORT SEASON

CHEF CHATS: MICHAEL WILEY

An abbreviated version of the Inlander’s rapid-fire chef Q&A

“WILEY’S WAY,” CONTINUED... To that end, Wiley and his staff, who gave enthusiastic approval of the expansion, are keeping a positive mindset amid current challenges as restaurants’ seating capacity remains reduced by half and many diners opt to stay home. “Things are what they are. Obviously business is diminished — there’s no way around it — but on the energy side, it’s just another challenge for us as we try to make sense of it and we try to be quickly reactive to any changing circumstance,” Wiley says. “Our teamwork is elevated because when those challenges happen, we just pull together and figure it out,” he continues. “I’ve really, since COVID, started taking the opportunity to use it as a tool to create more positive energy in the face of what is a negative circumstance.” As an example, he recounts how a few days prior, late Sunday, the restaurant had about $900 in sales come in between 8 and 9 pm. Several diners were disgruntled by the slightly slowed-down service due to the unexpected rush. It’s not uncommon, however, for the restaurant to see between $400 and $600 in sales for an entire day of service since he took over. “How do I predict this and have enough staff to be completely full?” he asks. “Everyone here is working to their maximum potential, if not beyond that. Patience and kindness go a long way, but I would encourage that whether in COVID times or not.” Through all the ups and downs, Wiley and his team at both the bistro and gastropub are focused on one goal: providing all guests with a great experience. ...continued on page 24

INLANDER: When did you know you wanted to become a chef? WILEY: I always knew I wanted to have my own restaurants. When I started playing with food at the Spokane Club, I was about 19, and when I got a chance to work on the flambe cart, I thought, “If I can make a good career of being a chef and cooking for a living, and making people happy with what I create, that would be absolutely what I want to do.” It’s always been about creating guest experiences. What’s a dish or ingredient you hated as a kid but love now? Tomatoes, barring all tomato sauces. Fresh tomatoes — I didn’t like them at all, and I love them now; big juicy heirloom tomatoes. And raw fish. I was scared to death of sushi. I had [mental] conditioning in the way; and instead of trusting the world around me, I was trusting the conditioning. Once my mind was ready to open itself up, those experiences of food limitations changed. Favorite guilty pleasure boxed, frozen or fast food meal? Ramen. When I want to make a spicy soup, it’s easy. Name one restaurant in the Inland Northwest you return to over and over again. Fleur de Sel. They crush it out there. It’s so consistently amazing. I have a long list, but if I have to pick a favorite, that’s the one.

Favorite kitchen tool or gadget? Chef knife. But if it’s a gadget, an immersion blender. I like having a deep tool bag, and every tool has a different use. I have three [immersion blenders], and they’re all different and have different purposes. What’s your favorite thing to eat from your own menu? Jalapeno cheddar chicken soup. That is a tough one because there’s now two menus. I rarely take the time to sit down and eat. I’ve had dinner at the bistro twice in almost three years; one for a social media event and one was a birthday dinner with my dad. I just don’t take the time to sit down and enjoy what we cook very often. It’s more about how I get fuel in my body to keep doing this, so quick food and tastes as we go to make sure things taste good. But day in and day out how do I feed myself quickly? It’s soup and sandwiches. Where would you travel just for the food, and why? Japan. It’s such a different approach to food, and mostly it’s an area I have the least amount of knowledge in, so I’d garner the most from it. What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef? Right now it would be construction or mental health, psychology, and figuring out how to help people. I also like to create things, so for me construction is a big one. Describe the Inland Northwest’s culinary culture in one word. Diverse. n

Season Favorites for the Holidays!

913 East Sharp Ave • (509) 487-2937 • cloverspokane.com 22 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 23

Here to Serve, whatever the occasion!

COMFORT SEASON

BRUNCH • LUNCH DINNER • TAKE-OUT TUE – SUN 11:30am – CLOSE

1914 N MONROE • 509.474.9040

At our Spokane Valley restaurant, we serve our customers with a carefully crafted menu and well-stocked bar. Whether for business or pleasure, we invite you to enjoy our warm hospitality.

Chef Michael Wiley of Wiley’s Downtown Bistro and Prohibition Gastropub.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“WILEY’S WAY,” CONTINUED...

Open Tues–Sat 11am – 8pm

106 N EVERGREEN RD | 509-443-3841 | vintagevinesbistro.com

“So, how can we do a great job and make great food and offer great service and cocktails in a pretty environment, and how do we make everyone feel special,” he says. As Prohibition’s new leader, Wiley isn’t looking to change much, if anything, right off the bat. He acknowledges there could be a name change in the future, and that he’ll gradually put his own culinary spin on the casual, pub-focused menu he inherited from the Leonettis. One entirely new option for the restaurant just introduced, for example, is weekend brunch, served on Saturday and Sunday from 9 am to 2 pm, with a menu ranging from gluten-free poutine to mimosas. Having retained the culinary staff at Pro-

hibition through the transition, Wiley says the regular menu is being prepared by experienced hands who know its recipes better than him. That’s allowed him to somewhat more easily split his time between the two spots, although he says he’s still back and forth between each several times a day, and typically working 80 hours or more a week. “At Wiley’s I’m still a predominant force on the line, so it’s harder to walk away from there because I don’t have the depth of players” like at Prohibition, he says. “So I’m working [downtown] three to five nights a week. When I walk away from [the gastropub], I have zero doubt it’s going to be done in a way that is no less than exceptional.” n

TRADITIONAL DINNER ON THANKSGIVING ns Seating from 11AM-4PM, reservatio tters pla ily fam ner din key encouraged, tur available for take out, menu @ shawnodonnells.com lity Come in and enjoy our Irish Hospita

& delicious food

719 N MONROE ST. • SPOKANE • 24 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

509

326-7251

4 Spokane Locations

DeLeonsTacoandBar.com

DITCH THE DISHES. Gather with family and friends around one of our tables this holiday season – and leave the rest to us. Make reservations for a culinary journey at Masselow’s Steakhouse, meet up at EPIC, or enjoy the Asian specialties at Fai’s Noodle House.

We’ve got your holiday shopping covered as well with Northern Quest gift cards, good for all of their favorite things. Available at northernquest.com and at any Northern Quest venue.

The region’s sweetest holiday tradition is celebrating its 16th year with a virtual build-oﬀ, DIY mini gingerbread house kits, a scavenger hunt and more! Details at northernquest.com Brought to you by:

Beneﬁting:

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 25

COMFORT SEASON

Elegant Holiday Dining with

It’s hard to beat the pies at Made With Love Bakery. COURTESY MADE WITH LOVE BAKERY

MAKE RESERVATIONS FOR

THANKSGIVING & CHRISTMAS

limited menu, seated dining experience from 11am to 8pm

NEW YEAR’S DAY BRUNCH Located at: Mirabeau Park Hotel 1100 N Sullivan Rd • Spokane Valley 509.922.6252 • mirabeauparkhotel.com 6am to 11pm Sun-Thurs; 6am to midnight Fri and Sat

PIE

4334 S Regal St www.izumi-spokane.com • 509.443.3865 Count on us to hel� you create a safe

and memorable holiday event.

Breakfast Lunch Dinner

Box lunches also available

BlackTieCateringNW.com • 509-924-9600

26 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

A Slice of Life The Inland Northwest’s pie purveyors have got you covered for either a holiday gathering or socially distanced treat for yourself

BY DAN NAILEN

or the truly dedicated pie lovers of the world, having a slice and a cup of joe is an activity not bound to seasons or time of day. But it’s certainly true that the holidays add great numbers of pie eaters to our ranks, thanks to Thanksgiving gatherings, Christmas parties and myriad potlucks in between. This year’s gatherings are going to be smaller in size and number (if we’re being smart about it, anyway), but the delights of perfect apple pie ala mode (or pumpkin pie slathered in whipped cream or pecan pie or Boston cream pie or rhubarb or, well, you get the idea) remain no matter

what the coronavirus does to our social lives. Hell, I can socially distance even better with an abundance of pie on hand! More slices for me! You don’t even have to bake the pies yourself, because the Inland Northwest has a bunch of places offering awesome pies for you to take home. Whether or not you share the goodness is up to you. Here are a few local options:

MADE WITH LOVE BAKERY 2023 W. Dean Ave., mwlbakery.com, 919-0041 This diminutive shop in Spokane’s West Central neighborhood is a labor of love for

owner Callie Johnson, and you can taste the love in every treat that comes out of her oven. You might want to dive into one of her pop tarts, scones or cookies if you swing by for a cup of coffee, but don’t skip the pie, because Johnson makes a seriously great one. Her crust is incredible. Some offerings come and go with the seasons (if you missed the peach blackberry, you really missed out), but you can always order up apple, pumpkin, pecan, apple blackberry or triple berry for $18-$28 each for a whole pie. Watch the website or contact Johnson for what’s available for your holiday table.

BEAN & PIE

504 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene, beanandpie.com, 208-930-4065 The crumb is key at Bean & Pie. Owners Katy and Ethan Bean are true believers that crumb is the way to top a tasty pie, and it’s hard to argue once you’ve tried their salted caramel apple pie with that delicious crumbly lid, or the “crumpkin,” i.e., pumpkin pie with that buttery crumb up top. Try the quad choco or peanut butter cup if you’re looking for something sweet and different, but it’s hard for me to resist the berry crumb. All the pies are made to order, and range from $14 to $32 depending on the size; their 6-inch pies serve 2-4 people, while their 10-inch pies serve 8-10.

We’re here for you.

thaibamboorestaurant.com

VOTED #1 BEST THAI 15 YEARS IN A ROW

1003 N. Spokane St., Post Falls, birdiespies.com, 208-457-7004 Taco pie? Pina Colada pie? Spaghetti pie? Don’t knock ’em til you try ’em, and Birdie’s is so tasty you’ll want to try everything on their vast menu of sweet, savory and specialty pies. Ranging from $5 personal-size pies up to $32 for full-size wonders, there’s something for everyone here, whether you’re a traditionalist craving apple pie or the classic pecan, or someone who likes to get a little wild with, say, the pulled pork mac-andcheese pie. You can’t go wrong showing up to a party with any of Birdie’s best work.

We appreciate you! Please join us for

Thanksgiving & Christmas Dinner

PATTI’S PIES

1729 W. Siena Ln. (pickup only), pattispies.com, 220-7640 You can go for classic flavors like apple, cherry and rhubarb, and you can’t go wrong. And of course the huckleberry pie is a regional favorite. But take a gander at Patti’s specialty pies for something a little different, from a fudge brownie pie to a huckleberry cheesecake pie. Depending on the size and style, pies range from $9 to $25, and you can also pick up some “pandies” — i.e., small handheld pies in a variety of flavors, for just $2 a pop.

12622 E. Sprague Ave., Spokane Valley, conleysplacerestaurant.com, 924-5411 At Conley’s, the pie magic isn’t limited to the cream and fruit delights you can find every day of the week. They also offer some killer quiche and pot pies, too. But I’m here to praise the classics, like the to-die-for Dutch apple and banana cream, as well as their creative efforts like the peanut butter chocolate pie and the towering Mile High Lemon Meringue. The pies are made fresh daily, range from $12 to $15, and are available year-round except for the seasonal pumpkin and mince — lucky for you, the pumpkin is available now and mince will be before Thanksgiving.

CHAPS DINER AND BAKERY

4237 S. Cheney-Spokane Rd., chapsgirl.com, 624-4182 Celeste Shaw’s cafe and bakery is a true treasure in the region. If you pop in Chaps for breakfast, it’s pretty much impossible not to be tempted into adding one of the baked goodies on display to your meal — or to your doggie bag to munch on later. Pies are among the magical creations coming out of the kitchen, and Chaps’ key lime pie and lemon cloud pie, both available for $18, stand out from the crowd of delicious Inland Northwest pies. n

1931 W. Pacific Ave. 363-1973 • wedonthaveone.com

Thank you to our customers who have been so supportive during this crazy covid nightmare.

BIRDIE’S PIE SHOP

CONLEY’S PLACE AND PIONEER PIES BAKERY

Making the term Public House sound good since 1999.

11 AM – 7 PM

We’d love to celebrate this holiday season with you! DON’T FORGET YOUR MASK! (509) 862-4852 • storminnormansshipfacedsaloon.com

The

Holiday season

is upon us

and it’s time to celebrate at Spokane’s most unique dining location!

Please call 509-777-3900 for reservations | steamplantspokane.com | 159 S Lincoln St, Spokane

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 27

COMFORT SEASON

909 W 1ST AVE STE. 11:00am-8:00pm 7 days a week

#EatINW

Dining in Just Got Tastier Add effortless, innovative flavors to your meals.

Place your order at spiceology.com

Wood Fired Pizza

NORTH IDAHO

Smoked filet mignon from Sandpoint’s Forty-One South.

COURTESY FORTY-ONE SOUTH

Celebrating Together

Fine dining options abound in North Idaho, with plenty of hearty, special dishes planned for winter BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

f there’s anything people are likely to cling to in this uncertain year of unprecedented challenges, it’s small traditions involving food. Going to your favorite fine dining restaurant and splurging for an anniversary or setting up a surprise meal for that special someone’s birthday can bring a sense of normalcy to an otherwise abnormal year. While North Idaho restaurants were shuttered along with other businesses for a few weeks this spring, fine dining establishments saw the return of their customers (and then some) this summer as the state loosened its pandemic restrictions. While some meats and produce were at times difficult to get on a reliable basis,

28 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

chefs now say they’re back on track delivering the unforgettable dishes customers have come to expect. There are still guidelines in place to keep patrons farther away from one another, and masks should be worn on the way to and from your table, but the upscale atmosphere and exceptional service expected at a nice dinner can still be found throughout the region. Just don’t forget to make a reservation, as they’re now more important than ever. At FLEUR DE SEL in Post Falls, owners Patricia and Laurent Zirotti have kept a close eye on sanitation and safety measures as they welcome back guests.

“We are a special occasion restaurant,” Patricia Zirotti says. “That means also our clientele could be a little older, so we need to be safe for those who still feel comfortable enough to go out. It’s our duty to make them comfortable and be as safe as possible.” Menus that might have been printed on heavy card stock before are now laminated, to make it easy to sanitize them. Leftovers have to be boxed up by the customer for now, instead of staff. Being French, Zirotti says she dearly misses hugging and kissing her customers, and lingering at tables to enjoy some conversation, but she hopes that safety measures will help things return to normal sooner than later. With a few people, she’s had to emphasize that mask requirements and the extra sanitation are all meant to keep the customers, their loved ones, and the owners and their staff safe.

Dine In Outdoor Dinin Reservat g ions Takeout

Your Liberty Lake dining destination for amazing food made with fresh ingredients 21706 E Mission Ave •

(509)

926-2310 • hayjsbistro.com

River Park Square (509) 456-TOYS

Guaranteed to Impress Laurent Zirotti, chef of Post Falls’ Fleur de Sel.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“We’re hands-on owners, and my husband and I are not 20 anymore,” Zirotti says. “I’ve never seen my husband on the sideline in 12 years. No matter what, we just work; we have to work. That would be disastrous if one of us was sick.” So while things may feel a tad different, customers can still splurge on decadent, French dishes like duck confit, lamb cheeks, airline chicken breast with truffles and more.

o the north in Sandpoint, with expansive views overlooking Lake Pend Oreille, is FORTY-ONE SOUTH, which Cassandra Cayson has owned for 10 years. No, the name isn’t a confused latitude, but instead based on the restaurant’s address on Lake Shore Drive at the south end of the Long Bridge. Luckily, the restaurant weathered this summer well, as most dining during those months is already outside on a massive patio that can seat close to 150 people, Cayson explains. But for winter, there’s still plenty of seating inside the spacious location, which features multiple fireplaces and a warm, inviting atmosphere. “It’s professional service, but it’s also very welcoming,” Cayson says. “It’s upscale, but North Idaho upscale.” Cayson describes the seasonally changing menu as innovative modern American food, with about half the menu changing with the weather to focus on warmer, heartier dishes as winter sets in. A new saffron risotto with butternut squash is one of her favorites on the current menu. Other popular items include a smoked filet mignon, which is cold smoked in house, and the Stone Harbor crab bisque, both of which remain on the menu year-round, she says. In Coeur d’Alene, even with the loss of lunch service, BEVERLY’S has been booming this year, with many clients likely coming from across the border in Washington, sous chef Taylor Wolters says. The pandemic has given the fine restaurant inside the resort a bit of an identity crisis, Wolters explains, as the focus that had been spread out over lunch, banquets, dinner and room service has largely dialed in toward room service and dinners. But that has also enabled some extra creative time, he says. ...continued on next page

Special Holidays start with Special Foods

office luncheons, holiday meals and festive treats (509) 458-5234 | 421 S Cowley, Spokane | feryscatering.com

Serving the Spokane area for over 30 years!

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 29

COMFORT SEASON “CELEBRATING TOGETHER,” CONTINUED... “We’re always trying to keep things interesting and changing, and we definitely have the time now to put a little more care into guest requests,” Wolters says. “The other night, somebody wanted to do like a five-course tasting menu for her husband’s birthday, and that was something we were able to do without any issues.” The restaurant has maintained some crowd favorites that people tend to look forward to, including Hawaiian ahi tuna, scallops and different steaks. “But trying to kind of break some of those boundaries a little bit and bring something new to the table is definitely something that I’ve been kind of focused on and working towards,” Wolters says. With a great season this year for mushrooms, the restaurant expects to be able to serve a mushroom risotto with honey-roasted root vegetables and Brussel sprouts throughout this fall and winter. Likewise, this year was great for wild salmon, Wolters says, and that popular item that typically would need to be phased out already is likely to remain on the menu throughout the year. “We really want to go out of our way to make those special occasions happen as best they can,” Wolters says.

n Moscow, LODGEPOLE owners Alex and Melissa Barham were able to use some pandemic downtime to do small upgrades to their floors and bring in more plant life as they spaced tables further apart, chef Alex Barham explains. “Our building is kind of a really cool, historic

30 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Melissa and Alex Barham own Lodgepole in Moscow.

BROOKE FITTS PHOTO

building that’s 90-plus years old,” he says. Similar to other restaurants, Lodgepole stopped brunch and earlier-in-the-day meal service to focus on dinner during this time. Most of the dishes utilize local, Pacific Northwest ingredients and style, but there’s also a blend of Mexican spices and flavors with the influence of Melissa’s family background, he says. Indeed, Barham says he’s a fan of everything on the menu, but the dish he returns to most is a panroasted chicken made R E S TA U R A N T with an achiote glaze FINDER that was originally Looking for a new place to inspired by a dish Meeat? Search the region’s lissa’s mother makes. most comprehensive bar “Our pan-roasted and restaurant guide at chicken has been on Inlander.com/places. the menu from the beginning and will never go anywhere,” Barham says. “It’s not super spicy; it’s nice and sweet. It works so well, and it creates that idea we’re trying to do of merging those flavors with these ingredients.” The restaurant also occasionally offers special dining opportunities including chef collaborations with wineries, breweries and specialty food item providers throughout the region. These limited-seating events are posted in advance on Lodgepole’s social media pages where diners can also find out how to buy tickets. “That’s a great thing that not really any of the other restaurants around us do,” Barham says. “It’s great to see people so passionate about the same industry.” n

NOW OPEN Experience our newly reimagined restaurant Chinook. Chef Adam Hegsted has expertly crafted an all-new menu featuring gourmet cuisines like his bone-in ribeye, clams, filet with lobster tail, chocolate dome and much more. Make your reservations today!

W E LC O M E H O M E .

CASINO | HOTEL | DINING | SPA | CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF 3 7 9 1 4 S O U T H N U K WA LQ W • W O R L E Y, I D A H O 8 3 8 7 6 • 1 8 0 0 - 5 2 3 - 2 4 6 4 • C D A C A S I N O . C O M

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 31

Cold days call for a hearty breakfast

COMFORT SEASON RECIPE

Holiday Heat

BREAKFAST SERVED Mon-Fri 8am-11am Sat-Sun 8am-Noon

DINE IN • TAKE OUT

GO.LAVUTOGO.COM/SOUTHHILLGRILL 2808 E 29TH AVE — 509-536-4745 •

—

Spokane chef Jon Green shares his family’s recipe for stuffed Hungarian wax peppers, a Wooden City favorite

BY LAUREN GILMORE

CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS WITH FRIENDS

OUR GIFT CARDS MAKE GREAT PRESENTS! 11AM - 10PM MON - THU • 11AM - 11PM FRI • 9AM -11PM SAT • 9AM - 10PM SUN 1803 NORTH HARVARD RD • LIBERTY LAKE • TRUELEGENDSGRILL.COM • 509-892-3077

DINE IN

TAKE-OUT

404 W Main Ave | (509) 315-4613 | Open 7 days a week 12pm-9pm

A family favorite turned Wooden City restaurant staple. JON GREEN PHOTO

32 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

hile many things are different about the holidays this year, one thing is the same: We’ll still want to eat. If you’ve been cooking at home more since COVID-19’s onset, you may be getting to the end of your repertoire. Branch out by trying these delicious, personalizable stuffed peppers. Chef Jon Green, a recent Spokane transplant and co-owner of the newly opened Wooden City restaurant downtown, adapted this recipe from a similar dish he once prepared at a restaurant where he worked in high school. “My mom actually worked there as well,” Green says of the place, which closed 15 years ago. “Because of how much our family liked them, they just integrated themselves into our celebrations,” he continues. “Any time there was a special occasion, you knew someone was going to bring a plate of these. My family always celebrates the holidays, but we’ve never been super traditional about anything. So, making these peppers became our tradition. You make a big platter, and everyone grabs one and eats with their hands. It’s super fun and tasty.” In the spirit of sharing, Green is now gifting Inlander readers the recipe for his stuffed Hungarian wax peppers, which are a favorite dish at both Spokane and Tacoma Wooden City locations. “People are just blown away by them,

because it’s a stuffed pepper but in a way people haven’t seen before,” Green says. “It’s so many people’s favorite, and it all started with our family learning this from a small restaurant we worked at in Ohio.” Green’s stuffed peppers are a great dish to make at home, because there are so many ways to make it your own. “It’s pretty flexible to whatever your personal taste is. My mom makes hers with chorizo and manchego. I like Italian sausage and sharp cheddar.” The recipe Green provides reflects this malleability, with many of the ingredients up for your own interpretation and expression. Other ingredients, however, are more fixed. “Wax peppers work the best, but you could use a banana pepper or Cubanelle peppers. There’s just something about the wax pepper that makes it truly what it is. They’re harder to find here, but in Ohio they were everywhere,” Green says. “The chive oil and fresh ciabatta are crucial.” For those who do decide to try their hand at these, don’t stress too much about drink pairings, or even other dishes on the menu. “It’s a good one to have with beer or white wines,” Green says. “We came from a humble background and never spent very much on drinks. For holidays, we would drink whatever was there.” n

STUFFED HUNGARIAN WAX PEPPERS Recipe by Jon Green, Wooden City INGREDIENTS Peppers:

~10 Hungarian wax peppers 1-2 pounds sausage (your choice: sweet or hot Italian, chorizo, or blend) 8 ounces cream cheese 2 cups grated cheese (again, you’ve got choices: sharp cheddar, pepperjack, Manchego, or blend) pinch of salt pinch of red chili flakes ciabatta bread for serving Chive oil: 1 pint canola or vegetable oil 1 handful of chives pinch of salt

INSTRUCTIONS

In advance: u Make the chive oil by blending together chives, canola oil and salt. Pour contents into a container and store covered in the fridge. The oil is usable immediately, but the flavor improves after sitting in the fridge overnight. Chive oil will stay good in the fridge for up to two weeks. To prepare the stuffed peppers: u Temper the cream cheese.

u Cook and brown the sausage in the oven or in a skillet on the stove. Cool to room temperature, drain off the fat and crumble. u With the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, combine the cooked sausage, tempered cream cheese, grated cheese, salt and chili flakes. Mix until evenly combined, but be careful not to overmix. If you don’t have a mixer, mix with gloved hands. u Cut a slit horizontally across the pepper near the stem. (Do NOT cut all the way through.) Then, cut a slit vertically down the pepper. Hold the cut pepper open and carefully remove the seeds. u Stuff the peppers with the prepared stuffing. u Roast in a preheated oven on a baking sheet at the hottest setting your oven will go* for 6-10 minutes. *A note from Green on temperature: “At Wooden City, we cook in the wood-fired oven at about 800 degrees Fahrenheit. We love when the peppers get blistered, but the filling doesn’t melt out. When I cook at home, I start my oven at 500 degrees and then finish with the broiler setting to get the peppers blistered. Be careful cooking at this temperature; it’s quite a bit hotter than most recipes will call for.” u When the peppers are almost done, pop fresh ciabatta bread into the oven to toast. u Serve peppers dressed in the chive oil. Eat with plenty of ciabatta bread. n

full bar dine in takeout delivery dine in or takeout-10 n post spokane wa

orderstart.com/cochinito or call (509) 474-9618 delivery via treehousespokane.com / (509) 290-6218

Mangrove Café & Bakery Located in a charming remodeled home. Enjoy your meal in the extensive gardens. weather permitting

Featuring in-house baked goods, specializing in authentic Thai cuisine and international dishes Prices & items are subject to change

HOURS Tue – Sat 9am – 2pm / 5pm – 8pm (Reserve by 2PM) 509 926-2519| www.mangrovespokane.com | /mangrovespokane 18 N Bowdish Rd | Spokane Valley

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 33

COMFORT SEASON R

Spokane’s Premier Dining Experience

Family Pasta Pans (feeds 6) at 50% OFF normal menu prices! TEXT “tell me more” to (509) 435-5915

Dine in • Delivery • Carryout ItalianKitchenSpokane.com • 509 363-1210 • 113 N Bernard

Full Bar

Happy Hour 3pm-5pm

Open Tues-Sun

1924 West Pacific Ave • brownes-bistro.com • 509-315-8861

DRINKS

Seasonal Sips Monday | Tuesday

barkrescuepub.com | 509.418.2551

A selection of local beers, ciders and wintry cocktails that to make your winter wonderful BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

OPEN DAILY FOR

LUNCH & DINNER

(509) 368-9372 UMISPOKANE.COM 1309 W SUMMIT PKWY

34 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

ne of the most crucial elements of the holiday season is the food — the ham, the turkey, the mashed potatoes and gravy, and all the other fixings. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving or Christmas without those traditional dishes, and the communal atmosphere that they inspire. But if you’re going to splurge on a hearty, nap-inducing meal, it only seems right that you’d want to pair it with a similarly decadent alcoholic beverage: a creamy ale, an acidic cider, or an aperitif that pulls all the seasonal flavors together. When you’re looking to fill your glasses in the coming months and want to keep it local, here are a few new releases, special batches and seasonal favorites from local breweries, cideries and distilleries.

BELLWETHER BREWING CO.

This local beer spot, founded a little over five years ago in the Emerson-Garfield neighborhood, has already gained a reputation for its innovative flavors that come in small batches. As far as their holiday-related offerings go, consider the new Nightshade braggot (a variety of mead made from barley malt and honey), which is described on Bellwether’s social media as “the V8 of beers.” Don’t believe that? Consider the list of ingredients, which includes heirloom tomatoes, avocado honey and jalapenos, so it has a kick of spice to it that’ll keep you warm as the temperatures start to plummet. And at 9.4% ABV, it should keep you plenty toasty. Bellwether is also rolling out a new red ale with

LOCALLY OWNED & OPERATED

Whistle Punk Brewing has a full lineup of fresh tastiness. DEREK HARRISON PHOTO

DINE IN • TAKE-OUT • DRIVE-THRU

11003 E SPRAGUE AVE • 509-598-8927 • CRIMSONHEARTH.COM

DINNER IS SERVED! Entree, sides and dessert

enough to feed a family of four (or more)!

Order yours online today

SWEETLOUSIDAHO.COM the J.R.R. Tolkien-inspired name of Red Book of WestMarch, and a glass of its malty, caramel-y goodness would be best enjoyed while roasting around an open fire.

WHISTLE PUNK BREWING

Whistle Punk’s basement tasting room is one of the cozier downtown locales, the perfect hangout for when you want to bundle up on a cold winter’s eve and imbibe a bit. The brewery just dropped a hazelnut brown ale that should pair well with falling leaves and crisper weather, and Thanksgiving will bring about a new batch of their popular Festivus Ale. Named, of course, for the Christmas alternative made popular on Seinfeld, the holiday IPA was concocted a few winters ago as a tribute to a famed Sierra Nevada beer called Celebration, but it has built its own following. Also, keep your eyes peeled for a scotch ale brewed with maple syrup, which will certainly make your holidays all the merrier.

ONE TREE CIDER

This local cidery really leans into the holiday spirit, and we’re all the better for it. Among their seasonal releases is a cranberry cider, which should pair perfectly with any traditional Thanksgiving meal and has all the puckery tartness of a bottle of Ocean Spray. (If you opt

for the alcoholic version, stay away from skateboards if you’re inclined to re-create that popular TikTok video.) One Tree also has a signature flavor called Snowglobe, which starts selling in November. With notes of berry and cinnamon, it tastes like they somehow bottled the very essence of the holidays. But what makes it truly special is the food-grade glitter that falls like Christmas morning snow inside the bottle. Winter wonderland, indeed.

SWEET LOU’S RESTAURANT & BAR HWY 95 N PONDERAY | 208.263.1381

SWEET LOU’S RESTAURANT & TAP HOUSE 601 FRONT AVE. | 208.667.1170 | DOWNTOWN CDA

COCKTAILS

As far as cocktails go, Post Falls’ Up North Distillery has a series of apple-flavored cocktails on its menu, including an apple pie mimosa and an applejack old fashioned, both of which complement any number of fall flavors. Lil’ Sumthin, the western-themed saloon, has pivoted to delivery and to-go orders in lieu of in-person clientele, and their menu is overflowing with delicious craft cocktails perfect for this time of year — maple-based hot toddies and old fashioneds, and pumpkin martinis. But the most seasonal of the lot is their Carrizo cider and maple old fashioned, which is not only rounded out by cider spices and cinnamon but has the option of being served inside a mini pumpkin and delivered right to you. You really can’t get more seasonal than that. n

Scratch utilizes the freshest, organic and locally-sourced ingredients to prepare unique and tantalizing meals. Our menu changes often to showcase a constantlychanging variety of specialty items.

TO-GO Orders • (509) 456-5656 ( Uber Eats, Postmates, or Treehouse)

1007 W 1st Ave

SCRATCHSPOKANE.COM

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 35

LOVE DOCUMENTARY

CONQUERS ALL Susan Polis Schutz was horrified by the rise of hate in America, and it inspired her new film about White supremacy survivors BY DAN NAILEN

ike many Americans, Susan Polis Schutz found herself at her breakfast table many mornings over the past few years, shocked at what she was reading in her newspaper. Violent crimes based on racial animus. Massive rallies of Nazi-saluting, khaki-clad “patriots.” Statements from the highest levels of U.S. government ranging from outright racist diatribes to subtle nods to believers in White supremacy. As a writer and what she terms a “socially conscious filmmaker,” Schutz finally reached a level of sadness, confusion and concern that she only knows how to address one way — by turning her camera on. At first, she interviewed people still involved in hate

36 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

groups, prejudiced against certain races and religions, and she was frustrated at her subjects’ lack of understanding of how their beliefs could be considered “hateful.” “Then I read an article about one of the guys I’d interview [later], and he was now an ex-White supremacist and he’d completely changed,” Schutz says from her Colorado home. “Now he’s helping people get out of the White supremacy movement, or just helping people overcome pain. I thought that was incredible. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I can talk to him and see if there’s a reason he changed, and how he changed.’” That first five-hour sit-down with Arno Michaelis, former lead singer of hate-metal band Centurion and a founder of Wisconsin-based hate group the Northern

Hammerskins, gave Schutz “so much insight” into both the world of organized hate and the community of former White supremacists working to extinguish hate in the states. She decided to focus her next documentary on the people who were once deeply involved in the hate movement, but have moved on and now work to help others escape. The resulting film, Love Wins Over Hate, debuts locally on PBS Nov. 10, and dives deeply into the stories of six men and women who were sucked into White supremacist groups across the country, but found their way out, sometimes with the help of mentors like Michaelis, and sometimes just by coming to their senses on their own. ...continued on page 38

Our all-local business directory and online marketplace helps you find new ways to live local.

StRENgthen Our LocaL Economy

Live â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Online Local Marketplace V I S I T L I V E LO C A L I N W . C O M

CoNnect with com MunitY s u p Po r t o u R NEighborS

B RO U G H T TO YO U BY

This program is funded by the City of Spokane with CARES Act dollars.

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 37

CULTURE | DOCUMENTARY “LOVE CONQUERS ALL,” CONTINUED... “I make a film so I can better understand,” Schutz says. Her past films have addressed issues like homelessness, aging, anxiety and depression. “I kept interviewing these people, and I found how they changed, and it gave me hope that other people can change. I wanted the viewers to understand what hatred is, how horrible it is, even to the person who’s the hater.”

chutz might not be the most natural person to delve into the hate movement — “I don’t even know anybody that hates people,” she says — but the best-selling author, mother of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and award-winning filmmaker manages to get incredibly revealing and candid stories out of her subjects. “I was very, very scared about meeting [Michaelis]. I had to overcome my own prejudice. I don’t know what I expected; a big thug who was going to attack me? But as you can see in the movie, every one of these people was so sensitive and empathetic.” Of course, that’s not where their stories started. For Chris Buckley, a childhood of being physically and sexually abused eventually led him, after a stint in the Army, to become a leader in the Georgia White Nights of the Ku Klux Klan. For Shannon Foley Martinez, a childhood rape led her to a “hatred of everything,” and made her an easy recruit into a violent White supremacist group as a teenager. For Michaelis, it was a childhood dominated by his father’s drinking problem. For Timothy Zaal, joining the White Aryan Resistance gave him a family that valued him more than his own. For Christian Picciolini, joining an Illinois hate group as a teenager was part of his search for “identity, community and purpose.” “Every single one of them had some type of dysfunctional family,” Schutz says. “Now, that alone doesn’t make you hate

38 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Shannon Foley Martinez, right, is now an anti-hate activist. other people. But it was the one thing they all had in common, whether it was physical abuse or mental abuse. Most of them had been bullied when they were younger. Most of them felt they did not fit in anywhere. And most of them are confused and don’t know what they’re doing with their life.”

n Love Wins Over Hate, they all discuss how White supremacist groups essentially preyed on their traumas and sold them on a hate-filled vision for their futures. “We basically thought that we would be agents in the breakdown of society and that we would be fighting to build this Aryan White state,” Martinez, a former neo-Nazi, explains in the film. The film subjects’ paths out of hate groups vary some, but nearly all were inspired by self-doubt, a sense that all they were being taught to believe about hating people was somehow off. For Michaelis, his depression despite literal “rock star status” in the hate movement led him to start questioning things, and when he became a father he knew he needed to change. For Zaal, the Holocaust denial prevalent in hate groups led him to realize they weren’t dealing in facts, just bigotry. Picciolini says once he started

MORE ONLINE

You might have heard the president deriding them at one of his campaign stops, or heard friends debating the ideas, but what exactly do people mean when they talk about "white privilege" or "critical race theory?" Writer Lauren Gilmore talked to several local academics about the language of race — find her story online at inlander.com/culture.

questioning a few things about his hate community, he started questioning everything. Michaelis ultimately helped Buckley leave the KKK and also become an anti-hate activist, and each of the subjects in Schutz’s film are working to eradicate hate, albeit in different ways. Zaal is now an alcohol and drug counselor and consults with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, while Michaelis works with students through a group called Serve2Unite. Picciolini won an Emmy for producing an anti-hate advertising campaign. Hearing them tell their stories, from their violent pasts to hopeful futures free of hate, makes for an engrossing hourlong film. “Their whole goal in life now is to help people change,” Schutz says. “They’ll do whatever it takes, and they are so honest about what happened in the movement.” n Love Wins Over Hate airs locally on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 10 pm on KSPS, Channel 7.

Shop Early, Shop Safe, Shop Local Boo�Radley’s Uncommon�Gifts

232�N.�Howard�.�456-7479 across�from�the�carousel

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 39

CULTURE | DIGEST

Why I D.I.Y. REAL POLICE CORRUPTION Bosch (Amazon Prime) is another serialized cop show with a gruff line-crossing detective at its center. With six seasons streaming, it’s the perfect show to watch in the background while doing dishes or folding laundry. One thing it does well is, instead of merely focusing on good cops who break rules because it’s the only way to get a conviction or bad cops who extort suspects, it showcases more common forms of corruption that police departments undertake. For example, police leadership — concerned about public perception and departmental morale — pressures an officer to handle reports of an unethical cop’s behavior quietly “in-house” instead of filing a complaint. (DANIEL WALTERS)

BY CHEY SCOTT

crolling through my Instagram feed, I always pause on a satisfying before/after DIY home project, often finding both the inspiration and confidence to tackle my next home refresh. While many of the home decor and DIY accounts I follow are run by women like me — savvy do-ityourselfers on a budget, often turning to thrifting and repurposing before buying new — a recent project I undertook got me deeply thinking about how unsustainable the constant pressure to give our spaces the HGTV treatment can be. While experts say renovating is more eco-friendly than tearing down an existing home or building new (I found little out there on the impact of more frequent remodels), what if we viewed home updates more from a historic preservation perspective? We might not agree that every decade of home design trends deserves to be showcased with pride (ahem, the 1980s-1990s...), yet homes from the 1960s and back with original features

THE BUZZ BIN

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST Some noteworthy new music hits online and in stores Nov. 6. To wit: KYLIE MINOGUE, Disco. Still knocking out the dancefloor killers. ALTER BRIDGE, Walk The Sky 2.0. Local Myles Kennedy and crew deliver an EP of six live cuts and one new tune written and recorded during the pandemic. NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE, Return to Greendale. A live set from Young’s 2003 tour supported his much-maligned (by me, at least) Greendale album. (DAN NAILEN)

40 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

intact remain desirable and livable pieces of history. It’s with this mindset I recently decided to tackle the arduous (and long overdue) task of repainting our cozy, 1947-built rancher’s kitchen. You should know that pretty much everything in the space is original to the home: the cabinets, enameled cast iron sink, asbestos floor tiles, lack of a dishwasher (or space for one), pale blue, faux-marble formica countertops and the teeny-tiny square footage. Painting the walls and baseboards (also original) was easy enough, and I did that first. The cabinets and drawer fronts, however, had me stumped. Not feeling confident using (or wanting to deal with the mess of) a paint sprayer, I instead opted for the good old-fashioned way: a thorough prep, good paintbrush and some selfleveling cabinet paint. For the color, a fresh, clean white — timeless and bright — to match the walls. At some past point, the cabinets were a soft, cornflower blue, but most recently a dingy, chipped off white. During the many painstaking hours I spent in the basement brushing on coat after coat, I heard in my head the confident, calm voice of America’s original home improvement expert Bob Vila, from his This Old House-on-PBS days, guiding me. Our home might not be a colonial masterpiece, but to heck if I wasn’t going to restore these 1940s cabinets to their former glory! Vila’s website (bobvila.com) is actually an excellent resource I turn to for solid advice on common old house issues, including how to make the original chromeplated cabinet hardware sparkle and shine (equal parts vinegar and hot water). Shine, they now do, and so does the rest of our tiny, vintage kitchen now that its authentic retro character has been so lovingly and painstakingly restored. n

YAY, US! Riverfront Park’s U.S. Pavilion is a gem in Spokane, we all know that. But the world outside the Lilac City knows that, too. Just last week, the high-falutin’ Design Build Institute of America hit the Pavilion with three awards. It won the National Award of Merit, and it took the trophy for 2020 Best of Architecture Design. But best of all, it won the DBIA’s 2020 Project of the Year. In a year with little to celebrate, there’s a good reason to raise a toast if I’ve ever heard one. (DAN NAILEN)

EVER SERVE TIME, DOC? Like many a home-sheltering book lover, I’ve spent a good portion of the pandemic expanding my literary horizons a bit, tackling some “I should read that” material. But I’ve also gone for light comfort reads, the intellectual equivalent of a favorite frozen pizza. That’s where Nick de Semlyen’s Wild and Crazy Guys comes in, taking a microscope to several comedy stars of the ’80s (all male, sadly) and tracking how their various careers soared (Steve Martin, Bill Murray), sputtered (Chevy Chase) or just went completely off the rails, at least for a while (Eddie Murphy). If you’re someone who quotes lines from Fletch, Beverly Hills Cop or Meatballs, this book’s for you. (DAN NAILEN)

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Podcast Radio Rental features stories that are uncanny, unexplainable and simply straight-up creepy, told quite effectively by the people who experienced them. Save for some truly dorky “host” segments featuring a video store clerk played by Rainn Wilson, the show boasts some pretty gripping tales — including a young boy’s bizarre interactions with a little girl in the woods, a man who receives increasingly alarming texts from an unknown number, a teenager who gets weird vibes from her fellow camp counselor, and multiple close calls with serial killers. Skip the scripted parts and you’ll hear some cracking good horror yarns. (NATHAN WEINBENDER)

LOCAL GOODS

Vegan cheese spread Cheez was inspired by Leo Walters’ baking background.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Cheez, Please Spokane food purveyor Leo Walters shifts from sourdough bread to develop a line of plant-based, vegan cheese

ife without cheese, how does one endure? It’s perhaps the most common question nonvegans have for their friends forgoing all animalbased products, dairy and honey included: How do you get by without the gooey goodness of cheese? Without getting into the morals and ethics of different diets, the good news for cheese-abstaining vegans is there are many plant-based alternatives, and these products only continue to improve. One of the newest arrivals of plant-based cheese to the consumer market is being developed and produced in Spokane, under the brand name Cheez. Leo Walters, who formerly ran Glorious Artisan Bakery on downtown’s west end, baked his last loaves in the space early this year before shifting focus to develop for commercial production his recipe for plant-based cheese made from cashews. “I love to bake and continue to do it for family, but

BY CHEY SCOTT commercially I knew I didn’t want to do it long term,” Walters says. The origins of Cheez began at the bakery, where Walters often set out samples for customers to try with his bread and the ultra-fresh olive oil and vinegar he also sold there. “Cheez was one of those things I made on the side for parties and events, and we would set it out with bread samples,” he says. “But people would walk in and try it and ask, first, ‘What is this?’ and ‘Can I buy it?’” “After enough of this happening time and time again, the product spoke for itself,” he continues. “So, it made sense to move forward to get it licensed and approved to process, which took about four to five months.” Before it could be marketed to consumers, Walters had to send samples to a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab for rigorous testing and approval. “They don’t have a lot of experience with fermented,

plant-based products, so it was a little industry-leading in that aspect,” he says. “It was nice to be on the forefront of that, and I’ve since been able to answer questions for other people looking to do things on a commercial level.”

alters says Cheez most closely resembles a soft, spreadable dairy-based cheese, like goat cheese, and can be used as a dip, sauce, spread or adapted as a recipe substitute in place of traditional cheese. A practicing vegan for many years now, Walters first made his own fermented cashew cheese about four years ago, and has been experimenting and tweaking his technique since. “That originated from just wanting to produce some of my own staples — my own milk and butter — and I delved into cheeses so that I would have all those things when I put together food and cooked,” he explains. ...continued on next page

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 41

FOOD | LOCAL GOODS “CHEEZ, PLEASE,” CONTINUED... During the first stage of its 11-day production process, Cheez starts out as sprouted quinoa fermented with a live culture that’s later mixed with blended cashews. As the product ferments, live cultures break down complex starches and carbohydrates, and “in that process it releases natural acids that not only add to the taste and flavor, but develops [traits] that don’t require added preservatives to make it shelf stable,” Walters explains. The food science behind Cheez is based on similar chemical reactions that make beer, pickles, yogurt and even naturally leavened sourdough bread. At this summer’s commercial launch of the Cheez brand, Walters introduced three flavors: the base original, salted lemon (soon to begin distribution) ONLINE and black truffle. He Recipes that incorporate Cheez, recommends the black including vegan mac and cheese, truffle for burgers and along with other product informabarbecued foods, and tion, are shared on the company the salted lemon for website: mmmcheez.com. salads, fish and Mediterranean dishes. Any of these flavors can also be incorporated into recipes or used straight from the jar. “I love to use it as a condiment on things, so in my salads or on a wrap,” Walters notes. Sold in 9-ounce glass jars for $15-$20, Cheez is available locally at Huckleberry’s Natural Market, My Fresh Basket, Rocket Market, Rosauers on 29th Avenue and the Wonder Market on Saturdays from 10 am to 2 pm inside downtown’s Wonder Building. Walters says he’s also in talks with Method Juice as another Cheez retail location. Eventually, he hopes to have Cheez products

Leo Walters’ vegan Cheez comes in three flavors so far. sold across the U.S. “There is a huge demand in the non-dairy industry, and it’s only going to keep building in milk and cheese alternatives, so I look forward to more of that expanding and more flavorful options,” he says. For the next several weeks, those looking to sample Cheez can request complimentary 2-ounce cups from the deli counters of the aforementioned grocery stores and at the indoor market. In nonpandemic times, Walters would

have set up tables at local grocers to offer samples and chat with people about the product. Those single-serving samples also inspired another packaging option of boxed four- and eight-packs of the 2-ounce cups, which he hopes to have available soon. “It will help make Cheez more accessible and provide people with an option to take it on the go by packing a cup in their lunch or taking it with them if they travel or go out to eat,” he says. n

LET’S TURN A RETIREMENT DREAM INTO A RETIREMENT PLAN. Work with a trusted Financial Advisor at BECU Investment Services for financial guidence. Schedule an appointment today. becu.org/retire

Financial Advisors are registered with, and Securities and Advisory Services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC. Insurance Products offered through LPL Financial or its licensed affiliates. BECU and BECU Investment Services are not registered broker/dealers and are not affiliated with LPL Financial. Investments are: Not NCUA/NCUSIF Insured

42 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Not Credit Union Guaranteed

Not Obligations of BECU

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

May Lose Value

FOOD | TO GO BOX

Winter Wonderland The Wonder Building’s indoor farmers market continues; Ladder Coffee expands

For as low as $24

BY CHEY SCOTT

ntil the week before Christmas, the centrally located Wonder Saturday Market will continue offering shoppers a diverse selection of food and artisan vendors in an indoor, socially distanced setting. The fall/winter hours are an extension of the Wonder Building’s summer farmers market, hosted on the first floor of the historic building at 835 N. Post St. This year was the venue’s second market season, initially set to close Oct. 10. “We started as a farmers market for the summer, however, after much discussion with our vendors and our regular customers, decided to extend into the winter season,” says market coordinator Kim Deater. “Because we’re an indoor market, it just makes sense.” The Wonder Saturday Market is open from 10 am to 2 pm each Saturday through Dec. 19. Deater says she expects to host between 16 and 20 vendors each week, offering a mix of prepared food, farm goods such as produce and meat, jewelry, textiles, pottery and personal care items like soaps and skin-care products. Among the market’s November lineup are Tamale Box, Lucky Lady Bread Co., Patti’s Pies, Cliffside Orchards, North Side Candle Co. and Commellini Estate, plus many others. “The mix of vendors makes for obvious holiday market themes,” Deater says. “We have tons of great food leading up to Thanksgiving, and we have food and gifts for Christmas.” She says updates on special pop-up vendors and other holiday-related information will be shared closer to those dates on the market’s social media channels. The Wonder Market is also home to two permanent vendors that operate during the market, as well as outside its hours: High Tide Lobster Bar and Evans Brothers Coffee. The newly launched People’s Waffles food truck is also scheduled to sell at the weekly event. Masks are required at the Saturday market, with no exceptions, Deater adds. Customers who can’t wear a mask for medical reasons are gladly accommodated through curbside pickup ordering, she says. More at wondersaturdaymarket. com.

LADDER COFFEE EXPANDS WITH TWO NEW SPOTS

2020 is stacking up to be a big year for Ladder Coffee Roasters, which recently celebrated the opening of its third location in North Spokane and the acquisition of another local coffee shop. The coffee roaster’s third store opened Oct. 26 at 1212 W. Francis Ave. in a building shared with Canopy Credit Union; the setup is similar to Ladder’s Spokane Valley cafe (13105 E. Sprague Ave.), also shared with a branch of the credit union. Days after the Francis store’s opening,

Advertise on the Bulletin Board

For more inform

bulletinboard@ination contact lander.com

per week

Holiday Editions Epic fun from now ’til New Year’s!

BER 4, 2019 NOVEMBER 28-DECEM

Ladder Coffee is expanding.

Holiday Guide

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Ladder took to social media to announce it had purchased Vessel Coffee Roasters in the North Monroe Business District (2823 N. Monroe St.). The quick transition has already occurred, with Ladder posting that the location “will remain a place for excellent coffee and top-tier hospitality, just under a new name.” Ladder was founded by Aaron Rivkin in 2017, beginning as a drive-thru stand in North Spokane and quickly transitioning to a full-service cafe inside the Dormitory Building on West Riverside Avenue. that debuted in mid-2018. In addition to serving its house-roasted coffee, Ladder specializes in heartily topped toast slices. More at laddercoffee.com.

TWO SPOKANE BAKERS COMPETE ON FOOD NETWORK

| HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The seventh season of the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship features not one, but two local bakers. Eva Roberts, owner of Just American Desserts, and Kristina Stephenson, a pastry chef at Northern Quest Resort & Casino, are among the 12 competitors vying for the 2020 championship and a $25,000 grand prize. The two-hour Holiday Baking Championship premiere aired Nov. 2, with seven more episodes to come before the finale Dec. 21. Roberts and Stephenson are up against a roster of both hobby and professional bakers for this year’s season, judged by Duff Goldman, Carla Hall and Nancy Fuller. This isn’t the first time Food Network has featured some of the Inland Northwest’s brightest baking talent, or pitted them against each other. In 2018, the network’s Christmas Cookie Challenge featured Spokane chef Ricky Webster (Rind & Wheat) and cookie artist Amber Stout (Flour & Frosting Spokane), with Webster being crowned the winner to take home the $10,000 grand prize. n

SUPPLEMENT TO THE

ON STANDS NOV. 25TH

INLANDER

Everything you need to know to survive and thrive through the season! Featuring a Holiday calendar of events, Black Friday and Shop Local Saturday deals and more!

BAN TH

E BA

SOUL SEBAGS COMING? PAGE 20 G AR N OF CHEW ELAH’S ALLEN CHIN STONE PAGE G IS THE END

DECEMBER 6-12,

OF PLASTIC

THE RETUR

2018 | IT’S SHOP

LOCAL SEASO

Gift

Guide

STREAM

ARE DISNE

Y+ AND APPLE

LANDLO

SPOKANE

DECEMBER 5-11,

ING!

TV+ WORT

RDS VS.

LOOKS TO

2019 | FREE!

H IT? PAGE 48

CREATE NEWTENANTS RULES PAGE 18

ideas for everyone on your list! PAGE 24 SUPPLEMENT TO THE INLANDER

Gift Guides

Ideas for ever on your yone list!

Page 20 SUPPLEMENT

TO THE INLANDER

ON STANDS DEC. 3RD & 10TH

Gift ideas for everyone on your list! From a tech obsessed tween to the dad who has everything - and everyone in between.

Special Holiday Advertising 509.325.0634 ex 215 Packages are available! Sales@Inlander.com NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 43

STREAMING

FAMILY PLOTS

On the Rocks

New films from Miranda July and Sofia Coppola explore uneasy bonds between parents and children BY NATHAN WEINBENDER KAJILLIONAIRE (DIGITAL RENTAL) The people in Mirana July’s films tend to look at the world through a lens of wonder and wistfulness, but her third feature Kajillionaire is about people who move through life with uneasiness, doubt and cynicism, and who are actively looking for a quick buck. It centers on a family of grifters, a middle-aged married couple (Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger) and their 20-something daughter with the unusual name of Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood). The first time we see them, they appear to be unmoored from any recognizable signpost of the 21st century: Their outdated and oversized thrift store clothes and unkempt, knee-length hair suggest they time-traveled from the late 1970s. They’re career con artists, but their scams tend to have remarkably low stakes: They steal packages and return the contents to Target for a refund, or create multiple email accounts to enter online sweepstakes. They sleep on the floor in the abandoned office space attached to a bubble factory; a mess of pink suds cascades down the wall twice a day, the family dutifully collecting the bubbles into garbage bins and dumping them into a nearby drain. 44 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

As the film opens, they’ve scored some free plane tickets, and on the trip back, they deliberately misplace a piece of luggage so they can collect the airline’s $1,000 loss fee. But there’s an unexpected wrinkle: Dad starts chatting with a fellow passenger named Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), and she’s so intrigued by this strange family’s way of life that she suggests her own grift, targeting the elderly customers of her eyeglasses shop. Melanie represents a rupture in their hermetically sealed universe, and her full-throated acceptance of the con artist lifestyle leads Old Dolio to question not only her prickly relationship with her parents but with her unequivocal acceptance of their bizarre worldview. There’s a moment where Old Dolio finally breaks free from her parents’ control, and it’s one of the oddest and most memorable moments of the year. Kajillionaire is a deeply unusual film, which shouldn’t be a surprise if you’re familiar with July’s work. Since her 2005 breakout Me and You and Everyone We Know, a quirky and guileless piece about love and coincidence, she’s brought a cockeyed sense of humor to her weird stories about weird people. Kajillionaire is no exception,

and though its characters often hold themselves at an emotional distance from one another, it ends on a note of unspoken sacrifice that moved me more than I anticipated.

ON THE ROCKS

(STREAMING ON APPLE TV) Sofia Coppola’s films have often been about characters buffered by their own wealth and privilege, often to their own detriment — the aging movie star wandering through Tokyo in Lost in Translation, the young queen isolated inside Versailles in Marie Antoinette, the lonely southern estate and its haunted inhabitants in The Beguiled. Her latest feature, On the Rocks, is less emotionally suffocating than any of those earlier films — in fact, it’s certainly her lightest film — but it nonetheless continues her obsession with rich people whose problems are only exacerbated by their richness. In this case, it’s Rashida Jones as Laura, a successful novelist in the throes of writer’s block. Her husband, Dean (Marlon Wayans), has been distracted by his new tech company, and a series of unusual gestures and passing comments has her convinced that he’s having

an affair with a coworker. She makes the mistake of confessing this to her father, Felix (Bill Murray), a lifetime lothario and art dealer, who doubles down on her suspicions. Men aren’t hardwired to be faithful, he explains as he sips a martini, and her beloved Dean is just as susceptible to temptation as anyone else. Felix encourages Laura to further investigate the matter, and he’s going to help her out. They sit in his vintage car down the street from the bar where Dean is drinking, eating caviar and waiting for something untoward to happen. Felix begins monitoring Dean’s credit card history and notices that he spent thousands of dollars at Cartier but never gave Laura any jewelry. And when Dean announces that he’s heading to Mexico with his colleagues, Felix already has the plane tickets ready to go. Much of On the Rocks unfolds like an episode of Three’s Company for the wealthiest 1 percent, with Laura and Felix sneaking around and ducking behind potted plants and improvising their way out of compromising positions. This scenario occasionally falls into Roger Ebert’s definition of the “idiot plot,” in which all of the drama would work itself out if the characters stopped behaving like dummies. We expect more from Coppola, whose screenplays are usually more sophisticated in their structure and subtext. But what works in the film is the chemistry between father and daughter, and we’re forced to wonder if Coppola is borrowing from her relationship with her own famous dad. As the droll, shrewd Felix, Murray delivers what may be the quintessential Bill Murray performance: He’s basically a repository of suave pickup lines and trivia factoids, the sort of guy who’s always in the right place at the right time, who can maneuver his way out of a speeding ticket by massaging the officer’s ego. He rescues what ends up being a minor work in the oeuvre of a great filmmaker. n

Looking for energy bill assistance? We have options. Avista partners with community agencies to provide financial assistance, plus we offer other services to help you manage and pay your bill. •

Energy Assistance Grants are available for income-qualified residential customers. Funds are distributed to qualifying customers through local community agencies — please call us at 1-800-227-9187 to find your local community agency or visit myavista.com/assistance.

•

Comfort Level Billing divides yearly energy costs into 12 equal and predictable monthly payments.

•

Preferred Due Date helps align your bill’s due date with payday.

•

Payment Arrangements can be made on an individual basis for those in need.

For more ways we can help, please call 1-800-227-9187.

NOVEMBER 5, 2020 INLANDER 45

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

FESTIVAL PRINT LIVES!

It’s not the Spokane Print Fest that organizers had planned for their second edition, but there’s no doubt it’s going to be epic, even in the age of COVID. If you’re at all interested in printmaking yourself, or are just a fan of the art form, the Spokane Print Fest has something sure to pique your interest, from weekly hands-on workshops at the Spokane Print & Publishing Center to gallery shows online or in-person at the MAC, Terrain Gallery, Saranac Art Projects, Chase Gallery online and elsewhere, to virtual panel discussions via Zoom featuring folks like author Sharma Shields and artist Mary Farrell. See the event’s Facebook event page for complete details, tickets and more. — DAN NAILEN Spokane Print Fest 2020 • Starts Fri, Nov. 6 at 3 pm, further dates and times vary • Facebook: Spokane Print Fest 2020

GET LISTED!

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email related details to getlisted@inlander.com.

46 INLANDER NOVEMBER 5, 2020

BENEFIT A GREAT CAUSE

BENEFIT DOWN DOG

Bigger Together Virtual Gala • Sat, Nov. 7 at 6 pm • $75 • Online; details at biggertogether2020.maestroweb.com

Yoga with Dogs • Sat, Nov. 7, Nov. 21 and Dec. 19 at 9 am and 10:30 am • $15 • Higher Ground Animal Sanctuary • 16602 N. Day Mt. Spokane Rd • lilaclotusyoga.com/events ...more events on page 48

So many organizations are being forced to go virtual with the fundraising events they rely on each year that it can be daunting to choose what groups you’re able to support. One worth considering is the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Inland Northwest, which is hosting its Bigger Together Virtual Gala this Saturday. In a pleasingly concise one-hour event, you’ll hear stories about the group’s work from people who’ve benefited from their mentoring, and take part in a live auction to help raise much-needed cash for their work. Everyone who buys a ticket will also get a basket delivered the day of the gala with dessert from the Women & Children’s Free Restaurant, a bottle of wine from Maryhill and a STEM activity from Mobius for anyone with kids. — DAN NAILEN

OK, imagine the perfect day. Did you imagine a morning of doing yoga with adorable pups, and then sipping coffee while visiting (adoptable) animals? On select Saturdays through December, Higher Ground Animal Sanctuary and yoga instructor Emily from Lilac Lotus Yoga are teaming up to make all your fur baby dreams come true. Spend an hour doing asana with dogs all while supporting the work of the local animal sanctuary. Due to COVID restrictions, classes are limited to five participants, so you’ll want to jump on getting your tickets. Organizers are asking for a $15 minimum donation, paid online in advance. All proceeds go toward the rescue’s work to care for local animals in need. — LAUREN GILMORE

The Power of People Why nonprofits need your support this year, more than ever By Erin Sellers

What can you give this week? Kettle Ringers Wanted SALVATION ARMY

The Salvation Army of Spokane is looking for volunteers to help ring bells at its time-honored Christmas Kettle program — now celebrating its 129th year. The kettles will be seen throughout Spokane from Nov. 20 to Dec. 24. This year, more than ever, The Salvation Army is seeking the community’s support through bell ringing and donors. Due to the coronavirus, The Salvation Army has seen a dramatic spike in need. Many families that are now receiving assistance at The Salvation Army had never sought help previously. As a result, The Salvation Army anticipates an increased need for toys and food at Christmas. To volunteer, make an appointment contacting Gerriann Armstrong at 509-329-2759 or by email at Gerriann.Armstrong@usw.salvationarmy.org

Delivery Drivers & Meal Prep Helpers Needed

- WHEN

Women’s Healing and Empowerment Network (WHEN) supports women impacted by domestic violence and sexual abuse. Volunteers are needed at the nonprofit’s healing center in Airway Heights to pick up food and prepare food boxes for their food pantry. Volunteers are needed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between noon and 3 pm. Whennetwork.com

Delivery Drivers and Office Help Wanted -

MEALS ON WHEELS

Be a part of something greater! Greater Spokane County Meals on Wheels serves seniors all across the 1,800 square miles of Spokane County, and the organization needs drivers and office volunteers. Make a difference to a senior in your neighborhood today. Contact Delaney at 509- 924-6976, ext. 109, for more information. GSCMealsonWheels.org/Take-Action

SERVICES AVAILABLE Free Preschool

Community-Minded Enterprises is now enrolling for its 2020-2021 Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program. This is Washington state’s version of Head Start. It offers full-day preschool at 3307 E. 55th Ave. and part day preschool at 2001 N. Division. Your child will have access to kindergarten readiness, high quality, state-approved care. At the end of the year, Community-Minded Enterprises will even walk you through kindergarten enrollment. Each site also offers a full-time family support specialist to help with any struggles you or your family may be experiencing at any time. Call or email with any questions at 509-951-7435 or jessicas@community-minded.org.

Inlander.com/giveGUIDE2020

he trials of this year have shown us just how strong our communities are in the face of hardship and tragedy. Through horrific wildfires, a global pandemic and economic downturn, our region has risen to the challenge, responding with a fierce strength and generosity that gives hope to our collective future. As we celebrate National Philanthropy Month this November, we are reminded about the power of people – both passionate individuals contributing to causes, as well as nonprofit leaders caring for community members. The Greek root of the word ’philanthropy’ stems from the words ‘love’ and ‘friend’ – and every time you show a love of humanity, you serve as a philanthropist. We can think of no one who exemplifies this possession and promotion of goodwill more than our nonprofit leaders in this region. These individuals have been on the front lines, diligently providing the desperately needed care, support and resources our communities need most. Even in normal times, our nonprofits have always provided a steady stream of care, filling the gaps in which people might slip through. When we think of nonprofits exemplifying the definition of philanthropy, we are reminded of local organizations that provided informational resources, PPE and emergency assistance to small businesses, individuals and marginalized communities. We are reminded of community groups that stepped up after a devastating wildfire season to give clothing, food and a place to sleep to displaced families.

Nearly 80 percent of all charitable gifts to nonprofits come from individuals like you.

We are also inspired by the mutually supportive relationship between community nonprofits and individual donors. Nonprofit staff work hard to respond to pressing issues in our community every day. They rely on direct support from the community to provide these services. It’s a commonly held belief that donations from corporations, foundations and government grants support the financial operations of community nonprofits. However, it’s actually the generosity of individuals making the biggest impact - nearly 80% of all charitable gifts to nonprofits come from individuals like you. Due to increased community need and decreased funding resulting from cancelled fundraisers and annual events, individual giving is more important than ever this year. Many of us are already planning ahead for the holidays, selecting the perfect gifts for the people we care about. This November, we can all give back to our community in an impactful way by supporting a local nonprofit. Your support might include a monetary donation, volunteering time or talents, or inspiring family and friends to support their favorite nonprofits. Generosity benefits nonprofits and community members, but generous acts also benefit you. Scientific studies have shown that donating and volunteering can increase self-esteem, lower stress and even lengthen lifespans! In this National Philanthropy Month, join us in committing to generosity and love by finding a way to give back to your favorite nonprofits.