As summer draws to a close, it’s time to sign up to participate in the seventh annual ALL-MONTLAKE YARD SALE, organized by the Montlake Community Club. The sale takes place on Saturday, September 21 between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm.

The MCC handles much of the publicity for this event: signage, ad placements, and an online interactive map with sale sites for buyers.

Click here to sign up now.

The sign up deadline to be included on the interactive map is  midnight on Wednesday, September 18th.

For questions, or if you’d like to volunteer to help distribute flyers or put up signs, please email treasurer@montlake.net.

A 4^th and 5^th grade teacher at Montlake Elementary has livened up the school with a mural that showcases neighborhood landmarks like the Montlake Bridge and Café Lago.

When she toured Montlake after accepting a teaching position for fall 2017, Emily Gussin noticed a big blank wall in the school’s covered outdoor playcourt near Calhoun Street. “I immediately asked if the school had ever thought about putting art there, and asked if I could do it,” Ms. Gussin told the Montlake Flyer.

Ms. Gussin, who has a history of making positive graffiti art, was the right person to enhance the space. Before she began teaching, Ms. Gussin travelled worldwide with Few and Far, a group of female artists creating graffiti art for productive, not destructive uses. With this artist’s collective, Ms. Gussin traveled to Israel, among other places, to create a graffiti mural in a 6’ x 6’ bomb shelter at a daycare.

Ms. Gussin is a Seattle native and Ballard High School alum, and her time with Few and Far led her to teach in the district she graduated from. Her father, Hamilton Middle School math teacher Jordan Gussin, suggested she help teach after school graffiti art classes at his school. Ms. Gussin eventually led the classes and got hooked on teaching. After getting her master’s degree in teaching, Ms. Gussin was hired at Montlake, where she is loved by her students for her creativity and enthusiasm.

A special outcome of the mural, Ms. Gussin noted, is that her students have come to see her as a whole person with creative interests that go beyond teaching. “The kids had no idea that I had this interest before,” she said. Two students at the school have since become passionate creators of positive graffiti-style artwork.

Montlake is a historically landmarked building. For the mural’s creation, school principal Julie Pearson secured permission from the school district’s department of self-help. Although in her first year at the school, Ms. Pearson eagerly took on the challenge. “It was obvious to me when I first arrived that something needed to happen with that blank wall and it was fun to collaborate with Emily to make it work.”

Jennifer Lundgren, Montlake’s art teacher and past recipient of the Washington Art Education Association Elementary Education of the Year Award, plans to work with students to add designs at the bottom of the mural.

The mural now memorializes a piece of Montlake history: it features the “Hop-In” alongside other neighborhood landmarks. The Hop-In, now called the Montlake Boulevard Market, is slated for destruction by the Washington State Department of Transportation.

If you haven’t eaten at D’ La Santa yet, just up the hill from Montlake, you’re missing out.

Scouts from the Montlake Flyer have visited D’ La Santa six times over the past year, each visit better than the next. Our favorites: Rib Eye served on a hot plate and Conchinita Pibil, a Yucatan dish of marinated pork with spices cooked in banana leaves.  Both children and adults loved the Molletes, toasted French bread halves topped with refried beans and cheese. Carne Asada tacos are another kid favorite. Meats are the focus here, which made us all the more surprised that the Tacos Gobernador—shrimp sautéed with garlic—were so delicious. Don’t miss the margaritas either, served in a jicara, a type of cup used by Mayan people to scoop water. Other popular dishes are Tacoarte (a family style taco platter), D’la Santa Parrillada (family style meat platter), and Chile en Nogada (poblano stuffed pepper). For dessert, the flan and plantains were both excellent.

Photo: Angelica Villasenor (middle) with her daughters Angelica and Stephanie Iriarte.

D’ La Santa is family-owned and operated, and it shows in the home-cooked flavors and friendly service. Head cook Angelica Villasenor co-owns the restaurant with her daughters Angelica and Stephanie Iriarte, her sons-in-law Manuel Iriarte and Alejandro Castillo, and her brother Herman Villasenor. The restaurant is in the old XO Bistro space at the corner of 10^th Ave E and Miller on North Capitol Hill.

Angelica told the Flyer she wanted to create a different kind of Mexican restaurant with D’ La Santa. Mexican food is so much more than cheese melted on top of food, she told us. D’ La Santa’s menu shows just how varied Mexican food is, with dishes from the Yucatan, Oaxaca, Puebla, Guadalajara, Mazatlán, and Sonora. Angelica shopped Mexican markets to decorate the restaurant.

Upon seating, all diners are served a salsa platter with pickled onions, cilantro, white onions, radishes, pico de gallo, and salsa tomatillo. Angelica said the platter lets guests top food how they want to.

After one year and 4 months in business, Angelica credits their success with a homemade cooking style and constant tasting and adjusting. “We aren’t chefs,” Angelica explained. “We cook homemade.” Regulars and new guests alike can look forward to five new dishes coming to the menu soon.

D’ La Santa
2359 10th Ave E
Seattle, WA 98102
Web Site: https://dlasanta.com/

Responses due by 5 pm Thursday, February 14! 

Please take less than a minute to complete WSDOT’s survey on saving the Montlake Blvd Market. Responses are due February 14th at 5 pm. The Montlake Community Club is urging neighbors to tell WSDOT that the market is worth saving for 45 extra days of construction. WSDOT has also estimated that keeping the market open could add $20 million to the project budget, and we say it’s worth it.

We also know their $20 million estimate is designed to be intentionally misleading and ignores the social impacts and other costs of eliminating the neighborhood’s only market and gas station. This was presented without any discussion of the cost for a full condemnation of the property, which could carry a price-tag of more than $30 million. Despite proving that construction impacts to the property can be avoided, WSDOT is still pursuing a full condemnation and pushing plans to use the site as a staging yard for the next decade.

Take the survey today and tell your friends and neighbors to do the same. And please leave comments when prompted. Many of these questions are misleading and based on limited information.

Survey link: https://survey.participate.online/s3/SR520-Montlake-Market-indv