What’s legal, where to buy it, what to smoke, and how.

The post Ohio legal cannabis buyer’s guide to 2024 appeared first on Leafly.

Leafly

The best new music to hit Dave Segal’s inbox this week.

by Dave Segal

Meridian Brothers, “Mandala” (Ansonia Records)

Led by guitarist/vocalist Eblis Álvarez, Colombia’s Meridian Brothers have been weirding up the Latin American musical genres such as cumbia, salsa, and vallenato on recordings over the last 18 years. On albums such as 2012’s Desesperanza and 2015’s Los Suicidas, for example, they deploy space-age-electronic textures within the framework of cumbia’s intricate, sinuous rhythms and vivacious melodies. The results are deliriously disorienting. That a South American group this strange has broken through, to a degree, in North America is highly unusual. Sometimes the music-industry gods bestow benevolence when you least expect it.

Meridian Brothers’ new album, Mi Latinoamérica Sufre (out July 12), again finds Álvarez playing every instrument on it. The man’s occasional penchant for goofy singing unfortunately surfaces on the record’s first single, “En el Caribe Estoy Triste,” but the sprightly, Ghanaian highlife guitar figure, galloping beats, and vigorously shaken maracas tilt the song into the “W” column. You will feel one-quarter of your actual weight while this zesty gem is playing. 

Mi Latinoamérica Sufre‘s newest single, “Mandala,” again features Álvarez’s guttural-vocal shtick, but the music’s even more off-kilter, an oddly metered rhythm rolling and tumbling over a pointillistic, hypnotic guitar spangle that bears a timbral similarity to NYC No Wavers Robert Quine and Jody Harris’s eccentric interplay on the 1981 cult classic, Escape. The press release for Mi Latinoamérica Sufre cites the influence of the “rhythmic pulse of Afro-Venezuelan ‘tambor,'” and on this evidence, we all need to explore that genre in more depth.

Meridian Brothers prove that irreverence toward artistic tradition and unlikely fusions of sonic elements often yield the most interesting results. More than a quarter century into their existence, they continue to generate fresh ideas while maintaining their distinctive identity.  

enereph, “Cold Family” (NAGA) 

Seattle producer enereph (aka Connie Fu) is making some of the most interesting electronic music in the Pacific Northwest. A proponent of the Seattle-based electronic-instrument company Madrona Labs, Fu uses its software synth Kaivo and other products to forge complex tracks that flit among styles with scientific rigor and a gusto for unusually fascinating timbres. 

You can hear enereph attaining an even stronger command of her considerable skills on the new Immortal Mirth mini-album (released June 10 on Vancouver, B.C. label NAGA). The record begins auspiciously with “Talisman,” a new species of trip-hop that’s way more otherworldly than the original ’90s version. Fathoms-deep bass bellows amid swirling, sub-aquatic synth sorcery and unusual percussion tics as finely delineated as needlepoint. This is how you draw in listeners. 

“Carved Nephrite” is deeply cavernous, kinetic IDM in which enereph slices and dices beats with the intensity of a world-class sushi chef. The impact of Autechre’s mid-’90s machine funk looms, but not in an overbearing way. “Carved Nephrite” achieves the difficult feat of sounding both disciplined and haywire. (By the way, the internet informs me that nephrite is a lesser-valued jade that symbolizes balance, harmony, and luck. This cut is as hard as that substance.) With its splenetic, punch-press beats, glistening, alien atmospheres, and wispy chants, “Insolubility” balances aggression and vaporousness with impressive skill. “Numbers Fall From Stars” deviates from the record’s punchy norm, going into meditative-ambient mode, all icy grandeur and tremulous beauty.

Powered by the frantic skittering beats of footwork, “Cold Family” also evokes a rave anthem of sorts, but with more complex rhythms and interesting textures than those typically possess. These whiplash, threshing beats slap hard and the sounds whooshing, burbling, and boinging above them duly psychedelicize your mind. This track is so strong, it merited its own pugnacious remix, by the Canadian producer Looting.

After seeing enereph perform at 4Bs Tavern not that long ago, I predicted that she would be playing festivals before 2024 was over. If that prognostication doesn’t come to pass, then that’s on festival organizers, not enereph.

The Stranger

Does Being In The Sun Increase Your Weed High

Summer time is for being outdoors during the long days, but does being in the sun increase your weed high?

The post Does Being In The Sun Increase Your Weed High appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast

Edmonds Arts Festival, Revival Juneteenth Market, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15

by EverOut Staff

Unlock the key to a good weekend by reading through our cheap and easy weekend guide. We’ll make sure you’re in the know about all of the best events, from the Edmonds Arts Festival to REVIVAL Juneteenth Market Pop-Up and from the 10th International Day of Yoga Celebration to Flying Lion Brewing’s First Annual Light Beer Fest. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week or our Father’s Day guide.

FRIDAY
FILM

Five Minutes to Live!
If there’s anything missing from the typical movie theater experience, it’s a democratic voting process and a lil’ bit of intrigue. Right? Right??? If you agree, you’ll dig Five Minutes to Live, wherein the Beacon will screen the first five minutes of four different mystery movies. The crowd will then vote on which flick to watch in its entirety. It’s kind of like a real-life choose-your-own-adventure game, staged within the theater’s cozy blue-and-red rows. Keep an open mind if your flick pick doesn’t end up on top—no one likes a grumpy movie-goer. LINDSAY COSTELLO
(The Beacon, Columbia City, $12.50)

The Stranger

But when I took a deep breath and stood up from my seat in the decadent ballroom at Vice President Harris’s fundraiser, I hoped that my action would be one small drop in a growing stream of collective action.

by Arin Flaster

As a health care researcher specializing in traumatic injury, I see hospital patients with burns, amputations, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord injuries. Over the last eight months, I have felt so much moral horror and sadness that US bombs, funded by my tax dollars, are dropping on Palestinians and causing these very injuries. More than one thousand children have lost limbs. Fathers have suffered traumatic brain injuries from bombs exploding and buildings collapsing. Mothers have burns over their entire body. It is too much to witness. 

I feel powerlessness and cognitive dissonance; while I am at work caring for patients and researching how to prevent traumatic injuries, US tax dollars and weapons are causing those very same traumatic injuries in Palestine. The scale of traumatic injury and disability resulting from US weapons and funds to Israel is overwhelming, alongside the fact that the Israeli military has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians in what the International Criminal Court calls a “plausible” case of genocide. 

Many people, including myself, feel powerless to curb the US’s role in facilitating violence in Palestine. We sign petitions. We march in the streets. We block roads. We start encampments on university campuses. We call our senators. Nothing changes. The weapons and money keep flowing. 

I assume we’re used to this–political representatives acting in ways we don’t like, or even in ways we deplore. That is not new. However, the next stop doesn’t have to be political apathy. Instead, it is an invitation to build collective power. You can start small. Small actions can accumulate and motivate others; each small individual or group action is us running our section of the relay, passing the baton to the next person or group. Maybe this small action will motivate that next person to join a protest, learn more about the issues, and get active. 

That’s why on Saturday, June 1, 2024, I disrupted Vice President Kamala Harris’s Seattle fundraiser by standing up in the middle of the event and asking her, “When will you stop sending weapons to Israel?” 

I participated in this disruption for four reasons. First, Vice President Harris is second in command below the President. Wherever she goes, we need to remind her that many US voters are horrified by US weapons and funds facilitating violence in Palestine. Currently, 70% of likely voters support a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza, and the plurality think we should decrease military aid to Israel. 

Second, I hoped my question would continue shining a light on the Biden administration’s equivocations about when they will stop sending weapons to Israel. For example, the Israeli military recently dropped US-made, Boeing bombs on a refugee camp in Rafah. The “tent massacre” killed 45 people and injured more than 200. In early May, President Biden said, “If they [Israeli military] go into Rafah, I’m not going to be supplying the weapons.” However, the Biden administration is now backpedaling and claiming that the current invasion into Rafah is a “limited” operation, not an “all-out assault.” I believe the Biden administration is posturing and has no intent of stopping military funds or weapons shipments to Israel. 

Third, I wondered if Vice President Harris would say something on the record. Maybe something concrete that would get attention and force more internal conflict or dialogue within the Biden administration. But, alas, as a seasoned politician, she just said, “Thank you, I am speaking now.” 

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Finally, I knew that disrupting this speech was not on its own going to change Vice President Harris’s views or behavior in relation to the violence in Palestine. But I thought that maybe you would change. Vice President Harris was the main event, and you were the audience. We captured a short video of the disruption, hoping it would get a few thousand views. The  Instagram video reached ~224,000 accounts and was viewed ~469,000 times. I was shocked. More importantly, I felt affirmed–that many people saw our action, which means they are thinking about what’s happening in Palestine. Maybe this action was the baton pass that someone else needed. 

And to be clear, I am not a seasoned activist. You could do this. You could do this, and we did this (another person participated in the disruption with me) because we did it as a team. Our team spent hours prepping: talking through the plan, assessing risks, studying similar events in other parts of the country, practicing getting booed (because we expected that from other attendees), preparing press releases, preparing jail support in the unlikely event we were arrested, and more. This was not an impulsive solo event. I am emphasizing this because there is a role for everyone. Consider this your invitation. It is only through collective action and organizing that we can build the world we want and stop the violence perpetrated by our elected representatives. 

Some voters are concerned that protesting the Biden administration like we did will increase the likelihood of a Trump presidency: younger voters in swing states may be swayed not to vote for Biden, leading to a Trump presidency, which would be worse for US civil rights and for Palestinians. My response: I hear and understand the very real fear of another Trump presidency. I am not naive about that risk, AND we still need to speak out when the current US administration is facilitating unthinkable violence in Palestine, or any country. 

Additionally, if the Biden administration loses the 2024 election, it will be because the Democratic party failed to deliver policies and actions that voters wanted. Let’s not blame progressives for the Democratic party’s losses. If the Democratic party can’t win elections, it’s because they’re not doing a good job listening to voters. For instance, the violence in Palestine is not a fringe progressive issue. In the presidential primary, hundreds of thousands of Democrats—including those in key swing states like Michigan—voted “undecided” or “uncommitted” to protest the Biden administration’s perpetuation of the violence in Palestine. These “uncommitted” votes tried to incentivize behavior-change from Biden. Biden didn’t change his behavior. I don’t know how many of those “uncommitted” voters will vote for Biden in the general election. My sense is that some might not if the Biden administration keeps facilitating the violence in Palestine.

But when I took a deep breath and stood up from my seat in the decadent ballroom at Vice President Harris’s fundraiser, I hoped that my action would be one small drop in a growing stream of collective action. 

Vice President Harris and President Biden, you could stop the flow of weapons and funds to Israel right now. You have the ultimate lever for ending this genocide in Palestine. Stop the flow of weapons now. 

Arin Flaster is a health care researcher focusing on mental health and traumatic injury. Arin has worked in health care research for 10 years and has been involved in research on childhood/adolescent trauma, spinal cord injury, chronic pain, health services, and other long-term health conditions. Arin has lived in Seattle for 10 years. 

The Stranger

What Is The Dosage For A Marijuana Light Chill

Sometimes you just need to take the edge off but still want to focus, so what is the dosage for a marijuana light chill?

The post What Is The Dosage For A Marijuana Light Chill appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast

How Long Does Marijuana Stay In Saliva

While drug tests are generally in decline, they still exist. So how long does marijuana stay in saliva?

The post How Long Does Marijuana Stay In Saliva appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

The Fresh Toast

The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

by Nathalie Graham

More Boeing blues: The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the May 25 Southwest flight that went into a “Dutch roll” mid-flight. A Dutch roll is described as “a yawing motion when the tail slides and the plane rocks from wingtip to wingtip,” mimicking a Dutch figure skater. If my airplane is going to mimic any type of ice skater, then I would choose Apollo Ono: quick and efficient. The plane was a Boeing 737 Max, and the issue may have been the result of a damaged backup power-control unit. 

Counterfeit titanium in planes: Airbus and Boeing bought counterfeit titanium from a supplier that forged the documentation for the authenticity of the material. The FAA is investigating and trying to figure out the short- and long-term safety implications. It’s unclear how many planes were made using parts made with fake titanium. 

Man steals car, then steals kayak: Centralia police tracked a stolen car, but the suspect did not pull over. He drove toward the Chehalis River, hopped out of the car, nabbed a kayak from a nearby home, and fled into the river. According to KING 5, the man “struggled mightily and fell over multiple times, but continued to paddle toward the middle of the river.” He even paddled with arms for a bit. It didn’t work out for this master thief. When he paddled near shore, a K-9 officer apprehended him with a classic teeth-around-ankle maneuver. 

SeaTac flight attendants on the picket line: Around 80,000 flight attendants from major airlines are in the midst of contract negotiations. On Thursday, off-duty flight attendants picketed outside SeaTac airport for better pay and working conditions. 

An unsettled weather pattern: Thunderstorms could be afoot this weekend. Showers will return. Temperatures will drop. It’s maybe not the best idea for a Father’s Day camping trip. Take him to see a weird A24 movie instead. Dad’s love that kind of thing. 

The weather pattern will become unsettled Friday through Sunday. Thunderstorm potential will also increase during this period, peaking Saturday afternoon into Saturday evening! The main threats from storms will be lightning, heavy rain, small hail, and gusty winds. #WAwx pic.twitter.com/cl7y45Xwyb

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) June 13, 2024

Big One prep: Nothing reminds you of your own mortality like thinking about the Cascadia Quake and how very few parts of our infrastructure will withstand it. One major thing that will crumble when the tectonic plates rumble and shake? Bridges. Five bridges in the city, including the West Seattle Lower Spokane Swing Bridge, have already been retrofitted. Now, the Seattle Department of Transportation is beefing up 16 more bridges. Hopefully all this disruptive construction will save our lives one day. Or, better yet, will save some poor saps’ lives in 200 years. 

Unsurprising: The Business Journal released a list of the 1,000 wealthiest ZIP codes in the US and—would you believe it?—the Seattle-area had 35 ZIP codes on the list, four of which were in the top 100 wealthiest. To this I say, “Duh.” Last week, we learned about how Seattle’s home to at least 54,200 millionaires. You’re telling me this report surveying “per capita income, typical home value, poverty rate, land area, and population” found a lot of hits in this area? Clearly.

Good for her: Jamjuree, 36, unexpectedly birthed two babies, a boy and then a girl. The Asian elephant was so surprised by her second calf that she attacked it. “She had never had twins before,” the director of Jamjuree’s Thailand sanctuary, Elephantstay, reasoned. Twins only make up around 1% of all elephant births, and male-female twins are even rarer. 

WELCOME TO THE WORLD: An Asian elephant in Thailand has given birth to a rare set of elephant twins.

Read more: https://t.co/xMlaFWeezI pic.twitter.com/SMRcIOhvEK

— ABC News (@ABC) June 14, 2024

Related: “Twenty-three sets of twins have graduated from a Massachusetts middle school, making up about 10% of the eighth-grade class.” That’s too many twins. Sorry. 

I want a Succession-style drama about this: Tyson Food suspended its Chief Financial Officer and Tyson Food’s heir, John R. Tyson, 34, after he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. This is John R. Tyson’s second alcohol-related charge in two years. The first occurred in November 2022, when he was charged with public intoxication and trespassing after breaking into a stranger’s Fayetteville home and falling asleep in her bed. He sent a companywide email apologizing about that and assuring everyone he would seek treatment. John R. Tyson, who is son of the current Tyson Foods chairman, was thought to be a shoe-in for a potential future CEO of the company, since that’s a role typically held by family members. Now? Well, people have “legitimate concerns” about if he’d be good for the role. 

State of emergency in Florida: Southern Florida has seen up to 25 inches of rain so far this week. Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency as multiple counties are literally under water. More rain is expected Friday. With it comes flash flood warnings. How’s the climate denial treating you now, Ron?

The Gaza aid pier is inoperable again: The humanitarian aid pier, the $230 million humanitarian project set up and operated by the US, was deemed inoperable for the third time this month due to weather. The US will move it to an Israeli port until the high seas quiet down. The project was always temporary, targeted to have a short 90-day lifespan before the seas turned woefully turbulent by the end of August. 

This shit again? The Senate Judiciary Committee investigating ethics at the Supreme Court found Justice Clarence Thomas took more trips than previously reported by ProPublica with mega-donor and Republican  Harlan Crow. The trips included six flights on Crow’s private jet in 2017, 2019, and 2021.

No ban for bump stocks: The Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on bump stocks, the device that can juice up semi-automatic weapons so they fire rounds almost as quickly as machine guns. The 2018 Donald Trump regulation came after the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, where a shooter using a bump stock fired over 1,000 rounds at a music festival and killed 60 people. The shooting injured over 500 people. Now the ban is scrapped. 

I liked this piece: It’s about fighting with people at dinner parties. 

A song for your Friday: Sometimes you need a little Norwegian indie pop to punctuate your week. 

The Stranger

Reichert apparently believes that conservatives only leave the house to shoot or pray, and that Republicans need armed vigilantes to protect GOP votes against ballot gremlins or whatever.

by Ashley Nerbovig

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert has latched onto the idea that putting ballot boxes at churches, firing ranges, and gun stores could help ensure free and fair elections this November–and increase conservative voter turnout. Reichert apparently believes that conservatives only leave the house to shoot or pray, and that Republicans need armed vigilantes to protect GOP votes against ballot gremlins or whatever. 

Back in February, Reichert told an audience at a Pierce County GOP endorsement meeting that he supports a plan from Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh to buy some ballot boxes and put them “in places where conservative voters go.” Reichert pitched his churches and gun store location ideas. 

“Try to steal a ballot from a gun range. How about a gun shop? Places like that where we know we can protect our votes,” Reichert said, in a video from the endorsement meeting.

Reichert has made similar comments during at least five other campaign events, according to audio recordings obtained by The Stranger as well as an article in The Reflector. Reichert did not respond to a request for comment. 

Reichert’s rhetoric seems mostly like a ploy to turn out the most rabid members of his base on the off chance that they’ll have an opportunity to shoot someone near dropping off a ballot. 

In the video, Reichert makes it sound as if these ballot boxes would be official, but in a text message Walsh said that’s not his intention. He wants to create unofficial ballot boxes that the Washington State GOP or county parties would provide and maintain. 

The plan seems unserious, unnecessary, and fraught for a number of reasons. First of all, stealing ballots from official ballot boxes is very hard. King County Elections Administrator Julie Wise described the boxes as “steel tanks” that can weigh up to 1,000 pounds, and they are bolted into the ground. Crosscut published an excellent piece on the ballot collection process that references another article about a time when an SUV hit a ballot box in Thurston County and failed to even dent the thing. That article goes into further detail about how a person can’t even open the boxes with crowbars. The proposed GOP ballot boxes would be smaller, “But sturdy. Secure. Metal,” Walsh said.

Second of all, at least in King County, ballot boxes are already pretty accessible. According to Wise, about 90% of people live within three miles of a ballot box, and about 76% live within a mile. Nothing in state law prohibits the county from putting a ballot box at a shooting range, but the office would want to understand the specific gap they’d be filling, Wise said. A lot of data goes into ballot box location decisions, and the county tries to put boxes in places with lower voter turnout to encourage people to vote. While King County Elections (KCE) has found a natural partner with libraries, government buildings, and transit hubs, they’ve also put boxes in Safeway parking lots. I think conservatives still buy groceries. 

Finally, ballot box theft remains a stupid and unlikely strategy for trying to change the results of an election. The prospective thief could guess about the politics of nearby neighborhoods, but they wouldn’t know how the voters voted unless they opened up the ballots, and dumping a whole box would risk dumping ballots the thief would presumably want counted. And if anything, locating boxes in areas with high concentrations of Republicans would only make it easier to target those ballots for theft. Though I guess Reichert assumes no one would dare take a ballot from a box surrounded by gun owners, who would all shoot or threaten to shoot any would-be ballot box robbers instead of calling the police? 

Overall, Wise said KCE doesn’t recommend people submit their ballots to unofficial boxes. Pop-up boxes are legal, but if the organization collecting the ballots turns them in late or loses them, then voters have very little recourse to make sure their ballot counts. In general, the election’s office recommends people only trust themselves with their ballot. 

Wise also encourages people to sign up for text messages and emails alerting them about the status of their ballot. 

The Stranger

The Stranger staffers ate colorful cake, donuts, and more.

by Julianne Bell

Hi, gay! It’s Pride Month, and you know what that means: It’s time once again for local restaurants to hawk baked goods in a rainbow of colors. We here at The Stranger took it upon ourselves to try these prismatic pastries for you and gathered a selection from around town for an informal office taste test. (We can neither confirm nor deny whether this was simply an excuse to consume sugar on the company’s dime.) The delicious results are below.

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A La Mode Pies

In case you didn’t know, Chris Porter’s pie haven is one of the top 20 largest LGBTQ-owned businesses in the Pacific Northwest, and they’re celebrating this month with their limited-time rainbow cheesecake, which features marbled stripes that make for a gorgeous cross-section shot and a dusting of edible glitter. The colors aren’t different flavors—it’s a vanilla bean filling—but I found this slice to be everything I wanted from a basic cheesecake, not too sweet with a pleasant tang and a crisp, slightly salty graham cracker crust.
Ballard, Phinney Ridge, West Seattle

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The Flora Bakehouse

Cafe Flora‘s Beacon Hill bakery sibling goes all out for Pride Month, and this year is no exception: They’re offering a rainbow-swirled chocolate croissant, trans flag-colored milk bread, rainbow cake, rainbow unicorn waffle cone sundaes with an ube and Dole whip swirl, and rainbow-swirled meringue “unicorn horns.” We got our hands on the croissants, rainbow cake, and unicorn horns. The rainbow cake was subtly lemon flavored and topped with cream cheese frosting, while the unicorn horns provided a playful twist on the classic meringue. The chocolate croissant’s flaky exterior was crisp and caramelized—bits of it rained down like edible rainbow confetti with each bite—and the inside was light, oh-so-tender, and buttery. Owner Nat Stratton-Clark will donate proceeds from the above items and others to the Trans Justice Funding Project, GSBA Scholarship & Education Fund, and Queer the Land.
Beacon Hill

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Cupcake Royale

It’s the end of an era—Jody Hall’s proudly queer-owned bakery chain, which helped pioneer the ubiquitous cupcake trend of the early 2000s, announced via email earlier this month that the business plans to close all of its remaining locations: “We’re exploring various options to reinvent ourselves to flourish for the next 20 years. This includes our decision to eventually close our retail cafes and rebuild the business to offer better cupcake pricing, richer compensation for our team, and ability to maintain a sustainable business. It’s a tough but necessary call.” Still, the business continues its commitment to Pride-themed baked goods this month. In addition to the year-round signature confetti “Gay” cupcake adorned with rainbow sprinkles and a sugar rainbow, the selection includes mini rainbow “gaybie” babycakes, a trans pride cupcake (vanilla cake filled with strawberry whipped cream and swirled with blue vanilla buttercream), a lesbian pride cupcake (vanilla cake filled with raspberry jam, swirled with orange vanilla buttercream, and topped with raspberry dust and a candied orange peel), and a bi pride cupcake (ube cake, swirled with coconut frosting and topped with blue sprinkles and marionberry jam). As a notorious bisexual, it comes as no surprise that the bi pride cupcake was my favorite—I loved the coconutty ube flavor, which reminded me of my true love, the ube pancakes from Ludi’s.
Various locations

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Dough Joy

One thing I love about Sean Willis and Christopher Ballard’s whimsical, queer joy-fueled vegan doughnut shop, which debuted a new location in Ballard last month, is that they’re committed to being “queer all year”—their vibrant rainbow sprinkle-dusted Pride doughnut is available year-round, and they also regularly contribute to queer-focused community organizations like A Space Inside and SPU’s LGBTQIA2S+ space Haven. Unfortunately, the famous rainbow doughnut was sold out the day we conducted our tasting, so I opted instead for their “Popstar,” a strawberry Pop Tart-inspired doughnut bar with gooey strawberry jelly filling, rainbow sprinkles, and a dusting of streusel topping. As a jelly doughnut fan, this was one of my favorites—it really scratched that nostalgic Pop Tart itch, and The Stranger’s advertising coordinator Evanne Hall noted that it had a jammy flavor profile reminiscent of a Toaster Strudel “in the MOST DELIGHTFUL way (I love you, Dough Joy!).”
Ballard, Capitol Hill, West Seattle

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Hood Famous Cafe + Bar

Stranger arts and culture editor Megan Seling writes, “The Queer-eal Milk Ice Latte at Hood Famous is espresso poured into oat milk infused with Fruity Pebbles and topped with ube cold foam and a sprinkle of Fruity Pebbles. I am very pro-cereal milk in desserts and drinks so I loved it. I especially liked that they didn’t skimp on the cereal milk flavor—it was strong, bold. Some places try to be delicate with their cereal milk and like, why? It’s cereal milk! It should be sugary and sweet! GO HARD OR DON’T GO AT ALL.”
Chinatown-International District

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Tres Lechería

This Mexican-influenced bakeshop from pastry chef Kevin Moulder, who’s won Netflix’s Sugar Rush: Christmas and Food Network’s Winner Cake All, purveys luscious tres leches cake by the slice. The bakery teamed up with The Infatuation for their Pride Bake Sale to offer an exclusive flavor dubbed “Lil’ Fruity”, which is available through June 29 and features a rainbow medley of fruits (peach, banana, mango, orange, and berries) blended into a classic tres leches milk soak and poured over sponge cake, topped with whipped cream, sprinkles, and a sugar rainbow. I love what Moulder had to say about his inspiration behind the special: “Growing up, this was something I was called regularly. ‘Hey, fruit.’ ‘You’re a little fruity.’ ‘Stop being so fruity.’ What the bullies didn’t realize was this was my superpower, and I’m proud to reclaim and channel it into this limited edition tres leches cake slice.” The Infatuation will donate $50,000 to the Queer Food Foundation on behalf of Tres Lechería and the other businesses participating in the bake sale. This cake was extremely moist and saturated with fruity flavor—definitely recommended if you enjoy your tres leches on the wetter side. We also tried the seasonal sweet corn and honey flavor, which was a summery delight.
Wallingford

Still hungry? Check out our list of 20 great queer-owned restaurants in Seattle here!

The Stranger