Author Archives: R.A. Schenck

Engineered Garments SS13 at Jack Straw

With deliveries for spring/summer collections mostly done, I recently stopped into Jack Straw to check out its current selections including the latest from Engineered Garments. Over the past few seasons, the size and assortment of its picks have grown and is now one of the best places to track down items outside of Nepenthes NYC [...]

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Western Shirt Patchwork

After a couple years of frequent use, my favorite western shirt from Engineered Garments started to show some wear and tear around the elbow areas. I first considered doing a single patch piece for each sleeve, but the high button plackets would have made the placement look awkward – so instead, I took some inspiration [...]

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Men’s File Issue 8 + The Transportation Archive

I’ve been wishing for a book version of the photography featured in Men’s File ever since I first read through Issue 1 several years back – the Transportation Archive is the answer to that, and hopefully it will be part of a larger series down the road. Previously it was a bit difficult to source [...]

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Everest – The West Ridge

First published after the successful American Everest Expedition of 1963, Everest – The West Ridge documents the team’s journey with narratives by Thomas Hornbein and awesome photography by several other members of the group. Along with the paperback, there are a few different editions available, the most recent being a 50th Anniversary hardcover version (in [...]

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Tailoring at the South Pole

A brief look into some of the clothing designs worn by the men of Robert Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition, found on Google Books in a tailoring journal published in 1913: “Some Particulars of the Clothing Outfits of the British Antarctic Expedition, Which Were Specially Designed Under the Personal Direction of the late Captain Scott.” Whatever [...]

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Late Winter Reading

Hoosh – a well researched and wonderfully written look into the history of Antarctic cuisine. The Last Viking – the latest (and my most favorite biography) of Roald Amundsen.

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The Free Book Incident

The [storefront] has been busy over the last year – after the Hardware[Store] they’ve since hosted several other projects, the current one being an art installation by Mark VonRosenstiel. Prior to this was my favorite yet, “The Free Book Incident” (which itself sounded like the name of a good novel), and it essentially was a [...]

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Death of a Record Store

The day the music died, January 18th, the day that Easy Street Records closed in Queen Anne. The morning after, unsellable inventory was left out on the curb, free to anyone interested. CDs and vinyl records scattered the sidewalk with empty cans of cheap beer from the closing show the night prior, and underneath record [...]

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Afield, Whole Larder Love

Released last fall, Afield and Whole Larder Love both approach cooking with local sustainable foods, advocating home gardens, wild gathering, and game hunting. The recipes found in each are fairly simple to follow if you have basic kitchen experience, and it’s refreshing to see more education in an area where there is large disconnect between [...]

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Þorrablót

Back at home, the annual Þorrablót held by the Icelandic Club of Greater Seattle serves as a great introduction to traditional Icelandic foods. Newcomers should start with the delicious smoked lamb (Hangikjöt) and flat breads, or for the more adventurous, the sheep’s head (Svið) – from there, one can then work up to fermented shark [...]

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