Mizu Japanese Steakhouse has brought a whole new dining experience to Gig Harbor. The steak, seafood and salad bar offers seating at community-style tables in a classy setting. Hibachi chefs serve up delicacies on a griddle in front of diners at the table, much like the popular Benihana restaurants.

There are foods that nature provides that nourish the human body and keep it functioning properly. But in recent years, Americans have moved away from eating healthy and are consuming large amounts of processed foods.

Getting ready for school, Labor Day camping and many more activities take our time away from the garden right now. August is that in-between month, and for the most part, all we do is make sure it’s watered. It isn’t really a season in the garden, just a bridge between the lushness of summer and the fall planting season.

The fundamental purpose of religion is unity. All of God’s messengers devoted their lives to teaching mankind about the strength and peace which flow out of embracing one another.

Ashley Bowen, owner of N’Stride N’Balance Massage in Gig Harbor, has been in the massage business for four years.

Saying Tommy Smith is a talented playwright is a bit of an understatement. After he graduated from Peninsula High School and earned degrees in both English and drama from the University of Washington in 2001, Smith, 32, moved to New York and attended Julliard School for its playwright program.

William Quinn has a history of being a one-man show. The Gig Harbor artist has had the honor of being the sole exhibitor at art galleries around the Midwest and Europe for 40 years, and he will again hold center stage at the Mavi Contemporary Art Gallery in Tacoma.

It was standing-room only at the Longbranch Improvement Club on Friday as residents, politicians and members of the Cascade Land Conservancy gathered to celebrate a monumental step in preserving the Key Peninsula’s open spaces.

No one who listens to radio station KGHP during the week of Aug. 20 will hear pre-recorded music. The lights will be on 24/7 as station manager Spencer Abersold attempts to break the Guinness World Record for the longest radio DJ marathon.

The movie “Wild Hogs” wasn’t just a lame Hollywood movie perpetrated by four celebrities looking to ride motorcycles and get well paid for it. Nor was it just a send up to middle-aged wannabes struggling through their mid-life crisis.

If your landscape is designed to harbor a healthy habitat for a variety of creatures, you will have less of a problem with pest species.

Trade shows offer companies grand opportunities to showcase their products. But when visitors stroll through rows of displays, vendors have to offer visual tools that make them stop and look.

Louie Aguilar, a decorated war hero who survived a German prisoner of war camp and spent his later days living on the Key Peninsula, died on July 10. He was 86.

If we are aware and thinking of others, life provides us daily opportunities to live what we believe, in families, among friends and even among strangers.

The best-tasting peaches are in season now and into early September, depending on the weather.

If you’re seated outside the Red Rooster Café in the morning, it’s a great way to catch a cool harbor breeze and maybe a little sunshine. And if you look through the metal grid that makes up the floor, you’ll gaze right into the water.

In the past few weeks, various members of the Gig Harbor community have united for a cause: To donate care package items for soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The CinemaGig Outdoor Movie Night, which will feature the 1963 “Pink Panther,” will not be your typical outdoor movie showing.

Sharon Kresse has come full-circle in Gig Harbor. This month marks the one-year anniversary of her spa’s return to its original location at Sharon’s Consignments on Pioneer Way.

Anyone who has passed through the Arletta neighborhood in recent months couldn’t help but notice that the 100-year-old corner store was closed.

As a minister in a Messianic congregation, I am often asked by well-intentioned fellow believers why I still bury myself in the Old Testament. The question is usually asked with a tone that indicates my questioner thinks I should move past the Old Testament and move into the New Testament, because, after all, that’s where the really good stuff occurs.

Traditional Cobb salad is served with ingredients presented in rows, and a dressing offered on the side. To keep things simple and quick to prepare to serve, the ingredients are mixed and tossed with a delightful garlic dressing. Cooked chicken breast meat is used.

Of about 150 “Species of Concern” (endangered, threatened, sensitive, or candidate species) listed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 25 percent are birds, 21 percent are mammals, 21 percent are fish, 15 percent are insects (10 percent butterflies or moths), 7 percent mollusks, 6 percent amphibians and 5 percent reptiles. One is listed as an annelid: the Giant Palouse earthworm.

Even though Don Snowden has been an artist for most of his life, he was still surprised when his watercolor won the President’s Award at the Associated Arts of Ocean Shores Open show last spring.

Many July visitors to Penrose Point State Park were drawn to see and feel sea life in touch tanks provided by Harbor WildWatch.

A vegetarian salad made using Udon noodles and blended with a variety of chopped and sliced vegetables with its own delightfully pungent dressing.

Seaglass Interiors in Gig Harbor celebrates the coastal lifestyle. The store caters to those who embrace waterfront living with cool, Mediterranean colors — splashes of seafoam green and sky blue.

Visitors to Peninsula Art League’s annual Open Show at the Gig Harbor Civic Center last year knew there was something special about Kari Tirrell’s pastel painting, “Sunny Spot.” The picture, which showed the artist’s cream-colored dog basking in the sunshine, looked more like a photograph than a painting from afar. The sunlight that reflected off the animal’s fur, the subtle folds of its skin and the lazy-day expression on the dog’s face pulled onlookers in, inviting them to drink in the sense of tranquility and simplicity of the moment.

Mark your calendars for the Gig Harbor Art Festival on July 17-18. The festival, sponsored by the Peninsula Art League, will have something for everyone. More than 20,000 attendees are expected, said Russ Camerer, who will co-chair this year’s event with his wife, Christy.