Today marks the long-awaited (by cheese freaks) opening of the Calf & Kid, Capitol Hill's brand-new cheese shop. It's about damn time. Owner/cheese freak Sheri Lavigne moved here from Brooklyn—though she grew up on a farm outside of Albuquerque, milking goats and eating goat cheese—and she's super nice, and she'll let you sample pretty much anything, and she doesn't mind if you buy her expensive cheeses in inexpensive small amounts. The Calf & Kid's in the pleasant (if yet unfinished) open-market area of the newly renovated triangular block at Pine and Melrose. (This is the zone that will eventually also contain the new iteration of Sitka & Spruce and, it is rumoredTRUE!, an oyster bar. And maybe a wine shop bar.)

Also opening today and also in the It's About Time category, right across from the Calf & Kid: Russ Flint's honest-to-god butcher counter, Rain Shadow Meats. He's selling Painted Hills and Thundering Hooves beef, Carlton Farms pork, Cat Tail Creek lamb, Mad Hatcher Farms poultry and rabbits, and various house-cured meats. Did you catch the owner/butcher's name? Russ. Flint. He has obviously escaped from a Harlequin romance.

And! Also right there: Marigold & Mint, selling organically grown flowers and edibles harvested from the farm by the same name, which is a half-hour away from Seattle on the Snoqualmie River. Have you bought stock in ampersands yet? Hurry!