Notes from the rumor mill. Because no one is immune.
Sunday, November 11
Reliable source has friend in Ann Arbor real estate who says Les Miles has made an offer on a house in Barton Hills.
Wednesday, November 14
Another reliable - and unrelated- source hears same thing from a real estate developer.
Wednesday, November 28
LSU faculty source - announcement will be made in Baton Rouge on Tuesday, December 4.
Baton Rouge source - LSU Chancellor already has replacement chosen.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A2 Questionnaire: Janene Centurione
(Same 6 Questions, Different Victim – Thanksgiving Edition)
Janene Centurione, Owner, Great Harvest Bread Company
Janene, what’s your favorite dish to cook?
Anything Italian...currently experimenting my way thru Giada and Jamie Oliver cookbooks, and recipes from "Mediterranean Summer." It’s by a chef who crewed an Italian luxury sailboat all thru Italy, Provence and Greece.
It’s Friday night and you’re exhausted – what do you do for dinner?
Tell my husband Dan to stop at Siam Square and pickup carry out...it's Thai, inside the Quality Hotel at the corner of Washtenaw and 23...hot and spicy with a cold beer on the couch.
It’s Saturday night and you’re ready to go out and have a great time – what do you do?
Find Mandy Kay and let her drag us somewhere that she can't believe we haven't been to.
What’s your favorite restaurant (besides Zingerman’s!) to take out-of-town guests?
Paesano's, altho I can't wait til Blue Tractor opens...that's one of our favs Up North and I expect it to be here too...our favs in the Metro Area are Andiamo and J. Alexander's.
What do you love about Ann Arbor that you think is unique among other cities?
The well-traveled and interesting people, in a smallish city...I love to read the local calendar of events, because of all of the amazingly different things people are passionate about. I love that we have a world-class library, that people read, sing, talk, think, and are engaged in more that just the material world. I love the students and the energy that the University brings. And yes, I love Art Fair.
Last question – if you were to write a Blues song about living in Ann Arbor, what would the title be?
The “Standing on the Corner of State and Liberty” Blues
Friday, November 16, 2007
everyday wines for the holiday
I popped in to everyday wines recently to stock up pre-holiday, so I asked owner Mary Campbell what she would recommend for Turkey Day. “This Villa Soldati,” she said right away, “it’s like Thanksgiving in glass.”
“It’s a blend of 40% Croatina and 60% Barbera,” Mary continued. “The Croatina is like a Gamay on steroids, with a full, fruitiness. And the Barbera pulls it back, gives it some restraint and smoothness.” Sold!
For a white, Mary recommended the Bigi Orvieto Classico, which has been a regular on my wine shelf for some time . The Bigi is a nice, crisp white that seems smoother than a Pinot Grigio and has perhaps a touch of sweetness.
Also, if you’re entertaining, I’d recommend the Ironstone Obsession. This is a crazy bottle of wine that I’ve found myself buying repeatedly when friends are coming over. It’s made from the California “Symphony” grape, a cross between Muscat and Grenache Gris. With that heritage, it’s not surprising that this wine is much more sweet than I would normally like. But it’s just so dang drinkable! And people love it, regardless of whether they’re German or Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc fans.
Meanwhile, the gals over at Gastro 3 beat me to the punch, posting a recent e-mail from Mary to her customers. She's going before the Ann Arbor City Council on Monday night to make a pitch for receiving a liquor license. A license would allow her to do wine and beer tastings along with her cooking classes and events upstairs at everyday cook, and IMHO makes total sense. Show your support for Mary and creativity/initiative in business by sending an e-mail to your City Council members.
“It’s a blend of 40% Croatina and 60% Barbera,” Mary continued. “The Croatina is like a Gamay on steroids, with a full, fruitiness. And the Barbera pulls it back, gives it some restraint and smoothness.” Sold!
For a white, Mary recommended the Bigi Orvieto Classico, which has been a regular on my wine shelf for some time . The Bigi is a nice, crisp white that seems smoother than a Pinot Grigio and has perhaps a touch of sweetness.
Also, if you’re entertaining, I’d recommend the Ironstone Obsession. This is a crazy bottle of wine that I’ve found myself buying repeatedly when friends are coming over. It’s made from the California “Symphony” grape, a cross between Muscat and Grenache Gris. With that heritage, it’s not surprising that this wine is much more sweet than I would normally like. But it’s just so dang drinkable! And people love it, regardless of whether they’re German or Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc fans.
Meanwhile, the gals over at Gastro 3 beat me to the punch, posting a recent e-mail from Mary to her customers. She's going before the Ann Arbor City Council on Monday night to make a pitch for receiving a liquor license. A license would allow her to do wine and beer tastings along with her cooking classes and events upstairs at everyday cook, and IMHO makes total sense. Show your support for Mary and creativity/initiative in business by sending an e-mail to your City Council members.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Game
“My first game was 1951 and the rivalry was good, but not like now,” my neighbor Howard wrote in an email. “The Minnesota game was as intense as OSU, but nothing like when we played Michigan State.”
As you may recall, Howard Zeck is a retired Ann Arbor police officer who has been working the sidelines at U of M football games for over 50 years. He and his wife Dorothy are snowbirds, so like many fans they’ll be watching The Game on TV this Saturday. The internet is ablaze with the speculation and hysterics of much bigger sports brains than mine, so I emailed Howard inquiring about the old (better?) days.
“I met Woody Hayes, and of course was there to see him kick all the yard markers over,” Howard replied when I asked what it was like to be on the sidelines with two gargantua of college football. “About a year after Woody was fired, he and Bo spoke to our Law Enforcement group here in Ann Arbor,” he continued. “Woody told us a story about talking to one of his players. ‘Last week I was crossing the campus and this player ran up to me, hit me on the shoulder, and…(Woody then paused) now you heard what I just said, HE HIT ME!’ Of course everyone in the room came unglued, and Woody just smiled.”
“The teams under Bo and Woody were always disciplined and well behaved. Woody always told the players, ‘YOU will not protest anything. I will do all the protesting around here.’”
“I had tremendous respect for Woody Hayes and the way he treated his players, many very poor,” Howard continued. “There are stories of how he spent most of his salary on the kids and their families.”
I asked Howard (photo at right) what he would tell the team and coaches if he could send them a message. “Go out there and play like Michigan and win one for BO!!”
Amen, Howard. Amen.
As you may recall, Howard Zeck is a retired Ann Arbor police officer who has been working the sidelines at U of M football games for over 50 years. He and his wife Dorothy are snowbirds, so like many fans they’ll be watching The Game on TV this Saturday. The internet is ablaze with the speculation and hysterics of much bigger sports brains than mine, so I emailed Howard inquiring about the old (better?) days.
“I met Woody Hayes, and of course was there to see him kick all the yard markers over,” Howard replied when I asked what it was like to be on the sidelines with two gargantua of college football. “About a year after Woody was fired, he and Bo spoke to our Law Enforcement group here in Ann Arbor,” he continued. “Woody told us a story about talking to one of his players. ‘Last week I was crossing the campus and this player ran up to me, hit me on the shoulder, and…(Woody then paused) now you heard what I just said, HE HIT ME!’ Of course everyone in the room came unglued, and Woody just smiled.”“The teams under Bo and Woody were always disciplined and well behaved. Woody always told the players, ‘YOU will not protest anything. I will do all the protesting around here.’”
“I had tremendous respect for Woody Hayes and the way he treated his players, many very poor,” Howard continued. “There are stories of how he spent most of his salary on the kids and their families.”
I asked Howard (photo at right) what he would tell the team and coaches if he could send them a message. “Go out there and play like Michigan and win one for BO!!”
Amen, Howard. Amen.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Eleventh Day
I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ “The War” in dribs and drabs over the past several weeks. I really do want to absorb all 15 hours, but imagine I’ll have to rent the DVDs one at a time to climb that mountain.Yet watching the incredibly moving interviews of vets and their families who held down the home front has caused me to give some thought to how my teenage daughter will view that war. I have to guess that for her, World War II will seem just as remote as Valley Forge and Antietam. “Basra,” “The Green Zone,” and “Gitmo” will resonate for her generation 20 years from now, not the Bataan Death March.
I grew up hearing stories about the Depression from my mom and grandparents, and Dad was a pharmacist’s mate in the Pacific. He didn’t talk much about that, though I do remember him telling us that his hospital ship picked up POWs and how ravaged those poor soldiers and sailors were. And he always loved to recount the time his ship docked in San Francisco and he and his buddies got shore leave. Whenever I’d travel to SF on business, he would ask me if Finocchio's was still there, as if the city had been frozen in time since 1944.
But Dad, Mom, and my grandparents are all gone, and I wonder if I’ve done The Button a disservice by not telling her what few stories I can remember about her grandparents’ youth. Announcing “there’s where Granny and the Greats lived during the War,” every time we drive by a particular house on White Street certainly doesn’t address the scope of what her family went through, only one generation removed.
Trite as you may think the term, “The Greatest Generation” is apt. And you might say that Dad and Mom’s stories would be more relevant to our current era than anything I could tell my daughter about the bell bottoms or Reaganomics of my childhood. Though I can’t wait for the week they tackle Watergate in her Civics class.
One of the reasons this country is wallowing in the quagmire of a senseless war is because the men currently in power stood aside when their brothers were called to serve a generation ago. As service men and women come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we can at least hope that our children will benefit from the serious lessons those young men and women have learned under fire half a world away.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Monkey Toes and Footie Pajamas
A blustery, early-November evening in Ann Arbor town...
“We’re going to drink Monkey Toes!” my friend Kelly blurted out. Bill the driver cocked his head toward the back of the cab, and he and I both said simultaneously, “did you just say ‘Monkey Toes’?!”
Kelly was visiting from Chatanooga, and we had called Amazing Blue Taxi to transport us to the first stop on our Girls’ Night Out, Café Habana. “You mean Mojitos, right?” I laughed. “Yeah, of cou
rse,” Kelly said, “what did you think I said?”
And that’s pretty much the way things go with us. Our outings are legend (at least in our own minds), with antics not limited to Ann Arbor – we’ve cut a swath across a good chunk of the U.S., and ventured as far afield as England, making friends with dozens of cab drivers, waitstaff, and miscellaneous barflies along the way. Our London expedition was most memorable for the fact that we went two straight days without sleep, in a marathon of pub crawling interspersed with the occasional double-decker bus ride.
Joined by our faithful partner in crime Sherry (sadly, BFF Rachel was MIA, volunteering at the A.R.K.), we did in fact start with Mojitos and appetizers at Ann Arbor’s newes
t entrant to the restaurant scene. The mariquitas (fried plaintain strips) were EXTREMELY garlicy, and the chicken croquetas were odd little ground chicken nuggets, but the dipping oil was yummy. We shared with a gentleman named Mark, who took a seat next to us at the bar entirely unwitting of the vortex of booze and girly conversation he would be sucked into.
Mojitos a blurry memory and two bottles of pinot grigio dead soldiers, we made our way across the street to Arbor Brewing. Settling in, Sherry tugged my sleeve and pointed across the bar. “Is that guy wearing pajamas?” she asked inc
redulously. “Mandy, you have to go talk to him,” Kelly exclaimed, “that’s a blog post waiting to happen!”
If your average foreign correspondent posted to the world’s armpit is even half as liquored up as I was that night, I can tell you that the fact checkers earn their paychecks. Cause the most intelligible thing written in my little notebook is where Stasek and Sara themselves wrote their email addresses. I think the story was that Stasek lost a bet, and was on Day 6 of a full week of wearing pajamas. Everywhere. Even class at law school. As if having a dish like Sara on his arm weren’t evidence enough, Stasek must be a pretty extraordinary guy to have the cojones to follow through on a wager like that.
Blogging duty served, I had to call it a night. My cell phone rang and it was Rick, owner and driver of my Amazing Blue chariot, waiting outside to carry me home. Mark and I promis
ed to meet for lunch next week (Vinology, natch), and Kelly and Sherry progressed to Old Town to indulge in some good, greasy food in a hopeless attempt to soak up the alcohol. At home, snuggled under my poofy down comforter, I dreamed of monkey toes, rubber duckies, and footie pajamas.
“We’re going to drink Monkey Toes!” my friend Kelly blurted out. Bill the driver cocked his head toward the back of the cab, and he and I both said simultaneously, “did you just say ‘Monkey Toes’?!”
Kelly was visiting from Chatanooga, and we had called Amazing Blue Taxi to transport us to the first stop on our Girls’ Night Out, Café Habana. “You mean Mojitos, right?” I laughed. “Yeah, of cou
rse,” Kelly said, “what did you think I said?”And that’s pretty much the way things go with us. Our outings are legend (at least in our own minds), with antics not limited to Ann Arbor – we’ve cut a swath across a good chunk of the U.S., and ventured as far afield as England, making friends with dozens of cab drivers, waitstaff, and miscellaneous barflies along the way. Our London expedition was most memorable for the fact that we went two straight days without sleep, in a marathon of pub crawling interspersed with the occasional double-decker bus ride.
Joined by our faithful partner in crime Sherry (sadly, BFF Rachel was MIA, volunteering at the A.R.K.), we did in fact start with Mojitos and appetizers at Ann Arbor’s newes
t entrant to the restaurant scene. The mariquitas (fried plaintain strips) were EXTREMELY garlicy, and the chicken croquetas were odd little ground chicken nuggets, but the dipping oil was yummy. We shared with a gentleman named Mark, who took a seat next to us at the bar entirely unwitting of the vortex of booze and girly conversation he would be sucked into.Mojitos a blurry memory and two bottles of pinot grigio dead soldiers, we made our way across the street to Arbor Brewing. Settling in, Sherry tugged my sleeve and pointed across the bar. “Is that guy wearing pajamas?” she asked inc
redulously. “Mandy, you have to go talk to him,” Kelly exclaimed, “that’s a blog post waiting to happen!”If your average foreign correspondent posted to the world’s armpit is even half as liquored up as I was that night, I can tell you that the fact checkers earn their paychecks. Cause the most intelligible thing written in my little notebook is where Stasek and Sara themselves wrote their email addresses. I think the story was that Stasek lost a bet, and was on Day 6 of a full week of wearing pajamas. Everywhere. Even class at law school. As if having a dish like Sara on his arm weren’t evidence enough, Stasek must be a pretty extraordinary guy to have the cojones to follow through on a wager like that.
Blogging duty served, I had to call it a night. My cell phone rang and it was Rick, owner and driver of my Amazing Blue chariot, waiting outside to carry me home. Mark and I promis
ed to meet for lunch next week (Vinology, natch), and Kelly and Sherry progressed to Old Town to indulge in some good, greasy food in a hopeless attempt to soak up the alcohol. At home, snuggled under my poofy down comforter, I dreamed of monkey toes, rubber duckies, and footie pajamas.
Monday, November 5, 2007
He's Just Not That Into You
Commiserating over Cosmopolitans with my friend Jane at Melange one night last week, I asked, “how are things going with Sushi Guy?”
“Sushi Guy” is the nickname assigned to Jane’s recent Match.com prospect, because they went to Miki on their first outing. “Well, on the first date it took me a while to warm up to him,” Jane responded. “But then, on the second date at Good Night Gracie I decided I really quite liked him, despite our obvious differences.”
“So…” I prompted. “So then after the second date we played phone tag for a few days. And then he sent me an email,” she continued, “he had decided to get back together with an old girlfriend!”
I had warned Jane that Lewis (his real name) was probably not right for her, that she was barking up the wrong tree. Aside from the obvious cultural differences, to my knowledge he has never been the type to settle with one girl. Never married, no (acknowledged) children, he's much too comfortable in his bachelor life. And really nothing in common with Jane, except perhaps a love of raw fish and live music.
But you see, if a guy’s willing to date realistically proportioned/aged women, can spell “articulate,” and says he likes Guster (qualifications that are challenging to fill in a single man in a 50-mile-radius of Ann Arbor), Jane won’t hesitate to get all dolled up and drop some serious cash on a dinner date downtown. Only to find afterwards that he doesn’t call, doesn’t email, nothing. In fact, I suppose she should count herself lucky that Sushi Guy even b
othered to let her know he was seeing someone else. Better than bumping into them at Gratzi one Friday night.
If you ask me, Jane’s problem is that she’s overly optimistic. But I suppose that’s her nature.
“Sushi Guy” is the nickname assigned to Jane’s recent Match.com prospect, because they went to Miki on their first outing. “Well, on the first date it took me a while to warm up to him,” Jane responded. “But then, on the second date at Good Night Gracie I decided I really quite liked him, despite our obvious differences.”
“So…” I prompted. “So then after the second date we played phone tag for a few days. And then he sent me an email,” she continued, “he had decided to get back together with an old girlfriend!”
I had warned Jane that Lewis (his real name) was probably not right for her, that she was barking up the wrong tree. Aside from the obvious cultural differences, to my knowledge he has never been the type to settle with one girl. Never married, no (acknowledged) children, he's much too comfortable in his bachelor life. And really nothing in common with Jane, except perhaps a love of raw fish and live music.
But you see, if a guy’s willing to date realistically proportioned/aged women, can spell “articulate,” and says he likes Guster (qualifications that are challenging to fill in a single man in a 50-mile-radius of Ann Arbor), Jane won’t hesitate to get all dolled up and drop some serious cash on a dinner date downtown. Only to find afterwards that he doesn’t call, doesn’t email, nothing. In fact, I suppose she should count herself lucky that Sushi Guy even b
othered to let her know he was seeing someone else. Better than bumping into them at Gratzi one Friday night.If you ask me, Jane’s problem is that she’s overly optimistic. But I suppose that’s her nature.
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