The Rake Magazine

Month: June 2007

  • Steamy, Hot, Goodness.. with a little salt on top

    DINING
    Destination: Puerto Rico

    Isla-verde-beaches-puerto-rico-playas-cupeles1.2.jpgCan you taste the salt in the air? Are you working up a sweat? The Rake’s Tour of World Flavors visits Babalu this evening for a multiple-course tasting menu and wine pairings. Enjoy authentic Latin Caribbean cuisine in an opulent lounge atmosphere. Tonight’s menu begins with Tostones Rellenos de Camarones, fried green plantains loaded with shrimp (Yum!), accompanied with the fruity Cono Sur, Viognier, 2006. The main course will consist of roasted pork (pernil), rice with pigeon peas (arroz con gandules), and sweet plantains. While this is actually traditional Christmas fare in Puerto Rico, it’s also incredibly delicious. I mean, there’s a reason why we serve it during the island’s most celebratory season! Savor the dish with a full-flavored Wrongo Dongo, 2005, and move on to the Tembleque dessert — a coconut custard — with a glass of Errazuriz, Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc, 2006. You’ll leave with your tongue titillated, your belly full, and your head spinning from the blissful combination of good food, good wine, good ambience, and good company. Space is limited, so make your reservation now.

    6 p.m., Babalu, 800 Washington Ave. N., Minneapolis; $40.

    Speaking of Food

    The Rake’s food section is growing, with the addition of two new food writers, Jeremy Iggers and Ann Bauer. Go check out Ann’s new wine blog, Beyond the Cask, and Jeremy and Ann’s food news blog, Breaking Bread. And don’t forget to tune into Stephanie March’s food blog, Consider the Egg. Stephanie has been diligently blogging about food at The Rake for almost two years now. So think about our fabulous food bloggers when you click on over to the Culinate Grill Me Contest to vote for your favorite. Win a trip to Napa Valley to attend the COPIA Cooking School’s prestigious two-day grill course taught by best-selling authors and grill masters Andrew Schloss and David Joachim. Culinate will select one winner at random from among readers’ entries, and one winning food blogger based on reader votes. Each winner is invited to bring along a companion for the journey.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE by Eeva-Liisa Waaraniemi
    Which One’s the Alternate Reality?

    img_3734.jpgBy now, most of us are well-acquainted with certain virtual versions of humanity; could the Simpsons or the Flintstones be imprinted any deeper in our collective memory? Fred’s ragged smock and Marge’s conish hairdo aren’t weird to us anymore. What we do find weird (and sometimes disturbing) are the new digital humanoids who are becoming increasingly finely molded to resemble us. Welcome to the “Uncanny Valley of Simulated Memory,” the imaginary place where the more human-like the computerized characters become, the more unbelievable they are. Thus the title of tonight’s premiere at the Ritz: The Closer I Get, The Less I Believe It, a performance of dance, digital images, and music that explores the relationship between media and humanity. What happens when physical reality is indistinguishable from virtual creations? The show is just over an hour long, so there will still be some light in the sky when you step back out into the hub of Northeast Minneapolis’s unique cultural district. If you want to milk the evening for all it’s worth, head over to The Sample Room or Psycho Suzi’s for vittles that are real enough to rot. This may reassure you.

    8 p.m., The Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-623-7660; $15.

    MORE THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Shakespeare in the Parks

    as_you_like_it_poster.gifDon’t feel like being cooped up in a dark theater tonight? Go see the Cromulent Shakespeare Company’s outdoor performance of As You Like It. We’ve already established that you can’t go wrong with Shakespeare. And the frolicky gayness of this particular comedy lends itself so beautifully to the outdoors. Do a little dance to hold back the rains, and enjoy the evening with a little Shakespeare in the park. Tonight’s performance is in Loring Park, but you can catch them Friday (7 p.m.) at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden, Saturday (7 p.m.) at Como Park, or Sunday (2 p.m.) at Hiawatha Lake Park.

    7 p.m., Loring Park, 1382 Willow St., Minneapolis; 612-220-3397; free.

    FILM
    The Hour Is Upon Us — the 48th Hour

    Cinema Lounge4web.jpgThis month’s Cinema Lounge is upon us. (They sure do come around quickly!) And tonight’s lineup features the Minneapolis Audience Award Picks from the 2007 48-Hour Film Project. See the top eight films and meet some of the filmmakers. Tonight’s films include Der Hund by Eric Mueller, Le Film Animal by Jesse Gangle, The Day the Earth Was Attacked For 6 Minutes (& 58 Seconds) by Brian Prom, Open House by Keith Hurley, Plot Hole by Matt Gibson, Mourning Wood by Nick Abdo, Single Female Sci-Fi Vet by Luke Ogrodnik, and em>Naked Abe by Mike Scholtz.

    7 p.m., Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater, 810 West Lake St., Minneapolis; free (but you’re welcome to make a donation to IFP-MN).

    Bollywood Terror

    35m.jpgThe Institute for Advanced Study’s Summer Asian Film Series continues tonight with Mission Kashmir, a popular Hindi musical about a family torn apart by violence in the Kashmir valley. The screenplay was written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Suketu Mehta, and the film was directed by the almost legendary Vidhu Vinod Chopra (2000, India). Cast members include Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Duttand (in a stellar performance), and Preity Zinta (stunning as ever).

    7 p.m., Nicholson Hall, Room 155, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; 612-626-5054; free.

    MUSIC by Jill Schoepf
    Feist

    Feist.jpgOver the past three years, this Canadian punk rocker has metamorphosed into an indie-folk-rock darling, collaborating along the way with Peaches, Broken Social Scene, and the Norwegian folk duo Kings of Convenience. Following a soulful Parisian solo debut (Let It Die, in 2004), Leslie Feist’s talent is now firmly cemented with her latest, The Reminder, a combination of alternately buzzy, sultry, brash, and wistful songs. While her music is notably kaleidoscopic in genre, a well-worn gossamer voice is the link that winds throughout Feist’s repertoire; and her songwriting’s poetic approachability has helped her elbow past those run-of-the-mill indie rockers to make it into mainstream stardom.

    7:30 p.m., Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-339-7007; $26.

    It’s Minnesota — We’ll Always Have Another Winter

    jray copy.jpgJoin the Last Great Winter (not to be confused with Florida rockers Last Winter) for a CD Release Party tonight in St. Paul. While the CD doesn’t actually hit the stores until Friday, you can catch a preview tonight at Dunn Bros. on Grand, or catch them next Wednesday at the 331 Club. Stop on by and chill a while with singer/songwriter Jeff Ray’s honeyed vocals and deft slide guitar stylings. Claiming to draw from the eclectic range of performers that includes Ravi Shankar, Nick Drake, and Greg Brown, Ray serves up sweet-sounding Mississippi Delta blues.

    8:30 p.m., Dunn Bros. Coffee, 1569 Grand Ave., Saint Paul; 651-489-5375; free.

  • Game Two In NY: You Tell Me And We'll Both Know

    The first two games of the Mets series were a perfect snapshot of the Twins’ see-saw season to date: An 8-1 loss and a 9-0 victory in the span of 24 hours. Five hits one night, thirteen the next. Go figure.

    Actually, if the season ended today, you could put the last eleven games in a time capsule as a condensed version of the sort of maddening team the Twins have been all year. They lost two-of-three to a dreadful Washington club (and, in typical fashion, looked hopeless against a couple of stiffs in the process), swept a decent Atlanta team, lost two-of-three to Milwaukee, and then split the first two games of the New York series in absolutely schizoid fashion.

    What was the difference tonight?

    Beats the hell out of me. Gardenhire swapped Jeff Cirillo for Nick Punto, and Cirillo proceeded to go 3-5 with a run and an rbi. At least for one night that looked like a pretty smart move, and given that Cirillo is a career .298 hitter you kind of wonder why it took so long to give it a shot.

    And the Mets, of course, committed four errors and looked anxious all night against Santana.

    This much seems certain: We’re not likely to see Santana put together such a strange –if nonetheless very attractive– pitching line (complete game shutout, four hits, 92 pitches, and one strike out) any time soon.

  • Grumbling About Glockenspiel

    I don’t usually criticize restaurants on the basis of a single visit, but in the case of my recent outing to Glockenspiel, I am willing to make an exception. From past visits, I remembered the Bavarian restaurant in St. Paul’s historic CSPS Hall as serving possibly the best German food in the Twin Cities. This time around, the setting was as charming as ever, but the kitchen badly missed the mark. My companion ordered Schweinebraten (roast pork)and I ordered Sauerbraten (marinated beef roast). The meats were adequate, but everything else was badly off the mark: instead of a crusty rye bread, the bread basket was filled with two-tone marbled soft-crusted supermarket bread – sort of like WonderBread with food coloring added. The spaetzle were mushy. The red cabbage was flavorless. And no self-respecting German restaurant would serve a vegetable medley of yellow squash, zucchini, and crinkle-cut carrot slices.

  • Beautiful Chaos

    MUSIC
    Play Red

    hiromi-cust copy.jpgYou’ve already had two days to see Hiromi play at the Dakota. If you haven’t yet done so, now is the time. If you already did so, then you already know. Go again. This woman is incredible. This is truly some of the best in jazz improv. You’ll be completely carried away, completely mesmerized. Usually, this style of jazz is too synthetic for my taste, but.. Hot damn! See for yourself. Pure class. Pure jazz. Pure funkadelic keyboard babe.

    7 and 9 p.m., Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet, Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; $25 & $15.

    MUSIC AND FILM
    You’ve Got to Be Insane to Be Insane

    catch22.jpgIt’s Tuesday again, so grab the blanket or lawn chairs (you should probably just keep them in the car for the next couple months), and head on over to the Holland neighborhood for an outdoor music and movie night. Tonight’s agenda begins with the alt rock confessions of The Rank Strangers. These guys are straight Minneapolis ’80s — familiar, nothing we haven’t heard before, but comforting. When dusk falls, enjoy an outdoor screening of Mike Nichols’s Catch 22, adapted from Joseph Heller’s book of the same name. This comedic WWII classic send out a resounding anti-war message with a story about a man trying to get himself certified as insane in order to escape the insanity of war. (What’s the name of the cross-dresser in M.A.S.H. who tries to do this?)

    8 p.m., Edison High School amphitheater, 700 22nd Ave. N.E. (22nd Ave. and Quincy St.), Minneapolis; free.

    LECTURE
    Who Killed Health Care?

    who_killed_hc_cover.jpgMichael Moore’s Sicko is beginning to circulate, both in theaters (mainly preview screenings) and online. You’ll hear more about this next week, but if you’re far too anxious, you can start raking the net. Rumor has it the video has already been (and will again be) leaked to the web. And Michael Moore doesn’t seem to mind. Could it be this man has something to say? Does a documentary about the American health care system interest you? Then allow yourself a little bit of foreplay tonight over dinner. Prof. Regina Herzlinger, often hailed as one of the most important people in health care, will be discussing her book Who Killed Health Care?: America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem and the Consumer-Driven Cure. Enjoy a nice dinner and hear all about Herzlinger’s market-based plan for putting insurance money in the hands of patients, removing middlemen in doctor-patient relationships, and giving cost relief to employers.

    6:30pm, The Metropolitan Clubroom, 5418 Wayzata Boulevard, Golden Valley; 612-338-3605; $32.50 (American Experiment Members $27.50).

    PARADE by Eeva-Liisa Waaraniemi
    When Did Northeast Minneapolis Get so Hip?

    polishgals copy.jpgBehold the changing face of the good ol’ “Nordeast” as it proceeds down Central Avenue. Sink into your lawnchair for the 2007 Celebrate Northeast Parade, or — if you’re like me — forget the lawn chair and, with urgency, size up leftover spaces on the curb to assess buttwidth compatibility. The parade lineup includes organizations harking to Northeast Minneapolis’s traditional demographic, the Polish American Cultural Institute, the Ukrainian Heritage Festival. This year, however, the parade isn’t just about the neighborhood. National television is in the mix with a Dateline NBC presentation of a group of 1979 Edison High graduates who have undergone the network’s Diet Challenge in preparation for their 25-year reunion. (Doesn’t televising this simply threaten the very dignity they’re trying to preserve by losing the weight in the first place?) Also on tonight’s docket are various politicos (all Democrats, of course — this ain’t Wayzata), Al Franken included. Other floats of note: Chicks on Sticks (women on stilts!), Fuego Latino Dancers and, of course, the marching bands. Festivities begin with a Tailgate Party in the Eastside Food Co-op parking lot, where you can expect a puppet show, Andean flute music, and many other curiosities.

    6:30 p.m., 28th and Central Ave. N.E., south down Central to 14th Ave., Minneapolis; free. (Tailgate: 4 p.m., Eastside Food Co-op, 2551 Central Ave. N.E.)

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    What’s up, Sherlock?

    2265008431.jpegA threat — against Sherlock himself — sets this ball rolling, or rather this boat. A mystery. Join the University of Minnesota Showboat Players in solving Sherlock’s Last Case. A good laugh. Witty humor, quick retorts, a suspense-filled storyline, and a cast of zany characters. And water all around. Get on the Showboat and have some fun.

    2:30 and 8 p.m., Minnesota Centennial Showboat, Harriet Island; 651-227-1100; $17-$22.

  • Game One Of The Never-Ending Road Trip: The Soccer Hooligan In Me

    I don’t have the energy to write an entire entry in Irish or Cockney slang, but that’s what I feel like doing every time this team slips into its offensive (and I do mean offensive) imitation of a World Cup soccer team, which lately seems to be several times a week.

    I just took a look, and it really has been as bad as I thought I was imagining: In sixteen June games the Twins have scored three or fewer runs ten times. Guess how many of those they won.

    Two.

    I guess a sharp character like me could conclude from that that a team can’t win very many games in the major leagues if they don’t score more than three runs. I’m also guessing that it’s awful tough to win when you only score one run, which, after tonight’s loss in New York, the Twins have now done three times this month. They scored zero runs once as well –that one was a real soccer match of a baseball game, a 1-0 loss to Oakland and Joe Blanton.

    I suppose I should be somewhat concerned about Juan Rincon, given his last couple outings, but what difference does it really make if a guy trots in from the bullpen and gets the snot knocked out of him every night if the offense isn’t going to score any runs?

    Not much, I guess, not on a night like tonight.

    Yesterday, that was a different story, but thank God the Good News version of the Good News-Bad New Bears was swinging the bats for the Twins in the finale against the Brewers, sparing us yet another offensive snooze-fest.

    It’s maybe time to face this fact, though: neither version –the Sunday afternoon version, or the Monday night version– appears to be good enough to be good enough.

    If you see what I mean.

    And I’m pretty sure you do.

  • Fast and Loose

    Commenting on my previous post about the Avista-Zygi Wilf real estate deal(s) and the importance of high transparency on the part of the Strib as it reports and comments on the story, “bart” asks the following:

    “What’s the basis of the charge that Avista currently or will direct positive coverage of the potential stadium? Is that how it worked at the Pioneer Press when Xcel was a story? Or with your TV column? Just wondering. In my experience, journalists are interested in news, so a new stadium might be more interesting than no stadium. But I’ve never witnessed a publisher or owners directly influence non-editorial (news) coverage. You do play fast and loose here, don’t you, Brian?”

    In response, the key element here — the unique element — is that Avista Capital Partners is NOT a newspaper or journalism company. It is a highly private investment group with a short term mission here in the Twin Cities. As stated by Avista’s top editor, Nancy Barnes, they are probably interested in only a half decade ownership at most.

    I hope the speculative nature of the post was obvious enough for most readers. Mine may be a nutball “black helicopter” scenario. And yes, in a normal situation front line editors would react very negatively to orders/”suggestions” to hype up a project with so stark a set of conflicts of interest.

    But these aren’t ordinary times. In addition to Avista having no experience (and demonstrable patience) with newspapers, the accelerating rate of revenue decline at the Star Tribune should lead reasonable people to ask what a “major daily” in the Twin Cities will look like in another three years, and what current owners and managers might do to insure the return promised to their investors?

    Am I intensely skeptical that Avista is interested in the long-term health of Minnesota’s largest news outlet? Yes I am. But for the moment I’m urging equal skepticism on the Strib staff and the public more than I’m “charging” them with anything.

  • Should the Strib Play Ball with Zygi?

    (UPDATED BELOW)

    God knows the Star Tribune has faced conflict of issues before with stadium-related real estate deals. But the latest one, wherein Vikings owner and major — emphasis on “major” — real estate developer, Zygi Wilf has a deal in place to buy four of the five blocks owned by Strib owner Avista Capital Partners near the Metrodome, puts a spike on an ethics watch.

    Count me among those who find the $45 million reportedly offered for the four blocks on the low side. I know, the city values the land at something around $25 million, so at first blush this looks like a respectable premium. But other real estate-watchers far hipper to value than me placed the true value of all five blocks at something much closer to $100 million. That figure represents the interest a new Vikings stadium might have to developers and speculators, even in a cratering condo market.

    In this context, the question I’m asking is whether this might be a two stage agreement. In this scenario the last piece of property — the block on which the main Star Tribune building sits at 425 Portland — would deliver the remainder of the true value of the five-block parcel. In other words, based on certain conditions, Wilf would goose that $45 million up to a number my merry band of conspiratologists believe more appropriate for a project as grand as he envisions for the east side of downtown.

    Specifically, the full theory goes something like this: Wilf privately agrees to “enhance” the dollars on the entire project, by buying the final, fifth block based on the state legislature kicking in one more taxpayer subsidy for the centerpiece stadium project and thereby picking up $150-$200 million (or more) of cost. In order to gain legislative support, Wilf’s tacit agreement with Avista Capital Partners is that they keep their newspaper, still the single biggest mouthpiece for news and commentary in this market, focused on the bright and shiny upside to a world class Vikings stadium and the transformative qualities of all that adjacent acreage.

    A steady stream of more positive-than-negative coverage boosted by regular “objective” editorializing and the public eventually might come around to seeing the logic and value of “stepping up” to “first-class” city-ness with a stadium that will humble Seattle and Atlanta and almost everything short of that 100,000 seat monstrosity they’re throwing up in Dallas.

    If the legislature caves and agrees to a subsidy deal, Avista, which is all about profits and not all that concerned with community service to the Twin Cities, gets the fat back-end pay-off commensurate with their property’s real value. If selling that final block means moving what’s left of the Star Tribune over by Stand Up Frank’s or out to Blaine, so be it. Once that last block of real estate is carved up Avista will dump what’s left of the paper just to cut their losses.

    I have calls in to the usual Journalism ethics types. We’ll see what if anything they have to say about how the Strib should handle coverage of Wilf’s campaign for public money. In the past, with the Cowles and the Dome almost 30 years ago, criticisms of their boosterism for the Metrodome had validity. It was certainly fair to raise and sustain skeptical questioning.

    But with the Cowles it wasn’t like the Dome was going to make or break their overall business plan. With Avista, the suspicion is that this real estate deal is no peripheral matter. This is the guaranteed equity they came to town to harvest, and $45 million isn’t anywhere near enough to counter-balance the losses they’re looking at on the newspaper side. So … maximizing Zygi and the stadium is essential to them, not just a nice bonus after generations of doing family business in town.

    For what it is worth, I spent three weeks last winter kicking around the capital at the start of the session doing mini-interviews with roughly a third of current legislators. My excessively blonde and dismayingly Republican former radio combatant, Sarah Janecek, needed an extra hand to assemble her Politics in Minnesota Directory.

    Along with asking about No Child Left Behind, gas taxes, property tax relief, school funding and every other issue on the table, I made a point of asking all 70 or so of the legislators I interviewed about ponying up money for a Vikings stadium.

    There wasn’t one — not one — who expressed even a hint of interest, much less enthusiasm for the deal. Disgust among the usual lefties was instantaneous. More to the point, most saw/see the Vikings stadium as the mega development deal it is, (unlike the Twins stadium), and what’s even more, a mega-development deal with a motivated, fully-capitalized mega-developer in place and ready to do what he does. Bottom line, the legislature sees Zygi Wilf as a very big boy who doesn’t need Minnesota taxpayers’ training wheels to help him make a nice buck here in Minnesota.

    From super developer Wilf’s point of view, it is always better to spend other people’s money. So, if — for a piddly $40-$50 million more — he can get a jittery investment group with no long term commitment to Minnesota to get its newspaper subsidiary to play cozy ball and provide “objective” cover for nervous legislators, the deal gets has the potential to get all the sweeter.

    Maybe this is black helicopters stuff. But considering the direct check passing from Zygi Wilf’s hand to Avista Capital Partners, skeptical Strib readers should prepare an acid bath for every word the paper publishes on the deal.

    (UPDATE) This from Prof. Jane Kirtley at the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law:

    “Of course the Star Tribune should disclose in news stories and any editorials what interest they have in the land sale/stadium deal. This is not rocket science. Clearly, there’s a potential conflict if they are out boosting an undertaking from which they stand to profit. Business is business, but the news business requires transparency and disclosure. Media Ethics 101.

    “That said, this isn’t the first time something like this has come up. I recall a few years ago something similar involving the Asbury Park Press (NJ) and some land of theirs that was being sold for some kind of business development — I think a big shopping center, but I don’t recall the details, so don’t quote me on that. In any event, I know the paper both editorialized and covered the story as a straight news story, and there were some questions asked at the time about whether they were being as forthcoming as possible. I didn’t read all the APP’s coverage, but I know that they did include disclosures in at least some of the pieces. And that’s clearly the minimum that anyone would expect.

    “I don’t know what position the Strib or Avista are taking here. My guess is that if they argue against disclosure, it would be something along the lines of the way governmental entities justify avoiding state open records/open meetings requirements when they are contemplating land purchases or sales — they argue that secrecy is essential in order to protect the interest of the taxpayer in getting the best deal (lowest or highest, as the case may be). That argument never washes with me at the government level. But one would hope that a news organization that constantly argues in favor of openness would be consistent, no matter what its financial stake might be.”

  • Pontiyuck

    I spend alot, I mean ALOT of time intercepting generally middle-aged people in parking logs and asking them about their rides. So far I have been treated far more graciously than I have by some people on Hennepin Avenue these days (one picked up my sandwich while I was sitting on a bench and proceeded to eat it. Never asked.)

    It is therefore with some sadness that I must retract my previous comments about the Pontiac G6 as a “best buy.” To put it bluntly, the Pontiac G6 is a piece of crap.

    That was confirmed by a lightly coiffed soccer mom in the parking lot of Lunds in Richfield this weekend. This mom was on her second G6 retractable coupe since 2005. While the car looked cool, it also looked plastic ala rubbermaid. Apparently the G6 also “rattled and shook all over the place,” which is the reason this nice lady said” she would never, NEVER, buy another.”

    She was, of course describing the dreaded “cowl shake” that afflicted convertibles throughout the 70s and 80s. In other words, it seems GM still builds them like they used to.

    Unlike the car that soon parked right next to the poor woman’s Pontiac–a Mini Cooper S in two-tone orange and black. This car does not shake, looks great, and goes like stink.

    I tried to strike up another conversation but the stripper hit me.

    P.S. It looks like I might try a few rides at Sears next Week or shortly thereafter. I am going to try and get four to eight cars reviewed a month.

  • Groomzillas?

    A former Star Tribune scribe got mention in the NY gossip rags last week, but they didn’t bat an eye at the mere mention of John Habich. Why? Well, because Habich is betrothed to the writer/pharmaceutical heir Andrew Solomon, of course. Their wedding site, while ambiguous about the date of the actual affair, offers an enticing glimpse of how the upper-crust hitch. It includes a somewhat modest gift registry as well an amusing passage about preferred wedding attire.

    My contact with Habich (a former Strib senior cultural editor, now at Newsday) was fairly minimal while he was in town. I was working at a mid-sized theater company back then. The only detail I recall is that of his NYC cell phone number. In any case, with all the bad news that’s been circulating about reporters and writers as of late, it’s good to see one that made good. Or at least is marrying well.

  • Frank Discovery

    uncle franky.jpg

    Hotness got the best of us on Sunday night, so I packed up the kids and headed to the movies. From being in the sun all day (I’m feeling a little Colonel Saunders Original Recipe) I was in need of a beer with my flick, so we headed off to the New Hope Cinema Grill. The doctor ordered a big pint of Surly Ale, some crispy waffle fries with seasoned sour cream, and a gnarly surfing penguins movie.

    Driving home refreshed and chatting about the possibility of finding surf lessons in town, all of a sudden my son blurts out “Oh my god, there’s Uncle Franky’s!”

    Being huge fans of the Scooby-Doo enhanced Uncle Franky’s of Nordeast, we were shocked to see the sign in Plymouth of all places. But joy, there it is! Right off of Hwy 55 and 169, across from a Rainbow Foods, right next to a Caribou! Hail hail, the suburbs have become a bit more liveable!

    It was closed last night, but we are already plotting our lunch today: I’m in for the Polish Maxwell (with kraut, danke schon), Jake is all about the classic Uncle Franky Dog with a strawberry shake, and Matt’s thinking about the Motown Chili burger (no beans).