Road Tips

The Big Ten Network Comes to Town!

After months of haggling between Mediacom and The Big Ten Network, it was announced late Thursday that the two had agreed to come to terms to allow the cable provider to show the channel on their system.   Speculation had been rampant since Comcast had come to an agreement with the network earlier this summer that other cable providers would fall in line.  Reports last week said that a Mediacom/Big Ten Network agreement was in the final stages and a few details needed to be worked out.

The agreement between the two parties ends a sometimes contentious negotiation period that had been going on for well over a year.  For earlier entries I've had on Road Tips regarding the on-going process, click here, here, here, here and here.   This entry continues to be one of the highest viewed entries on my blog.

All this comes just in time for the start of the college football season.  Today, Iowa hosts Maine in their opening game of the season.  The game will be shown on the Mediacom Connections channel, but the rest of the full network will not be available for a few days while Mediacom puts some equipment in place to receive and distribute the channel on their system.  This will include multiple channels of simultaneous live games, HD broadcasts and video-on-demand. 

While the main bone of contention between the Big Ten Network and cable providers was the high cost of per subscriber fees (reportedly $1.10 per subscriber) and the network's demand that they be part of the basic cable package, the Big Ten Network backed off those demands with the largest cable providers in the Midwest during recent negotiations.  The network will be shown on Mediacom's expanded tier of channels.  Locally here in the Quad Cities, it will be on channel 78.  And Mediacom representatives said that the cable provider will absorb the subscriber fees initially. 

This is good news for thousands of fans across the state of Iowa.  But the Big Ten's tough stance in launching the channel showed other major conferences that having their own conference channel would be hard to pull off.  Speculation had rested upon the Southeastern Conference as the next one to to step up and start their own network.  However, the concept was pretty much squashed after the SEC agreed to a $2.25 billion dollar 15-year contract with ESPN to carry conference games.  Other conferences, such as the Big 12, the ACC and Pac 10 are still watching the evolution of the Big Ten conference's network to see if a similar network plan could be in their future.

So, at 11 a.m., I'll be hanging in our "lodge", cold beer in the cooler, food in the kitchen, bathroom down the hall, fully rested from not having to get up early to drive to Iowa City, and with no stress from having to find a place to park as I get ready to watch the game from the comfort of my couch. 

But it's still too damn early for football...

Ted Drewes - St. Louis

Ted Drewes is a St. Louis institution.  They sell custard ice cream out of two locations on the south-side of St. Louis and have been doing so for over 75 years.  They've been featured on a number of travel and food shows on cable television over the years.  It's a must-stop when we're in St. Louis for Cardinal games. 

Ted Drewes, Sr. was a tennis star who came from the St. Louis area.  He opened his first ice cream stand in Florida in 1930 and then came back to open two locations in St. Louis the following year.  Only one of the two original stores, the one on South Grand (see map) is in business today.  In 1941, Drewes put in a second location on Chippewa Ave. (see map), which was also Route 66 that went from Chicago to L.A.  Over the years, the Chippewa location expanded and became the defacto flagship store for Ted Drewes. 

Ted Drewes, Jr. took over the family business in the 50's.  He had been approached many times to franchise the Ted Drewes custard, but each time he has declined.  He said that franchising "cheapens" the product and you lose control of the quality of the custard.  Good for him.

In the winter time when the custard stands were closed, Ted Drewes, Jr. would sell Christmas trees in the lots of the two locations.  Each fall, Drewes would go to Nova Scotia to hand pick fir trees to be cut down and shipped to St. Louis to sell in his two lots.  The Chippewa location now stays open up through Christmas to sell custard along with the Christmas trees.

Ted Drewes is famous for their custard ice cream, which is only available in vanilla.  They add flavorings to the vanilla custard to make the different varieties of flavors.  One of the famous offerings from Ted Drewes are their "concretes" - a combination of the vanilla custard, flavors and other ingredients that are then thick-blended and served in a cup.  The cup is turned upside down before being served to the customer to show that the custard is thick and rich. 

When we were in St. Louis earlier this year, we stopped at the Ted Drewes on S. Grand.  I felt kind of bad as our friends, Scott and Marcia, spent a good portion of the late morning and early afternoon running us around to get the old ROKNROL Impala to a place to get it worked on and then to take us out to the airport so I could rent a car.  I asked them if they wanted to join us for a Ted Drewes, like we always do out of habit, but they begged off saying they needed to get back to Iowa. 

Cindy and I then went and had lunch at Arcelia's and we were getting ready to leave and go back to Iowa.  Cindy said, "Aren't we going to Ted Drewes?"  I wasn't all that hungry after a nice lunch at Arcelia's, but Ted Drewes did sound kinda good. 

There was already a steady stream of customers coming into the Ted Drewes stand on S. Grand around 2 p.m.  The stand and parking lot at the S. Grand location is about 50% smaller than the one on Chippewa.  And this one doesn't do the business the one on Chippewa does, that's for sure. 

Here's the menu board for Ted Drewes.  I get the same thing each time I go - the Lime Concrete.  Cindy is partial to the Hawaiian - pineapple, coconut, bananas and macadamia nuts.  I don't care for coconut or bananas so I'd probably starve to death if I was on a deserted island.  But she seems to really like it.  I've always wanted to try the Terra Mizzou - which is a take-off on the Italian tiramisu and inserting the nickname for the University of Missouri into the title.  It's an addition of some sort of secret coffee flavored chocolate and pistachios.  I'm going to try it someday, but I just love the Lime Concretes. 

We both got smalls and our orders were up in less than three minutes.  It took us about 10 minutes to eat them, they're that good.  I almost ordered a second one, but decided against it.  We contemplated grabbing a couple for Scott and Marcia and putting them on ice to take back home to them, but it would have meant running to find a cooler somewhere and then packing them in ice to bring back.  And that wouldn't have been any guarantee they would have stayed fully hard by the time we got back home four hours later.  But we also determined that a Ted Drewes had to be eating in the parking lot at the stand where you got it.

Ted Drewes is tough to beat.  We have Whitey's here in the Quad Cities, but they only offer a couple of custard items.  The rich taste, the thick texture, the head-ache from eating it too fast makes Ted Drewes what it is.  It is a slice of heaven in the Midwest.

La Grignotte - Bourbon-Lancy, France

During our trip to France earlier this summer, we boarded a bus in Lyon and rode about 2.5 hours to the small village of Bourbon-Lancy, located in the Burgundy region of France (see map).  The village, itself, has a ton of history behind it as it was once a medieval walled city.  Focal's cabinet plant, Guy H.F., is located in Bourbon-Lancy employing third and fourth generation cabinet makers from the original furniture maker that started in the late 1800's. 

The drive up through the French farm fields and vineyards was a continual photo opportunity.  The rolling hills in the central part of France were green and lush.  This was the second trip I've made up to Bourbon-Lancy, but the first time it was in the summer months.  It was a beautiful day with a hot sun and low humidity.

We were greeted at the factory by Jean-Paul Guy, the part-owner/general manager of the cabinet factory.  Jean-Paul's grandfather started the cabinet factory as a furniture shop in the late 1800's.  Over the years, the company grew to make not only furniture, but cabinets, as well.  And at one point, it employed 10 people in an automobile body shop.  Focal bought controlling interest of Guy's cabinet shop in 1999 and they now exclusively make cabinets for Focal's high-end loudspeakers.

Since it was late morning in Bourbon-Lancy, the tour coordinators with Focal thought it would be nice to take a walk to the old part of Bourbon-Lancy and have lunch at a little restaurant.  The streets in the center of the city are very narrow.  And many of the buildings in the center of the village date back to the 14th century. 

As I said, Bourbon-Lancy was once a medieval walled city.   This was the main entrance to the old city which was built back in the 13th century.  Bourbon-Lancy's history dates back nearly 2000 years.  The village plays up the medieval theme and has restored a number of the buildings in the center of the city to their original state.  Click on the picture above and look toward the very top.  They have a dummy of a medieval sentry looking out of the window of the bell tower. 

Just up the street from the main entrance of the old city is a little restaurant called La Grignotte.  I ate there one time before on my first visit to Bourbon-Lancy and I remember it being very good.

The inside of La Grignotte is very small and cozy.  Since we had a party of around 30 in our group, there was going to be no way we could all fit inside the restaurant.  What they did was set up a number of tables on the street (which in reality is now nothing more than a very wide sidewalk) and put up a number of umbrellas to shade us from the hot June sun.  It wasn't as comfortable as sitting inside, but it worked out pretty well.

Here is a portion of our group getting ready to enjoy their lunch.  Note my colleague, Todd, in the white shirt.  He had to sit in the sun because he was wearing a light colored shirt.  They gave him a series of hats to wear during lunch so he wouldn't get sunburned on his face.  One was an old time straw hat that made him look like Maurice Chevalier.  Then he wore a sailor's hat that made him look like Gilligan.  He took the good-natured ribbing in stride. 

We had our choice of either beef (a tenderloin filet) or fish (a salmon filet).  Something about fish in France doesn't agree with me, so I took the beef.  But before we got our main entree, they offered us a series of appetizers.  One of the appetizers was escargot - snails cooked in a butter and garlic sauce.  Well, I'd never had escargot before and I thought I'd give it a try. 

This is what it looked like as it was served to me.  With a little trepidation, I took my first bite.  Suddenly, it didn't look quite so disgusting.  It was just heavenly!  Oh, my God, the escargot tasted so great.  I can't believe I've never tried them before.  They were simply out of this world.

Soon after, our main entrees showed up.  It was a nice chunk of beef tenderloin, along with potatoes au gratin and a salad topped with a poppy seed dressing.  I'm not certain that I've ever had the salad served on the plate with the main entree, but when in France, do as the French do, I guess. 

Now, I ordered my steak medium-rare.  I've noticed over the years of traveling stateside with Europeans, they have a tendency to order their beef rare.  I see why - medium in France is medium-rare in America.  Which means medium-rare in France is, well, rare. This thing was still "mooing" when I cut into it.  A few of the people in their group asked to send their meat back to get it cooked a little longer, but I went ahead and ate mine like this.  It was very good - probably the best cut of beef I've ever had in my trips to France.

Of course, lunch in France can take two hours or more.  With all the food and wine, I don't know how anyone can work in the afternoon.  And on top of all that, they then brought out dessert.  Now, I'm not just talking about *a* dessert, I'm talking about a ton of desserts to choose from.  This one was a custard cake that was absolutely fabulous. 

Also on the dessert tray was this delectable peach pie.  It was interesting that the peaches were placed on top of the crust and not as a filling.  I didn't try any of the pie, but those who did said it was very good.  I can tell you I'd certainly never seen a peach pie like that before.

And this was an interesting combination - this was a date or fig pie with real chocolate pudding.  And I mean real chocolate pudding, not that powdery stuff you mix in a bowl.  It was sinful, to say the least.

We got a big kick out of the presentation of the chocolate pudding when they brought it out to the table.  It was all in a huge bowl and they just happened to set it down in front of my boss, Daniel.  We were wondering if he was going to share it with us.  Here's Daniel with Jean-Paul seated next to him fronted by the bowl of pudding.

After lunch, a few of us strolled down the little walkway of the old village of Bourbon-Lancy and found this wonderful little flower garden just a stone's throw from the restaurant.  This was actually the site of a religious school/college for monks that was originally founded in the 1400's.  It was such a beautiful day and a beautiful setting that we sort of hung around the area for a few moments. 

Here are a row of flowers and roses planted along an ancient wall in the garden.  Bourbon-Lancy is also well-known throughout Europe as having natural thermal water pools.  People travel from all over to a spa located outside the city to luxuriate in the warm natural spring waters.  The area has long been a place where Europe's elite have traveled to enjoy the warm natural waters of the thermal spa.

Just up from where we ate is this church - Church of the Sacred Heart - that was built in the late 1800's.  This cathedral was built in the neo-gothic style and sits on the site of a convent that was destroyed during the  .  There's also a small museum in the church which shows artifacts from previous churches in the area.  At one point in time, Bourbon-Lancy had 15 houses of religion in the town, including the aforementioned monk college and a monk convent, and two women's convents. 

The inside of the church was equally as impressive as the outside.  I'm not much of a religious guy, but it would be sort of cool to attend services just to take in the experience.  For a warm day in the central part of France, the church was cool inside and felt good to stand in there out of the hot sun for a few moments. 

Walking back to the restaurant, here is a picture of the bell tower from the other side.  It's a pretty impressive structure once you figure out that it was built in the 13th century.  This small area hosted a small number of bistro-type restaurants and bars. 

When we walked back to the factory, we went through an old estate that now housed what I was told was the park commission for the city of Bourbon-Lancy.  The grounds of the estate were now a park maintained by the city and had a number of exotic trees planted on the grounds.  I would have liked to have walked through the building.

One of the exotic trees that were planted on the grounds was this giant redwood tree brought over from California.  A couple of the dealers from California were incredulous that a giant sequoia tree was standing in France, but that's what the plaque at the base of the tree signified it was.  There were a number of other fruit trees, flowering bushes and berry-bushes located on the old estate.  I'm sure the long-ago owner of the estate planted them as many were very mature in size. 

After our factory tour, Jean-Paul took us up to a small church just up the hill from the plant.  Jean-Paul was the head of a group who was restoring the church and turning it into a small art museum.  This church was the only one left standing in Bourbon-Lancy after the French Revolution and it wasn't being used for much of anything.  The original structure dates back to the 12th century.  But a group of people have put in a lot of long hours and hard work to restore the structure.

Here's a picture of some of the restoration work they've done inside the church.  Two original tombs remain in the church, including one that has been opened and the skull and bones of the person entombed in the concrete casket are on display.  It was really kind of neat.  Jean-Claude told me it has taken about three years of volunteer efforts to get the church/museum to where it is today.  And there's still a lot of work to do before it's finished.

A number of artists had works on display on the walls of the church.  This one was a photo exhibit from a photographer.  He had some very pretty female subjects hauntingly posed for the camera.  I wish I had an eye for photography like that guy had. 

The church also had a very beautiful 15' X 15' tapestry that was being restored.  I took a picture of it, but it was too dark in the building for it to come out.  I tried it with the flash and it didn't look very good, either.  I probably could have futzed with my camera for a few moments to get the right exposure, but I didn't.  Thinking back, I should have taken the time because it was pretty cool.

After a quick walk back to the factory, it was time to say our good-byes and hop on the bus back to Lyon.  Bourbon-Lancy is one of those quaint little French villages with a load history behind it.  I certainly learned more about the place in the six hours we were there than I did on my previous visit.  Of course, it helps when you can walk around and see the sights along the way.  

The Iowa State Fair - 2008

Coming to the end of the summer always means the annual Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.  This year's fair broke attendance records as over 1.1 million people walked through the gates, beating the old mark set in 2004 by about 60,000 people.  Of course, we went on the Saturday this year when nearly 117,000 people attended the fair.  This year, the weather was absolutely gorgeous throughout the fair's run.  Temps were in the upper 70's and low 80's with little humidity and no rain. 

Cindy's work place had a special "Day at the Fair" where they invited workers from their several branches to come spend time at the fair with their families.  Cindy's company has 10 branch offices in places such as Chattanooga, Atlanta, Wichita, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Waterloo and Cedar Rapids.  And about 275 people from all over the place showed up.  They got us free tickets, free parking passes, put us up in a hotel for the night, fed us and let us drink a shit load of free beer.  It was a fun day, to say the least. 

Of course, we had to roam around with the camera to see what was interesting this year.  Actually, a lot of it is the same ol' stuff - farm equipment, various Iowa industries, new cars and trucks.  But it doesn't take much time to see a lot of it when you go on the Sky Ride over the exhibits.

One of the first places we stopped was to meet up with my cousins, Tom and John Wehrle, and John's significant other, Bonnie, at the Bill Riley Stage.  Playing that morning were the Echo's V - a band that used to be one of the most popular bands in the 1960's in the Central Iowa area.  I remember seeing them a couple times years and years ago, but I couldn't tell you exactly when.  There used to be another guitar player in the band (hence, the Roman numeral "five"), but these guys - probably now all in their late 50's or early 60's - did a great job and cranked out some good old 60's music. 

Our next stop was to get Cindy something to eat.  She loves the Dutch letters from the bakeries around Pella and she found a stand that was selling them the fair.  She wanted to know if I wanted one and I didn't - I was holding out for the ultimate State Fair food.  But she couldn't resist getting a Dutch letter.  Doesn't she look happy in this picture?  And I learned a long time ago that a happy Mama is good thing to have. 

We wandered along the main concourse at the State Fair and went down to the Department of Natural Resources building to see the fish and other game they have on display.  I always like to head out to the outdoor pond to see the trumpeter swans, ducks and geese on display.  It's kind of a nice little setting in the middle of the chaos at the State Fair. 

Of course, there's tons of rides at the State Fair each year.  This thing used to be on the hill on the east end of the fairgrounds, until they put up a power generating windmill on the spot a year or so ago.  So they moved this ride - along with three or four other vomit-inducing attractions - down to the southwest side of the fairgrounds.  I called the area on the top of the hill the "Vomitorium", as the rides were sure to induce major spewage from the mouths of thrill-seeking teenagers and young adults.  So, this is the NEW Vomitorium area. 

This ride - the Ejector Seat - straps a couple people into chairs and a machine pulls the bungee cords tight.  Then the chairs are thrown skyward and the people tumble and go up and down.  If you're lucky you get to see some 14-year-old kid trying to impress his girlfriend throwing up all over himself.

Ah!  Refreshment time.  Never a State Fair goes by without a visit to my favorite watering hole, Stockman's Inn.  They always have the coldest beer on the fairgrounds.  And for a long time they used to have 20 oz. beers for $5.00.  But like everything this summer, they had to raise the price on the 20 oz. glasses to 6 bucks.  Oh, well.  It's still the coldest beer at the fair. 

Some of the guys serving beer at Stockman's have been doing so for many years.  I've been coming to the fair for over 30 years of legal drinking age and I think this guy has been pouring beer at every one. 

Stockman's also had their annual Chili Cook-off the day we were there.  Now, I never knew this before, but they allow for free samples of some of the chili made by the participants in the event after the judging begins at 1 p.m.  I would have liked to tried some of the chili to get some ideas for my own award winning Willi Chili. 

One of the main attractions at this year's fair were the world famous Budweiser Clydesdale pull team.  We wandered down to where they were getting hitched up to the beer wagon for the 2:00 p.m. parade through the fairgrounds.   There are a total of five Clydesdale teams that travel up to 10 months a year for appearances.  The team travels with 12 horses, but only 8 are used for a given appearance. 

Here are the Clydesdale's starting out on their afternoon parade around the fairgrounds.  People were just lined up and down the streets waiting for the hitch team to go by.  But they really are impressive looking, each of them standing about 6 feet tall at their shoulders and weighing between 1800 and 2300 lbs.  They are truly magnificent animals.

A friend of mine, Ed Schneckloth, has a brother who used to be a hitch driver for one of the traveling Clydesdale teams.  Ed has told me some pretty amazing stories of where his brother has traveled to and who he's gotten to meet during his years as a hitch driver.

And it just wouldn't be right for the Budweiser Dalmatian to be left out of the festivities.   This guy is strapped to the wagon in a harness and sits behind the hitch drivers.  This looks to be a pretty cushy gig for the hitch drivers, horses and the dog.  The job I wouldn't want to have is the Budweiser team member who travels behind the team and scoops up horse shit from the street after the team goes by.

We wandered around a little while longer and came across this memorial to Duane Ellett and his little pal, Floppy.  The black onyx memorial is located in front of the grandstand on the main concourse of the State Fair.  Seeing Floppy at the fair was a major highlight for kids from the late 50's thru the early 80's.  To see my "Brush with Greatness" story regarding the time Duane Ellet and Floppy performed at one of my large pasture parties years ago, click here.

It was getting close to lunch time for me.  There is a plethora of things to eat at the State Fair.  In fact, there are 30 different food items that are available on a stick at the fair.  This year, pineapple on a stick was introduced to the crowds at the State Fair.  My cousin told me the Pork Chop on a Stick was pretty damn good, too.  But, for me, there is only one place to eat at the Iowa State Fair.

Yes, it's the one and only Carl's Gizmo - in my opinion, the best sandwich at the State Fair.  Check out my earlier post on Carl's Gizmos here and get the recipe for the sandwich here.  I was fortunate to get one hot out of the oven when I ordered my sandwich.  I topped it off with some hot banana peppers and some mild jalapenos and I was in heaven. 

Here I am taking a bite out of the most delectable sandwich at the fair.  It was absolutely fabulous.  I washed it back with an ice cold beer and I was in heaven.  I ended up eating three Carl's Gizmos during the course of the day, and finished about an 1/8th of the one Cindy ordered later in the day.  We turned some of Cindy's co-workers on to the Gizmo.  I don't know if they were as impressed with them as I am, but that's fine with me. 

Once we got all the food formalities out of the way, it was on to see the biggest and best the State of Iowa has to offer.  Our first stop was to see the largest pumpkin winner.  This guy weighed in at a whopping 1238 lbs., breaking the State Fair record!  It had to be grown on a freight pallet just so they could transport it to the fair from Clinton. 

We continued on to the cattle show arena where they were showing the baby and mid-sized bulls that afternoon.  This is a big thing for a number of farmers across the state of Iowa.  It's like the Super Bowl of cattle shows.  People in the stands also follow along with their little programs, making notes and writing down the winners.  It really is a big deal to many people.

This is one of the entrants in the mid-sized bull division.  This guy was getting pretty feisty when he was being led into the show arena and it was all the gal who was showing him and another older guy could do to get him in the door.  And after all the hassle it was to get the bull in the arena, the girl didn't end up winning a thing. 

Here is the judge for the event giving his explanations as to why he picked a certain bull to be the grand champion and what made that bull better than the reserve champion (2nd place).   I sort of appreciated his comments because they all looked damn fine to me.  But he was talking about how muscle tone, weight distribution, plus the size and shape of the bull as key indicators as to which one is better than another. 

From the cattle show arena, we had to go find the Big Bull - the biggest bull at the State Fair, always an annual highlight.  We went next door to the cattle barn and prominently displayed toward the front of the building was this behemoth.  This is "Tiny", a 3012 lb. Charolais bull from a farm near What Cheer, IA.  Tiny was actually second last year at the State Fair.  His owner got caught up in the competition and just kept feeding him more and more during the past year, and this year "Tiny" won.    This little girl, the owner's granddaughter, was in the pen brushing the back of the bull.  I'll tell you - she had a lot more guts than I ever would have.  But when "Tiny" began to stir, she made a bee-line toward the opening in the gate.

In the swine barn, we then saw the winner of the 2008 "Big Boar" contest at the State Fair.  This is "Freight Train", which happened to be the largest boar shown in the history of the Iowa State Fair.  "Freight Train" weighed in at a whopping 1259 pounds, breaking the 15-year-old record by 13 lbs.!  And, once again, no, those are not hemorrhoids sticking out of "Freight Train's" back side. 

Here's the second place winner for the Big Boar contest, Up Dog".  This guy weighed in at only 1212 lbs.  We missed out looking at the Big Ram in another barn as we had to get to Cindy's function for her company.  But the Big Ram this year was a 432 pound monster.  It would have been fun to see.

It turned out that we were a little early for Cindy's function, so we went next door to the Agriculture Building to take a look at the Butter Cow.  The Butter Cow is a tradition that dates back some 90+ years at the Iowa State Fair.  600 pounds of butter are sculpted over a cow frame by Sarah Pratt and put on display at the fair each year. 

This year, with the 2008 Olympics going strong in Beijing, Pratt also sculpted a likeness of West Des Moines' own Shawn Johnson, the gymnast who won a gold and three silver medals at the games.  My cousin didn't think it looked anything like her, but I thought it was a pretty good likeness.  I mean, c'mon!  It's a person carved out of butter, for God's sake!

Along with the butter cow and the Shawn Johnson sculptures, Pratt also paid homage to four Iowans who made an impact in the agricultural world - Etta May Budd, George Washington Carver, Henry Wallace and Norman Borlaug.  I knew who Carver, Wallace and Borlaug were, but I had to look up who Budd was.  Turns out, she was a professor at Simpson College who persuaded George Washington Carver to go to Iowa State to learn under Budd's father, noted horticulture professor and the first head of the College of Horticulture at ISU, Joseph Budd.  See?  There are actually things you can learn by going to the State Fair.  But I'm not too certain what type of impact Etta May Budd had on the world of agriculture as a whole.

After viewing the butter cow and other butter sculptures, we took a walk around the Agriculture Building to see the prize winning flowers and produce.  It's always kind of interesting to see where our flowers, tomatoes and peppers stack up against the winners at the State Fair. 

Here are the prize winning tomatoes at the fair.  I'll tell you, ours look nothing like these guys.  We've had a tough year for tomatoes.  We're finally starting to get the ripe ones, but we've lost more to disease or to critters than we've been able to pull off the vine to eat.

Always one of my favorite displays - the winners of the best ear of corn contest at the fair.  I don't know if these are from this year or if they were grown last year.  I'm guessing it's the latter.  But just like the people who show their livestock, the corn contest is like the World Cup of competition to many farmers.  Note the Indian corn on the wall above the ears in the bins.

Look at the size of these onions!  I'm not certain I've ever seen onions this big before.  I had Cindy put her hand next to the onions to show the size of these monsters.  I don't know what kind they were, but they were certainly huge.

Here are the winners of the various pepper categories, always a nice and colorful sight to see.  Actually, our green and red peppers in the garden this year could have given the winner at the fair a nice run for the money.  We've gotten some great peppers out of the garden this year, the best success we've ever had. 

After Cindy's event at the Farm Bureau Shelter ended, we went up the hill to see our friends from the Blue Band perform at the State Fair.   Bob Dorr from the Blue Band told me they've performed the last Friday and Saturday nights of the fair for over 20 years.  And they do pack in a good crowd, that's for sure.  We visited with the guys between their early and late shows at the fair.  It's always good to work with these guys at any event I've run over the years.

Night was falling and we decided to take a ride on the north side Sky Ride at the fair.  It was such a beautiful night and the fairgrounds were just packed with people.  Here is a shot of the main concourse at the State Fair around 9 p.m.  You can see a good chunk of the 116,000 people who packed the fair that day in the picture.

Before we left, it was back to Carl's Gizmo for one last Gizmo.  As we were leaving, we walked by the KGGO radio booth at the fair.  The band Everclear, who had opened for Def Leppard at the main grandstand stage earlier in the evening, had just shown up and were signing autographs.  Cindy's a big Everclear fan.  Frankly, I don't know if I could name one of their songs.  I do know, however, that the blond haired guy on the far right is Art Alexakis, their lead singer.  The line wasn't long at the booth when we were there and I prodded Cindy into getting an autograph and I'd take her picture with Alexakis.  Considering that all the other girls in line were 18 to 21 years old, I think Cindy decided it would have been a little creepy for a lady in her mid-40's to be in line to get a picture taken with these guys.

So, another Iowa State Fair has come and gone.  Always good to go, but we also missed a number of exhibits that we like to see.  It's tough to pack the whole fair into one day.  And considering we had to sandwich it around Cindy's work party, I was rather surprised we saw as much as we did.  Oh well, there's always next year...

Macaboos - New Castle, IN

Earlier this year, we were stuck in New Castle, IN for an evening, thanks to the fact that all the hotels within a 30 mile area around Indianapolis were filled due to the Indianapolis 500.  Or, I should say, hotel rooms in the Indianapolis area that were $99 a night on Friday night were suddenly $249 the evening before the race.  And there were people willing to pay that kind of money for those rooms.  I wasn't.

New Castle is an interesting town.  It's approximately 45 miles to the east of Indianapolis (see map).  The largest high school gymnasium in the nation is located in New Castle.  The Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame is there, as well as the New Castle Correction Facility, which holds 2500 inmates. 

New Castle was also home to a large Chrysler metal forging facility, which I'm told, employed close to 3500 people at one time.  However, Chrysler laid off a number of workers and eventually sold it a few years ago to Michigan-based Metaldyne, which, in turn was bought by a Japanese company three years ago.  Today, it employs between 500 and 600 people.

New Castle is also the home to Steve Alford, the former University of Indiana basketball star, who also was an Olympian in 1984, and who also was the head coach for the Iowa Hawkeye basketball program for eight years before running the program into the ground and leaving for the University of New Mexico in 2007.  (End of editorial comment regarding Steve Alford and University of Iowa basketball.)  One of the hotels in New Castle is the Steve Alford All-American Inn.  No, we didn't stay there.  We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express (which, as I write, is no longer a Holiday Inn property), next door. 

But there was this cool high-top sneaker between the hotels.  The other one was over by the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Now, other than all that, there doesn't seem to be much of anything socially redeeming about New Castle.  We saw some very scary looking people with questionable upbringings in the short time we were there.  Plus the fact, other than an Applebee's, there's not much in the way of fine dining in the town.

We asked the front desk clerk if there was any good place to eat and she gave us a copy flyer on a place called Macaboo's located just south of the city.  It was a new sports bar/restaurant and I immediately vetoed that venue as a place to eat.  However, after driving around for a bit, then checking the Yellow Pages, and then asking a couple of the local yokels regarding a place to eat, it appeared that Macaboo's WAS the center of haute cuisine in the greater New Castle area.

Here's the conversation I had with a lady at a gas station/convenience store:

Me: Is there any place good to eat around here?

Lady: Now, what do you mean by good?

Me: You know, a place to get a good steak.  That type of thing.

Lady: Well, there's Applebee's...

Me: No, we don't want to do Applebee's.  We're looking for more of a steak house, supper club-type thing.  Is there something like that around here?

Lady: Well, do you want to drive for a bit?

Me: Well, as long as it's not 30 miles out of town.  We'll go back to Indy if we have to drive that far.

Lady: Well, there's this new place a few miles down the road.  I forget the name of the place, but I hear it's pretty good.

She turned to the girl working with her and said, "What's the name of that new place that opened up a couple months ago?"

Girl: The one outside of town?

Lady: Yeah, the one down by the Interstate.

Girl: Gee, I don't know.  Macabee's, Macadoo's, somethun' like that.

Me: You mean Macaboos?

Girl: Yeah, that may be it.  I don't know.  I haven't been out there, but I hear it's good.

Lady: Yeah, that's the place.  It's a little bit of a drive, but it's good food.

I'm guessing that "driving for a bit" for this lady was something less than a 10 minute drive.   Going to Indy was probably a two-day trip to her.

So, after initially vetoing Macaboos as a dining destination, we suddenly found it to be the ONLY place to eat in New Castle - other than Applebee's which was the absolute last ditch choice should this Macaboos turn out to be a complete truck stop diner.  We drove out south of town and found Macaboos just past the Interstate exit for New Castle (see map). 

We got out to Macaboos about 8 p.m.   It appeared to be a very nice, stately dark wood building just south of Interstate 70 (see map).  Ryan Ogle of Greenfield, IN bought the building that houses Macaboos about two and a half years ago.  After a few construction delays, the Macaboos bar opened in January of this year.  And the steak house opened two months later.   

There's a large central area as you walk in with a hostess stand just inside the door.  On the left side is a large bar area, and on the right is the dining room.  It's definitely rustic and "Old West" in its decor.  And there's a number of flat panel screens throughout that are showing the current sporting events. 

We were seated in a booth and our waitress brought out our menus.  Macaboos wasn't anything fancy, but considering what we witnessed in New Castle, it was a five-star eating establishment. 

I'm not going to belabor the point of this entry any longer.  Cindy had a chicken breast dinner with some potatoes, I had a very "iffy" New York strip steak with potatoes.  The steak was pretty thin, compared to other New York strips I've had at restaurants and at home.  But it tasted fine and wasn't over-cooked. 

I did take pictures of the place, but found out that my camera was set to "Manual focus" and not "Automatic focus".  I had pictures of the front, a couple interior shots and a shot of a soon to be opened outdoor party area next to the bar.  For New Castle, Macaboos was THE place to be. 

So, if you ever end up in New Castle, Indiana - and I hope you don't have to - there's really only one place to eat (other than Applebee's) and that's Macaboos.  But don't expect an "out of body" experience with the food.  It's serviceable and good, but not outstanding. 

(Update - not long after this post was published, the owners of Macaboos filed for bankruptcy and shuttered the place up in October of 2008.  The building sat vacant for nearly three years before John Montgomery bought the building and contents and opened up Montgomery's Steakhouse in August of 2011.)

Charlie Gitto's - St. Louis

During our recent trip to St. Louis, I told my wife and our friends, Scott and Marcia, that I really wanted to eat some place where we've never eaten before.  They all readily agreed to that plan.  One of the places I've always wanted to try, but never had before, was the revered Italian restaurant Charlie Gitto's, located on the famous Hill in St. Louis.  (see map)

Charlie Gitto's (Gitto is pronounced JEE-to) began in March of 1981 when Charlie Gitto, Jr. opened the doors of his restaurant in what was the former site of Angelo's Restaurant.  His father, Charlie Gitto, ran the venerable Charlie Gitto's Pasta House in downtown St. Louis - a restaurant that is still operated today by the senior Gitto and his daughter, Karen.  Charlie, Jr. cut his teeth in the restaurant business working in all capacities while growing up.  A childhood friend, Michael Garozzo, eventually moved to Kansas City and opened up the Garozzo's Italian restaurants.  Garozzo and Gitto, Jr. have combined forces to open Mike and Charlie's Italian Restaurant in the Harrah's Casino in North Kansas City.

Charlie Gitto's on The Hill is a very nice, upscale restaurant.  We got reservations for four at 7:30 and we had a short wait at the bar waiting for our table.  The place is pretty classy with vested bartenders, waiters and waitresses.  We were casually dressed in shorts and we didn't feel like we were out of place one bit.  There's dark wood paneling throughout and a lot of elegant light fixtures.  The heavy tables are topped with linen table cloths and the lighting is very subdued.  

It turned out that they sat us at a table next to where we were standing at the bar.  As we were maneuvering around to the table, I heard some commotion at a neighboring table.  It turned out it was our friends, Dave and Pat Heusmann, along with Pat's parents.  It was a very unexpected and rather strange small world happening.  Scott knew they were going to be in St. Louis that evening, but didn't know where they'd be.  He knew that Pat's parents would be with them, so he didn't even attempt to make plans to get together.  It just turned out that we all decided - independently - to eat at Charlie Gitto's that night.

We carried on with the Heusmann's for about 10 to 15 minutes before their food showed up.  And we thought we'd better look at the menu so we could order our dinner.  Of course, we had to get an order of toasted ravioli, a must-have every time we eat out in St. Louis.

One of the specials that evening was a sea bass, grilled and served on a bed of risotto.  Both Cindy and Marcia thought that sounded good and they both ordered that.  Scott looked at a couple of things and decided upon the rigatoni pasta with ground Italian sausage in a marinara sauce.

Man, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanted.  I thought about the tortellini filled with bolognese meat and served with peas, prosciutto and mushrooms in a nice Parmesan cheese sauce.  They also had a seafood Fettuccine made with a spicy three-pepper cream sauce.  I looked at the Chicken Saltimbocca, topped with prosciutto and Fontana cheese and drizzle with a sage marsala sauce.  God, I was having a lot of problems.

I finally settled on the veal marsala and I asked if I could get a small side of the tortellini.  The waiter was more than happy to make that happen for me.  

By the time we had finished our salads, the Heusmann's were into the dessert.  Dave was just in heaven. He said, "Oh, man.  You guys have to save room for this stuff." They were having tiramisu.

Our main entrees showed up and the food looked great.  And it was as good as advertised.  Everyone liked their entrees.  Cindy gave me a bite of the grilled sea bass and it was delicious.  My veal marsala was very good.  Not the best I'd ever had, but it certainly didn't suck.  And I'm glad I was able to get the tortellini.  It was fabulous.  The creamy Parmesan cheese sauce was out of this world.

The tortellini was also pretty rich and I was getting full fast.  According to the Heusmann's I had to save room for dessert.  I wasn't certain I could do that.  But when push came to shove, I ordered up some tiramisu.  Cindy and Marcia got the walnut bread pudding.  While we all shared the tiramisu, I didn't try any of the walnut bread pudding as I'm not keen on walnuts.  But it did look good. 

After we finished our dessert, I got up to go to the bathroom.  I noticed Charlie Gitto's had a very nice outdoor dining area.  It was a nice night and had I known they had the outside area, I would have requested seats out there.  But then we wouldn't have run into the Heusmann's.

I then noticed a large dining area toward the back of the restaurant, and beyond that was a smaller area where you could have private dining.  If I'm not mistaken, they called it the "Lasorda Room" after the longtime Los Angeles Dodgers manager, Tommy Lasorda, who visited the restaurant each time he was in St. Louis.  Lasorda once said about the food at Charlie Gitto's, "I don't get full.  My arms get tired."

Before we left, both Scott and I picked up a book they had for sale at the bar - The Hill: Its History - Its Recipes written by Eleanore Berra Marfisi.  The Berra name is very common among families on the Hill.  The great former catcher for the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, is from the Hill.  In fact, there's a Berra Park on the Hill and I always thought it was named after Yogi Berra.  Turns out it was named for Louis (Midge) Berra, a political activist who helped bring some prominence to the Hill area.

While Charlie Gitto's wasn't all that cheap (about $250 for the four of us including wine, dessert and drinks), it was a very pleasant dining experience.  It's one of the best Italian restaurants on the hill and with the competition it faces day in and day out, Charlie Gitto's has to be on the top of their game at all times.  We certainly weren't disappointed in the food that evening.  Or with the service, for that matter.  Everyone at Charlie Gitto's was friendly, helpful and easy going.  I highly recommend Charlie Gitto's if you ever make it to St. Louis. 

Vito and Nick's - Chicago

Vito and Nick's - the name of the place just sounds like it should have good pizza.  Thanks to a tip from the Chicago Pizza Club blog site, I ventured to this south side institution one evening to have a thin crust pizza and a couple beers. 

Vito and Nick's is in the Hometown neighborhood on Pulaski on the south side of Chicago (see map).  It's definitely a working class area of south Chicago.  The pizzeria is housed in a basic brick block building.  It looks like there's some living quarters above the place.  There's ample parking on the south side of the restaurant.

Vito and Nick's, as the above logo says, was established in 1932 when Vito Barraco opened his first restaurant after running a tavern in downtown Chicago nine years prior.  This had to be tough to own a tavern considering America was in the midst of the Prohibition.  They moved to a new location on the south side in 1939.  After the war ended in 1945, Vito's son, Nick, came to work at the family business - hence, the "Nick" part of the Vito and Nick's name. 

In 1949, with the help of Vito's wife, Mary, they began to make pizzas from an old Sicilian recipe they had in the family for years and years.  The thin crust pizza was an immediate hit and they soon moved into a larger facility at their present day location.  In 2003, they opened a second location in suburban Lemont (see map) that has an expanded menu from the Vito and Nick's at 84th and Pulaski.  It also houses a bowling alley and a banquet facility.   

Note the logo at the top says this is the "original" Vito and Nick's.  Evidentially, there's a Vito and Nick's II pizzeria on the south side which was started by Nick Barraco's son, Nick II.  There must be some bad blood or something going on because on the Original Vito and Nick's web site they proclaim there is no connection to the Vito and Nick's II in Mokena or to any franchised Vito and Nick's II location. 

I got into the Original Vito and Nick's around 7:30 and got a booth toward the back.  The dining area is a large open room with the bar area fully part of the dining area.  The bar stools were full and the dining area had only a handful of places to sit.  The White Sox game was on the two televisions behind the bar and many of the patrons were engrossed in the game. 

I don't know what it is, but sometimes when I'm by myself and don't get seated by a hostess I have a tendency to just disappear in the eyes of waitresses.  I don't know what it is.  I sat at my table for nearly 10 minutes before a waitress came over and asked, "Have you been waited on?"

Nope, I hadn't.  She apologized and went over and talked to an older waitress who had passed by my table a number of times without once stopping to inquire if I needed something to drink, let alone drop off a menu.  The older waitress seemed a little scattered and somewhat put off that she had to wait on another table. 

I ordered a glass of Old Style and took a look through the menu.  In addition to pizza, Vito and Nick's also serves traditional Italian food.  But just as they say at Vito and Nick's, "It's All About the Pizza", that's what I was there for.  I ordered a small (12") sausage, pepperoni and mushroom - the reference standard I have for all pizza places. 

My waitress brought me out a tall glass of Old Style and I sat and continued to read my Chicago Tribune waiting on the pizza, occasionally glancing up at the baseball game.  It appeared Vito and Nick's is a community gathering place as a number of people who came and went knew each other.  It had a great, homey feel to the place and had a nice relaxed atmosphere.

My somewhat surly old waitress brought out my pizza and I ordered another glass of beer - she didn't even come back to get my empty glass when I put it out toward the edge of the table signifying that I wanted another one.  I kinda got to thinking what I did to her to merit this kind of treatment. 

But all that was forgotten when I took a bite of the pizza.  Oh man!   It was just great.  The crust was thin, but not cracker crisp thin.  The sausage was in big chunks.  The pepperoni had a nice little zing to it and the mushrooms were fresh.  It was an outstanding pizza. 

I also found out that when you cut a pizza into squares, such as they do at Vito and Nick's, it's called a "party cut", versus the "traditional cut" in triangular wedges you see at other places.  I have to say that I never knew that before that evening.  I like the "party cut" better than the traditional way of cutting a pizza.

I was able to get the waitresses attention for a third glass of beer toward the end of the my pizza.  I wasn't able to finish the whole thing as the toppings were abundant.  When she brought my beer back, I asked for a to-go box to take it back to my hotel.  Well, that took forever.  By this time, the place had cleared out and she was waiting on two other tables other than mine.  I heard the couple seated behind me talking about the waitress, saying she wasn't having a good night. 

After another 10 minutes, I still hadn't gotten my to-go box, nor had she brought me my bill.  I got up to go to the restroom and purposely walked out of my way to go tell the waitress that I needed my bill and a to-go box.  When I got out of the restroom, I was headed back to my table and she came up to me with my bill and a Styrofoam box and handed both to me.  I said, "Thank you," and she didn't say a word.  Geez, maybe it was something personal that was going on, I don't know.

The bill was kind of a surprise.  The pizza and three draft beers came to just over $18.00.  The beers were very reasonable - $1.50 a glass.  You could get a nice little jag on at Vito and Nick's for less than $10 bucks. 

I left $21.00 on the table and walked out the door.  As I was heading out to my car, the first  waitress who originally came to my table came running out of the back door toward me.  I had left the Styrofoam box of leftover pizza on the table.  She gave it to me and I said, "Geez, I do that more often than not.  Thanks so much."

She looked at my plates and said, "You're from Iowa?"

I said, "Yes.  The Quad Cities.  We don't get good pizza like this back home."

She said, "Well, be sure to come back to see us again."

I told her I would, but I hope that I don't get the surly older waitress again.   

Pirogue Grille - Bismarck, ND

Bismarck, ND is kind of a surprising city for being, literally, in the middle of nowhere.  It actually has some pretty good restaurants to choose from in the area.  I put on a new dealer earlier this year up in Bismarck and went up there to do some training recently.  After the training was concluded, I took a couple of the guys over to the Pirogue Grille in downtown Bismarck (see map).   

Now, a pirogue is a long, narrow boat that Cajun fishermen use in the bayou.  I don't quite get the connection between the Pirogue Grille and Cajun food because Chef Stuart Tracy specializes in North Dakota-raised, farm fresh to table offerings.  His menu changes seasonally and features North Dakota-raised bison, lamb, walleye, beef, chicken and pork.  There are also pasta and seafood dishes on the menu.  

Maybe the Pirogue Grille gets its name from the shape of the restaurant.  It's situated in a long, narrow building in a very elegant setting.  There's a small bar area up front and a private dining area on the way back to the main dining room.  It's very comfortable, very relaxed and had a "big city" feel to the place.

Neither of my guests drank alcohol so I wasn't going to order any wine that evening.  But I wish I would have at least looked through the menu as I found out later that the Pirogue Grille is sort of famous for their wine events.  I sort of wondered what kind of wines they'd pick for Bismarck, ND.

Our waitress came over and gave the nightly specials.  One of them was a pork loin stuffed with apples, walnuts and homemade breading - all of which were either raised, grown or baked in North Dakota.  That did sound tempting, but I'm not big on apples or walnuts.  They were also featuring a pasta dish that evening with North Dakota made sausage.  

I was looking hard at the beef filet seasoned with a Southwestern rub and topped with lime butter.  That sounded interesting and killer.  I ended up getting that with a side of their caramelized onion mashed potatoes.  For a starter I got their corn and bison soup in a cup.

One of my guests took the pork loin special and got rice on the side.  The other guest got the North Dakota-branded New York strip steak with the caramelized onion mashed potatoes.  Both got the organic greens salad with homemade dressing.    

As we waited for our dinner, we talked some shop and relaxed after a long day.  Our waitress was very attentive bringing us more water, pop or beer (for me - you didn't think I would go dry during dinner, did you?).

About 10 minutes after we finished our soup and salads, the main entrees came to the table.  The presentation was very nice and I have to say the food was excellent.  The Southwestern rub on the steak was a combination of cumin and chili powder, but it didn't overpower the taste of the meat, which was cooked a perfect medium-rare.  And the lime butter was an interesting taste sensation, as well.  It has to be easy to make. 

The guest who had the New York strip had never been to the Pirogue Grille before and he was very impressed with the meal.  We both loved the caramelized onions in the mashed potatoes.  And the person who got the stuffed pork loin - who had eaten at the Pirogue Grille before - liked his meal very much.  He told me, "Surprisingly, there's a lot of good restaurants in this town.  I don't know if it's because we're the capital of North Dakota, but we do seem to have our fair share of good places to eat." 

After dinner, I offered to pick up dessert, as well.  Except nothing on the dessert menu sounded all that good to me.  One of the guys got the rhubarb blueberry pie, and the other guy went with a strawberry cheesecake they had that evening.  The Pirogue Grille has their own pastry/dessert chef and the menu can change from day to day or week to week.  That's kind of nice so they give you a variety of things to try for both main entrees and desserts on each visit.

The Pirogue Grille was a surprisingly wonderful dining experience.  The meal, drinks and dessert came to about $95 bucks before tax and tip were included.  The food was great, the service was great, the atmosphere was great.  Going to Bismarck once a year will much less painful if I have the Pirogue Grille to look forward to. 

Busch Stadium - 2008

We made our somewhat annual trip to St. Louis to catch the Cardinals play baseball at Busch Stadium a while back.  I say "somewhat" because our schedules wouldn't work out last year with Cindy's appendectomy and other events going on in our lives.  In fact, our friends Scott and Marcia Schroeder almost didn't make the trip down because of flooding in their basement that incurred after a major rainstorm the night before we were to leave to go to St. Louis.  Cindy and I drove to St. Louis to make sure we had the tickets for the Friday night and Saturday games.  Scott and Marcia finally decided about 1 p.m. on Friday that they did all they could do and drove down to meet us.

Cindy and I first stopped off at the Edward Jones Dome to meet up with our friend, Mike Naughton, who is the Vice-President of Finance and Ticketing for the St. Louis Rams.  Mike was the one who got us the tickets for the two games we were going to see.  We talked with Mike for about a half hour.  He usually isn't at the dome's offices, but happened to be there this afternoon.  We were talking about ticket scalping and how the state of Missouri had recently passed a law allowing the sales of already sold tickets to fans of Missouri sports teams.  To hear an interview Mike had with Paul Harris on KMOX on the legalization of scalping in Missouri, click here. 

We eventually hooked up with Scott and Marcia at The Outfield, the outdoor bar area of Mike Shannon's restaurant in St. Louis.  The Outfield is fast becoming one of my favorite places to go to before and after a Cardinals game.  Beers are $3.00 a bottle, which isn't bad considering the location of the bar in proximity to the stadium.  And the waitresses and female bartenders are top notch lookers.  Actually, we should try some of the bars on the south side of the stadium sometime, like Al Hrabosky's.

I've seen a few of these new novelty items - large fists that act as a bottle holder and cooler, usually with a team logo on the top of the hand.  I think they're kind of cool, but would probably be a pain in the butt to lug around.  Plus, I'm sure your hand would get pretty warm in the thing, especially on hot days.

After our last trip to Busch Stadium a couple years ago, I was reminded by my cousin, Tom Wehrle, that the Wehrle kids had bought a commemorative brick for their dad, Jack, who grew up in Eureka, MO and was a lifelong Cardinals fan.  Tom gave me the coordinates of where we could find the brick.  After a little bit of hunting, we found it.  It was pretty cool to see.

Our seats at Busch Stadium were prime seats for Friday night's game.  We were in the front row of the second deck in an area called the Redbird Club.  We had access to the club, which was very similar to the Cadillac Club at Soldier Field.  (To get a 360 degree tour of the Redbird Club, click here.)  It had bar facilities, different types of food to buy, and has an air-conditioned lounge that wraps around above the home plate area of the stadium.  They were great seats and you had a good view of the field, as well as part of the skyline in downtown St. Louis. 

It was kind of a coolish, damp evening in St. Louis when the game began.  It had rained earlier in the day, but the weather cooperated enough to allow the game to get in.  But it was comfortable compared to other times we've gone to games in St. Louis.  And I liked the location of the seats as we were able to follow a lot of the action by being able to focus on the field as a whole as the Cards played the Philadelphia Phillies.

Once again, satisfying my scoreboard fetish.  Actually, I think they improved the scoreboard at Busch Stadium from the last time we were there a couple years ago.  It seemed to have more information than the initial scoreboard the had in 2006.  But it's still not my favorite scoreboard in the major leagues. 

After a couple three innings, the sun began to make an appearance just before setting in the western sky.  It lit up the Gateway Arch and a number of the taller buildings downtown including the Millennium Hotel, the round building to the side of the Arch.  It also played havoc with people in the upper deck in right field who were forced to look directly into the sun for about 20 minutes before it went down behind the other side of the stadium.  After a while, the clouds had moved out and it was a great evening to watch baseball.

Unfortunately for the home team, it wasn't their night.  Here's a picture of the field and beyond just after Philadelphia scored nine runs in the 4th inning to make the score 13-1.  The Phillies went on to score four more runs to make it 17-1 before we finally decided to call it a night after the top of the sixth.  The Phillies eventually blew out the Cardinals 20-2.  The Cards got lit up pretty good that night.

The next day was just picture perfect.  Beautiful blue skies, light wind, temperatures in the low to mid 80's.  And the humidity, which can be stifling in St. Louis in the summertime, was virtually non-existent.  It was a mid-afternoon game against the Phillies and we had seats down the left field line, underneath the second deck and out of the sun.  While it wasn't quite the Redbird Club, we were happy with the location of the seats. 

Here's a pitch in the first inning from the Cardinals' Kyle Lohse to the Phillies' Chase Utley.  God, I love this Panasonic camera we have.  If you click on the picture, you can see the ball literally suspended in mid-air about 10 feet in front of home plate.  It takes great action shots for no more of a camera than what it is. 

It was a much better game than the game the night before.  The Cardinals staked Lohse to a 3-0 lead after three innings.  Lohse withstood a Pat Burrell two-run homer in the fourth and pitched eight strong innings giving up just the two runs and four hits as the Cards won 3-2.  And it was a quick game - beginning right around 2:55 and ending at 5:06. 

We had dinner reservations at 7:30 that evening, so we had some time to kill after the game.  We decided to head over to The Outfield for a few beers and to let the traffic clear out.  On the way over, I took this picture of the site of the former Busch Stadium, which was torn a couple years ago.  It's still nothing but a big hole in the middle of the lot - derisively called "Lake DeWitt" by the citizens of St. Louis after Cardinals' CEO Bill DeWitt.  DeWitt proposed a "Ballpark Village" complete with shops, restaurants, office buildings and condominiums on the site when plans were initially drawn up for the new Busch Stadium the Cardinals are in. 

Development of the "Ballpark Village" has never gotten off the ground due to a number of factors, including a soft market.  But the Cardinals are going to have to do something with the site before next summer when they host the All-Star Game.  Actually, I would have thought much of the site would have been filled in by now, but it looks the same as it did in this picture I took two years ago from the north side of the new Busch Stadium.  That's The Outfield bar in the middle background of the photo.

As we left The Outfield around 6:00 p.m. to go to our parking spot, we stopped off at the northwest corner of the stadium to look at the new statues of former Cardinal players on display.   Here are the statues of three of my all-time favorite Cardinal players - Bob Gibson, Lou Brock and Stan Musial.  To read the "Brush with Greatness" entry when I met and spent a good portion of the afternoon with Bob Gibson one time, click here. 

And here's a the big Stan Musial statue just outside the west main entrance of Busch Stadium.  My uncle Jack adored Stan Musial.  I was too young to remember Stan Musial playing, but from newsreel clips and other replays I've seen over the years, he became one of my all-time favorite Cardinal players, if not my favorite.  Stan the Man.

Here's a short clip from YouTube with the legendary Jack Buck talking about Stan Musial with some footage of Musial playing in his prime. 

I'm slowly warming up to the new Busch Stadium.  It had more of a "lived-in" feel to it on this visit than it did a couple years ago.  It's not perfect, but it's home to some of the best and most knowledgeable baseball fans in the country.  It's always fun to go to a game in St. Louis and the most sad thing is when the final out is made in the ninth inning.  There are times I could just sit and watch baseball for hours.  And Busch Stadium isn't a bad place to see a game.

On Vacation

I'm starting my vacation today.  And I'm probably going to do a lot of what I did on vacation last year - sleep in late, sit on the deck, read a lot, drink a few beers, and just hang at home.  With the high cost of gas, it's going to be a lot of out of pocket money just to get to somewhere.  Plus, we couldn't A) agree on what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go; and B) other things that are occurring during the vacation period made it difficult to be able to take a full week or two to go somewhere.

We've never gone to Chicago for a few days in the summertime and we may still do that.  But if people aren't traveling as much this year because of high fuel prices, they are sure fooling the hotels in downtown Chicago.  I can't believe how expensive some of the rooms in downtown Chicago are this summer.  Rooms that we've gotten for $109 to $129 in the winter are $249 to $299 this summer.  Maybe we'll stay out in suburbs, but even some of those room prices are higher than usual.  

We talked about going to Savannah, GA, but Cindy didn't want to go when it's hot.  She wants to go in October, but I can't take vacation in October due to the fact that's my busy time of year.  She may still go in October with her sister.

I looked into getting a condo for a week in Lake City, MN on the shores of Lake Pepin, which is fed by the Mississippi .  But the cheapest I could find was something like $1300 bucks.  Sure, we could do our meals in the condo, but what kind of fun would that be on vacation?

I looked into going to New Orleans, Cindy wanted to go to the Bahamas.  But we have a planned outing with Cindy's company at the Iowa State Fair and Cindy wanted to be there for that, so we couldn't plan anything for more than being gone four or five days.  And the following weekend is the annual River Roots Live that I'll be working again, so I'm tied up for three days at the end of my vacation.  Then it's the last week in August, one that I have to be in the office for.  Then I'm off to Denver for the annual CEDIA Expo. 

Where did the summer go?

Actually, I'd rather just hang around home on vacation anyhow.  Sleep in late, read on the deck, take a nap in the afternoon, have a few beers, grill out at night.  But Cindy's been going bonkers and she wants to go somewhere.  I don't blame her.  She works pretty hard and she does have a point that she'd like to get away for a few days.  Me - I'm on the road so much, staying home is a luxury. 

We'll figure something out in the coming days.  But in the meantime, is 10 a.m. too early to pop a cold beer?

Tomaso's Pizzeria - Mequon, WI

Earlier this year, I was talking with one of my dealers in Milwaukee about the great pizza I had at Zaffiro's.  One of the guys said, "Zaffiro's is very good, but I think the best pizza in Milwaukee is Tomaso's up in Mequon."  He said that it was quite a drive from the center part of Milwaukee, but he thought it was very worth it.

I was in Milwaukee recently and decided to make the trek up to Mequon and eat at Tomaso's (see map).  It was getting late and I was hoping they would still be open when I walked in at a quarter to nine in the evening.  There were a couple people sitting in a booth in the spacious dining area and one guy sitting at the bar waiting on a pizza.  I took a stool at the bar and order a beer along with a menu. 

Tomaso's original location is in Cedarburg, just north of Mequon (see map).  Nancy Horrigan was the kitchen manager for the location in Cedarburg and wanted to own her own restaurant.  She ended up opening a second Tomaso's location as an owner in 2002.  The Mequon location is located in the River Centre shopping center.

As a Brewers game was playing on the TV, I ordered up my standard reference pizza - sausage, pepperoni and mushroom.  The bartender said it would take about 20 minutes and I settled in waiting for the pizza.

As I said earlier, the dining area is spacious featuring tables and booths.  It was a slow evening and I didn't notice a waitress other than the bartender.  I thought it was sort of odd there wasn't that many people in the place, but it was a Monday evening - usually the slowest night for bars and restaurants.  I hoped the reason for the lack of people didn't have to do with the food.

But once my pizza showed up, my fears subsided.  It had a nice thin, flaky crust and the toppings were generous.  The sausage was in big chunks, the pepperoni was plentiful and the mushrooms were garden fresh.  The sauce had a nice combination of tangy and sweet.  My dealer was right - it was a damn good pizza. 

The only thing that was better than Zaffiro's was that Tomaso's uses fresh mushrooms and not the canned mushrooms I got on the Zaffiro's pizza.  But Zaffiro's, as a restaurant, had more character and ambiance than Tomaso's.  Tomaso's in Mequon is a huge space in a strip mall in the suburbs. 

I'm glad I went to Tomaso's.  The Milwaukee area has a surprising amount of good pizza places.  I'd have to rate Tomaso's up there in taste and quality.  It's one of the better places to get a pizza in the Midwest.

The Overlook - Nashville, IN

When Cindy and I were spending the night in Nashville, IN recently, we went out for a nice meal at a local restaurant called The Overlook. The Overlook is part of the Salt Creek Golf Retreat just outside of Nashville (see map). The complex includes a hotel and private condos along with a picturesque 18 hole golf course.

We got to the restaurant a little before 8 p.m. To get to the restaurant, you have to go to the front desk area of the hotel and take a long hallway back to the restaurant. On one side of the main lobby is a large hall that was hosting a wedding reception that evening. We thought it was sort of odd as it was a Sunday night.

It turns out the Overlook closes at 8 p.m. on Sunday night. We got there at 7:55 and asked the hostess if it was too late to get a bite to eat. She said, "Oh, no. Come on in."

She sat us at a table that had a great view of the 18th fairway and green. A few golfers were still out on the course at that time of night so we had a great view of the action. The table in the foreground in the picture at the right is the actual table we sat at for our meal.

The place was about a third full when we sat down.  And they must not adhere to the 8 p.m. closing time on Sunday nights as there were at least two or three more sets of people that came in to dine after we were seated.

The Overlook had kind of a "modern rustic" theme to it.  It looked like at one time they tried to make it look like a lodge with two large fire places at either end of the room.  But the paint scheme was sort of a subdued pastel that gave it kind of an elegant look.   The tables weren't cramped and you weren't encroaching on anyone's space in the restaurant.

Our waitress, a nice middle-aged lady, came over to get our drink order and to tell us about the specials.   I said, "Geez, we're coming in at closing time.  Are you sure this is all right?"

As she handed me the wine menu, she said, "Oh, yeah.   We say 8 o'clock on Sundays, but we normally keep serving up past 9 p.m., especially in the summer when we get a lot of people staying out here."

The specials, which I really can't remember, didn't appeal to us as much as some of the items on the somewhat limited menu.   For main entrees, they only had 10 things to choose from - 3 steaks, 3 seafood dishes, chicken marsala, roasted pork pinwheel, chicken piccata and chicken fettuccine Alfredo.  But, quite honestly, they all looked good and I sort of like restaurants that try to focus on a small number of items rather than try to please everyone with a huge menu.   A lot of times they get spread so thin that the food suffers.

Cindy got the salmon filet, grilled and topped with a creamy lemon dill sauce.   It was then topped with shrimp and roasted almonds, and served on a bed of rice.   It did sound very good, but I went with the peppercorn encrusted filet, topped with a Bearnaise sauce.   I had my choice of potatoes, so I went with homemade hash browns topped with cheese and onions and green beans was the veggie of the day.

Cindy wanted some wine, so I ordered a half bottle of white wine.   There were only about three or four total wines on the list that I was familiar with, so I talked to the waitress to see about a couple of the whites they had listed.   She suggested a Steele Shooting Star Sauvignon Blanc.   She said it was probably her favorite white wine on the menu.   I wasn't familiar with it, so I told her we'd give it a try.  She said, "If you guys don't like it, then I'll get you another bottle of something else.   That way I can have an open bottle to drink after I get off work!"

It turned out that she wasn't going to be drinking out of our bottle after work.   It was a very nice wine - light, yet crisp with a nice dry fruit finish to it.   I would have rather gotten a red, but the white was going to be fine.

While we were waiting for our meal to show up, a guitarist-singer was entertaining in the restaurant that night.   He played mostly 70's and 80's music and did a very good job. Combined with the full picture window view of a beautiful course, the setting sun and the music, it was a very relaxing evening.

Our food came out and I have to tell you that it was very, very good.   Given the look of the restaurant, the great service we were getting, the atmosphere of the place, I wasn't disappointed in the food one bit.  My steak was a wonderful taste mixture of the cracked peppercorns, Bearnaise sauce and perfectly cooked medium-rare beef.   Actually, I will say the hash browns were just "so-so".   But that didn't matter.   I usually only take a couple bites of my potato when I get a steak and a potato side.

But Cindy's grilled salmon with the creamy lemon dill sauce was as good as advertised.   She gave me a couple of bites and it was outstanding.   I've got to figure out how to make a lemon dill sauce sometime. It was very delicious.

We got our bill and it was just over $80 bucks before tax and tip.   Our waitress, who was very good, got a nice tip.   And on the way out of the restaurant, I walked over and threw five bucks into the tip jar in front of the guitarist.

Sometimes when you find places like The Overlook out of the blue, it helps add to the magic of the experience.   But everything about the place was damn near perfect.   It's been a few weeks since we've been there and we still remark about how great The Overlook is.   If we make it back to the Nashville area, we'll probably stay at the hotel and have a couple more meals at The Overlook.

(Update - The restaurant at the Salt Creek Resort is now called the Brown County Steak and Seafood Company.  I don't know if it's the same people who run it, but I'm guessing it's not.  Still, it may be worth trying out if you're looking for something a little more upscale in the Nashville area.)

The Death of Skip Caray

I'm guessing that 80% of the people who read this blog have no idea who Skip Caray is.  And, you know, I really don't care.  This is my blog and I'd like to say a few words about a baseball broadcaster who I loved to listen over the past 30 plus years who passed away on Sunday. 

Skip Caray was one of the long time voices of the Atlanta Braves on both radio (WSB) and on television (WTBS).  His dry wit and sarcastic nature helped viewers and listeners of Braves broadcasts stomach the outcome on the field when the Braves really sucked in the 70's and 80's.  Perseverance pulled through as Caray was rewarded with calling 14 straight seasons of division titles for the Braves, including the 1995 World Series championship.   

Caray was part of a group of baseball broadcasters that first came into my house in 1979 in the early days of cable television.  WTCG (later WTBS) would have the Braves game on live at the regular time, but they'd have the replay of the game on at 1 a.m. in the morning.  And as a baseball fan, having regular week night games on the television was just heaven.  But having the replay on late at night after I got home from the bars was just gravy.  Falling asleep to baseball on the TV became a habit.

Caray had a very laid back style of announcing games.  It was tough to believe he was the son of the bombastic Harry Caray, who eventually became a character bigger than the players he was watching on the field.  But one thing father and son had in common was to call a spade a spade.  If someone made a bad play for the home team, the Caray's were the first to point it out to viewers and listeners.

Here's a picture of Skip Caray with his dad, Harry, in the middle, and Skip's son, Chip, on the left.  Chip Caray is a notable sports broadcaster these days on TBS.  He's also one of the better of the young announcers coming up in the ranks.   

One of the more funny moments I remember from Skip Caray's career was during another Atlanta blowout loss in 1986.  A buddy and I were watching the game one night and Skip Caray was calling the game.  It was something like 15-1 and it was in the 8th or 9th innings.  After the other team scored another run, Caray said, "Well, folks, if you promise to patronize our sponsors, you have my permission to go walk the dog." 

Caray, who was a notorious drinker before giving up alcohol for health reasons eight years ago, once ended a broadcast I was watching one evening by saying, "That's the story from Atlanta, folks.  And now, I'm off to have a cold one.  So long, everybody."

Caray's health had been in decline for the past couple of years.  He even had a near-death experience last year as he suffered from congestive heart failure and diabetes.  But he was able to battle back and was able to call Braves home games this season.  It just so happened that Caray's last game was July 31 - a game I listened to on my new XM radio as I was driving to St. Louis.  Even though he had a myriad of health problems, you couldn't really hear it in his voice.

It's too bad I won't be able to listen to Skip Caray's nasally, yet soothing voice calling baseball any longer.  Caray said that he called the games with truck drivers in mind - he tried to make it interesting enough to keep them awake on the road.  He was fun to listen to even if you weren't a Braves - or baseball - fan.

Schiphol Airport - Amsterdam

Generally, I regard most airports as nothing more than glorified bus stops.  There are some that I'd truly hate to be stuck in for any large amount of time - Chicago's O'Hare is one. Lambert in St. Louis is another.  And for as new as it is, Denver isn't all that fun for a layover, either.  But on my recent trip to France, I had two short layovers in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.  I gotta tell you - it was one impressive place and one that I wish I would have had more time to spend in.  

Schiphol is the primary airport for Amsterdam and The Netherlands.  It has been voted by travelers as the "Best Airport in the World" seven times since 1980, and at once time won the "Best Airport in Europe" title 15 straight years.  It has been given 4 Stars by Skytrax, a UK-based on-line firm that is the largest reviewer of airlines and airports in the world.   Only Frankfurt and Paris' de Gaulle airports handle more European cargo than Schiphol.  And the airport services around 90 airlines from around the world in three terminals with 8 total arrival and departure "piers".  

What makes Schiphol so unique is the number of upscale shops and restaurants located throughout the terminal area.  When I got off the plane following the flight from Detroit, I was simply amazed by the number of brightly lit shops, designer store and international dining available in the airport.  The shops are in a common area where both the public and passengers can look for a wide variety of goods and services. 

On my way to Lyon, I had about a two hour layover.  I got to looking at some of the shops on my way to the gate, which I was told by the numerous monitors hanging in the airport it was a 20 minute walk from my arrival gate to my departure gate.  Each monitor that I would encounter would give me subsequent walking distances in time.  I looked up at one monitor and it told me that I had 13 minutes to my next gate and my flight wasn't for another 90 minutes or thereabouts.  So I went into a liquor and tobacco store to look around. 

The cigarettes caught my eye immediately.  The large warning stickers on the sides of each carton really got to the point.  I thought it was strangely amusing and somewhat odd.  I got out my camera to shoot a couple pictures of the warning signs on the cartons and a Brit and his wife were near me.  He was looking at the warning signs and he said, "They really want you to know the consequences before you light up, don't they?"

I also took these pictures for my colleague, Ian, who is a smoker and who thinks warning labels on cigarettes are senseless and stupid.  He told me one time, "Smokers have to know by now that smoking isn't good for you.  We've been bombarded so much for years and years that you have to be an idiot to not know they're bad for you." 

I guess the Dutch are trying to get their point across in a strong manner.

I started walking along in the terminal toward my gate area.  I began to notice a large swelling of people standing in an area, seemingly in a number of lines.  I looked up and I saw a number of signs in the distance "All Passports".  Well, little did I know that I had to go through European Union customs.  I thought once I got to Lyon, I'd go through customs.  Huh uh.  Once you get to an EU country, it's like you're in the U.S.

I stood in line for about 45 minutes waiting to get through customs.  Then I had to stand another 20 minutes waiting to go through security.  I was beginning to sweat as my plane was taking off in about 15 minutes after I got through security.  I hopped it up a bit to the gate and I was one of the last ones on the flight.  Had I taken more time to look around, I would have missed my flight. 

However, on the way back thru Amsterdam, I had nearly two and a half hours to kill before my flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul.   Knowing that I'd have to go through customs and security again to get to my international gate, I paced myself as I walked around the shops and restaurant areas in the Schiphol Plaza.  And for a Sunday morning, it was busy as the shops were open as they are open every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

I saw name brand stores such as Guess and Nike.  Upscale men's clothier Paolo Salotto had a couple shops in the airport.  There was a shop that sold high end watches and jewelry.  There was another shop that sold high end designer women's fashions.  There's designer sunglasses, toys, Dutch goods and leather goods.  There's also travel shops that have suitcases, briefcases and other travel needs. There was a nice bookstore full of books and magazines with languages I didn't understand.  I saw a drugstore and a lingerie shop.  It was wild.  Click here for a map of the shops in the Plaza.

Schiphol Plaza also comes out with a brochure that highlights some on-sale items over a two-month period from their "See - Buy - Fly" duty free and tax free stores.  Buyers can save up to 35% on goods by making their purchases at Schiphol Plaza.  And Schiphol also has a service that allows travelers who make purchases of $20 Euro or more to have the store hold on to the purchases while they travel through the EU and then come back to Amsterdam to get their flight back home. 

And, of course, there's food.  All kinds of food.  You can have fast food, deli, a nice sit down meal, Dutch chocolate, whatever you'd like.  There's also a supermarket with different foods to buy, including fish, meats and cheeses.  I'd never seen a supermarket at an airport before. 

Here was one place that was sort of interesting - flowers and bulbs from Holland. The only problem is that you can't bring them back with you to the United States.  I wasn't about to buy anything there, but I still took a look around the store as I definitely had never seen a gardening store at an airport before. 

I spent some time in this place - where small electronics, DVD's and CD's were sold.  It was kind of interesting to see what they had for portable DVD players since I had just bought one before I went to Europe.  The DVD's were pretty interesting to rummage through.  And showing the liberal nature of Central Europe, they had a huge selection of XXX rated films sitting out in the open along with mainstream movies.  No, I didn't buy any. 

Schiphol also has an observation deck where people can come out and watch the planes take off and land.  I remember years ago being able to go to observation decks at O'Hare and at the Des Moines airport.  That's something you just don't see at American airports any longer.  I wanted to go to the one at Schiphol, but I was running out of time and had to get back to the U.S. 

Schiphol Airport is better than any airport that I've ever been to in the U.S.  I'm not much on shopping, but the shops were a welcome diversion to the normal hum-drum of sitting at a bar or looking through tourist-trap shops at American airports.  When I go back to France for business, I'm going to look into going through Amsterdam again - maybe being able to spend some time in the city, but definitely doing some more exploring at Schiphol.

The New and Improved ROKNROL

     When I shop for new cars, I'm a car salesman's dream.  I usually know what I want before I go into the showroom.  And I usually make up my mind on the spot.  I did some studying of cars on the Internet, drove some rental vehicles and talked to some people about different cars.  It all came down to reliability, comfort and price.  And that led me back to the Chevrolet Impala. 

I picked up a new  Chevy Impala this week from Bruce Foote Chevrolet in Monmouth, IL.  They had a white, 3.9 liter engine 2008 model on the lot with leather interior.  I went down to drive it and found that it had the split bench seats with the shifter on the column.  I told the sales guy, "I want bucket seats and a floor shift." 

He said, "Oh, I can find one for you." 

Now, the American car industry isn't doing too well and the small town dealers are feeling the brunt of the economic slowdown.  We have a number of large Chevrolet dealers in the Quad Cities, but I prefer to work with the small town guys.  We've bought three vehicles from Brad Deery Motors in Maquoketa, but I decided to shop around this time.  Finding a vehicle on the Internet in Monmouth meant a little bit of a drive (see map), but I find the small town guys are usually a little more hungry and will bend over backwards on service and price - especially if they're taking a sale away from a larger dealership.

The sales guy - Grant - found a car for me from another dealer.  An Impala 2LT with leather bucket seats, 3.9 liter V6 engine, and a smattering of features that are now standard on most General Motors cars including XM Radio and OnStar.  We haggled on price a bit, gave me what I thought was a fair and reasonable final price and I had them get the car.  I picked it up on Wednesday - the day I published "The Death of ROKNROL".   

While it doesn't have a lot of "creature comforts" or "bells and whistles", it's a very comfortable car to drive.  I was more interested in the engine as the old Impala had the 3.8 liter V6 engine.  And like I said before, the engine was still sound even if the transmission wasn't.  In talking to my local mechanic friend, he told me, "The GM 3.8 or 3.9 V6 engines are the best out there for the money.  Solid engines, great mileage and they have the get up and go when it's needed." 

The new car also doesn't have a sun roof like the old ROKNROL Impala had.  Honestly, I found that I didn't use the sun roof all that much.  Driving down the road at high speeds with the sun roof open made the sound in the interior of the car too loud.  You couldn't hear the radio all that well and you had to shut everything up when you got a phone call.  Yeah, the sun roof was nice, but it wasn't a deal breaker. 

One thing that sort of sold me on the Impala again was the "flip and fold" feature they have for the rear seat.  While the old Impala also had a rear seat that would flip down for the carrying of longer items put in the trunk, the problem was that the head rests would not allow the back of the rear seat to fully go flat.  Because of that, you would have little clearance with the opening between the trunk and the rear seat area. 

This one is different.  The head rests are fixed in the top deck of the rear seat.  The bottom of the rear seats fold up, and the back of the rear seats fold down making a flat surface on which to place objects.  There's about 18 inches of clearance between the deck and the top of the opening between the rear seat and trunk.  I could easily put a pair of large floor standing Focal speakers in the car, virtually eliminating any need of having to rent a van or an SUV to carry product in the future. 

The trunk, itself, is huge.  I used to joke that you could carry three men and a boy in the old Impala's trunk.  This one, I believe, is actually bigger.  With the rear seat flipped down, you could literally sleep in the car.  It's 75 inches (6 feet, 3 inches) from the back of the trunk to the back to the flipped up seat.  You have to move the front seats forward three or four inches from the fully back position, but there's so much leg room up front it's hardly a nuisance. 

Two things that I was going to get on a new car came standard with the 2008 Impala - satellite radio and a remote start.  I got Cindy a remote start for her car for Christmas about 8 years ago and I still think she tells people it was the best gift I ever got her.  I knew I wanted one on my new car.  And with the merger of XM Radio and Sirius (now called Sirius XM Radio), people with existing XM or Sirius receivers will be able to get a service in a couple three months called "The Best of Both" which will allow subscribers of Sirius and XM Radio to have cross programming.  (About the only thing I'd like to have on XM that Sirius didn't have was the access to NFL games.) 

(As a side note - Sirius XM will be offering "ala-carte" programming that will be more focused in nature.  Subscribers will have to get a new combination Sirius XM receiver to get those services.) 

And the jury in my mind is still out on is the OnStar feature, a comprehensive communications, security, GPS and diagnostics program offered on a number of new GM vehicles.  When I went to pick up the car at Bruce Foote Chevy on Wednesday, the sales manager took me through the sign up process of OnStar. 

OnStar is actually a little nifty.  You have three buttons on the rear view mirror - an emergency button, a hands-free phone button and a contact button.  He pressed the contact button and an OnStar operator came on through the radio (the microphone is in the mirror, as well).  Now, he warned me that they were going to try their damnedest to get me to give up them a credit card number for activation of the hands-free phone service (about 40 cents a minute, give or take a couple pennies depending upon the package).  I told the rather perky and bubbly operator that I didn't want the service at this time. She came back trying to answer my objections, but I kept saying no.  Especially at 40 cents a minute.

Then she talked about OnStar's subscription policy and the like and out of the blue she asked for a "credit or debit card number" again.  I politely said, "No" again, looking at the sales manager with an expression on my face of "Jesus!  They DON'T quit, do they?!"  After she went away, he said to me, "See what I mean?  That's why I always warn the customer in advance and go out with them during activation to make sure they don't get talked into something they don't want." 

We did try the OnStar "Turn-by-Turn Navigation" on Wednesday night.  I have that free for 30 days.  I let Cindy drive the car and I hit the button on the mirror.  She was saying, "What are you doing?"

I said, "I'm getting directions to the restaurant."

She said, "I don't need directions.  I know exactly where it is."

I said, "I know, but I want to see how accurate it is."

An OnStar operator came on and said, "Good evening, Mr. Veber.  How may I assist you?"

Cindy said, "They know your name?"

I gave him the name of the restaurant over in Moline that we were going to and he found the address and plugged it into the computer system.  OnStar then sent out a signal to my car and - voila!  We had turn-by-turn navigation via voice commands and map diagrams on the radio.  At first, Cindy was sort of like, "Well, this is kind of dumb.  Will you ever use this?"  

By the time the OnStar navigation got us right in front of the restaurant about 10 minutes later, she wanted one for her car.  She asked, "Will it tell us where to park, too?"   I mean, the navigation was so precise, it was literally down to inch of telling us where we needed to turn, where the destination was, etc.  I've used voice navigation services before in cars I've rented from Hertz, but this was better and pretty damn slick.

The OnStar package with the road assist, diagnostics, security, automatic crash detection and turn-by-turn navigation runs about $299 a year plus tax.  Without the navigation, OnStar runs around $199 a year.  Why OnStar wants your credit card is so they can automatically renew your service without telling you it's come due.  You have to tell them you don't want the service any longer and even then they may go ahead and charge your card, then refund your money a couple three months later.  It's somewhat of a scam.  I'm going to play with it in the coming days and see if I like it.

I drove the car to St. Louis on Thursday and back home yesterday.  It runs nice, gets good gas mileage (gas mileage that will only get better as it gets broken in), and it's very comfortable.  And the satellite radio means that I won't have to try to find anything good to listen to in the middle of nowhere.  Although I do miss the old ROKNROL, the new and improved ROKNROL will most likely make me forget about the old car pretty quickly. 

Lou Malnati's - Naperville, IL

Lou Malnati's is a Chicago area institution.  While they weren't the first to do deep dish pizza, they are arguably the best among all the high profile local chains.  While places like Burt's and Pequod's may have a better deep dish pizza, Lou's is consistently the best among the high profile places in the city.  And there is a family lineage between the first and the best.  Here's the story:

Everybody in Chicago knows that Ike Sewell opened the first deep dish pizza restaurant in Chicago - Pizzeria Uno - in 1943.  Sewell came up with the concept of the deep dish pizza, but his chef, Rudy Malnati, is the one who came up with the first true design of the deep dish pizza.  To this day, Pizzeria Uno disputes that claim, but a 1955 article in a local Chicago area newspaper backs up the Malnati's claim that Rudy was the originator of the deep dish pizza. 

Here's a picture of a Pizzeria Uno pizza, the original deep dish pizza.

Rudy's son, Lou, helped his father at the original Pizzeria Uno in the 40's. and managed Sewell's second restaurant, Pizzeria Due, in the 50's and 60's.  In 1971, Lou Malnati left Sewell's pizza places and with his wife, Jean, they opened up the first Lou Malnati's in the Lincolnwood area on the north side of Chicago.  The place was an immediate hit with the local residents and the Malnati's opened up a second restaurant in Elk Grove Village.  While that location proved to be less of a hit with the locals, it eventually began to turn a profit and opened the door to more expansion across the Chicagoland area.

Unfortunately, Lou Malnati (left) contracted cancer and died in 1978.  His son, Marc, was just out of college and he joined the company to run the day-to-day operations.  A few years later, younger brother Rick joined the operation and worked with the company for 15 years before becoming a successful Chicago-area high school basketball coach.   There are now 28 locations in the Chicago area with three restaurants in Chicago and seven restaurants in the suburbs, and 18 take-out only places throughout the region.    

With all that said, I visited the Lou Malnati's location in downtown Naperville (right) recently one evening  (see map).  Being stuck in the Chicago area on a Friday night, I thought I treat myself to a Lou's pizza.  There's just something about a Lou's pizza that I like over the other deep dish or stuffed pizzas I've had the other local chains.  I don't know if it's their tangy sauce made out of specially chosen California plum tomatoes or the tremendously fresh mozzarella cheese.  I don't know if it's the crust (of which they make a butter crust available upon request) or the secret sausage blend the Malnati's make.   All I know is that for a local chain, the pizzas are damn good.  

And a lot of other people agree with me as Lou Malnati's is consistently chosen as the best pizza by fans voting in polls in local publications and on local internet guides.  I've yet to go from one Malnati's location to another and have any deviation from the signature taste of a Malnati's pizza.  

I ordered up my standard sausage, pepperoni, and mushroom with the butter crust from my waitress who tried to give me a menu, but I knew what I wanted.  And after a long week and an especially long day, I needed multiple beers.  

I've eaten at the Naperville location once before, but I will sometimes stop there on the way out of town to pick up a "Lou's To Go" to bring back home for Cindy and I.  I usually order a large when I get it to go, but when I eat in at a Lou's I always get the small.  My hotel room that evening did have a refrigerator and a microwave, so what I didn't eat that evening would go toward breakfast the next day.  

Like with all deep dish pizzas, it takes a good 30 minutes to bake the pizza.  And that's fine - I had my Chicago Tribune to read and the waitress kept bringing me beer.  Not exactly the highest of excitement in the Chicago region on a Friday night, but it was exactly what I need at that point in time.  

And when my pizza was served to me, as always, the waitress uses a pizza trowel to put the first piece on the plate.  I let it cool down for a bit as it was piping hot out of the oven.  But from the first bite, I was in heaven.  It was a typical, consistent Lou's pizza.  It was a major spot hitter that evening.   I usually don't care for deep dish crust, but Lou's butter crust (which costs about a buck more per small pizza) is fabulous.  Butter and pizza - man, there's two ingredients for artery blockage.  

Lou Malnati's was recently in the news as being part of an effort by a retired Illinois air force man to send 3000 pizzas to the servicemen in Iraq.  Initially, he was going to send 300 pizzas, but the groundswell of support by people attending the annual Taste of Chicago raised enough money to send ten fold the orginal amount of pizza.  Even after going through military red tape and working with international shipper DHL, 3000 frozen "Lou's To Go" pizzas were delivered to seven bases in Iraq on July 5.  That's pretty cool.

While Burt's and Pequod's may have better deep-dish pizza, mainly because they are so eclectic in their pizza and surroundings, Lou Malnati's displays the consistency that is needed to succeed as a local chain in the Chicago area.  It doesn't matter where you are, a Lou's pizza is the same at any of the locations.  If you've never tried a true Chicago deep dish pizza, I suggest you start at Lou's and go from there.