Midwest Guest

Minnesota's Mall of America: More than just shopping!

I've never been to the Mall of America, but fortunately for Midwest Guest readers, Jessie Voigts has, and she generously shares her list of must-dos, along with some beautiful photos of the mall's attractions, here today.

You’ve probably heard of the Mall of America – it's one of the largest malls in the world. And, since it is indoors, you don’t have to worry about inclement weather.

Mall of America is the nation's largest retail and entertainment complex. The 4.2 million-square-foot complex is home to more than 520 world-class shops; Nickelodeon Universe® the nation's first Nick theme park; Underwater Adventures® Aquarium, a 1.2 million gallon walk-through aquarium; a 14-screen movie theater and more. The Mall opened in August of 1992 in Bloomington, Minnesota, which is about 20 minutes from downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Along with more than 520 stores, there are 76 restaurants, 14 movie screens, and 12,550 parking spaces (plus a station for the Light Rail System, which runs to downtown Minneapolis or the MSP airport). Key attractions include Nickelodeon Universe® and Underwater Adventures® Aquarium, as well as LEGO® Imagination Center, Moose Mountain Adventure Golf, A.C.E.S. Flight Simulation, NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway, The American Girl Store & Bistro, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Nordstrom and Sears.

Nickelodeon Universe® is an amusement park, right in the middle of the Mall of America. The cool thing about Nickelodeon Universe® is that it is completely family friendly. There are rides for all ages - from Dora and Diego rides for small children to Fairy Oddparents and Spongebob rollercoasters for teens and adults. We saw a wide range of people and ages - and they all were happy!

At Underwater Adventures® Aquarium, you come nose-to-nose with 5,000 sea creatures including sea turtles, sharks, stingrays, seahorses, an octopus, puffer fish, and crabs. Also see why Discovery Channel calls Underwater Adventures® Aquarium, under the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, the World's Best Shark Encounter!

The aquarium is very unique - you’ll walk through a 300-foot long curved tunnel! You feel like you are underwater, watching the marine life swim by. You are 14 feet underwater, and feel that you are right in the middle of the ocean.

Underwater Adventures® Aquarium is devoted to the conservation of water and the animals that live in it. From Shark and Sea Turtle conservation to water recycling, Underwater Adventures is working to make a difference in the world around us, and has a great deal of outreach and education - field trips, interactive classes, behind the scenes tours, overnight programs, snorkeling, hands-on activity rooms, and more.

The combination of world-class shopping, top attractions, more than 350 free events annually, great restaurants and excellent value make Mall of America a popular vacation choice for many people. Have you been? Did you do more than shop (and eat)?

For more information, please see: http://mallofamerica.com/

Also be sure to check out Jessie's recent two-part series about Twin Cities foodie finds here and here.

Jessie Voigts is the publisher of Wandering Educators, a travel resource for global educators. Love to learn about the world? Head to http://www.WanderingEducators.com

Photos and text © Jessie Voigts 2012 All rights reserved, used with permission

 

Midwest travel links for December 2011

Check out some of these great Midwest-related stories I read online during this past month:

• Looking for Fairy Crosses near Little Falls, Minnesota-I love searching for unusual rocks when I travel (like the red rocks along the Lake Superior shoreline you see in my blog header), so I loved this story at Travels with Children about Linda’s search for staurolite stones on the Mississippi River bank south of Little Falls, Minnesota. Many of these stones are cross-shaped and sought after as good luck charms.

• Frankfort North Breakwater Light-I’ve visited this lighthouse many times in the past, and written about it here at Midwest Guest. This post at the Michigan in Pictures blog features a beautiful wintertime photo of the ice-bound lights at Frankfort and an update about the recent transfer of the lighthouse’s ownership from the Coast Guard to the City of Frankfort.

  
  

• Indy to Repurpose Stadium Seats at Bus Stops-I like seeing innovative re-uses for things that outlive their original purpose. Check out this story at the Urbanophile blog about a cool re-use for seating from a now-closed minor league ballpark in Indianapolis, Indiana.

• Dr. Ted’s Musical Marvels in Dale, Indiana-One of my favorite things to do when traveling to seeking out unique small town museums, and Dr. Ted’s place looks like a lot of fun. Jessica takes Little Indiana readers through this eclectic collection of large musical instruments like player pianos, calliopes, and orchestrions.

• 4 Unique & Boutique Museums in Indy-Looking for a fun way to spend an hour or an afternoon in Indianapolis, Indiana? Check out unique museums like the home of beloved Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, the Medical History Museum and more at the Doing Indy Blog.

• Discover Fort Wayne’s Burmese Heritage-Burmese cuisine and culture in northern Indiana? You’ll find it at Fort Wayne, home to the largest concentration of Burmese immigrants in the country. Check it out at the Visit Fort Wayne blog.

• Shopping Safari at Jungle Jim’s-I’ve always said that one of the best places to shop for souvenirs is the local grocery store. Take a trip with Jill to a fun foodie paradise near Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Discovering Ohio blog.

• Shop at the World Famous Lehman’s-Hardware stores can also be a fun shopping stop when you travel. Lehman’s is a 45,000-square-foot hardware (and so-much-store) in northeast Ohio’s Amish Country. Kendra takes Discovering Ohio readers to this Kidron, Ohio, store to shop for hardware, wind chimes, books, kitchen ware, toys and more! (I wonder if Lehman’s is a bit like Yoder Department Store in Shipshewana, Indiana? Maybe I need to revisit Yoder and check out Lehman’s as well!)

• Professional Hockey in Indiana? Absolutely!-We often take in a hockey or baseball game when we travel, so I’m keeping Indiana Insider blog list of professional minor league hockey teams in Fort Wayne, Evansville and Indianapolis for future reference! By the way, check back here later this week for a post about the Plymouth Whalers, our Major Junior hockey team here in metro Detroit.

© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved

Midwest-related reads for your holiday gift list

I love to curl up with a good book on a cold winter night, and I thought I'd share another list of a great Midwest reads--many I've read and several that are waiting on my to-read pile for later this winter.

I love the fact that the voice behind The Night Train blog, Amy Elliott Bragg, put some of her great stories about Detroit and its history into book form earlier this year. Amy's blog is a must-read for fans of Detroit's history and culture, and it was even especially fun to meet Amy in person and see her infectious enthusiasm for her subject at her recent release book release party. Check out her Hidden History of Detroit for some stories and cool vintage photos.

Cleveland Area History by Christopher Busta-Peck is another one of my blog regular reads, so I loved finding the History Press, publishers of Amy's book, published a similar book about Cleveland by Christopher. I especially enjoy his blog's stories about that city's vintage architecture, and I know I'll want to read his Hidden History of Cleveland.

Regular Midwest Guest readers may recognize Matt Forster's name from the guest posts he did for me here earlier this year (Every Day Has its Dog and My Piece on the Rock). Want to read more about Matt's outdoor adventures? Check out his latest book, Best Tent Camping: Michigan.

I'm finally getting around to reading the latest entry in Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's Emily Kincaid mystery series, Dead Dogs and Englishmen. Be sure to also check out my Q & A with northern Michigan mystery writer Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli to learn more about the characters in this series and Elizabeth's future plans for them.

I just got my contributors copy of The Michigan Companion, a newly released encyclopedia about all things Michigan. Yes, I said contributors copy, as I was one of 25 writers who contributed the 1,200 entries in this 800-plus-page book. My entries include articles on topics like lighthouses, immigration, the history of several well known chain stores based in the state, the Pure Michigan advertising campaign, civil rights, women's suffrage, and more.

Detroit music is about Motown, and so much more! And so guitarist Dennis Coffey's book, Guitars, Bars and Motown Superstars is about his time with Motown, as well as his post-Motown career with its twists and turns. Coffey played as part of the legendary Funk Brothers, the studio musicians who gave so many Motown hits their distinctive sound, and after a somewhat bumpy post-Motown road, has come back full-circle to life as a musician with a truly distinctive sound. Coffey also recently released a self-titled album.

Want to learn a little more about the Funk Brothers? Be sure to check out this Standing in the Shadows of Motown DVD, a great gift for fans of the classic Motown sound and the studio musicians behind it.

Mitch Ryder is a classic Detroit voice who recently raised his voice as the author of a soon-to-be-released autobiography that follows his career from his earliest days as the leader of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels to now, when we still see him occasionally perform around town. Ryder's Devil & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend comes out in just a few days.

You can check out another take on Ryder's career with It Was All Right: Mitch Ryder's Life in Music by James A. Mitchell, which includes a forward by Ryder.

Curious about the ripped-from-the-headlines story that inspired the musical "Chicago"? Then check out The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry. The title alone was enough to get me to pick up this book, and the 1920s setting makes it one I really look forward to reading.

My mom recently gave me her copy of The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow to read. I'm especially curious about how this story of a group of women growing up in Iowa and coming of age during the 1970s and 1980s may, or may not, parallel my own experiences here in Michigan.

So, there are a few of the books and authors I'm reading these days.

Do you have any other favorite Midwestern books or authors I should check out?

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Visiting the bookstore at Indiana's University of Notre Dame

Local bookstores are among my favorite stops on the road, and the campus bookstore at Indiana's University of Notre Dame is a particular favorite of mine.

Good local bookstores are a great source of books by local authors and books about local history. Good college bookstores carry a selection of college logo wear and maybe a few interesting university press books. Bookstores are an especially good road trip stop if they have decent restrooms and a coffee shop. The Notre Dame bookstore has all of the hallmarks of a good local bookstore, a good college bookstore and a great road trip stop.

We've visited college bookstores in cramped classroom sized spaces, in aging store fronts in a nearby downtown and in huge warehouse-like stores on campuses. But the Notre Dame store is special, with its inviting ambience and wide variety of books that appeal to a general audience beyond text book toting students.

The university's bookstore is in the Eck Visitor Center building, and like many buildings on Notre Dame's architecturally photogenic campus, it is a modern building designed to fit in with the university's vintage buildings.

Bookstore visitors enter through the building's sunny atrium.

While you'll find plenty of school supplies and textbooks tucked away on the store's second floor, the store's first floor is a place you can enjoy spending time browsing.

The bookstore's first floor includes a large section of university wear and memorabilia that is larger than many stand-alone clothing stores and a large area with books arranged like a conventional bookstore with plenty of places to curl up with a good book or get in some quiet study time.

The store stocks current fiction, popular non-fiction, children's books, classics, magazines, and a variety of religious books and accessories. We found several popular history books that we ended up purchasing the last time we visited the store.

University officials envisioned the store as a positive reflection on the campus and its strong academic history when building it as a "world-class bookstore" in the late 1990s.

The store is also a center of the wider university life with a cafe/coffee shop and a schedule of events that includes extended hours during home football weekends when cheerleaders and Notre Dame's leprechaun mascot visit as fans shop for t-shirts and jackets to wear to the game.

There is a satellite bookstore across the street from campus in a mixed-use development called Eddy Commons. The satellite store fills the need to pick up a T-shirt or gift book, and it was a nice quick stop when we stayed at the nearby Fairfield Inn.

Still, I appreciate a really nice bookstore and think it's well worth the time to go on over to campus and check out Notre Dame's main bookstore.

Speaking of going to Notre Dame's campus, check out Back to School at Indiana's University of Notre Dame, O'Shag Hall at Indiana's University of Notre Dame, Indiana's University of Notre Dame embraces "Touchdown Jesus", and Basilica of the Sacred Heart is the heart of Indiana's University of Notre Dame campus. I also posted a review of our stay at the Fairfield Inn across from Notre Dame's campus.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Pearl of the North

Anne Harris spends her time Up North near Traverse City and Empire, Michigan, and shares some of her favorite Up North places and discoveries with readers today.

Variety may be the spice of life, but for the past ten years, my husband and I have taken our summer vacation in the same spot. Up in Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, nestled midway between Traverse City and the Sleeping Bear Dunes, is a little gem known as Pearl Lake. We go there every year and every year, and we find something new to delight us.

Composed of many small inlets, and in many places too shallow for motorboats, the Pearl Lake is bordered on one side by the Pere Marquette State Forest. This quiet, spring-fed lake is home to many different kinds of wildlife, including bald eagles, sandhill cranes, loons, and sugargliders.

My favorite thing to do up there is kayak. Tensions melt away as the still waters drift past my little craft and the vivid blues and greens of sky and tree greet my eyes. A dawn excursion rewards my early rising with the sight of sandhill cranes stalking the beach in the morning mist. Midday offers the neon hues of dragonflies and the serene circling of the eagles soaring on updrafts. There's nothing quite like the eerie call of the loons echoing across the lake in the late afternoon and at night I lay on my back and look up at the star-shot sky as I float on the dark, reflective water. It's as close to being in outer space as I'll ever get, or ever want to go.

Anne and Willy love kayaking

For those a little less outdoorsy -- like my dear, patient husband -- the area has many other points of interest. Bit by bit we make new discoveries. It's like unwrapping a new present each year.

Traverse City boasts a myriad of restaurants, cafes and shops. A favorite of ours is Morsels bite-sized bakery and café. Their tiny cakes and confections are small enough that you can try several. They have a nice outdoor patio where you can enjoy a cup of coffee and browse. Red Ginger serves up delicious, innovative Asian-inspired cuisine. Their menu changes constantly, but I will never forget their duck spring roll.

In the opposite direction, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, is Empire. It's a tiny little blink-and-you-miss-it town on the west coast of the state, where Highway 72 meets Highway 22. A stop in at the Friendly Tavern there is a tradition for us. This is a great local restaurant owned and operated by people who love food. Their burgers are the best, and they offer that ultimate in Up North dining, a burger with a side of smelt. After our meal, we usually need a walk, and the Empire Beach along the Lake Michigan shoreline fits the bill.

I almost always do a little shopping at The Secret Garden, featuring beautiful hand crafted gifts from artists all over the Midwest. One of the big discoveries in recent years is Grocer's Daughter's Chocolates, specializing in hand crafted delights made with sustainably grown chocolate and incorporating ingredients native to northern Michigan. Their lavender truffles are amazing. So is the Wally Bar with cranberries, cherries and almonds caramelized in local maple syrup.

Year after year, we explore the area, and in every corner we find something wonderful, delicious, or just downright fascinating. A few years back we discovered that the cottage across the lake from ours once belonged to Al Capone. This year we drove down to Frankfort and took in the awesome power of Lake Michigan pounding against the breakwater on a windy day. Another year we visited an organic farm and sampled food and wine from local growers and artisans.

I can't wait to find out what next year's discovery will be.

Red Ginger

237 East Front Street, Traverse City, MI 49684
 (231) 944-1733

Grocer's Daughter's Chocolates

12020 S. Leelanau Highway (M-22) 
P.O. Box 103 
Empire, MI 49630
 (231) 326-3030

Morsels

104 Cass St., Traverse City, MI 49684 (231) 421-1353

The Friendly Tavern

11015 West Front Street
Empire, MI 49630 
(231) 326-5506

The Secret Garden

10206 Front Street 
P.O. Box 31
Empire, Michigan 49630 (231) 326-5428

Anne Harris is a novelist and a writing instructor. Her pen name, Pearl North, was inspired by the lake she and her husband visit annually. You can find out more about her writing at http://pearlnorth.com

Photos and text © Anne Harris 2011 All rights reserved, used with permission

A conversation with Chef Darren Hawley at Michigan's Crystal Mountain

A commitment to environmentally responsible policies and locally sourced goods at northwestern Michigan's Crystal Mountain Resort makes it ready to meet increasing consumer interest in locally sourced food.

That commitment was especially evident when I interviewed Chef Darren Hawley earlier this summer about his approach to working with local farmers and suppliers as he developed menus for the resort's restaurants.

Hawley, a 1993 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and owner of Stubb's Sweetwater Grill in Northport, credits Crystal Mountain's owners with a long-time commitment to fresh and seasonal menus using locally sourced ingredients.

"This has been a hot-button issue for the owners even before I got here five years ago," says Hawley. "They were way ahead of the curve with the issue."

Hawley enhanced the resort's early efforts of talking with their major suppliers about sourcing food locally whenever possible by building, and working directly with, a strong network of local suppliers.

"The first question we ask is 'can we get this product locally?'," he says. "We'll even ask if we can get a napkin locally before buying it elsewhere."

Hawley adopts a "'bulls-eye" approach to determine what is "local". He looks for sources within a 50-mile radius of the resort first, then search for suppliers within 100 miles of Crystal, and casts a net statewide if he can't find a product within the local region.

If Hawley can't find products within Michigan or the larger Midwest region, he looks for sources as close to the resort as possible in order to reduce shipping time and expense, while insuring the best possible freshness.

"There is a lot of diversity of local products here in Michigan," he says. "This is one of the most diverse states when it comes to produce, compared to other states."

Michigan offers an incredible variety of local food even as the seasons change, and Hawley says that proteins and berries are two categories where it is particularly easy to source food locally year round.

Many farmers in northwestern Michigan supply consumers and restaurants, rather than being large-volume processors. Supplying mostly local customers means farmers grow produce that tastes best or is best for particular dishes, rather than just growing varieties that won't perish easily during long shipment times. Local customers don't worry if an ingredient is too delicate for long-distance shipping or storage as they receive product shortly after harvest and can use it quickly.

Hawley says his most successful partnerships with suppliers are those who run regular routes to Crystal Mountain. Developing relationships with local suppliers means dealing with vendors who understand the resort's needs and respond quickly and consistently to those needs.

"I like to be loyal to those guys [local farmers and suppliers] because I want them to succeed, too," says Hawley.

Crystal Mountain also hosts a weekly farmers market during the summer. It's fun to check out the market and chat with the local farmers at the foot of the ski hill.

Price can be a challenge when working with small-scale producers and local farmers, but Hawley says that makes him think more creatively when developing his menus.

"I can buy a 99-cent-per-pound chicken, or I can pay $3 per pound for free-range chickens raised locally. We've just learned to use more of the bird in creative ways like using it in soups or tangines."

Menus at the resort's restaurants reiterate Crystal's commitment to food that is "thousands of miles fresher" by using local farms, wineries, breweries and artisan food producers to support the local economy and gain the environmental benefits of reducing the miles food travels before it reaches diners' plates.

Hawley changes menus with the seasons, but his philosophy about his dishes remains the same throughout the year.

"I like to do a simple preparation using what is fresh and make the local products shine," he says.

Check out recipes from Chef Hawley at northwestern Michigan's Taste the Local Difference web site.

Interested in using some of the Midwest's best food products? Check out Cooking with Wild Berries & Fruits of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan by Teresa Marrone, Cherry Home Companion: A Cherry Cookbook by Patty Lanoue Stearns, The Chicago Homegrown Cookbook: Local Food, Local Restaurants, Local Recipes by Heather Lalley or The Flavor of Wisconsin: An Informal History of Food and Eating in the Badger State by Harva Hachten and Terese Allen.

Thanks to Brian Lawson, Director of Public Relations at Crystal Mountain Resort, for arranging an interview with Chef Hawley for me.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Visit the Fiesta factory in Newell, West Virginia

I’ve always loved Fiesta dishes, so you know when I discovered that the Homer Laughlin Company has its factory near the Lincoln Highway in Newell, West Virginia, and just across the Ohio River from East Liverpool, Ohio, we’d be slipping across the state line to check it out.

Visitors can tour the factory, but we were not there at the right time to do so. The company conducts two factory tours each week day, and you must reserve your place for the hour-long tour in advance.

Fortunately, there was still plenty to see at the factory’s retail outlet.

Seconds Warehouse

I picked up a set of soup bowls and a 75^th Fiesta anniversary T-shirt in the main store, but it was also fun rummaging in Seconds Warehouse, where shoppers can find discontinued colors, odd pieces, and strange shaped Fiesta plates, bowls and serving pieces at discount prices.

Homer Laughlin Company started long before its introduction of Fiesta, though.

The abundance of clay from the Ohio River resulted in pottery making becoming a major industry in area as early as the 1840s.

Consumers began buying white ware imported from England by 1870, seeing it as more sophisticated than the pottery produced locally, so the East Liverpool City Council offered $5,000 in seed money for the best proposal to build and operate a factory that could manufacture white ware with local clay and workers.

Brothers Homer and Shakespeare Laughlin from Liverpool, Ohio, submitted the winning bid and began selling pottery manufactured in their hometown in 1871. Shakespeare went on to other things by 1877, but Homer continued to manufacture pottery and run the company that bears his name today.

Homer retired and sold the business to William Wells and Louis Aaron in 1897. Fourth- and fifth-generation members of their families continue to own and operate it today.

The need for expansion in the early 1900s sparked the purchase of land across the river in Newell, West Virginia, and the company moved its headquarters there. By 1907, Homer Laughlin Company had one of the largest pottery plants in the world, with a production capacity of 300,000 pieces of pottery per day (or ten percent of the production capacity of the entire United States).

The development of continuous firing kilns revolutionized the pottery industry in the 1920s. Conventional kilns required several weeks to load, fire, cool, and empty it by hand. The new, higher capacity kilns greatly speeded up the process.

In 1927, Homer Laughlin hired an English potter named Frederick Hurton Rhead as its art director.

Consumers still purchased dinnerware as matched sets decorated with decaled designs, much as they had since the late 1800s and very early 1900s. Rhead’s revolutionary design for Fiesta dishes and the line’s introduction in 1936 changed that.

Fiesta’s concentric circles around the plates’ outer edges framed the food, and the design allowed for maximum plating surface. It was also Rhead’s idea to market Fiesta as open stock and encourage customers to mix Fiesta’s five original colors (red, cobalt blue, light green, deep golden, and cream) within place settings.

Fiesta seemed radically different and modern with its sleek Deco-influenced design and vibrant colors. Other companies produced solid-color dinnerware, but Fiesta was the first mass-produced and widely marketed solid-color dinnerware. Its affordability made it an immediate retail success despite the Depression-era economy.

Retail Store

Homer Laughlin Company changed Fiesta’s colors as styles and décor changed over time. They dropped and added pieces throughout the years, but the basic design of the original place settings and some of the classic serving pieces remained unchanged from 1936 through the early 1970s

World War II brought important changes to the company and its Fiesta line.

Fiesta’s original red glaze contained detectable amounts of uranium oxide, and the United States’ need for that element for development of the atom bomb meant it was no longer available as an ingredient for dinnerware glazes (which is probably a good thing!).

The Homer Laughlin Company began making a lot of china for the armed forces during the 1940s and increased its emphasis on commercial dinnerware for hotels and restaurants as the market for consumer dinnerware weakened.

The company’s production peaked in 1948 when more than 3,000 workers produced over 10 million pieces of pottery. However, changing styles and increasing popularity of imported dinnerware in the 1950s caused a slump in sales.

The company discontinued the declining Fiesta line in 1973.

I always loved the clean Art Deco-style and bright colors of Fiesta dishes, wishing I could have a set of them for my own house, but I only found them in garage sales or at antique stores as I was growing up.

Fiesta became very popular among collectors almost immediately after the company discontinued production and prices skyrocketed for vintage pieces.

Homer Laughlin officials noted the success of Fiesta in secondary markets and decided to reintroduce it with lead-free glazes 1986 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Fiesta’s 1936 introduction.

New colors reflect style and décor design changes, much as Fiesta’s original run did. The first colors in Fiesta’s reintroduced line were rose, black, cobalt blue, white, and apricot.

The reintroduction happened just as I bought my own home and went shopping for dinnerware, so many of the pieces in my cupboard today are apricot colored, although I’ve also got pieces in some of the newer colors like red, tangerine, Kelly green.

Homer Laughlin Company introduces and discontinues Fiesta colors (like this year’s introduction of Marigold in a limited 75-week run to celebrate the line’s 75^th anniversary) to spur the collectors’ market and insure the line’s continued popularity.

Local clay also figured prominently in another important 1800s Ohio industry. Read about Ohio’s Hocking Valley brick makers and more about working with early kilns at Ohio’s Hocking Valley bricks pave the nation.

Want to learn more about Fiesta and collecting vintage pieces? Check out Warman’s Fiesta: Identification and Price Guide by Glen Victorey or Collector’s Encyclopedia of Fiesta by Bob Huxford and Sharon Huxford.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Newell

West Side Market draws foodies to Cleveland, Ohio

I get some of my best travel ideas from watching food-related shows on television, and when I watched a show about the West Side Market in Cleveland, Ohio, I knew I had to visit there.

We recently visited the market when while spending several days in Cleveland, swinging by the market on a Wednesday morning as we left to go home.

The Food Network Magazine recently named West Side Market as the "Best Food Lovers' Market" and one of the country's Top Ten Destinations. Chefs like Cleveland's own Michael Symon (a Food Network television personality and owner of several popular Cleveland and Detroit restaurants) sing the market's praises, drawing attention to its dazzling array of meats, produce, baked goods, and countless Midwestern specialties.

West Side Market, Cleveland's oldest publically owned market, traces its roots back to the 1830s as public market places began appearing there.

In 1840, local businessmen and politicians Josiah Barber and Richard Lord donated land in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland, specifying that it always remain a public market site.

The open-air market expanded with other donations of land in 1853 and 1864, and added a wooden market house in 1868.

The market outgrew its old building and Mayor Tom L. Johnson appointed a commission that purchased land across the street from the original market in 1902.

Cleveland architects Charles Hubbell and W. Dominick Benes designed a new indoor/outdoor market. Their architectural firm designed many of Cleveland's most notable buildings, including the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Wade Memorial Chapel in Lakeview Cemetery. Their West Side Market became yet another one of the city's most iconic landmarks.

Hubbell and Benes designed a yellow-brick market house resembling large European-style markets. The building's neo-classical and Byzantine styling recalled the architecture of ancient basilicas with a soaring 44-foot-high ceiling and included decorative details like corbels carved to resemble produce and animals. It featured a 137-foot-tall clock tower and room for more than 100 vendor stalls.

The new market took a decade to plan and build, cost $680,000, and opened in 1912.

The 45,000-square-foot market, designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1973, still impresses first-time visitors with its architecture, but it is the massive selection of market goods that draws regular Cleveland-area shoppers and makes the market a must-see for foodies from all over the country.

Even though our weekday visit happened on one of the market's less crowded days, West Side Market still bustled with activity.

We parked for free in one of the nearby lots, pulled out our market totes, and started our trip through the market at the produce wing, an outdoor area enclosed in a 2004 renovation.

The original market building houses vendors selling meat, baked goods, prepared foods, and other specialty items. We could zigzag through the building and leisurely browse the stalls and cases on a winter weekday morning, but I understand Saturday shopping can be especially crowded.

Dozens of vendors specializing in different types of meat showcased their products in refrigerated glass cases. I'm sure I left some nose prints behind on the glass as I hungrily eyed the homemade sausages and great looking steaks. If you're looking for something a little more unusual like fresh bison meat, pig's feet, or whole rabbits you'll likely also find it at West Side Market.

It was difficult to know what to buy our first time at the market, and although I'd brought a small cooler with me, I didn't have room to take even half of the things I really wanted to try home with me.

Market vendors offer some great prepared items and ethnic specialties. I really regret not being able to take home some of the great looking pierogies I saw that day or to try a Polish Boy sandwich. That, of course, gives me an excuse to visit the market again--this time with a larger cooler!

The market is open year round, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Check the West Side Market site for market hours, a list of vendors, and other information.

Want to learn more about the Cleveland culinary scene and its history? Check out Cleveland Ethnic Eats: The Guide to Authentic Ethnic Restaurants and Markets in Greater Cleveland by Laura Taxel and Cleveland Food Memories: A Nostalgic Look Back at Food We Loved, the Places We Bought It, and the People Who Made It Special by Gail Ghetia Bellamy.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Cleveland

Where I live: Multitasking at The Detroit Shoppe

Check out the best of Detroit, take a walk down memory lane, help some great local charities, and finish up your holiday shopping at the same time at The Detroit Shoppe in Troy's Somerset Collection.

The 4,880-square-foot seasonal store showcases many products those of us who grew up in metropolitan Detroit remember from our childhood, as well as some cool new Detroit-made items and things from Detroit museums and cultural institutions. Better yet, profits from sales benefit charities like the Detroit Rescue Mission, Greening of Detroit, Illitch Charities, the Kid Rock Foundation, the Hole in the Roof Foundation, and, one of my personal favorites, Forgotten Harvest.

We see a lot of negative publicity about Detroit. A major network news program, which I'm not naming as I don't want to further publicize or legitimize its unjustly biased portrayal of the city, set the Internet buzzing in the wake of its airing this past spring.

Somerset marketing manager Linda McIntosh watched the program, and she thought about possible ways to spotlight Detroit's positive points and encourage pride in our city.

One of the results of her thinking? A store established under the auspices of the Somerset Foundation stocked with a unique mix of Detroit products and museum-quality exhibits.

Carpenters and bricklayers donated their time and talent to transform a former men's clothing store into retail and display area, folks from the Detroit Historical Museum helped design displays, and private collectors loaned some of their treasured pieces to the store for the season. Shoppers can check out a Model T car, a small karaoke booth reminiscent of Motown's legendary Studio A, a nook featuring items from the old downtown Hudson's department store, or a hallway lined with vintage photos covering Detroit's history from the late 1800s on.

The Detroit Shoppe also sponsors excursions with free shuttle bus transportation to Detroit landmarks and museums, and back to the store for a free reception featuring some yummy Detroit food products. Upcoming trips include destinations like the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Motown Museum, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

Regular Midwest Guest readers know that I am a big fan of local museum and cultural organizations. I regularly visit, and hold memberships to, quite a few Detroit museums. So, I hope shoppers take advantage of a great deal where those who sign up for Detroit museum memberships at The Detroit Shoppe receive a $25 Somerset gift card.

I've checked out The Detroit Shoppe several times already this season, including at a store-hosted Tweet Up where members of Detroit's social media community enjoyed a taste of Detroit featuring Detroit-made products like Kid Rock's Badass Beer, Coney dogs from American Coney, Faygo pop, and Better Made Potato Chips.

The Detroit Shoppe opened on November 1 and remains open through the end of the North American International Auto Show on January 23, 2011. Hours are 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon until 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Meanwhile, I need to get back there soon and buy some of the things I scouted out earlier for folks on my holiday gift list!

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Gwen Frostic Prints reopens for retail business in its long-time northern Michigan home

The comforting clatter of printing presses was music to my ears as I recently walked into the rambling stone building Gwen Frostic called home for many years in northern Michigan.

Familiar sights and sounds welcomed me back to Gwen's home as the business rumbled back to life after weathering a sudden foreclosure last October and an uncertain future before reopening its retail business just weeks ago under new ownership.

New owners Kim and Greg Forshee enjoyed a close association with the business over the years. Kim worked several years for Gwen Frostic Prints as an outside sales and marketing director, while the couple's Frankfort, Michigan, manufacturing company DAMB Mold Base provided many parts for Frostic's lumbering old Heidelberg presses that pumped out so many cards, stationery, placemats, and other products featuring Gwen Frostic's engaging nature images over the years.

The couple plan to preserve Frostic's artistic legacy and love of northern Michigan nature as they slowly restore the aging building and carefully add features and products that respect the Michigan icon's history and the close attachment many long-time fans feel for Frostic and her work, according to a recent article in the Traverse City Record-Eagle newspaper.

The Forshees told the newspaper that their plans include slowly repairing and restoring the property, expanding product lines that respectfully reflect Frostic's love of nature, and developing a museum centering on Frostic's career and life.

The scene at Gwen Frostic Prints seemed comfortingly familiar to me as I walked past the fieldstone walls and trickling fountain at the building's entrance, browsed the rustic racks filled with paper products featuring Frostic's elegant images, and paused for a few moments (as I always like to do when I visit) by the railing overlooking the press room as more of the paper products that were always the foundation of the business and perennial customer favorites rolled out of the machines.

Spots like the Gwen's quiet library with large windows overlooking the river and nature sanctuary behind the building and the short nature trails behind the parking lot always provided a bit of serenity, even on the busiest summer days, so it was nice to see that that serenity appeared largely unchanged even as the business weathered a rough winter.

I always believed the business would reopen as Frostic's legacy and importance as a draw for tourists in the region were just too important to lose.

As I reported here in May, as many as 1,000 people might stop by the store on a busy summer day. The business employed 15 to 20 people, and officials at the Benzie County Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Business Bureau reported that they answered more questions about Gwen Frostic's than any other attraction in the area. Even the bank forced to foreclose on the business and its former owners readily acknowledged the importance of the long-time business to the local economy and hoped to find a way to keep it open.

The Forshees credit their bank and former Frostic employees for helping them quickly reopen the business earlier this spring in time to welcome Frostic fans back for the busy summer season.

A steady stream of visitors shopped at the store as we visited the store in early July of this year. The occasional van carrying a tour group pulled into the lot, and I heard many individual customers and long-time Frostic fans tell workers they were so glad to see the business reopened.

The woman who waited on me and bundled up my purchases, one of the former Frostic employees rehired by the Forshees, seemed enthused about things when she told me the business was "getting there" as word spread about the reopening.

The product selection remains a bit thin in some areas as the business scurries to make up for the lost production time over the winter. I was unable to purchase the Gwen's signature green-and-white wrapping paper this visit, and received my purchases wrapped in plain brown paper instead of Frostic paper. I was able to buy a few of the small-size 2011 wall calendars, but the only large-size calendars they had in stock were for 2010. I also didn't see any of the plastic mugs with Frostic paper inserts for sale during my visit, but they did have some ceramic coffee mugs, and I bought one as a gift.

Some of the most immediate changes at Frostic's include a few new product lines like woven throw blankets and jewelry, like the little sterling silver pendant featuring one of my favorite Frostic designs (the "happy raccoon") that I couldn't resist buying for myself.

I felt a new sense of hope for Gwen Frostic's during this visit and thank the Forshees for their effort to insure a bright future for a place I've enjoyed and loved visiting for years.

Check out my earlier story, Gwen Frostic Prints weathers winter closing and reopens this spring, for more information about Gwen Frostic and the business.

 

You can also read The Life and Wisdom of Gwen Frostic by Sheryl James to learn more about this talented, but often enigmatic, woman. The book is fairly short, being an extension of an article James originally wrote for the Detroit Free Press, and predates Gwen's death by a couple of years, but it's still a fascinating read for those who grew up visiting the store and anyone interested in learning about the woman who overcame many odds to create a multi-million dollar business and artistic legacy.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

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