It only took about 30 years but last night, friends dragged me over to Carl’s, the famed dive bar in Des Moines’ Sherman Hill neighborhood. From the outside, the worn wood building looks like it’s about to collapse. Inside, the place was bigger and brighter than I expected, with a lively and diverse crowd enjoying Tuesday night live music by local musicians. I’m not big on bars – I don’t drink much – but I get the draw of this place and see why people (including many a visiting Democratic operative) love it. It feels “authentic.”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Hauppauge Princess Diner/Parrish Art museum – hamptons thanksgiving
We found my dream diner en route to water mill N.Y., which was not only open on thanksgiving day but packed with diners. For good reason. After much deliberation I ordered a tuna melt off of the encyclopedic menu, which was excellent.
A day later we took a break from eating and visited the Parrish museum which I have wanted to visit since its dramatic new building opened in a few years ago. It’s an interesting building inside and a cook collection of work, much of it by artists who work or worked around here. I particularly liked The Fairfield Porter “raw” paintings.
Filed under Uncategorized
Crepes deluxe, U of Iowa Women’s Archives – Iowa city
A high school classmate I haven’t seen since high school (i.e. 41 years ago) who lives in Iowa City introduced me to a restaurant there – Crepes DeLuxe. It’s a charming little hole in the wall just east of the PedMall (and the public library). I recommend the salmon crepe. I also did a little shopping, finding a very warm hat/scarf at White Rabbit and some great clothes (Simpli brand!) on sale (albeit still pricey) at Textiles.
I also toured the U of Iowa Women’s Archives, on the third floor of the main library, which has a remarkable collection of papers, journals and memorabilia from Iowa women dating back to the 1800’s. Wandering through library shelves with archival boxes, glancing at the neat labels, I found everything from prominent politicians and philanthropists to rural/farm women, African-American women, Jewish women and Latinas in Iowa. Proud to say that someday, it will also include my journals, 73 and counting, which I’ve kept daily since I was 13. I really enjoyed looking at a farm woman’s journal from the 1880’s – with yellowed pages and faded ink. Her family wisely took it upon themselves to transcribe the journal for posterity onto crisp typed sheets. (Although I won’t be asking my family to follow suit…)
Opened in 1992 by Des Moines philanthropist/activist/feminist/art collector Louise Noun and Mary Chase Smith (an Iowan who chaired the Republican National Committee in the 1970s), the Women’s Archives is one of only a few in the country, I gather. Noun, a major art collector, sold one of her Frida Kahlo paintings for $1.65 million to endow the archive.
More from Wikipedia:
The idea was conceived by Noun in the 1960s while researching Strong-Minded Women: The Emergence of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in Iowa.[2] To fund the archives, Noun sold Frida Kahlo‘s 1947 painting “Self-Portrait with Loose Hair” at Christie’s New York for 1.65 million dollars. The sale set a record for the most expensive work by a Latin American artist ever sold at auction. The painting was originally purchased by Noun for $85,000 in 1983.[10] The University of Iowa Foundation undertook fundraising to contribute half a million dollars for the archives, which opened in 1992. The Louise Noun-Mary Louise Smith Iowa Women’s Archives is open to the public and currently contains over 1100 manuscript collections of personal papers and records which record women’s history in Iowa and other communities.[9]
Filed under Iowa City, Uncategorized
The latest restaurant picks for New Orleans
These from my stepdaughter Emma’s friend Jenny who lives in NOLA and knows her stuff! Thanks Emma and Jenny!
1. Gabrielle – https://www.facebook.com/GabrielleRestaurant (#1 on Eater’s Heat Map). It’s OUTSTANDING – we had such an amazing meal here. Word of warning – it’s like 1.5 blocks from where I live, aka it’s in a rather economically depressed area, so it’s not the most charming exterior or surroundings. But it’s definitely a fine dining experience.
2. Bywater American Bistro – Nina Compton’s new restaurant – soft opening has been going on this week. Chas is actually going to be server there! He’s said the food is amazing. slated as one of the year’s bigger openings, it’ll be a trendy stop for all foodies. it’s purposefully more casual so maybe lunch?
3. Compere Lapin – Nina Compton’s other restaurant – if they haven’t already dined there, it’s really, really good.
4. Toup’s (another Top Chef alum) – really good, very creative Cajun dining experience. All I’ll say is …. bone marrow, from the bone, followed up with a whiskey shot taken through the bone, like a bone luge. Yeah. amazing.
5. Gautreau’s – great fine dining, tiny lil spot hidden in Uptown, very romantic. we had a great meal.
6. Coquette – excellent beautifully plated food, chefs just got nominated for their first Beard Award – South region. If they can’t squeeze it in for dinner, Coquette also does an outstanding brunch.
Also Couchon and Couchon Butcher is always a hit. For brunch, I think Elizabeth’s in the Bywater is outstanding. For a fun outdoors experience, Bacanal is awesome. It’s basically a cheese and wine shop with a big back yard and live music.
Filed under Louisiana, Uncategorized
Off to Scranton — Gorge, Coal Mining
We drove through grey skies and drizzle north thru the Poconos to Scranton so my aunt could visit an old friend from college. The drive was pretty, weather notwithstanding, and the leaves are starting to change. (I am told they are late this year.)
I did a little exploring on my own, driving through downtown Scranton which I know little about except that it was the fictional location of the classic TV comedy, The Office. There are some great old hulking stone and brick buildings but didn’t see much reason to stop so I went to nearby Nay Aug (that’s not a typo) park, which has a waterfall and gorge. I met a nice young woman who was hiking around and she led me along the muddy trail to the falls, which were impressive, especially since there has been so much rain in the area. It wasn’t quite Ithaca quality but not bad. Ithaca was only 2 hours north (so near and yet so far….)
I also stopped at the lackawanna coal mine museum which has a rustic tour down into a mine that one website described as a good way to learn about how terrible coal miners lives were. No thank you. Too claustrophobia- inducing but did look like a cool attraction and is a biggie here.
Filed under Pennsylvania, Uncategorized
Easton PA – sentimental journey and some new stuff
Easton is looking pretty good. Always a little ragged around the edges even though I love it dearly, (this is, after all, my mother’s hometown and where I spent summers with my grandma at her red brick row house), Easton seems to be remaking itself as a funky arts and culinary destination. So much so that we won’t be going to the farmers market around the circle downtown tomorrow because the annual garlic fest is on tap and draws some 20,000 people. Too many for us.
Aunt MAT and I dropped by the family touchstones – 101 N. 8th Street (Grama Betty’s house which still isn’t looking so good), my Great-Grandfather Louis’s house (and later my Great Aunt Sylvia’s house) on 2nd Street, which still looks lovely.
We finally found my grandparents’ gravestones, along with many great aunts and uncles (Sylvia, Nathan, Jeanette, Libby…) in a remote corner of the Easton cemetery. We could see cars whizzing by on RT. 22). We spotted the new Easton Public Market on Northampton Street, which looks pretty cool, and some vintage clothing shops and boutiques. The Caramel Corn Shop is still on the circle.
We drove along the river road, RT 611, that curves along the Delaware, past the occasional lovely stone house and barn. Also drove along an interior country road trying to find remnants of the summer camp I went to as a kids — Camptown. I love the countryside here. Very rolling, winding and green, with the leaves starting to change.
Great grandpa Louis’s house/later great aunt Sylvia’s
We had a delicious lunch at an Italian import store run by one of my aunt’s former 3rd grade students, now age 68, called Pastaceria, which has a chef recently arrived from Rome who made delicious fresh pasta — Ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach, with a butter sage sauce. 
Tonight we went to an old club, The Pomfret in downtown Easton with 5 of my aunts former students and some spouses. They came from Kansas , Oregon, Florida. Alabama and made a big fuss over my aunt, which was really sweet. My aunt was really touched. Special night for us all.
I walked along Main Street in Bethlehem, which has some interesting shops including The Steel Beam, with industrial chic artwork. The city is wisely marketing its faded industrial era, with lots of odes to Bethlehem Steel. Then there are the charming 18th. Century stone buildings, many part of Moravian College.
Historic Hotel Bethlehem
Filed under Pennsylvania, Uncategorized
Return to Somerville, tatte & blue bottle coffee/Harvard square, wedding at habitat wildlife sanctuary/Belmont and party bus to Lilypad in Cambridge
Alex and RoseI think I found the triple decker house (#30?) I lived in for a year in the early 1980s in Somerville. Avon Street is only one block long but my memory is rusty. The street didn’t look much different than when I lived there. A mix of tarted up and faded houses.
Onto Harvard Square where we walked past Widener Library, where I used to do my freelance pieces, using a borrowed library card from a friend who was a real Harvard student. We stopped for coffee at the pristine Blue Bottle Cafe and a delicious tuna sandwich and flat bread at the very busy Tatte cafe/bakery.
Alex and Rose’s wedding was on the lovely landscaped grounds of the Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary near a swanky wooded residential area in Belmont. Old mansion, lovely patio and grounds. The weather held and the newlyweds are so happy and adorable. We piled into a bus with younger and older guests for an after party at lilypad, a small funky club in Cambridge’s Inman square. Great music by a DJ who was also a great dancer. I danced a little but was nervous about overdoing it with my still-recovering broken arm. Returned to the Homestead suites Hilton in Arlington around 1 am. Hotel was nice but a pricey $250 a night and hardly needed the living room with the fake fireplace (turned on with a light switch) that came with our bedroom. But it was convenient to the wedding and good to stay in the same place as other family members.
Harvard Yard
Now driving thru EZpass lane in New Hampshire on I-95. We had to pay $59 for the pass from dollar rental because the unavoidable toll roads in Boston no longer accept any other payment, if you don’t have an EZ pass you don’t pay and you get fined…
Filed under Boston, Massachusetts, Uncategorized
Taranta/Boston and O’Hare dining/Chicago
I returned to the terrific peruvian/Italian restaurant in Boston’s north end last night for a happy occasion- our nephew Alex’s rehearsal dinner, a day before his wedding. The food was delicious – most noteably melt in your mouth steak in Skewers (even the Nebraskans in attendance – Alex’s bride is from Lincoln – were impressed) and a killer pisco sour ($16 splurge).
Our long wait to transfer planes in rainy Chicago was brightened by the nearness of our fav o’hare ding spot, torte, where we shared a spicy Cubano sandwich. I noticed one of the “local” food suppliers is kalona organic in Iowa. Also found an interesting looking vending machine option.
Filed under Massachusetts, Uncategorized
Garden of Eden/Grassroots art – Lucas, Kansas
Here’s a story I wrote about the Grassroots art Capital of Kansas for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Midwest Traveler: Kansas boasts quirky ‘grass-roots art’ capital
Small-town Lucas attracts artists from way, way off the beaten path.
I was walking beside a quiet two-lane highway in north central Kansas, admiring sculptures scattered in the scrubland, made from rusty farm implements, car parts and animal bones, when a small truck pulled up from a dirt driveway. It was the sculptor, waving.
“Thanks for being interested,” he said. “I’ve got to go to work now.” Off he drove, onto the empty blacktop and into open ranch land.
It was a fitting start to my latest exploration in and around the town of Lucas, pop. about 400, the state’s capital of “grass-roots art.” Also known as “outsider art,” this is the creative outpouring of self-taught artists located far from the mainstream art world (geographically, commercially, aesthetically), using unconventional materials and techniques.
They are often retired farmers, mechanics, newspaper editors, funeral home directors (you name it) making stuff with whatever’s around — car bumpers, light bulbs, barbed wire, gum, horseshoes, tree trunks (you name it). Prolific (some might say compulsive), they might not call themselves artists or even seek viewers for their work, which is typically found on their property.
In Lucas, it all started with Samuel Perry “S.P.” Dinsmoor, an eccentric Civil War veteran, farmer and teacher who in the early 1900s, at age 64, began building a fantastical sculpture garden in the backyard of his cabin home, located on an otherwise ordinary small-town residential block — which is part of its charm and shock value. The sculpture garden took 22 years, 113 tons of cement and many tons of native rust-stained golden limestone.
Now known as the Garden of Eden and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it includes the unique cabin — also made by Dinsmoor, out of limestone “logs” — and the garden, with sculptures representing biblical figures (most notably Adam and Eve) and populist themes (most memorably, labor being crucified by the lawyer, doctor, preacher and banker).
A macabre highlight is the 40-foot ziggurat-shaped mausoleum that Dinsmoor built, also with limestone. Inside, as Dinsmoor wished, visitors on a tour can see what remains of his face — he died in 1932 at age 89 — through a glass-lidded coffin. Nearby, unseen, is his first wife. At age 81, Dinsmoor married his second wife — his 20-year-old housekeeper. They had two children.
Since Dinsmoor’s day, locals and transplants — including grass-roots artists and aficionados — have helped cement Lucas’ claim to fame. It now attracts more than 10,000 visitors a year. I’ve visited several times since the late 1980s and each time, I’ve found more to see in an area that still feels refreshingly off-the-beaten-path, making it a perfect outsider art outpost.
Post Rock Country
Returning this spring with my Kansas-born husband, eight years after our last visit, we found more art dotting the highways, near where the art was made, offering fresh views and insights.
In addition to Jim Dickerman’s metal and bones work found along Hwy. 14 (mile markers 181 and 182), California artist and retired dentist Fred Whitman’s facial portraits of local residents are carved into limestone posts along Hwy. 232 (mile markers 12 and 13, east side; 14 and 15, west side; and 16 and 17, east side).
In Lucas, along the sleepy, two-block downtown bordered by a water tower and a grain elevator, we found a spectacular public bathroom/art installation. Opened in 2012, “Bowl Plaza” is shaped like a giant toilet tank with a raised lid and adorned with mosaics made with repurposed bottles, license plates, pottery and more. (Don’t miss the toy cars in the men’s room.)
Joining several others on a guided tour of the Grassroots Art Center, opened in 1995, we marveled at painstaking work of Kansans, including Herman Divers’ full-size car made from vintage soda can pulltabs and John Woods’ elaborate collages made from toys, keys and even handguns found in the muck of a drained lake.
In the outdoor courtyard, an exhibit opened in 2002 showcases the region’s “post rock” limestone masonry. Lucas is Post Rock Country, where stone masons during the turn of the 20th century made fence posts — and many buildings — out of the limestone because the treeless prairie ruled out wooden posts.
As for the Garden of Eden, it looks better than ever, thanks to a major 2012 restoration of the garden and cabin supported by the Wisconsin-based Kohler Foundation. Sculptures once darkened by age are now cement-colored, with dabs of pink that even some tour guides didn’t know were there.
Getting there
From the Twin Cities, Lucas, Kan., is 672 miles southwest, via Interstates 35 and 70 to Exit 206 and Kansas Hwy. 232.
Other attractions
Florence Deeble Rock Garden/The Garden of Isis: The rock garden is the handiwork of a Lucas teacher, inspired by S.P. Dinsmoor to create her own backyard masterwork in the 1930s, using colored concrete to fashion “postcard scenes” from her travels. In 2002, Lucas artist Mri-Pilar transformed the 1906 Deeble House into a recycled art installation, lining the walls with foil, salvaged dolls and toy slinkys.
Roy and Clara Miller’s Park: Relocated beside the Garden of Eden, this mid-1900s creation is a miniature town built with rocks, minerals and shells by a local couple in their yard.
World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things: Artist Erika Nelson’s tiny versions of giant things — including Minnesota’s big lutefisk and ball of twine — are on view, by appointment, at 214 S. Main St. Text ahead of arrival (1-785-760-0826; worldslargestthings.com).
Post Rock Scenic Byway: This 18-mile stretch of Kansas Hwy. 232 connects the towns of Lucas and Wilson, running past Wilson Lake and Wilson State Park, with hiking and mountain bike trails, swimming beaches, boating and camping. Also drive Hwy. 18 east from Lucas to Lincoln and Hwy. 14 south from Lincoln to I-70. Take time to admire the imposing limestone buildings in windswept Lincoln and Wilson.
Where to eat and sleep
Brant’s Market on Main Street in Lucas has made bologna and sausages since 1922.
Garden View Lodge (1-785-658-6607; airbnb.com), across from the Garden of Eden, is run by a Garden tour guide and Dinsmoor descendant.
Midland Railroad Hotel (1-785-658-2284; midlandrailroadhotel.com) in Wilson was a film set for the 1973 movie “Paper Moon.” Open for dinner, the 1899 hotel’s Sample Room Tavern serves regional fare including chicken-fried steak.
More information
garden of Eden : 1-785-525-6395; garden-of-eden-lucas-kansas.com.
Grassroots Art Center: 1-785-525-6118; grassrootsart.net.
Betsy Rubiner, a Des Moines-based travel writer, writes the travel blog TakeBetsyWithYou.
Filed under arts festival, Kansas, Uncategorized
TakeBetsywithyou 