Bumper crop
The wild blueberries are crazy this year. I picked six quarts today and didn’t even make a dent in the patch.
The wild blueberries are crazy this year. I picked six quarts today and didn’t even make a dent in the patch.
200 c. flour
100 c. bacon drippings
200 lg. onions
500 lbs. alligator
Season to taste
400 pods garlic
600 beef bouillon cubes
500 qts. Lake Superior water
Fresh parsley
Wild mushrooms
Combine flour and bacon drippings; brown until dark. Add water, onions, garlic, bouillon, and seasoning. Cook for 1 hour. Clean fat from alligator. Cut in bite size pieces. Put in gravy and cook in another hour. Add mushrooms and cook, uncovered, in another 30 minutes. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve over rice. Feeds approx. 85,000.
[Adapted from cooks.com.]
One conclusion can be easily drawn from the results of Perfect Duluth Day’s poll to name the best restaurant on Lake Superior’s North Shore: Grand Marais is the place to be. The top three restaurants are located there, including the perfect one, Gunflint Tavern.
Owner Jeff Gecas says it hasn’t always been easy. He and his wife Susan are “Deadheads” who decided to create the business “almost selfishly” in 1998 because there wasn’t anywhere to watch live music and drink microbrews on draft in Grand Marais. “We never had Bud or Miller Lite. We didn’t allow smoking. People said ‘They’ll never make it,'” Gecas remembers. “We’re now in our 19th year.”
Upending convention, the Tavern now offers music 260 nights a year and brews its own beer. With its eclectic menu, craft beer and live music several nights of the week, it has become a North Shore institution and a favorite among locals and tourists alike.
In an outpost like Grand Marais, one might be surprised to find bangers and mash, chicken mole and an Asian noodle bowl under the same roof. Casual fare like burgers and pizzas are available at the Gunflint Tavern too, as are finer dining options such as walleye, steak and mushroom ravioli.
On Saturday, July 16, our custom-made Cool Stuff Sale signs were stolen from Woodland Avenue and Oxford Street as our nearby garage sale was ending. We would like them back. They are cool signs and do not belong in the possession of un-cool people.
If you see them, please post the location. Beware of doing business with anyone else who is using them … they are dishonest! Thanks.
Duluth artist Kenneth Marunowski is in France, painting, and sends his regards to friends left behind, like me.
New video by Duluth’s Kristy Marie, in support of Bernie Sanders for President. Featuring instrumentation by Marc Gartman and Rich Mattson.
Video premiere July 20 at the Red Herring with Useful Jenkins, Devil’s Flying Machine and Adam Faucett.
Some time around the year 1980, my parents acquired two giant four-drawer cabinets. Several decades went by before it was time to clean out the house and get rid of them. When one of them sold last month I pulled out a drawer and for the first time noticed the cabinets appear to have been built in Duluth. “United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, organized 1881, registered June 30, 1903,” reads the text on the ink stamp. “Union Made” in the “District of Duluth.”
I’m curious if anyone has seen anything like this or has any back story on who might have built them and when.
On the North Shore of Lake Superior near Knife River, Frank Sander rides through a field of daisies with his new bike. Slightly promotional, mostly delightful.
From the days when Enger Park was Zenith Park, and Lester Chester Park was Glenwood Park (or is it Lenwood?).
Duluth aerial footage by Charlie Dinges, featuring Wade Stadium, the ore docks, grungy industrial stuff and pretty trees.
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find in this week’s PDD Calendar:
There’s a seminar about voter engagement taking place at the Ordean Building, folks can get a hand in uncovering the roots of their family trees at the Duluth Public Library, veterans can receive assistance with looking for employment at the Minnesota Work Force Center, Haley Bonar comes to town to play the pier at Glensheen, rapper P.O.S. plays a micro show, PAVSA is selling BBQ and cupcakes to support their services and Anthony Bush talks baseball at the Depot.
A contemporary take on the original spoiled rich girl plays at Teatro Zuccone, famed comic Jerry Seinfeld stops at the DECC, The All Pints Eve Hootenanny is transpiring at Bent Paddle Brewing, Dem Atlas and Reflectivore play Pizza Luce, the Lake Superior Classic & Custom Boat Show lands at Barker’s Island, the 2016 All Pints North Summer Brew Fest is at Bayfront Park and the Rolling Thunder Reunion brings together musicians with Bob Dylan ties at Weber Music Hall.
Time for another installment of Perfect Duluth Day’s ultra-thrilling photo-trivia sensation. This time the photo was shot somewhere in Superior. Where specifically?
Pokémon Go has invaded everywhere, including Duluth, as anyone who is somewhat conscious can tell you. Our social media feeds have been flooded with familiar people in familiar places with weird creatures. Your job in this quiz: identify the person, place, and Pokémon pictured. Gotta catch ’em all.
Thanks to members of the Pokemon Go: Duluth MN Facebook group for their photo contributions.
The next quiz will be a review of the events of July 2016 and will be published on July 31. Send submissions to lawrence @ perfectduluthday.com by Wednesday, July 27 to get your question in the quiz!
Amongst these magnificent works of sidewalk art from the Two Harbors Chalk.a.Lot this weekend is a tribute to Cloud Cult. Visit Sunday if you can. The art will still be awesome.
I used to think I could be a writer. It was adorable.
I’m 45. From 20 until almost 40, I harbored delusional aspirations of someday publishing in prominent venues such as Spin, Sports Illustrated, Outside, and the New Yorker. In my 20s I neither enjoyed nor did well in a few full-time print and online journalism jobs. Throughout my 30s I taught writing (which I still do); I also spent a lot of time pitching Minnesota magazine and website pieces and a little time actually getting to write them; I took a short break from teaching in Duluth to see if I could hang with music journalists in Minneapolis (spoiler: nope); I made some stupid decisions I still cringe-blush about (I think I’ve now sent Alan Sparhawk five or six apology emails about a 2005 Minnesota Monthly piece about him I wrote and the magazine’s editors kind of ruined); I got fired from a few freelance jobs and submitted some work that sucked; I did some OK stuff and some pretty good stuff; I realized being able to arrange words well does not make me a writer and even if I ever become what I believe a writer is I’ll never refer to myself as one.
I grew up in a word incubator. Mom reads constantly, Dad taught English then worked as a library director, and they have big, agile vocabularies. They started reading to and conversing with me when I was in the womb. Before I was out of kindergarten, the words and images in The Magic Carousel, Cranberry Christmas and Cranberry Thanksgiving, I Wonder if Herbie’s Home Yet, Diggy Takes his Pick, Never Tease a Weasel, Old Witch and the Polka Dot Ribbon, I Wonder What’s Under, The Ice-Cream Cone Coot and other Rare Birds, and a bunch other Parents’ Magazine Press books, Arch books, Little Golden books, and Dr. Seuss books (especially I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Solew) were forming my lifetime perspective at least as powerfully (and for just as much bad and good) as Sesame Street, Zoom, Captain Kangaroo, and the Electric Company were.
