CITYVIEW readers will choose a winner from a hefty list of delicious pies. Favorite foods define cities. New York is a steakhouse town representing the power and energy of the city. San Francisco is a cioppino city built by the labor of its immigrant sailors and fishermen and its great bay. New Orleans is a [...]
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Iowa State Fairgrounds area residents cash in on need for overflow parking. Residents from nearly 5,500 homes surrounding the Iowa State Fairgrounds will allow fair-goers to park in their yards during the 11 days of the fair this month. Isaac Swieter is one of those residents. He started parking cars in his yard when he [...]
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AUGUST 7 UPDATE: Christopher Godfrey’s attorneys have submitted bills of $4,130,673.38 for fees and expenses in the retaliation and discrimination lawsuit he won against former Gov. Terry Branstad and Brenna Findley Bird, who was counsel to the governor. The bills in the seven-and-a-half-year-old case follow a jury verdict of $1.5 million won by Godfrey, the [...]
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Vilsack influence emerges in former vice president’s national rural plan. Interviewing surrogates, family members, friends or political associates of the actual candidates for office is most often an eye-rolling obligation more than an opportunity for journalists. But there are some notable exceptions. Former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia was far more entertaining than the candidate [...]
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It’s difficult not to draw the analogy between young adults moving out of home. Full disclosure: I probably cried for an hour after watching “Toy Story 3.” So you can bet I had some strong opinions going into this newest feature from the TS gang. I mean, as far as conclusions go, “Toy Story 3” [...]
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For three years now, Harbinger is the only restaurant in Iowa whose chef has been recognized by the James Beard Awards as top 20 in the Midwest. It’s a 55-seater that has a distinct personality. It serves no pizza, no burgers, no French fries and no gargantuan plates. Most people in Des Moines expect those [...]
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A childhood dream comes true. “I’m a military wife,” explains Meghan Drane. “I’m a mom of four. I’m from Iowa. We’ve lived on the East Coast, West Coast and Europe.” That is her story, but it is not her whole story. “That is who I’m married to,” she continues. “That is who I parent, but [...]
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Tell that to Sister Agnes. Fifty kids were fed lunch on Monday in a little park in Urbandale — for free. Chew on that. The small parking lot at Murphy Park fills with a half dozen cars. The green totes and the blue coolers are unloaded from the trunks and carried up to the shelter. [...]
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The evening will include musical theatre performances, fun and an energetic mix of central Iowa’s lovers of the stage. Late summer of 2014, right when the 2014-2015 local theatre season was starting, a small group of advocates for the local theatre scene gathered. The subject was a community recognition awards event to celebrate the thousands [...]
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Betty Lou Varnum’s show was a safe place for many central Iowa kids. I wish I could have experienced television the way children and adults did back in the 1950s. I imagine it was similar to the first time many of us saw what the Internet had to offer in the 1990s: AIM chatrooms, forwarded [...]
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Gardening and art are intermingled in the mindset of Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen. Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen are Iowa’s original digital couple. They were transferring images to computer prints back when they had to drive to Omaha to use computers and printers big enough to work to their scale. They were making digital [...]
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Foreigner performs at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 15 with Night Ranger opening. Before Tom Gimble joined Foreigner in 1995, he built an impressive resume. He’d played two world tours with Aerosmith and appeared in “Wayne’s World 2.” The tour wasn’t the “crazy” Aerosmith of the 1980s; it was the “clean and healthy” version. [...]
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Griffin, a rescue dog, watches over foster dogs. At age 10, Heather Stolp started a pet-sitting business, caring for the neighbor’s fish, dogs and cats. Their own family dog was treasured, until the dog passed away. As an adult, she knew she needed her own dog and began searching adoption sites. She saw the perfect [...]
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Just love food. Brooks Reynolds is a founder and the major force behind bacon festivals in Des Moines, Japan, Colorado and Iceland. Scott Toland is the CEO and President of ICS (International Chili Society), which owns the World Championship Chili Cookoff and 123 other regional events in 41 states plus Canada. They are working together [...]
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Bellhop Tiki bar opens in East Village. Imagine a tiki bar. What comes to mind? Usually it’s in a tropical place — a hut with a thatched roof, where patrons sit on rattan bar stools, sipping fruity drinks with tiny umbrellas while relaxing with an ocean breeze nearby. So when the Bellhop Tiki Bar opened [...]
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Popular blues, rock musicians return to native Iowa. The Ducharme Jones band is making the rounds at various Des Moines music venues. As a duo or with a full band, Dave and Annie Ducharme Jones both play guitars and sing, rocking out to Tommy Petty, singing “Jolene” or belting out one of their original blues, [...]
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Interpreting history while living history and volunteering at Living History Farms. “Well, this is as close as I’m ever going to get to a time machine,” says Barb Raife, an interpreter at Living History Farms. “It’s my way to travel back in time.” Living history can be a good way to learn history. Raife began [...]
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