Cityview | Central Iowa's Independent Weekly

Extreme Belly Busters

Food lover devours four eating challenges in the metro

I’ll be the first to admit it, I enjoy eating. Since I was a little kid I have been overweight or “husky,” as my mom would say. I remember staying at Grandma Kate’s house and waking up to a behemoth breakfast with enough food for a small army instead of an 8-year-old boy, but I dutifully cleaned my plate. Today, I’m still “husky,” or “festively plump” around the holidays, but I can’t pack away as much as I used to. So when a food challenge idea arose, I decided to chew it down. With the popularity of ridiculous food challenges on “Man Vs. Food” sweeping the nation, I thought we should hold our own challenge, Des Moines style. So throughout the past gluttony-filled month, I attempted four local eating challenges, all with rewards such as T-shirts and wall photos immortalizing victories or defeats. Some went well, some went badly and one was easily the worst experience of my life. These certainly aren’t all the food challenges in town, and there are also numerous places that offer extreme eating challenges with no rewards for clogged arteries. Even so, strap on the feedbag and step up to the plate. And if you know of any good cardiologists, feel free to send them my way...Read More>>

Not much for the big media to swipe this week

Just some leftovers and little stuff this week — nothing important enough for The Des Moines Register or the TV stations to run off with.

But did you notice: It was way back in November when Skinny reported that Perry resident Jim Gibbons had rented an apartment on Douglas Avenue so he could be a district resident as he sought the Republican nomination for Leonard Boswell’s Congressional seat; that seems to be a big story in the newspapers now. It was in late January when Skinny reported that Prairie Meadows board member and horse-owner Butch Bain was in hot water with the Racing and Gaming Commission, that the DCI was looking into his activities and that fellow horse-owners wanted him off the board; the Register caught up with the story last week when the board ousted him. And it was just last week when Skinny reported that Republican Attorney General hopeful Brenna Findley wasn’t actively licensed to practice law in Iowa; KCCI jumped on that story in a few hours....Read More>>

PCC angles for long-term success starting with ‘Sad, Sour Future’

It’s hard enough being in a band without life interfering. In most cases, when musicians pursue a college education and a full-time day job, or get married and start a family, bands are doomed.

Poison Control Center (PCC), the longtime local indie-rock sensation, is no different in that as its members reach their 30s, life is pulling them in opposite directions. To complicate matters, PCC’s singer-songwriter-multiple-instrumentalists Patrick Fleming (Ames), Devin Frank (Columbia, Mo.), Joey Terry (Weaverville, N.C.) and Don Ephraim Curtis (Iowa City) live miles apart...Read More>>

Mama & Sons: comfort + three

“What’s a good place for comfort food?”

That’s the question most frequently asked of Food Dude. It’s also nearly impossible to answer without knowing more about the person asking. Of all culinary genres, comfort food is the least objective and most broadly defined. Universities hold interdisciplinary seminars attempting to clarify what it means. I’ve actually attended such things only to become more confused. At one, each delegate was asked to name his or her favorite comport food. When it was announced that “grits” was the number one answer, a majority of the delegates groaned in repulsion. Utterly different comfort foods do share a common denominator — most of the time one’s personal comfort food triggers sweet memories, usually of either childhood or a regional homeland. Probably the least controversial definition then is “food that reminds you of Mom.” ...Read More>>”