Posted October 01, 2025in Food Dude
The art of smoking animal flesh came late to Iowa. The Hawkeye state’s climate produced so much ice that our forebearers built ice houses to preserve our perishable foods. Smoking was a southern thing out of necessity. Before electric refrigeration, preservation required ice, salt or smoking, and salt had limited
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Posted September 03, 2025in Food Dude
Masao is Des Moines’ greatest application yet of the miracle of overnight air freight. It is also dramatic evidence that technology shrunk the world more than anything else did. When I graduated from high school here in 1965, I had never seen an avocado, a mango nor cilantro. The only
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Posted August 06, 2025in Food Dude
The local food scene is rifting. Two different sports bars, Blue Shark and Perfect Ten, both failed in just a few months at the same address on Ingersoll. Two Mexican restaurants, Blue Agave and Mojito’s, both closed within weeks of each other half a block apart in Windsor Heights. All
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Posted July 02, 2025in Food Dude
Soul food is having a moment in Des Moines. Two new brick and mortar cafés devoted entirely to this African-American style of southern roots cooking are up and running. Every time we visit, they are busy. That’s probably the closest this most resourceful style of American cooking has ever come
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Posted June 04, 2025in Food Dude
In 1903, brothers Francesco, 21, and Luigi, 17, Graziano left their Calabrian hometown San Morello to emigrate to the U.S. Like many Calabrians before them, and many more later, their way winded to Des Moines. They found jobs working for the Great Western Railroad until 1912. Then they decided that
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Posted April 30, 2025in Food Dude
In 1989, CITYVIEW predecessor Skywalker began publishing the column “Since I Quit Drinking.” It was a take on the Rip Van Winkle legend that used new sobriety as awakening to surprisingly new things for one who had been asleep for decades. One early column focused on a new store at
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Posted April 02, 2025in Food Dude
The year was 1978, a most Dickensian time. A murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, ended 909 American lives while Israel and Egypt were finding accord at Camp David, Maryland. Argentina won its first World Cup after Peru’s national team laid down and allowed six Argentine goals in a strange group stage
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Posted March 05, 2025in Food Dude
B & B Grocery, Meat and Deli is the beating heart of Sevastopol. It has been since the first Brooks brothers, John and “Archie,” opened for business in 1922. “Everyone called him Archie, but his real name was Joseph. That confusion has continued. Joe and I are the third generation
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Posted February 05, 2025in Food Dude
Joe and Red Giudicessi bought Christopher’s in 1961. The purchase included a sign too expensive to replace, so they kept the name someone else liked. Before that, they ran a tavern on East Locust. “It was called Rosie’s, where Bar Nico is now. The main clientele was streetwalkers and cops,
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Posted January 01, 2025in Food Dude
Because we have been covering the local food scene since the late 1980s, we’re often asked what jump-started the Des Moines restaurant renaissance. Good bread is our best answer. A quarter century ago, I ran into philanthropist Maddie Glazer several times on connecting flights home through O’Hare. We both usually
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