Main Street Gourmet is holding its next semi-annual “No Muffin Left Behind“ sale on Saturday, April 4, at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, 350 Opportunity Parkway, Akron. For just $1.25 a pound, you can get trays of brownies, tubs of cookie dough and mounds of muffins, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting charity. It’s perfect especially for schools or whoever has bake sales. All you need is plenty of freezer space! I haven’t been to the sale at the foodbank location, but I did go a few times when the sale was at its Derby Drive headquarters. I think I waited in line for 1-1/2 hours once (though they did pass out free muffins to make the wait easier). You put on a hairnet, got handed a shopping cart, then went into a huge room where the goods are piled up all around you. Sometimes the flavors weren’t marked, but that’s half the fun! At the end they put the cart on a scale, deduct the weight of the cart itself, then charge you by the pound. Don’t go if you have a strong sweet tooth and lack willpower, though. It’s very very tempting!!!
By the way, the Derby Drive location does sell 3-lb. boxes of ready-to-bake cookies and tubs of muffins for $10 each. The cookies are great because you just bake as you go. But again, they are so good it’s easy to get hooked (and I’ve gotten a lot of people hooked on them!). I like to have them on hand for when I have company coming but unfortunately a box never lasts long in our freezer …
By the way, who remembers when Main Street Muffins was just a little shop on Main Street in the late ’80s? Co-founders Steve Marks and Harvey Nelson are truly “local boys who done good.” Not only do they have this super-successful business, but they do so much for the community (including Marks’ founding of the “Akron Roadrunner Marathon). Real inspirations!
Archive for March, 2009
Main Street Gourmet’s big sale on April 4
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Where to recycle phone books in the Akron area
Sunday, March 29th, 2009River Valley Paper Company, headquartered in Akron, has paper collection boxes located all over the area (see list here) and they recycle phone books and cardboard, two items which Paper Retriever, a company which also has collection boxes around town, does not accept. Just so you know!!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Sunday, March 29th, 2009When I was growing up, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was one of my very very favorite books. I mean, I read that book over and over. It was magic. I don’t remember the 1971 movie version, but the Tim Burton 2005 version is outstanding (Rotten Tomatoes rating: 84%). My husband and I saw it at a movie theatre on my birthday (the cold rain wiped out our inline skating plans) and I just loved it! It was as if what I saw in my head so many years ago was playing right before my eyes. That doesn’t happen very often when a book becomes a movie. Tim Burton is a genius, that’s for sure. The casting is perfect – Johnny Depp especially – and even the additions to the movie seem just right. The stories behind the stories, on the DVD extras, are really interesting too – especially how they actually trained squirrels! I actually picked up the book called “Boy: Tales of Childhood” (author Roald Dahl’s autobiography) at a library book sale (I love autobiographies) but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I’m sure he’s got some stories to tell! Anyway, great movie for adults and kids!!
The Simpsons’ “Once” Reference
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009Okay, so I was going to post about the movie “Once” at some point, but I wanted to wait until I watched it again (I was really moved the first time I saw it and LOVED the music) … but now I HAVE to mention it since it was a part of tonight’s “Simpsons”. ”Once” is an amazing story and the story-behind-the-story is even better … so to have it be a part of the “Simpsons” (which by the way is the only TV show I watch — seriously) was really very cool. I also loved the reference to the cartoon character ”Tintin” (of whom I had never heard until my recent trip to Brussels, where “Tintin” was born). It’s not often I feel “in” on the joke, so that was very fun for me! 
Jazz Favorites
Friday, March 20th, 2009I borrowed a copy of the “WALL-E” soundtrack from the library, and hearing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” made me think of some of my jazz favorites … in no particular order and just kind of off the top of my head:
Favorite women jazz singers: Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington (I love her version of “Teach me tonight”) in general, but I also love Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” and Nina Simone’s “I got it bad (and that ain’t no good)” and “My baby just cares for me”
Favorite jazz album: Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” (one of the albums you’d have to have on a desert island with you)
Favorite Louis Armstrong tunes: “What a Wonderful World” (though I can’t get the image of that song playing during “Good Morning, Vietnam” out of my head – very powerful – it’s hard to listen to it without thinking of that), “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “A Fine Romance”
Other favorite jazz men besides Davis and Armstrong: Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. Sooooooooooo smooth!!!!!!!!!!
Favorite jazz songs: Too many to name!!!!!!!!
On a side note, a good book for kids is “This Jazz Man” (by Karen Ehrhardt) which is about 9 of the jazz greats – it’s a fun book to read aloud, then there’s info about each jazz man in the back.
Trying to keep your kids safe …
Thursday, March 19th, 2009I was at the playground the other day with my youngest and remembered something important to help keep your kids safe: the Web site that lists sexual offenders in your neighborhood. This is Summit County’s, but I think other counties have this as well. Just type in an address and it will list the registered sexual offenders within a radius of that address. It shows the offenders’ photos as well as other details. It’s good to keep in mind, especially for those who go to playgrounds or take walks around the neighborhood. It’s really surprising (and scary) how many offenders there are. On a related note, I got a good book from the library recently called “The Right Touch: a Read-Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse” by Sandy Kleven and Jody Bergsma. I think it’s good to remind kids about stuff like this that we’d like to pretend doesn’t exist but we can’t hide from it so we may as well deal with it.
Annual Return of the Buzzards to Hinckley
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
We may not have Punxsutawney Phil, but Northeast Ohio does have the annual return of the buzzards to celebrate! This was something I always wanted to do, and this year, we finally did it! The weather was perfect (sushine, blue sky, about 40-some degrees), and the folks at the Hinckly Reservation in the Cleveland MetroParks have the event down to a science! There was a storyteller, buzzard bingo, buzzard bean bag toss, photo opps, “road kill” to eat, bus tours of the park and more. The kids even all got a pair of free binoculars! A “scoreboard” is set up to keep track of the count – I was lucky enough to see buzzards 25, 26 and 27! Like the St. Pat’s Day Parade in Akron yesterday, this seemed to be a way to take a break from the current gloominess and just have fun! (FYI – we learned this factoid from the storyteller – when buzzards get too warm, they pee on their legs to cool off. Eww!!!)
St. Patrick’s Day parade lifts spirits
Saturday, March 14th, 2009
Now that I’m a parent, I’ve become a parade veteran – Memorial Day, July 4, Duct Tape, Welcome Santa, St. Patrick’s Day … So today was Akron’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. I told the kids not to expect too much candy or green bead necklaces this year – our country is in a recession after all. I was actually surprised the parade had as many participants as it did- we left after an hour and the parade was still going on! The St. Pat’s parade really has a different feel than the usual parade because I think the crowd has just as much fun as the people in the parade. Everywhere you looked there were leprachaun look-alikes, people dressed up in crazy green outfits, faces painted with glittery shamrocks, dogs in green coats and little black hats – it went on and on. I think everyone just needed a break from all the doom and gloom and this was a good excuse to have fun. Being as we were standing nearby to the Peanut Shoppe, it was also a good excuse for us to take the kids to their first “candy shop” – you should have seen how excited they were!! We all picked a treat (okay, I picked two, but I’m the mom – I need the extra energy!!). The kids liked that as much as the parade, I think! (It was the Peanut Shoppe, after all!!). On a side note, I stopped to chat with Bruce Ford, the city’s photographer, for a few minutes. You know he’s been with the city for 30 years and is still super-enthusiastic about his work? It’s always nice to see someone who still loves what they do for a living!
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (movie): rent it!
Saturday, March 14th, 2009We rented “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” last night (Rotten Tomatoes: 72%): very cute movie! It’s a romantic comedy about teenagers in New York City, and although it’s been a long time since I was a teenager, it was very funny and had a lot of moments that I could relate to. I did have a few problems though – it’s a bad habit of mine to overanalyze movies – like wondering where all the kids’ parents are when these kids are all out all night long and why Nick & Norah didn’t stay for the concert at the end (that seemed pointless to me). But there’s one thing that kind of bothers me about movies like this. Okay, so let’s say that Nick & Norah are “soulmates”. But is your “soulmate” at 17 or 18 the same person who would be your soulmate if you met them at the age of 25 or 30 or 40? People can change A LOT, especially after high school and in their 20s. I know my husband — who I feel is the perfect match for me — is definitely not someone I would have picked as my “soulmate” when I was 17 or 18 (nor would he have picked me!!). Are we to believe Nick & Norah are together forever? Is that realistic? What’s the percentage of couples who meet at that age and live happily after? (I know, I know, some do. But that’s the exception, not the rule). But if they break up, well, that’s a bummer too. I don’t know. Like I said, I overthink. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a really good movie to rent!! (By the way, it’s got a great soundtrack too!!)
July 8, 2009: Update … My husband and I both read the book upon which this movie is based because we liked the movie. We were both dismayed to find out, that even though we both chuckled a few times, the book overall was horrible! Nothing like the movie at all, other than the characters’ names, being in NYC and a few other details. It was so bad I had to force myself to finish reading it. I repeat, it was really, really bad. What scared me the most was that this book, written for high school students, got good reviews from places including the “School Library Journal” yet it is not a book I would want my teenagers reading. I don’t know, though, is all young adult literature like this? Yikes! It was a wakeup call to me to make sure I know what my kids are reading when they are teens or preteens — not so I can censor things, but so at least I’m aware of what they’re being exposed to and can use the books as talking points.
Taking Amtrak to Chicago
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Two summers ago, a co-worker and his family took Amtrak to Chicago. I had never considered that because the times through Cleveland are in the middle of the night, but he and his family went from Michigan, which I had never considered. I looked into it last year and found that the five of us could go from Ann Arbor (just a 3-hour drive away) to Chicago and back for just $170.10 (after our AAA discount) ! Total! Round-trip! The fact that our youngest is a train fanatic and that the public transportation in Chicago is top-notch (eliminating the need for a rental car) sealed the deal. The train runs three times a day each way, so a 1 p.m. departure and 5:45 p.m. return meant we could drive the 3 hours to the station without having to spend an extra night in a hotel. The kids were so excited and the ride out there was great. The train was only half full and you can bring your own food on board, which is a bonus. The way back wasn’t so smooth – the train was packed and we were about 2-1/2 hours late coming back – but all things considered, I would highly recommend this. I just checked and the rates went up slightly from last year, but if you’re flexible and your kids are 12 and under, a family of 5 can still do this for $200 or less (after discounts). You can be sure your kids will remember this! 