You can have anything you want at Fricano's of Grand Haven Michigan.

You can have anything you want at Fricano's of Grand Haven Michigan. As long as you order a ten inch pizza pie with one or more ingredients in any combination: cheese, italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, green pepper and anchovies. No ham? No pineapple? Apparently, this combination works because Fricano's has expanded to five locations. I sense a feud in the family, with the Grand Haven and Holland Fricano restaurants on one side. I often think a nice side salad could balance the menu out, but there's no printed menu either. It's a thin crusted pizza too, very light on the sauce. Plus, the cheese oil tends to saturate the crust so the fingers get slick. And this has been the formula since 1951.

The Fricano's Pizza Tavern is based in a long two story house that once served as a boarding house for factory workers in this industrial district. It was moved here from downtown Grand Haven in the first half of the twentieth century. I have heard one day in 1951, the tavern changed from soups and sandwiches to pizza and the regulars asked "what's a pizza"?

It's a night with temperatures in the teens, so I am sitting at a table near the kitchen with 750 degree Fahrenheit ovens. It helps but when the door opens, I still feel a whaft of the artic.

Number for La Parral on Peck unpublished, @Dsrinssyb.

I'll add this info ongoingly. I even tried the old Ship's Rail number.

As Valentine's Day time arrives, winter returns to Muskegon Michigan.

The holidays are bigger than the both of us, dear reader. Valentine's Day has some connection to the pagan holiday, the Lupercalia. If you are a fan of Shakespeare, recall that Julius Caeser begins on the streets of Rome just as the Lupercalia race is to be run. A woman, I think Caeser's wife, is enjoined to stand in the first rank of spectators, where runners can bump into women who desire to conceive a child stand. It's not the bump that makes the magic bump happen by itself, a fact I know well. And some women, according to legend, are singled out for that front row, the same way catching a bouquet at a wedding singles a woman out. Last night, at a Valentine's Day dance at Cygnus 27, the machinery of romance and people pairing was rotating slowly and inevitably. More later, I found myself paired up on the dance floor with a fun, single woman about four years younger than I. It was one of those dance as a group things, and I could sense all her female entourage staring at us. Outcome? Bump. We had a great conversation in the lobby of the Amway Grand, and, surprise, she laid a lovely kiss on me and zipped off in an gleaming black Mercedes pulled up by a dashing valet. This Cinderella didn't leave a shoe or a phone number. This so called prince might have to resort to Facebook.

Boffins and PR demonstrators

Grab a pick ax, Will Juntunen and carve your name into my rug. Now get out of my office.

The Shrimp fried rice might be the best lunch value in Muskegon, MI, House of China.

My waitress has informed me of a 1.99 burrito offered at a Mexican restaurant along Apple Avenue, one of the former Pablo Taco facilities I am betting. She doesn't know how the house can afford to offer the special. I am guessing that facility still has its liquor license. Driving here along the Lakeshore Drive, I was happy to see a new antique store and a chicken and rib joint open in Lakeside, near Ghezzi's Market and the pocket park. Happily, I noted the solar collectors gathering sunshine to keep the inhabitants of the women's shelter warm. I guess the newly rebuilt men's shelter has solar panels too, the new facility standing near the Time Out Saloon, on the side of Laketon east of Business 31.

The three dollar plate of fried rice comes to the table with drawbacks, packed with excess sodium and cooking oil. Yet, I enjoy the entire portion. I had almonds, lightly salted for breakfast but one good meal doesn't balance out a hearty but iffy luncheon choice. Deep down, I luncheon mostly for a change of setting and to hear new voices. Today, I rapped with a front lawn mechanic about maintenance for his used Bonneville. The prosperous farmers on the border of Shiawassee and Genessee counties all seemed to have driven Bonnie's in the early 1980s.

At least Max-N-Marleys doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Lakeside, Muskegon MI

A dude is wearing sunglasses at a corner hightop. His future is so bright but so is the sunshine pouring in the fourteen picture window panes of Max-n-Marley's dog house. The marquee on the Harbor Theater still reads Marilyn, the last show that final Sunday. The house, bless their heart, never got to repairing that big acrylic H. I have two twitter tags that are dead tweet addresses: HarborTheater and BonfirePubGrill. I guess past Sunday was the big wrap up for the brothers from Chicago. One had returned to selling cars in Grand Rapids already, not what the pair had dreamed when setting out to create a perfect smokehouse restaurant with chefs and martinis and all that. I understand five parties have walked through the defunct Muskegon Athletic Club, and it's probably unboosterly to yell that way, "Keep Walking!" Muskegon Heights school teachers have an uncertain paycheck and most of the businesses at Peck and Broadway have shuttered. Maybe a buck a building was the right price, a cynical thought. Max-n-Marleys is closing .... for two days for maintenance. Just maintenance. 411 Bistro in the Frauenthal has dialed 911. This is a town with a cooking school tantamount to the Culinary Institute of America? COPIA? I am looking for civic leaders to start counting passed out canaries. I am looking for a sign of raised concern. Is it just me or is it a bad sign that Lumberjack Hockey attempts to fill the Walker Ice Arena by flogging dollar beers and dollar hot dogs?

By the time I learn of Susan Newhof, author of Spirits and Wine, @RobertaFKing had already written about her in the Rapidian.

I relish the idea that RFK is uping the ante in the writerly game. I have learned that she's working on a text addressing her life in the enclave of Bluffton. I am gladdened to hear she's pursuing non-fiction writing courses at University of California, Los Angeles. I admire that she likes the structure and legitamcy of college study, but find myself wishing she would go a little gonzo and imagine she's a total package when it comes to writing. I am pleasantly made aware of her ability to take her own photographs, which I dare to post. The worst that could happen is a fish-slapping. I could pay for the rights in cupcakes delivered to the bar rail of the Marine Tap Room.

 

What Susan Newhof has found in publishing success, I sincerely wish for our #WMWEDS companion, Roberta.

 

Roberta F. King puts the rapid in Rapidian.

http://therapidian.org/spirits-and-wine-author-reads-schuler-books

 

March 6, 2012 will be at least the second official appearance of Susan Newhof at Book Nook and Java Shop. Resident of Montague, she probably takes her coffee there.

http://www.thebooknookjavashop.com/event/author-event-susan-newhof-spirits-wine

 

Oh yeah, Mlive caught the story too.

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/10/life_in_a_haunted_house_leads.html

 

Newhof is also author of Michigan's Town and Country Inns. Sorry about the link to Amazon. Buy it at the Book Nook.

http://www.amazon.com/Michigans-Town-Country-Inns-Fourth/dp/0472083929

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Mile 16262: Back in Norton Shores after a short jaunt to Manistee MI.

It's halftime in America. Rico's Roadhouse, Manistee Michigan. #ImportedFromDetroit

What's my opinion on the Madonna halftime show? I am unprepared to render it. The Madonna halftime show has to be deconstructed. Keep in mind, even though she sang with a Gospel choir in her big finale, the title of the song is, "Just Like A Prayer". What really got me choked up, and I mean seriously choked up, Clint Eastwood walking the ground in, hopefully, Detroit and declaring halftime in America. Clint's a good pick for the message because he filmed Gran Torino in the rivertown section of Detroit and Grosse Pointe. I'll be Googling that speech Clint, because I feel lucky.

Pere Marquette Expeditions stands on the river in Ludington, MI, Mile 16131

Pere Marquette Expeditions ascends the title of party store or liquor store. Standing on a landing on the Pere Marquette River among the flats and wetlands, the store can aspire to the traditional name of trading post. Okay, as far as I know, the establishment takes only money. You can see that merchandise is geared for duck hunters, kayakers and ice fishermen, with pickled eggs, hunters sausage and ring bologna ready to go. The grounds has a raised path through the marshes to Sutton's Landing, where one can set off up or down the river. It has a pleasing river walk, no more than a few hundred yards in length. I guess outdoorsy people have improved their tastes: the coolers stock over 100 different brands of Microbrews.

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