Saturday, April 28, 2012—It’s not unreasonable to question why someone who has been generally disappointed by Woodchuck hard cider products would try yet another Woodchuck product.

All I can say is “hope springs eternal”.

And speaking of spring, the folks at Woodchuck have enthusiastically released a new “Private Reserve” selection for the season of hope: Belgian White, an apple cider version of the style made widely popular by Blue Moon.

Like Belgian wheat beers, this “Belgian-style cider” is fermented with Belgian ale yeast and flavored with coriander and orange peer.

Like Woodchuck ciders, it’s sweet, strongly apple-flavored, relatively high in calories and includes added coloring and carbonation.

It does pour a typical-for-Belgian ales cloudy orangey-gold color, with only a little head that leaves a nice impression of lacing on the glass.

The scent is…apple cider-like with maybe a little more orange-spice scent that the regular Woodchuck Amber.

The verdict: Meh. Another of Woodchuck’s too-sweet ciders. Not the worst in the line, but not good enough to buy again.

• Woodchuck Belgian White Hard Cider
• Woodchuck Cider (Vermont)
• Available March-May

Each tiger sculpture includes a plaque commemorating a milestone in the school’s history.

About this tiger

• “Super Kitty” by Chuck Parr wraps a tiger in panels from Marvel Comics.
• 1964 milestone: Ellington Hall, E.C. Ball Hall, Rawls Hall and Robinson Hall open.
• Sighted: Outside Sullivan Branding on Main Street near Union Avenue.

Meet Charles Addams’ Family

As a kid, I loved The Addams Family.

I even drew my own Cousin Itt comic magazine, complete with an advice column written in Itt’s gibberish.

I first met the macabre crew via the TV series, which originally ran for two seasons, from September 1964 to April 1966. (I probably knew the Addamses from reruns, since I was still in kindergarten when the show’s run ended.)

(I watched The Munsters with less enthusiasm. The show seemed like a pallid imitation of the Addamses, but both shows debuted and wrapped within a few days of each other.)

A few years later, I discovered Charles Addams’ single-panel cartoons, published between 1938 and 1988, that inspired the TV series. Not all of those featured the creepy characters that eventually became the Family, but they generally featured a unifying dark sense of humor.

When the cartoons were transformed into the TV series, Addams was involved in developing more carefully-defined personalities (and giving them names for the first time). Gomez’s manic enthusiasm or Morticia’s cool reserve (for example) never came across in the comics, but they were part of Addams’ oddball genius. (Charles Addams was, by all accounts, every bit as strange as his characters.)

In the years following the original series, the Addams Family returned to TV in two Saturday morning animated series, plus several television re-launches (both animated and live-action), and two popular theatrical films.

As each version of The Addams Family rises from the grave, they have generally adhered to the blueprint Addams developed for the TV series.

The Addamses are a traditional, multigenerational family that just happens to have rather strange proclivities (such as enjoying recreational torture, picnics in the graveyard, and vacations in an insane asylum). They are generally harmless in their intent, and view themselves as a perfectly normal family, and find the rest of the world to be full of weirdos.

However, the original cartoons depicted even darker characters.

One well-known panel shows the family gathered on the roof of their mansion, ready to pour boiling oil over a cheerful group of Christmas carolers at the front door below.

This more menacing vision of the Addamses appears occasionally in the musical, such as a scene in which Gomez sings about why he loves his daughter Wednesday and he casually mentions the day she set fire to the Jehovah’s Witness.

The Family on Stage

The stage musical version of The Addams Family follows the usual trope of having “normal” people enter the Addams mansion so they can be freaked out, frightened or repulsed by the family’s behavior.

But this play deviates from the original vision by presenting a family that is quite aware that they are strange, and speak with distaste about those who are “normal”.

The plot kicks in after an introductory number in which we meet the Addamses at the family graveyard for an annual dance with the spirits of the family ancestors.

Uncle Fester, who is just as genial and romantic in the play as he was in the TV series, locks the spirits out of their crypt so they can help him unite two young lovers: Wednesday Addams, and her normal boyfriend, Lucas Beineke.

Shortly thereafter, Wednesday confides in her father that she is engaged to Lucas, who is bringing his parents to dinner that night. She begs Gomez to keep her secret from her mother until they can announce their engagement to both families at dinner. Gomez agrees, setting up a ticking time bomb in his marriage to Morticia.

The Beinekes are more than just a “normal” couple, they seem to have just stepped out of the 1960s, living in a relationship that felt as dated as the one between Archie and Edith Bunker. Along with Wednesday and Lucas, the Beinekes complete the trio of couples that must overcome their differences before the end of the night.

Overall, the story is engaging and the jokes come quickly. I was a little disappointed in the portrayals of Morticia and Wednesday, both of whom come across as more “goth” than truly strange. (A one-off line about Morticia’s family implies she comes from a “normal” family in the south.) However, the other characters are true to their origins.

The staging is imaginative. A heavy red drape is constantly in motion (it almost feels alive)  to reveal vignettes in different parts of the stage, allowing the story to move along via short scenes that occur in different parts of the mansion.

It also uses puppetry to bring creatures to life (a dragon under the bed and a wayward curtain tassel were memorable) and to stage a sweet fantasy scene in which Fester goes for a swim in the night sky, cavorting with his love, the Moon.

The musical numbers were not particularly memorable. There’s the big opening number that introduces the family and a similar big number at the end. Each of the characters gets a song, and there’s a big scene in the middle (that closes the first act) in which everyone plays a game called “Full Disclosure” where they must tell a secret about themselves.

Gomez and Morticia have a dance number towards the end that was well done, and Morticia has a funny song about how she is always cheered up by remembering the death is “Just Around the Corner”.

Disappointingly, the TV theme song gets brief treatment, and as an instrumental without the familiar lyrics.

Among the cast, Douglas Sills is a standout as Gomez. He has a great voice and has more stage time than anyone else. Blake Hammond was perfect as Uncle Fester. Tom Corbeil’s role as Lurch was hilarious, despite having few lines. He played Lurch as more like a zombie than TV’s version.

Sara Gettelfinger felt a little too “normal” as Morticia, but she looked the part. Her dress was cut almost to her navel, and I was amazed how she was able to sing and dance without having a “wardrobe malfunction”.

On the other end of the scale, I felt 12-year-old Patrick Kennedy (as Pugsly) was a little weak as an actor and singer, even allowing for his youth.

I would recommend seeing this play with the national touring company. For information about the play’s cast and tour schedule, see theaddamsfamilymusicaltour.com.

Full Disclosure!

I was originally supposed to see this play with my Mom (who passed away before we were able to go.) I was disappointed she was not able to see it, since the wry and dark humor of The Addams Family was definitely her thing. Also, she loved live theater at all levels, and had some experience as an amateur actress.

Mom would have particularly liked Morticia’s “Just Around The Corner” number in which she sings about how quickly death can unexpectedly occur and gives several examples of sudden deaths.

Even so, one line in the song hit a little too close to home. Morticia sings, “Death is just around the corner / no one’s ever been immune. / Turning off a respirator / with a simple click / strenuously quick.” I didn’t find that so very funny, given the circumstances, but there’s a good chance my Mom would have.

In the “spirit” of the Addams’ “Full Disclosure” game, I’ll admit that I picked up my Mom’s cremated remains after work the day of the show, and took them downtown with me for the play. My mom would have told me that being dead was no reason she should have been left home while I was at the play. (I did leave her in the car, however…she did not actually come into the theater with me.)

Sadly, this will probably be the last thing we do “together”.

I raise a toast to the Ghost before the crowd comes in. My crewmate Marie preps behind me.

Saturday, April 22, 2012 (Memphis TN)—Last year, I and my buddy Ron had a good time sampling beer at the Memphis International Brewfest at AutoZone Park. This year, we had an even better time serving beer (as volunteers).

We were fortunate to be assigned the Ghost River table. I was pleased to pour and promote our local hometown brew.

We poured the Ghost River’s three year-round offerings (Golden Ale, Copperhead Red and Glacial Pale Ale), and I took every opportunity to remind visitors that Ghost River products are available in restaurants all over town, and Golden Ale is in bottles at the grocery. I also recommended touring the brewery on South Main.

The Ghost River representatives were also fun to work with, and handled setting up the kegs and maintaining the taps and the jockey box. (A jockey box is a modified camping/beach cooler for serving draught beer. Coils and ice inside the box quickly cool the beer as it flows from the keg to the tap mounted on the box.)

The Glacial Pale Ale was the first to run out, although a lot of people said they drink the Golden Ale all the time.

Wow, Ron really drank a lot of beer!

With about an hour left on the clock, we had killed the pale ale and red kegs, so the Ghost River employees took over and sent us out to enjoy the rest of the event.

I did get a chance to try several new beers. Quick notes on the ones worth noting:

Rogue Chipotle Ale—The roasted jalapeno provided a little too much slow-developing heat. By the end of a sample, my tongue and back of my mouth had a warm feeling that was not conducive to sensing the beer’s other flavors. Can’t imagine drinking more than one glass of this in a sitting.

O’Fallon Smoke—We enjoyed talking with the O’Fallon (Missouri) rep and I enjoyed this extra-smoky beer. Not quite as deeply smoked as Yazoo’s Sue, but close. I will give this a full taste test soon.

Yazoo Gerst Amber—Yazoo is brewing Nashville’s historic Gerst beer (originally brewed between 1893 and 1954).  It’s a malty and somewhat sweet beer with a floral/fruity scent. I’ll give this one a full taste taste as soon as I can lay my hands on a larger sample.

Unibroue Blanche de Chambly and Ephimere—After working the Unibroue table at Zoo Brew, I am familiar with four of the Canadian brewery’s Belgian-style ales. I sampled two more at this event. Blanche de Chambly is a white/wheat ale with the familiar pronounced spice flavors of the other Unibroue brews. Ephimere is similar, but with a pronounced tart apple flavor. I brought a few bottles of this home from the brewfest and will give it a full report soon.

Saranac Caramel Porter—I have not been particularly fond of any Saranac products, but this beer was definitely worth drinking. It starts with a pronounced caramel cake icing scent, and carries the caramel flavor through the porter’s caramel malt base and actual caramel used in the brewing. It was part of Saranac’s 2011 fall mix pack.

The new videoboard is really bright!

While I try to avoid negative publicity, I have to mention the worst thing I tried: Craggie (Asheville NC) Brewing’s Antebellum Ale. The beer features molasses, ginger and spruce tips among the ingredients. While each of these might has worked individually (with the spruce tips giving the beer a piney-hops flavor), taken together, this beer tasted like cough syrup.

Why I Volunteered

I’ve now worked three brewfests in the past 12 months, and I am convinced that the volunteers have more fun than the attendees. Here’s why:

»Volunteers get to attend the event and sample many of the beers without buying a ticket. Sure, we don’t get to try everything, and we can’t afford to drink as heavily as some of the attendees, because we are actually working.

But if you have your eye on a specific beer, there’s plenty of opportunity to get a sample before the event starts are take a quick break during the event.

If you run out of beer at your table, you can lend a hand at another table or roam the brewfest to catch other beers you are curious about.

»Volunteers also get the meet and talk with the representatives of the breweries and distributors, find out a little inside information about new products and sometimes get to sample beer that is in short supply. The breweries and distributors usually have a few give-aways (bottle openers, key chains, etc.) for the volunteers.

»Volunteers feel like friends after only a few minutes.  At each of these events, the volunteers quickly bonded to provide tips learned from previous events, recommend beers, and share laughs. I have yet to work with anyone that I didn’t enjoy spending a few hours with.

»Volunteers are supporting a good cause with their time and talents. The Memphis International Brewfest supports Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) and the Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation.

PPMD is dedicated to finding treatments and cures for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The disease strikes one in every 3,500 boys and usually progresses to premature death in the patient’s early 20s.

The Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation funds summer baseball and softball equipment and uniforms for inner-city kids and also funds baseball programs in middle and high schools in the Memphis area because the schools can’t afford the programs.

»Finally, volunteers get to meet lots of attendees who are in a friendly mood, are appreciative of the opportunity to learn a little about the beer you’re serving, and generally act like you’re doing them a favor letting them try your beer. Volunteers are everybody’s friend!

The ShockTop beer Beetle had a tap on the back trunk, too.

The crew behind the Memphis International Brewfest certainly treat the volunteers right, too. Volunteers get special T-shirts, which help identify who’s “official” and also serve as a nice souvenir. After the event was over, we had a pizza and beer party, and even got to take a sixxer home as a bonus.

My only complaints were minor: we didn’t get this year’s sampling cups as souvenirs, we got leftover cups from previous years. Not sure how much was saved there, but it seems a bit miserly. (On the other hand, Zoo Brew volunteers don’t get sampling cups at all…you have to bring your own.)

Also, while the event is very well organized, the schedule has a lot of dead time in it, leaving volunteers with hours to kill between initial check-in and the actual volunteer briefing. In the future, I would plan to arrive to check-in and then head out for a late lunch to fill the dead time.

As I said, my complaints were minor, and I would recommend volunteering for the Memphis International Brewfest (or the Memphis Zoo Brew) to anyone who in interested in have a good time while supporting great causes.

Thursday, April 19, 2012 (Memphis TN)—“Tigers Around Town” is a public art project sponsored by the University of Memphis Alumni Association to celebration the University’s 100th Anniversary. 100 tiger sculptures have been decorated by local artists and placed throughout the metro area.

Each tiger sculpture includes a plaque commemorating a milestone in the school’s history.

About this tiger

• “Solitaria Esne Hac Nocte” by Steven Harper wraps a tiger in images of the four ages of Elvis impersonators: Gold Lame Elvis; 1968 Special Elvis; Vegas Elvis; and the rarely-seen Judge Elvis.
• The tiger’s name roughly translates to “alone in the night”. (I suspect a reference to song lyrics that I haven’t determined.)
• 1997 milestone: The first year of Operation Warm Welcome to greet arriving students is established.
• Sighted: Inside the Shelby County Courthouse

It commemorates Beale Street, the big-city mecca for blues performers coming out of rural Mississippi.

Strangely, the marker is not placed on Beale Street, but one block south in front of the FedEx Forum arena near the entrance of the Smithsonian’s Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum.

I suppose there are already enough markers on Beale Street, and I suppose there were once nightclubs located a block or two off Beale when it was the financial and cultural center of Memphis’ black community. But the placement still seems a little off.

Memphis Blues Marker

The front of the marker states:

The bright lights of Beale Street and the promise of musical stardom have lured blues musicians from nearby Mississippi since the early 1900s. Early Memphis blues luminaries who migrated from Mississippi include Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis, Jim Jackson, and Memphis Minnie. In the post-World War II era many native Mississippians became blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll recording stars in Memphis, including Rufus Thomas, Junior Parker, B.B. King, and Elvis Presley.

The reverse side details:

Memphis blues was discovered by the rest of the world largely via the works of Beale Street-based bandleader W. C. Handy, who began using blues motifs in his compositions shortly after encountering the music in the Mississippi Delta around 1903. By the 1920s many musicians from Mississippi had relocated here to perform in local theaters, cafes, and parks. The mix of rural and urban musical traditions and songs from traveling minstrel and medicine shows led to the creation of new blues styles, and record companies set up temporary studios at the Peabody Hotel and other locations to capture the sounds of Mississippians who came to town to record, such as Tommy Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as some who had settled in Memphis, including Robert Wilkins, Jim Jackson, Gus Cannon, Memphis Minnie, and Joe McCoy.

In the decade following World War II musicians from around the Mid South descended upon Memphis, and their interactions resulted in the revolutionary new sounds of R&B and rock ’n’ roll. Riley King arrived from Indianola and soon became known as the “Beale Street Blues Boy,” later shortened to “B. B.” Many of King’s first performances were at talent shows at the Palace Theater, 324 Beale, co-hosted by Rufus Thomas, a native of Cayce, Mississippi, who, like King, later worked as a deejay at WDIA. King and Thomas were among the many Mississippi-born artists who recorded at Sam Phillips’s Memphis Recording Service, where Tupelo’s Elvis Presley made his historic first recordings for Phillips’s Sun label in 1954. The soul music era arrived with the Stax and Hi labels in the 1960s, and again many Mississippians were at the forefront: Stax’s roster included Little Milton, Albert King, Rufus Thomas, and Roebuck “Pops” Staples, while Hi producer and bandleader Willie Mitchell, a native of Ashland, oversaw recordings by soul and blues artists Otis Clay, Syl Johnson, Big Lucky Carter, Big Amos (Patton), and others with Mississippi roots.

The revitalization of Beale Street as an entertainment district, beginning in the 1980s, resulted in new performance venues for Mississippi natives including Daddy Mack Orr, Billy Gibson, and Dr. Feelgood Potts. The Mississippi-to-Memphis blues tradition has also been promoted by the Center for Southern Folklore, radio stations WEVL and WDIA, and labels including Inside Sounds, Icehouse, Memphis Archives, Ecko, and High Water. Mississippi has been well represented in the Memphis-based Blues Foundation’s International Blues Competition and Blues Music Awards (formerly W. C. Handy Awards), and thirteen of the first twenty artists inducted into the foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 were born or raised in Mississippi.

content © Mississippi Blues Commission

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 (Memphis TN)—A molcajete (mohl-cah-hay-tay) is a traditional Mexican mortar and pestle made from volcanic basalt stone.

At Casa Mexicana restaurants, molcajete is the name of a stew served in a molcajete mortar that has been heated in an oven. It’s my favorite of the restaurant’s entrees.

The stew is brought to the table still boiling, and it’s impossible to dig right in until it starts to cool. The edges will continue to bubble away long after everyone else at the table has finished eating.

Casa Mexicana offers two versions of the stew. I prefer the basic one, simply named “Mocajete”. It starts with a base of tomatoes, onions and peppers, and adds shrimp and chunks of chicken and beef.  It’s served with a plate of salsa, guacamole, sour cream, frijoles refritos, rice and tortillas.

(The other version is the “Mocajete Mexicana”, with chorizo sausage and other rich ingredients.)

My other favorite items at Casa Mexicana are the carnitas (chunks of tender roast pork, seasoned just right) and the house margarita on the rocks (made fresh, not from a mix).

Casa Mexican has at least five metro area locations, each with slightly different menus, plus a related Guadualajara Grill location. They do not seem to have a website, so menus are not available online.

“Tigers Around Town” is a public art project sponsored by the University of Memphis Alumni Association to celebration the University’s 100th Anniversary. 100 tiger sculptures have been decorated by local artists and placed throughout the metro area.

Each tiger sculpture includes a plaque commemorating a milestone in the school’s history.

About this tiger

• “Simone” by Lizi Beard-Ward wraps a tiger in images of tropical flowers and birds.
• 1940 milestone: Enrollment at State Teachers College, Memphis, reaches 1,096.
• Sighted: MLG&W on Beale Street

Graeter's classic Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip

Monday, April 9, 2012—On a recent trip to a local Kroger grocery, I was doing my usual scan of the ice cream section to see if anything new or unusual caught my eye. And something did:

Cincinnati’s classic home-town, hand-made ice cream, Graeter’s is now available in the metro Memphis area.

I first enjoyed Graeter’s when I used to go to Cincinnati on business trips from West Virginia. I was able to reacquaint my taste buds with the sublime pleasure of Graeter’s on a trip last September.

Graeter’s is perhaps the ultimate in super-premium ice cream. Made in two-gallon batches using a “French pot” process, the ice cream is very rich and very, very dense. (So dense that the pint cartons are reportedly filled by hand.)

Adding chocolate chips to the French pot

The French pot is a spinning milk can-shaped container where the frozen ice cream is folded from the outside in, continually blending without adding a lot of air.

Consequently, Graeter’s can be a little hard to serve straight from your kitchen freezer.

Unlike Ben & Jerry’s, Graeter’s doesn’t throw in handfuls of cookies and candy in their ice creams. Instead, their signature flavors all include chunks of dark chocolate added by hand during the freezing process.

Part of the fun of eating Graeter’s is coming across one of these huge slabs of buttery bittersweet chocolate.

The quintessential Graeter’s flavor is black raspberry chocolate chip. Made with raspberry puree, the dark purple ice cream tastes of tart-but-sweet berries and sweet-but-bitter dark chocolate.

Starting from a street cart in 1870, Graeter’s remains a family-owned business, and it’s terrific to see them able to expand outside the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky area without sacrificing quality or their production methods.

The Memphis Belle on Mud Island, early summer 2003.

Monday, April 2, 2012 (Memphis, TN)—Today’s Commercial Appeal has an article about the ongoing restoration of the Memphis Belle.

The pictures here are from my last visit to the Memphis Belle at Mud Island River Park just days before the plane was taken off display in 2003.

The Belle is a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress that flew 29 combat missions over western Europe during a six-month period during World War II. After completing those missions, the Belle and her crew toured the U.S. to publicize sales of War Bonds.

The Belle was named for Pilot Robert Morgan’s hometown sweetheart, Margaret Polk. (The two were never married. The Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine online has a 1990  interview with Polk about how their relationship ended after Morgan returned to the U.S.)

The nose of the plane was famously decorated with pin-up girl illustrations (which did not depict Polk) and the outlines of 25 bombs and 8 swastikas, to mark the missions completed and Nazi planes downed by the Belle.

After the war’s end, the Belle was flown to Memphis and displayed outdoors at the National Guard Armory from 1949 to 1987. Weather and vandalism (intentional or accidental) slowly took their toll on the Belle, so in 1987, she was moved to a canopied area on Mud Island River Park.

Still, the weather was slowly destroying the plane, and in summer 2003, the plane was relocated to Millington Naval Air Station for protection and restoration. Work was underfunded and too slow, and in October 2005, the Air Force moved the plane to National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, for more thorough restoration and an eventual indoor display.

It would seem just that the Memphis Belle will one day return to Memphis, but the city’s leaders would have to find and fund an appropriate place to house the plane in an indoor setting.  If the Pink Palace is the “Smithsonian” of Memphis, then moving some of the education exhibits to the nearby Children’s Museum to make room for the Belle would seem to be the most fitting solution.

But at this point, it appears the Belle has made her last appearance in Memphis.

The Memphis Belle on Mud Island, early summer 2003.