Ann Lemons Pollack
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More No No-Knead Bread
A couple of years ago, the bread world was a-twitter over Jim Lahey's no-knead bread. I've hung with it ever since, although an oven that hot is something I generally forego in summertime. But we stopped by Salame Beddu this week and picked up some confit, which really deserves good bread. Nothing against the increasingly
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The Original Crusoe’s
Tucked back into a residential neighborhood east of Grand and south of Meramec, The Original Crusoe’s chugs along feeling, in some ways, as though it was 1975. Or maybe 1955. The décor is slightly nostalgic, the menu features home-style food and the portions are gargantuan. Just what St. Louisans go for. And while we have
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I Love My Wife
Those who lived through the 1970s will nod familiarly at most of the lines and lyrics in "I Love My Wife." Those too young to remember will understand why certain styles, certain moments, certain memories will bring goofy looks to their parents' faces. Once an on-target look at a decade, now proudly carrying a patina
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The Social Network
Jesse Eisenberg first drew my notice with a terrific performance as an adolescent boy in "The Squid and the Whale," five years ago. Opening today in "The Social Network," Eisenberg has become an actor of stature, despite the fact that he won't be 27 until next Wednesday. As Mark Zuckerberg, the boy genius who created
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Jack Goes Boating
In the gloriously false Hollywood world of clown noses, pasteboard and padding, two wrongs may not make a right, but two misfits often are squeezed into a sweet world that they rarely can inhabit. Such is the case, with a nifty twist, of "Jack Goes Boating," a mostly sweet little movie that marks the directorial
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Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould
Canada’s gift to the concert stage, pianist Glenn Gould, was a strange and eccentric man. He wore gloves and overcoats in any weather, he scorned audiences, he was involved in a strange relationship with the wife of his friend, Lukas Foss. He was still in his teens when he entered the classical music world like
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A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop
I've read a lot of writing I've admired, using language I wished I'd used, but I've never had the urge to rewrite someone else's story and put my name on it, either because I thought I could do it better or as a tribute that would show I could not do it better. But movies
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Let Me In
I'm not a fan of vampires, or of movies abut them. I'm tired of tired special effects, and I'm tired of watching rivers of blood. I don't like the exploitation of children, or the sadism that permeates the genre. "Let Me In," which opens here today is technically a good film, well-made and mostly well-acted,
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Proof
Serious mathematics is foreign to most people, or lots of income tax advisers would be out of work. But give us a good family squabble, or the ups and downs of a love affair, and we're glued to our theater seats. "Proof" proves that in a strong, well-balanced production by the Insight Theatre Company. It
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This Week’s Wine: September 30, 2010
Many years ago, on an assignment to visit California wineries, I was cruising north on California Highway 29 through the town of Rutherford in Napa County. I slowed for intersecting traffic and saw, to my right, a small grove of giant Sequoia trees around what looked to be a winery. I turned into the driveway,