Ann Lemons Pollack
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Half & Half: Breakfast
Half & Half is definitely a morning spot. And the food is way beyond the usual bacon/ham/sausage/egg orbit. Here's what I ate on a couple of visits with a pal.
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The Blue Duck
One block in Maplewood seems to have become Spicy Chicken Central. Part of that is happening at a place named for another kind of poultry. The Blue Duck is located in part of the large space where Monarch once was. It’s a sibling of the Blue Duck in Washington, MO. But this isn’t the same
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Small Craft Warnings – and more
Small Craft Warnings does not tell a tale with a tidy story arc. Tennessee Williams’ 1972 play was expanded from an earlier, shorter work of his called Confessional. That title may be more relevant than the newer one. In a real dive bar, not the kind populated with hipsters, somewhere along the Southern California coast,
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Will Mr. Merriwether Return from Memphis?
For those in search of something they certainly have not seen before, Will Mr. Merriwether Return from Memphis? runs this weekend as part of the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis. It’s at the Stockton House, the venue for last year’s very successful The St. Louis Rooming House Plays. Mr. Merriwether hasn’t been done anywhere in
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Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis: The Food
As the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis goes on in high gear, there are a couple of ways to participate that involve food. Both occur on Sunday. There are still tables available at the jazz brunch The Dark Room at the Grandel is doing. If you’re going on to a matinee and show your tickets,
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Lemon Lemonies
It’s no secret that I like lemons. I did even before I acquired the last name in a previous marriage. Even as a kid, my love for all things tart extended to rhubarb and gooseberries. Lemon bars didn’t exist in that world, but if they had, I would’ve been right there. I came across this
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Flashback: Blue Water Grill
It's not Throwback Thursday but could we talk about the Blue Water Grill? The cozy confines of the old Dairy Queen? The difficulty of explaining (and maybe even understanding at first) the concept of "small plates"? Heaven forfend we should call them tapas. The big change when they moved to Kirkwood? I have great memories
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Brunch: Cielo
This town has always loved the fancy hotel brunch. Cielo at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown is going after people with that hankering. They’re hopping, so busy that when I broke the old family rule and walked in one Sunday without a reservation or even a phone call at 11 a.m, they told me that
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twelfth period or not another twelfth night
I’ve finally decided that Shakespeare is like George Gershwin. You can do all kinds of riffs and jamming on his work and the results are still distinctively Of The Artist, as well as always interesting and nearly always worthwhile. Proof of that can be found at the Centene Center, where ERA, Equally Represented Arts, is
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Nathaniel Reed Bakery
Whether through naivete or determined optimism, I never quite believed that the classic St. Louis inquiry of “Where’d you go to high school?” was a sly social stratification. Perhaps it’s the small town girl in me, wherein that question often leads to “Did you know Katie Whiffenpoof? She used to date my brother,” or “Was