Ann Lemons Pollack

  • Shirley Valentine

    One of my oldest friends – as in "long-time", not "ancient" – friends lives in a village-has-become-suburb of Cardiff, Wales. When I visit her, not nearly often enough, I admit, the phrase "…some tea and we'll have a nice gossip, then" often occurs. A chat, whether at a kitchen table or on a sofa, long,

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  • RIP Herb Cray

    What a great example of How Things Ought To Be Done he was. It really won't be the same without Herb. http://www.stlmag.com/Blogs/Relish/February-2014/His-Stairway-to-Heaven-The-Passing-of-Tonys-Herb-Cray/

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  • An Excuse For a Road Trip

    I am so sick of this winter that it warms me up just to think about this. It's time for the annual vertical Norton tasting at Stone Hill in Hermann.

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  • Spare No Rib

    Uncommon pair-ups are not so uncommon now – i.e., the Thai-Japanese menus and the Korean-burger mashup that's thriving out in Creve Coeur – but here's a new one. Spare No Rib is taking no prisoners on Gravois Avenue in south St. Louis. Barbecued ribs and tacos? Oh, why not? Actually, the menu is a little

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  • Jersey Boys

    Right from the start, let's be clear: I am of the generation "Jersey Boys" is aimed at. KXOK poured out the music from all those male quartets, and at the time, it was hard to differentiate between the Four Seasons, the group whose story the musical is based on, and many others. Falsetto singers weren't

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  • Warm Springs Ranch

    Rumors of spring are rumbling around and with that in mind, maybe it's time to be thinking about a road trip. The commercials for Anheuser Busch on the Super Bowl reminded me that a good, and very interesting, time is to be had at their Clydesdale breeding farm. Known as Warm Springs Ranch, it's about

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  • Niche

    There's something about the long, cold winter that calls for escape – if not to a warm, sunny beach, then somewhere cozy and cosseting without the cost of that plane ticket to Phuket. It's been a time to avoid thinking about traffic jams and school closings and what footing is like on the front walk,

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  • Romance In a Restaurant

    The remodelled Tony's has now opened for business, and I hear there's some new items on the menu, too. I hope it's still a restaurant for romance, though, as I write here.

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  • The Little Dog Laughed

    If you've got an ear for crisp dialogue, especially that which has a not-infrequently bitchy edge, you'll need to trot down to Stray Dog Theatre's "The Little Dog Laughed". It's certainly an adults-only show, with nudity and a theme of coming to terms with same-sex attraction. Interesting, isn't it, how the mercenary sub-plot alone wouldn't

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  • Forget Me Not

    Last weekend, when "Forget Me Not" opened at the Upstream Theater, it had just been announced that Missouri senator Claire McCaskill proposed introducing a resolution to urge Ireland to open the records for adoptees in that country. Presumably given impetus by the movie "Philomena" which is based on an Irish woman's search for her relinquished

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