Avenue Eatery, Opens

About a week ago my pops came to town. We needed breakfast so we headed over to the Avenue Eatery. We walked there.

My dad grew up in Cudahy, WI, a working class suburb of Milwaukee, with a long period of living in the Bay View neighborhood in the city proper. The Cream City (nicknamed for it's uniquely colored brick) is the most segregated city in America; but there is/was poverty both North and South.

Bay View is the prime example of a working class neighborhood that struggled through decades of decline. Now, when I return, there's always a new brew pub, artists studio or, what do you know, services that real people can use. When I was a kid, that was unthinkable.

If you know anything about the recent history on West Broadway and NoMi, you know what a struggle it can be to revitalize a major corridor. Bean Scene Too was the second coming of Linda Baker's dream. The business struggled--the economy had tanked--and Catalyst has taken it over with the help of Shericka Teague, an experienced personal chef and a great person. What Linda Baker says in the video below, is the reality on the ground. We do have amazing housing, we don't have commerce; but neither did Bay View 10 years ago. Let's do something about that.

This video was a part of a multi-part examination of North Minneapolis produced by Andrew Mannix, Karlee Weinmann and me, Scottie B. Tuska, in 2008 for MinnPost.com.

For more photos from the Avenue Eatery grand opening, checkout An Owl's Nest, she's awesome and has a really cute baby.

Yardwork, Ikea and Pumpkins

My new parents-in-law got us a dehydrator for the wedding. Knowing we were going to be cleaning up the garden and going to farmer's market, we took a gander at our millionth kitchen device during breakfast. Scott added granola to his oatmeal. The oatmeal was rather bland, just the way Brooke likes it. Scott was actually cleaning up so I had to take a quick photo of him as proof. Scott told me he was, "putting a blanket down for Peanut," while singing. During the winter months peanut needs a warm place to peer through the window. Seeing as it was nearly November, I setup his blanket for him. Seeing as the farmers market season is dwindling down, we headed to the market...once again. The close proximity to the cities central farmer's market has to be one of the best assets of living in NoMi. We were both amazed by the bounty of produce still on sale. We quickly filled up our first bag and took it back to the car....

Camping The Driftless

Last month we went to a birthday party at Choo Choo Bob's Train Store . Since then Meadow (or should I say Scott and I) have been hooked on getting Meadow more trains and tracks. I found this awesome deal on Craigslist for a giant bag of trains for only $20. The best part of being a parent is getting to live out your childhood dreams. Craigslist makes that a lot easier.

2 Weddings and a Blacksmith

I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Not from scratch this time, but from a can I found in the fridge. I needed as much room as possible in the fridge to hold the wedding cakes so we were trying to eat everything in there. I tried to sleep in, but Brooke really wanted to get vacation going. I think we ended up eating the entire tube of cinnamon rolls. This must be another Romenesko tradition akin to eating six corn on the cobs at one sitting.

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