It was 1984 when Dr. Charles Thomas, an OB-GYN, turned his winemaking hobby into a business, opening Chateau Thomas Winery in Plainfield. There were only a handful of wineries in Indiana then, before the big winery boom and before wine trails existed in the Midwest. Read more
We took our granddaughter to Peoria over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend mainly to see the top-notch East Peoria Festival of Lights. Looking for something to do during the day, we found the Peoria Riverfront Museum. The museum, a Smithsonian Institution affiliate, proved to be a great choice for both our granddaughter and us. With plenty of hands-on activities, the Dome Planetarium, and the Giant Screen Theater, you could spend hours in the museum. Read more
National Pie Day is behind us for another year, but who needs a special day to eat pie? My Just Desserts in Alton, Illinois, offers nine to thirteen different kinds of pies every day.
Ann Badasch started out selling antiques back when Alton boasted six blocks of antique shops. As the antiques business began declining about 25 years ago, Ann switched gears, opened My Just Desserts, and has been serving customers a little slice of heaven ever since.
The atmosphere of an antique store still exists in the restaurant, located in a building over 160 years old, with creaking hardwood floors, quilts for sale hanging on the walls, vintage mismatched tables and chairs, beverages served in Mason jars.
The food, though, is what people come for. My Just Desserts is open for lunch seven days a week, serving soups, salads and sandwiches. The half-pound Chicken Salad sandwich is so popular that the kitchen workers debone about 100 chickens a week, all done by hand.
With few exceptions, like the Chicken Salad and Tollhouse Brownies, the menu changes every day. Ann’s 150 pie recipes are rotated weekly, so with nine to thirteen varieties offered at a time, you’ll be surprised with new pie selections with every visit. I chose Lemon Truffle and enjoyed the tang of lemon offset by sweet creaminess and a light flaky crust. Among the other pies available the day I was there were Caramel Apple, Radically Cherry, and Peaches and Cream. Where does Ann get all of her recipes? “Customers,” said Ann. “I exchange a lot of pie recipes with my customers.”
Because of the constantly changing menu, there are no printed menus. Instead, the day’s offerings are written on chalkboards throughout the restaurant. When a dish or a pie is gone, it is erased from the boards. A tip that was given to me: Order your pie when you order your meal to avoid disappointment if the pie your taste buds were set on is erased from the board before you finish your lunch.
My Just Desserts, located at 31 E Broadway, Alton IL, is open daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Check the web site’s Events section for special events like “Dinner with Mr. Lincoln’s Friends,” a four course meal from “Lincoln’s Table” to celebrate Abe Lincoln’s birthday, with entertainment provided by Alton Little Theater Costumed Actors.
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When you walk into Lagomarcino’s in Moline, Illinois, you feel like you’ve taken a step back in time. Many of the furnishings in the ice cream parlor and candy store are originals from when the store opened in the early 20th century. The furnishings are the only things that are original. The third generation of the founding family keeps recipes as original as possible in this old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Read more
I had heard that the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum was “really awesome,” but I thought, “How awesome can a museum be?” I knew there were some really neat Lincoln artifacts and exhibits, and for years museums have been making exhibits more interactive with use of “please touch” buttons to activate audio, and more recently, touch screen computers. So although I knew the Lincoln museum would be a pleasant experience, my level of anticipation wasn’t set all that high. Was I ever wrong! The first time I visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum I was astonished at the awesome use of special effects. It turns out that one of the museum’s designers was a former Disney animatronics engineer. Read more
I stumbled across a microbrewery a year or so ago, near the shore of Lake Michigan in Michigan City, Indiana, that I liked so well it’s sure to become a regular stop whenever I pass through the area. That it’s popular among locals, packed both times I’ve been there on the weekend, is no wonder, as the brew is good and the food unique and delicious. Read more
