Doughnuts and Beer...a fratboy's dream

It takes heart to put your money where your mouth is; but a fundraiser this tasty makes it so much easier. Down at the Devil’s Den, in South Philadelphia, a doughnuts and local beer pairing raised money for the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). Patrons received three tasty doughnuts from Krispy Kreme and a flight of three beers all for $10. (PAWS received $4 of every sale.)

Autumn was the theme which included Krispy Kreme’s signature Original Glazed along with their Cinnamon Bun and Pumpkin Spice Cake doughnuts. To compliment these gooey, sugary snacks; the beers were of a spicy complexity that included Yard’s Thomas Jefferson Ale, Weyerbacher Verboten and Philadelphia Brewing Company’s Joe Porter.

According to its web site, PAWS is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving Philadelphia’s homeless, abandoned, and unwanted animals. PAWS is Philadelphia's largest rescue organization and only no-kill shelter, and is working to make Philadelphia a city in which every healthy and treatable pet is guaranteed a home. Through its adoption locations, special events, and foster care network, PAWS finds loving homes for thousands of animals each year.

This is not the first time that Devil’s Den owners Erin and Scott Wallace, who also operate the Old Eagle Tavern in Manayunk have raised money for PAWS. A PAWS fundraiser was held at the Old Eagle and Devil’s Den when Scott’s White German Shepherd, Loki, passed away. Loki was well-liked by patrons for his friendly, easy going manner.

At the Devil’s Den, a steady trickle of locals and even two beer sales representatives dove into this deal albeit begrudgingly. The beer reps had recently went on a diet and the sight of the calorie killing doughnuts was enough to induce the mouth to water.

“But I only wanted to donate to the cause,” said the one rep. “That’s ok, we’ll share it,” said the other.

So how did it taste? The doughnuts were very good but I think we all knew that to begin with, really. The beers were certainly paired with the right doughnuts but I felt like mixing and matching. Here are some highlights; with all three doughnuts, the coffee notes of PBC's Joe Porter really come out with a wallop. The Original Glazed was like adding the creamer to Joe Porter's coffee, it worked very well. The Cinnamon Bun brought out more spiciness from Yard's Thomas Jefferson Ale and cut the spiciness of the Weyerbacher Verboten.

In the grand scheme of things, it was a visit that was long overdue on my part to the Devil's Den. I am glad I finally made it to this establishment but since I have my Old Eagle within walking distance I knew what I was getting into. I'll be sure to stop by sometime in the future.

On the shelf

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After by Steve Hockensmith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I won this book from the giveaway section of GoodReads. Naturally, before I read this, I borrowed it's progenitor from a friend. I enjoyed that as well but I found the mash-up not as enchanting as I first hoped. It was, of course, obvious why PPZ should be a NYT Best Seller.
"PPZ:Dreadfully Ever After" picks up about four years after the events of PPZ. It is a brisk adventure full of plenty of thrills, chills and spills. It is excellent mindless entertainment. (No Pun Indented.) It is easier to read that "PPZ" because it makes no attempt at imitating the language of Jane Austen and gets right into business. Thankfully, one does not need to read the Prequel, "PPZ:Dawn of the Dreadfuls", to know certain new characters and their back story. The book while fun also misses the boat because it could have gone farther in developing character arcs, plot developments and other opportunities. The beginning feels fine but toward the center, the plot feels rushed and thins were wrapped up too quickly. The final chapter definitely reads that it was tacked on needlessly and very preachy. While the writer and/or editors at Quirk Books were able to keep the London locale terminology consistent, it would have been nice to have a map of the areas in question and compare them to our own world.
Big fans of PPZ will enjoy this but the causal fan can figure out what happens.



View all my reviews

A silly place for a mole

By Lorraine Scally as told to her son, Bernard Scally

Twelve years ago while visiting my optometrist, Dr. William Putterman, I told him that my right eye was seeing zigzag lines from top to bottom where I should be seeing straight lines. He sent me to Nova Care who sent me to Wills Eye Oncology. I had something on the retina of my eye but neither Nova Care nor Wills Eye knew what it was.

After four years of 3 to 6 month visits and numerous testing, the thing (not yet officially declared a tumor) started to grow. The doctors came to the conclusion that it was cancerous. Oh how I cried, I mean who ever heard of cancer of the eye?

Nine days after this prognosis, I was admitted to Wills Eye Hospital. I had my eye cut open and radioactive chips were placed on the tumor. I was kept in an isolated room for five days then returned to the operating room to the chips removed. As a result of this surgery, I lost about 75 to 80 percent of the vision in my right eye.

Soon now, the waiting game began. The six-month follow after my surgery showed that the tumor was shrinking and continued to do so for the next six years. Then two years ago, the doctors saw some changes and decided to give me a treatment with a nuclear laser. Six months after this treatment, I was informed that there was a very small bleed in my eye but there was nothing to worry about so we continued our visits.

Sadly, this past January, I had a vision in my affected right eye that scared me greatly because it occurred while I was driving. I can only describe it as my eye looked like it was kaleidoscope but all in back. Four days after this incident my eye returned to its normal condition. During my February visit this year, I was informed that the blood was a cause for concern. was referred to Dr. Joseph I. Maguire who felt it best to leave the blood alone as there was not enough to extract and the bleed may sort itself out.

On May 7, 2011, I obtained a massive headache and complete blindness in my right eye. Thinking that it would clear itself up, I tried to ignore it but after two weeks without abatement I returned to Wills Eye Hospital. Immediately, oncologist Dr. Carol Shields recommended removing the eye because it was full of blood and the likeliest source of the bleeding was the diminished tumor. I was stunned but I refused to relinquish my body part until I knew that it was the tumor for sure. I returned to Dr. Maguire within a week. I was again in surgery to remove the blood. When I returned the next day, everything seemed to be well but two weeks later, my eye again filled up with blood. It was also discovered that the tumor had grown even bigger than it had been eight years ago. There was no choice anymore; my eye had to come out.

While I had this tumor in my eye, I had headaches all the time. Since my eye was removed on June 30, 2011, I have had one had headache because I did not take my medications. Thankfully, the cancer was contained solely on the inside of my eye. my advice to all would be to keep a check on your eyes. Have your eyes tested as often as you are able. After some cursory research, I found that eye cancer is more common that I first thought. If you suspect something and your doctor doesn't listen, find a new doctor.

Now that I have a new prosthetic eye from Dr. Kevin V. Kelley, it is a new challenge for me but with the help of my family, friends and church, I will survive.

Photo credit: Bas Slabbers/for www.newsworks.org

We are 'Occupied'...but what next?

I admit that when I first saw the "Occupy Philly" protest. I was not so impressed with the gathering itself but with the traffic snafu it had caused that day. A few days before I did sign an online petition asking that Student Loan Debt be forgiven. It seemed pretty reasonable...until I was getting emails of every leftist MoveOn.org petition thrown at me later on. So my vision might have been a little skewed when I visited City Hall on Oct. 6. The one thing I knew for certain is that if I ignored it, I would have definitely regretted it.
I did not. I was impressed with the conduct of the protesters and the police. I narrowly avoided the 2001 Fat Tuesday Riot on South St. because I saw the signs of something bad about to go down. I never felt that vibe during the whole time I was at City Hall. I have a few humanitarian concerns such as food, shelter, toliet facilities. After speaking with my uncle, I also wondered who was paying for the police overtime because of the protest. Of course, we know the answers to that now. We are, in effect, paying for this.
It was after seeing some neighbors, Susan and Don Simon, who lived through the protest of the 1960s and walking around with my buddy Hugh Giordano, that I started to appreciate the goals, though unfocused, of this particular protest.
My friend, Lisa Lutwyche, puts it more succinctly:
(Note: Bolded emphasis are all hers)

""Occupy" is trying to expose this: there is such an enormous gap, growing every day, between the corporate bosses and bankers & the rest of us, that my kids who are in their twenties might NEVER know the comfort and stability I USED to know (before the bottom dropped out of my career). And, no matter how many jobs my husband and I have, we might NEVER again know financial comfort or stability in our lifetime.

We DO work. I work in excess of 50 hours many weeks, combining all my jobs, to say nothing of the 24-36 hours per week of graduate school work that I do...My husband has no health insurance, mine is 44% of my income (but I can't give it up if I ever want treatment or testing for cancer...since I had the audacity to survive cancer in the past), we have NO savings anymore, we drive cars that have both exceeded 200,000 miles and there's no end in sight.

THAT's what people are "marching" and "occupying" about.

Who made this happen? What became of the people who created this? They are better off than ever before, in most cases, and we are worse off than our grandparents were...and if our kids weren't born into families of corporate executives, bankers, or derived wealthy inheritances from the death of someone...they have little hope of a future.

We, as a country, don't MAKE anything anymore. Our manufacturing has all been sent overseas, and it's NOT the fault of the unions, it's the fault of the GREED of the the companies who used to make things here.

WE need to let "Wall Street" and "Corporate America" know that they are responsible, as citizen of a democracy, to the other citizens of that democracy.

Otherwise, who are we as a country? We are that wall of NYC cops, all in dark clothes with handcuffs dangling from their belts. We are the Cadillac Escalades, pushing in front of our 18-year-old Ford Tempos because "that's just the other half and I'm better because I have more money.

Enough. Can't we, please, get our equality back? Narrow the margins of net pay between the people who do the work and the people who profit from it? Can't we make things in America and get some faith in ourselves again?

That's what the people are trying to say.

Is anyone listening?"

There are people listening and who sympathize. Giordano repeatedly called this protest 'Democracy in Action" (I call Hugh Giordano, my favorite 'Watermelon Communist', because he is the spokesperson for the Green Party in Philadelphia.) But even he agreed with me that when all of this is over and the protesters go home was it all sound and fury signifying nothing?

Getting back on track

After a Plimpton-esque debacle into politics, I have come to realize that journalism and the media are my true passion. Informing the people is a nobler and more rewarding profession than having an office in City Hall.

Lately, I have been writing up a storm. Most of my freelance work recently has been for WHYY’s NewsWorks.org. Here's a list of stories either written by me or about me can be found right here. But it is time that I branched out a bit again and do a little bit more. Really get back into the "Gentleman's Odd-yssey" that I once promised. So in the next couple of days, I'll touch on a variety of subjects humorous, topical and deeply personal.

Enjoy.

The Hit List

One of the great thing about being raised by a pair of punks was an appreciation for great music.

In Praise of the Library...

Chris Satullo's piece a few months ago in Newsworks titled "If books fade away, can we call the iPad progress?" made me realize how doomed certain things we take for granted might be. In his piece, which I have linked to, Chris laments that he and his wife haven't indulged in a favorite pastime: browsing a book store.
While I am partial to perusing purveyors of the printed page, I was left feeling that there was something missing from Chris' musing. I struck me a few days ago when I visited...my local library.
(Author's note: I looked at some readers comments while finding the link to Satullo's piece and found someone pointing out the library as well.)
After borrowing an acquantence's copy of 'I, Claudius', I found it was one disc short. So I sallyed forth to my local library branch and found the item I need to complete my viewing pleasure. After leaving with said item I realized how empty my life might be without the library.
My life has been sort of a love affair with the library and stories. Thankfully, my mum and dad would read to my sister and I when we were little. We always saw them reading something; books, magazines, newspapers. The internet was still something out of Star Trek.
Growing up in Manayunk, my first introduction into the library was in elementary school, the late St. John the Baptist School, the library was inside the convent until it found a roomier spot in the upper school building. I admit in those earlier days, I picked out books for being big and lots of pictures.
It was Mum who got me my first library card at my local branch. A card that I put to good use borrowing books, books on tape and sometimes videos...and it was all free, provided you brought it back on time. I would renew my card when I had too. (Though a few days, I discovered that they no longer expire) Throughout elementary school and high school, the Roxborough and Andorra branch library were I would do much of research for school projects or simply pass the time especially during those long summer months.
My University had it's own extensive library system so my use of my local library waned. By the time I graduated, the internet was the place to get whatever you wanted.
But the library isn't completely out of my life. My own massive book collection came from clearance shelf of the big box stores, gorgeously shelved second-hand book shops and yes, library sales and giveaways.
While I hope to enjoy with brave new world that we live in; for those of us who can not afford iPads, Kindles or Nooks, there is one last refuge for us to go but I wonder how long it will last.

"We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are...There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches." -Ray Bradbury