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‘Second Helping’
Village
Inn looks forward to summer
Review
by Joshua Maloni
Grand Island Dispatch, April 18, 2008
The Village Inn at 1488 Ferry Road.
Cooking is in the Carr family’s blood.
Gourmet dishes are the norm with family matriarch
Joanne, a culinary columnist for the Dispatch, and with her six
children. Her youngest, Mike, runs The Village Inn, a popular diner
on Ferry Road.
“My mom was always an influence with us,” Mike says.
“She always made creative things – even when times were tough.”
His sister, Karen Keefe, says, “That’s the heart
and soul of the family – her wonderful gift of comforting people
with food.”
That lesson has been successfully passed on to Mike
who, in this rough economy, offers Island families an affordable,
home-cooked meal at The Village Inn.
The family atmosphere has taken an unexpected twist
this year. In February, Mike’s nephew, Leon, was involved in a
snowboarding accident and passed away. While patrons knew the 29-year-old
as a master soup maker, Mike says Leon was like a brother.
“It’s been unusual (not having him here),” Mike says.
The family took time to console one another and,
with the help of Island well-wishers, Mike says business is just
about back to normal. “We’re up and running and ready to go,” he
says.
read more
Soup, gingerbread
a heartwarming meal
 Grand
Island Dispatch, April 11, 2008
Our beloved grandson Leon is gone. He died in a snowboarding
accident.
Trying to comfort us, and themselves, friends said
that he was doing something he loved to do.
He loved everything he did.
Very gradually, our world is straightening out. It
has been hard, but we will make the try.
Thinking about Leon, I put together a fruit mix the
other day. He disliked it if it had grapefruit along with the fresh
strawberries, raspberries and pineapple. There sits the grapefruit.
I’ll use it next time.
We had a three-and-a-half pound chicken to fix for
Sunday’s dinner. I knew it would probably be enough for two dinners
for the two of us – and one nice soup, as well.
I roasted the chicken with a cup and a half of bread
stuffing. It was a great meal.
The second day, I heated the leftovers in a moderate
oven for 15 minutes and we had another great dinner – mashed potatoes
and gravy, carrots and a fruit cup.
There were some hefty chunks of thigh meat and some
white meat left on the chicken frame. I had saved all the golden-browned
skin and all the bones each time I served that small chicken –
and for good reason.
It was time for chicken bone soup.
read more
Steak Escape
sizzles
Fast food
convenience, high quality fare
Review by
Joshua Maloni
Photo by Susie Falter
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, January 31, 2008
Usually, cuisine critics don’t review fast food restaurants.
There’s no point in writing about pre-packaged menu items generally
made via assembly line.
Subsequently, a request to investigate Steak Escape
seemed out of the order. The eatery, after all, is a chain with
franchises in 100 cities and 28 states. Chances are, you’ll see
the same menu boards detailing the same sandwiches and sides at
any of those sites.
However, the Steak Escape located at 2260 Niagara
Falls Blvd., just past the Niagara Falls International Airport,
is far from generic. On multiple occasions, this writer has been
satisfied, in terms of entrée creation, with the number
of choices offered and speed of service. Each was cooked to order,
and server Linda Bruno and cook Rich Lyons paid careful attention
to every detail in providing me with the meal I sought.
read more
Stir
Fry Chicken is lighter fare
Grand
Island Dispatch, January 11, 2008
Tuesday, 7 p.m., Buffalo airport! Rebecca will be
with us for three-and-a-half days.
It is always special to have just one grandchild
visit, all alone. Don’t misunderstand. I love whole families at
a time; but one – that’s different. It lets grandparents connect
in an entirely different way.
Becca is studying in a New York City design school.
She loves it, even when the challenges seem daunting, but she takes
it and does very well.
Coming to visit was to step back and be different
for those few days – to sleep soundly and eat well. It worked just
fine for Becca and for us, too.
Any pasta meal seems to satisfy, whether it is spaghetti,
lasagna or even a pizza from our local outlet. Not this time, though.
Instead, I made a chicken stir fry. It felt right to eat a lighter
fare.
read more
Our ‘Danish’
grandson introduces us to ‘Frikadelle’
Grand
Island Dispatch,
September 21, 2007
When our grandson, Gil, was in his junior year at
Hobart, he spent the spring semester in Denmark. Rather than coming
back at the end of the semester, Gil wanted to travel. He toured
around Europe until his younger brother had finished his school
year here in New York. Then they toured most of the countries that
Gil had scoped out in the interim, but not before young Michael
had a chance to meet Gil’s host family.
Michael wrote an account of their travels in his
journal. His parents edited it and it was printed out. We were
happy to get a copy.
This year, two years after Michael’s adventure, he
spent a few weeks with us and worked at his uncle’s restaurant.
He had to. He has been broke ever since that trip. It had taken
all he had saved in his 12 years to finance his very special trip.
read more
Enjoy the
fruits of Niagara Frontier’s bountiful harvest season
Grand
Island Dispatch, August 31, 2007
It’s the very best season in the Western New York
year, next to strawberry and cherry season, or maybe the season
for those Chippewa potatoes or the continuing of the growing season
in Erie and Niagara counties.
It is really difficult to say that one fresh quart
of any one thing is better than another. As each segment of the
growing season unfolds, we experience that week’s finest, don’t
we?
Bob and I aren’t the big eaters that we were a few
years ago. So when the markets offer three ears of corn for one
dollar, we buy. At best, we each eat one. Do I throw out the left-over
lonely one ear? Of course not. I cook it with the other two, then
wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the ’fridge for the next
day’s dinner.
You say that one ear of corn is hardly sufficient
for two and you are right. This is how I use it.
read more
If you can’t
stand the heat – cook outside!
Grand
Island Dispatch, July 13, 2007
Oh, it is definitely summer! Do we have to cook?
A little, maybe. Outside, not inside.
Someone, fire up the grill. I’ll do a fresh garden
salad and we’ll roast the potatoes, somehow – not inside, please.
We will start the potatoes inside and then finish them on the grill.
What’s for dessert?
Anyone in our family knows that we end a get-together
with a wide, colorful spectrum of sweet stuff. Some don’t take
much oven time.
Daughter Karen has a Christmas birthday, so I didn’t
mind the time spent in a warm kitchen to bake a towering cake or
an apple pie. Yes, candles look great on anything home-baked.
For summer fare, try one of those boxed, no-bake
cheesecakes. Top it off with fresh blueberries. I simmer the berries
so that they don’t roll off the cheesecake when served.
read more
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