Iowa Girl on the Go

Flowers and butterflies are a sure-fire way to beat the winter blues, and Reiman Gardens in Ames has both this weekend.

The 4th Annual Orchid Fest is Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 9-10 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A huge variety of exotic orchids are on display and available for purchase.

The Central Iowa Orchid Society will answer your questions, and orchid experts will be presenting sessions on orchid care (1 p.m.) and Iowa orchids (2:30 p.m.) on Sunday.

If orchids aren’t your thing, there’s plenty more to see at Reiman Gardens, even though it’s too cold to be outside. The Gardens’ indoor displays offer a warm, humid respite from the winter gloom outside. The Conservatory’s ever-changing display is currently featuring “row crops” of bright, sunny flowers and old-fashioned windmills.

Next, scoot inside the Christina Reiman Butterfly Wing for a hubbub of winged action. Dozens of different species were active today — so active I had a hard time catching them with my camera. Most of my shots showed nothing but a frantic blur of wings. I tried without much success to capture a Blue Morpho, one of the showiest butterflies on display, but they never stopped moving! This image (below) of a Blue Morpho hanging out with pretty moth is the best I could do.

I am no butterfly expert, and I can’t tell you the names of the other butterflies I saw today (for that, you’ll have to consult the butterfly display board in the exhibit hall or ask the docent on site), but I can tell you that many of them were extremely colorful and beautiful. Walking through the Butterfly Wing is a bit like being in a rainforest.

Besides watching the butterflies in flight, you can also see them in their pupae stage through the glass window of the butterfly lab. If you’re lucky (and patient), you’ll see a butterfly or moth emerging from a chrysalis.

The Butterfly Wing celebrated its tenth anniversary in November.

Let me just say this right up front: I do not ice skate. I will never ice skate. I’m doing good just to walk across an icy parking lot to my car.

So, for me, going to the Brenton Skating Plaza in downtown Des Moines is purely a spectator sport. But I think it’s a cool (no pun) thing to do in the winter, so I went a couple of weekends ago just to watch.

According to the website, Brenton Skating Plaza, at 520 Robert D. Ray Dr. on the Principal Riverwalk, is the first of its kind in the state because of its unique, open-air design. Here are some fun facts:

• A 120′ x 60′ ice sheet makes up the skating surface
• The rink holds up to 220 skaters
• It takes roughly 8,000 gallons of water to form the ice rink
• There are 3 miles of piping underneath the rink to refrigerate the ice surface
• The unique exterior building material gives off a blue glow at night
• The Zamboni weighs 4 tons
• The ice surface is 2″ thick

The skating plaza is open November to March every day of the week (check this website for hours), with a DJ on Friday night 8-11 p.m. They offer season passes, or you can pay by the day ($4.50-$6.00 for adults, $3.00-$4.50 for kids, depending on the day). Kids younger than 6 are free. You can rent a pair of skates for $3.50, or bring your own.

The $4.5 million Brenton Skating Plaza was a gift of the Brenton Foundation.

In the summer, the skating plaza transforms into an outdoor event center, for community events, concerts, and other gatherings. I read an article in the Des Moines Register on Thursday that said a canopy may soon be added for the warm summer months to shield the plaza from the sun. Principal Financial is leading that charge.

I ate in a new restaurant in Grinnell recently that’s already famous.

The “Prairie Canary” restaurant and bar is run by Carly Groben, who won Iowa’s Best Bite Restaurant Challenge last year. Her prize? $10,000 in startup cash, $15,000 in starting inventory, $10,000 in “smallwares,” three months free rent, a $5,000 professional branding package, and free mentoring by Orchestrate Management, the company that runs Des Moines restaurants Centro and Django. Not a bad deal.

Groben, who is a Newton native and looks like Gwenyth Paltrow, had previously operated Proof and Flour in Des Moines. During the competition (according to a Des Moines Register article) she wowed the judges not just with her food, but with her answers to these question: “Will you love, honor, and cherish Grinnell? Will you stand by it both on busy Saturday nights and slow February days? Will you be a part of the community in good times and bad, in sickness and in health?”

Anyone who can answer those questions to the satisfaction of the judges is my kind of restaurant.

When I arrived there on a weekday before noon, only two tables were occupied. By the time I left, the lunch hour was in full swing, the tables were full, and the line to order was a dozen or more people deep.

That’s the drill at Prairie Canary: You go in and find a table, a server brings water and menus, and you place your order (and pay for your food) at the counter. The lunch menu is simple and functional, not one of those massive monstrosities favored by so many chain restaurants. There are soups of the day, several salads, half a dozen sandwiches, and a few pasta dishes.

The salads sounded wonderful, but it was a cold day so I chose a cup of cheesy potato soup and the sweet potato and black bean burger topped with buttermilk ranch, dilly cucumbers, leaf lettuce, and cheddar cheese on a homemade bun. I swear the patty was a full inch thick. I had to eat the sandwich with a fork — and I only ate half. It was divine. My dining companion ordered the soup with a smoked salmon sandwich that came topped with cream cheese spread, pickled radish, and alfalfa sprouts on toasted challah bread (shown above). It looked lovely.

As a vegetarian, I appreciated that the menu offered veggie options in all categories (salads, sandwiches, pasta, and soup) but there’s also plenty for the meat-eaters, too, with burgers, salads with chicken or salmon, a pork reuben, turkey BLT, meatballs, etc. The menu includes local, farm-fresh produce, and the food is served on hand-thrown bowls and plates.

I immediately loved the vibe of the place: It’s open and airy with high ceilings, modern light fixtures, and lots of light-colored wood (including a striking wood floor). To be honest, it wasn’t what I expected to find in Grinnell, which I consider to be a cool, funky college town but not especially upscale. I don’t know what the Prairie Canary is like at night, but I’d love to find out. And there’s a bar located downstairs that I’d also like to try.

If I could make two suggestions it would be these: Don’t have people pay upfront. I might have wanted to add a dessert or coffee after my meal, but since I’d already paid by credit card, it seemed like a hassle. Also, I don’t go in for leaving tips before I’ve been served and since (again) I had paid by credit card, the server lost out on the tip I would have eventually given her. The other thing that didn’t thrill me was the selection of desserts available on the counter. Although they smelled yummy, they were wrapped in plastic wrap, and I don’t find that especially appetizing.

But these are just very minor suggestions to improve an otherwise delightful lunchtime experience. I will definitely be planning return visits to this up-and-coming, uniquely Iowa restaurant.

The Prairie Canary is located at 924 Main Street in Grinnell. The restaurant is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., brunch Saturday/Sunday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., and dinner Tuesday through Thursday 5-9 p.m. and Friday/Saturday 5-10 p.m. The bar is open Tuesday through Saturday nights starting at 5 p.m.

Visiting an art museum is a great activity on a cold January day. Earlier this week I visited two exhibits, both in the Christian Petersen Art Museum located on the Iowa State University campus. The exhibits were about as different as they could be – and I liked both of them equally well.

First I visited “Cabinet of Curiosities” in the museum’s lower-level gallery. “Curiosities” is a well-curated exhibit assembled from the collections of many academic departments (and, seemingly, every basement, attic, and storage closet) on the Iowa State campus. What a fascinating hodge-podge of “things”! I noted a mammoth fossil tooth and a Cuban toad in a jar; a stuffed tapir, gibbon, penguin, duckbilled platypus, and two toucans; a giraffe skull and gorilla skeleton…all juxtaposed with a horse whip, a sugar bowl, a fur hat, and some opera glasses. And so much more! Brass fingertips from Thailand, linen napkins from a German hotel, Indonesian shadow puppets, a cylindrical slide rule, a leaf-nosed bat, a dinosaur leg bone, and foam patterns used to produce aluminum castings.

Most of the items would be at home in a natural history museum. Indeed, many of these items came from the college museum in Morrill Hall that, beginning in the 1890s, was home to many natural history specimens. Many of the items are part of Iowa State’s land-grant heritage. Some of them are just bizarre. I found myself unable to look at some of the creatures preserved in liquid inside jars. (A frog? That’s OK. A cat? That crossed the line for me. I had a flashback to the storage-unit scene in “Silence of the Lambs.”)

The “cabinets of wonder” were easy to view – there’s a guide to each object just inside the main door – but difficult to photograph, given the gallery lighting and glass fronts on each of the cabinets. I’m sorry that my photos don’t do the exhibit justice.

Upstairs in the main gallery is “Post-Pop Redux,” an exhibition of material-based art by Andy Magee. Think Andy Warhol. Now think Andy Warhol if he used found items instead of paint.

It’s an interesting show. Magee crafted Marilyn Monroe out of artificial sweetener packets, reinvented the Obama “Change” poster out of real change (pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters), and built a huge “100% Juice” billboard out of real juice cans.

His artwork provides commentary on war (a map of the continents made of nothing but plastic army men), religion (the word “God” made with dollar bills), and smoking (a “stairway to heaven” built from packs of cigarettes, all of which the artist smoked himself. The exhibit also includes a portrait of George W. Bush made from beer-bottle caps, a baby elephant made from plastic babies, and a really cool Popsicle sign made from Popsicle sticks.

Born in 1972, Magee is a native of Arkansas and has lived in St. Louis, Mo., for the past 15 years. He will be on hand in the Petersen gallery during the noon hour on Feb. 4, 5, and 6, plus he’ll be the guest of honor at a public reception with food and live music at 6 p.m. on Feb. 5.

“Cabinet of Curiosities” runs through April 21; “Post-Pop Redux” will be on display through April 26.

The Christian Petersen Art Museum is located in Morrill Hall on the Iowa State University campus in Ames. The cost of admission is free; however, there is a suggested donation of $3 per visitor. Hours are Monday through Friday, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Parking can be tricky: There is some meter parking on Morrill Road, but it’s very limited. I suggest parking at the Memorial Union Ramp (a short walk from Morrill Hall).

With the Oscars race in full force, the year’s best movies being shown right now, and winter weather keeping us inside, this is a great time to see a movie. Fleur Cinema & Café is my favorite movie theater in Des Moines. I sort of think of it as a movie theater for grown-ups.

You can always count on the Fleur (4545 Fleur Drive) to have the best movies playing at any given time, and that’s the most important thing, of course. They’re grown-up, well-made movies. You never have to wade through a bunch of families with little kids, nor loud groups of teenagers.

The hip, jazzy décor is a bonus, as is the food selection: Rice Krispies bars (in two different flavors the last time I was there), cheesecake, chocolate cake, muffins, blueberry streusel cakes, biscotti, and brownies in addition to the usual movie popcorn. Drinks, too, are a big plus:  They sell beer (Sam Adams, Amber Bock, Coors Lite, Guinness), wine (Big House chardonnay and cabernet), bottled lemonade, Italian cream soda, coffee drinks (espresso, cappuccino, lattes, mochas, etc.), hot tea, hot cocoa, and chai. Take that, Cinemark!

In recent years, I’ve seen “My Week with Marilyn,” “Young Adult,” “Melancholia,” “The Queen,” “Midnight in Paris,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “The Descendants,” “Black Swan,” “An Education,” and dozens of other independent and art films. They do offer Hollywood films, but only the best, Oscar-worthy kinds of films.

For example, right now they’re showing “The Impossible,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” and “Les Miserables.” I’ve seen two of the four, and I plan to see the other two. I am picky about movies…believe me, four-for-four would NEVER happen at any other theater.

Prices are reasonable, too: $6.50 for matinees, $8.50 for evening shows, $6.50 for seniors/kids.

The Fleur is also home to the annual Wild Rose Film Festival, which features student films, shorts, documentaries, international entries, animated films, and feature films. Last year’s festival was Nov. 8-15.

The last time I saw Bob Pace was with his band at the Gas Lamp, a live music venue at 15^th and Grand near Western Gateway Park in Des Moines. He plays the Work Release Party every Friday from 4:30-7:30 p.m. Even at that early hour, the band was on fire, trailing its Baby Boomer fans around the bar while playing a rousing blues version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

He was a bit more subdued at Sunday’s Botanical Blues event at the Des Moines Botanical and Environmental Center. To start with, the band was mostly absent – he had only a keyboard player and a sometimes harmonica player. Mostly it was just Pace, with his electric guitar and Joe Cocker-esque voice playing such hits as “Walking in Memphis” and “With a Little Help From My Friends.” I have great respect for this guy’s talent (and his keyboardist is good, too).

The atmosphere both enhanced and detracted from the music. On the plus side, you’ve gotta love a steamy rain forest in the middle of Iowa in the middle of winter. On the flipside, there’s not nearly enough seating, if you pick the wrong place to stand the sun can bake you to a crisp, and the audience is made up of mostly retired folks. I’m not sure Sunday afternoon is really the best time for a blues concert, but at least you could buy beer and wine.

Botanical Blues runs every Sunday through the month of February, from 1-3 p.m. Concerts are free with regular Botanical Center admission ($5 adult).

• Jan. 13: Cindy Grill & Alan Smith
• Jan. 20: Big Mike Edwards & Jonathan Rowat
• Jan. 27: Jodi Bodley & Dewey Cantrell
• Feb. 3: Super Bowl Sunday Bella Soul Duo (Tina Haase-Findley & Brandon Findley)
• Feb. 10: Terry Shropshire
• Feb. 17: J.D. Flanaghan & Pat Hemann
• Feb. 24: Mojo Jono Smith

It’s the end of another year, and that always makes me want to look back and see what – if anything – I’ve accomplished in the year just past.

This time last year I was in New York City for Iowa State’s appearance in the Pinstripe Bowl. My strongest memory of that trip was not the holiday decorations, nor the cold (since it was actually fairly mild), but the insane number of tourists in the city. I mean, INSANE. I vowed right then and there never to return to NYC between Christmas and New Year’s. It isn’t worth it.

Highlights of 2012 included a lot of travel outside the state of Iowa: Hawaii (above, on the Big Island); the Deep South states of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia; Tennessee; Kentucky; North Carolina; Virginia; Alaska; the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota); the New England states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and glorious Maine (all spectacular in the fall); and the Southwestern states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Twenty-three states in all. That travel (for the Iowa State University alumni magazine, VISIONS) kept me pretty busy all year.

But I did find time to take in plenty of activities in central Iowa: The Winter Blues Fest in January, St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the CelebrAsian festival, Zoo Brew, a Lego exhibit at Reiman Gardens, the Octagon Arts Festival, a Sunday afternoon concert at Prairie Moon Winery (above), an Iowa Cubs baseball game, the Holly and Ivy Tour in December, and several Downtown Des Moines farmers markets. I also photographed the sights along the Downtown Des Moines riverwalk and took a walking tour of the Des Moines skywalk system last winter. Both of those were a lot of fun. Also in Des Moines, I visited La Mie Bakery, one of my favorite places in the whole world, and I wrote about West Des Moines’ newest grocery store: Whole Foods Market. My “love letter to Whole Foods” was reposted on the Whole Foods Facebook page, garnering me a whole slew of page views I probably wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

Elsewhere in Iowa, I visited the 1966 Grinnell College Yearbook Project exhibit at the Faulkoner Gallery on the Grinnell campus; the small, German-inspired town of Manning; Victorian Albia; the historic Lincoln Highway Bridge in Tama; Santa Maria Winery in Carroll; a pumpkin farm near Bondurant; and the multi-faceted town of Mason City. I took a driving tour of Sac County’s barn quilts, hiked at Swan Lake State Park, attended an opera in Indianola, and enjoyed the Prelude to Christmas in Amana. I finished my three-part Grant Wood Tour of Iowa in May (with a visit to the American Gothic House in Eldon, above) and June (with visits to the Grant Wood Studio in Cedar Rapids, the Tipton Public Library, and Iowa State’s Parks Library).

I ended the year with 23,687 all-time page views (beginning with my first post in August 2010). Two popular page views were the aforementioned Whole Foods post and the Manning, Iowa, post. But to my great surprise, the most views I received all year were on a little story I did about my own city of Ames. The Downtown Ames post (above) received 183 views the first day, 473 views the second day (the highest single day ever for Iowa Girl), and 150 the following day, for a three-day total of 806. These may seem like small numbers to big, nationally followed bloggers, but to me, this was huge. (Thanks, Ames, Manning, and Whole Foods shoppers!)

Happy New Year!

There’s no better way to kick off your holiday food shopping than the Downtown Des Moines Winter Farmers’ Market. There you’ll find gifts (hand-made ornaments, jams and mustards, knitted scarves/hats/mittens, pottery), special holiday foods (cookies, pies, turkeys), and all the things you’ve come to expect from the farmers’ market: late-season produce, eggs, cheese, bread, pastries, and lots more.

I’ve complained about the location of the winter market — it’s too small for the number of vendors and shoppers — but this morning wasn’t too bad. I actually got on and off the escalator without fearing for my safety.  Overall, it was a lot of fun and I bought way too much cheese.

Happy holidays!

History and the holidays came together this weekend during the Holly & Ivy tour of historic Des Moines homes. The tour prominently featured Salisbury House (below) and Terrace Hill (above), plus two private homes.

I started at Salisbury House, a 42-room English estate just off 42^nd Street south of I-235. Even without festive Christmas décor, Salisbury House is wonderful – filled with a fantastic collection of artwork and antiques, and gorgeous architecture. I learned today that the home was built in the 1920s for Carl Weeks, a cosmetics giant, and his wife, Edith.

The self-guided tour (with volunteer historians in each room) included the large common spaces on the main floor, the library, and dining rooms. Upstairs are the bedrooms, Edith’s dressing room, and other spaces.

Each room was decorated with elaborate period Christmas trees, greenery, ribbons, flowers, wreaths, baubles, pinecones, Santas, and other Christmas items. The rooms were decorated by Des Moines florists, interior decorators, and Salisbury House volunteers.

Next I went to Terrace Hill, which was also overflowing with holiday cheer and cheerful volunteers. Terrace Hill, today the official home of Iowa’s governors, was built in 1869 by Benjamin Franklin Allen, the first millionaire in Iowa. The mansion is said to be a fine example of Second Empire Victorian architecture. It features a grand staircase, brilliant stained-glass window, and eight marble fireplaces.

It’s decorated to the hilt for the holidays. Even the stuffed moose and elk were wearing bows around their poor, dead necks. Each room has a large tree, and many have secondary trees. The chandeliers are festooned with greenery, gold pinecones, and sparkly balls. Everywhere you look, there’s Christmas. Dressed for the holidays, Terrace Hill truly is a Victorian beauty.

I did not tour the two private homes, although they sounded very cool (a Cape Cod with 13 trees, each decorated with a different theme; and a 1922 Colonial Revival).

Holly & Ivy continues through Sunday, Dec. 9.

If there’s one thing that’s been on my “Things to Do in Iowa” list longer than any other, it’s the Amana Colonies’ Prelude to Christmas. Today I finally checked it off.

Held annually the first weekend in December, Prelude to Christmas features the Amana Colonies at their best: All decorated for the holidays, with yummy food, good smells, and twinkling lights.

The event was held this weekend, Friday through Sunday. Saturday would have been the best day to go in terms of activities, with both a cookie walk and a church bazaar — not to mention live accordion music at the Ox Yoke Inn. My husband, Dave, and I opted to go today, and there was still plenty to see and do.

We started at the Amana General Store, a two-level store that includes the Amana Coffee & Tea Co. I don’t know what it looks like during the rest of the year, but right now it’s packed full of holiday goodies. There are gifts of food from Amana (think corn relish, sweet potato butter, salsa, jams, root beer, and much more), holiday tableware, Christmas ornaments, and seasonal decorations galore. It’s a very fun store if, like me, you can’t get enough of holiday decorations.

Next we visited the Tannenbaum Forest, located in the century-old Festhalle barn, which opened the Friday after Thanksgiving and remains open through Dec. 16. The forest is a display of decorated trees and other holiday scenes; the $3 admission donations benefit a local child from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Visits from Santa and a live reindeer are scheduled throughout the month.

Just outside the Festhalle barn, visitors could catch a horse and carriage ride that took them through the streets of Amana. Some proceeds from the $5-per-person charge also go to Make-A-Wish.

You can’t visit Amana without visiting the Amana Woolen Mill. The show room was filled with cozy blankets, scarves, hats, mittens, and clothing for adults and children. Across the street is Millstream Brewing Co. We stopped by there on the off chance that they’d still have some of their fantastic Oktoberfest left, but, alas, the young woman at the brewery informed me that they had actually run out of Oktoberfest during Oktoberfest weekend. (Note to all brewers in the state of Iowa: Please make more Oktoberfest next year. Thank you.) We bought bottles of Schild Brau Amber instead.

I went into several more stores, some good (Yana’s Boutique, Chocolate Haus, Kitchen Sink), some not so great. There is a lot more shopping in town, but I have a limited interest in shops, and I was getting hungry. So we went to the Ox Yoke Inn for the advertised brunch with Santa and Mrs. Claus. As luck would have it, Dave and I were seated right next to them. We could have shared the meal. The whole time we were eating (the brunch buffet included breakfast items, made-to-order omelets, salads, potatoes, several meats, breads, and desserts) a steady stream of adults and children came right beside our table to get their pictures taken with the Clauses and put in their wish lists. I heard the whole thing. One kid asked Santa, “You give a lump of coal to kids who have been bad, right? Well, what if they WANT coal?” That sort of stumped the jolly old elf who, as it turns out, lives in North Liberty, Iowa, not the North Pole. Don’t tell the kids.

If you missed Prelude to Christmas, there are still two more weekends to visit Amana before the holidays: Dec. 7-9 is Kids and Music Weekend; Dec. 14-16 is A Taste of Christmas Weekend.