>>Hard pack or soft serve? Food fight it out in the comments!<<
Very Serious Food Holidays
I’m not seeing many deals, which is disappointing considering ice cream and bacon.
- Today, Friday, August 18: National Ice Cream Pie Day (Pie? Not cake?)
- Saturday, August 19: National Soft-Serve Ice Cream Day & National Hot & Spicy Food Day
- Sunday, August 20: National Bacon Lovers Day & National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day (What is it with these super specific days?)
- I’ll never understand how restaurants miss opportunities like this. Did you know you can get cheese and bacon on a Popeye’s chicken sandwich now? I didn’t. Why not use this food holiday to promote it?
Dates via Foodimentary
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WTF Is Body Journaling?
As introduced on Monday, Whole Damn Woman’s primary focus going forward is body journaling.
We aren’t the first to connect journaling to our bodies, so we wanted to share resources from folks who are leading the way in this field.* The cool thing is how others approach it. Some go the way of spirituality and faith while others take a psychological approach.
We’ll be delving into what informs our approach soon, but there’s a lot of love for expressive writing, sociology, and self-awareness.
- “Writing to Connect to Your Body” by Julie Peters
- “6 Ways to Use Journaling to Heal from Trauma” by Hoku Krueger
- “Journal for Mental Health” from University of Rochester Medical Center
*Linking to these resources is not an endorsement of their views.
Lovin’ on the 515
This section is for anyone in, near, or visiting Des Moines, Iowa.
- Adventureland is potentially ruining the best part of the park: The Underground. If you’re like . . . what is wrong with you, then wait until the bottom of this post.
- Des Moines Restaurant Week starts today!
- The World Food and Music Festival starts today as well.
- The Iowa State Fair wraps up Sunday.
- Scratch Cupcakery is closing their West Des Moines location.
- Dino’s Bar and Grill in WDM is closing. That’s the third Italian restaurant to close this year along with Billy Vee’s and Paesano’s.
- Early Bird’s Ankeny location is now open. Stumbled upon that last weekend.
- Toppling Goliath is opening a second location in the Drake area.
- Something called The Tavern Grill Restaurant and Bar is opening in a blackhole spot at Jordan Creek Mall. This is not to be confused with The Tavern, which has two locations in West Des Moines and is locally beloved for their pizza. The Tavern GRILL is a small midwestern chain with, well, nothing I find terribly distinctive from most suburb restaurants these days. So, it’ll either be perfect for the mall, or it’ll fail like everything else in that space has. Was that harsh? Meh.
- Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse *was* on the DSM Restaurant Week list, but because they’ve pushed their opening back so many times, they had to pull out. They are, however, finally open.
The Underground and Flappyjaw McGraw
The Underground, opened in the late ’90s is terrible. It’s fine for little kids. But as an adult, you ride it a little embarrassed and afraid of the germs in the darkness. Or maybe that’s just me.
As described on Wikipedia, The Underground is “a wooden roller coaster” made to “tour the old mine and try solve the mystery of Bad Bob.” More accurately, it’s a dark, jerky train ride with small hills, the speed of a bicycle, and an unfortunate bit of mist in your face that you hope is clean water.
In my adult years, I began to adore this sad little ride. What prompted the adoration? This sweet summer child:
If they have a name, I don’t recall what it is. I just call them The Miner. All I know is they didn’t always look like that. I thought The Miner had a beard, but someone else’s photo shows the bandana covering their face:
See? Mysterious, right?
But as the ride and The Miner aged, things . . . happened.
The hat seemed to inch backward, the bandana fell, and the mechanics got noisy. What once was a spooky, grizzled miner became a startled, androgynous Midwesterner with an unexpected face tan and a super loud flapping jaw. Hence, Flappyjaw McGraw.
That shit cracked me up every time.
Adventureland, if you get rid of FlappyJaw, I want them.
