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Okay, how can it be that I’m reporting on TWO new places to eat in Macomb in ONE week?

Wow.

What’s next—a post-dusk coffee shop?!?

This one appears to be in or near what used to be Spirit in the Sky (which is now on the Square).

But be warned:

this is not the place to go if you’ve been out boozing and have the drunken munchies.

Find out why below, or

Read the whole story at the McDonough County Voice online.

Italian Express now open in Macomb

Macomb, Ill. – A much anticipated addition to the restaurant scene has now come to Macomb in the form of Italian Express, located at 928 W. Jackson St.

The new restaurant offers customers a line of homemade pasta dishes and sandwiches.
The Macomb location is the second business for owners Paul and Cathleen Rashid, who have their first Italian Express in Princeton and have been working on coming Macomb for the past two years.

“We thought we would expand the market,” Paul said. “We figured it would be a good place to open the restaurant up.”

Cathleen is a teacher in the Kewanee school district – also a graduate of WIU – and runs the Princeton restaurant. Her husband Paul will run the Macomb location, but with three children, the couple has not yet decided if they will be moving.

“Everything is on the table at this point,” Paul said.

The location of their Macomb Italian Express is a bit unique, added Cathleen, as the drive through is located within the building.

“We have the drive through, which you can access from the back of the building,” she said.
“It’s kind of odd since you have to drive through the building to get in it.”

Besides the drive through, customers can access the store from both the front and back doors for both carry-out and dine-in services at Italian Express.

A main aspect of the restaurant the Rashids feel is important to their customers are their homemade products, including Italian bread, red sauce, pasta, meatballs and Italian beef.

“We make everything homemade and there are no additives or preservatives in our products,” Cathleen said. “We also make it fresh to be as healthy as possible and as relatively inexpensive, too.”

Italian Express is open Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. and is closed Sunday.

They offer a menu of Italian pastas and sandwiches made from scratch and available by drive through, carry-out, dining-in and catering services.The restaurant can be reached at 833-3777.

The good news is, Macomb has a new eatery, and it’s apparently family owned. It’s located in the former Secret Garden, nee The Old JC Penny’s.

The bad news? I kan’t eat at this place on principle. I just kan’t.

from the Western Courier:

Kafe adds sweet tooth to campus crust

What started out as a hobby has turned into a full time business for one Macomb couple. Debbie and Aaron Hix are the owners of the new Kakes Kafe & Bakery, located at 24 West Side Square, a few doors south of the Ford Hopkins Drug Store. Originally from Joliet, Ill.…

1. Sunday night, I actually cooked. Like, with pots and pans. (Pats on the back now being accepted).

2. Monday morning, how did I start off the work week, you ask?By trying to zip zippers, button buttons, clasp jewelry, fix hair, make and drink coffee, brush teeth, and pack up work bag all with one hand, as I had to hold paper towels and Kleenex to my nose for what was a seemingly un-ending nosebleed.(Which just put me in an even better mood than I normally am in the morning on any day.)

3. Today, I made a little note-to-self and taped it to the front of my computer. I did this because I have to remember to keep the computer on overnight due to some kind of security update. So I wrote DON’T SHUT DOWN.But throughout the workday, I keep looking down and seeing it and interpreting it like, “take a deep breath!” “DON’T LOSE YOUR SH*T!”(Ok, self, jeeze. I won’t.)

As you might remember, I blogged awhile back about endangered sites in the area, which include the “Bernie Dot” bridge in Fulton County.

Unfortunately, things are not looking good for this structure on the famed Spoon River, which you might have heard of because of its eponymous Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.

At least some citizens are expressing concern about its future. (But, apparently, not so much about the side of beef a-floatin‘ on by!)

Linked to story from the PJ Star, and copied below:

Spoon River bridge gets a reprieve Fulton County Board approves structural analysis of historic span

LEWISTOWN — Instead of having one of its trusses removed, the historic Bernadotte Bridge received a stay of execution Tuesday night from the Fulton County Board.

But engineers warn the bridge is so far gone because of flooding and debris piling against it, a collapse into the Spoon River is very likely.
“The bridge is going to fall into the river,” Fulton County Engineer Bill Kuhn told board members. “It’s just a matter of when. We’re pretty much at the end.”

Several county residents spoke in favor of restoring the bridge and against the county’s agenda item to remove a “pony truss” to allow debris and water to flow past. Dawn Stambaugh, who serves as chairwoman of a committee formed to save the bridge, said removing the truss not only would make the bridge useless but would make it unstable and the rest would soon fall.

“The bridge would be less likely to stand if the pony truss is removed,” she said of the structure that is used for foot traffic and bicycles.

The board heard from six residents who urged members to pay for a study that would examine the structure before making a decision.

“That bridge is important to me,” said Bernadotte resident Tyrel Belless, who lives next to the bridge. “I don’t want to see it go.”
Bernadotte is about 23 miles southwest of Canton.

The board voted to pay $7,000 for a structural analysis of the bridge before deciding what to do next.

Kuhn said the bridge is supported by stacks of unreinforced blocks, which are getting knocked away each time the river floods.

Debris, including tree branches, logs and currently a dead cow, floats down the river and gets pushed against the already weakened structure.

“I was afraid we were going to lose it last winter,” Kuhn said. “A big ice jam came through and almost took it out.”

Casting the only vote against the survey was board member Don Zessin. Member Mat Fletcher abstained.

The board will take up the issue again once the study is complete.

In the meantime, Stambaugh said she is happy for now that the board decided to wait. “They’ll have some knowledge about what they’re looking at,” she said.

From a recent story in The Galesburg Register-Mail:

When Perry McFarland looked out his window around 7:30 yesterday morning, a glimpse of something caught his eye. In the grassy knoll behind his fence, about 650 feet from his sunroom window, a large animal pounced like a cat. He grabbed his binoculars for a closer look and determined the animal must be a cougar. His wife ran to the window. She spotted another one. McFarland called the Knox County Sheriff’s department, which transferred him to animal control.

Police Department Conservation Officer Darin Pitchford said he received the call from McFarland, who lives about six miles north of Galeburg just off of U.S. 150, but could not confirm that the animals were cougars.

“Some of the things don’t add up,” he said. McFarland reported that he saw two cougars, but Pitchford said traditionally cougars are solitary animals that do not live in pairs even during mating season.

He said the department typically doesn’t respond to cougar sightings, unless they receive a picture, which they’ll pass on to a biologist. He said there were some cougar sightings in 1999 around Lake Bracken, but none of those were able to be confirmed.

McFarland said he also called his neighbors Robin and Stephen Podwojski who live closer to where the cougars were. Robin Podwojski said she and her 13-year-old son, who was home sick from school, spotted the cougars as well. Intrigued, they decided to drive over to see them up close. Podwojski drove about 50 yards from the cougars before they decided to turn back. She said the animals were about the size of a large dog, tan in color and had a long tail.

Both she and the McFarlands searched on the Internet for pictures of cougars to make sure it wasn’t a bobcat or another animal.

“I have no doubt what it was,” Podwojski said. “It was definitely a cougar.”

Sara Mackey, a naturalist for the Prairie Wildlife State Park, said that it’s possible cougars are moving back to Illinois, after being reportedly leaving the area during the late 1800s.

“We definitely have a food supply for them here with all the white-tailed deer,” she said.

She said cougars are not a threat to humans and that there is no cause for concern.

Cougars “don’t have many predators out there except for humans so they have a natural fear of humans,” she said. “For the most part cougars stay away from humans.”

Only if someone is face to face with a cougar would they be in danger, she said. Otherwise, assuming there is large enough of a food source — and there is in Illinois, with all the deer — that people should have no reason to fear for their own safety or even their pets’.

Mackey added that cougars typically weigh between 100 to 200 lbs. She said she has not heard of any recent reported cougar sighting. There was one sighting earlier this year, but analysis of the animal’s tracks showed that it was a large dog, not a cougar.

A report from Prairie State Outdoors said that there were two sightings of large, cat-like animals in July in Henry County, directly above Knox County. The Department of Natural Resources and the Henry County Police Department were unable to verify the report.

Illinois’ last verified wild cougar was shot in Roscoe Village, a north-side Chicago neighborhood. The 122-pound male cougar traveled an estimated 950 miles from South Dakota. Cougars were found dead in 2004 in Mercer County and in Randolph County in 2000. Before that, the last cougar sighting recorded in Illinois was in Alexander County in 1862.

Yesterday I took advantage of the nice weather (read: procrastinated on writing a paper) to do something I’ve needed to do for months: I attacked the inside of my car with the dust buster.

When I was down there underneath the driver’s seat reaching for the nooks and crannies, I found enough peanuts, almonds, raisins, cereal flakes, and M&M’s to provide sustenance for a small village.

Or at least make a trail mix as a kind of “repurposed” holiday gift. Y’know, preserve resources and all that. Mmm, will you be the lucky recipient???

1. There’s nothing quite as humbling (depressing) as

• finally admitting to yourself (and only doing so because you truly no longer have even an inch of closet space) that the goal to fit into the size _ clothes you’ve been hanging onto for the past 3 years (okay fine, 4 years) keeps not getting met, and then
  
• filling 3 full bags of amazingly small-looking clothes and
  
• loading them up to take to the Salvation Army, (all the while berating yourself for the fact that you just can’t seem to muster the fervor you once had for those crazy newfangled hippie things like watching your weight and getting regular exercise and blah blah blah.)

2. Scene from Saturday: me and C-Nor, (after deciding to re-create our first date),

• going for gyros and fries at Uncle Pete’s in Moline mmmmmmmmm,

• then going for a walk along the Mississippi as an effort to burn off some calories—
• and then stopping mid-walk, reaching into the pocket of C-Nor’s red hooded sweatshirt, and pulling out the frosted-ghosts-with-M&M-eyes gingerbread cookies that his mom made for Halloween, and
  
• laughing as we shared them in the middle of the sidewalk. (Hey, at least we talked on the walk back to the car about purchasing a Wii Fit.)

A few other weekend highlights:

1) I got my picture taken with R2D2.*
(Wonder if he’s got a cousin called H1N1? – hayo!)

* why am I cut off in the middle in this picture, you ask?

Because Chris took it when I wasn’t ready yet, and the resulting snapshot makes me look as if I was caught in the middle of the biggest sneeze in history.

Or a person with a spastic, tremor-having problem caught in the middle of the biggest sneeze in history.

Chris is attempting to blackmail me with it.

“This,” he said when he saw the picture, “may be the very reason I decide to start back up on Facebook.”

2. Anyway, we saw this little guy moving up and down the street outside a comic book store in Rock Island.

When we went inside, I tried to be a good girlfriend and actually learn about and appreciate the comic book store culture.

I managed to make it in there for about 10 minutes, even. Maybe 15.

But how can you blame me for what happened next?

I discovered this store right next door, Fred & Ethel’s Retro Antiques. I meant right next door.

So, of course, I ditched the nerd cove and went to Fred & Ethel’s.

I expected to like it, because I love retro stuff. But I did not expect to love this store so much that I wanted to take my clothes off and roll around naked in all of its merchandise.

I am a total ho’ for vintage anything.
(Well except maybe comic books).

What was up with the K-9 sniffers all along 67 on Friday afternoon/evening?

I came up on the ominous-looking barricade as

I was exiting Macomb on my way to Davenport to see C-Nor.

As I approached, I got all prepared for them to stop me. I practiced a little speech in my mind, trying to think of phrases “civil liberties” or something else indignant-sounding.

I also made sure to lean over and reach down to the area where a passenger’s feet are supposed to go, and gathered up some of the filth and stuffed it in an empty Hy-Vee bag, in an effort make it look a little less like a homeless person sleeps in my vehicle.

So then when I drove past and the cops and their dogs gave me a nary a blink, I was almost a little…miffed.

What, me and my little Honda Civic don’t look fringe enough?

Was the tilt of my head, the knittedness of my eyebrows, a telltale

“listening to ‘All Things Considered” giveaway?

I felt like rolling down a window and hollering at one of the cops whose suspicion I failed to spark, “You better not even ask me what I was up to in college,

boys. Haha!”
(And then I re-cranked-up the NPR and sped away.)