Classic Restaurants of Des Moines and Their Recipes, by Darcy Dougherty-Maulsby

I moved to Des Moines in 1970 and have always enjoyed eating out in Des Moines restaurants, so was very pleased to get a copy of Darcy Maulsby’s new book. What a fantastic gift for food-loving residents in Iowa. It was such fun to flip through these pages and reminisce about past dining adventures in Des Moines and see recipes for favorite local dishes. So, after reading a few chapters, and enjoying it so much, I recommended it to my book club, which agreed to read it.

In the early 70’s most of the restaurants in Des Moines, it seemed, were Italian. We tried them all: Johnny’s Vets Club, Fatinos, Tursi’s Latin King, Noah’s Ark, Chuck’s, Gino’s, even Alice’s Spaghettiland (even though it was a long drive). Later in years, we went frequently to Ajno’s as it was nearby our house. But, after a while other types of restaurants also became popular.

When I worked for Iowa Hospital Association in the early ’70s, I officed on Ingersoll, not too far from Colorado Feed and Grain. We often stopped there after work for drinks, and occasionally at dinner there. We were so regular that the waitresses all knew what we meant when we ordered our “usual”. We also ate lunch regularly at close by Maxie’s. I remember smelling like french fries after returning to work. I still eat at their West Des Moines place and always enjoy the Maxieburger.

Also in the 70’s and 80’s my wife and I ate at Bishop’s Cafeteria, as our good friend (and best man at our wedding) was the manager there and often joined him and his wife for dinner there. About the same time, the top of the Holiday Inn was a favorite place, as it rotated once every hour, giving a great view of Des Moines.

Without my wife knowing, I used to sneak out to get an occasional drink at Ruthie’s, who was famous for balancing a beer glass on each of her 48DD’s. Another place I went to without my wife (as she hated it) was George the Chili King. It was handy for lunch and I loved their chiliburgers.

Later, in the 90’s and beyond, Court Avenue was a favorite place in the evenings. Spaghetti Works, Kaplan Hat Co.,  The Metz, Gringo’s, and Julio’s were regular evening haunts for my wife and I and our kids. I also officed downtown and spent many lunch hours there.

For many years (not so much recently) we regularly attended the State Fair. We even camped out there a couple of years with good friends. Our favorites were corn dogs, pork tenders, and turkey legs. Although Darcy mentioned that the food there never changes, the DM Register published an article on July 13 that specified that there are 63 creative new dishes at the Fair this August.

For many years, I regularly ate breakfast with a business partner at the Drake Diner, and since then, our grandchildren love to go there for dinner in the evenings. We also used to go regularly to Stella’s Blue Sky Diner (at both the one in the Skywalk and in Clive), but stopped going there after finding a bandaid in my dinner.

Darcy included a large chapter about Babe Bisignano and Babe’s, his famous restaurant. What a life he led, and she covered it from his early life and well beyond. I remember often going there to eat and he was always going around, visiting with all the customers and often offering them a free drink. After I bought a downtown restaurant in 1988, I found that the previous owner had taken a lot of the restaurant equipment. But Babe took me down to his basement and gave me a dishwasher and other equipment — for free. He had a colorful personality, tough exterior, but a kind heart.

Now for a review of the book:

Author Maulsby serves up a “feast” of Des Moines restaurant classics, mixed with their history, complete with iconic recipes. She brings back many fond memories for anyone who has visited or lived around Des Moines.

In addition to writing about many restaurants in the Des Moines area, she also covered a number of famous people, including Ronald Reagan, who lived in Des Moines in the 30’s, and Roger Williams, who as an 18-year old kid majoring in music in Des Moines, got his first professional job playing piano at Babe’s, and went on to become one of the world’s most famous pianists. She even covered the life of Edna Griffin, who, on July 7, 1948, was denied service at the downtown Katz Drug Store. Her actions preceded Rosa Parks’ bus ride, and resulted in civil actions every bit as important in attacking racism.

And, Darcy covered a number of other restaurants I have enjoyed over the years, including Taste of Thailand, Younkers Tea Room, Big Daddy’s BBQ, The Pier, King Ying Low’s, Maid Rite and The Machine Shed. And well beyond restaurants and recipes, she also gives savory stories of race relations, women’s rights, Iowa Caucus politics, the arts, immigration and assimilation.

In conclusion, it was such a “delicious” book of local history and food — and such fun to scan through the pages, bringing back so many special memories of Des Moines eateries. I highly recommend it.

Ken Johnson

The Japanese Lover, by Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende’s novels often take place during a time of war and its aftermath when characters are forced to tap unknown reservoirs of strength and find creative, unorthodox ways of forming families to protect the vulnerable.  

Her novels are invariably well plotted and often include a thread of magical realism. And they tend to be beautifully written—though in The Japanese Lover, likely the translation does not do justice to the original manuscript.

The time of war in this novel is World War II, with the concentration camps in Germany and the Japanese internment camps in America. And the long tail on the war likely made places like Moldova (where Irina’s story begins) a place to leave. 

Early in the war, young Alma, with her Jewish parentage, is sent from Poland to live with the wealthy Belasco family in San Francisco. In her loneliness, she is befriended and comforted by her older cousin, Nathaniel Belasco. And she is utterly captivated by young Ichimei Fukuda, the Japanese gardener’s son, whose family is one of many sent to an internment camp.  

As the years pass after the war, Ichimei’s life takes its own path, and Alma grows up and marries her cousin Nathaniel and has a son with him. And the son grows up and has a son, Seth, who grows up to be one of the main chroniclers of his grandmother’s life—including the undying love story between her and gentle Ichimei. 

In the time present of the story, Alma is elderly and Seth is trying to complete a history of the wealthy and well-known Belasco family before his grandmother dies. Of great puzzlement to Seth is why, “early in 2010 his grandmother’s personality underwent a complete change in the space of two hours. Although she had been a successful artist and someone who always fulfilled her obligations, she suddenly cut herself off from the world, family, and friends, shutting herself away in an old people’s home that was beneath her and deciding, in her daughter-on-law Doris’s opinion, to dress like a Tibetan refugee.” 

The overall movement of the novel is to discover why. Why does she do his sudden, outrageous, and inexplicable thing? What happened to cause such a dramatic turn? 

Seth and Irina (a young woman who works at the old people’s home and hides a huge secret of her own) come together to love and support Alma, and to find out why she made such a dramatic change.  

To tell the story, the narration begins with a few steps forward in the characters’ lives, reaches back in time to reveal something important, takes a few more steps forward, reaches back in time to reveal something else important. Over and over again—until the reader finally and satisfyingly understands why Alma’s whole life changed in the space of two hours.   

Allende, through Alma, as seen by Irina—who is a kind of acolyte in the complicated ritual of dying—presents an evocative, compelling picture of aging unto death. Yes, aging is troublesome. It involves unrelenting loss. And it is inevitable. But Alma moves toward it with passion, discipline, imagination, and a touch of whimsey. Her soothing ritual of long weekends away with Ichimei help her linger on the bridge between life and death with her true love. 

The Japanese Lover feels singular in the way it depicts growing old and dying as a heady distillation of life. — Sharelle Moranville

Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague, by Maggie O’Farrell

As the author tells us in her opening Historical Note: “In the 1580s, a couple living on Henley Street, Stratford, had three children: Susanna, then Hamnet and Judith, who were twins.  The boy, Hamnet, died in 1596, aged eleven.  Four years or so later, the father wrote a play called Hamlet.”  And in her closing Author’s Note, O’Farrell writes, “This is a work of fiction, inspired by the short life of a boy who died in Stratford, Warwickshsire, in the summer of 1596.”  

But the book is so very much more.  The story is not much about this boy, Hamnet, nor about his father, who is never named in the book, only referred to, first, as “the boy,” and later “the Latin tutor,” or “the husband.”  This is a story of Agnes, Hamnet’s mother, Shakespeare’s wife.  It is about her strangeness among women of her time; about her knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants; about her fierce love for her husband and her family; about her ability to sense what is wrong under the guise of the normal; about her ability to manipulate the patriarchal system to make happen what is best for the people around her. 

The flyleaf on the book jacket describes Agnes as “a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people.”  I would disagree – While her gifts as a healer and in understanding plants and potions are undeniable, I would argue that she has a profound understanding of herself and the people with whom she lives. 

At every turn, we see a woman so in touch with herself and with her community that she is able to defy community mores and truly be her own true self. 

This is a beautifully written work, full of such descriptions of sixteenth century English life that we can feel and smell and almost touch the streets, the houses, the farms.  But again, so much more.  These relative simply sentences capture better than anything I have ever read the reality of labor:  “She feels another pain coming, driving towards her, getting closer, like thunder over a landscape.  She turns, she crouches, she pants through it, as she knows she must, holding tight to a tree root.  Even in the throes of it, when it has her in its clutches, when it drives everything from her mind but the narrow focus of when it might end, she recognises that it is getting stronger.  It means business, this pain.  It will not leave her be.  Soon it will not let her rest or gather herself.  It means to force her out of herself, to turn what is inside outside.”  

And surely, the grief that comes with the death of her son is so magnificently written that we too are overcome. 

I wish I had the words to recommend this book as highly as I’d like to.  Alas, I don’t.  But it is among the best books I have ever read, a book that holds you so tightly that you don’t want to put it down, much less begin reading another.  It is a gem.

– Jeanie Smith