Gloria Ferris

Rain or shine, Bloggapalooza will go on!  Sadly, last night the Ingenuity Festival did not have very good luck with the weather gods, and it blew, and it poured, and lightning lit up the sky, but today and tomorrow look much more promising.  So, please block out some time to venture downtown and take in this wonderful experience.

…an attendee of the Ingeunity (sic)  Festival which is going on in downtown Cleveland this weekend, one of the MTB interviewees, a blogger or a friend you brought with you or just listen to the music.  Tim and I attended the Ingeunity Festival last night and the light show protrayed on the facade of the May Company building was beautiful.  I hear the Drum Circle was an event to be experienced.  Stop by the Meet the Bloggers/Voices and Choices table and see what we are all about.  Bloggers and friends have volunteered to staff the table so that we can promote Bloggapalooza and raise awareness of Meet the Bloggers. George at Brewed Fresh Daily has a lot of posts on what is happening at the Festival. 

…and see the old. Whenever and wherever bloggers converge, they usually invite other friends who are or are not bloggers. So there will be a hugely eclectic crowd at Bloggapalooza. I can’t stand this when this happens. I have this old jingle from my Brownie days stuck in my head. “Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. July 22nd at Bloggapalooza will be a day to meet new people and catch up with some old friends.

See you there!

. . . and win a raffle prize at Bloggapalooza. Of course, you will need to buy a raffle ticket to enter one of the many, many drawings we have planned throughout the day. Right now, we have just about enough raffle items to raffle off two or three an hour. All raffle proceeds will be used to pay for transcripts at Meet the Bloggers. Soon, we will be gearing up for the fall round of interviews of candidates and other civic and community leaders to get their unique views on the upcoming November elections. We hope that we have found a unique way to foster free speech in Ohio.

I have a new page, available also through the sidebar to the right. There are a number of ways we become members of a community, and one of them is by joining organizations and participating in events, or just by hanging out and talking. Some community-building opportunities we have available here in Ward 15, or near it, appear on the new page, in no special order as yet. If you think I should be including something else, let me know.

Today we had a pleasant surprise when we took an excursion to Rocky River for Tim’s quarterly shearing, at The Irish Barber. The barber, Sean Gormley, hails from the same village as the Ferrises, Ballymoney, in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland, and this is how Tim’s haircut tenuously fits into our philosophy of “local production for local consumption”–by extension back to the old country.

Sophistry aside, we got a pleasant surprise: Sean has opened up a sandwich shop next door to the barber shop, and he also caters out box lunches. The sandwiches were good, the ingredients honest and natural. We’re planning on using him for some of our seminars or assemblies. He’s already started delivering as far away as downtown Cleveland.

The shops are side-by-side on Center Ridge Road, just up from where it intersects with Wooster Road. Sean, the consummate businessman, has priced everything below the major-franchise sandwich providers and prides himself in his lower prices and higher quality.

On Saturday March 11 at 4:30 p.m Sherry Perry at The Ugly Broad Tavern will be hosting a fundraiser for Save Our Land. Save Our Land is a group of residents that have bonded together to raise funds to help four of our neighbors defend their loss of land to the Fulton Road Bridge Replacement Project. These neighbors must hire an attorney, obtain appraisals to counter the very small compensations offered by the County and defend themselves against the encroachment of the bridge.

Seven people have entered their Chilis for the cook off. We will continue to accept entries until Wednesday if you know anyone who has a killer chili recipe.

Here are the details:

Where: The Ugly Broad Tavern
3908 Denison Avenue
When: March 11, 2006
Time: 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Price: $5.00

Raffles, prizes, and more!

This is a great chance for all of those people who tell me that they have always intended to stop in at The Ugly Broad Tavern to do just that. See you There!

Tim and I had a full day planned of meeting people. Late last night we decided that we were going to buy an all-day ride pass on the RTA and see if it appeared practical to ride to all of our meetups with various people.

Our first meeting was Tim’s Brooklyn Circle B-to-B Connect meeting at Theo’s at 7 a.m. Since it was such an early start time, I wasn’t sure that we would be able to make the connections we would need. Off I went to the RTA Transit website where lo and behold, there is now a trip planner! All I had to do was put in our address and the address of my destination. Then I put in the day and time. I had five options to choose. Maybe you are aware of this little added feature, but I wasn’t.

Our next meeting was at Talkie’s on Market Street at 10 a.m. So my start point was Theo’s, and I ended up at Talkie’s. Again, I had five possibilities.

We arrived at the West Side Market with so much time to spare that we had breakfast at the Westside Market Cafe. I posted about this great restaurant once before, but Tim hadn’t had the experience of eating there yet so it was a good place to stop before our 10 a.m. I of course, not being an adventurous sort with food went for my tried and true Eggs Benedict. Tim had Market Hash with poached eggs and creole mustard sauce. He said it was some great Andouille sausage, and he was very impressed with his poached eggs.

After we ate, we still had some time to kill so we strolled through the market. We saw Mr. Leu who has now retired but still shops at the Market on Fridays. We always stop to say “hi” to Janet Woyma, a neighbor and friend who has worked for Ed Dabstuter for years and years.

As we walked out the front doors, we ran into two of our neighbors who always do their shopping on Friday morning. They wanted to know where our packages were, and we said that we weren’t shopping, that we had come to the market for breakfast.

After our meeting at Talkies, we again hopped on the bus and saw another one of our neighbors who had decided she had had enough of the corporate world for one day, so she took a half day vacation. We walked down the street with our friend, stopped off at home to check the RTA Trip planner one more time, and decided to hop back on the bus to deliver some paperwork to Roger Bundy’s Law Offices on Broadview. Since Roger was not at his office, we dropped in to see Janie at Janie’s Sewing Corner. She told us to just leave the package, and she would see that Roger got it.

All in all, with the sun shining in the midst of a blue, blue sky and fluffy white clouds, Tim and I had a very satisfying day riding the RTA talking to other passengers and visiting with friends and neighbors. We even squeezed in two business meetings.

And why, did I post about our day on the RTA? This is why. We stepped out of our breakneck pace of rushing back and forth to home and out again for another meeting and back again and out again. Instead, we deliberately slowed down and thoughtfully planned our next move. We both felt that we had an incredibly productive day.

Yesterday was just a “very busy day” for the Ferris family with lots of business appointments starting at 7 a.m. and the day didn’t end for any of us until well after 6 p.m. So it was a “Let’s Eat Out!” night. Welcome words to a woman who had tumbled into bed the night before at 1 a.m. after attending a Meet The Bloggers interview with the Chairperson at ODP at Scottie MacBean’s in Clintonville. Those of you who know me may wonder why I don’t blog about political candidates on this site. I have two reasons for not blogging about political candidates. I have decided that for myself the issues are more important than the candidates and secondly, I believe in the democratic process and that informed voters should choose who they want to represent them.
Too many people today are influenced by forces outside themselves when choosing whom they vote. You many not agree with me but then leave a comment or if you have additional thoughts let me know. For a brief moment, I considered blogging about the ODP chair’s interview with MTB, but decided that Chris Redfern is just too much of a political animal so I won’t be doing that.

Hey, back to “Let’s Eat Out!” Sticking to our New Year’s resolution, we dined at a local establishment–Don Gi’s Pizzeria established in the Old Brooklyn area in 1996. For those of you who do not drive down Broadview on a regular basis, Don Gi’s is located at 2159 Broadview Road. Katie and I had a pizza that had the best crust I have eaten in awhile. It was perfectly browned and had a crunchy taste. Anyone will tell you that a good pizza starts with the crust. The crust is the foundation. I learned that from a neighbor of mine who worked at Mama Santa’s in the 70′s. I wonder what happened to him. He was one “cool” character.

Obviously, I am having a focusing problem this morning. Tim had a meatball sandwich and they toasted the bun! This touch is one of Tim’s criteria for sandwich rating. Katie thought the lights were way too bright for a restaurant and I tend to agree, but Tim said that it was kind of nice to be able to see what he was eating. So I guess it just individual comfort at work here. We sat in the window seats and looked out onto Broadview road as we talked and laughed and chomped on our pizza.

The staff was very efficient and friendly which is one of my criteria. Who ever taught this new crop of waitstaff that people reward abruptness and rudeness have done a great disservice to the hospitality business. The young girl who waited on us will continue to receive good tips and appreciative smiles as she climbs the ladder of life. She was a delight.

On our way out the door, Katie stopped us dead in our tracks with the comment “We’ll have to come back here soon! The pizza is great” This statement was welcome to her parents’ ears. She doesn’t often like to go out with Mom and Dad, but now we know if we wave the promise of Don Gi’s Pizza we just may get to have dinner conversation with our wonderful daughter.

Sixty years in business, same family, same name, same destination. Do you know? If you said Ferris Steak House you would be right.

This restaurant holds a very fond place in my heart. Thirty two years ago when I moved to Cleveland to teach at West High School located on Franklin Avenue Ferris Steak House was the first bar and restaurant I entered. On the first day of school, the other teachers invited me tocome with them to one of their favorite after school watering holes. We were much younger then and drinking a few beers was more of a priority than eating. Ed Ferris and his brother were always behind the bar.
Every Friday they had the best fish fry. We drank and ate there often.

But times change and now when I enter Ferris Steak House it is to sample some of the best red meat in town. Last night I had one of the best cheeseburgers in recent memory. Tim noshed on potato pancakes that we both found a tad too crispy, but he had nothing but good things to say about his bowl of Manhattan Clam Chowder.

Although times have changed, you are still greeted by one of the Ferris family–Bruce Ferris. He has carried on the best traditions of his grandparents and uncles with the gracious hospitality he showers on his customers and the good food serves.

If you haven’t been there in awhile, you will be pleasantly surprised that Bruce has opened the windows creating a spacious, welcoming dining space.

DISCLAIMER: Barbara Ferris may claim us as her Irish cousins but this in no way influenced our rave review of this great establishment.