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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Monsieur Demarcus French Crêperie

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Monsieur Demarcus French Crêperie opened several weeks ago in the old Neely’s site on Jefferson in Victorian Village.

The transformation from barbecue joint to cafe is remarkable. Inside is a pretty, understated space (to be expanded in the future) — tile floors, white walls accented with black trim.

French touches abound — the waitress looking chic in a red beret; the tunes (Edith Piaf?) — but miraculously avoid being hokey.

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The lunch menu is rather extensive, starting with salads that range from mixed greens topped with apples and a sun-dried tomato vinaigrette to a salad with field greens or baby spinach served with chicken salad.

There is a French onion soup, of course, and a veggie/vegan soup as well. Sandwiches include the Le Jardin with sauteed mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, spinach, and mozzarella (gotta try that one) and the Victorian Village with grilled chicken and fresh mozzarella that is dressed with pesto.

Many of the crepes are vegetarian, including the Lourdes with asparagus, Swiss, avocado, and roasted tomatoes, and there are many as well that feature classic flavor combos like the La Maison with ham and cheddar.

But we came to eat crepes, and there are plenty to choose from — 21 savory crepes and 17 dessert crepes on the lunch menu. (There was a suggestion I title this post “What’s this Crepe?”.)

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My coworker could not resist the Crepesadilla ($9.50) simply because it’s called the Crepesadilla. This massive crepe is filled with chicken, caramelized onions, mushrooms, and a choice of mozzarella or Swiss cheese.

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I ordered the earthy Le Creusot ($10.50), with wild mushrooms, Swiss, Spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes.

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The third member of our party got the C’est Magnifique ($13), which is sauteed mushrooms, spinach, ricotta, mozzarella, and caramelized onions in an herb crepe. That sounds magnificent to me.

We all happily cleaned our plates and then ordered the Nutella-filled Biscous Chocolat ($8) to share over coffee.

Other desserts: the S’mores with dark chocolate, graham cracker crumbs, and fluff and the Nancy with goat cheese, fig jam, and dates.

Monsieur Demarcus French Creperie, 670 Jefferson (528-8799)

Categories
Opinion The BruceV Blog

Gay Marriage, Marijuana, and President Obama

Check out this map showing which states allow gay marriage …

… then consider this map showing which states have legalized or decriminalized marijuana …

… then ponder this map which shows the results of the 2012 presidential election.

The obvious conclusion: People who like pot-smoking and gay-marriage prefer President Obama. That’s science, my friends. Irrefutable. You’re welcome.

Categories
News News Blog

Sierra Club Holds 12th Annual Environmental Conference

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The Sierra Club will hold its 12th annual Grassroots Environmental Conference this Saturday at Lindenwood Christian Church. The conference will cover a wide variety of subjects, with a focus on health, safety, and quality of life. Government regulations, air pollution standards, ways to save polluted rivers, and ways to generate more green jobs will also be discussed.

The keynote speaker is Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. Yearwood served many years as a chaplain in the military and now leads efforts to bring awareness to environmental justice and social justice activism. Also speaking at the conference is Jeananne Gettle of the Environmental Protection Agency and acting director of the Office of Air, Pesticides and Toxic Management. Gettle will speak on the EPA’s new regulations to curb carbon emissions from coal plants and other sources.

The 12th Annual Grassroots Environmental Conference will be this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The conference is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. To register, click here or call 901-497-5798.

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News

New Chefs at Bleu and Blind Bear

Paul Knipple has the dish on two new chefs at downtown eateries.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Six Shelby County Suburbs Elect School Boards

School board races, most of them uncontested and all of them drawing ight turnouts, were concluded Thursday in the six incorporated municipalities of suburban Shelby County which intend to operate independent school districts beginning in 2014.

In GERMANTOWN, focus of controversy these days because three of its schools are slated for use by the existing unified Shelby County Schools district, there was one contested race out of five. In that Position 1 encounter, Linda Fisher, with 1,094 votes, defeated opponents Paige Michael (877) and Edgar Babian (616).

Other elected Germantown school board members were Mark Dely, Natalie Williams, Lisa L. Parker and Ken Hoover.


BARTLETT had two contested races — one for Position 2, in which Erin Elliott Berry (1.487 votes) won out over Alison Shores (415); and another for Position 5, won by David Cook (1,552) over Sharon L. Farley (365).

Unopposed for the Bartlett School Board were Jeff Norris, Shirley K. Jackson and Bryan Woodruff.

In MILLINGTON, there were three contested races — Cecilia Haley (306) defeating Oscar L. Brown (236) for Position 2; Jennifer Ray Carroll (394) winning out over Tom Stephens (113) for Position 6; and Donald K. Holsinger (289) besting Charles P. Reed (235) for Position 7.

Unopposed winners in Millington were Gregory Ritter, Chuck Hurt, Cody Childress and Louise Kennon.

In LAKELAND, the top 5 finishers of 7 contenders become the board. They are: Kevin Floyd (642); Laura Harrison (639); Kelley Hale (610); Matt Wright (556); and Teresa Henry (475). Also running were: James Andrew Griffith (288) and Greg Pater (94).

ARLINGTON, which plans to consolidate its school efforts with those of Lakeland, elected five board members without opposition. They are: Danny Young, Barbara Fletcher, Kevin Yates, Kay Morgan Williams and Dale A. Viox.


COLLIERVILLE also elected five board members without opposition. They are: Kevin Vaughan, Wanda Chism, Mark Hansen, Cathy Messerly and Wright Cox.

Categories
News

An “Invader” Tells His Story

John B. Smith, a member of the controversial civil rights group, the Invaders, tells his story in a new film — and to Chris Shaw.

Categories
Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Sound Advice: Bonnie Raitt at the Cannon Center Friday

She’s coming to the Cannon Center Friday. She can’t make you love her. She can’t make your heart feel something it won’t. Submit to the slow jam. Bonnie Raitt is bringing it to Memphis.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Ronald Reagan’s Lament, Post-Assassination Attempt, About the Brown Suit He’d Been Wearing

Radio talk show host Michael Reagan regaled a packed Life Choices audience at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn on Central Thursday night with stories about himself — and about his father, the late former President Ronald Reagan.

One tale he told, chronicled in the video above, concerned his father’s morning-after preoccupation in 1981 with the fate of the brown suit he had been wearing when he was shot by the would-be assassin John Hinckley — and the then President’s unusual suggestion as to how the Hinckley family might make amends.

Lamenting that his new brown suit had been cut away from his body and shredded at the hospital, the stricken President said he’d been told the Hinckley family had lucrative oil interests and wondered, “Do you think they’d buy me a new suit?”

The occasion, sponsored by the group’s Ladies’ Auxiliary, was a fundraising dinner for the organization’s Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics. The clinic promotes adoption as an alternative to abortion and provides medical and counseling support toward that end.

Another affecting story told by Michael Reagan concerned the affectionate relationship he developed with the affable but famously remote President relatively late in his adoptive father’s life and how that relationship continued even into the final stages of Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s condition.

That story concluded with an account of how the former President, unable to speak and with his ability to recognize kith and kin long gone, still retained enough memory, as his son recalled, “to know that I was the man who gave him hugs” and, by taking “baby steps” toward the door and miming, insisted on one as Michael Reagan was leaving the Reagan household one day after a visit with step-mother Nancy Reagan.

The thrust of Michael Reagan’s remarks, in support of the host organization’s goal, was to emphasize that he, at least one sister, and both of Ronald Reagan’s wives, Jane Wyman and Nancy Davis, had been adopted children and were thus enabled to achieve productive lives. “We were a family put together by adoption,” as he put it.

Categories
News

Homeland: Tastes Great, Less Filling

Greg Akers gets that millions of people, including him, like Showtime’s Homeland. He’s just not sure why.

Categories
Blurb Books

Festival at the MJCC: An Update

It’s been a successful fall so far and all signs point to continued success for the first-ever (but by all accounts annual) Jewish Literary and Cultural Arts Festival at the Memphis Jewish Community Center at 6560 Poplar.

As Amy Israel, the center’s cultural arts director, recently reported in an update by email, close to 200 attended the luncheon in October with guests Rachelle Bergstein and Jane Weitzman. Later in the month, Moshe and Goldie Monzon drew collectors from the MJCC and larger Memphis community to the sale of their artwork and jewelry. (The couple, according to Israel, will be returning to Memphis “for sure.”) And a stormy night didn’t deter a good-size crowd to hear reporter Geoff Calkins put the questions to former prosecutor and author Marcia Clark.

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But on Saturday, November 9th, the festival takes a comic turn (straight to suburbia) when Thurber Humor Award winner Dan Zevin discusses and signs his book Dan Gets a Minivan (GPS included — in the van, not the book; Adam Sandler’s production company has the option on it — the book, not the van). Dessert reception and book signing included in the ticket price of $10 for MJCC members, $13 for nonmembers. The event begins at 7 p.m. And that same night, so does the center’s holiday art and gift show, which will run through November 14th.

There will no charge for the festival’s closing event, which asks the literary question “What is gained and lost by fictionalizing the Holocaust?” On the panel to discuss the issue are native Memphians and writers Anna Olswanger (Greenhorn) and Daniel Friedman (Don’t Ever Get Old) and Stephen Haynes (The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation) of Rhodes College. The moderator will be community leader Ellen Klyce. The program is free and open to all on Tuesday, November 19th, at 7 p.m. The Memphis office of Facing History and Ourselves — the international organization that uses the lessons of the Holocaust to combat present-day bigotry and mass violence — is co-sponsoring the evening.

For more information on the Jewish Literary and Cultural Arts Festival, go to the Memphis Jewish Community Center’s website or call 761-0810. And take it from Amy Israel, who said of the festival back in September, “This will be a great beginning to an ongoing annual event!” Israel’s proving right.