A day at the World’s Largest Truck Stop
It’s a little after 9 a.m. in the Iowa 80 Kitchen. The waitress, dropping my plate of biscuits and eggs on the table, says, “Hope you like gravy,” and boy, is she not kidding. Ahead of me: 12 hours in the 220-acre Walcott truck stop that claims the mantle of “World’s Largest.” Iowa 80 opened in 1964, 22…
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Local Album Reviews
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Album Review: Jung Min-Noh — ‘It’s Never Too Late to Throw in the Towel, But It’s Always Too Late to Die with Dig?’
IT’s NEVER TOO LATE… by Jung Min-Noh. I should have no trouble meeting the word limit, reviewing an album with a title like It’s Never Too Late to Throw in the…
Album Review: 10 Watt Robot — ‘Weather Beacon Black’
Following the recent passing of Dave Kendall, the journalist who created and hosted MTV’s pioneering alternative music program 120 Minutes, tributes were posted to social media acknowledging his influence during…
Album Review: Pieta Brown — ‘Dreamin’ Of’
Dreamin' Of by Pieta Brown Twelve years ago on Pieta Brown’s seminal album Paradise Outlaw, the folk songstress sang a tender duet with Amos Lee about desperately trying to get…
Album Review: Cedar County Cobras — ‘Sinners & Saints’
Sinners & Saints by Cedar County Cobras There’s a moment in Cedar County Cobras’ “Bessie Smith’s Last Ride” when nearly a century of American history collapses into a few verses.…
Book Reviews
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Book Review: ‘Raised’ by Eva Adderley
I tend to have mixed feelings about modern fairytales. Having grown up on the Grimm Brothers variety, I find that many of the ones I read miss the mark; they are…
Book Review: ‘What Feeds Below’ by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
Tatiana Schlote-Bonne’s third novel, What Feeds Below (Boozhoo Books), is immediately engrossing. The narrator, Petra, is likable and big-hearted.
She and the city she lives in survive on tourism. Petra…
Fully Booked at ICPL: Howl-worthy werewolf fiction
I just finished reading Rosie Danan’s Fan Service, and it has reawakened my shapeshifter-loving heart. It’s a redemption story of a washed-up child actor who once played a werewolf on TV,…
Book Review: ‘She Was Wild Grass’ by Katie Bennett
Part personal essay, part biography, I found myself luxuriating in the prose of Katie Bennett’s She Was Wild Grass (Brink Literary), slowing down my own reading to sit in the…
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Food & Drink
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Eat like a John Waters character
Not every food scene Waters filmed is as unspeakable as Divine’s final bite in Pink Flamingos. From Mr. Pinky’s eclairs in Hairspray to the pizza aroma Polyester audiences inhaled via…
It takes guts to cook menudo, Mexico’s satisfying ‘soup of the poor’
On a recent Sunday morning visit to my parents in West Liberty, my mother, an immigrant from northern Mexico, asked me if I wanted some menudo. I was confused at…
Review: Open Sesame is a dreamy Mediterranean cafe with a rich history in Des Moines
You don’t know unless you try it. It’s cliché, sure, but it’s also the entire premise of Open Sesame, a Lebanese restaurant in Des Moines’ East Village that’s spent nearly…
Pammel Grocery and Deli is a go-to spot for lunch and international ingredients in Ames
Ahmad Manci doesn’t believe in self-promotion or “propaganda,” as he calls it. So for almost 40 years, international students and Ames locals alike have found their way to Manci’s Pammel…
2026 Bread & Butter
