Mighty Michigan
Beartown, Food with the Fam, Molly Tuttle, Michigan Tech Basketball, Colossal Chair
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This issue includes ten teams from Michigan that are doing well at the moment, the first book in a hockey trilogy, a fantastic guitarist, a Division 2 team from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that knocked off a Division 1 team from Wisconsin, and a supersized seat. I hope you like the picks and pics.
What do all four of our grandchildren have in common? Among many other things, they all love donuts.
On two separate walks to the nearby Spudnuts, I indulged my Santa Barbara grandsons. On the first visit, Julian was very particular, rejecting the donut initially offered and insisting on the exact one he wanted.
On the second visit, Noah first ate all of the tiny M&Ms off of his chocolate donut before finishing it. When we left, the man pictured below thanked him for singing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and “The Wheels on the Bus” so enthusiastically.
I previously wrote about Ruan Thai Restaurant in Maryland, where we dined with Nancy and John Tanner. John just featured our meal there in his excellent blog, including the photo below of Barb. me, and an unidentified diner in a red hat.
If you enjoy Fave Five, please share it with your friends who also like books, food, music, sports, or humor. To do so, just click the button below.
Fave Five 119: Mighty Michigan
Swedish Sports (Beartown), Food with the Fam (Arnoldi’s Café, The Lark), Guitar Guru (Molly Tuttle), UP Upset (Michigan Tech Men’s Basketball Team), and a Colossal Chair.
Fave Five List: Ten Top Teams from Michigan
Detroit sports teams suffered through a long, painful drought until last year, when the Lions and Tigers made the playoffs. This season, the Pistons and Red Wings are attempting to follow suit. Here are ten teams from Michigan that are having success of late.
Detroit Lions: NFC #1 seed in the playoffs
Detroit Pistons: NBA Eastern Conference 8th place (playoff position); won 12 out of the last 16 games
Detroit Red Wings: won 7 of the last 8 games
Michigan State Men’s Hockey: Ranked #1
Western Michigan Men’s Hockey: Ranked #5
Michigan Men’s Hockey: Ranked #10
Michigan State Men’s Basketball: Ranked #12
Michigan Men’s Basketball: Ranked #20
Michigan State Women’s Basketball: Ranked #22
Michigan Women’s Basketball: Ranked #26
Book Best Bet
I previously featured Us Against You, The Winners, and A Man Called Ove by the same author. This is the first book in the trilogy about the Beartown Bears hockey team in Sweden. It is excellent, as is the TV series based on it, which we watched on HBO. Unfortunately, the series is no longer available in the U.S.
From Amazon: Named a Best Book of the Year by LibraryReads, BookBrowse, and Goodreads
You’ll love this engrossing novel.” —People
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People, a dazzling and profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.
By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.
This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
—
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected. Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain.
Restaurant Recommendations
Food with the Fam
Over the holidays we were able to enjoy several meals with our west coast family. One was at an 88-year-old Italian café near our rental home, with Tracy, Matt, Julian, and Noah. Another was with Kathy at a high-end restaurant in the Funk Zone.
Arnoldi’s Café 600 Olive Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
We dined outside here, right next to the bocce court. The boys had fun rolling (or more accurately, throwing) the balls after dinner.
Insalata Rucola: Arugula salad, cherry tomatoes and walnuts drizzled with lemon juice and EVOO
Chicken Piccata: Sautéed chicken in lemon caper sauce, served with linguine alfredo
Penne alla Salmone: Pasta with smoked salmon, peas, in a pink tomato cream sauce
The Lark 131 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Kathy treated us to dinner here, where we shared a number of small plates.
Crispy Brussel Sprouts: sesame, dates, garum, lime
Hand Cut Pappardelle Pasta: hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, Banyuls vinegar, parmigiano Reggiano, sage breadcrumbs, soft poached egg
Jidori Free Range Fried Chicken: Anson Mills heirloom grits, bread & butter pickles, chile de arbol honey, scallions
Marvelous Musician
Yesterday was Molly’s 32nd birthday. I saw her on Cayamo 2019 and 2020 and was very impressed with her guitar playing. I included her in my list of five favorite bluegrass/flatpicking guitarists.
From Wikipedia: Molly Rose Tuttle (born January 14, 1993 in Santa Clara, California) is an American vocalist, songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She is noted for her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking guitar prowess. She has cited Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick, Alison Krauss and Hazel Dickens as role models.
In 2017, Tuttle was the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitar Player of the Year award. In 2018 she won the award again, along with being named the Americana Music Association's Instrumentalist of the Year. In 2023, Tuttle won the Best Bluegrass Album for Crooked Tree and also received a nomination for the all-genre Best New Artist award at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards. Also in 2023, Tuttle and Golden Highway won International Bluegrass Music Awards for album Crooked Tree and the title track in the categories of Album of the Year and Song of the Year, respectively, while Tuttle won Female Vocalist of the Year.
Molly Tuttle review – galloping bluegrass as fun as a campfire jam by Sophie Walker of The Guardian
Renowned for her acrobatic skill with the guitar, effortlessly moving from crosspicking to flatpicking and clawhammer strums (“I know we’re all guitar nerds here”), she plays it with the ease of meeting an old friend. Though her fables of life on the open road, matters of the heart and cannabis farmers in the Blue Ridge Mountains are usually embroidered by her band Golden Highway, tonight, she plays solo – but this is far from a stripped-back performance. She mines the instrument for the bass and rhythm in remarkable self-sufficiency, galloping through the valleys of El Dorado and San Joaquin drawn from her latest album City of Gold.
Tuttle may know how to sing the high lonesome, but she performs her songs grinning ear to ear as if letting you in on a secret, often throwing in a wink for good measure. Her rendition of the sprightly sing-along Side Saddle, an anthem of spirited independence defying those who say “a girl can’t ride”, has the fun and intimacy of a campfire jam. Calling on bluegrass camaraderie, her audience, at first placid, were now all too willing to take up her invitation to whistle along.
She reinvents the Rolling Stones’ She’s A Rainbow, drawn from her 2020 covers album …but i’d rather be with you. Without compromising on the song’s joy, she transmutes its original psychedelia into earthy, Appalachian charm. Invited to join childhood hero Tommy Emmanuel at the end of his performance, together they played the title song from her Grammy-winning album Crooked Tree. Watching them play their guitars in lockstep, there is no distinction between student and master: with flair and flavour that is entirely her own, if you could bottle it, you’d buy two.
Crooked Tree
Bury Me Beneath the Willow
Salt Creek (with Sierra Hull)
My Playlist
Sports Stars
Michigan Tech Men’s Basketball Team
I loved the story of Division 2 Michigan Tech upsetting Division 1 Green Bay. I salute the Huskies’ players and coaches.
Huskies overcome Phoenix in exhibition win
The Michigan Tech men's basketball team, backed by a 30-point outing by junior guard Marcus Tomashek, rounded the 2024 slate with an exhibition victory over Green Bay, 72-70 in front of 5,207 fans for Education Day at the Resch Center.
"For the first 10 or 12 minutes of the game I felt like we were playing harder than them and then we had a five- or six-minute stretch where they got second chances and got to loss balls–we did our stuff better and just competed at a higher level," Tech head coach Josh Buettner said. "I hope our guys are confident, we've been playing really well at home, and we hung around in a Division I gym without hitting any 3-pointers in the first half. It got loud in here when the kids got going and it was a great experience for our guys who are from the greater Green Bay area and a chance to come home and play the local Division I team is a big thing for them."
After a sluggish first half that saw Michigan Tech lead for just 1:14, falling behind by as much as 12-points before heading into halftime down 33-23. Out of the halftime break, the Huskies came out with determination in front of the largest crowd at the Resch Center this season.
The Huskies trailed by as much as 12 points in the first half and only sustained a lead for 1:14 in the opening frame before heading into the locker room trailing 33-23.
Green Bay, Wisconsin native Tomashek, the GLIAC Preseason Player of the Year, lifted the Huskies in the first five minutes of the second frame, accounting for seven of MTU's first 11 points to bring the deficit down to six-points (40-34).
GB's Ryan Wade pushed the Phoenix's lead back to double digits off a 3-pointer two minutes later as the teams continued to a back-and-forth scoring affair with 12:10 to play. In a hurry, the Black & Gold strung together an 11-2 run in a minute and a half with two 3-pointers by senior guard Adam Hobson sandwiched between a steal and score dunk by Gabe Smith and a 3-pointer by Ty Fernholz to make it a 49-46 game, forcing Green Bay first-year head coach Doug Gottlieb to call a timeout.
Tomashek had 10 of the Huskies final 22 points with under eight minutes to play as the two teams accounted for five lead changes from the under eight-minute media timeout to the 1:33 mark.
Sophomore guard Matt Schmainda hit a clutch 3-pointer to tie the game with 1:33 to go before Tomashek began his takeover with a 3-pointer on the next possession to put the Huskies up 68-65.
Michigan Tech winning the internet after downing Green Bay by Jeff Seidel of The Detroit Free Press
You think the folks from Michigan Tech have hurt feelings? You think they are aghast? You think they are sulking, playing the victim card?
Get real. These are not only ridiculously smart people, but incredibly tough people with thick skin — out of necessity because it doesn't thaw out until summer — who have chosen to go to college in a place where it snows about 200 inches a year.
Michigan Tech is for really smart people. Located in Houghton in the U.P., it has 7,241 students. The average — yes, average — student has a 3.98 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) and a 26.7 ACT composite score. More than half go into engineering. Fun fact: Michigan Tech’s chemical engineering program was ranked ninth out of 150 programs nationwide, according to the school’s website.
It’s not easy to recruit players to Michigan Tech — you gotta find kids who are incredibly smart and have a desire to live on the far northwestern tip of Michigan, who love the snow and cold, and who — for the most part — want to become engineers and spend time with other engineering students.
And it’s even harder to bring in players in the portal — because many credits don’t transfer.
Also, “Come here and freeze your butt off under a mountain of snow while taking super-hard classes and a have bunch of long bus trips,” is just a hard portal pitch.
So, they gotta bring in freshmen, coach them up and hope they can put down their books long enough to play some hoops. Which is what Michigan Tech did with Marcus Tomashek, who put up 30 points against Green Bay.
“Our kids are here for school and aren't really worried about the limelight,” (Coach) Buettner said. “You're just kind of off the grid up here. If you wanted to be tweeted about and talked about every single day, this might not be the place for you, either.”
“Do any of your guys get NIL money?”
He laughed.
“The closest thing we have to NIL is some guys up here that'll take Marcus hunting and get him a buck in the fall,” he said.
And I don’t think he was joking.
Local guys Tomashek and Nordgaard help Michigan Tech upset UW-Green Bay
Picture Pun
She got the way to move me
Chairy, baby
