Book series

If you enjoy crime fiction, there are two great series of books that are set in South Bend and Notre Dame.

Ralph McInerney, who was a professor in the Department of Philosophy for 50 years, was best known among fans of mysteries for writing the Fr. Dowling books. Less well know is his Phillip and Roger Knight series, with a contemporary setting on the campus of Notre Dame. The books are light-hearted ('though almost always feature dead bodies), and focus heavily on two of the main concerns of the university, namely Catholicism and football. The Amazon.com page for these books is here.

Jeanne M. Dams, a South Bend native, writes numerous mystery series. The Hilda Johansson series is set in turn of the 20th century South Bend, where Hilda is a maid at Tippecanoe Place, home of the wealthy Studebaker family. The books are meticulously researched and give an interesting insight on how various waves of immigrants --- Irish, Polish and Swedish in particular --- interacted with one another, and helped shape the town. The Amazon.com page for these books is here.    

Potato Creek State Park

Half an hour south of Notre Dame is Potato Creek State Park,  a wonderful resource where you can camp, hike, swim, and admire a pretty lake through the trees. It costs $7 for a day pass (car plus passengers), or $9 if your license plate is out of state. More information is at the Indiana DNR website.

Photo from mlive.com.

Photo from http://friendsofpotatocreek.org/.

Photo from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMh0anZJm8M.

Fiddler's Hearth & Kennedy's kithchen

Unsurprisingly there is a strong Irish influence in South Bend. There are a few Irish pubs scattered around the town. By far the most authentic is Fiddler's Hearth on Main St., which celebrates the culture, food and drink not just of Ireland but of all the Celtic nations.

A great time to enjoy an evening at Fiddler's Hearth is one one of the many Fridays throughout the year when the local Irish band Kennedy's Kitchen are performing (photo above from their website). They play a mix of traditional Irish instrumental music, contemporary songs and well-known ballads, and are always high-energy.

Migration of the sandhill cranes

About 90 minutes south of Notre Dame, deep in rural Indiana, is the Jasper-Pulaski fish and wildlife area. For a month or so every fall and spring, the area hosts a huge population of sandhill cranes. The cranes live in northern Wisconsin, northern Michigan and southern Canada in the summer, and very sensibly winter in Florida. The Jasper-Pulaski wildlife area has for many years been a resting spot for the cranes as they make their twice-yearly migratory journey.

[Photo above by Chris Bergin, from http://chrisbergin.photoshelter.com/.] In the fall, the birds tend to stop over in Indiana between late October and late November. At the height of the migration, as many as 20,000 cranes are gathered in quite a small area. The spring migration passes Indiana usually late February to late March, but for some reason unknown to m there tend to be many fewer birds at the peak time, maybe 6,000 to 7,000.

[Photo above from meetup.com.] The best time to see the birds in just around sunset, as they return from a day's foraging. Most of them fly in to a single field (conveniently located next to a viewing platform) in the hour leasing up to sunset, and trot around socializing for a little while, before heading off to a nearby marshy area to sleep.

[Photo above by Tim Wallace, from birdzilla.com.] In the air the cranes are beautiful creatures, with long legs and wingspan, and an elegant gliding motion. On land they lumber around in a rather ungainly way. The sight, and sound, of thousands of these birds filling the twilight sky, coming in in waves from all directions, while thousands more wander around on the ground chatting, is truly awesome.

As I mentioned earlier, the best time of the year to take the nice drive through the cornfields of Indiana to the wildlife area is in the fall, but it is also well worth the effort in the spring. As a bonus, you get to see birdwatchers, too! [Photo above from http://rensselaeradventures.blogspot.com/2009/11/sandhill-cranes-at-jasper-pulaski-fish.html.]      

Notre Dame hockey

The football team gets most of the press at the university, and most of the rest is taken by men's and women's basketball, but there are a lot of other sports that are played at a high level on campus. Depending on the season, on any given day you can enjoy baseball, cross country, fencing, golf, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track and field and volleyball.

Right now, you can enjoy ice hockey at one of the nicest arenas in the sport, the Compton. The hockey team here is always in the mix for the national title, and this year is no exception. The team plays its last games at home --- the quarter finals of the Hockey East tournament --- on March 10, 11 and (if necessary 12). (Photo above from und.com, photo below from Rosetti.com, architects of the Compton).

If you are not leaving campus the instant that spring break begins, you could do far worse than enjoy an evening of first-rate athletics at the Compton. (with much more hockey and much less fighting than in the professional game!). Go Irish!    

Chickory Cafe

Chickory Cafe is a New Orleans-style coffee house in downtown South Bend. It is open very decent hours (until 9pm most day, 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays), serves great coffee and great food, including some Louisiana specialties --- Jambalaya, Gumbo and, most importantly, beignets.

There are lots of events --- concerts, trivia nights, ... --- and overall it is a lovely place to hang out to chat, read or play games (as you can see in the picture above, from Chickory's website). If you like Mardi Gras but can't get to New Orleans, it is a great spot to be on the day before Lent starts.

Amish country

Indiana is the state with the third largest Amish population in the USA; about 50,000, or 1/6 of the total US Amish, live here. Many (more than 1/3) live in LaGrange County, immediately to the east of St. Joseph County. The heart of the Amish country is the triangle spanned by the towns of Elkhart, Shipshewana and Nappanee. (Photo of Shipshewana below from in.gov)

A tour of Amish country makes for an excellent day trip from South Bend. The town of Shipshewana has many lovely craft and quilt stores (the Amish are known for their truly beautiful quilts), particularly in the Davis Mercantile center, and also has a great throwback to older American ways in Yoder's department store. Goshen also has excellent stores, particularly in the Old Bag Factory. Middlebury has good stores too, but probably its main attraction is Das Dutchman Essenhaus, the place to go for cream pies in northern Indiana.  

See here for a map (specifically here). Elkhart, the closest town on this map to Notre Dame, is about a 30 minute drive from Notre Dame.

Warning: If you visit Amish country on Sunday, you will find all stores and restaurants closed.


  

Paczki day!

South Bend historically has a large Polish population, and so the day before lent begins is not Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, but --- Paczki Day!

Paczki (roughly pronounced ``PUNCH-key'') are Polish pastries, basically big lumps of fried dough filled with deliciousness (strawberries, custard, cream, and, maybe not so delicious, but very traditional, prunes). They are typically eaten in Poland the day before the fasting of Lent season starts.

With an historically large Polish population here, South Bend is one of the small number of towns around the US (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Chicago are others) that celebrates the day before Ash Wednesday by devouring these high-calorie monsters with no regard to what they do to the heart and arteries.

Up until a few years ago, paczki were only available on the Fat Tuesday itself (or maybe on the Monday at a few places), but now quite a few places in the area have given in to demand and make pazcki up to a week before the day itself. So you can enjoy them for a Saturday brunch, and try out a few different examples without dying of sugar poisoning!

Here are a few likely spots for paczki over the next six days:

-> The Baker's Dozen --- the only true Polish bakery left in town, their paczki are quite traditional, with more emphasis on dough than filling. The other places I'll mention have somewhat "Americanized" the confection, with a greater emphasis on the filling.

-> Macri's --- an Italian bakery, and, by the way, also a great Italian Deli.

-> Cops and Donuts, Dainty Maid Precinct --- when this was just Dainty Maid, it made the best paczki in town (imho, see picture above). Recently taken over by the Clare, Michigan bakery Cops and Donuts (police owned and operated --- no joke!), I won't know until next week whether the same high standards will be maintained by the new owner.

-> Rise'n'roll --- this is the first year that Rise'n'roll, the Amish bakery, will be offering paczki, so as with Cops and Donuts, time will tell where they stack up to the competition.

The river walk

The St. Joseph river cuts through South Bend, and the turn it takes at Howard Park, close to downtown, gives the town its name. On a nice spring, summer or autumn day, there is nothing better than walking by the river, enjoying the ever-changing views of and across the water.

We are fortunate to have a well-developed river walk, that allows one to walk a more-or less unbroken 12 miles mostly right by the water. The trail starts at St. Patrick's Park, near the IN-MI state line, then goes south, eventually reaching and passing through downtown South Bend before turning east, ending up at the very lovely, and recently remodeled, complex of four parks in downtown Mishawaka: Beutter Park, Battell Park, Kamm Island Park and Central Park. Have a look at the map here to see how to follow the path.  There are plans eventually to link up with some existing trails along the river in Niles, MI, so that eventually there will be an uninterrupted 20+ mile walking and bike trail connecting Niles, South Bend and Mishawaka.

The best parts of the river walk (to me) are:

-> From IUSB (there's a parking lot near the corner of Ironwood and Pleasant Streets) to the old St. Joseph high school (right at the southwestern corner of campus); along this portion, you can walk for about 6 miles without having to cross a road, always right beside the river. The picture below is from this stretch, just by the farmer's market. The building on the far right is ND rowing's new boathouse.

-> Along Riverside Drive from Angela Blvd to Cleveland Rd, past the campus of St. Mary's; along here the views of the river are so beautiful, especially close to sunset.

-> Around and about the parks of downtown Mishawaka; there are plenty of great opportunities for decent-length loop-walks here.  

Langlab

I'm not sure what Langlab is. I may be a little too old.

Here's what I know: it is located in a (now no longer) abandoned warehouse on High St, it regularly hosts interesting, dynamic and forward-looking music groups, plays, and, more generally, "events", it is the home to the tasting room of Zen Cafe, an excellent coffee supplier run by local roasters who personally source their coffee beans using best ethical practices (see a nice review from The Observer here), and overall it is probably the most creative yet hard to define space in South Bend.

I went there last year for the first performance of the newly-created South Bend Lyric Opera. They put on La Boheme with the set scattered among the seats, the singers weaving in and out among the audience members. It was the most intimate and compelling La Boheme I have every seen.

Victorian mansions

At one time South Bend was a thriving industrial town. The Studebaker brothers started a wagon company in 1852, that moved into making cars in 1902, and until the mid-1960's Studebaker cars were among the best produced in the USA. In 1853 James Oliver founded the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, and in the 1920's this became part of a conglomerate that was a significant force in the farm equipment industry.

The manufacturing plants all started to leave South Bend in the 1960's, creating an economic depression from which the town is only just beginning to recover. But the wealthy industrialists of the 1800's and 1900's have left their marks on the town with some fabulous and distinctive late Victorian mansions.

The Studebaker mansion, Tippecanoe Place (pictured above), is now a restaurant; its a great place to dine out for a special occasion, and does  a particularly good Sunday brunch buffet. It is furnished with pieces from the late 1800's, when the Studebaker family were at their peak.

The Oliver mansion, Copshaholm (pictured above), is now owned by the Northern Indiana Center for History, and guided tours are available. It is part of a complex of buildings owned by the Center for History that combine to give one a great idea of how South Bend developed through the 1800's and 1900's. (If you are a member of SJCPL, one of the local public libraries --- see this earlier post --- you can check out a free pass to the museum!)      

The Morris Performing Arts Center

South Bend has an excellent theater, the Morris Performing Arts Center, that has a very active and varied program. Within the next couple of months, for example, the Morris will host:

---> A run of the broadway musical Once,

---> A performance by Martin Short & Steve Martin,

---> An evening with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson,

---> A performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony number 6,

and lots more besides.

The theater is a lovely place to visit. It was build in 1922, and its architecture catches much of the optimism of that era. It has had its ups and down through the years, but is right now in a definite up period, having undergone a major renovation in 1998.

As an historical aside (pictured above, from todayinndhistory.com), the Morris has a place in Notre Dame history --- in October 1940 2,500 people watched the world premiere of the movie Knute Rockne: All American, while 25,000 people gather outside to see the stars, Ronald Reagan, Pat O'Brien, Bob Hope and Kate Smith, walk the red carpet.

Downtown bookstores

Every college town has a few unique bookstores, and although South Bend can't quite complete with, say, Ann Arbor, we still have a few gems.

The Griffon, on Colfax Street, is far more than just a used bookstore. It is also a haven for those who love games --- board games (in the vein of Settlers of Catan, or Risk), role-playing games, card games, .... There is a whole floor devoted to a game room, with very active game nights on Friday nights. The proprietors know all that there is to know about gaming. Have a look at this recent article from the South Bend Tribune, written to celebrate The Griffon's 40th anniversary, to get a feel for this genuine South Bend treasure.

Idle Hours, on Michigan Street, is a small space with shelves packed to the ceiling. It defies categorization; let's just say that it is the sort of bookstore where after a stretch browsing, you always find a book that's perfect for you, but you hadn't realized you had wanted.

 

River lights

The heart of South Bend is the St. Joseph river, and there are many great activities associated with the river that I want to mention. To enjoy most of these requires warmer weather than we mostly have. Today I want to mention a recently-created river attraction that can be enjoyed in all weathers.

In the summer of 2015, the River Lights were installed along both banks of the St. Joseph near Seitz Park. This is an interactive art installations: pylons dotted with powerful LEDs that colorfully illuminate the flowing river, and change subtly as watchers move around the banks. The installation was part of South Bend's 150th anniversary celebration, but will remain indefinitely.

The lights come on half an hour before sunset, and stay on until sunrise, although the interactivity stops at midnight. The color theme varies day-by-day, some days reflecting current events (blue and gold when Notre Dame football wins a home game; recently red, white and blue on the day of a terrible terrorist attack in Paris, in solidarity with the people of France).

Pizza!

This Sunday is Superbowl day, known in my house as Pizza Day. If you plan on joining the 99% of the population who will get in a pizza pie to enjoy with the game, why not bypass the Papa John's and Dominos of the world, and go local? South Bend and environs has some really great pizza options that are unique to the area.

Everyone who lives here has a different opinion as to who locally makes the best pizza, so I should issue the warning that what follows is very much my personal view. To that point, I surveyed the class and got these responses:

Rocco's (6 votes)
Bruno's (3 votes)
Barnaby's (2 votes)
[Blaze, one of a chain (2 votes)]
Polito's (1 vote)
South Dining Hall (for its gluten-free options) (1 vote)
Silver Beach, St. Joseph MI (1 vote)
Fire and Ice, St. Joseph MI (1 vote)
[Papa John's, a chain (1 vote)]
[Fat Sully's, Denver; Giordano's, Chicago; Mama Rosa's, location unspecified --- not really in the South Bend area! (1 vote each)]


Barnaby's, on Jefferson Blvd (on the ND side of the bridge) is my favourite. It's great both for take-out and dine in, with a very atmospheric, dimly lit dining room filled with dark wooden benches. It is always packed.

Bruno's is another favourite; they have branches in various spots around town, but generally not for dine-in (just a few plastic tables at most locations).

Further afield, Pizza Transit in Niles (twenty minutes north of campus) is a real gem. They have a different ``Pizza of the month'' every month (maybe corned beef and cabbage, for March & St. Patrick's day, or turkey & stuffing for November and Thanksgiving). This month it is one of their best, French dip --- beef, onions and cheese, no sauce, au jus on the side for dipping (photo below from their website).

Other people have mentioned the famous Rocco's, a great favourite of ND alums, just south of campus, which has a more traditional Italian thin crust. My feet tell me that this is not a favourite of mine --- I haven't been there in maybe seven years. Another place worth mentioning, further afield, is Silver Beach pizza, atmospherically located in a converted railway station by Silver Beach in St. Joseph, MI, a town that will be the subject of a later post.

Happy eating!

South Bend First Fridays

The evening of the first Friday of every month is a downtown South Bend "First Friday", an evening when many local business organize special events --- live music, discount promotions, demonstrations, etc.. Events run from about 5pm to about 9pm. (Picture below from downtownsouthbend.com).

Each First Friday has a different theme. This coming Friday, February 3, the theme is "Fire and Ice", and will feature fireworks by the River Lights at 9pm, and live demonstrations of ice carving earlier in the evening. The full details are here.

The Friends of the local library runs a book sale every First Friday from 4pm to 8pm, near the main branch. There are usually great bargains on books and cds.

Visiting downtown during First Fridays is a good way to get a feel for what South Bend has to offer.

Local libraries

I've always found the idea of public libraries truly amazing. I can walk into a building packed to the rafters with book, cds and dvds, and take any I like home me, essentially for as long as I like, to read, listen, watch and otherwise enjoy. And when I'm done, I don't have them cluttering my house --- I just bring them back to the same building (and look for more more things that I might enjoy!). It really is a wonderful, civilized idea.

There are two vibrant public library systems around Notre Dame. The larger, St. Joseph County Public Library, has ten branch around South Bend, and the other, Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library, has three branches around Mishawaka and Granger.  The two main branches --- 304 South Main St. in downtown South Bend (SJCPL) and 209 Lincolnway East in downtown Mishawaka (MPHPL) are the most active.

Later this year, both library systems will get involved in the "One book, one Michiana" project, a month-long series of events built around the theme of a particular book (a different one each year; the one for this coming spring will be announced soon). Notre Dame tends to get involved in this project as well, with numerous events on campus.

To avail of the facilities of the local public library, you don't even need to leave campus to visit a branch, though. You can have an SJCPL library card made up for you at the circulation desk of the Hesburgh Library. You can then order materials online, and pick them and return them at Hesburgh. See here for details.

The South Bend Symphony

South Bend is very fortunate to have an extremely strong local orchestra, the South Bend Symphony. Each season (roughly paralleling the academic year) the symphony performs about half a dozen classical concerts and a few ``pops'' events at the 1920's Morris Performing Arts Center in downtown, some chamber music concerts at the DeBartolo, and some holiday performances (Christmas, Martin Luther King Day, 4th of July).

The strength of the orchestra is partly due to the influence of Tsung Yeh, who served as the music director for 25 years and during his tenure was passionately committed to building a first-class professional ensemble. This year is an exciting one, as Tsung Yeh has just retired and the Symphony has decided to turn the 2016-2017 season into a year-long interview for a replacement. Each of the six classical concerts is being taken on by a different candidate for the music director position.

The third of these six ``interview concerts'' happens this Saturday night at 8pm. The program includes Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Tickets for full time students are just $8! (Combined with a visit to a restaurant week eating spot, that's a great night out for not much).

South Bend Restaurant Week

When I arrived in South Bend ten years ago, there weren't too many nice restaurants in town, but that has changed dramatically --- the area is filled with lovely places to eat out, some fairly low-key, some that would stand up alongside high-end places in the bigger cities, and some in the middle. In various posts I'll be highlight some of these individually, but today I want to point out an opportunity to have a nice meal at some of the higher-end places,  without crashing the budget.

Restaurant Week happens twice a year, usually for about two weeks each time (!), and entails a dozen or so of the better places in South Bend offering a reduced-price special menu (usually a subset of the regular menu; portions aren't smaller!).

For example, you can have three courses at Cafe Navarre, housed in an historic downtown bank, or at the classic steakhouse La Salle Grill for just $33; or for $22 you can sample a variety of tapas at Tapasterie, a recent and much-welcomed addition to the downtown dining scene.

This year's Winter Restaurant week is going on now until February 5. It's a great opportunity to explore the South Bend dining scene, especially at the upper end ('though lots of casual places participate too). You can see menus here.

How to you get to downtown South Bend? Transpo, the local public transit system, will bring you there *for free* from campus!!! See here for details.

Hunter Ice Festival, Niles MI

Cold winters are a fact of life here; rather than being grumpy about it, many towns around here hold festivals to celebrate the cold!

This weekend in Niles, Michigan --- about 10 miles north of campus --- there will be the Hunter Ice Festival. Throughout Friday night and Saturday, the town will be dotted with intricate ice carvings, large and small. (The dragon below is from 2014, taken from the festival's facebook page). Although the weather is promised (quite) warm, the festival will certainly still go ahead.

There are always some ice carvers working on their creations throughout the weekend, so most likely you'll see the creative process in real time.

Niles is a lovely small town on the bank of the St. Joseph river (the same river that runs though South Bend and alongside St. Mary's College). It has a nice riverfront park (more on that in a later post), and one of the best pizzerias in the region, Pizza Transit (more on that, too, in a later post!).

South Bend Farmer's Market, and Purple Porch co-op

It's usually quite cold at the start of the spring semester, so I spend a good deal of time thinking about keeping myself warm and well-fed. There are no shortage of grocery stores in the area, but what if you want to sample local produce?

A great place to start is the South Bend Farmer's Market, a covered market open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays throughout the year, featuring local farmers, craftspeople, bakers, coffee-roasters, and much more. Saturday morning is the best time to go, especially from early February on. There's a great cafe on-site, serving seriously good breakfast food. The farmer's market is on Northside Blvd about 2 miles south of campus.

Another great option for locally produced food is the Purple Porch co-op, open every day. Anyone can shop there (not just co-op members), and a visit there will give you a great sense of the fecundity of the Northern Indiana/Southern Michigan soil. Like the farmer's market, Purple Porch has a nice cafe, serving excellent local coffee and freshly made local pastries as well as some more substantial food options. The co-op is located on Hill St about a mile and a half south of campus.