Building community in unlikely places

Mindful Metropolis, May issue

Sheet cake and punch. The Star Spangled Banner playing from a soldier’s iPod, and a 10-minute speech by a colonel from Fort Benning, Ga., who no one had ever heard of, using words that sounded like they were ripped right out of Donald Rumsfeld’s playbook.

That’s how the United States Army honored nearly 200 soldiers — my sister’s boyfriend among them — at a going away party last month on a base in rural Wisconsin. They were then shipped off to Iraq for 12 months of mop-up duty in a supposedly clean war gone dirty…a war that our President and the national media tell us will end soon.

Waiting in the line for sheet cake after the speech (it ran out before everyone got a piece), I watched a young mother place her baby into the father’s arms, while a look of disbelief on his face may have suggested that he was more prepared to clear a road of Improvised Explosive Devices than he was for this. The infant’s soft cheeks rubbing against camouflage green.

A war tears apart communities, both in the country where the bombs fall and the tanks leave their treads, and also at home, where the soldiers leave behind jobs, families and newborn babies, for months, years, sometimes lifetimes. There’s nothing new about that observation. Wars have been tearing apart communities since long before gunpowder was invented.

What has surprised me during this family crisis of ours is how my sister has found community in the most unlikely of places. Let me explain. We are progressives, my sister, my parents, and I. We prefer decisions that are based on sound, rational thinking, not emotion and fear. We favor independent thoughts rather than automatically repeating what a government, military or church has told us to believe. And so we opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and those who perpetrated the war. But rather than seek out and engage the flag-waving, pro-war crowd, we usually avoided them, out of anger, resentment and humiliation over our government’s actions.

Suddenly my sister found herself falling in love with a Minnesota boy in the Army Reserves. Like her, he is progressive, rational, independent, caring and beautiful. (He also idolizes Bob Dylan playing an acoustic guitar.) Yet he made a Faustian bargain with the military, prior to 9/11, in order to pay for college. He served a 13-month deployment in Iraq early in the war, emerged unscathed, and that was supposed to be it. But last summer he received stop-loss orders from the Pentagon, sending him back to the Middle East days after his contract was to have expired.

My sister is now an army wife (though she doesn’t yet have a ring on her finger) and spends two Sunday evenings a month with other women in the Twin Cities who have also been deprived of a partner for the next year. They cook meals together, share stories, watch the Lifetime series “Army Wives,” and try to laugh. She’s grateful for their companionship and maintains that these women understand her situation in a way that our parents, her best friend and I never will, even though she hasn’t known them long. Yet she admits that she never would have sought out these confidants had it not been for her boyfriend’s deployment. And she doesn’t know if she’ll remain close with them once he comes home.

In troubled times like these, it seems many of us seek community in unlikely places. Take an April 9 New York Times story, for example, about homeless Americans banding together, or seeking help from advocacy groups like Take Back the Land to re-claim and occupy foreclosed, vacant homes.

The inaugural issue of this publication is itself the result of a community teaming up to dig a valuable and trusted local magazine out of the ashes after it was torched by a corporate media baron far from Chicago, and will need community support if it’s to survive.

Before this painful recession ends, we may all join new communities in unlikely places. It might be with a group of army wives. It might be at a food pantry or a bread line. Or, it might even be helping a homeless family break into an empty, foreclosed home.

Jacob Wheeler is a former assistant editor at In These Times magazine.

Flambeau River’s Pilot Biomass Plant Turns White to Green

Apollo News Service

When Smart Paper, the local paper mill in Park Falls, Wisconsin, shut down in February 2006 more than 300 workers in a town of just 2,700 found themselves without jobs. The mill was Park Falls’ largest employer, but the rising cost of natural gas forced it to go bankrupt like countless other mills dying nationwide.

Six months later, Butch Johnson, a visionary entrepreneur who had attended grade school in Park Falls, re-opened the mill under the name Flambeau River Papers. Johnson rehired 70 percent of the laid off workers, and he honored their union wages, benefits and seniority. The CellMark Group, a $2.5 billion Swedish conglomerate and one of the largest paper distributors in the United States, provided capital and supplies pulp.

“In the 25 years I’ve been here we’ve had five different owners of the mill — very hard people to deal with,” says Shawn Morgan a third-generation mill worker and vice president of the local union. “But we hammered out a contract agreement with Butch while leaning over the back of a pickup truck in the parking lot.”

“One third of the town’s population was in big trouble,” he added. “Everyone I knew was set to leave town and do something else. What happened was a small miracle.”

Flambeau River Papers continues to provide paper for commercial printers and sheet or envelope converters - some converters buy Flambeau’s paper rolls to make sheets of various sizes or envelopes - within a 600-mile radius in the Midwest. But its biomass pilot project to turn wood scraps into steam to power the paper mill and diesel fuel for the market is drawing the most attention.

Toward A Fossil Fuel-Free Mill

Gasifying wood to make energy could mean the difference between life and death for an ailing paper mill industry in the 21st century. Flambeau River BioFuels Company will be built near the existing paper mill and produce excess steam, which the company will sell to the nearby paper mill.

“Butch’s vision was to make the mill fossil fuel-free,” says Flambeau River President and Chief Operating Officer Robert Byrne. “Once the plant is in place, we can sell steam to the paper mill next door and isolate it from increases in the price of fuel.”

The biomass venture, which Byrne hopes will be operational sometime in 2010 following a pilot run this July, will produce 2,200 gallons of diesel fuel and 2,800 gallons of wax per day from 1,000 bone-dry tons of wood coming from a 75-mile radius around Park Falls in lumber-rich northern Wisconsin. Much of the wood comes tree tops, branches, and sawmill waste with no other marketable value. A small amount of chemicals such as pheramine will be added during the process, and an oxygen removal plant will produce steam for the paper mill.

“We’ll create a market for wood that doesn’t currently have a market,” says Byrne.

The technology for the biomass project already exists. But funding it presents a larger hurdle. Byrne admits that without grants, state and federal stimulus money, projects like these would never get off the ground.

Ben Thorp, an expert on biofuels who has published over 200 articles on the subject, says that the process of producing synthetic fuel through gasification has numerous historical precedents: South Africa did this when it was deprived of foreign oil because of international sanctions related to Apartheid, and during World War II Germany converted coal to liquid fuel when Allied bombing deprived it of oil.

“The current hurdle [for Flambeau River Papers] is one of capital because of the low price of oil,” says Thorp. “These plants are more expensive than making fuel out of oil. As long as oil remains at $40 or $50 a barrel, you’ll need assistance to make it work. You can’t just wait for the price of oil to reach $100 a barrel.”

Federal Assistance For A Biomass Project

So far, Flambeau has received help in the form of an earmark from Wisconsin Democratic Congressman Dave Obey and $1.9 million from the U.S. Forest Service to develop biofuels. The Department of Energy will deliver another $30 million this summer once pilot testing begins, and President Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act could free up even more capital.

Flambeau River Papers directly employs 315 workers in Park Falls, 254 of which are members of the United Steelworkers. A wood chip facility on site also employs 15, and Flambeau subcontracts to a copy-paper converter plant that employs 20. Another venture that will make industrial pellets to replace coal will eventually employ another 10 workers.

The average worker at Flambeau makes $18.85 an hour, and some make as much as $22. Employees enjoy full health insurance coverage. The company boasts an older workforce, with an average age in the late 40s. Many, like Shawn Morgan, followed in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers to work in the paper mill.

If Flambeau River Papers can secure enough funding for its biomass project, it will virtually eliminate the mill’s need for fossil fuels to generate electricity, and more importantly pave the way forward for an ailing paper mill industry.

“There are 100 paper mills in the United States, and their industry in decline,” says COO Robert Byrne. “But the paper industry is organized and used to receiving wood. This would be a natural extension for entire paper industry.”

Jacob Wheeler contributes to the Apollo Alliance from Chicago, where he lives and writes.

Pintxos and tapas in Lincoln Park

CenterStageChicago.net

Café Ba-Ba-Reeba was Chicago’s first Spanish-style tapas bar when it opened in 1986, and this Lincoln Park hot spot (with a sister location in Las Vegas) is still ahead of the curve. Start your evening with Ba-Ba-Reeba’s new Pintxo platter — six double-bite-size tapas for $8.95 or $1.50 each. Pintxos are all the rage these days in northern Spain, from the Basque country to Barcelona, and are perfect for a light meal to supplement your drinking. Make sure you get dibs on the Goat Cheese Croqueta and the Short Rib Stuffed Piquillo Pepper.

You may have to wait for a table on a weekend night, but hold court with a tasty pitcher of sangria — Chef Gabino Sotelino’s original family recipe from Galicia — especially if you order the Paella ($10-$13), which takes half an hour to prepare. The extensive tapas menu lets you nibble between four categories: vegetables & cheese, chicken & pork, beef & lamb and seafood. The most popular choices in each category are highlighted on the menu. Don’t miss the spinach & manchego stuffed mushrooms with creamy side sauce or the beef tenderloin served with potato chips and blue cheese. Ba-Ba-Reeba’s tapas range in price from $3.50 to $11, so your evening can range from inexpensive to a splurge depending on how much you nibble.

Ba-Ba-Reeba also offers wine values on Tuesdays (all tapas have a partner in the wine family) and occasional cultural events from flamenco shows to paella cooking classes to Spanish art presentations by the Art Institute of Chicago.


The Poison Cup

Owners Erica Feldkamp and John Witte hope to make good wine accessible to everyone, regardless of their income or social status. “We want to provide a source of education where people can come in and fall in love with wine,” says John. Their Lincoln Park wine and art gallery, the Poison Cup, offers bottles for as little as $13 and as fine as a 2006 Paso Robles by Justin Isosceles for $70. Despite the delectable combo of wine and art, with European cheeses and chocolate added into the mix (and maybe olive oil too), this place isn’t pretentious. Take note of the Schwinn bicycle parked in the corner that John uses to get around the neighborhood.

Currently adorning the walls at the Poison Cup are paintings by Czech transplant Marketa Sivek, who has a gallery in Wicker Park’s Flat Iron Arts Building. Sivek’s deep reds go perfectly with a rich Merlot. Erica and John will rotate artists every few months on a consignment basis and may host occasional readings or rent out their intimate space — a flower shop until this winter — for rehearsal dinners.


The CrossRoads Bar & Grill

The Crossroads may resemble a typical sports bar, but the inspiration behind this new drinking hole in the west loop — and the muse for the haunting painting behind the bar — is an age-old tale of temptation and fate, sin, music and booze. For all their chatter on the menu about the devil’s guitar, whiskey and dusty roads outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi, the owners ought to introduce live music in this joint — especially if it involves an old man with dirty britches and a banjo.

The beverages are appropriately listed as “libations” — this is a house of sin after all. Dark brews ($3-$5) include Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Trumer Pils, Three Floyds and Young’s Chocolate Stout on draft and Abita Turbo Dog, Bells 2-Hearted Ale, Dogfish Head IPA, Fat Tire, Mississippi Mud and Shiner Bock in bottles. If you’re feeling creatively sinful, try one of their cross-drafts: the Black & Blue (Guinness and Blue Moon), the Snakebite (Guinness and Woodchuck Cider) or the Jimi (Young’s Chocolate Stout and Purple Haze). The Crossroads offers bar food too, with a southern twist. Get greasy with the Barbecued Pulled Pork Sandwich ($11) or try the Pan Fried Catfish with Bacon and Caper Sauce ($18).


Orange

Chicagoans are so into “frushi” that the breakfast-lunch joint Orange has opened another location in Lincoln Park (to go with Roscoe Village, Lakeview and the South Loop). Orange’s signature starter, Frushi, features seasonal fresh fruit rolled like sushi with fruit juice-infused rice. The first serving will set you back $2.50, and each additional helping costs only $1.50. Who knew that sushi could be so high in vitamins?

From there, move onto the more traditional breakfast items such as pancakes — though beware, these aren’t your grandma’s flapjacks. Orange offers jelly doughnut pancakes, cinnamon roll pancakes or four stacks of silver dollar pancakes with a new tasty theme every week ($6-$11). The $8.95 omelets also add a new twist to a common recipe. Try the roasted ham and caramelized pineapple omelet with coconut flakes, or forage for these agricultural delights: asparagus & forest mushrooms with dry-aged jack cheese, or bacon, sweet leaks and creamy brie cheese. Wash it all down with Orange’s yummy, creative fresh-squeezed juices. You could add cucumber and carrot to your orange and grapefruit. How about celery with your pineapple? Who says you can’t compare apples to oranges?


Terragusto on Armitage

Terragusto, the authentic Italian food joint in Roscoe Village must be good because Chef Theo Gilbert just opened a new location in Lincoln Park for overflow seating. There are no signs on the door and no valet parkers out front, so memorize the address before you leave home. All dishes feature organic, sustainable and local ingredients, and the pasta is made by hand every day. So local, in fact, that you might see a farmer walk right past your table, en route to the kitchen with his bounty. Theo changes the menu every month … no matter how much you love the bolognesa (he’s phasing that out until the winter).

Terragusto means “savor the earth” in Italian, and here you’ll taste the true flavor of the meat and fish — no special sauces on top, just a drizzle of olive oil. You’ll also find unique dishes from the homeland that are unavailable almost anywhere else in the New World (except maybe New York City), such as the “sformato,” a warm vegetable custard topping.

Start with an Antipasta salad for $9.50. If you’re into veggies, try the Crostini, Baked Polenta or Antipasta Misti for $12. If there’s a frigid wind blowing off the lake, treat yourself to the stuffed pastas including Ravioli or Gnocchi for $17. Terragusto features organic, free-range chicken from Gunthorp Farms and all-natural beef. Having trouble deciding what to eat? Everyone at your table can order the traditional four-course Italian meal for $37.50 per head. Wash it all down with great, yet affordable wine for $4 a glass or a host of bottles for $30.


Shine

Shine (formerly called Shine Morida) has moved from its old location near the Metra stop at Armitage and Fremont, where it spent 17 years, to the corner of Halsted and Webster. That’s great news for DePaul students and Lincoln Park residents who want sushi and noodles for less-than-purse-busting prices. Shine still separates its menu into mainland Asian and Japanese fare, stir-fried meat and grilled meat, hot appetizers and cold appetizers, cooked fish and raw fish. Just don’t be intimidated by the choices. Navigating this itemized ethnic cuisine should be easy.

Splurge on the Hong Kong Steak served with eggplant and crispy wonton strips or the Yaki Niku “Kalbi” marinated in a sweet Korean barbecue sauce for $24. The Glazed Salmon fillet served with mushrooms and pine nuts in a miso-soy sauce ($20) is also delicious. Or dive into the plentiful Stir Fry options: the Spicy Kung Pao or General Tso’s is well-known, but try the Crispy Asparagus or Orange Sauce dish. The Stir Fry costs between $11 and $18, depending on whether you fancy, tofu, chicken, beef or shrimp. Put it on the card, undergrads: Daddy will hardly notice.

If you fancy fresh fish in your catch, walk to the sushi bar in the third room from the door, under the red umbrella. The signature rolls range in price from $9 to $14 and feature such globetrotting options as the Mexican Maki (cilantro, lime, avocado and jalapeno) and the Hawaii Maki (cream cheese, avocado and macadamia nuts). The wait staff recommends the Shine Maki (crispy shrimp, cucumber, baby tuna) and the Honey Roll (white tuna, cucumber and sesame honey sauce). Great for sharing , so bring a group.


Blarney Stone

The best time to hit up this patriotic Irish tavern, a couple blocks from Wrigley Field, may be when the Cubbies are NOT in town. That’s when you can take advantage of the free billiards (Monday-Thursday on non-game days) and gluttonous specials like $1 shots and, depending on the day, hot dogs, nachos or burgers for a single Washington greenback (kitchen’s open until half an hour before the doors close). Margot Krystof has owned Blarney Stone for 39 years, and her son Gerald (a proud Marine Corp vet) now manages the place. The bar features two rooms outfitted in dark wood, plenty of TV’s, a foosball table and darts, and sexy green women’s tank tops (small sizes only) sold for $10. So there’s no reason to base your mood solely on how the Lovable Losers faired today.

Pints of beer cost $4 or $5, but on the right night you can buy an entire pitcher for $6-$10. Jameson and other Irish whiskeys may be yours for only $3 if the bartender sees you saluting the portrait of JFK or praying before the picture of Pope John Paul. God-fearing Catholics and Notre Dame fans are always welcome here. Bring your cash. Blarney Stone has made it a mission to help relieve America of its credit card debt. No plastic is accepted here.


Fina Estampa

What may feel like a hole-in-the-wall diner at first could become your portal to the Andes if you block out the drab interior and a TV playing melodramatic telenovelas and focus instead on the llama tapestry hanging on the wall or the posters of colonial Trujillo and the ruins of Machu Picchu. Ricardo and Claudia moved in last fall and replaced the Ecuadoran “Mr. Pollo” and its rotisserie oven. But the chicken didn’t cross the road.

Fina Estampa still serves a whole head of rotisserie chicken (pollo a la brasa) with fries and a salad for $15 (Ricardo claims he’s the only guy in town who sells it for that price). Or, if you’re on a budget, order half a chicken for $9 or a quarter bird for $6. Other typical Peruvian dishes include the sautéed beef or chicken with cream for $9-11. Start things off with a Tamale served with a healthy portion of red onions, a black olive, and super spice sauce ($4.50) to keep you warm through those Andean highland (or blustery Chicago) nights. Then splurge on the Tilapia Ceviche served with Peruvian Chillies and corn, the fried bread calamari and shrimp, or Tilapia with Criole salsa for $12.50-13.50.


Pueblito Viejo

This bustling Columbia hotspot in the Lincolnwood neighborhood feels like a cross between a Jimmy Buffet-themed bar in the Florida Keys and a vibrant Latino family reunion. And why not, Pueblito Viejo has been so popular since it opened in 1994 that owner Gonzalo Rodriguez opened another location in Miami in 2003. Everyone seems to know each other, and so it matters not that the plastic canopy and fake floral arrangements hanging from the low ceiling obscure your view. Oldies are all the rage here, though less “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and more salsa, meringue, and anything ever sung by Shakira. Test out your Spanish before you arrive, porque aquí se habla español.

Enjoy classic Latin fares, from regional specialties such as pork or fried steak to appetizers like patacones and arepas. Be forewarned about the heavy crowds and noisy atmosphere.


Señor Pan

Unwilling to risk traveling to Cuba and running afoul of the United States government’s noose-around-the-neck embargo? No worries: you can taste some of the fruits of the forbidden island in deep Logan Square, where the delicious Sandwich Cubano is served hot off the press and the tasty milkshakes include exotic Caribbean fruit such as Guayaba, Guanabana and Mango.

Señor Pan, which opened in May 2008, offers very reasonable prices, and Faisal has included his mother’s recipes on the menu (she still lives in Guantanamera, Cuba and runs a tienda out of her home). You’ll pay no more than $7 for a sandwich or $13 for the family-size Señor Pan Especial. Add a side order — the ham croquettes, plantain chips with garlic sauce or Cuban tamales cost between $2.50 and $3.50 —or treat yourself to a flan or guava and cheese pastry ($1.50-$2.75) for dessert. Señor Pan closes early (7 p.m. on most days, 5 on Sundays), but for an early dinner, feast on the Bandeja Señor Pan sampler plate ($12.95) or one of the beef, pork or chicken platos for $9. No liquor is served here, but bring a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer.

The smokestacks in the distance may suggest industrial Logan Square, but the photos inside Señor Pan of the seaside malecón and vintage automobiles rolling through Havana Vieja will warm you up. Come early in the morning for your Café Cubano and talk beisbol with the neighborhood viejitos, or stop by on Sundays and enjoy the live Latin jazz or Cuban bolero folk music. Faisal offers wireless Internet access. He hopes to bring in artists and build a patio in front of the restaurant as the weather warms.