(And you believed boundless Big League contract buyouts were … boastfully big? What about this “merger” I just batted out for bartering of two of the village’s best bars; actually the owners of Kozy Korner buying Guv’s Place? And moreso then just the aforementioned-and-following baseball series buildup, is the match with the mega-Major League movie monstrosity and its moguls, if such can be used for Milwaukee-ans. So go, just five fawning paragraphs down, and check out the new-look-then-old-look Indians meet the new version).

By gosh, baseball is finally back, and the pros can be seen battling it out during a broadcasted brew-haha at the new and improved Guv’s Place on Friday night. There will also be, available, outdoor seating and all the hot dogs and brats for sale that would befit such a spectacle involving the Brewers. And with that said, all the competition, fourfold, that will be On Their Living Color TV Screen(s) are familiar, as are the food and drink are long fan favorites.
But to further the point, this is a new sheriff in town, and could be known not as Marshal Dillon but Kozy-Guv’s. Yes I said Kozy, as the Korner people a block down the way have a couple of weeks ago purchased Guv’s, they say hey, and you can write the next story in what will be an ongoing Kozy Korner sequel with them starting tonight. It says so on the Kozy sign, in parts of the village of North Hudson more southern, but walk just the lengths of two infields and make it a doubleheader?
And the obvious next question about the new sheriff in town is this, which place will prove to be the sheriff and which the deputy? You can come on down and buy a beer and thus start to cast your vote at the 7:10 p.m. starting game time for both the Twins (home) and the Brewers (away), but you can view both! They are being aired here in a simultaneous way of sorts but not of course on an actual split screen, as that technology may have to come later once the dust is settled around both home plates and the new Guv designs to be beheld.
And when was the last time a truly start anew opener-of-sorts of this magnitude was seen, in the Midwest broadly speaking? It’s ’80s baby, and it actually extends all the way to Hollywood. More on that parallel in just a bit, (and you might even see a scene on the wall!)

And we did go to the wall with this one. Ever wonder what the classic movie, if only thought of that way in Milwaukee and Cleveland, Major League, would be viewed as some decades later? Well that veritable news source considered one of the most reliable in the business, Parade magazine, you know the glossy but rag mag stuffed in your Sunday paper, that does entertainment almost as well as HudsonWiNightlife, ranked the flick as where in their top 10 of all-time baseball movies. What? Not even on the list? Guess you gotta be a Yankee, if only a Yankee doodle. So we of course at this rag will pick up the slack. The movie of course, found a reawakening of some old hand hacks and untested newcomers that moved the Cleveland Indians back to the top after years of being … the Cleveland Indians. (They are the opponent of the Minnesota Twins tonight). That being the reason I view tonight at the New Guv’s to be an opener of likewise and much like, epic proportions. For more similarities to the present day, tune in after the game tonight for a recap of sorts, which will likely take the form of yes, the form that the New Guv’s will take. But Major League will always have a major place in my heart, because when I was fairly new out of J School, I was working near the northwest Milwaukee suburbs in another rag to reference, a small daily where they worked your butt off almost around the clock — 50 hours a week was considered “overtime” but everyone wrote 49.5 hours on their time sheet every week, you get the picture — and how did I cope with being far from home and on my own and having an average of 3.2 minutes of spare time to myself every night? I went to the local theater, the only one in town, about twice a week and took in Major League. And each time around, I saw something new and erroneously not of Cleveland since the film was actually shot largely in Milwaukee. Like the Brewer scoreboard in back of a cameo by someone the likes of Pete Vuchovich doing his Gorman Thomas impersonation, both at the plate and in facial and nose hair — remember that “party favor” reference? But the reason I mention he of cut fastball and not well-cut locks, hey like me, is that since this is HudsonWiNightlife, there has to be a mention of a hottie, and definitely not Hot In Cleveland. The person to whom I refer is a lady I talked with at length after one of the showings — this always seemed to happen with a person or two when we all hung around and eyeballed the credits for other baseball references — who actually knew Vuchovich since she was from the big city and not Beaver Dam (oops, did I let my guard down down?) and pointed out a tidbit to me that only she would know and wasn’t portrayed in the film with the same accuracy as you have come to expect from HudsonWiNightlife! Yeah.

(So, before the series is completely up, go see a game at Guv’s and find your own stories to tell).

(And on Friday night, make it a tripleheader of sorts, via the Village Inn, as their Walleye, Walleye, Walleye is just right to open a new season).

The sign of the times for fighting for social distancing, and this should not need official review, is that you have to use your space even more wisely, and for sports bars packing tables like a rugby scrum and thus leaving space that hopefully offers as much room as a putting green, this is how the game will be won.
So says Minnesota’s Gov. Walz, who features a surname of hockey fame, which knows a thing or two above effective spacing. Grim, yes, maybe. So the following is where you can get your comfort bar food, before anything. And its sign in its colors and detail might rival that at Target Center, even though the Packers, and yes Vikings with an ouch, of late may not.
The Village Inn knows, as is even better then the series of political signs across the highway, at first down intervals, and not necessarily for Walz, but down in the ditch, that with the flood of similar-tone messages that have been put out as eatery ads — and we won’t even include the remnant of those other old once-a-block, small-cardboard scrims — that Their Village has been way ahead of the curve. They Hit The Street Running And Tried To Beat The Masses, like none other with getting people into their parking lot to sell their ares. And this is what they are putting on their “great big neon Broadway sign,” as thus referenced by Bon Jovi. Seeing it is halfway between looking at a magazine and a TV screen, as is unlike other marquees in the Hudson area because of its moving images such as a pizza chef at work (their favorite) and graphics, that often feature the whole plate of food you can buy, with up to four ingredients shown at a time. It even had done, earlier-than-any, the customer a service if a go-to special is for the time-being out, so they don’t have to come without reason and stretch the limits of social distancing; hey must taste fantastic to be that purchased, as it is said their chicken special has been — better to order for delivery later with one of their seven daily specials that many insist is to die for. This success has not been the case for so many other places, when taken stool by stool, table by table. But everyone has a new tale to tell on what they offer these days, why they are different from all the rest. I was schooled on this early in what-you-can-do-now-if-a-bar process, when you couldn’t be inside, by two guys from Minnesota out in the enhanced, still-give-them-what-they-need patio, and have been only the start of people who kept loving to come on over, even like those two for the first time, and partake in things like the especially well-visited both days and nights that would make KFC cry, via drive-though chicken special, (which is one of a kind as far as its prime positioning partway through the large parking lot and really accomplishing distancing), 25 for $25 wings in perfect synchronicity, open 15 hours that became 17 that became 19, walleye specials that newly corner in the market, as well as specials for taco, chicken, and sandwich and wrap (both on the screen at the same time). And the double cheeseburger special is big enough to fill the screen that makes up a sign.  The picture of the pork chop also, much like that ‘ol blues rat of the same name whose been a stage locally who hopefully soon will help us bring back the music.

It may be the primary example of how bigger is better with the way social distancing is mastered. Like everyone, at The Village Inn, there is a bar rail seating area where things can be tricky, although people not in one group of three or four but singularly seem to be adhering much more than in most venues, but it in the back area the size of a full-court-style, full basketball court, you will see something unlike anywhere else in the area because of its sheer size, with tables backed up into the far area like so many other places, but despite being larger in number, still leave more room for just floor area than almost anywhere else in the region should people want to dance or just hang out and socialize. Even then, there are more tables for use then make up the usual seating formats of this type. (These push-back-of-table patterns generally take up about a quarter of such a main room). You will, for example, see such a strategy at Milwaukee Burger as far as percentage, but they have less than half that kind of size in their primary room, which is never use for dancing, meaning a bit less unoccupied or table room. A marriage of both can be seen, by the way, in the small town of Mora in upper Minnesota, where the bowling alley has more tables then almost anywhere, which are piled back against three walls, and a portion of a fourth because the gateway between that main room and the counter and circular bar area is so small, and then the vacated dance area is still of average size. But back in North Hudson, The Viillage still somehow has it better, with the main area being closer-by once you have your drink, and also has the huge big screen TVs better positioned when the dawn of football season is here (when it comes again),
The approach is different at spread-them-out Buffalo Wild Wings, where there is a little more than six feet between any given table, in totality, on any given Sunday. At Smilin’ Moose, its again a marriage of the two with a part of broad areas set aside, although one of them can be filled with dancers on most weekends, and in other cases there is a closer-knit feel in their four rooms that form a quadrant, though there is a space in the center of the upper outdoors patio, possibly suggesting that the breezes of summer might blow away any viral germs. At Dick’s Bar and Grill, the dance floor that fills all of a central room is left all for those strutting their stuff, as believe me they do, but during dining hours — most of the day — it has been tight. The banquet area at Big Big BBQ is perhaps bigger than any of these, and they have backed a bit away from bands, but there is no word how space is divvied up, although the area may offer an advanattage since it is totally square in shape.
But when there indeed is entertainment, the example might be at the smaller than those mentioned in this article the parking lot at Hop N Barrel, which put up its a few-times-a-year huge tents, three or four shade-bearers by my count — which didn’t have the sheer sprawl of a M.A.S.H. unit but close, when its hosted a gospel group over the weekend of The Fourth. It used the space as effectively as one could, with gaps around three sides of the lot that kept the canvas from from reining in, to let in some air for the patrons and out for the sound. Following suit, the Postmark Grill doubled up on its large such awnings by — depending where you were seated — its wide but otherwide short patio, making up the difference with a double tier of such and loping cloth extending from the main building, which used to be a Post Office and now has patrons of a different pedigree.

<<For liquor stores, if that’s their whole gist, its a much different game, and this string of holidays that starts with the realm of March Madness at its midst helped give various ways to fill a niche>>
-To be American is to Go Big and also have countdown, or ups. One, two, three, four, (holidays that is), Cellar’s as a liquor store has all the numbers and sheer size to be your sum-total of each and every holiday revelry. The local “Cellars” is interestingly named since it is “up “on The Hill instead of being “down” at at your friend’s basement man cave. And unlike that place and its few couches, Cellar’s has a showroom the size of full basketball courts, as shown by the sheer number of entries both at east and north, and not Down There at your guys limited bar. But we all have changed our habits because of virus impact, so all to be viewed at his home is King James of cages-ball footage from back in the day when he got started, and Cellar’s at that time was already open, then known as Hudson Liquor. But hey, we need more than dribbling, sorry about the pun, and this is when you go to Cellar’s and can get bottles of wine for as little as $3.99! So we draw from all of these spots, their celebrations and more, as virus considerations mean things like St. Patrick’s Day revelry are compromised and have to be regaged and rescheduled for later, even much later. Which of course — and yes I am finally getting around to a point — is where the selection and pricing at Cellar’s comes to the rescue as the summer holidays continue to unfold, had already been a prime seller at their store of all things that started Irish, think enough different whiskey brands from that isle to fill a space equal to that huge freezer in your buddy’s man cave, then also Easter. (And I’ve thus went to “edit” and added this part of the content on a holiday theme for Cinco, mom and pop day, multiple motorcycle rallies and July Fourth, and believe you me their faves are very different and cross a gender gap beyond which flavor of champagne they should sip as dad, sorry to say, slinks to the end of the counter and orders all those ingredients for a Bloody from a hottie). Then Cellar’s redacted these and other offerings to fit a patriotic festival from below the Rio Grande, led by well, Rio herself and Duran Duran? And hey, tit for tat, that will carry forward to later on the Independence Day of another sort, ours. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, possibly the first time since Washington’s presidency that HudsonWiNightlife has been not only on time but before it (on an earlier presidency reference, but passing by the edit) … To that end, you can get a bottle of wine for just $3.99, for that post-Easter toast, or later for a hot summer night on the river. And to be kosher in this huge facility, there is Mogan David to boot. The people at this store have teamed up with Hop and Barrel on a far-afield trek to taste their own special brews, and pick the ones out for sale especially at their places business. And they have had the drinks of Cinco de Mayo covered too with cupboards full of brews.
— The “Casanova” himself as part of the Hudson Historic Liquors name would love it — as being the first liquor store over the border that, how should we state it, caters to various ethnicies — and as such is so Irish as to be traditional, or even rare for St. Paddie’s, is redacted to make it American for the Fourth, as in American Irish? Shelves and shelves of many brands of Irish whiskey, some with often long names I can’t even pronounce — and adding choices well beyond the Jamison everybody knows about, although to be clear there are a few of these varieties that sport flavorings and subtle color tints — and fill shelves by the dozens in a dedicated area toward the back, and having been there for months, to extend the window for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations that were cut short, to the length of a meager potato growing season of yore, regardless of the weather. Irish whiskey is usually batched in a truly original way as far as number of steps, and the window to try them in the U.S. and all over predates the days of colonization, so when the time comes, use and indulge them with patriotism in mind (that’s convenient). And as far as things go, no immigration no Irish whiskey here, no matter what your politics about bringing in people and their preferences that can include that great Hispanic and Cinco fiesta tradition, Things to be grateful for. The recipes go back almost 700 years. So get you and your taste “buds” going, and beyond just Bud and Bud Light, even those are as American as The Fourth and beyond into the pastime of a fantastic summer …
— The Northern Liquors store along Crest View Drive has been doing great business — even beyond the fact that says something that that they stock as much Kinky brand liquor as anyone — and even though its not quite going viral per se, has a big beer and liquor vault to offer that in a rectangular sense rivals the size of the entire rest of their facility. One whole side of shelving going up front near the cash register is devoted to the dozens of very dynamic varieties of different tomato-juice infused ingredients, that are brewed, distilled and yes even grown and harvested, to welcome in a Cinco summer and meaningful Bloody Mary mantra and indeed keep it going through July Fourth and further, aided by little four-packs of themed drinks, some bottled and all quaint as can be, for far less then the fingers on your hand. Again, the bar-based numbers game, and if Johnnie is not careful with the fireworks and his fingers, as stem from the old 93-X promotion, then they’d be fewer and symbolize even more of a discount … OK we won’t go there. To aid his full recovery, in the best Hispanic tradition and it as Catholicism goes, and believe me the workers there will vouch for this — simply because as Jesus said, Give he is is suffering stout drink — and then remember that Remedy of the Black Crowes thereafter, go Northern as well as Southern young man

(Before we could even consider rolling out the barrel and getting the economy via businesses opened again, things essential still were in need of want. Foremost among them — food. With ongoing record unemployment levels, it was all the more important to do things like feed your family, for cents on the dollar, so you could pay the rent or the mortgage. As part of an ongoing series of tips you won’t find anywhere else, to help you do such vital things, from the frugal/cheap German, see the fourth and fifth posts below on this page. And tell them HudsonWiNightlife sent you.)

The rollout to reopen Wisconsin’s businesses, with the bar end basically leading the way for good or bad and volume or no volume — and we’re talking not about music decibel level, but how much customer traffic comes forth and can bring risks in itself — and has been described as a virtual viral Wisconsin Wild Wild West, but in Hudson we are only talking, golly, Festus style severity, and that terming comes from the guv himself whose order was struck down to open the floodgates as right here is defined beer on tap. So it also has been characterized as slowly unfolding, mostly, with the bigger crowds in early-on-days being met with checkered weather, creating a patchwork of couple-hour busy spurts then famine, with the bar-belly-up people — and we’ll deal with that issue in a soon-coming post since the bar scene in the two-state area has been called the now defining factor in how we beat the virus — showing up at times you’d least expect in the tavern day, say really early at Guv’s Place, prior to even their well-known dart league starting. When factoring in brunch considerations and the happy hour hosting that is an independent kettle of fish; or is it, St. Croix County is just now on board to be a prime offender/originator as when its comes to partying, it’s only a couple of weeks now that the Mask People have fully appeared, and hopefully that also will keep viruses from rampaging across the border like some invisible Zebra Mussel, and this has really spurred the noticing and interest of visitors from the Milwaukee area. They spy the downtown Hudson sidewalks whether early or late, and the people interspersed between the vast number of promotional chalk signs — being from a southeast point that has been more of an incubation center.

<<Those who belly up to the bar may be the crux of a second wave, and this will be fully explored later as a popcorn-machine-meets ATM-machine crunch.>>

And some food venues have elected (purposely chosen word) that it might have been too early to open up at all, and they may have been Prophet, Priest (in the Judas sense) and King (in the Crimson and Diamond and Elvis sense). Every report you see has a far different take on the matter, largely dependent on location, location, location and the patchwork of health and what’s-allowable-where rules from different of those jurisdictions that differ widely by again, location, and can be at odds with each other. And some businesses have elected to stay the course further before fully opening their doors again, and not in any conceivable way put at-risk their customers and staff, and that decision can be driven by simple need for cash flow to start up again, and can you afford to wait it out. Here we go, local, and there are some rare but basically rich enclaves where there is simply enough money around in the mix to buy you a bit, or more than a bit, of time before you are finally forced to act. Uhm, where do you think Hudson fits in? And there you have it, another take in writing on why everything can be seen as ying or yang, this time from HudsonWiNightlife. And you think I’ll stop there? OK, some local businesses in the bar, food (broadly considered) and even salon focus have seen a full-fledged boon a couple of days ago, and some not nearly as much, and maybe that is a factor on a fast, whole-hog reopening when finally allowed, and for some not as much of a reason to rush. Part of this no doubt is the dependence on favorable weather and even on what days and even time of day it finally hits, as when there was that first warm day and timed around a three-day holiday, it looked like days or yore when magic filled the air downtown. We will ferret this out further.

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This newly contracted guru of how to chemically Keep The Country Clean and virus at bay — that’s the hand with the bottle — did the unthinkable with the other and obviously should have known better than anyone, HE SHOOK THE TRAINEE STYLIST’S HAND! A voice inside my head that said don’t look back, you can never look back, silently screamed NOOO! Where is Mr. Bill when you need him. Or maybe just Eddie, and save the fair maiden.

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So of all the oodles of tidbits that are telling about this whole reopening situation, even now that its been here, sorta, for a bit, how does this scribe who has all kinds of virus stories backing up in the stack and just can’t find the virtual space to print it all just like that, pull a rabbit out of the hat (hey, dated Easter reference) and dig up lots of newer news to keep things from getting trite? He has to act soon, we realize, as the soon-to-be second wave brings up all kinds of new contingencies, and what was old becomes new again, but will for a second go-round, majorly, require much more tweaking to work around that time snag, but that kind of redact is what HudsonWiNightlife is made for (we hope).
So what do many men of a certain age and ilk do — and we are not talking Viagra and all its counterparts, soon to be bought up by one company and create a monolopy, we are told, but not sure by whom or where. HudsonWiNightlife finally goes to the barber and gets a haircut for full throttle verification that also includes accurate scraping of the neckline, as much like bartenders, stylists know what the latest is, and most will freely share it, and even moreso if they are a female as talkative as the well-to-do ladies drying their hair.. Just check out any number of scenes in something like a Spike Lee joynt.
With that color of celluloid brought up, we must realize that how one sees that type of Protesting Light done in Hudson, until lately now when the shit-has-totally-hit-the-very-fancy-fringe factor and in this conservative white community and meant more outrage, is often: A middle-aged white guy standing outside at the curb, and not right on the edge, of his work at Accounting by St. Croix or such, semi-politely holds and wafts but not really waves a protest sign that features a watered-down paraphrase of an old Who song, while on his lunch hour. And this we must emphasize this is NOT the worker, in accounting I think, at a local drug store who lives in Oakdale and is much closer to the full force of the protests and who unwittedly inspired this admittedly very generic attempt at sarcasm. More gleaming is the sign in a vacant looking storefront in New Richmond, close to the now exploding bar scene in this now burgeoning city, on the following day, that stated the simple truth about the simply horiffic death in that simple three-word slogan. Or as my buddy would say: Horrendifying. So when the inevitable march with protest signs took place in Hudson, but was far less likely to shut down even a lane of main street then the lack of luck The Cities have had with closures of major highways, comparisons are readily apparent: To wit, the photos in the local paper showed exclusively young white women not screaming but chanting as one mass, shoulder-to-shoulder and kickin’ tha’ distancin’ thang to the curb. But as a slightly barbed counterpoint, without ever leaving the building as per Elvis, read on:
If you want something also timely and even a bit more biting, this from the pharmacist, who made the I think hilarious if not long remark when starting to work his 16-hour days, seven days a week, and said humor will get us all through, even though once he started wearing down from this grind, for the first time and then many more to come, I recall he looked very stressed and found it very difficult to laugh at our silly jokes, but here’s one that flew like, well you’ll see: I m going to talk to any of my older customers who are bearing a cough, then immediately catch a flight out while they still were being offered each night, to of all places Hawaii and their still-getting-rich hotel owners who put up a couple of cashiers as the first wave of defense, and then I’m going to let it be known that I might be one of those people they’d been fearing, and offer for the cost of a cheap domestic beer and an uhm $1,000 deposit, to go to the next place over instead to keep safety first for a few minutes and do the repeat of the same, and so on. Then by Sunday night he’d lay out plans to buy half the island. Why only half, you say, and the east half to boot? Ever hear of social distancing, mainland boardroom style? When the virus ebbs just a bit, its off on a cruise to Bermuda! Cash and carry.
The salon was now again open, but still could not shave off my mustache, much to my mother’s chagrin but my wife’s past delight, as that type of snipping can only be done in a licensed way by a barber, due to precious health concerns that existed prior to the era of the virus. Thus a good old boys network? She could at least be allowed to trim. And thus she did, prior to the ultimate botch of social distancing. In that case a man came around with a bleach bottle that was far more than could be handled by any blonde, in one hand, so what does he do with the free one? OK, get your mind out of the gutter, as this is a salon not a porno set. This newly contracted guru of how to chemically keep the virus at bay — that’s the hand with the bottle — did the unthinkable with the other and obviously should have known better than anyone, HE SHOOK THE TRAINEE STYLIST’S HAND! A voice inside my head that said don’t look back, you can never look back, silently screamed NOOO! Where is Mr. Bill when you need him. Or maybe just Eddie, and save the fair maiden.
I thought this was a hoot but still a glitch, and in the light of changing the subject matter around asked how the common good could be protected by taking the extreme lengths of cut hair that abound and can be donated to those who have little or none, when it would fall to the floor, like The Bodies Hit The Floor, and that could be literal if the virus abounds in the stray hairs. Perhaps You’ve Got Another Thing Coming, since just then stage right there was one of the many guys these days who have created a style so it could be followed, the football length beard mastered by the musician in ZZ Top of that name, then call James Hardin, and even the lead singer for Slayer of all people right before the gray caught up and they hung it up while still on top. Everyone seemed to be sporting such these days, and the ladies of the houses who might be holy will come by with a pruning sheers and say, Get Out Of My House If You Don’t Cut That Hair! And there are places she could go with that, ugg, that you don’t want to mess with.

<<We are newly open for business in the broadest sense, but that can at times exclude those ill and infirm, kids, the time challenged and nail-biters.>>

The concerns that are crucial, as we carry forth in the consummate conditions of kicking the virus to the curb, and here is a clearinghouse of the best and brightest and boldest. You can only stay as a patron for 90 minutes before it is kindly suggested that you depart, and that long trip to the bathroom will not save you. We love children, but kindly keep them at home before you come in and have your nails done, saved by a sitter who is biting the bullet and cannot partake in the same as far as the state of her nails, long getting scruffy from dealing with your Terrible Two, as in the original stay-at-home vernacular, stated with specific verbage, there were no restrictions on travel to get to some places where you would child-sit if a “nanny,” but a teen needing some “baby-sitting” dough is cut no such slack, as hey she is being proactive to get together her cash BEFORE the student loan death knell hits. Don’t Call Us Child, We’ll Call You, as if you want to order takeout at parts unknown, or at least undisclosed, you are being asked to kindly wait in the reserve seating area right inside the door, until your number is called, and that burger thus must be good. Social distancing being enforced in a gentle manner by signs of multiple variations of the famous Six-Foot, as in signs on the counter spaced about every two yards in a rounded bar-rail, (is that a contradiction in terms?), to say where you can plop yourself safely, As Perpetual And Keep The Country Clean. At Wal-Mart they right you all the way and around Six Ways From Sunday to get in just the right tack of their multiple doors, but the greeter is overtly smiley to make this bearable, or sometimes not, where luck of the virus draw kicks in or not. And then there are the signs using stick-ish figures, like you’d see on bathroom doors, spaced apart so there was no way they could hold hands, thus illustrating the point.
Decorations you can see on the dash-food-holding-area, to steer you inside for steak and such so you can order takeout, were the stock and trade of the people at Agave Kitchen and Bullpen Cantina, forming two parts of the same multi-level eatery, and showed with the cattle head that’s full-on like their food and not just the boney skull like in the Westerns … The point? Someone, and I suspect the Zoning Police, told them to Take Down Your Country Club and put the horns elsewhere. Fear not, another same-size version of that item was soon up, lower on the stick and further away from the main hub.
Wow on that first night open, a fave bartender at Starr’s was really decked out in makeup, unusual for her, hair fashioned incredibly up — and those ruby lips that would put The Eagles and Witchy Women to shame, or would they be Lipps Inc, although that dance music reference is before her time, when such tunage was first getting going. Young lovely meets Old School, (I love that phrase). Why? My idol of throwing out there a quaint reference to music lyrics, Chris Berman, was the guy who started this vehicle. I’ve tested the waters he parted by going deeper into the more obscure, as I’m sure you have noted.
Lastly, so many stores, largely in the realm of big retailers, which might make it make sense because of overall means, there are many an offering for people disabled, elderly or at-risk medically, of special shopping hours once or twice a week that are free from crowds — unless there are too many there from the disadvantaged community that the aisles have swallowed up them and any extra room. And what may such people be finding in observance of June Dairy Month, now extended into another J word(s), that being July journalism? The worship locally of Ellsworth cheese curds that abounds and is shown in such a way at Kwik-Trip with a special on both a full, near-pound package of these precious nuggets, (again mind out of the gutter), and for just a two-spot more — and that term is my word, re-enacted — you can add the butter to slather on the cheddarish curd, by cheddarish curd and keep the dairy lobby happy. And the special service, not sauce, populace time-frame served, is usually more along the line of one hour, and held in almost all cases at opening, on the days when it also can serve a business purpose for bringing in patrons at generally slow days. So everyone wins a bit, and especially the makers of Mongo-Plus-Clean-It-All products (just kidding, my wife just bought two).

• With that build-up, insert the possibility of various green teas and other such shades and strengths of ale and beyond (lots of them) that go with being an Irish Entrepreneur, and throw in two pounds of sauerkraut that can be sold at a grocery just down the highway as a family pack, respecting Erin and her bountiful precious ilk, at a price half as what is also named here as fare, that being corned beef flats to complete a cool sandwhich. This can be done with Paddy Ryan’s or purveyors who could learn a thing or two from them, and they schooled both me and my lovely Irish wife, also on now-again dining-in ways to make the overall experience way above par. So, go to it with them as we did, between 4-9 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, as new hours of opportunity (the newer Irish Catholics put it that way) under these times that call for us to be all-in with respecting social distancing, and owner Kirk himself comes on the phone message and strives to describe the degree of safety needed (go all out), complete with appropriate pauses now and then in his well-formed sentences. Think I (awkwardly?) embellished there; just check where you are routed to now, up above and even heavenward from above, and you can tell my wife and you can groan with her:

With very few entertainment options currently, read a book? Or a cookbook? During times when docs say even your local, low-grade newsprint daily, after being handled by dozens of people before it gets to you, can carry a virus much worse than an annoying stomach bug?
So what to do, when even your vaunted asparagus in the freezer could start getting a little vile, stemming from the very day the virus itself took your appetite from you and kept you from kicking your Irish up, for maybe the first March in time? Always wanted to unlock your true culinary self, and get healthy to boot, and certainly not give in to the desire to binge on ice cream during Dairy Month, and too much German chocolate cake as a dessert during its dedicated week? Whip through a Fresh and Natural store flyer, ready for your taking right when you walk in the door of what is a spacious foyer for social dining considerations, that cuts to the chase and doesn’t give you loads of of unnecessary verbage to sift through. After all, these days we seem to be having more and more constraints on our time, and at Fresh and Natural there’s a store design that smacks of functionality, not being a monument for some architects to themselves. The aisles are well arranged, little wasted space, although social distancing will always be respected here, and unlike the big box stores you don’t have to cover an area the size of a football field to pick up what you need. And the food is healthy for all sorts of reasons, and today more than ever we all need to be watchguards of that for ourselves on various fronts, and its great to get a little help to steer you the right way, and that also includes but is not limited to the Stairmaster, if you are going stir crazy.
So when did all this extra need get going?
Just a wee bit ago on St. Patrick’s Day proper, and quickly into the early evening, reams of stores of all types were told they must shut down pronto, as in the usual start of places having half-price appetizers. (See an inside column for a coming out and/or going away party, using an “arrangement” that’s not half bad. Across departments there are many more tips to not only entertain, we hope, but be recipe and cost-cutting bonanzas for all different ethnic varieties of food). So why not get much healthier food to boot, and at the same time take an absolute, total pass for that day on the chance to unveil your Irish? Go home and go to bed before any of the cool Irish musicians even start setting up their stages, for naught. Your full 24 hours of Erin simply has to wait for another day and might be quite off into the future. So how did and does the green go forward from here and triumph?
It thus starts with food, and enter the picture the Fresh and Natural locations in Hudson and Shoreview. Like birthday parties that become lengthy observances, like a virtual fulltime job, and I know this from some friends who seriously do want it to be all that, things extend with regular ongoing celebrations in what becomes an — official they’ll tell you — bonafide birthday month. The Irish emulate that when their favorite holiday is on a Monday and thus into Tuesday morning, and St. Patrick’s Day actually starts for them with corned beef and cabbage — or a host of lesser hyped meals that I myself will hype in a minute via Fresh and Natural — on the previous Thursday or early Friday for sure, with dinner, lunch or even breakfast, (and yes Virginia, of the dozens of intriguing Irish eats you can easily make yourself, there are even quite a few for when you rise in the morning and need a boost to hit the very ground running as to dodge all those newly enabled leprechauns who don’t ever seem to be more than knee-high. Plenty more such yarns of leprechauns acting up in future posts).
Local nightclubs have followed suit with their St. Patrick’s Day revisited drink specials, hardly any need to dig into your pockets for anything but a wee bit of change on your dollar — and each and every O’Donnell loves that — where even the most stout beer cost is slashed on the 17th of each and every month. So everyone is Irish an additional 12 days a year. And add another such food date when Paddy Ryan’s, not far down the highway from Fresh and Natural, pulls out all the stops not only in March, but also exactly six months later for a half-St. Patrick’s Day. And the food is bountiful, never a “half paddy.”

<<And if you can’t tell just why you couldn’t make it then, and now to finally cut to the chase of cheddar and chowder for chow, here’s how that Fresh and Natural flyer saved that day, through extending the window to the time it will need a bug screen, and then be by all means Irish.>>
— Colcannon is a long-back traditional dish made with mashed potatoes and cabbage, milk and butter, and sometimes with leeks and bacon added for flavor and just for fun, or a primer for cooks who shop then chop for a veganized version. It is called just as delicious as the meatier version above, including the middle two items of the six, which is expected to be central to cooking plans for June Dairy Month. And come that time, you can even find a whole boatload of filed-card recipes range of things, some of which I had not heard of before, and smack dab in the middle of that in a veritable laundry list of how you can use the aforementioned leeks. But as far as the colcannon, the whole recipe is featured in the March version of the Fresh and Natural newsletter, and even now that its summer there is the option of 10 percent off on certain days — which could get you an extra quaff of kiefer (a full quart?) Colcannon is said to make great comfort food, now and later. Options are to use tempeh bacon, and coconut butter for a creamy consistency, according to Fresh and Natural, for a great plant based dish.
— Now is the time for homemade sauerkraut with garlic dill, as the Irish meet the Germans — they had their food week too — as my family used to say and ponder. Not only is it called nice and easy, it is filled with probiotics, which are vital to keeping everyone’s bodies healthy, as the immune system is in our gut, and healthy bacteria from those probiotics is an aid to keep the good flora of bacteria in the stomach area at a good count. Uhm, probiotics in the form of pills? It’s also beneficial to add them to diet in the form of fermented foods. Homemade sauerkraut keeps well in the fridge for a few months. Add it to salads as a tangy topper, (and then can do without too much cheese, or heavy sauces), or use it in various sandwiches (don’t rely, again, too heavily on cold cuts).

At Fresh and Natural, assorted ice teas based on green bring on-board raspberry in healthy recipe and also cool style, to pair with so many others, and rest assured its indeed organic and dairy free, (HudsonWiNightLife uses two different verbal enhancers).