Patrick Jacobs

Some pink or no pink? It’s a question on the lips of thousands of smiling Red Robin servers across the USA and Canada. They’re asking if you want your burger cooked either medium or medium-well, but the question is evocative of something that might float through the mind of a fine artist at work. A dab of orange here perhaps, a few splashes of green there, tough to decide on the pink. It’s actually an oddly appropriate connection to make. Red Robin restaurants are like the pop art movement of the ’60s, taking a mundane everyday concept, the burger chain, and presenting it in a cartoonish, somewhat ironic and ultimately appealing way.

Some years, I tend to get a little extravagant around Christmastime and end up spending pretty much my every last dime. I like to give gifts that people might actually remember and use, and I enjoy going out for nice dinners and festive nights on the town. These things are never cheap, and this year was no exception. Now that the yuletide cheer has faded, my bank account is as empty as my cup of hot buttered rum at bedtime on Christmas Eve.

I spent many hours at 24-hour diners in my late teens and early 20s, drinking oceans of coffee, chain smoking and filling notebooks with pretentious poetry. At the time, they were pretty much the only places for the under-21 crowd to meet and socialize without pesky parental units leering over their shoulders. Our circle of friends started out at Perkins, where we regularly annoyed the waitresses by acting like it was our living room and never buying anything more than a bottomless cup of joe and a large order of fries with a side of ranch dressing. When the management finally got fed up and threw us out for good, we relocated to Denny’s, where they seemed much more receptive to our chaos and where we would see a preview of our future selves; hungry post-bar drunks not quite ready to let the night come to a graceful end.

In the modern era of amazing interwebs and electronic thingyboxes, it’s no big deal for local musicians to commit their songs to history and promote their gigs. For both amateurs and professionals, it’s as easy as downloading some recording software and using social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook to get the word out about the undeniable brilliance of your musical endeavors and make a bit of noise on the Spokane-North Idaho music scene.

“Well, I sent you a tie clasp, but that was last July … you ain’t never cut a record and you ain’t no friend of mine.” As soon as the words had slipped through my lips, I realized they somehow seemed a little bit off. My attempt at Elvis’ “Hound Dog” had been sabotaged by the sad handiwork of some random karaoke transcriptionist who obviously had never fully mastered the English language.

I always enjoy Greek restaurants, but I think the thing that magnetizes me back to them again and again is the dessert. The rest of the meal is just going through the motions, leading up to the grand finale of the rich, honey glazed pastry known as baklava that manages to send both my taste buds and my very soul into a state of bliss. I’ve yet to cross paths with a hunk of baklava that has fallen anywhere short of scrumptious. If it weren’t for fear of questionable looks from dining partners and restaurant staff, my Greek lunch would include a baklava hors d’oeuvre, baklava for the main course, and baklava for dessert, naturally.

I can’t recall exactly who, but every Thanksgiving, in the hazy afterglow of a full Turkey Day meal, one of my relatives says it. “Tryptophan must be short for ‘trip the light fantastic.’ ” It’s true; the land is always dotted with houses full of post-meal dopers, passed out from the effects of the serotonin-inducing enzyme lurking in tender, juicy slices of festive holiday poultry. It’s certainly not an unpleasant feeling, and it seems to do the trick even better than expensive prescription pills like Ambien. The tryptophan in turkey is for the most part nonhabit forming, won’t cause next-day headaches or thoughts of suicide, and of course, it’s all natural.

In the past 10 years, the Post Falls area has seen an amazing burst of growth, doubling from a mere suburb into a super-mega-suburb. Some have said that while it certainly is a fine and beautiful town, it basically lacks a gimmick, a solid pawn in the local tourist game like a cutesy, walkable shopping district where Interstate 90 travelers can park their Airstream campers and stretch their chubby little legs before retiring to the dreamland of the Wal-Mart parking lot.

This most recent election season in Coeur d’Alene seemed to bring out a lot of passion in supporters of both the incumbents and challengers in the race for mayor and City Council. While I admire those who choose get involved in such a crazy kind of circus, I find it somewhat odd that a restaurant would choose to forgo neutrality and boldly display signs in support of their preferred candidates.

It was uncanny how much this paper Chinese zodiac placemat knew about my personality. The tiny red print below an illustration of a rat, my animal sign, read “You are ambitious yet honest. Prone to spend freely. Seldom make lasting friendships.” I have a few longtime pals who might disagree with the latter notion, but maybe it’s true at least with horses, who according to the zodiac are supposed to be my arch-enemies. However, my ambitions are many and honesty is my only policy, frequently to the point of being savagely blunt. Likewise, when it comes to dining out, I frequently go through dollars faster than the People’s Republic of China goes through oolong tea.

Goths everywhere may still argue whether Bela Lugosi is indeed dead, or possibly undead, but certainly the man who originally brought Count Dracula to theater audiences way back when will be there in spirit when the Lake City Playhouse stages “Dracula” starting Thursday. Director Rebecca McNeil opens the new season at the much-beloved Coeur d’Alene institution with a “dark, somewhat depressive, and certainly unsettling” adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel just in time for Halloween.

The concept of the Mongolian BBQ is a bit of a fuzzy sham, albeit a delicious one. Turns out the basic idea actually originated in Taiwan within the last 30 or so years and is far closer to Japanese-style “teppanyaki” cooking than the dried camel jerky and yak dumplings popular among the nomads of Mongolia. The back story perpetuated by many of these types of eateries is that the soldiers of the ancient Mongol Empire went hunting for meat, overturned their massive shields above a bonfire and cooked dinner in them using their mighty swords to stir-fry whatever they could kill that day, presumably along with whatever vegetables happened to miraculously be in season during the continuous freezing-cold weather.

Various forms of bread have been a staple in the diet of virtually every culture since man first decided to smear lizard jelly across a chewy hunk of unleavened barley flat cake during the new Stone Age. Over the years, the act of mixing ground-up grains and water with whatever else is handy has resulted in countless varieties, from Persian lavash and Ethiopian injera to Mexican tortillas and North American johnnycakes. Egyptians were the first to add yeast to the mix, and it has often been speculated that Cleopatra herself used to accompany her vessels of Star of Horus wine with mashed-up balls of Wonder bread.

A late summer foray to Seattle is always an easy, pleasurable road trip, just a relatively quick drive through the channeled scablands and over the North Cascades. I recently took the timeless advice of The Village People and decided to “Go West” for a weekend reunion with some old friends and to enjoy the city’s unique shopping, dining and nightlife. Naturally, the much larger population and greater cultural diversity make for some dining and drinking adventures which simply don’t occur here in North Idaho. I hadn’t been in town more than an hour and my Seattle friend and I were already headed to 23rd and Jefferson for a much-needed fix of Ezell’s famous fried chicken.

Coeur d’Alene’s hottest R&B/funk/soul act is without a doubt Jesi B. and the All Rites. Led by singer Jesi Gaboury, the all-original quartet has been causing outbursts of spontaneous grooving among local audiences since forming in 2007. Over the past summer, they were a must-see highlight at several music festivals at O’Shay’s Irish Pub and successfully made some rumblings in the finicky Spokane scene as well. Their gig this coming Friday at the Coeur d’Alene Brewing Co., located at 2nd Street and Lakeside Avenue, should be entertainingly uproarious as ever.

When most people think of the food at their local Olive Garden, weight loss probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. My stepfather likes to tell an amazing story about how he once lost over 80 pounds by eating both lunch and dinner at the ubiquitous Italian-American eatery every day for six months. Quite a few years ago, he was single and living in Everett in a place located a quick walk away from an Olive Garden restaurant. Normally he’s a pretty fit guy, but he had managed to pack on some extra pounds, and his cash flow situation was looking tight. He found the perfect solution to both problems with the all-you-can-eat soup and salad special, which provided him with two low-calorie, filling and affordable meals a day.

To some folks, Athol is known for its funny name and as a stoplight one must endure whilst traveling between Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint. Personally, it has a place in my heart for hosting the wonderful Country Boy Cafe, home of the most incredible chicken fried steak, and biscuits and gravy in the Idaho Panhandle.

Sizzling strips of smoky, crispy bacon. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t love it madly. Bacon is the great uniter of the food world, something everyone can agree upon from backwoods hash house cooks to “Top Chef Masters” winners. It’s been known to make even the most devoted vegans fantasize and reconsider.

It seems like summer appeared and disappeared faster than a cold pint of ale on a Friday afternoon. We’re already less than a week away from Labor Day, and it’s all downhill after that. Soon trees will decide to dye their lush, green, Manic Panic locks a more sensible Lady Clairol auburn but sadly, the overprocessing will ultimately leave them bald. Beaches will clear of all but the most hardcore sunbathers, ice cream trucks will begin their winter thaw, and a bountiful season of outdoor music will come to an end.

The only purple hair we expected to see walking into the place was on the heads of Kellogg’s many lovely grannies. So we were mildly bewildered when we slipped out of the torrential summer rain and into the Sunshine Inn to be greeted by a smiling young waitress with shoulder-length vibrant violet locks and rocker girl gear. Her soundtrack was the corny, fist-pumping grunge of Puddle of Mudd’s “She Hates Me,” which blared at a delightfully disruptive volume from the open passageway that separates the dining room from the chaos of the attached lounge. “Anywhere you like, guys!” she hollered over the music and the outbursts of laughter emanating from the just-off-work Friday bar crowd.

I get excited on the rare occasions when I’m able to spend a leisurely summer evening sculling around Lake Coeur d’Alene on the family watercraft. There’s something especially rejuvenating about the cool, misty wind in my hair, the remarkable view of the city skyline and the ambient sound of the frat boys getting sick over the side of the Mish-an-Nock. Recently, I had the honor of being one of the first guests aboard my mom and stepdad’s newly purchased speedboat. Eddie’s Bar & Grill was our destination for the evening; we were curious to see how it had changed since the Gozzer Ranch folks took over a few years ago, upsetting locals in the process by ending the former Arrow Point Grill’s popular Thursday all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed.

John Lennon once sang, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” This and various bits of wit and wisdom adorn Caruso’s walls on big, eye-catching placards made of neatly pressed black plastic letters. Perhaps they’re there merely to offer ponderous conversation points to customers, or perhaps they’re the senior project of an especially unimaginative typography student.