The Sleeping Bear Ale Trail celebrates half a dozen (relatively) new breweries along the M-22 and US-31 corridors in Leelanau and Benzie counties. Patrons could foreseeably visit all six over the course of a weekend. The Ale Trail complement’s the region’s already well-established wine tourism pilgrimages and traditional drinking holes.
Even if Carl Donakowski wasn’t scheduled to perform as a cellist for the Leelanau Summer Music Festival, his thinking fingers would hint that he’s a musician. His faintly summer-tan hands curve around his coffee cup, tap the table in syncopation, and pause above the tabletop, like a conductor about to lead his orchestra into a piece. Donakowski plays chamber music, though. Chamber music has no conductors. The genre is an elegant deviant in the musical world, and it will soon be heard in Leelanau.
Kathleen Bittner wears a garland of amber around her collar like a regal monarch, and her light eyes peer out happily behind delicate black frames as she welcomes customers into her store. She’s the benevolent queen of her domain, the Polish Art Center, and knows her kingdom well. Point to an object, and she’ll tell you the folk history, from which part of Poland it originates, and how it works. As Bittner watches her customers poke around the food section of her store, she doesn’t hesitate to call merrily, “Try one! They’re on my counter! You can try one, they’re delicious. It’s apricot marmalade. It’s really, really good.”
Sometime within the next few months, Cedar Rustic Inn will officially adopt the name Big Cat Brewing Company, as owners Aaron and Nikki Ackley transition their cozy, popular restaurant just north of Cedar into a brewpub. The metamorphosis has been five years in the making, as chef Aaron became more interested in microbrews and decided he wanted to broaden the restaurant’s appeal to also include the millennials and young professionals who have grown more visible in the Traverse City region.
The premier vocal ensemble of the region climaxes the fifth season of the Leelanau Summer Music Festival, which presents “World Class Music in America’s Most Beautiful Place.” On Saturday, Aug. 1, at 7:30, the 2015 Festival presents Canticum Novum singing of “Love and Loss,” in historic Holy Rosary Church, Isadore, 6982 S. Schomberg Road, 2 1/2 miles north of Cedar.
During the late 1800s, millions of people fled the Polish districts of Germany, Russia and Austria to come to the United States. Mostly peasants who lacked basic subsistence, they were attracted by ample job opportunities for unskilled labor in the United States. Many settled in cities such as Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee to earn a living in meatpacking, construction, steelwork and heavy industry.
We got to the boat launch at Victoria Creek Community Park in Cedar and put in, and I settled back for a lazy ride down the slow-moving waterway, eagerly anticipating the flash of a kingfisher or a glimpse of a turtle sunning itself on a log. But as we began to move downstream, it was neither of those that grabbed my attention, but the melodious sound of polka music.
By Samantha Graves Sun contributor Pete and Kate Farmer never imagined they’d one day produce foot drums for the likes of Les Claypool (Primus), Ben Bridewell (Band of Horses) and Garrett Dutton (G. Love & Special Sauce). The couple was busy working on building careers in education. And yet a downturn in the economy spurred […]
In old New Orleans on Mardi Gras Tuesday, brass bands march in Second Line Parades through the neighborhoods that birthed jazz music, provoking intoxicating revelry on every street corner. Twelve hundred miles to the north, tiny Cedar, Mich., will host its own Mardi Gras parade and celebration this Saturday, Feb. 21.
With Charlie Edson, owner and winemaker at Bel Lago Vineyards and Winery mentoring them, the Alan Eaker and Linda Ackley selected vines, and planted 10 acres of wine grapes on their land. Today there are 12 acres of grapes, including hybrids Cayuga and Frontenac, and vinifera varieties Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc.