Tastemakers: Goulash @ The Village Cafe - Navan Cognac

March 23, 2005

GOULASH AT THE VILLAGE CAFÉ
An authentic ethnic dining experience awaits you at the Village Café in Cross Village, typified by their savory goulash. It’s truly a family
affair, with sisters Kasha Schappi and Tania Wolniewicz, along with their mother Val Witchner contributing their expertise (cousin Michelle also lends a hand during the winter months). Mealtime at the Cafè represents authentic Polish cooking, moderately priced with a non-stop stream of happy customers filtering in and out.
The Café serves a wide variety of breakfast and lunch menu items, which include assorted omelettes, Nalasnik (homemade Polish crepes filled with cheese or fruit), bagels and croissants, polish reubens, pierogies stuffed with cheddar cheese or potatoes, and fabulous sandwiches. Each day offers a lunch special... this one being Val’s famous homemade goulash with melted cheese and garlic toast... perfect comfort food for a winter’s day.
In addition, the Café offers pizza, fresh home cut fries, scrumptious European pastries, wedding and birthday cakes, along with a take-out menu, and catering services. The Village Café is open year round, six days per week from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. – closed Wednesdays. -- By Peg Kuchin

NAVAN COGNAC
Cognac has been making a comeback and the driving force is not the gray-haired country club guy smoking cigars. Instead is it is the hip-hop community. That’s right, rappers are singing about cognac and drinking it too, resulting in increased sales of this French liqueur (made with white wine grapes from the Cognac region by double distilling) to over 13% in 2004 from the prior year.
A recent new entry in the mix is NAVAN, a vanilla infused cognac from the Société des Produits Marnier Lapostolle, the family that produces the orange liqueur Grand Marnier. NAVAN takes its name from the town Navana, Madagascar, where the recipe’s vanilla is harvested. The sweet vanilla overtones, versus the traditional “throat burning” cognacs, have made NAVAN at 80 proof more palatable for first-timers.
NAVAN is great in a brandy snifter served with a fine cup of coffee. It is also a great mixer with several fruit drinks or the French Press: 2 oz. NAVAN, 1 oz. Hennessey Cognac and one cup of espresso. Shake all ingredients with crushed ice and strain into a martini glass; serve with a slice of German chocolate cake. Look for NAVAN on the top shelf at Union Street Station in Traverse City during one of the club’s Early Show Concerts to try a glass before purchasing a bottle priced at $40. -- Rick Coates

THE ZUMRO DECONTAMINATION TENT

You say you’ve been dosed with toxic chemicals in a train wreck or sprayed with some kind of terrorist goop? In that case, you could end up in one of these new Zumro Decontamination tents, which have been aquired by 12 hospitals throughout Northern Michigan. The tents will be used to decontaminate victims exposed to several types of hazardous materials. Each tent is conveniently stored in a large duffle bag, but can be deployed in less than two minutes.
If you want to see how you might fit in, check out HBO’s broadcast of “Dirty War,” a BBC drama about the explosion of a dirty bomb radioactive device in London. Hundreds of contaminated Londoners pass through showers in decontamination tents to wash off nuclear dust.