Tulip City Dispatch

 I saw an ad on my Instagram page for a chocolate-covered Payday bar.  Jokingly, I took a screenshot, and posted it on my stories asking the question "Isn't this just a Baby Ruth?"  A friend responded by saying that no, a Baby Ruth is peanuts surrounding caramel and chocolate-flavored nougat; the chocolate-covered Payday is peanuts in caramel-flavored nougat, dipped in chocolate. Now, candy bars are made from a few common ingredients:  Chocolate, peanuts, nougat, and caramel.  Chocolate and nougat is something like a 3 Musketeers.  Chocolate, nougat, and caramel is something like a Milky Way.  All 4 makes a Snickers bar.  Chocolate and Peanuts is a Mr. Goodbar.  Chocolate and caramel is either a Caramello or a type of Milky Way.  Peanuts and caramel (no chocolate) is a Payday.  And, chocolate, peanuts, and caramel led to the confusion that took me down the road to writing this article in the first place. I did what any sane person w...

From the McDonald's website, the Travis Scott combo is as follows: Quarter Pounder®* with Cheese, plus lettuce and bacon. Medium Fries with BBQ Sauce for dipping. Ice-cold Sprite. Get all of Cactus Jack’s favorites for just $6.* $6 isn't bad in 2020 bucks at McDonald's.  I was intrigued, when I pulled up to the drive-through lane, and saw that price!  A normal QPC meal rings out at about $8, so if thriftiness is your thing, you can pick off the bacon and lettuce from the Travis Scott burger! Now, I have no idea who Travis Scott is.  I'm aware that he's some kind of pop culture personality, probably from The Internet, and in my headcanon, he's a videogame streamer.  Second guess would be a Soundcloud mumble-rapper, but I honestly have no idea.  Point is, I'm old and out of touch. First bite of the burger brought about a severe crunch - McDonald's fried the crap out of the bacon, to the point where it felt like a crunchy tortilla shell.  The lettuce was a ...

I've grown my own peppers in a garden for several years now. After preparing fresh habaneros in a salsa recipe, I noticed that there was an incredible reduction in the spicy flavor of the peppers after I'd soaked them in a cup of vinegar while waiting for some of the other ingredients to cook. I'd taken another pepper from the same plant, cooked it in my eggs for breakfast a few days later, and nearly burned my face off. This led me to wonder what the exact mechanism was to break down capsaicin, and therefore, the perceived heat and spice of habanero peppers. I did some rudimentary research on the Internet and found that certain compounds, such as alcohol, can break down capsaicin oils. Question/Problem : How effective are various solutions in reducing perceived heat and flavor of a habanero pepper? Hypothesis: Various solutions can indeed reduce perceived heat and flavor of a habanero pepper; the degree of efficacy is unknown Material List: 3 fresh habanero pepp...

This is an article I've wanted to explore since 2005 and 2006 when I was a staff writer on the Jenison High School newspaper. We'd have pitch meetings with every issue, and go over the articles that were to be featured, length and word assignments, and which articles would be written by whom. I'd always pitch articles about urban myths and legends, but consistently got shot down in favor of current events and topical articles such as sports games, school spirit events, and local youth events throughout the Greater Grand Rapids area. The urban myth that intrigued me the most was the one of a hardwood roller rink under the floor at Field's Fabrics, that was still intact. Questions bounced around my head: Tarry Hall was only a few miles away – were roller rinks popular enough in the 70's to sustain 2 businesses that close to each other? What was meant by “under the floor” at Field's – did they build some joists or supports to raise the current store floor, or did t...

Big things are in the works here at Tulip City Dispatch - things that are hinging on interviewing others.  In the meantime, I've been collecting some links, and want to share them with my readers: https://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/20200711/jenison-teen-ridiculed-online-for-organizing-blm-protest The Sentinel's headline says it all:  A teen from Jenison was ridiculed for organizing a BLM protest.  He organized the event on Facebook, and both he and his classmates were subject to an inordinate amount of online harassment, bullying, and mean comments.  What stung me the hardest was reading about the local comments; people in the teen's community, and the community that I grew up in, spewing hateful rhetoric.  Jenison residents simply didn't want any BLM activity in their town.  While Jenison has never been a bastion of progressive politics, one thing that they profess to be is a Christian neighborhood...and there's no room for hate in Christianity. https://...

Being a conservative conclave, Holland, Michigan, has rarely been known as a party town. Social drinking was frowned upon by the Christian Reformed populace, and while there's always been demande for beer, most of it was consumed in private as opposed to in public taprooms, pubs, and saloons. In this entry, we'll begin taking a look at Holland's history of beer, starting in the 1860's, and culminating in the modern day. Before Prohibition, Holland only operated 2 breweries: Aling's Brewing Company, and the Holland City Brewery. Neither operated concurrently, due to another interesting bit of history in the Holland Fire of 1871 (but that's another entry). In 1863, John Aling opened the first brewery in Holland. According to Dr. Robert Swierenga's book, Aling's brewery was destroyed in 1871, during the Holland Fire of 1871. This was the first brewery noted in public records, and was located on the west side of River Street, at the site which would later be...

A dual project done in collaboration with  https://shopmonkey.wordpress.com/ Now, skateboarding is mostly a West Coast thing that spilled across the country, and took root in major metropolitan centers across the country.  I'm a history nerd, obviously, with huge amounts of skate nerd thrown in.  I'm the kind of guy who would ride my boards around college parking lots with pockets full of bushings and various other pieces of hardware, just to feel the tangible differences between each one.  It goes without saying that the nerdery runs deep. This post is not intended to be a full article, but more of a gauge of interest, and a collection of thoughts - there are a lot of small things to cover, and I'd love to exercise the connections I've made over the years to find out more. First up, the Astro Speedway.  I graduated from Jenison High School in Jenison, Michigan.  There was always an urban legend of a skating rink hidden under the floors of Field's ...