Tri-State Living • May/June 2024

May/June 2024

p.2erfect.4 BUILDING A

SPACE

The Landing brings live music to Portsmouth

CELEBRATING 6 DECADES Yvonne DeKay has taught generations of dancers

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from the editor PUBLISHER Kevin Austin EDITORIAL Heath Harrison, Editor Mark Shaffer, Staff Writer Dawn Nolan, Contributor Amanda Larch, Contributor briefs@irontontribune.com ADVERTISING Christie Coleman, Sales Consultant christie.coleman@irontontribune.com PRODUCTION Kandi Thompson, Design PHOTOGRAPHY Larry Rees, Contributor Jeremy Holtzapfel, Contributor Carla Bentley, Contributor

May/June 2024

p.2erfect.4 BUILDING A

SPACE

The Landing brings live music to Portsmouth

CELEBRATING 6 DECADES Yvonne DeKay has taught generations of dancers

on the cover

Events pick up as summer nears

A

fter a long wait, warm weather is here to stay and spring has begun.

As we head into the early summer months, several events are lined up, two of which come from Third and Center, a nonprofit that has done great things the past few years in Ironton, promoting the arts and community revitalizations.

The group will hold its third annual Summer Solstice Music and Arts Festival on the Ironton riverfront on June 8, from noon-9 p.m.

Amanda Cleary, director of the group, said they are currently finalizing the music lineup and there will be a local makers market, art and artisan vendors and a talent show. The event will also kick off with a children’s fishing

event, set for 9-11 a.m.

A month earlier, Third and Center will also be doing their annual restoration of crosswalk art at the intersection of Third and Center streets in Ironton.

Children and families are invited to drop by and take part in the event, set for 11 a.m.

And, of course spring will wrap up with the annual Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade, set to step off downtown on the holiday, accompanies by the week’s surrounding events, such as Navy Night and the memorial service at Woodland Cemetery.

See the Last Word page from Lou Pyles, of the parade committee, for a take on just what this longstanding event, dating back to just after the Civil War, mean to the community.

The Landing in Portsmouth is a coffee shop by day and a live music venue by night.

Tri-State Living (ISSN 02795124) is published every other month by Ironton Publications, Inc., 211 Center St., Ironton, OH 45638.

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HEATH HARRISON is the community editor of The Ironton Tribune and Tri-State Living.

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May/June 2024 Table of Contents

8

arts & culture 8

ON DISPLAY Signature Laser Creations in Russell customizes a variety of unique gifts

living 14

SCHOOL OF DANCE The Yvonne DeKay School of Dance has been in operation since 1964

feature

14

20

20

THE LANDING The Landing in Portsmouth is a space for sounds

food 28

BRUNNETTI'S BAKERY West Virginia-based bakery serves the Tri-State and beyond

31

FROM THE COOKBOOK Seasonal favorites from sweet to savory

in every issue

31

3

FROM THE EDITOR Family events lined up for spring

38

THE LAST WORD Memories of the Memorial Day Parade in Ironton

Tri-StateLiving | 5

Marketplace

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arts & culture Tri-State Living

up close Signature Laser Creations in Russell customizes a variety of unique gifts.

p. 8

8 | Tri-StateLiving

On Display | arts & culture

GROWING & BRANCHING OUT Signature Laser Creations expands into full range of services Story Amanda Larch | Photography Mark Shaffer

I

don a pair of green tinted safety glasses to watch the magic happen. Well, not magic, exactly — but precision and meticulousness.

I’m sitting with Don Fraley, owner of Signature Laser Creations, located in downtown Russell, Kentucky. He’s giving me a first-hand look at how the laser engraving process works by creating a custom challenge coin for me.

First, using a computer application, he draws the design to be represented on the coin, before programming it into the laser, which raises and lowers power as it moves along, transmitting the image onto the coin.

“The line that it’s cutting each time is only the thickness of your hair,” Fraley explains. “It moves up only fifty-thousanths of an inch at a time, and it’s going back and forth, picking up every little image.”

Signature Laser Creations can engrave materials,

Tri-StateLiving | 9

arts & culture | On Display

10 | Tri-StateLiving

including glass, wood, acrylics, plastics and more, offering a variety of products such as tumblers, trinket boxes, games, puzzles, key chains, coasters, challenge coins and more. Another service they offer, that has been in high demand since the beginning, is firearms engraving.

“I have people coming from all over the place to have their firearms marked,” Fraley says. “When they do something special to it, it requires a special license, they have to have them engraved. So instead of stamping them and not coming out real pretty — the stamping sometimes will be off — they’ll come down here with what they need and I’ll laser on their guns for them.”

Signature Laser Creations has engraved items for various businesses in the region, and many service members have requested engravings of their branch logos on large barrel heads. Fraley also offers custom engravings for fundraisers, sport, school and dance teams and more. One of his latest creations are custom tumblers celebrating Russell’s 150th anniversary, imprinted with the city’s seal.

“I do a lot of markings for police agencies,” he says.

“They want their logo on their firearm, so we do that, a

lot of gifts, personalized things, and just about whatever anybody wants.”

A competitive shooter himself, Fraley originally started custom engraving handguns and rifles as a hobby business years ago. Mechanically oriented, Fraley was doing his own gun work. He and a friend had custom competition guns built, but Fraley realized he could do it himself with the right tools and equipment and started a gunsmith business, before selling it to a former employee.

When he retired, Fraley started up the business again and opened Signature Laser Creations two years ago.

“I knew I always wanted to come back to this,” Fraley says. “So when I retired, this was my retirement job. I started back, and it seems like all the people I knew and the customers I had, and new ones, just came right back to me. I was building handguns and rifles and literally shipping them all over the United States.”

Equipped with three industrial-rated lasers to engrave firearms, Fraley realized they were sitting for a lot of the time and decided to branch out to offer additional engraving services.

“I’m looking at them while I’m doing this, like ‘Why aren’t they running doing something?’ So I’m thinking,

Tri-StateLiving | 11

‘Why don’t I put those to use while I’m also doing these other things?’” he says. “Now we’re so busy with the laser stuff that it’s kind of 50/50, but it’s taken off. It’s done well.”

Engraving is much more precise than simply hand stamping something, Fraley says.

“When you stamp something, you stamp one letter at a time, it’s very difficult to keep them all lined up and spaced,” he says. “It’s wavy sometimes and not perfectly straight. But when you laser something, it is perfect.

Unless the operator screws up.”

Signature Laser Creations’ only employee, Fraley says he loves creating things. While he does not yet have an online store, Fraley says potential customers can call or walk in to place an order.

“As far as buying something online, I haven’t set that up yet; I am a one-man shop,” he says. “I don’t know what the number is now, but late last year, I had over 60,000 files that I had come up with, created and downloaded.”

Fraley often designs his own pieces. For example, he made plant stands with butterflies as the base, and a customer suggested he make some featuring horses, too.

So, he found an image and cut, downloaded and resized it to create another plant stand design.

“It’s kind of neat. It’s almost like a puzzle,” Fraley says. “I have a creative streak in me, I guess, and I really

12 | Tri-StateLiving

enjoy doing that.”

From special forces in the military to police work, working with the Department of Energy and running medical centers, Fraley has been very driven throughout his career, which has spanned 50 years. As if the shop doesn’t keep him busy enough, Fraley, former mayor of Russell, is also on city government — a true jack of all trades, I tell him. He says he can’t sit still.

“Here’s what I tell people, I never turn down an opportunity if it’s the right one; at one time I had 63 different certifications,” he says. “If I go home what am I going to do, watch TV all day? I can’t do it; I like being involved. I like to make things happen. I like to see things happen.”

With his Christian faith base, Fraley says he tries to do as much as he can for others, including his church, when opportunities arise; he feels the need to contribute, which bleeds over into his business and passion for the city of Russell.

“I like helping people also a lot, I like when people need something. I try to never say no, if I can. I think that’s just innate in my nature,” Fraley says. “And I love what we’re doing in downtown Russell and the benefits of downtown Russell. I like being a part of that, making things better, making it grow and being optimistic.” a

living Tri-StateLiving

up close The Yvonne DeKay School of Dance has been in operation since 1964.

p. 14

14 | Tri-StateLiving

School of Dance | living

6 DECADES

of dance

Yvonne DeKay School of Dance has taught skills to generations in Tri-State Story Amanda Larch | Photography Heath Harrison, Jeremy Holtzapfel, Submitted

E

veryone is put here for a purpose, Yvonne Sinnott says, and hers is to work with children.

Sinnott owns Yvonne Dekay School of Dance in Ironton and is celebrating her 60th anniversary in business this year.

Dancing has been a big part of Sinnott’s life since childhood. At the same time, she learned to walk, she was twirling and dancing, too. She grew up glued to the black-and-white television screen when musicals or the Mouseketeers came on, imitating dances she saw.

Sinnott has always wanted to entertain. Her mother went to work to pay for dance classes, and Sinnott would teach all the neighborhood kids what she learned, putting on plays and circuses with costumes and props.

“I would teach the kids in the neighborhood who didn’t get to take dance how to do grand jetés — big leaps — across the sewer ditches,” she recalls.

By age 12, she started bouncing around to different dance teachers in the region, soaking up all the knowledge she could. When Sinnott started taking tap lessons for the first time at 15, a world of possibility opened for her, though the instructor didn’t have any other older students at the time.

Tri-StateLiving | 15

living | School of Dance

“I was amazed at how she and her husband tap danced, and I thought none of my teachers taught me any of that,” Sinnott says. “I said, ‘I don’t care, I’ll tap with the three year olds.’ I just want to learn, and I danced with fifth and sixth graders. She put me in front of them to learn their routine, and I danced in the show with them.”

After her first year of tap, Sinnott’s teacher asked her to start helping because the business was growing and Sinnott showed remarkable talent.

“Then she got pregnant and couldn’t come to teach. Some days she’d be sick and she’d call and say, ‘Can you just go teach for me today?’ Well, here I am at almost 16 years old, and that’s what I did,” Sinnott said.

Not every child wants to be an athlete, Sinnott says, though she was one of those kids who wanted to do it all, playing softball, basketball and more — unless anything tried to interfere with dance, as she would always choose her first love above anything else.

Sinnott, a product of her generation coming of age in the 1960s, is full spirited, with a touch of rebelliousness. She started twirling and taking baton classes, teaching other girls at her high school interested in becoming majorettes how to twirl a baton.

The high school band director caught wind and invited Sinnott to join the marching band as a majorette. Sinnott instead wanted to play the drums, but the band director did not allow girls to play

16 | Tri-StateLiving

School of Dance | living drums in his band.

“I said, ‘Well, then I’m not going to be in your band,’” she says. “So I didn’t and I’ve always protested on things like that, and I’ve always been a fighter and if I don’t agree with something and think it’s unjust, I will be out on the street with you. If people like me didn’t protest, nothing would ever change, and that’s what I keep telling all the young people: you better start protesting.”

At that time, no universities offered dance programs, so after high school, Sinnott traveled the country to bigger cities like Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C. to take convention classes at larger studios from professionals. Sinnott eventually opened her own studio, becoming certified through Dance Masters of America — recognized as the equivalent of a college degree — alongside her best friend, who had started a studio in Kentucky. When her best friend became ill, Sinnott took over both studios.

“I kept it going for two years with mine until she passed away with heart failure,” she says. “Then I shut the studio down and brought those students to Ironton because it was a very small building and I couldn’t grow.

I asked most of the kids; about 80 followed me to Ironton, and that also promoted my business very much because then I started getting all the kids from the Ashland, Russell, Ironton, South Point areas.”

In the past few years, Sinnott has noticed that dance does not seem quite as popular now, partly due to a lack of support for the arts, she says. Additionally, more male athletes used to take her ballet classes to help them improve with their respective sports. If music is an international language, then, Sinnott says, dance is an international sport.

“Dance is the movement of your body. Music, dance, art, pulls us all together,” she says.

“Football players used to come but for some reason they won’t take dance anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t label them as different. It labels them as an artist, giving them more coordination and making them better ballplayers.

Parents don’t realize that if their son took dance or tumbling for a couple of years, it would really help their motor skills and teach them to connect their brain to what their body can do.”

Ballet requires the same discipline as other sports, and

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living | School of Dance

18 | Tri-StateLiving

School of Dance | living

by practicing jumps and leaps in dance classes, athletes not only can prevent injury, but they learn these are the same movements, just more graceful.

“If their body’s not in alignment, they’re going to get injured, and that’s when it connects to athletes,” she says.

“It really does help their coordination, but that doesn’t have anything to do with your gender. It has to do with movement, beauty and music.”

The school offers ballet, tap, jazz, baton twirling and a class for disabled children. Students can learn tumbling, acrobatics, cheerleading, lyrical modern ballet and more.

One of her coaches was trained at the studio herself, going on to become a national tumbling champion.

Over the years, Sinnott has had some students who went on to become professional dancers or open their own studios throughout the country. She’s also spent as much time possible volunteering and offering free classes to continue her purpose of working with children.

“What I have enjoyed the most is watching children grow,” Sinnott says. “It’s fun for everybody, whether they think they can dance or not, and you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to enjoy it, go with the movements and the music. It brings all this emotion, and you explode if you don’t move with it. That’s the good part of if you

enjoy teaching dance, the other part is just watching. I’ve enjoyed watching these children grow and develop into beautiful dancers.”

Yvonne Dekay School of Dance puts on two major showcases each spring and Christmas season. Sinnott writes original scripts for many of her own shows, adding her own spin to fairy tales and other classic stories, achieving two goals: to make it fun for her students while still pertaining to movement.

“I write a lot of my own show, and I don’t like to repeat or copy,” Sinnott says. “I like to have my own flavor, and I always want to do something that makes people stop and think, make a statement with shows so they’re learning not just how to dance and look good for modern times, they’re learning different cultures through that dance, which helps them connect.”

One of the Yvonne Dekay School of Dance’s upcoming shows will be a take on “The Wizard of Oz.” “I wanted my advanced group to all have a leading part, and I thought that each one could be very special in it,” Sinnott says. “They have so much fun doing it and have said they’ve never done this before. So that’s my goal for them, to help them learn to love music, to love themself or to pass it on to someone else.” a

Tri-StateLiving | 19

feature | The Landing

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The Landing | feature

A SPACE

Sounds FOR

Story Dawn Nolan | Photography Carla Bentley

I

nspired by a similar venue in her hometown of Cincinnati, Portsmouth resident Amanda Klaiber opened The Landing, a “coffee shop by day, music lounge by night,” in the city’s Historic Boneyfiddle District in September 2023.

“There’s a place in Cincinnati that I love that has live music every night and hot beverages,” she described. “I wanted to have that here.”

Klaiber’s husband, Nelson, encouraged her to pursue her dream after she started struggling with her mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Klaiber was taking a break from her career as a nurse to raise her four children. She was working as a coach at a gym, before it was forced to shut down.

“Honestly, I was quite depressed,” Klaiber admitted.

“There were all of these things were going on, and I was getting very bored and really in my head. I just wasn’t doing very well.”

After discussing the idea, Klaiber started looking for locations around town that could become the creative space she was envisioning.

“My idea was, I wanted a place for music, but it was built around sound. I wanted a place where musicians wanted to play,” Klaiber explained. “Around here, you can play in bars and restaurants, basically, and you can do outdoor concerts, but there’s no place that’s really built for music. I wanted that to be the focus.”

Klaiber found the right spot for The Landing in the former Market Street Hardware building.

“Century 21 had bought it and was dividing it up for their offices,” Klaiber recalled. “I was looking for a lounge space without any windows, and when they told me about this back space, I thought it was perfect.”

She signed the lease in February 2021. Armed with a concept and a location, Klaiber had to figure out how to turn The Landing into a business.

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The Landing | feature

“I had no experience, and I wasn’t sure how to do that,” she said.

That’s when a friend of hers, Josh Lawson, the Entrepreneurship Program Facilitator for the Shawnee State University Kricker Innovation Hub, told Klaiber about a free, six-week entrepreneur boot camp and pitch competition called Ignite.

She signed up, and though she ultimately placed fifth, it was a valuable learning experience that taught her the fundamentals and matched her with a mentor, Kelly O’Bryant, who became the director of the Women’s Business Center (WBC) of Central Appalachia.

“She helped me through all of it,” Klaiber said. “She knew exactly what I would need and showed me the resources available.”

Though Klaiber didn’t have a specific look in mind for The Landing — except for a cognac leather couch, which she found in Columbus through an online auction — she was certain of the artsy ambiance she wanted to capture.

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feature | The Landing

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The Landing | feature

“I knew what I wanted it to feel like, and that was kind of the only thing,” she said.

Klaiber ended up outfitting the space with furniture mostly from local antique and secondhand stores, and she got in touch with photographers to display their work.

“So, instead of buying things for the walls, I decided to use the wall space to support other local artists,” Klaiber said.

The same reasoning goes for the curated selection of artisan products — from floral arrangements from KB Flower Farm to breads from Flock Dining and baked goods from Sew Sweet Bakes — that are available for purchase.

“However we can support what is happening around here, that’s what the dream is for,” she explained.

Since September, The Landing has become known for its open mic poetry on Friday nights and live music

on Saturdays. Some of the musicians that have played include The Further Along, Ethan Monroe and fox and clover, a husband-and-wife duo (Tyler and Sam Wichus) who are also two of the venue’s baristas.

The Landing is open for coffee service throughout the week, staffed by the Wichuses and Macyn Johnson. They serve Deeper Roots Coffee out of Cincinnati as well as a variety of loose-leaf teas and custom sodas. The Honey Pie Latte, made with locally sourced honey, and the London Fog with local lavender are two best-sellers.

“My husband also makes a really good cold brew and some fizzy coffee drinks,” Klaiber said. “One, Something in the Orange, he makes with an orange syrup that he’s simmered down. It actually reminds me of a dark beer because it’s fizzy and dark. But it’s coffee because it has espresso in it. Where he still works in the city [Cincinnati], some of these are things that he loves to get

Tri-StateLiving | 25

feature | The Landing

there and we’re bringing it here.”

Also open during the week is The Landing’s latest addition, a small skate shop that was put in the back of the lounge earlier this year.

“We had this dark little corner with no lighting, and I was trying to figure out what to do with it,” Klaiber said.

Local musician Brian Smith suggested that Klaiber add some skate shop items because of The Landing’s proximity to the Portsmouth Skate Park.

“We talked about carrying a few things in case they needed something because it’s only about three blocks away, and now, I think we’ve got everything anybody would need — decks, wheels, trucks — all the nuts and bolts.”

Although Klaiber admits that she still finds the business side of running The Landing a challenge, being able to make her dream a reality and create a place of belonging, has made it worthwhile.

“It’s funny because I don’t see myself as a business owner; I’m not business savvy,” Klaiber said. “And as for having a plan for what this was going to be, I didn’t really have one. I just knew that I wanted to have music. But it’s turned into so much more than that.”

The Landing is located at 217b Market Street (behind Century 21 Empire Realty, S.E.) in Portsmouth’s Historic Boneyfiddle District. Current business hours are Monday-Thursday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 4 p.m. “until the music ends.” Follow @TheLandinginPortsmouth on Facebook and Instagram for updates and more information. a

26 | Tri-StateLiving

Tri-StateLiving

food

up close West Virginia-based Brunnetti's Bakery serves the Tri-State and beyond.

p. 28

food | Brunetti's

28 | Tri-StateLiving

Brunetti's | food

RISING TO THE OCCASSION Brunetti’s provides for restaurants in multiple states Story Heath Harrison | Photography Larry Rees

T

he roots of Brunetti’s Incorporated in Kenova go back 43 years.

John Brunetti said he moved to the area with his wife and children from Clarksburg, West Virginia in 1981, to open a restaurant in Huntington.

“I operated that for about three years,” he said. “I could not find any good Italian bread, so we started baking that for ourselves.

Soon, he said, local restaurants were asking him where his bread originated from.

“They asked if I could bake for them, so we picked up several of the local restaurants back in the ‘80s and, before I knew it, I was doing more baking than I was restaurant.”

Brunetti said he closed his restaurant in 1983 and moved the bakery into a separate facility. It is now on its third location.

“We started producing hoagie buns, breads and frozen pizza dough,” he said. “This particular location we moved into in 1998. We strictly sell to distributors. They come in a tractor trailer, pick it up, we load it on a palette and it goes back to their warehouses and they distribute to restaurants or hospitals. There’s not any of our product in grocery stores. We’re not in the retail of it. We’re a wholesale bakery. ” Brunetti outlines the process, on which he works with his employees.

“We are a scratch bakery,” he said. “We are mixing salt, sugar oil water flour fresh compressed yeast and, in summertime, ice.”

He said, altogether the ingredients take eight minutes to mix and he notes that 200 pounds of flour, which is stored in a large silo, yields 360 pounds of dough, when water and all ingredients are added.

Tri-StateLiving | 29

food | Brunetti's

“Once that is mixed, take it out, bring to dumping station and it is hoisted into the air dumped onto table,” he said. “From that point there, it goes on the table, then into six pocket divider rounder, which cuts out the individual hoagie buns, rounds them up, and it goes into an intermediate proofer.”

He explains the intermediate proofer is a resting stage.

“It allows the dough to relax a bit, because its been rounded and tightened,” he said.

From there, it goes through three sets of sheeters to be flattened.

Next, it is rolled, Brunetti said, then to a pressure plate, where it comes out like a hoagie bun.

“There are 30 pans on the rack,” he said. “And we do two racks every 5-10 minutes.”

That process takes 70-80 minutes, and then the buns are split on top with a water splitter.

30 | Tri-StateLiving

Brunetti's | food

“As it passes, someone grab them and reracks them into a pan,” he said.

From there, they go into one of five 20-pan ovens.

With a 100-pan capacity, Brunetti says they can bake every 15 minutes.

Next, the buns go to a depanning area, then to a cooler, while the pans are returned by cart to be reuses.

After they have been in the cooler for 45-60 minutes, the buns are then ready for slicing and packaging.

They pass through a slicing station, where they are cut in half, then clustered, with two on top and two on bottom, in polybags.

A twist tie machine ties the bags, then they are boxed.

Once the box is half filled, Brunetti said a divider is inserted for support, then they are taped, codestamped and shrinkwrapped for pickup.

Pickups take place either the same day or the next day.

“Everything I make today is for an order,” he said.

“We’re not stockpiling or ordering ahead. Everything we

make between today and tomorrow will be gone.”

Brunetti said a distributor can service 200 restaurants and his products go throughout Ohio, as far as Cleveland and Columbus, as well as most of West Virginia and to Kentucky and Tennessee.

Brunetti said they are always looking for ways to further automate the process, not to reduce the manpower of his 16 employees, but to make the job easier for them.

Brunetti said the work of the baking industry is hard and intense, but he said his employees meeting the task is the secret to his business.

“They all know what they have to do,” he said. “This is fairly fast, assembly line stuff.”

He said he works on the floor, alongside them, and he thinks that atmosphere creates a family atmosphere and respect.

“They find some satisfaction that I’m physically there,” he said. “My success is due to the employees here and the dedication they have to the baking industry. a

Tri-StateLiving | 31

food | From the Cookbook

Mini Pancakes with Cinnamon-Maple Topping TOPPING: • 1 3/4 cups plain Greek yogurt (fat free, 2% or 5%) • 1/3 cup maple syrup • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon PANCAKES: • 1 cup all-purpose flour • 2 tablespoons sugar • 1 teaspoon baking powder • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda • 1/8 teaspoon salt • 1 egg, lightly beaten • 3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (fat free, 2% or 5%) • 1/2 cup milk (skim, 2% or whole) • 3 tablespoons melted butter • 1 teaspoon vanilla • Oil • 1 cup fresh blueberries or chopped fresh strawberries

To make topping: Stir yogurt, syrup and cinnamon.

Cover and refrigerate.

To make pancakes: In mixing bowl, stir flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In separate bowl, whisk egg, yogurt, milk, butter and vanilla. Add yogurt mixture to flour mixture. Stir just until combined (batter should be slightly lumpy).

Scrape batter into large plastic food storage bag.

Oil nonstick griddle or large nonstick skillet. Heat over medium heat.

Cut off about 1/2 inch from corner of plastic bag.

Squeeze batter, about 1 tablespoon at a time, onto hot griddle.

Cook 1-2 minutes per side, or until pancakes are golden brown, turning to second sides when bubbles form on surface of pancakes and edges are slightly dry.

Serve warm pancakes topped with cinnamon-maple yogurt and sprinkled with berries.

From the Cookbook | food

French Toast Casserole • 1 loaf French bread (about 1 1/2 pounds), cut into 1-inch cubes • 5 large eggs • 1 1/2 cups unsweetened milk • 2 tablespoons brown sugar • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract • 1 teaspoon cinnamon • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt • Maple syrup, for serving TOPPING: • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted • 2 tablespoons brown sugar • 1/2 cup chopped pecans • 1 cup frozen strawberries • 1 cup frozen blueberries • Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Grease 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Place bread cubes in baking dish. In large bowl, whisk eggs, milk, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour mixture evenly over bread cubes.

If making casserole ahead, cover baking dish and refrigerate overnight. If baking immediately, let stand 30 minutes at room temperature to allow bread to soak up egg mixture.

Preheat oven to 350˚F. To make topping: Drizzle casserole with melted butter and sprinkle with brown sugar and pecans. Top with strawberries and blueberries.

Cover and bake 35 minutes then uncover and bake 1020 minutes, or until topping is browned and egg mixture has mostly set.

Remove from oven, cover loosely with foil and let stand 10 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar. Serve with maple syrup.

Tri-StateLiving | 33

food | From the Cookbook

Sheet Pan Cajun Fajitas • 2 green bell peppers • 2 yellow bell peppers • 1 lime • 1 medium red onion • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil • 1 1/2 pounds raw, peeled shrimp, fresh or frozen • 5 teaspoons Cajun seasoning, divided • 1 teaspoon salt • 1/2 cup ranch dressing • 12 small flour tortillas Preheat oven to 450˚F. Wash and dry green bell peppers, yellow bell peppers and lime.

Trim, seed and slice bell peppers lengthwise into thin strips; transfer to large baking sheet.

Peel, halve and slice onion lengthwise into thin pieces; add to baking sheet with bell peppers.

34 | Tri-StateLiving

Drizzle veggies with oil, toss to combine and spread in even layer. Bake until veggies have softened slightly, about 5 minutes.

If using frozen shrimp, place them in colander and run under cold water to thaw slightly. Place shrimp on clean towel or paper towels and pat dry.

Remove baking sheet from oven. Arrange shrimp over veggies then sprinkle with 4 teaspoons Cajun seasoning and salt; toss to combine and spread in even layer.

Bake until veggies are tender and shrimp are cooked through, 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven.

Cut lime into wedges.

In small bowl, stir ranch dressing and remaining Cajun seasoning.

Warm tortillas in skillet, oven or microwave, if desired.

Divide tortillas between plates and fill with shrimp and veggies; drizzle with spicy ranch and serve with squeeze of lime.

From the Cookbook | food

Mexican Mashed Potatoes • 3 pounds russet potatoes (about 9 medium potatoes), peeled and cubed • Water • 6 bacon strips, chopped • 1 package Cacique Pork Chorizo • 12 ounces Cacique Crema Mexicana • 1/2 cup butter, cubed • 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder • 1 teaspoon salt • 1teaspoon garlic powder • 1/2 teaspoon pepper • 1 cup Cacique Oaxaca or Queso Quesadilla, shredded • 1/2 cup Cacique Crema Mexicana Agria, for topping • 3 green onions, chopped

In Dutch over, add potatoes and cover with water. Bring to boil. Reduce heat; cook, uncovered, 10-15 minutes, or until tender.

In skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until crisp.

Drain on paper towels, chop into small pieces and set aside. Remove bacon grease from skillet and cook chorizo over medium-high heat, 6-8 minutes.

Drain potatoes; add to pan. Mash potatoes, gradually adding crema Mexicana, butter, onion powder, salt, garlic powder and pepper. Transfer to greased 13-by-9-inch baking dish; sprinkle with cheese, chorizo and bacon.

Refrigerate, covered, up to 1 day.

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Remove potatoes from refrigerator and let stand while oven heats. Bake, covered, about 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 10 minutes, or until heated through. Drizzle with crema Mexicana agria and chopped green onions.

Tri-StateLiving | 35

food | From the Cookbook

Orange Juice Spicy Margaritas • 2 cups Florida Orange Juice • Ice • 2 cups simple syrup • 8 ounces silver tequila • 2 ounces triple sec or orange liqueur • 2 ounces lime juice • 4 ounces seltzer • Ghost pepper salt, to taste • 4 Florida Orange slices, 1/4-inch thick

36 | Tri-StateLiving

In saucepan over medium heat, reduce orange juice to 1 cup and allow to cool.

Fill cocktail shaker 3/4 full with ice. Add orange juice reduction, simple syrup, tequila, triple sec and lime juice.

Shake and pour into four glasses. Top each glass with 1 ounce seltzer.

Pour ghost pepper salt onto saucer and dip edges of orange slices in ghost pepper salt. Place orange slices on rim of each glass, if desired.

From the Cookbook | food

Tart Cherry Unity Pie PIE: • 1 pie crust (9 inches) • 2 cups canned tart cherry pie filling • 2 cups canned apple pie filling • 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash) STREUSEL: • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour • 1/4 cup brown sugar • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar • 1/3 cup pecans, roughly chopped • 1 pinch salt • 4 tablespoons butter, melted PUMPKIN SPICE WHIPPED CREAM: • 1 cup heavy cream • 2 tablespoons powdered sugar • 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice

Helping You or a Love One

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Tri-State LifeCare is a non-hospice program of Hospice of Huntington, Inc.

Preheat oven to 400˚F. Fit pie crust to 9-inch pie dish.

Crimp edges and use fork to poke holes in bottom.

Place pie crust in freezer to chill. In large bowl, combine tart cherry pie filling and apple pie filling.

To make streusel: In bowl, use fork to mix flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, pecans and salt. Pour butter over dry ingredients and mix until ingredients come together in clumps.

To assemble pie: Pour cherry-apple filling into prepared pie crust and sprinkle streusel on top. Brush beaten egg onto exposed pie crust edges. Bake 25 minutes. At 10-minute mark, cover pie dish with foil to prevent crust from over-browning. After 25 minutes, lower oven temperature to 375˚F and bake 30 minutes.

To make pumpkin spice whipped cream: In large bowl or bowl of stand mixer, add heavy cream, powdered sugar and pumpkin spice. Use hand mixer or beater attachment on stand mixer to beat on mediumhigh speed 3-5 minutes until stiff peaks form.

the last word

Memorial Day memories

A

h…Memorial Day — the holiday that rolls around each year that signals the end of spring and the beginning of summer — time for vacations, a time for reunions, baseball, picnics and a time to just be outside and enjoy the warm gentle breezes of summer.

But Memorial Day means a lot more to many veterans and patriots. It’s a day that we set aside to remember the service of those men and women, who gave their all, and lost their lives in service to our nation. It’s a time for remembrance and to recall the hardship and tragedy that exists in war.

For me, I’m a child of the ‘50s. I can remember, sitting on the curb watching the parade go by. That was a time when the procession moved in the opposite direction of today’s parade. As the floats and the soldiers marched by, I was particularly thrilled to see all the flags blowing in the wind and hear the sounds of firetruck sirens and marching bands.

You see, I was raised in a family that recognized the honor of military service. My father was a World War II veteran, and served in the Army in the European Theater.

From D-Day to the end of the war, he fought through France, Belgium and into the heart of Germany. He was wounded and received the Purple Heart among his other medals and citations. He knew about the horrors of war, because he lived it and he lost many of his comrades who fought alongside of him. He passed on to me that sacred ideal of memorializing these heroes. After my father died,

38 | Tri-StateLiving

Lou Pyles is a member of the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade Committee and has served twice as grand marshal for the event.

it became more important to me to carry on his passion to remember the veterans and those who served. At the urging of then Lawrence County Common Pleas Judge Frank McCown, I joined the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade Committee and shared in the planning and execution of the parade.

Each year, as I ready myself for the parade, the memory of my father still lingers with me. I have a small military Bible that he carried during the war. It gave him solace as he spent many cold, dark nights in bombed out buildings and foxholes. I place the little Bible in my pocket and carry it with me as a reminder of my father and all deceased veterans, as I march through the parade.

It’s my honor and joy to look into the parade crowd, and spot that little old guy with his veteran’s cap, sitting under the shade tree. I walk up and offer my thanks for his service. Many reply to my gesture, but some just shake their head with a tear in their eye. They know, just like my father, what it was like to serve in the military.

My day starts early on Memorial Day. My husband and I survey the parade route to assure that it is clear, offer lineup information, parking advice and generally help manage the details of the event. It is my sincere hope that someone picks up the torch, pours over the details of the parade, and helps carry on this great tradition of the nation’s oldest continuous Memorial Day parade. Have a great Memorial Day. See you at the parade!

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