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Little Falls
Local Fresh Thursdays - is a seasonal, hyper-local, open-air food market and a program of the Youth & Family Center Community Co-Op of Little Falls. This idea began as a way to cultivate relationships around fresh, local produce and other goods that contribute to the overall health of Little Falls. The summer market will be located at Burke Park/ Western Park Thursdays, June 17th – September 30th, from 4 pm – 7 pm
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315 Foodies World Record Charcuterie [festival of magic and happiness]
September 26, 2021 11:00 am - 7 pm Gate: VIP and Early Access 11:00 am, General Admission 12:00 pm
Kids Zone Obstacle Course, Bounce Houses, and Activities 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Live Music on the Joe Macri Realty Stage 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm
QB54 Tournament 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm (cash and other prizes)
Steet-Ponte Hole-in-One Car Giveaway at the MV Golf and Event Center 2:00 pm ($500 closest to the pin)
Little Falls City Meetings
Traffic Committee:
Staff and volunteer meeting 9:00 am Board construction begins 10:00 am There will be a meeting of the Traffic Committee, Tuesday, Sept. 7, at 6:00 p.m., in the Mayor’s CALENDAR OF EVENTS
conference room at City Hall. Tourism Committee:
There will be a meeting of the Tourism Committee, Thursday, Sept. 16, at 8:30 a.m. in the Mayor’s conference room at City Hall.
Canal Harbor:
Common Council:
There will be a meeting of the Common Council, Tuesday, Sept. 7, at 7:00 p.m., in the Council Chamber at City Hall. Auditing of the bills will take place at 6:30 p.m.
Golf Commission:
There will be a meeting of the Golf Commission, Thursday, Sept. 9, at 8:00 a.m. This meeting will be held at the City of Little Falls Municipal Golf Course
Police and Fire Board:
There will be a meeting of the Police and Fire Board, Monday, Sept. 13, at 7:00 p.m., in the Mayor’s conference room at City Hall. Auditing of the bills will take place at 6:30 p.m. There will be a Canal Harbor Commission meeting, Thursday, Sept. 16, at 9:00 a.m., in the Mayor’s conference room at City Hall.
Board of Public Works:
There will a meeting of the BPW, Monday, Sept. 20, at 7:00 p.m., in the Mayor’s conference room at City Hall. Auditing of the bills will take place at 6:30 p.m.
Little Falls Public Library
Lego robotics / Mondays / 3:30 PM A pre-exhibit power point presentation which highlights the artist and her works will be given by the docents and business women of the Atelier d’Isabelle at the Little Falls Public Library on Thursday, September 16th at 6:30pm. Please join us!
Think Local Little Falls
Recreation Commission:
There will be a Recreation Commission meeting, Tuesday, Sept. 14, at 6:00 p.m. in the Mayor’s conference room at City Hall.
Urban Renewal:
There will be an Urban Renewal meeting Wednesday, Sept. 15, at 8:00 a.m. in the Mayor’s conference at City Hall. Creative Writing Zoom Class / Mondays / 5 PM TASC Prep Class / Thursdays / 9 AM
Coffee & Coloring / Thursdays / 2 PM
Make a Bracelet / Friday, September 17th / 3 PM
Paint ‘n’ Sip with Jill Rae / Thursday, September 23 / 6 PM
The Belgian artist, Isabelle de Borchgrave, creates intricately painted paper sculptures showcasing 500 years of fashion history. This extraordinary exhibit, Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper, will open October 16, 2021 and run through January 9, 2022 at the MunsonWilliams- Proctor-ArtsInstitute in Utica. For more information, please visit MWPAI.org to access the list of events and programs associated with the exhibit. It is a “must see!”
Pizza Challenge - September 16th, 4-7:30pm, tickets are $6 each. Ticket Sales - 4-7 pm (day of the event), winner announced - 8:30pm
Salisbury
September 14 – Regular meeting of the Salisbury Historical Society at 6:30 p.m. at 1805 Frisbie House, 109 State Route 29A, Salisbury Center. Everyone welcome.
DINER From Page 3
just shows up and you have to jump at it,” said Izzo. “This was friends and followers of our food truck and people that have supported us from day one making connections, and wanting their diner back,” Lamphere said.
“We’re still going to do the Cheese Festival in Little Falls because those Little Falls festivals and the Dolgeville events were really the springboard for us. People know us and follow us on Facebook and we want to keep that following,” she stated.
They also plan on having the food truck at the 315 Foodies event on September 26, 2021, as that group goes after the world record for the longest Charcuterie board. “We’re pretty excited about that too,” said Lamphere.
The food truck for both of them was like a parttime fun thing during the summer. “A hard workin’ girls day out,” Lamphere said.
Lamphere is quitting her full-time job to open the diner. “It’s going to be a lot easier for me, I’ll be right here in my hometown. I don’t have to travel and my kids are right here in school.”
Izzo says that she’s going to help as much as she can while continuing to teach for the next 12 years. “Whether it’s early in the morning, after work, or on the weekends, I’ll be here, but my life will definitely be different.”
The two said that they’re planning on opening from 7 - 2 Tuesday through Sunday. “We plan on bringing our food truck sandwiches here and incorporating those into the menu, but also some typical diner fare,” stated Lamphere.
Soups sandwiches, burgers, pulled pork, and all of the traditional breakfast items will be on the menu, but you will also see a little bit of a Southern twist to things.
“There’s going to be some grits and home fries in there. And, for lunch, I’m also going to do some shrimp and grits, which is also one of my favorites,” said Lamphere.
You can expect their many different kinds of teas and a lot of homemade pies and desserts. “Very homey. Just kind of like down-home cooking,” she said.
“I love this whole thing because people are so happy when they have a full belly,” said Izzo.
Photo by Dave Warner - Heather Lamphere one of the owners of the Southern Girl Food Truck serves up an early dinner during a Local Fresh Thursday event at Burke Park.
“We’re going to add our own touches so it won’t be like every other diner. We’ll have all those old stapes, but we’ll have those that go with our brand… a little Southern cookin’,” said Lamphere. “Somewhere you can take your family to eat.”
Poll workers needed for November election
According to Herkimer County election officials, the City of Little Falls is short twelve poll workers for the upcoming November 2, 2021 election.
Kim S. Tranter, Republican Commissioner at the Herkimer County Board of Elections stated, “On election day, we need twenty poll inspectors. Those are the people who sit at the table. For each election district, and the City of Little Falls has five, we have to have four workers - two Republicans and two Democrats.”
Tranter thinks that because a lot of the poll workers were elderly, that they have been affected by COVID. “They just dropped off one by one. Last year we were able to handle the Presidential election with fill-ins. Even though they went through the training, they’re not our normal poll workers that you would see every year.”
Please See POLL Page 12
Open 7 days a week 8am-5pm Breakfast served until 10:30 am and Lunch After That. EVERYTHING is homemade !!!
BONITA’S
22 N. Ann Street Little Falls, NY 13365 315-508-5192
Owners Bonita and Nick Humphrey
Little Falls Community Co-Op
Bulk foods, spices, supplements, and hard to find items at discounted costs. Beauty products, housewares, gardening equipment, seeds, gifts, local products, books and more!
Mon: Closed Tue: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM Wed: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM Thu: 9:30 AM - 8:00 PM Fri: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM Sat: 9:30 AM - 1:00 PM Sun: Closed
Pizza Challenge Returns to Little Falls
The mission of Think Local Little Falls is to promote a “local living economy” by bolstering locally owned businesses. Over the years, the group has developed a Third Thursday series of events to highlight business and encourage patrons to spend their dollars to support local. One of those events is the Pizza Challenge.
Think Local hosts their 5th Pizza Challenge on Thursday, September 16 on East Main Street in Little Falls. This laidback event can be taken at your own pace and is delicious fun for all ages.
Participants can purchase a ticket for $6 to sample pizza between 4-7 pm at each participating pizzeria including Ruggiero’s Trattoria, Ed’s Pizza Place, Italian Feast, Skobby’s, and Mangia Macrina’s Wood Fired Pizza. Ticket holders are also invited to have a dessert bite at Il Caffé. Participants who get their tickets stamped at all five pizzerias will be given the opportunity to cast one vote by 7:30 pm for their favorite pizza to help to name this year’s Pizza Challenge victor!
Think Local chairperson, Elaine Cobb, explains, “After not being able to have a pizza challenge last year, we are really looking forward to this event. And having two new pizzerias involved makes it especially fun.” Cobb is referring to Skobby’s which opened on East Main St earlier this year and Mangia Macrina’s that opened their wood-fired pizzeria in the Stone Mill building at Canal Place last year. Mangia Macrina will have their food truck on site for the Pizza Challenge on East Main Street downtown.
Past champions include Ed’s Pizza Place and Italian Feast. The 2021 winner will be announced on the Think Local Little Falls Facebook page around 8:30 pm that evening.
Guests can purchase tickets at a ticket booth on East Main from 4-7 pm during the event. Tickets will also be available at the participating restaurants in the weeks leading up to the event.
Throughout the Pizza Challenge, several buskers will be performing along Main Street providing live music for guests.
WE ARE HIRING
Photo by Dave Warner - Customers grab a slice of to-go pizza at Ed’s Pizza Place
Photo by Dave Warner - Dave Casullo gets a pizza from Chris Woodbeck out in front of the Stone Mill building.
Event Highlights:
Date - Third Thursday, September 16th Time - 4-7:30pm Ticket Price - $6 each
Please See PIZZA Page 13
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Little Falls resident becomes viral sensation
by Dave Warner
The 315 Foodies are having their 315 Foodies World Record Charcuterie [festival of magic and happiness] in Little Falls on the 26th of September, but the group has already had an impact on one Little Falls resident. She posted her stuffed spaghetti subs to the Facebook Group, and things just took off.
Mike Cassella with the 315 Foodies Facebook Group said, “We had a post go viral, and it was a Little Falls girl named Vanessa West. She’s famous now. She posted a series of photos of her building a spaghetti and meatball sub. A sub roll hollowed out.”
“The post now has over 275,000 shares and God knows how many Comments and Likes,” he said.
West has lived in Little Falls for 17 years and she works in a small factory in Ilion called Acorn Products. “We do injection molding and I’ve been there for six years now,” she said.
She says that when she was growing up, her mom was very particular in how she wanted the food prepared. “To help was almost like slowing her down, but I had a stool in the kitchen so I could always sit and watch her cook. I learned a lot about cooking and making different things.”
West said that they would both talk about how their days went and “I would pay attention, but didn’t even realize that I was learning how to cook until I moved out on my own for the first time.”
Ever since then, she’s eaten out very little because she has found it so relaxing just to cook at home. “Eating out was very rare for us. It was very natural for me just to cook at home. It was a treat to go out.”
She said that her friends come over for dinner parties, and they have made little jokes about her opening a diner, but she said that cooking like that was never for her. “I wouldn’t want the stress of having a set menu and having to cook for everyone and expecting them to just like it. I could never do anything like that.” West said that the guy she is dating knows Mike Cassella and Preston Moore, the two that started the 315 Foodies Facebook Group. “They all went to school together, so he was already friends with them on Facebook. I joined the group very early on.”
The meal that she posted on Facebook that went viral, is something that she’s been making for a while. “Growing up, we always had spaghetti with bread and butter, but I’d take my piece of bread and butter, put the spaghetti on it and make a little sandwich.”
As she grew up, it just kind of became something that made making the meal easier - putting it in hollowed-out sub rolls. “Put a little garlic butter and spaghetti in there. It became a more sophisticated way of the bread, butter, and spaghetti altogether.”
Please See VIRAL Page 9
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Green Acres Drive-In
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Photo by Dave Warner - Meghan Tracy has taken over as the new full-time manager of Ann Street Wine & Liquors.
Next generation gets a handle on Ann Street Wine & Liquors
by Dave Warner
Meghan Tracy has taken on the position of fulltime manager of Ann Street Wine & Liquors, which has been her family’s business for 46 years. “I grew up here and my grandparents have owned it since I was born,” she stated.
Tracy graduated from Little Falls High School in 2008 and then went to Utica College to major in public relations. Throughout high school and college, she worked in restaurants. “I got my start at the Canal Side Inn as a bus girl. I just went around watering people.”
She then graduated to waitressing and then bartending. “I learned a lot of tips from Barb down there.”
Tracy said she also worked in food sales and marketing. “I got to know the other side of things, which helps me here.”
When she arrived at the Observer-Dispatch doing advertising sales, is when she really got into the marketing side of things. Everything from social media, to making sure that people got the best products for what they were trying to do.
“I also learned how to make everything aesthetically pleasing, which is kinda one of my forte’s,” she stated.
She said that she also enjoys wine herself, which is one of the reasons they have such a robust wine selection now. “I’ve seen anything from a $15 bottle to a $200 bottle and I got to try different ones.”
One of her friends was also into wine and they had different types shipped to them from all over, which allowed her to try many brands as well.
Before she started working in the store, she would come in to
Please See WINE Page 10
VIRAL From Page 7
me when it went so crazy because I just assumed that lots of people do that. A sandwich is what is going crazy on Facebook right now,” she said. “The popularity of the page grew a lot.”
West said that there were so many comments on the post, that she couldn’t even keep up with answering them. “Every time I checked my notifications, it would say there are 1,000 new comments or something. My phone wouldn’t even open them all.”
What has her new fame brought her? “Only little jokes, like Cassella saying I’ll be the Queen of the Festival.”
She said that “It’s kind of exciting to see all of the people who have made it, who have put their own little twist on it, and then they’re all sharing it on the page. They don’t remember that it was me who originally made it.”
However, that one post by West, got the founders thinking a little bit more broadly.
“Now we realize that these people are not just all over the country, but from all over the world as part of the group,” stated Preston Moore, the other 315 Foodies founder. “So now, we have to shift our focus a little bit because a lot of these people are not coming to our events or buying our app because it’s a local thing. So, we’re looking at some products that we can get in people’s hands like recipes, cookbooks, a recipe app, spices and rubs, and things that we can ship out,” he said.
“It is a slight change for our original members, but I’m trying to remind everybody that our core principle is promoting 315 Food and Restaurants, and bringing 315 to the world’s attention. So this is exactly what we dreamed of two years ago when we started the group,” said Cassella.
Photo submitted - Vanessa West and her daughter
CLITT H E LE E F S E ALLS F E S T I V A L
LITTLE FALLS, NY 10AM - 5PM
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WINE From Page 8
buy something and leave empty-handed. “There really wasn’t anything I liked. I thought - This is my family’s liquor store, so if I’m leaving empty-handed, then maybe others are as well, so when I started working here, I saw the opportunity.”
She and her mom spent time at the beginning of COVID in the store, trying to pick up the slack from workers who were no longer comfortable working there because of the pandemic.
“We noticed that there was a huge opportunity that we were missing here. My job with advertising was declining at the same time because people didn’t want to advertise, so I just decided I would come back here and do this full-time,” Tracy said.
She convinced her family that if they gave her the opportunity, that she could make them more money and bring in more products, and have lower prices. “They were afraid that if I lowered prices, that they’d lose money.”
“Now it’s been nine months since I’ve taken over and it’s going well,” she stated.
When first taking over the store, she did a huge price reduction on the liquor side and starting really changing up the
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The second thing she did was to move the back stock out. “I got rid of all of our old shelving that had been here for forty years. I came in one night at 9 pm when the store closed and stayed until 6 am and threw them all out and decided to put new product on the floor.”
That freed up a ton of shelf space, and she has been able to expand her wine stock significantly. “I’ve personally tasted everything, I make sure
Photo by Dave Warner - Ann Street Wine and Liquors has a significantly expanded wine section.
they give me samples, so everything that I bring in, I make sure it’s something good.”
She feels like she has a pretty good sense of what people are going to like or dislike so that when they come in, they will like what they purchase. “Even when I’m not here, I don’t ever worry that somebody might come in and pick up a bottle off the shelf and go home and hate it,” she stated. “That’s the upside to having a small store.” They even have an organic wine section as well. “I try to do different price ranges. Anywhere from $10 up to $100. I really want to make sure that we have things you’re not going to find at our competitors.”
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Tracy says that people from as far away as Utica now come to shop because of the selection she has and the fact that they can’t find it in Utica. “I want to make sure that everyone in Little Falls is well-served, but also bring other people down here because we
Please See WINE Page 14
Creative Designs by Tiffany
florist • event design • gifts
North Main Street Dolgeville, NY 315-429-8777
FAMILY FEATURES
S
coring big on game day requires championshiplevel meals and snacks that keep the crowd full and ready for action. You can take your tailgate to the house with these baked dishes that help simplify homegating so you can focus on the big screen.
From a salsa-based dip and chicken wings to kick off the party to sweet brownies for celebrating victory, each of these recipes call for less than an hour in the kitchen. Clock management is key to tackling a tailgate spread, making these delicious dishes the perfect play calls on game day.
To find more tailgate and homegate recipe inspiration, visit Culinary.net.
Just Wing It
Skip the silverware at your next homegate and dive right in with a fan favorite that requires just your hands and a heap of napkins: wings.
Whether you pick through your pieces or clean each wing to the bone, these Game Day Chicken Wings are perfect for eaters of all types. A simple flour-based coating keeps the recipe easy to make and baking in the oven means you can skip the messy fryer or firing up the grill.
Cook until crispy then corral your party’s favorite dipping sauces from ranch and blue cheese to barbecue and more. Once your spread is served, it’s time to sit back and enjoy the game.
Game Day Chicken Wings
Total time: 50 minutes Servings: 4
1/2 cup butter, cubed 1/3 cup flour 2 teaspoons paprika 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon black pepper 10 chicken wingettes, thawed dipping sauces (optional) fresh parsley (optional)
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Line baking sheet with foil. Arrange butter cubes on foil.
In medium bowl, combine flour, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
Coat both sides of wings in flour mixture then evenly space among butter cubes on baking sheet.
Bake wings 30 minutes.
Turn wings over and bake 15 minutes, or until crispy and fully cooked.
Serve with dipping sauces and sprinkle with fresh parsley, if desired.
Pohlig’s
HOME FURNISHINGS
ESTABLISHED 1888
Paint & Paint Sundries Flooring & Ceramic Tiles Window Shades & Treatments Mattresses Wallpaper & Borders
634-636 E. Main Street P.O. Box 93 Little Falls, NY 13365 P. (315) 823-2640 F. (315) 823-2641
Girl Scout Service Unit 260 located in Little Falls, NY is looking to expand the Girl Scout community and invites girls in grades K-12th to register today! Girl Scouts offers girls & adults the opportunity to try new things, share in new experiences & connect with others!
Interested in learning more and registering your future Girl Scout, visit gsnypenn.org, call 1.855.213.8555, or email info@gsnypenn.org
Registration fee is $25 for both girls & adults. Financial assistance available Service Unit 260 is hosting a Girl Scout Sign-Up Night- hope to see you there! *We ask that anyone attending where a mask to this event, thank you for your understanding.
Monday, September 27, 6pm-7:30pm Women’s Christian Association (WCA) 534 Garden St, Little Falls, NY 13365
All other areas within the Mohawk Valley please check your local listings for dates & times.
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