Join us for a LIVE Cooking School with one of our Culinary Specialists who will share their home cooking tips and tricks while demonstrating step-by-step recipes for the season’s best dishes. Find out for yourself why people keep coming back to the Taste of Home Cooking School, year after year! Food, fun, and delicious memories are waiting for you, so get your tickets today. The event includes a Marketplace where you can shop & sample your way through several vendors before the live show, several food trucks from the metro serving up delicious eats for your dining pleasure and the live cooking show where you will learn some of the top recipes featured in the Taste of Home cookbooks & magazines! Marketplace & Food Trucks will be open at 4:00PM with the Live Show starting at 7:00PM At Jacobsen Building at Iowa State Fairgrounds.
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Join us for a LIVE Cooking School with one of our Culinary Specialists who will share their home cooking tips and tricks while demonstrating step-by-step recipes for the season’s best dishes. Find out for yourself why people keep coming back to the Taste of Home Cooking School, year after year! Food, fun, and delicious memories are waiting for you, so get your tickets today. The event includes a Marketplace where you can shop & sample your way through several vendors before the live show, several food trucks from the metro serving up delicious eats for your dining pleasure and the live cooking show where you will learn some of the top recipes featured in the Taste of Home cookbooks & magazines! Marketplace & Food Trucks will be open at 4:00PM with the Live Show starting at 7:00PM At Jacobsen Building at Iowa State Fairgrounds.I like to take different roads to get to my routine destinations. Along the way, I notice things. Some make me smile. Some make me shake my head in puzzlement. Some make me do a U-turn to see if my eyes deceived me. Some compel me to take that route again and again. Sometimes I admire. I always attempt to record with a photo (smart phones are a wonderful invention). Some thing I’ve noticed Along the Way:
- A truck that had signage – Hillbilly Handyman.
- A store to go with it – Hillbilly Palace Thrift Store.
- Larger the life picture of Ron Paul as yard ornamentation.
- Beautifully manicured and landscaped yard.
- The floor covering business that gives “free stimates”. (thought perhaps the letter came off, but opposite side was exactly the same)
- Broken plastic lawn chair with For Sale sign.
- Dog house with sign that says “Killer” – great security system.
- The hidden house – so overgrown you can barely make out the roof line.
- Unusual paint colors on houses – lavender/purple exterior -stands out in the neighborhood.
- Street names – like Giggle or No Name.
- “Where-did-they-get-that-why-did-they-put-it-in-their-yard” ornaments
What’s your favorite along the way site?
Follow us on Pinterest – we have an “Along the Way” Board
with new things added as we find them.
I LOVE fall – the colors in the trees, the crisp cooler air, the sounds of crunching leaves under foot, the flavor of juicy apples, aroma of warm bowl of homemade soup, snapping of burning logs at a weiner roast – the sound of football games. It is a wonderful time of year – it’s great to live in an area that has distinct differences in the seasons. I would love to see or hear about your favorite fall activity! I’m posting some that I’ve collected on Pinterest – and then some that our family has enjoyed.
- Fall house tour at Stone Gable
- Our Vintage Home
- Muchkin Mix
- Eclectically Vintage
- Craft Critters
- That’s my Letter
- Thanksgiving card designed by Tiffany Murphy
- Delicious and decadent handmade caramel apples (by M.E.)
- Fall Sweet Pizza
- Our own Spider Web candy, complete with spider ring.
- Eyeball Truffles
- Little girl wondering if she should eat Eyeball Truffle!
We’ve been licensed Realtors for a few decades in the Des Moines area. Things have changee in 30+ years. People are visual – that has not changed. In fact – that aspect has become increasingly important. With most buyers doing preliminary research on line – photos are imperative. Good photos – definitely give your property an edge over those without. Bad MLS photos are a source of entertainment for us in the industry. Sadly, they are not going to help you find a buyer for your property. A quick tour on Craigslist will harvest a plethora of bad photos. Nobody wants to see your unmade bed, a view of your open toilet or your refrigerator magnets. Our goal as Realtors is to present a house in the best possible light to make as many potential buyers want to see the property in person. We want the photos to make you want the house to be yours! We’ll be posting about photo errors in the future – be prepared to be entertained and educated! First thing is -if the grass is green at the house, the grass should be green in the photos. Don’t keep snow-covered landscape on the internet when winter has ended. 
Pleasant Hill’s Sleepy Hollow is home to annual Renaissance Faire. They have a permanent home, with permanent buildings and grounds. Find out more on their http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc Tweeting, texting, advertising, they’ve all moved us along in the bastardization of the English language. I believe people do judge you by the words you use. There are slang words that come and go, but why does the dictionary want to legitimize street language that will probably be gone in a relatively short amount of time? I like words. I like to read. I take note of the language people use. I make assumptions about them based on their use of our language. As political speeches abound in Iowa, we have the opportunity to hear how candidates communicate with words. And yes, we make judgements based on their use of words. The Oxford English Dictionary recently released their newest additions for 2015. Some that I wish we did not have to assimilate:
- Twerk – Both a noun and verb, and a word I wish I could un-see!
- Vape – vaper and vaping.
- Stanky – seriously, will this be around long enough to need to add to dictionary?
- Shizzle – at least this one’s fun to say! Fo Shizzle!
- Meh – a verbal shrug of the shoulder?
- Manspreading. (was not aware that this was peculiar to males)
- Hangry – a clever combination, or convenient excuse?
There are two kinds of people in Des Moines area – people who go to the fair (every chance they get) and people who never go to the fair. Eisenlauer Team is in the former group. How can you pass up the opportunity? Even if you just sat on a bench and watched the carnival pass by, you’d be entertained! Some of our highlights:
- Riding the tractor-pulled wagons around the grounds.
- Food entries – we were able to see Ed Podalak, Gary Dolphin and Chuck Offenberger judge chili and reminisce about their Iowa heritage.
- Sky Glider – The best, most relaxing ride on the fairgrounds.
- 4-H building – Amazing what the youth in Iowa cook, sew, upcyle, refinish and create! AMAZING!
- Hard Boiled Egg on a Stick!
- Access to more national political celebrities than anywhere else in the country!
- Freaks and Geeks – Everywhere
- Free demonstrations at every turn – salsa maker, cookware, mops, whistles, dancing puppet animals, de-tox through your feet and so much more!
- Biggest animals/flowers/vegetables etc in every imaginable category.
- Free Shows – even the Village People!
We are members of the Grace Fellowship Church on E 25th between E. Grand & Capitol. Churches of this era were built as neighborhood churches without parking lots. It was a time when families walked from home instead of driving from the suburbs. The East Gate Masonic Lodge graciously allows us to park in their lot on Sunday’ s and Wednesdays. In return, I’d like to encourage our friends to park in their lot when they attend the Iowa State Fair. For a mere $5, you get to park in a supervised lot and a ride to the front gate and back to your car. Hard to beat that!
At the Iowa State Fairgrounds – the best “junk” you can find – all on display and for sale – just in time for Christmas (or Thanksgiving!) Over 150 vendors all in one convenient location.Hosted by Simpson United Methodist Church, one of the largest flea markets in the area held 10 times a year.
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