JoAnn Riedl/Food Menu/GFA

Friday Night - 7:00pm - JoAnn Riedl

JoAnn Riedl, the leader of the all-girl punk rock band The Barrettes, returns to Stumpjack for a solo acoustic concert. Riedl's performances combine elements of folk, punk, and rock and alternate between gentle songs of introspection and aggressive wailers that make you wonder how much longer her guitar strings will survive. The woman also does not use any electronics or amplification for her acoustic sets. She is an uncommonly confident and fearless performer who doesn't need anything more than her voice and a guitar (and maybe an extra set of strings).

Riedl has earned a fiercely loyal following and a reputation as an intense and sincere performer, whether playing before a small bar crowd or before hundreds of fans at large events like Summerfest. Her coffee-shop performances are not for those looking to spend a quiet couple hours reading a book to some mellow background folk music. Her singing and playing demand your attention as she prowls back and forth across the floor with guitar and belts out some stick-it-to-the-man anthem, or sits cross-legged on a chair with a banjo (yes, a banjo) in her lap and sings about love and life.

poster says 8pm but the show really starts at 7pm. Poster by Cheyenne Smith.

JoAnn Riedl is one of those artists who I consider to be a "must-see" musician, as much for her music as for the experience of seeing someone who performs "bigger" than whatever venue (coffee-shop or festival stage) it is that she happens to be in at the time.

Riedl will be performing with special guest David Salentine

Food Menu

As many of you who have lunch with us at Stumpjack know, our menu changes from week to week, even day to day, depending on what we find at the farmers markets or pick from our garden, and even on whim or interesting recipes we come across. We've been working on our food menu for the past month or two, attempting to expand it and bring just a little more consistency to it in some areas. We will continue to do things "of the moment" - there's a lot of pleasure in finding some fresh beets or figs, for example, at the market and coming up with something for the next day's menu.

But we also want to expand the menu into something that we can print and that people can take with them. We used to do that...have printed menus available with all of our drinks and a general outline of food offerings. I'm not exactly sure when or why we got away from that, but we do want to evolve that into more of a menu with some consistent food offerings. And "consistent" will likely be a seasonal term, as for the most part we want to continue to morph the menu around what things are in season and what we can get from local growers and farmers.

Anyway, it's something we're working on and hope to wrap up this month. In the meantime just keep abreast of the Stumpjack Coffee Facebook updates with what's on the menu for each week or better yet just stop by for lunch between 11:00 and 2:00 Wednesday through Saturday.

GFA

We don't yet know if we earned any kudos from Fox Cities Magazine in the Golden Fork Award balloting. But we did do the drawing for the big coffee gift basket for everyone who told us that they voted in the event. I used a cool little random name generator installed on my laptop, called "The Hat," to draw the winning name. Lea Holz, our talented friend formerly of Sheboygan and now in Boulder, Colorado was the name drawn. Lea was scheduled to perform at Stumpjack later this month during a visit to Wisconsin, but she had to cancel her trip for now. She promised to reschedule when she can in fact make the journey, so all you disappointed Lea Holz fans will ultimately be rewarded for your patience.

TidBits

Friday Night Live Music

Adam Morantez brings his good time to Stumpjack at 7:00pm

Saturday Night Live Music

Becky Markvart...watch her smash a Taylor Guitar just like Pete Townsend!

Cosmetic changes

We've been giving the Stump a little facelift. Added a comfy seating area right up in the front window; spruced up the outside storefront a bit with some paint and plants; have a few plans for the back room. Should take another week or two to finish everything since we only work on it during the one or two days a week that we're closed.

Lunch 11-2

In case you didn't know, we do lunch every day (Wed thru Sat) from 11:00 to 2:00. It's always been a small menu of a few sandwiches/paninis, soup, salad and/or pasta salad (and will be returning with the artisan pizzas soon again too). The menu changes from week to week, depending on what we find at the Farmers Market or pick from our garden, and everything is prepared fresh with each order. Also, since we do purchase small amounts of fresh items the standing rule is once we're out then we're out. Here's a photo by Cheyenne of this week's Striped Tomato Farfalle w/Sweet Corn & Basil.

Biscotti

Here's the link to this week's Spill the Beans column in the HTR, about biscotti. I have read the actual published version yet to see if they've edited anything (cringe) but this link should be good for a couple weeks anyway, before they inactivate it and you have to pay to read articles. I'll add the whole article, long with all of my other Spill the Beans articles, to the archive here at some point.

Local talented barista moves on

I write a twice-a-month coffee column for the Herald Times Reporter called Spill the Beans. I discuss all sorts of coffee-related topics. For example, I write instructional articles on how to choose a home coffee grinder or how to cold brew for the best iced coffee, to educational articles about cacao or certain coffee growing regions, to personal reviews of coffees I've had or cafés I've visited. Last week's column was about a fellow barista and friend of mine, Nic Bornemann, who is leaving the coffee world as a workday barista to join the world of cell phones and digital communications.

The HTR published the article I submitted, but edited the piece so that a couple of quotes from Nic were removed. I assume they did it for space considerations (even though it is a very short piece - much less than 400 words), because the article suffers without the quotes and a bit of Nic's voice in there. It's got a little more personality as initially written. So, rather than provide a link to the published piece here's the part of the original article that refers to Nic (it was a two-topic column).

The Manitowoc County coffee community has lost one of its best representatives, and one of a scant few honest-to-goodness baristas. Nic Bornemann, now former general manager of the Red Bank Coffeehouse in Two Rivers, has taken a job managing a couple of Wireless U.S. Cellular locations in Green Bay. Nic sent me an email a few weeks ago telling me that as of June 13th he would be resigning his position at Red Bank Coffeehouse and moving on into the world of personal communication devices.

"After almost 13 years of 'slingin jo' I will tamp and draw my last shot on that day," he wrote. It was not an easy decision for Nic, as he revealed that his heart was heavy over his "contemplating leaving the coffee world."

While I always teased Nic that he was the "second-best barista on the lakeshore" he was, in fact, the only SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) Certified Barista in our area. He and I had both attended the SCAA Coffee Fest convention in Milwaukee a few years ago and took some of the same classes and seminars. Nic, however, went further and took the actual follow-up test. The test is a combination of written exam and physical performance at the espresso machine while being observed and graded by an SCAA Certified Instructor on the various minutia of proper espresso drink preparation and station maintenance. Nic, of course, passed; no doubt with flying colors.

He indicated that while his decision to leave the specialty coffee industry was a very difficult one, the opportunities for both personal and financial growth were too attractive to pass up. "Coffee has always been my passion, but I do feel that it is time I spread my wings and explore the world."

I certainly will miss Nic's presence here in our little corner of the coffee world, as a peer and colleague, and as someone who respected coffee and all of its tangential associations. He has left some big shoes to fill around here. So, here's wishing best of success to the northeast lakeshore's second-best barista. (I'll have the final word on that friendly competition!)