{"id":4761,"date":"2019-05-24T08:06:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=4761"},"modified":"2019-05-25T08:14:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T12:14:27","slug":"another-taste-of-grand-rapids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/another-taste-of-grand-rapids\/","title":{"rendered":"A Taste of Grand Rapids, Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word is that beautiful Grand Rapids is fast becoming a destination city for its museums, restaurants, music, as well as the yearly international ArtPrize competition. I was there again last week to do an interview on WGVU about my kids’ self-esteem program, Stick Up For Yourself!<\/em>\u00a0 It’s sold close to 300,000 copies, been translated into over a dozen languages, and is now available in a revised and expanded edition.\u00a0 The book teaches kids 9-13 how to build self-esteem, deal with bullies and powerlessness–and there’s a teacher’s guide, too. You can listen to the interview at the WGVU website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Shelley Irwin at WGVU is a great host, prepared and focused and fun, so it’s always a treat to be on her show.\u00a0 Once the interview was over, I crossed the river to enjoy myself even more. My first stop was a visit to the Meyer May House<\/a>. This Frank Lloyd Wright home was built in the early 1900s for a clothier and has been scrupulously, lovingly restored thanks to period photos, original plans in a Wright archive, and memories of members of the May family itself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The house is classic Wright, a symphony of horizontal lines.\u00a0 Wright designed every detail from windows to carpets to wall sconces. The house is a work of art inside and out, the details all blending harmoniously in a rebuke to the over-stuffed Victorian and Edwardian homes of his youth.\u00a0 There’s a short documentary online about the amazing restoration project well worth seeing before you go, or you can watch it at the welcome center.<\/p>\n

The small tour included couples from Sweden and The Netherlands and I chatted briefly with each one in their language, but quickly ran out of vocabulary because I wasn’t prepared to speak anything but English on this trip.<\/p>\n

My early lunch nearby at Grove was artful, too.\u00a0 A very short drive away, it’s a small, elegant restaurant that is proud to be farm-to-table and award-winning.\u00a0 The room is a blend of cool grays and browns, and the music is low-key, which suits the milieu.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I started with a delicious Moscato and tried two different appetizers because I was still celebrating a major birthday.\u00a0 The deviled eggs with Japanese nori chips were very good, and the smoked salmon hush puppies were terrific.\u00a0 The entree outdid them both: seasoned fried jasmine rice with ginger, celery, carrots, yuzu koshu, broccoli, and smoked duck. It was the fluffiest, most flavorful rice I’d ever had.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I rounded it all out with a double espresso and drove home happy that Grand Rapids is so close, so full of life, and has so much to offer.<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the author of twenty-six books in genres from memoir to mystery and teaches creative writing online at writewithoutborders.com<\/a> where he also offers editing services.\u00a0 His latest academic mystery is State University of Murder<\/a>.
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word is that beautiful Grand Rapids is fast becoming a destination city for its museums, restaurants, music, as well as the yearly international ArtPrize competition. I was there again last week to do an interview on WGVU about my kids’ self-esteem program, Stick Up For Yourself!\u00a0 It’s sold close to 300,000 copies, been translated … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[347],"tags":[1275,1841,1756,1843,1842,1276,1840,1838,838,341,1396,1837,1839],"class_list":["post-4761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-foodies","tag-frank-lloyd-wright","tag-grand-rapids","tag-grove-restaurant-grand-rapids","tag-meyer-may-house","tag-restaurants","tag-shelley-irwin-wgvu","tag-stick-up-for-yourself","tag-tourism","tag-travel","tag-travel-blogging","tag-trvael-blog","tag-wgvu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4761"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4808,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions\/4808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}