Dive House Union, which played last night at the Central Park Grill, is a fine band that plays blues, the occasional Grateful Dead number, all kinds of great stuff. But that is just part of the fun.
Their really good keyboardist is announced with mention of his family's meat shop on Delaware. (It is Tom Scime, of Scime's Sausages.)
Everyone gets weepy when a ballad goes out to a woman in the audience named Joanne.
You are able to brag to strangers that you have shared the stage with the saxophonist. (Most Buffalonians have been in a band at one time or another, and saxophonist Barry Arbogast played with Buzz now and then when we were in a jazz band, Ladies First.)
Someone's kid sits in on guitar.
It is a weeknight but the bar is jammed, front and back, with people crowded in the doorway and spilling out onto the chilly patio.
Such is the siren song of Wild Idea Buffalo, which sells grass-fed buffalo meat. The company woos customers with pictures of bison meat smoldering on coals, dripping with juices. The price of beef is rising, Wild Idea Buffalo crows, and so hearty and heart-healthy buffalo is a bargain.
Their May Special is $17.95 a pound. And that's on sale! Kind of hefty if you ask us, and not enough to tempt us away from Scime's Sausage just yet.
Still, what a pleasure to see the words "Buffalo" and "healthy" in the same sentence!
The legendary Russian Tea Room, photographed by Buzz on this misty moisty morning, sits next to the legendary Carnegie Hall and it is there that a crowd of BPO fans will be rallying after the concert tonight.
It is a ticketed event and attendance is limited, but still - the Russian Tea Room had better brace itself!
Buzz ran into BPO communications director Susan Schwartz as she headed over to the famous restaurant to make last-minute arrangements. She pointed out how narrow the doors were.
"When 550 people rush that entrance ..." she said.
If those 550 Buffalonians have been eating half the amount Buzz has been eating over the past couple of days, that should really be something to see!
In the Buzz column today we lament the loss of Dorothy Malczewski, a legend of the Broadway Market and a woman who was free with her knowledge of food.
Other people are telling us Dorothy brought the butter lamb to
Buffalo, as detailed in that marvelous vintage video above. Our chief
memory of her centered on the time she told us how to roast duck to
impress Howard, the guy we were dating, and whom we eventually married
(the duck worked).
There were a couple of surprise details we had forgotten. One was
that the duck had been Dorothy's idea! Buzz had confessed we were making
dinner for her boyfriend, and she picked up that we hoped to impress
him. "How about a duck?" she said. And we said OK, even though we had
never made duck before.
Another detail we love is that after giving us the recipe, Dorothy
sized us up, like an artist appraising her successor. "I can see why he
likes you," she said solemnly. "You're a good cook."
Thanks to her! And now, the recipe everyone is waiting for ...
Unforgettable, this notice for Lance Diamond at Milkie's, the old Elmwood Lounge. Let us cut and paste:
CAN YOU SHAKE IT, SHAKE IT, SHAKE IT!!!!! THEN COME OUT TO MILKYS ON ELMWOOD THIS SATURDAY NIGHT APRIL 27th FOR A PARTY WITH LANCE DIAMOND AND HIS 24K DIAMOND BAND. 522 ELMWOOD AVE, BUFFALO NY . AND REMEMBER
LANCE GOES TILL 9 IN THE MORNING. 11pm SHOW TIME, $5.00 at the DOOR....
God love you, Lance, for sticking to that 11 p.m. start time after all these years! One gal we know who used to live in an apartment next door said you could set your clock by what time he went on, and what time he sang "Brick House."
This new video has been making the social media rounds.
Josh Potter of 103.3 The Edge has Tweeted: "406 reasons to love Buffalo... 403 are Food Reasons, the other three are Sabres, Bills & St Patrick's Day. I'm moving."
Ha, ha! It is pretty funny when the video goes into high gear, inundating you with picture after picture of wings and beer and beef on weck, Fat Bob's and Gigi's and the Olympic Restaurant. It is like a food fight. Splat! Splat! Splat!
Speaking of which, here is something we can all agree on. Someone, obviously a Buffalonian, writes on YouTube:
"it would be better if you didnt have a seizure from the pictures going
so damn fast. Slow the damn thing down and it would be 100X better."
