From Joel Sherman for the New York Post:

The Cubs were looking for a way to psych themselves up with their season possibly nine innings away from termination. But even facing elimination, the underdog motif fit these Cubs as well as a Mini-Me costume does Shaquille O’Neal.

Read the whole story here.
 

After initial reluctance to becoming director of sales and marketing at the Hilton Cleveland Downtown, Ronnie Collins now sees what the city has to offer and has become a vocal advocate for all things 216.

From the Washington Post:

The weight-loss industry has long been saturated with gimmicky, too-good-to-be-true diets, so one could be excused for thinking the main benefit of “Eat Fat, Get Thin” is to burn calories by causing particularly vigorous eye-rolling.

I mean, doesn’t eating fat, like, make you fat?

Actually, the answer is a big, fat no, at least according to Mark Hyman, director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and the man behind the “Eat Fat, Get Thin” plan.

“The misinformation that has been pushed on our population by the food industry and our government, which is that all calories are the same — that’s true in a laboratory, when you burn them,” Hyman said. “It’s not true when you eat them.”

Read the whole story from Des Bieler here.

A group of buildings built in the late 1800s on Church Avenue between W. 25^th and W. 28^th Streets in Ohio City were once the hallmark of a manufacturing town – housing everything from the original Baehr Brewing Company and Odd Fellows Masonic Hall to a machine shop and a tin and sheet metal shop, among other business and residential dwellings. 

Exhibit Builders last owned and operated the buildings fronting W. 25th Street. More recently, the heavy industrial buildings housed the Phoenix Ice Machine Company, Lester Engineering Company, then a charter school and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.
 
Today development partners Rick Foran of Foran Group and Chris Smythe of Smythe Property Advisors are converting the structures into contemporary apartment lofts with a nod to their unique history. “You know you’re in historic buildings, but with modern amenities,” says Smythe.
 
The project has been nine years in the making. Smythe and Foran bought their first property in the group from CMHA back in 2008 with a bank loan. Then the real estate market tanked.

Continue reading.

Getting enough fresh fruits and vegetables to eat can be a hit or miss prospect in Cleveland's “food deserts” where full service grocery stores are hard to come by. At the same time, an astounding amount of produce and other food in the United States – more than 30 million tons a year – ends up in landfills.
 
A fourth-generation fruit-and-vegetable wholesaler in Cleveland is taking on those incongruities with a program designed to assist low-income families while tackling food waste.
 
Forest City Weingart Produce Co. has begun selling, at cost, fruits and vegetables that come through its warehouse every week that are totally healthy but cosmetically flawed – an eggplant with a scar, a dimpled orange, the oddly shaped tomato. The "Perfectly Imperfect" endeavor is a unique effort by which the wholesaler is packaging imperfect produce for purchase on a small scale for individuals, says Ashley Weingart, the company’s director of communications and community outreach.
 
It’s also part of a growing push across the country to save misshapen yet completely edible food from the dump. Writer Jordan Figueiredo has a social media campaign to promote the ugly produce movement on Twitter @UglyFruitAndVeg, and on Facebook.
 
“We see an opportunity to reduce food waste and help get more fruits and vegetables to the population that can’t afford them,” says Weingart as she assembles boxes of imperfect cantaloupes, green peppers, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, lemons and mangos.
 
“We want to bridge the gap between all the food waste that exists in our country and to help the community around us,” she adds. “We feel like we have the obligation and the opportunity to help.”
 
Perfectly Imperfect sells the produce medleys every Friday. A 15-pound mixture goes for $15 or get 30 pounds for $25 at 4000 Orange Ave in Cleveland (call ahead to order at 216-881-3232). Shoppers also can sign up to have boxes delivered to their homes ($7.50 within the city, $10 elsewhere in the county and $15 for surrounding counties). The program is open to all.

Continue reading.

From USA Today, Oct. 30, 2016, by Bob Nightengale:

Cubs not dead, planning return trip to Cleveland for Game 6 of World Series

The city of Cleveland has never been confused for anyone’s idea of a tourist destination, where even the natives love to poke fun at their two seasons:

Winter and construction.

Yet, despite all of the jokes over the years about their city, and those cold and long winters, there’s nowhere more a group of young men from Chicago would rather be next week than in Cleveland.

“Whoever says they want to go to Cleveland?’’ Chicago Cubs catcher Miguel Montero says. “Especially in November.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say those words.

“But right now, there’s no place I’d rather be.’’

Fresh Water has a simple response to Misters Nightengale and Montero: Cleveland Indians: 7 runs; Chicago Cubs: 2 sour grapes.

 

"Unbeknownst to most outsiders, however, Cleveland’s rebirth is happening at street level as well. This gritty, 'underdog' city is now home to six James Beard award-winning chef-inspired restaurants, a thriving bar, arts, and music scene, and biomedical and 'smart' manufacturing start-ups that are quickly luring America’s youngest and brightest away from Boston, Austin, and Silicon Valley. All of which makes every Saturday night along East Fourth Street just north of Quicken Loans arena look more like SoHo or South Beach than the 'Rust Belt' strip some would conjure up in their minds when anyone says 'Cleveland.' So just who sprinkled the fairy dust on Cleveland this year?"

Find out how Peter Lane Taylor answers that question for Forbes here.

Three long-time area volunteers reveal what drives them to give so generously, how they've soldiered through the tough times and the ways in which their efforts pay back – and then some.

As locals know, from the wins on the court and around the diamond to a nearly incident-free Republican National Convention, things are going very well here in Cleveland

The national press is predictably flummoxed.

- In this one for the Washington Post, for instance, Adam Kilgore seems to believe we're all slack-jawed and blinking doe-eyed at one another, bewildered that anything other than gray skies and doom could befall our unfortunate lot:

"People here are trying to comprehend what has happened over these past few months, how to process a delirious and wholly unfamiliar confluence."

- The incredulous question mark in this headline for Corky Siemaszko's effort for NBC was not lost on us. It's as if to say, can this really be happening? In Cleveland?

The 'Year of Cleveland'? Hard-Luck City's Sports Fans Are Losers No More

- Lastly, this headline and subhead atop this article from Jared Diamond for the Wall Street Journal has us in crisis mode:

Success Is Giving Cleveland an Identity Crisis

The city’s sports fans could experience a second major championship in one year—a 180-degree turn for a town accustomed to losing.

Now then, gentlemen, while we appreciate the concern, not to worry. We can handle it. We suggest you, however, calm down and take a powder.


 

"Nice matters" at All City Candy, whether simply greeting customers at the door or creating treat-filled gift baskets for corporate events, owner Elisabeth Sapell says.
 
Kindness as a core value has served the Richmond Heights candy store well over the past three years, during which it's offered up 4,000 tasty items from 100 manufacturers and distributors. All City Candy has grown 25 percent annually since October 2013, when Sapell first opened her colorful, candy-scented 6,000-square-foot space at 746 Richmond Road.
 
Sapell points to the store's atmosphere of joy and nostalgia that keeps sweet-toothed consumers coming back. Wide aisles provide bulging bins of hard-shelled chocolates and jelly beans customers can mix and match themselves, while nearby racks overflow with familiar brands and an assortment of retro taste treats.
 
"We're trying to inspire fun and happiness," says Sapell. "It's like a little wonderland here."
 
All City Candy expanded its line to include the Pretzelicious brand of gourmet chocolate pretzels, which are packaged with chocolate-dipped Oreos and other goodies for corporate getaways. Over the last 12 months, the has store sent upwards of 1,000 treat baskets to its business clients. Weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and birthday parties get bulk orders, too, resulting in steady growth for the megastore.
 
An October 23 third anniversary celebration reflected the fun-loving attitude that's brought All City Candy such success, its owner says. About a thousand visitors enjoyed games and giveaways throughout the day, along with a Halloween-themed candy buffet and chocolate pretzel dipping display. 
 
Community and charity events are another piece of Sapell's business model. In recent months, the store hosted a party pairing wines with different candies. All City Candy also supplied sweet snacks to young patients at University Hospitals during the holiday season.
 
"Our mission is to inspire people to be creative, kind and giving," says Sapell. "What did we do today to make someone happy?"
 
Sapell is glad to bring fun to the retail experience, a state of beings she recalls from working in the family grocery store, Sapell's Bi-Rite in Lakewood. Happiness spreads from customers via social media, or a visitor gleefully calling a friend while walking the aisles and seeing the deliciousness on display.
 
"We looked at our core values, and it's more than just selling candy," says Sapell. "It's about creating a place where people can have a good time and get away from what's stressing them out." 

It's much to the delight of Fresh Water staff to roundup some national coverage on the stunning Tribe pennant victory over the Toronto Blue Jays last night.

"The team hasn't won the World Series since 1948." - CNN

"Cleveland had waited so long for this." - USAToday

"Welcome to the October of Tito." ESPN

And perhaps our favorite - a headline from the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Cleveland Indians: Your Thursday Briefing"

Now who saw that trio coming? Not us. Go Tribe!