October 2019 | St. Louis Magazine

Women’s Wellness

Expert Advice on Living a Happier, Healthier Life p.83

Hockey Hero Tom Stillman The Blues’ Owner on the Stanley Cup and the Season Ahead p.20

October 2019

BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

50 MUST-TRY DINING SPOTS

INCLUDING

BEST IN CL ASS

AND

THE RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR

P.62

Learn more about this dish and drink from Bulrush.

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9/6/19 11:22 AM

DAY IS DECLINING

The Bulrush cocktail emphasizes local ingredients—1220 Artisan Spirits gin and Flora Aperitivo, as well as 4 Hands On Cue hibiscus gose—along with pisco, soju, and lacto-fermented tomato juice, garnished with pickled watermelon and peach.

Foraged chanterelle and huitlacoche fried pie with acorn and pawpaw molé

Fresh queso is made with shio koji and quilquiña.

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9/5/19 10:50 AM

St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station opens in December with beautiful environments created for 13,000 animals St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station Louis Aquarium at Union Station St.St. Louis Aquarium atof Union Station in a million gallons water.

The 120,000 opens in December with beautiful opens December with beautiful opens inin December with beautiful square-foot, two-story aquarium the environments created for 13,000isanimals environments created for 13,000 animals environments created for 13,000 animals centerpiece of the $187 million family in a million gallons of water.

The 120,000 a million gallons water.The The 120,000 inin a million gallons ofof water.

120,000 entertainment complex built at the square-foot, two-story aquarium is the square-foot, two-story aquarium is the square-foot, two-story aquarium the National Historic Landmark. centerpiece of the $187 millionisfamily centerpiece of the $187 million family centerpiece of the $187 million family entertainment complex built at the entertainment complex built at the entertainment complex built at the National Historic Landmark.

National Historic Landmark.

National Historic Landmark.

Rising high over the historic train shed at Union Station, The St. Louis Wheel changes the skyline and shapes the future of fun train in downtown Rising high over the historic shed at Union Rising high over the historic train shed at Union Rising high over historic train shed at Union St. Louis.

Opening inWheel October, the Wheel Station, The St.the Louis changes the skyline Station, The St. Louis Wheel changes the skyline Station, The St.the Louis Wheel changes the skyline towers over downtown.

42 and shapes future of Its fun inclimate-controlled downtown and shapes the future of fun in downtown and the take future funfor in downtown gondolas will visitors rides offering views St.shapes Louis. Opening inofOctober, the Wheel Louis.Opening Opening in October, the Wheel St.St. Louis. in October, the Wheel of 20-miles all directions 365 days a year. At towers overin downtown.

Its 42 climate-controlled towers over downtown.ItsIts 42 climate-controlled towers over downtown.

42 climate-controlled night, its lights will visitors flash and as a beacon gondolas will take forsparkle rides offering views gondolas will take visitors rides offering views gondolas take visitors forfor rides offering views over thewill historic station’s new attractions. of 20-miles in all train directions 365 days a year.

At 20-miles directions 365 days a year.AtAt ofof 20-miles inin allall directions 365 days a as year. night, its lights will flash and sparkle a beacon night, its lights will flash and sparkle as a beacon night, lights will flash and sparkle a beacon overits the historic train station’s new as attractions. over the historic train station’s new attractions. over the historic train station’s new attractions.

Visitors will start their journey at the aquarium on a virtual train ride. This magical train dives into the Mississippi where local fresh creatures Visitors will River start their journey at thewater aquarium on a Visitors will start their journey the aquarium on a Visitors will start their journey atat the aquarium on adeep swim you.

The journey continues to the virtualaround train ride.

This magical train dives into the virtual train ride.

This magical train dives into the virtual train ride.

This magical the ocean where sharks andlocal raystrain glidedives past into your windows.

Mississippi River where fresh water creatures Mississippi River where local fresh water creatures Mississippi River where local fresh water creatures The pullsyou. backThe intojourney St Louiscontinues Union Station swimtrain around to thewhere deep swim around you.The The journey continues to the deep swim around you. journey continues to the deep you will exit into the Confluence Rivers showcasing ocean where sharks and rays glide past your windows. ocean where sharks and rays glide past your windows. ocean where sharks and rays glide past your windows. creatures found right here our Union very own backyard.

The train pulls back into St in Louis Station where The train pulls back into St Louis Union Station where The train pulls backthe into St Louis Union Station where Next is the Rivers area with freshwater species you will exitGlobal into Confluence Rivers showcasing you will exit into the Confluence Rivers showcasing you will exit into the Confluence Rivers showcasing from around the world like in piranhas, creatures found right here our verygiant own arowanas, backyard. creatures found right here in our very own backyard. creatures found right here in ourwith veryfreshwater own backyard. and playful otters.

Nextsome is the Global Rivers area species Next the Global Rivers area with freshwater species Next is is the Global area with freshwater species from around the Rivers world like piranhas, giant arowanas, from around the world like piranhas, giant arowanas, from the world like piranhas, giant arowanas, andaround some playful otters. and some playful otters. and some playful otters.

SOON TO OPEN, the 120,000 squar centerpiece of the $187 million fam

Surrounding The Wheel in the outdoor Train Park is an 18-hole miniature golf course and a The whimsical Surrounding Wheelcarousel in the outdoor Surrounding The Wheel in the outdoor Surrounding Wheel inminiature the outdoor representative the 1904 World’s Fair.

Train Park isThe an of 18-hole golf Train Park an 18-hole miniature golf Train Park is is anaattractions 18-hole miniature All of these surround the course and whimsical carouselgolf course and whimsical a whimsical carousel course and carousel Tetra® KoiaPond nightly fire Fair. representative ofwith the a1904 World’s representative of the 1904 World’s Fair. representative of the 1904 World’s Fair. and show.

All oflight these attractions surround the these attractions surround the AllAll ofof these the Tetra® Koiattractions Pond with surround a nightly fire Tetra® Koi Pond with a nightly fire Tetra® Koi Pond and light show.with a nightly fire and light show. and light show.

DO

St. Louis Aquarium | Mini Golf Ropes Course | Mirror Maze | Carousel Cover_1019.indd 3

St. aC ann St. St.St. ho aLo C aC a Co St. an ann an anniv mic ho ho hote on St. St.St. Lo Be mi mic mi micro ho on on onrea th Be Be Betw cha ho ho hote and rea reat real cha cha chara an and an and

SEE

The St. Louis Wheel | Fire & Light Show Grand Hall 3D Light Show 9/5/19 10:50 AM

The aquarium’s second floor includes interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a hands-wet experience. Heading over to Shark Canyon is a vast 250,000 gallon saltwater exhibitsecond home to more than 60 sharks and rays. Your The aquarium’s floor includes interactive exhibits and adventure touch tanksconcludes for a The aquarium’s second floor includes interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a The aquarium’s second floor interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a The at The Deep with a look intoincludes the vast wonders the world’s oceans depths. hands-wet experience.

Heading over to Sharkof Canyon is a vast 250,000 gallon hands-wet experience.Heading Heading over to Shark Canyon a vast 250,000 gallon hands-wet experience. over to Canyon is is a Your vast 250,000 St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station be a journey like never before. gallon saltwater exhibit home to more thanwill 60Shark sharks and rays. adventure concludes saltwater exhibit home to more than 60 sharks and rays.

Your adventure concludes saltwater exhibit home to more than 60 sharks and rays.

Your adventure concludes at The Deep with a look into the vast wonders of the world’s oceans depths. The The Deep with a look into the vast wonders of the world’s oceans depths.The The atat The Deep with a look into the vast wonders the world’s oceans depths.

St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station will be a of journey like never before.

Louis Aquarium Union Station will a journey like never before.

St.St. Louis Aquarium atat Union Station will bebe a journey like never before.

SWEET TREATS AND EATS FOR EVERYONE SWEET TREATS AND EATS FOR EVERYONE The SodaTREATS Fountain at St. Louis Union Station opens in October as a refreshing SWEET AND EATS FOR EVERYONE SWEET TREATS AND EATS FOR EVERYONE blast from the past with sweets, treats, and eats for everyone. Combining modern

flairsopens with retro vibes, you find something The Soda Fountain at St. Louis Union Station in October as awill refreshing The Soda Fountain at St. Louis Union Station opens in October as a refreshing The Soda Fountain at St. Louis Union Station opens in October as a refreshing new to smile about every time youmodern visit, blast from the past with sweets, treats, and eats for everyone.

Combining blast from the past with sweets, treats, and eats everyone.Combining Combining modern blast from the past with sweets, treats, and eats forfor everyone. modern including Freak Shakes. insomething ‘A Very flairs with retro vibes, youDelight will find flairs with retro vibes, you will find something flairs retro vibes, you find something Happy withwill atime vanilla frosted newwith to Un-birthday’ smile about every you visit, new to smile about every time you visit, new to smile about every time you visit, rim and rainbow sprinkles topped a including Freak Shakes.

Delight inwith ‘A Very including Freak Shakes.Delight Delight ‘A Very including Freak Shakes. inin ‘A Very funfetti cupcake,whipped more Happy Un-birthday’ with acream, vanilla frosted Happy Un-birthday’ with a vanilla frosted Happy Un-birthday’ with a vanilla frosted sprinkles, snickerdoodle cookie, a rainbow rim and rainbow sprinkles topped with a rim and rainbow sprinkles topped with rim and rainbow sprinkles topped with aa pop and finished with a cherry. items funfetti cupcake,whipped cream,Grill more funfetti cupcake,whipped cream, more funfetti cupcake,whipped cream, more include a Smashburger other sprinkles, snickerdoodleand cookie, a creative rainbow sprinkles, snickerdoodle cookie, a rainbow sprinkles, snickerdoodle cookie, a rainbow twists on finished classic diner pop and with foods. a cherry. Grill items pop and finished with a cherry.Grill Grill items pop and finished with a cherry. items include a Smashburger and other creative include a Smashburger and other creative include a other The Train Shed opening later thiscreative year, is a twists onSmashburger classic diner and foods. twists on classic diner foods. twists on classic diner foods. unique gathering place with contemporary

cuisine and creative cocktails.

The Train Shed opening later this year, is a The Train Shed opening later this year, The Train Shed opening later year, is is aa unique gathering place withthis contemporary unique gathering place with contemporary unique gathering place with contemporary 1894 Café, located near the aquarium’s Mirror andcocktails. indoor Ropes Course, cuisine andMaze creative cuisine and creative cocktails. cuisine and creative cocktails. is named for the year Union Station opened. It’s a fast and easy service restaurant created withlocated busy families and school groups mind,and serving child-friendly foods 1894 Café, near the aquarium’s MirrorinMaze indoor Ropes Course, 1894 Café, located near the aquarium’s Mirror Maze and indoor Ropes Course, 1894 Café, located near the aquarium’s Mirror and indoor Course, such as chicken salads and pizza.Maze is named for thesandwiches, year Union Station opened.

It’s a fast and easyRopes service restaurant named for the year Union Station opened.It’sIt’s a fast and easy service restaurant is is named for the year Union Station opened. fast and easy service restaurant created with busy families and school groups ina mind, serving child-friendly foods created with busy families and school groups in mind, serving child-friendly foods created with busy families and school groups in mind, serving child-friendly foods such as chicken sandwiches, salads and pizza. such chicken sandwiches, salads and pizza. such asas chicken sandwiches, salads and pizza.

ep ws. re ep ep ws. ws. s. d. re re es s, d. d. es es ss, s,

quare foot two story aquarium is the family entertainment complex.

ow

St. Louis Union Station Hotel, Curio a Collection by Hilton™ celebrates its 125th anniversary this Station year! The award winning St. Louis Union Hotel, Curio Louis Union Station Hotel, Curio St.St. Louis Union Station Hotel, Curio hotel and venue space iscelebrates a historic- gem in a Collection

by Hilton™ its 125th a Collection by Hilton™ celebrates its 125th a Collection by Hilton™ celebrates its 125th St. Louis. Enjoy small dining, cocktails, anniversary this year! plate The award winning anniversary this year!The The award winning anniversary this year! winning micro brews and 3D light projected hotel and venue space isaward ashows historic gem in hotel and venue space is a historic gem hotel andceiling venue space is a historic gem inin on the of the majestic Grand Hall.

St. Louis.

Enjoy small plate dining, cocktails, Louis.Enjoy Enjoy small plate dining, cocktails, St.St. Louis. small dining, cocktails, Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the micro brews and 3Dplate light shows projected micro brews and 3D light shows projected micro brews and 3D light shows TMprojected hotel TheofPolar Express Grand train Hall. ride with on thehosts ceiling the majestic on the ceiling the majestic Grand Hall. onreal the ceiling ofof the majestic Grand Hall. train rides to the “North Pole”, themed Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the Between Thanksgiving and New TMYear’s, the character dinners, decorated guest rooms hotel hosts The Polar ExpressTM train ride with TM TM train ride with hotel hosts The Polar Express hotel The Polar Express train themed ride with and holiday fun everyone. realhosts train rides tofor the “North Pole”, real train rides to the “North Pole”, themed real train rides to the “North Pole”, themed character dinners, decorated guest rooms character dinners, decorated guest rooms character dinners, decorated guest rooms and holiday fun for everyone. and holiday fun for everyone. and holiday fun for everyone.

STAY

St. Louis Union Station Hotel Curio - A Collection by HiltonTM Cover_1019.indd 4

OPENING OCTOBER

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Grand Hall | Landry’s | Train Shed 1894 Café | St. Louis Union Station Soda Fountain 9/5/19 10:50 AM

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More than 60 sharks and rays will glide past visitors in a vast 250,000-gallon saltwater environment called Shark Canyon. The Deep section of the aquarium will take guests on a journey through the depths of the oceans meet the animals that there.

The aquarium’s second floor will More than 60 world’s sharks and raysto will glide past visitors in live a vast 250,000-gallon saltwater environment More than sharks and rays will glide past visitors a vast 250,000-gallon saltwater environment More than 6060 sharks and rays will glide past inin a vast 250,000-gallon saltwater include interactive exhibits and touch tanks for aquarium a hands-wet experience. willenvironment leave the the called Shark Canyon.

The Deep section ofvisitors the will take guests Visitors on a journey through called Shark Canyon.The The Deep section of the aquarium will take guests a journey through the called Shark Canyon.

Deep ofwet the aquarium will take guests onon a journey through St. Louis at Union Station with hands andlive a greater understanding of the world’s depths ofAquarium the world’s oceans tosection meet the animals that there.

The aquarium’s second floorthe will depths of the world’s oceans to meet the animals that live there.

The aquarium’s second floor will depths of the world’s oceans to aquatic meet the animals live there.

The aquarium’s second floor will great rivers, oceansexhibits and their life. include interactive and touch tanks for athat hands-wet experience.

Visitors will leave the include interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a hands-wet experience.Visitors Visitors will leave the include interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a hands-wet experience. will leave the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station with wet hands and a greater understanding of the world’s Louis Aquarium Union Station with wet hands and a greater understanding the world’s St.St. Louis Aquarium atat Union Station with wet hands and a greater ofof the world’s (move sentence before comment) The aquarium’s secondunderstanding floor includes interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a hands-wet great rivers, oceans andshark their aquatic life. great rivers, oceans and their aquatic life. great rivers, oceans and their aquatic life.

(move sentence before shark comment) The aquarium’s second floor includes interactive exhibits and touch tanks for a hands-wet (move sentence before shark comment) The aquarium’s second floor includes interactive exhibits and touch tanks a hands-wet (move sentence before shark comment) The aquarium’s second floor includes interactive exhibits and touch tanks forfor a hands-wet e

FROM SEA TO SEE, THIS JOURNEY IS ONE LIKE NEVER BEFORE.

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ER

1820 Market Street

St. Louis, Missouri

OPENING DECEMBER

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314.621.5262

stlouisunionstation.com

OPENING OCTOBER

9/6/19 4:00 PM

O

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9/6/19 4:00 PM

Our All-Star lineup of triplets is growing.

And so is the rest of our team.

Families rely on the expertise of the Missouri Baptist Childbirth Center team throughout their pregnancy journey.

Since each experience is unique, our team of high-risk specialists is expanding.

Together, we are now providing care to more families in our community.

To learn more visit MissouriBaptist.org/Triplets

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9/6/19 4:00 PM

Get your diagnosis doublechecked. It could save your life.

When you have concerns or doubts about a diagnosis, treatment, or surgery, Best Doctors can help. Our world-renowned medical experts can give you the peace of mind you deserve by providing an in-depth review of your diagnosis to either confirm it or recommend a change.

See if you have Best Doctors as a benefit.

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We’re more than just a list

We’re peer-selected as the best medical experts in the world

This can genuinely help people around the world to get the most appropriate diagnosis and therapy, whilst also being of benefit to treating physicians.

Dr. Otto A. Smiseth

Professor of Medicine, Director of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Diseases Oslo University Hospital

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9/6/19 4:00 PM

The report I received from Best Doctors actually confirmed one of my diagnoses was wrong.

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Best Doctors is now a part of Teladoc Health, the global leader in virtual care. We garner a nationally recognized group of experts, peer-selected as the best in their field. Our doctors serve nearly 40 million members worldwide with a unique suite of services designed to eliminate medical uncertainty in a very uncertain landscape.

Learn more about the Best Doctors selection process. ď„ˆ experts@bestdoctors.com

Best Doctors is now part of Teladoc Health, the global leader in virtual care.

Best Doctors and the star-in-cross logo are trademarks of Teladoc Health, Inc., in the United States and in other countries, and are used under license.

All rights reserved Š 2019. 331791210_04082019

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6 PROUD TO BE THE #1 CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL IN ST. LOUIS. It’s an honor to be recognized nationally for our extraordinary work in all 10 pediatric specialties. It’s even more amazing to see our kids ring the bell, hear mom’s voice for the first time and walk out our doors healthier and stronger.

We’re more than just a ranking. We’re Guardians of Childhood™.

stlouischildrens.org Copyright 2019 © U.S. News & World Report L.P. ©2019, St. Louis Children’s Hospital. All rights reserved.

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ved.

FEATURES

OCT19

VOLUME 25 / ISSUE 10

62 Best New Restaurants Where to dine now

By Alexa Beattie, Bill Burge, Pat Eby, Holly Fann, Dave Lowry, George Mahe, Ann Lemons Pollack, Iain Shaw, and Emily Wasserman

➝ The Shrimp Toast at indo: shrimp and cellophane noodle croquette with Union Loafers potato bread

Women’s Wellness

Expert Advice on Living a Happier, Healthier Life p.83

Hockey Hero Tom Stillman

Hockey Hero

The Blues’ Owner on the Stanley Cup and the Season Ahead p.20

How the Blues' Tom Stillman Turned the Team Around p.86

October 2019

BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

50 MUST-TRY DINING SPOTS

INCLUDING

BEST IN CL ASS

AND

THE RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR

P.62

P.

83

Learn more about this dish and drink from Bulrush.

9/6/19 3:59 PM

For this month’s cover, Kevin A. Roberts photographed TalentPlus models Diana Blair and Axel Duarte at Bulrush.

Brady Nance of TalentPlus oversaw hair and makeup.

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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100

Women’s Health Guide

Putting It Together

By Jeannette Cooperman and Samantha Stevenson

By Jeannette Cooperman

Expert advice on living a happier, more energetic life Cover_1019.indd 1

P.

Paris had Madame de Staël and Gertrude Stein. St. Louis has Lana Pepper.

October 2019 stlmag.com

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Oct19

D E PA R TM E N T S

VOLUME 25 / ISSUE 10

12

T

From the Editor

G

TASTE

51 Upper Crust

Pie Guy Pizza

G AT E WAY

52 Hitting the Heights

The Bellwether replaces Element but offers

equally elevated cuisine.

31 E

15

Soccer for All St. Louis’ MLS team’s ownership group is a sign of the sport’s growing accessibility.

ELEMENTS

Grin and Barrette

Say goodbye to boring hair by adding a little dazzle to your ’do.

16 St. Louis Women in Soccer

Becky Sauerbrunn, Lori Chalupny, and more

34 Love Loc-Down

Traveling loc artist Savis Davis is showing clients

that confidence begins at the root.

18 Behind the Wheel

The highly anticipated downtown attraction

could draw flocks of visitors.

36 Party Pics

SLAM Tropic, Pujols Family Foundation Celebrity

Golf Classic

20 Hockey Hero

The Blues owner on the team’s historic turnaround and the upcoming season

A

R

ANGLES

54

Fit Fuel A former service station now fills up vegans and non-vegans alike.

54 Dust on the Bottle

Tips for creating a home wine cellar 56 Hog Wild

David Sandusky brings next-level barbecue to

The Grove.

RHYTHM

58 Hot Spots

Mayo Ketchup, Turmeric, Charred Crust, and more 59 Ins, Outs & Almosts

Ember, Grace Chicken + Fish, and other additions 60 Empire Builders

A conversation with Dave and Kara Bailey

St. Louis Sage

23

Mizrahi’s Memoir

The fashion designer returns to St. Louis for the Jewish Book Festival.

26 Top 10

Lizzo, Erkyah Badu, Céline Dion, and other acts 28 A New Chapter

The High Low brings a literary nexus to Midtown.

29 A Way with Words

Edwidge Danticat honored with the

St. Louis Literary Award

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41

Marie-Christine Williams

Genocide survivor

128

44 If a Tree Falls…

Urban loggers haul away the cut-down trees of

the St. Louis forest, saw them into boards, and

sell them back to us.

48 Low-Hanging Fruit

A look back at Eckert’s in 1970

stlmag.com October 2019

9/6/19 4:01 PM

Health care access in your neighborhood.

We make it simple.

Congratulations Kookin’ for Kids 2019 Winners BEST DISH

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October 2019 stlmag.com

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Oct19

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

VOLUME 25 / ISSUE 10

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Jarrett Medlin Deputy Editor Amanda Woytus Staff Writer Jeannette Cooperman Dining Editor George Mahe Associate Editor Samantha Stevenson Contributing Writers Alexa Beattie, Bill Burge, Pat Eby, Holly Fann, Ann Lemons Pollack, Dave Lowry, Melissa Meinzer, William C. Meyers, Laura Miserez, Ashley Ray, Tony Rehagen, Stefene Russell, Iain Shaw, Emily Wasserman Intern Darian Stevenson ART & PRODUCTION Design Director Tom White Art Director Emily Cramsey Sales & Marketing Designer Monica Lazalier Production Manager Dave Brickey Staff Photographer Kevin A. Roberts Contributing Photographers & Illustrators Diane Anderson, Britt Spencer Stylist Ana Dattilo ADVERTISING Sales Director Kim Moore Director of Digital Sales Chad Beck Account Executives Jill Gubin, Brian Haupt, Carrie Mayer, Liz Schaefer, Dani Toney Sales & Marketing Coordinator Elaine Hoffmann Digital Advertising Coordinator Blake Hunt EVENTS Director of Special Events Jawana Reid CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Dede Dierkes Circulation Coordinator Teresa Foss

10 FOB_1019.indd 10

SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscription rate is $19.95 for 12 issues of St. Louis Magazine, six issues of Design STL, and two issues of St. Louis Family. Call 314-918-3000 to place an order or to inform us of a change of address. For corporate and group subscription rates, contact Teresa Foss at 314-918-3030.

ONLINE CALENDAR Call 314-918-3000, or email Amanda Woytus at awoytus@stlmag.com. (Please include “Online Calendar” in the subject line.) Or submit events at stlmag.com/events/submit.html.

MINGLE To inquire about event photos, email Emily Cramsey at ecramsey@stlmag.com.

(Please include “Mingle” in the subject line.)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send letters to jmedlin@stlmag.com.

What’s your favorite new restaurant in St. Louis?

“Balkan Treat Box. I could eat every meal there and not get tired of it.”

—Emily Cramsey, art director “Indo. I’m a sucker for sushi.” —Kevin A. Roberts, staff photographer “Bulrush. I wish Rob Connoley could win a James Beard Award for his research and spot-on execution of a cuisine that no other chef ever considered.”

—George Mahe, dining editor

MARKETING AND EVENTS For information about special events, contact Jawana Reid at 314-918-3026 or jreid@stlmag.com.

ADVERTISING To place an ad, contact Elaine Hoffmann at 314-918-3002 or ehoffmann@stlmag.com.

DISTRIBUTION Call Dede Dierkes at 314-918-3006.

Subscription Rates: $19.95 for one year. Call for foreign subscription rates.

Frequency: Monthly. Single Copies in Office: $5.46. Back Issues: $7.50 by mail (prepaid). Copyright 2019 by St. Louis Magazine LLC. All rights are reserved. Reproduction in part or whole is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher. Unsolicited manuscripts may be submitted but must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ©2019 by St. Louis Magazine. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 1600 S. Brentwood, Suite 550 St. Louis, MO 63144 314-918-3000 | Fax 314-918-3099 stlmag.com

stlmag.com October 2019

9/6/19 4:01 PM

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Oct19

FROM THE EDITOR

VOLUME 25 / ISSUE 10

Food Faves

What’s your favorite new restaurant? Visit stlmag.com to share your picks and to vote for the top spot.

Kind of Blues

THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE isn’t typically a concept associ-

ated with dining. Flash mobs, John le Carré novels, scary clown movies? Sure. Eating a meal? Not so much.

That’s changed in recent years, though, with some chefs pulling out more tricks than a Justin Willman special.

There are the subtle touches. An edible candle made of bacon fat, whose liquefied remains can be slathered onto crusty grilled bread at Hamilton’s. Three strips of bacon served on a mini-clothesline and hand-fired at your table at Grand Tavern. Bacon being offered as both a side and a dessert (brilliant!) at BEAST Butcher & Block.

OK, I might be obsessed with bacon.

But back to that whole surprise thing. There are also atmospheric elements at play. The dark, alluring interior at Billie-Jean. The ceramic dishes created by the chef/ co-owner’s uncle at Elmwood. The portraits of dapperly dressed animals at Benevolent King. The experience of walking into a new restaurant for the first time, taking in all those thoughtful details that make it worth the trip, are part of the adventure.

The city’s most acclaimed chefs understand this element of surprise. It’s why many started with pop-up restaurants and underground dinners. And they also realize that at a brick-and-mortar, perhaps no other format lends itself to a memorable dining experience as well as tasting menus.

At Bulrush, chef Rob Connoley uses foraged ingredients in an intimate dining room where he takes center stage.

Throughout the evening, he maintains the element of surprise by explaining the items as they’re served. The menu is provided after the meal, as a takeaway lagniappe.

12 FOB_1019.indd 12

After writing about the Blues’ epic run, writer Tony Rehagen recently talked to team owner Tom Stillman about the upcoming season (p. 20)—and had a moment with the Stanley Cup.

Around Town

In her decades covering the St. Louis dining scene, Ann Lemons Pollack has documented restaurants new (p. 62) and old, including in her book Lost Restaurants of St. Louis.

Savage takes a similar approach, except that you choose the number of courses; chef Logan Ely does the rest. As dining critic Dave Lowry puts it, the chef “flirts with your palate. This is less a meal than a series of sensations. Flavors and textures ricochet and bounce. Ingredients are unlikely—shiitake mushrooms with oat ice cream—assembled with flair and a bold confidence.”

Likewise, Lowry described a 17-course omakase dinner at Nippon Tei as “St. Louis’ premier sushi dining experience.” That was shortly before executive chef Nick Bognar opened his own place, indo, in Botanical Heights. Inside, there’s a chef ’s counter that offers—spoiler alert— “small tasting menus in long-form dining style.”

Perhaps no St. Louis restaurateurs are better at surprising diners, though, than dynamic husbandand-wife duo Dave and Kara Bailey (p. 60). Over the years, they’ve rolled out 10 concepts, ranging from burgers to pizza to crepes to barbecue to chocolate. Perhaps no unveiling was more dramatic, though, than when they opened Pop Sparkling Bar & Restaurant. In late January, they surprised guests at the Cajunthemed L’Acadiane by changing the concept—the décor, the menu, the uniforms, even the logo in the window—to a Champagne bar in the middle of dinner service.

“It would be a place to have a first date or a 500th,” dining editor George Mahe noted, “a restaurant predicated around memories of the joy of falling in love.

“It’s pretty hard not to clink a few glasses to that.”

Follow Along @stlmag @stlmag @stlouismag

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T H E S T. L O U I S WHEEL p.18 HOCKEY HERO TOM STILLMAN p.20

GATEWAY

SOCCER FOR ALL TOPIC

A

St. Louis’ majority women–led major league ownership group is a sign of the sport’s growing accessibility.

BY LAURA MISEREZ AND SAMANTHA STEVENSON

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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WHEN CAROLYN KINDLE BETZ greeted a

buzzing crowd at Palladium on August 20, history was made in two ways. First, St. Louis had been awarded a Major League Soccer team. Second, it marked a first for the league and a rarity in professional sports: a majority women–led ownership group.

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G AT E WAY

TOPIC A

It’s also been a launching pad for other St. Louisans, including defender Becky Sauerbrunn, who took home the World Cup this summer as part of the U.S. Women’s National Team. Sauerbrunn has made an impact on and off the field, fighting for pay equity and better working conditions. While she’s excited about a primarily women-led ownership group, she looks forward to when it’s not considered an anomaly. “I think so many of us, for so long, have thought of playing or coaching as the two main avenues to staying involved in the game,” she told SLM. “Having women at the top and in the front offices of organizations can only help the game grow and reach new populations of people.”

That representation matters, says Malia Dunbar, who heads “Being the first majority female– the Louligan Ladies, members of led ownership group in MLS histhe St. Louligan soccer fan group. tory affords us the opportunity to Dunbar recalls one of the group’s Taking be role models during an imporyounger members, enthusiastithe Field tant time for women,” Kindle Betz cally thanking Kindle Betz. “Just Visit mls4thelou.com later noted. “Hopefully, we inspire to see the younger girls embrace for more info, including young women to follow their this,” Dunbar says. “This will open updates, FAQs, stadium details, and more. dreams. Whether it’s business or up doors for them.” sports, if they set their minds to Harker recalls her own high it, they can accomplish it.” school team playing at halftime The ownership group, MLS4TheLou, comof St. Louis Steamers games years ago. “Your prises eight members of the Taylor family—Kinhopes and dreams remained alive because of dle Betz, Andy Taylor, Jo Ann Taylor Kindle, those things,” she says. “There’s a ton of outAlison Kindle Hogan, Barbara Taylor, Christine reach you can do from that platform.”

Taylor, Kelly Taylor, and Patricia Taylor—as well The ownership group is looking for other ways as World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh. to provide opportunities to students in underAt the forefront of that group is Kindle Betz. served communities, Kavanaugh recently told “She had a vision,” says St. Louis native Ruth SLM, noting that “soccer can teach kids of all Harker, who played on the first-ever U.S. Womwalks of life good habits: discipline, rigor, work en’s National Team. “We needed a team here.” ethic, teamwork.”

Harker, who played at the University of MisHarker, who didn’t play soccer until high souri–St. Louis before going on to be named one school, at age 14, because her “parents didn’t of the most valuable players at the U.S. Olym- have any money,” hopes an MLS team can pic Festival in 1985, sees St. Louis as a spring- impact St. Louis youth: “I think children benboard for soccer. “If you look at the men’s team efit just from having a team, watching the excitein the ’60s and ’70s that beat England, most ment of the city getting a team,” she says, “and of those players were men from St. Louis,” she making it accessible for all people.” says. “There’s a very, very rich history here, and the springboard definitely helped me.”

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Photography by J.B. Forbes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via AP Images

SPORTS STATS

WOMEN IN SOCCER S T. LO UI S S TA R S, O N AND OFF THE FIELD

RUTH HARKER AGE: 56

POSITION(S): Goalkeeper FORMER TEAM(S):

UMSL Tritons, the 1985 United States Women’s National Team HONORS: Harker will be inducted into the St. Louis Soccer Hall of Fame this month.

LORI CHALUPNY AGE: 35

FORMER TEAM(S): De-

fender for the Chicago Red Stars; member of the 2015 United States Women’s National Team POSITION(S): Midfielder, defender HIGH SCHOOL:

Nerinx Hall CURRENT OCCUPATION:

Head women’s soccer coach at Maryville University

BECKY SAUERBRUNN AGE: 34

CURRENT TEAM(S):

United States Women’s National Team; Utah Royals FC POSITION(S): Defender HIGH SCHOOL:

Ladue Horton Watkins

Photography by John Smith

9/6/19 4:03 PM

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G AT E WAY

WARNING: GRAPHIC

BY SAMANTHA STEVENSON

200 FEET

HEIGHT: At 200 feet, the St. Louis Wheel stands taller than the Statue of Liberty.

640,000 LB.

The massive structure weighs a whopping 320,000 tons.

1.6

MILLION

The wheel is outfitted with 1.6 million LED lights that can produce 16.7 million color combinations.

At other locations, Wilder says, the wheel’s colors are often used for gender reveals.

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Behind the Wheel

The highly anticipated downtown attraction could draw flocks of visitors.

18

WEEKS THE PRODUCTION OF the St. Louis Wheel was so carefully choreo-

graphed that when its giant steel beams arrived on semitrailers from a plant in Wichita, Kansas, they were almost immediately put in place. Paric’s crew blocked off a portion of 20th Street for trucks to unload. The crews worked fast and, with the help of many cranes, the wheel took shape. A part of Lodging Hospitality Management’s $187 million revamp of Union Station, the attraction’s Downtown West location was just one consideration. With Union Station on the National Register of Historic Places, most steps had to be federally approved. This month, the wheel begins its 30 rotations per hour, giving passengers 15-minute rides. Noting how often passersby have asked when the attraction will be open to the public, general manager Karyn Wilder expects large crowds. “Observation wheels can see attendance and revenue that rivals entire theme parks,” she says.

A two-week safety testing process entails testing the wheel’s speeds, motors, and brakes— in one test, the brakes were sprayed with water to simulate rain. When the team didn’t use steel weights to simulate human weight, they loaded barrels of water into gondolas for a ride. “Probably the trickiest thing about the wheel is, it needs a balanced load to run eff ciently,” Wilder says, noting the team’s numerous balancingscenarios tests.

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INSIDE INFO

BY TONY REHAGEN

Hockey Hero

Blues owner Tom Stillman on the team’s historic win and the season ahead What was it like when the team finally won the Stanley Cup? Unlike other sports, when you win the Stanley Cup, you take it home, and that [plane] ride, with the small group, was really special. I couldn’t stop turning around to see it right there.

Was there a moment with fans that stands out for you? My wife told me about some good friends of ours who were watching the seventh game on TV. The husband was a longtime fan, and after we won, he was just kind of quiet.

He was thinking about his dad and how much he would’ve loved to have had him there for that. There was this outpouring of emotions that had been building for 50 years. You were seeing men crying on the parade route.

There’s a great photo of someone holding an urn of ashes of their deceased father. It was quite remarkable.

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IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE how far Tom Stillman has brought the

Blues. When he took the helm, in May 2012, the team had significant financial concerns. Several months later, the NHL had a lockout. Nonetheless, Stillman had big ambitions: “We have two overriding goals: No. 1, win the Stanley Cup,” he told SLM in 2013, at a time when the team was in a 45-year drought. “The second is to make sure the Blues franchise is stable and sustainable here in St. Louis for years to come.” With that first objective achieved—and an all-local ownership group behind him—the Blues chairman/governor is now looking to the future. —TONY REHAGEN

You’re bringing back most of the team this season. Is there a concern about complacency? In most cases, after a team wins, what we’ve seen is, they have salary cap problems.

I think that has led to the dismantling of championship teams, more than a desire to change things up. We are fortunate that we don’t have those problems. We can bring virtually the whole team back. I think that is the more desirable outcome. The other factor is that we have a lot of young guys who played an important role, whether it’s Vince Dunn or Samuel Blais or Robert Thomas. A lot of times, teams will want to bring some youth in for the speed and energy, but we already have that—and we have a few more young players on the bubble of making the roster.

How will winning the Stanley Cup affect this season? I think it gives you some swagger. It also probably helps you get through adversity, whether it’s a tough period or a losing streak. But the other side of it is that we’re not going to surprise anybody: When teams are playing the defending Stanley Cup champion, they’re going to be bringing their A-games.

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IS!

PRELUDE

MIZRAHI’S MEMOIR

The fashion designer returns to St. Louis for the Jewish Book Festival.

BY SAMANTHA STEVENSON

Photography by Gregg Richards

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PRELUDE

BEST OF THE FEST Three must-see writers at Jewish Book Festival

N

EXT MONTH , FASHION DESIGNER Isaac

Mizrahi returns to St. Louis, nine years after directing Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ production of A Little Night Music. The energetic designer’s career has also included judging contestants on Project Runway, performing cabaret, and frequenting QVC. The latest addition to his résumé: author and keynote speaker at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.

Mizrahi will discuss his new memoir, I.M., which depicts his thoughts on his Jewish upbringing and a “different kind of Judaism. It really speaks a lot about atheism,” he says. “I don’t really believe in God, and I don’t really practice Judaism, except that it’s in my DNA, my heritage.”

So is it surprising that Mizrahi would lead a festival celebrating Jewish authors? “I’ve been doing talks at Jewish centers across America,” he says, “and I keep expecting them to throw stones at me.” Instead, the response has been welcoming, perhaps because of the book’s “idea of finding your own spiritualism, as opposed to adhering to any particular one kind of belief system,” he says.

When he told his mother he’d be writing a memoir, she told him to tell the truth. He was relieved: Much of that truth involved her and his sisters.

He likens writing to how he designed fashion shows: Models were characters, and they built tension with each step down the runway, tell-

ing a theatrical story. But I.M. isn’t fiction, and Mizrahi wanted to “declaw” some of the details and very real characters. “I’m not a wallflower, by any means,” he says. “I’m not shy, but I don’t like fighting. I don’t like bitterness. I’d rather not talk about it. I don’t think [the book’s] bitter, necessarily, but here and there it does illuminate.”

Some of that illumination is cast on what it was like to grow up in a Syrian-Jewish family in Brooklyn. “Being gay, being creative—it’s not the greatest setup in a Jewish community,” he says.

He didn’t allow his family to read the book before publication. “I didn’t want them to say, ‘Oh, do you really have to include that story?’... I don’t think I shied away from any truth in the book.”

His mother is portrayed as a “great woman and loving mother but also a mother who storms in a bedroom and throws a television on the floor,” he says, laughing. After reading the book, she thanked him. “Of course I burst into tears, because so much was on the line between us,” he says. “I so did not want her to die hating me.” That rounded portrait might have been the writing process’ greatest challenge.

“I learned about myself,” he says. “In the face of a job like this, truth is the most important thing to me.”

FYI Visit stlmag.com for more with Mizrahi, and see him speak at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, 7 p.m. November 3.

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Marra B. Gad A large part of Gad’s debut memoir, The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl, is yerusha, or inheritance.

Detailing what she’s inherited from her family, the book follows Gad when, after 15 years estranged, she develops a relationship with her great-aunt, who has Alzheimer’s.

7 p.m November 4 Art Shamsky The Major League Baseball player’s new book, After the Miracle: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets, details what happened after the Mets’ 1969 World Championship, which came as a huge surprise, given the team’s last-place standing.

Co-written by journalist Erik Sherman, it’s a baseball lover’s ticket to the “Miracle Mets.”

7 p.m. November 6 Sarah Hurwitz A political speechwriter for former first lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Hurwitz writes about her own journey with Judaism in her book Here All Along. The memoir covers such topics as Jewish holidays, ethics, prayers, and concepts including God, death, and social justice. What does she want readers to take away? Encouragement to make Judaism their own.

1 p.m. November 8

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AGENDA

Oct 10 THINGS TO DO

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

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The Big Muddy Dance Company breathes new life into Such Sweet Thunder, the 1957 Duke Ellington/ Billy Strayhorn suite, with the help of Jazz St. Louis, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, and the Nine Network. October 3–5. Public Media Commons.

4

Chicago native Chance the Rapper’s latest album, The Big Day, follows his 2016 smash, Coloring Book, which propelled him to the Grammy Awards and a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live. October 20.

Enterprise Center, enterprisecenter.com.

On her first world tour in more than a decade, Céline Dion performs tracks off her forthcoming album, Courage. She’s been expanding her repertoire, collaborating with the likes of Sia, Pink, and Stephan Moccio. October 26. Enterprise Center, enterprisecenter.com.

5 1

With her queenly selfconfidence, Lizzo (née Melissa Viviane Jefferson) who plays the flute as well as she raps, has wowed the pop scene. At the St. Louis stop on her Cuz I Love You Tour, listen for hits like “Truth Hurts” and “Good as Hell.” October 8. The Pageant, thepageant.com.

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2

The Historic Shaw Art Fair, once again hosting painters, jewelers, sculptors, and more, marks its 27th year. Live music will be provided by a lineup including the Jazz St. Louis All-Stars, Cave of Swords, Jack Grelle, and Bach to the Future. October 5 & 6.

Shaw Neighborhood, shawstlouis.org.

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Is it really fall without an Instagrammable festival?

Browse more than 120 tables’ worth of artisans’ and crafters’ baked goods, flowers, baskets, wooden toys, jewelry, and more at the Best of Missouri Market.

Kids get special crafts and activities, and don’t miss the live music. October 4–6. Missouri Botanical Garden, missouribotanical garden.org.

9

Erykah Badu’s combination of soul, hip-hop, and R&B has yielded a slew of catchy singles and netted her the title of Queen of Neo-Soul. October 5, Chaifetz Arena, chaifetzarena.com.

10 7

Winner of six Tonys and a Grammy, Dear Evan Hansen is the story of a teenager with anxiety whose therapist tells him to write to himself—with significant consequences. The Washington Post calls it “one of the most remarkable shows in musical theater history.” October 22– November 3. Fox Theatre, fabulousfox.com.

the 350th of 8 Onanniversary Rembrandt’s death, the Saint Louis Art Museum hosts “Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” featuring more than 70 works—including one by Rembrandt van Rijn. October 20–January 12, Saint Louis Art Museum, slam.org.

Photography by Alix Malka, Matthew Murphy, Joshua Pickering

In his new book, Letters From an Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson shares the 100 best letters sent by fans, with his responses.

Science, faith, philosophy, and everyone’s favorite former planet, Pluto, are just a few of the topics he explores.

October 17. Stifel Theatre, stifeltheatre.com.

Photography by John Smith

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RHYTHM

S T UQD&I O A

A NEW CHAPTER

The High Low will serve as a literary hub in Midtown.

BY ASHLEY RAY

T. LOUIS HAS a deep-rooted literary history that’s inspired generations of wordsmiths. That tradition will be strengthened with the inauguration of The High Low, a new literary arts space opening in Midtown.

A project of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the new space is a multilevel arts hub dedicated to serving the literary arts community and encouraging creative expression of the written and spoken word.

The first level will house a café (open 7 a.m.–2 p.m. daily) serving Blueprint coffee and fastcasual food by James Beard Award nominee Rob Connoley. It’ll also hold gallery and event/performance space and a library with a rotating collection of books, magazines, and newspapers for inhouse use free to the public. “Welcome Tables,” in the tradition of James Baldwin, will encourage conversation and camaraderie.

The large picture windows of the secondfloor Writers’ Suite look out on Grand Center.

This area will be the home to KAF’s writers-inresidence program. Office space has been rented

by River Styx, the National Conference for Com-

S

munity and Justice of Metropolitan St. Louis, Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts, the St. Louis Poetry Center, UrbArts, and St. Louis poet laureate Jane Ellen Ibur.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” says Sue Greenberg, executive director of VLAA. “Working in a venue that’s dedicated to freedom of expression through written and spoken word will be a perfect fit for us.”

NCCJ St. Louis executive director Gregory Donovan shares that sentiment: “This opportunity and new space will allow us to continue to deliver on our mission to work toward true equity and promote diversity and inclusion for all people in our community.”

Even the building’s exterior will be artistically meaningful. In the alley behind The High Low, local artists and Mexican street artist Remix will collaborate on a mural that, explains KAF director of visual infrastructure Gina Grafos, is an example of how “we are thinking about our growth as a foundation and tying all of the different buildings together in a visually dynamic way.”

FYI The High Low is slated to open at 3301 Washington, in Midtown, this month. Visit kranzbergartsfoundation.org for details.

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THE GOLDEN YEAR Left Bank Books turns 50 this year, well past the midlife crises that destroy so many indie bookstores. St. Louis’ oldest kept forging ahead, pushing literacy, new ideas, thoughtful insights, and stimulating conversation.

Now, on October 25 at the Mahler Ballroom, guests are invited to “party like it’s 1969,” with music by singer/songwriter Katarra Parson, a silent auction of Left Bank memorabilia, and some surprises. (That’s not to mention the chance to eavesdrop on well-read, civilized St. Louisans who just might, after a cocktail, get a little mushy about a bookstore that changes people’s lives.)

Tickets are $30 and available at left-bank.com.

Left Bank isn’t partying all month, though.

It’s sponsoring speakers at St. Louis County Library headquarters. On October 7, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo talks about his latest novel, Chances Are. And on October 24, another Pulitzer winner, Elizabeth Strout, brings the next chapter in the life of her beloved Olive Kitteridge, Olive Again.

Rendering by SPACE Architecture + Design

9/6/19 4:04 PM

A Way with Words E D W I D G E D A N T I C AT H O N O R E D W I T H T H E S T. L O U I S L I T E R A R Y AWA R D

On October 24, Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat will receive the St. Louis Literary Award, joining such august figures as Eudora Welty, August Wilson, Joan Didion, and Margaret Atwood. Saint Louis University Library Associates has bestowed the honor since 1967. Danticat has also earned an American Book Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.

For a quarter-century, Danticat’s novels, short stories, children’s books, and other writings have given readers a view from inside a life changed by immigration—the literal and figurative upheavals that occur when families leave their homelands. At 12, Danticat moved from Haiti to Brooklyn. The disorientation and alienation she felt and the sense of a diasporic identity have informed her work ever since.

Mother-daughter relationships also play a strong role in Danticat’s work.

Her 1994 debut novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, sees generations of women perpetuating violence on daughters they love, in line with the political and cultural forces of their times. Her 2002 nonfiction work After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti describes her own experience of visiting her homeland as both a Haitian and an outsider. Her latest, Everything Inside, is a collection of eight short stories examining relationships, families, locations, and the complex interplay among them. —MELISSA MEINZER Danticat will be recognized at 7 p.m.

October 24 at The Sheldon. For more details, visit thesheldon.org.

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AVIS DAVIS BEGAN wearing her

hair in gypsy locs in 2017.

She’d admired the look since seeing actress Lisa Bonet rock locs on The Cosby Show. Recently, such celebs as Zendaya, Meagan Good, and Ciara have also embraced the hairstyle. “Natural hair has come around,” Davis says. “People are no longer getting relaxers.” A former tattoo artist, Davis gravitated toward styling hair while searching for a way to maintain her own.

She thought of Bonet. “I took to that, but I still wanted a messier look and I wanted to add my own creativity to it.” Now, Davis travels to clients in cities from L.A. to New York, giving other women her signature style. —SAMANTHA STEVENSON What’s the process like? Depending on the person’s hair type, it could last from three to five hours. We figure out what colors they want, and then I show them, the jewelry that I set out for them based on what I got from their personality. If they agree, I start braiding their hair into parts. Then, I attach the hair I wrap and make the loc out of. The final steps are adding the messiness, which is the curl pieces and jewelry and feathers. They’re wired in, so if someone’s work doesn’t allow the feathers and charms, they can take it out whenever they want. We might put on a show or a movie. The latest thing we’ve been watching is Euphoria.

What inspires your hairstyles? It’s what I’m going through or what color I feel emotionally. Shells and feathers are my go-to.

What are the benefits of wearing your hair in locs? I’ve seen clients who’ve kept them for three months and their hair grew. There’s little to no maintenance. You don’t have to wash your hair.

You just wear it. I know when I didn’t wear these, I was changing my hair up every three weeks. You save a lot of money. It brings out your natural beauty. When women see themselves with braids, their confidence gets boosted.

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

9/5/19 3:49 PM

Take a Road Trip back In TIme Relax, Reconnect & Discover Springfield, il Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau VisitSpringfieldIllinois.com | (800) 545-7300 Share your experience #Visitspringfield

A PREVIEW OF THE DAY ’S TOP STORIE S

St. Louis Magazine’s daily newsletter, The Current, provides a quick look at the top stories from stlmag.com.

Find out what’s happening this weekend, discover the region’s newest restaurants, and dig into the latest in-depth stories.

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ELEMENTS

MINGLE

Sheena Hamilton, Arsenio Mims

Keith Williamson and Stephanie Williams

David and Lindsay Markmann

Terry Crow, Mark Utterback

Chuck Miller, Bob Massie, Alex and Jeff Harris

Matt and Annemarie Schumacher

Amy and Mark Reed

Dr. Ingrid Taylor, Clarence and Dr. Tamarah Brownlee

Marjorie and John Larson

SPOTLIGHT Brent Benjamin director, Saint Louis Art Museum

SLAM Tropic ON JULY 13, the Saint Louis Art Museum hosted SLAM

Tropic, a summer soirée with tropical cocktails, island cuisine, and live music, as a pre-opening celebration of the exhibition “Paul Gauguin: The Art of Invention.”

The event raised more than $150,000 to support the museum’s free programs.

Pujols Family Foundation Celebrity Golf Classic

Buddy and Jeana Reisinger

“It is a privilege to recognize this generosity and support.

We are grateful to Centene Charitable Foundation and to the evening’s co-chairs.”

Connor Hoekstra, Colton Parayko

THIS YEAR’S PUJOLS Family Founda-

tion Celebrity Golf Classic was held July 29 at the Persimmon Woods Golf Club in Weldon Spring. Hosted for the past three years by Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez, the annual tournament is the Pujols Family Foundation’s biggest fundraiser and involves many current and former St. Louis athletes.

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Matt Whitener, Derek Stanley

Photography by Diane Anderson

9/6/19 4:09 PM

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9/5/19 4:03 PM

SPECIAL PROMOTION

6:00AM

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BLUES TEAM PHYSICIAN For twenty-three years running, sports medicine specialists at Washington University Orthopedics work hand-in-hand with St. Louis Blues Hockey Club players, coaches and management to keep world-class athletes on the ice and performing at peak efficiency.

THE BLUES TEAM PHYSICIANS DESCRIBE THEIR TYPICAL HOME-GAME DAY  WHO ARE THE BLUES TEAM PHYSICIANS? MATTHEW MATAVA, M.D. MATTHEW SMITH, M.D.

When necessary they also later operate on severely injured Blues. Shoulder injuries and separations are common. They may also refer injured players to other

TAKING CARE OF PATIENTS Meetings at a Washington University clinic or hospital where they treat non-professional athletes and active people with a variety of sports injuries. By 7:00 a.m. they are seeing patients or in the operating room by 7:30 a.m.

5:30PM PRE-GAME MEETINGS A long day of clinical work finished, they tr vel to Enterprise Center (formerly Scottrade Center) for a 6:00 p.m. meeting with Blues trainers and management to discuss any new player issues.

They then visit injured players to determine if they can play that evening and also consult with injured players from visiting teams.

6:30PM GAME PREP Players take to the ice for warm-ups. The team doctors are rink-side to discuss any problems that might crop up.

7:00PM PUCK DROP The Washington University sports medicine specialists remain near the bench ready to go on the ice in an emergency. Between periods they meet with trainers and players in the training room to address active issues or injuries.

Washington University specialists, such as hand surgeons, when appropriate. Says Matava: “We have 50 partners who are sub-specialized in every joint of

10:00PM

the body, so we can always get the expertise we need.”

In working with professional athletes, he adds, “We learn more about injuries and use that knowledge to take care of our weekend warriors and high school and collegiate athletes that come into our clinics.”

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POST GAME Matava and his colleagues see any injured Blues or visiting players, taking on-site x-rays and referring players to a Washington University oral or plastic surgeon also on site.

9/5/19 4:03 PM

82 regular season games. Four playoff series. One Stanley Cup. Congratulations to our St. Louis Blues on a remarkable season and hard-fought Finals victory. We’re looking forward to this season and making sure they’re healthy and ready to defend the Cup.

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IF A TREE FA L L S . . .

P. 4 4 LOW-HANGING FRUIT P. 4 8

ANGLES

Q&A

MARIECHRISTINE WILLIAMS

Genocide Survivor

BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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ANGLES

T

Q&A

HE MASSACRE BEGAN April 7, 1994. In 100 days, an estimated

800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered—many by a friend or a neighbor—as the rest of the world sat watching. Marie-Christine Williams, a Rwandan, French, and Romanian 14-year-old, didn’t have that luxury. With her family gone and her home burned, she ran, on her own for months, hiding in the forest when she had to. It was the rainy season, and chilly, and soon her feet were sliced with cuts, swollen like balloons. She just kept going.

Did you sense danger ahead of time? The night before, our president was killed.

They shot his airplane down. The Hutu majority blamed the Tutsi. But months before, the government had been giving machetes to the Hutu and telling people that the Tutsis were not from Rwanda and didn’t deserve to live there.

What happened after the president was killed?

There was no electricity. They shut off the water. They told people to stay home and lock the doors. Then they came. They had a list of every person in every household. If you were Hutu, you would not be touched—unless you tried to stop it. My neighbors were screaming and the house in back was burning. We had a concrete fence. I climbed it, and when I saw my friend Alina running and a man with a machete chasing her, I fell. I was trying to go tell my family, but the killers were already there. So I hid in a hole. I heard my family begging to be forgiven and the killers laughing. They killed my half-brother because he was crying too much. They hacked my grandmother to death.

You were 14 years old and alone. Where did you go? First to one of my neighbors. He was Hutu, and instead of helping me, he grabbed me by the neck and told me to leave. I had to cover my mixed-race skin with dark mud so I could hide better. The propaganda radio said, “If you see a white person, kill them, too.” Sometimes during the night, I’d climb trees to get away from the wild dogs and leopards. It must have been close to 100 days, but I was too disoriented to count.

What gave you strength? Remembering my childhood, and how my father told me I was worthless. I said, Give me strength to

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“HE GAVE ME STRENGTH TO SURVIVE WHEN HE TOLD ME I WAS SMART.”

prove him wrong. Every morning when I woke up, I would say, “I did it one more time.” One time, a stranger came from nowhere. They had just killed his wife and children, and they were looking for him.

He said, “You survived this long by yourself? You are smarter than most people.”

He gave me strength to survive longer when he told me I was smart. I never heard such a word in my entire life.

So you managed to elude the Hutu warriors?

No, I was caught. They locked me in a school with other women and children, and every day, they would come and pick who they wanted to kill. When the Hutu started losing power, they marched all of us on the bridge. They hit me with a machete and threw me off the bridge. But later these people dug me out and dumped me in an empty hospital—pushed a dead person off a cot and gave me his bed. A month later, the other countries started coming; the Red Cross came back. They contacted my grandmother in France.

And then you had to face the recovery. I lived in the hospital in France for four years.

They almost amputated my left leg. I had so many infections, they didn’t know if I was going to survive. Even today, when I am sick, I don’t want to go to the doctors: What are they going to tell me?

Did you feel any survivor’s guilt? The anger I had was not because I survived. It was because I heard the victims screaming and I couldn’t help them.

You testified at Rwanda’s gacaca (community justice) court. I did. It was a nightmare.

But once I faced one of these guys who burned our home down, I was angry for five minutes. The court asked me, “How do you feel?” and I said, “I’m going to forgive this bad man so I can go ahead with my life. I am tired of being angry.”

At stlmag.com: Williams’ complicated grief, and the St. Louisan she fell in love with.

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

9/5/19 4:06 PM

Yes, we do things

a little differently.

We’re a women’s college. We are incredibly pet-friendly.

We believe that your dreams are achievable. When you hear “no way,” we say “Dream up.”

Stephens gives you the tools you need to be the best YOU you can be — we also support your success with an affordability plan that includes reduced tuition pricing.

Plan your visit!

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dream up.

1200 E. Broadway Columbia, MO 65215

Michael Drummond: Being Played features chessinspired fashion with laser-cut synthetics, clothing spun from steel, digitally printed accessories and more by Project Runway star Michael Drummond.

Simultaneously debuting is A Beautiful Game, a stunning collection of chess-themed beauty products, apparel, and advertisements showcasing the sophistication of chess.

Free Opening Reception October 10, 2019; 5:30-7:30 p.m.

RSVP and learn more at worldchesshof.org #DrummondChess #BeautifulGameChess    Product image and associated trade marks reproduced with the permission of Milton-Lloyd Limited (www.milton-lloyd.com) the UK’s favourite fragrance company

Michael Drummond: Being Played is generously supported by:

October 2019 stlmag.com

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ANGLES

NOTEBOOK

BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN

J

IF A TREE FALLS...

Urban loggers haul away the cut-down trees of the St. Louis forest, saw them into boards, and sell them back to us.

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OE WILP CLIMBS a narrow lad-

der, seats himself in a little crow’s-nest chair, and pulls levers. A greedy metal claw plucks a rough-barked log at least 3 feet in diameter from the truck bed, swings it in midair for a few seconds, and then, like a considerate monster, sets it carefully on a woodpile. Once the truck’s empty, Wilp uses a forklift to prod and topple a giant log from the pile, goes in sideways to scoop it up, and drives it to the back of the Lumber Logs lot, where his saw’s motor is already chugging. The blade rises, and he shoves the log off the forklift, rolling and nudging. A tan blizzard of sawdust swirls in the sunlight as the blade glides horizontally through the log, easy as your grandma’s cheese slicer through Velveeta.

“All right, now, this is the best part,” Wilp announces. “It’ll look like just a plain log, and then you open it up and it’s absolutely fantastic.” Like a pathologist doing an autopsy, he lifts off the top and carefully brushes away the sawdust to show off the “flame” that signals a crotch where two branches emerged. The tree was a Siberian elm, and the grain is spectacular. “The wood’s darker than American elm,” he notes. “They got wiped out with Dutch elm disease.”

All of the wood at Lumber Logs comes from “the St. Louis forest”—new subdivisions, cemeteries, parks, anyplace trees have to come down. The idea hit Tom Sontag, a woodworker, when he was trying to source boards for his own projects.

He could provide a free service by picking up logs that would otherwise wind up mulched or tossed in a landfill, send the low-quality stuff (pin oak, tulip poplar) to a mill to make pallets and blocking, and (with some help, meaning Wilp) saw the primo wood into boards they could sell.

All they’d need would be some serious equipment and a way to dry the wood.

“The beauty of what we do is, there aren’t old-growth trees that big in the wild,” Wilp says. “In residential areas, they get huge, because they don’t get touched.” Also, we’re “hardwood heaven,” Sontag adds, “in terms of the trees woodworkers get most excited Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

9/5/19 4:06 PM

OPEN HOUSE NOVEMBER 9th PRESENTATIONS: 9:15am and 10:15am tours immediately following RSVP ONLINE (preferred) newcityschool.org/openhouse

age 3 through 6th Grade 5209 Waterman Blvd St. Louis, MO 63104 (314) 361-6411 www.newcityschool.org

Untitled-1 1

8/28/19 9:49 AM

ANNIVERSARY CLUB Sign up for St. Louis Magazine’s Anniversary Club, and celebrate your special day with exclusive offers from l cal businesses!

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October 2019 stlmag.com

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ANGLES

NOTEBOOK

BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN

about—white oak, walnut, cherry.

We’ve got them all.”

Lumber Logs specializes in wide boards, green wood (for an ancient throwback style of woodworking), and live edge (slabs that retain the irregular bark-covered edge). Live edge is hot right now— it gets lacquered up for conference tables and home dining—so they keep plenty on hand. “People love it because it’s real, it’s natural, it’s authentic,” says Sontag. “You can’t find it at Target.”

True, says Wilp, but he’s afraid it’s “a bit overdone. You set one of these slabs on hairpin legs you bought on Amazon, I don’t know if you’re a woodworker yet.”

Still, any reuse beats a landfill.

Once, some bags of concrete were delivered on a pallet, and they realized that the pallet had come from one of their logs. “Nobody else harvests sycamore for pallets,” Sontag explains. “We closed the circle right there.”

The Lumber Logs showroom is open the first and third Saturday mornings of every month. “There’s silver maple, which is soft,” says Wilp, leading a tour.

“Sugar maple’s hard, and black maple falls between them, with some really interesting color, blacks and purples.” Past the honey locust and quartersawn white oak, on a Not for Sale rack where he and Sontag set aside prize boards for their own woodworking, there’s a persimmon board ribboned with black. “Persimmon’s in the ebony family,” he explains, and when I exclaim at its beauty and ask why I never hear about it, he shrugs: “There’s a lot of underused hardwoods.” Another one’s mulberry, a streaky golden brown that’s gorgeous but commercially ignored because of the trees’ small size and scattered distribution. Sontag’s big discovery has been Osage orange, “one of the most rot-resistant trees on the planet,” dense and heavy, with wood that starts out a saffron yellow.

“You can use Osage orange sawdust to make dye,” adds Wilp, remembering the Easter his parents decided to use all natural coloring for their eggs. “We used green walnut hulls, too—you can boil them down and make a walnut dye, which is useful, because the color in walnut is different for each tree, so the dye can make it consistent.”

The cut wood is stacked with “stickers”—long strips of wood—between the boards for air flow. In front of one rack is a huge cherry root ball, dirt still clinging. “Turners like them,” Wilp says. “Can you smell the cherry? Sawing sassafras, I’ve had to go get a root beer—luckily, I live close to Carl’s Drive In. Sawing maple’ll make you want pancakes, hickory makes you want bacon, and sycamore smells like horseshit.”

He points to “a piece of Bradford pear that came out of Shaw Park” and logs that came from Bellefontaine Cemetery. Today he’s going to a Kirk-

?

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“SAWING SASSAFRAS, I’VE HAD TO GO GET A ROOT BEER—LUCKILY, I LIVE CLOSE TO CARL’S DRIVE IN.” wood residential neighborhood for a pickup. Meanwhile, our photographer, who does woodworking on the side, is eyeing a stack of walnut.

A big Missouri export, walnut is “right up there with mahogany in terms of working characteristics,” Sontag says. A friend recently asked him to repair some barstools that “came from some dismally cheap place, made from Southeast Asian softwoods that don’t react well to stress; they don’t hold their shape. The joints become loose and wobbly.”

As for IKEA, the concept makes him sigh. “There’s a place for it,” he concedes, “but it’s disposable. If it takes a tree 100 years to grow, then you should make something out of it that lasts 100 years.”

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

9/6/19 4:30 PM

Do you strain to hear each day, even with hearing aids?

Hearing implants are different than hearing aids.

Hearing aids help many people by making the sounds they hear louder. Unfortunately as hearing loss progresses, sounds need not only to be made louder, but clearer. Cochlear implants may give you that clarity and they are covered by Medicare.*

83

%

of cochlear implant recipients reported a statistically significant improvement in Quality of Life after receiving their implant.1

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, a hearing implant may be right for you.

While wearing hearing aid(s), do you...

Have difficulty hearing conversations especially in noisy situations?

Frequently ask people to repeat themselves?

Have trouble hearing on the telephone?

Regularly withdraw from conversations because it is too difficult to hear?

“We were getting ready to have more grandchildren and I wanted to hear them and enjoy their activities!”

Call 866-432-7785 or visit www.Cochlear.us/STL to find a Hearing Implant Specialist and request a FREE guide.

Gay M., Cochlear™ Nucleus® Recipient

Please seek advice from your health professional about treatments for hearing loss. Outcomes may vary, and your health professional will advise you about the factors which could affect your outcome. Always read the instructions for use. Not all products are available in all countries. Please contact your local Cochlear representative for product information. * Covered by Medicare beneficiaries who meet CMS criteria for coverage. Contact your insurance provider or hearing implant specialist to determine your eligibility for coverage.

1.

Clinical Evaluation of the Cochlear Nucleus CI532 Cochlear Implant in Adults. 2019 Jan; Data on file

©Cochlear Limited 2019. All rights reserved. Hear now. And always and other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of Cochlear Limited.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. CAM-MK-PR-427 ISS1 JUN19

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ANGLES

SNAPSHOT EC K E R T’S A P P L E FA R M GRAFTON, ILLINOIS

Low-Hanging Fruit In 1964, Eckert’s launched an experiment. The company planted 25,000 dwarf apple trees, then hitched up wagons and rumbled people into its orchards to pick their fruit: beauties but also small, knobby, hail-pocked apples, some blushing on just one side. “People will pick things off a t ee and think they’re beautiful,” Vernon Eckert explained. Odd apples that didn’t stand a chance at the supermarket went home in the bags of people like this bunch, piled into a wagon in October 1970.

Pickers saved a dollar or so on a bushel, but that’s not why people drove, and still drive, to Calhoun County—or why, by 1977, dozens of U-pick farms had popped up, offering not just apples but al o peaches and pumpkins and hand-pressed cider. There’s a faint old memory, like the wee pip of an apple, that we chase. A memory that’s all sky and rolling hills and horses. A memory of a time when there were 17,000 varieties of apples, not 4,000, with such names as Gloria Mundi, Old Fred, and Hollow Log. A time before superstores stocked with pyramids of shiny red apples. A time when an apple could come from anywhere, look like anything, and we could call it beautiful. —STEFENE RUSSELL 48

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Photography courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society

9/5/19 4:07 PM

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October 2019 stlmag.com

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T H E B E L LW E T H E R p.52 U TA H S TAT I O N p.54 BEAST BUTCHER & BLOCK p.56

TASTE

THE DISH

Upper Crust Mitch Frost began tossing pizzas 18 years ago. He’s slung dough for Dewey’s, Pi, Onesto, and The U.R.B. and taught a class at Kitchen Conservatory called “The Art of Pizza-Throwing.”

At age 34, Frost is Pie Guy—and a year ago, he opened Pie Guy Pizza, a by-theslice late-night pizza joint adjacent to Gezellig, the taproom and bottle shop in The Grove. His near-perfect sourdough crust pizza has been called New York–style by some, but to him, it’s just the pizza he likes to eat. He’s not alone.

Lines for slices begin forming when Pie Guy’s dining room closes (about 1 a.m.) and the walk-up window opens—and stays open until 3:30 a.m. There are no specialty pizzas. (“I stay out of it,” Frost says.) Full pies and slices are topped as you wish, with locally sourced produce and Volpi meats, including largeslice pepperoni, the shop’s bestseller (now with the option of a drizzle of hot honey). Guests grab and go at lunch and dinner or hang out on the side patio, which feels like an alleyway in Brooklyn.

And if you just can’t wait to get after that rocket-hot slice, ask for some “cold cheese” atop it. The roof of your mouth will thank you. —GEORGE MAHE Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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TASTE

MAIN COURSE

Hitting the Heights

Replacing the acclaimed Element, Bellwether offers equally elevated cuisine.

BY DAVE LOWRY

seating. Alas, many of the tables don’t capitalize on the extraordinary views of downtown. (The cozy nook close to the entrance is an engaging exception.)

Consider sitting on the inviting westThe B ellwether facing patio, especially at sunset. Or opened earlier this cozy up to the modern bar, where the year in the space that expert staff can point you in the right previously housed direction on the menu.

Trendy open kitchens have their Element. The property has been trans- charms, but The Bellwether goes in a formed, shifted a different direction: The kitchen’s on the floor down into a nar- floor above, along with The Reference row but lofty space Room (a book-lined space designed for that includes an invitparties that has its own building-length ing deck overlooking patio). As a result, dishes arrive without the city. The building any of the racket of the line, making for is shared with one a substantially quieter atmosphere and of the city’s busiest adding a civilized touch. climbing gyms.

Also refined are the presentations.

Nearly all upscale Small plates—as inescapable an element of dining as smiley faces scrawled on restaurants these receipts—make up most of the menu. days look less like Lutèce and more like They’re nicely done, bonsai examples an Eisenhower-era of an imaginative kitchen. Some are AME OLD STORY: You’re 30 tool-and-die factory. The Bellwether’s straightforward. Steak frites are dusted feet up on a climb, about to concrete floor and brick walls are conwith togarashi, a pepper-bright Japamake the crux move, and you siderably softened by elaborate metal nese seasoning that gives the spuds think, “Man, I could really go chandeliers. Tables are close but not dis- spark and tastes less gimmicky than it for a Manhattan.” tractingly so, with comfortable enough does creative.

Cocktail service and fine dining are in Other diminutive dishes are The Bellwether sadly short supply in most rock-climbing elaborate.

A puck of beef tar1419 Carroll tare is capped with a brittle gyms, but you can step into your harness 314-380-3086 thebellwetherstl.com and rope up at Climb So iLL, located in filigree of Parmesan, dollops Dinner daily a historic former power plant on Carroll of liver-ish mushroom crème, Street, content in the knowledge that watermelon radish slivers, and a lovely meal and nice drink are just a a pungent black garlic gasbelay away. trique and served with husks of bread. It’s an opulent, excitTHE BOTTOM LINE Seasonal specialties and first-rate presentations are served in a stylish low-key atmosphere. ing starter.

Slices of cured salmon, tomatoes, capers, pickled shallots, and chive-infused crema on pumpernickel

S

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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Certainly Bellwether’s fare is upscale, even without table linens or dinnerjacketed staff. A pair of octopus arms is perfectly roasted. The snappy, rubbery texture isn’t compromised; instead, the limbs are delightfully fleshy and delicate in flavor, like a firm scallop. Knobs of bright-hued carnival cauliflower accompanying the appendages get an attention-grabbing treatment: a dressing of Calabrian pepper oil and a curriedmustard beurre blanc.

A filet mignon is transformed into a sculpture, perched on a bank of potato purée and balanced on the plate with a tumble of haricots verts. What would be a steak house standard is elevated—even more so because the filet is juicy, tender, and happily bovine in flavor. A gravlax appetizer is similarly artistic. Pink slices of delicious cured salmon—embellished with blistered tomatoes, capers, pickled shallots, and a chive-infused crema— decorate pumpernickel squares. English pea ravioli does the gastronomic trick; wine-braised chicken shreds provide more protein, the ravioli are al dente, and crackly flecks of chicken skin lend a texture contrast.

The desserts are fine, rich without being over the top: chocolate beet cake, carrot cake with carrot ice cream.

The Bellwether has a few beers on tap and 25 or so in bottles and cans; should you be looking for craft brew snobbery points, you’ll score big with the Hof Ten Dormaal, from Tildonk, Belgium.

Cocktails are just as much fun. We figured we’d keep going with the whole Belgian thing and order a Schaarbeekse aperitif but didn’t want to embarrass the bar staff if they were short that night of Flemish kriek lambic. You can be sure that you’ll find something to wet your whistle.

The Bellwether is the creation of the folks at Polite Society: Jonathan Schoen, Travis Hebrank, and Thomas Futrell.

Like that popular spot in Lafayette Square, this place has quickly earned a reputation for rewarding meals with flair. And it’s the only place where you can “climb to dine”—if you’re so inclined.

October 2019 stlmag.com

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FIRST BITE

Fit Fuel

A former service station now fills up vegans and non-vegans alike.

DUST ON THE BOTTLE

T I P S F O R C R E AT I N G A HOME WINE CELLAR

Forget the notion that wine cellars are only for the expensive bottles of the rich and famous.

“Even inexpensive wines, like Côtes du Rhône, that have been cellared for a year in a high-quality wine cellar will drink like you paid twice as much for them,” says The Wine Merchant’s Jason Main.

ACROSS THE COUNTRY, dilapidated mid–20th-

century service stations are seeing second lives as salons, boutiques, and restaurants, but only the starry-eyed could have envisioned the former Burgherr’s Service Station, now Utah Station in Benton Park, as anything but a tear-down. It was roofless at one time and sat vacant for the past 20 years. Then a developer, a restaurateur, and a vegan chef braided their dreams of what the space could become and came up with a refreshing, timely concept: a scratch kitchen restaurant that turns out a 90 percent–vegan menu that even omnivores can appreciate. Executive chef Chris Bertke’s takes on fast-food staples—such as the Big Mac and J. Box’s fried tacos—are worthy imposters, but the universal favorite (and fake-out) are the T-ravs stuffed with one of five plant-based “meats” that Bertke makes in house. (The Station sells 600 a day.) The one he calls “veat” gets sliced

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A plant-based “veef” sandwich with vegan cheddar, banana peppers, onions, and more

thin to anchor a gyro topped with “to-feta” and Kalamata salsa. There’s a vegan smash burger and a legit grass-fed beef burger, pulled pork, and airycrusted 12-inch pizzas made from superfine Italian flour. Separate cooktops prevent cross-contamination, and different basket liners (black-checked paper for vegan, red for non-vegan) prevent any confusion. There’s no misunderstanding as to Utah Station’s appeal: operable double garage doors; a wraparound patio chockablock with reclaimed materials, including a giant fire pit; raised vegetable gardens and a Shaw’s Garden’s worth of native Missouri plants; and vegan wines. Utah Station is a feel-good place that some are even calling “plantastic.” 1956 Utah, 314-588-8099.—G.M.

Brian Hartsfield started Redwood Wine Cellars more than 20 years ago to provide wine cellars, doors, and racks. Today, the company continues to manufacture and install wine storage for clients all over Missouri and surrounding states.

Hartsfield insists that temperature control, especially maintaining a consistent temperature, is key. Seventy degrees is the highest temperature for short-term cellaring, but “ideally, you want 55 to 59 degrees,” he says. The main cost is the cooling unit, which starts around $1,600 for a small above-the-door unit. With a door and a few racks, the price could climb to around $2,000. If cost is a concern, Hartsfield suggests adding more shelves later as needed. But the investment makes a difference: Hartsfield says his properly cellared mid1980s Bordeaux are still drinking fine.

As Main says, “When you see high-scoring or -rated wines, a big component is based on how age-worthy they are. The only way you’re going to know that is if you age them—but you have to age them in the right conditions.” —WILLIAM C. MEYERS

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

9/6/19 4:09 PM

Now Serving Lunch, Brunch, and the Occasional Dinner!

Pastrami Stack

Caesar Salad

Sometimes you need more than dessert! We can customize all of your needs from salads, side dishes, entrees and more. We also offer boxed lunches and catering for small personal gatherings or large corporate events.

And, of course, we’ve got dessert covered!

Salmon BLT

Quesadilla Florentine

8509 Delmar Boulevard . 314-993-5455 . jillyscupcakebar.com

October 2019 stlmag.com

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SECOND HELPING

Hog Wild

David Sandusky brings next-level ’cue to The Grove.

BY HOLLY FANN

I

T’S A SHAME that so many bar-

becue books featuring St. Louis have already been published.

Any list is incomplete without the inclusion of BEAST Butcher & Block in The Grove, pitmaster David Sandusky’s second location.

A mural depicting a beastly skull flanked by the St. Louis skyline looms over the indoor hall. The Butchery sells fresh meat, seasonal produce, and local dairy, eggs, and baked goods. The Skullery, Sandusky’s playground, is an event space for pairing dinners, collaborative events, and cooking classes. The room’s focal points are two Argentine-style livefire grills.

One thing that could be assumed even before BEAST opened, this summer, was that Sandusky would continue to produce the exceptional level of barberibs, rather than baby back, are ets of glistening melted fat. One A pound cue that brought his Illinois restaurant, the cut of choice. The meat’s juicy of sauced rib bite of BEAST snoot brushed tips over fries BEAST Craft BBQ, recognition. He uses and wonderfully tender but not with a bit of sweet, smoky sauce only Compart Duroc hogs—which yield so overcooked that it slips off the is heaven. “I’m the only man in the meat known for its tenderness, rosy hue, bone. It’s finished with a dry rub world making heritage snoots,” and superior marbling, the result of an so good, you might forgo the four dipSandusky claims. “That’s why mine exacting breeding program and a lowping sauces. The menu also includes are so damn good.” Once the jowl and stress lifestyle—for his pork offerings. hefty sandwiches, masterfully smoked tendons have been removed—laborBEAST also offers both Double R brisket pulled pork, pork belly, pork steak that intensive work—the snoots go into the and Wagyu. The price differcan be cut with the side of your pits with a consistent thickness. ence is significant, but it’s hard fork, excellent dry-rubbed Sides include such standards as slaw, to say no to the Wagyu, which wings, and turkey breast.

Brussels sprouts with pork belly, and doesn’t disappoint. The Double The snoots are the menu’s bacon mac and cheese. The pit beans R brisket is also phenomenal. crowning jewel. Although often have the soft resistance that comes of Go for the thick slices of fatty given a lackluster preparation starting with dry, not canned, beans and cut for smoked beef, with a gorelsewhere, these snoots reflect are imbued with smoke.

BEAST Butcher geous tender but meaty chew & Block what may be the best parts of St. Louisans debate which pitmaster and marbling like liquid gold. a hog: the skin, fat, and collashould hold the title King of Barbecue.

4156 Manchester A platter of riblets or rib 314-944-6003 gen. Scored like the fatty side Sandusky can now be included in that beastbbqstl.com tips over fries is as elegant and Lunch and dinner of a duck breast and cooked, conversation—and BEAST Butcher & refined as pressed duck. Spare daily they’re crispy but retain pock- Block’s story is just getting started.

THE BOTTOM LINE The barbecue’s among the best around, and The Skullery is a venue full of potential.

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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Hot Spots W H AT ’ S N E W A N D N O TA B L E THIS MONTH

1. Mayo Ketchup  Named after Puerto Rico’s favorite condiment (MY-oh ketchup), “Plantain Girl” Mandy Estrella’s first brick-and-mortar restaurant specializes in empanadas, tostones, and jibaritos. 2001 Park, Lafayette Square.

2. Turmeric  Located in the former Fox Fire/Público space in the Delmar Loop, the restaurant boasts striking décor, creative cocktails, and artistic presentations. Turmeric’s goal is to set a new standard for Indian dining in St. Louis.

6679 Delmar, University City.

3. Utah Station  Chef Chris Bertke’s vegan takes on fast-food items (such as Big Maks and Crack Tacos) take up a majority of the menu, but there’s also plenty for carnivores, such as a grass-finished burger, meat-topped pizzas, pulled pork, and a BLT. 1956 Utah, Benton Park.

4. HiTea Playful and eclectic, this pink-and-green example of the kawaii theme has one of the best selfie walls in town. Expect ramen and rice bowls, hot pots, and sous vide entrées, as well as a variety of bubble teas. 13700 Olive, Chesterfield.

5. Knockout BBQ  The rear dining room of Dave and Kara Bailey’s Rooster South Grand location (and its covered patio) became the home of their first foray into the barbecue biz. 3150 S. Grand, South City.

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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts, courtesy of Knockout BBQ, Mayo Ketchup

9/6/19 4:10 PM

INS, OUTS & ALMOSTS AS OF AN EARLY-SEPT. PRESS DATE

CLOSINGS

Barrio 740 De Mun, Aug. 15 Winslow’s Home 7213 Delmar, mid-Oct.

OPENINGS

Colino’s Café (Amighetti’s) 5141 Wilson, Aug. 1 Cheshire Grin Cat Café 1926 Cherokee, Aug. 3 Turmeric (Fox Fire) 679 Delmar, Aug. 8 Utah Station 1956 Utah, Aug. 8 St. Louis Center for Plant-Based Living 131 W. Jefferson, Aug. 13 Charred Crust (Uptown Café) 105 S. Meramec, Aug. 21 Katerina’s Greek Restaurant (Copia Lounge) 7822 Bonhomme, Aug. 26 Mayo Ketchup (Laredo on Lafayette Square) 2001 Park, Aug. 28

COMING SOON Britt’s Bakehouse 137 W. Jefferson, Kirkwood, mid-Sept.

Ember (Siam) 4121 Manchester, mid-Sept.

Grace Chicken + Fish 4270 Manchester, mid-Sept.

Kitchen 4AM (Hiro Asian Kitchen) 1405 Washington, mid-Sept.

Mac’s Local Eats 1821 Cherokee, mid-Sept.

Nudo House 6105-A Delmar, mid-Sept.

CENTRAL WEST END 28 Maryland Plaza Rear, St Louis, MO 63108 Mon-Thur: 10am–8:30pm | Fri-Sat: 9:30am–10pm closed sunday

Egg @ Midtown (Michael’s Catering) 3100 Locust, late Sept.

EDWARDSVILLE 1057 Century Drive, Edwardsville, IL 62025 Mon-Thur: 10am–6:30pm | Fri-Sat: 9:30am–9pm closed sunday

Knockout BBQ 3150 S. Grand, late Sept.

CRAVETHECUP.COM

Open Concept (Melt) 2712 Cherokee, early Oct.

try our

Soda Fountain at Union Station (Hard Rock Café) 1820 Market, mid-Oct.

VEGAN & GLUTEN-FREE CUPCAKES

Hangar Kitchen & Bar (The Slider House) 9528 Manchester, late Oct. Little Fox (The Purple Martin) 2800 Shenandoah, late Oct. Orzo Mediterranean Grill 11625 Olive, late Oct. The Train Shed Gastropub (Houlihan’s) 1820 Market (at Union Station), late Nov.

EVENTS · CONTE STS · DEAL S

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Receive updates from our partners in your inbox every week

Original J’s Tex-Mex Barbecue (Fortel’s Pizza Den) 7359 Forsyth, Nov. Winslow’s Table 7213 Delmar, Nov. Diego’s (Momos) 630 North & South, Dec.

MOVING

Taco Circus From 4258 Schiller to 4940 Southwest, early Sept.

Stackhouse Pub & Grill From 14156 Olive to 13419 Olive (MaTaNe Japanese Dining), Sept.

Sign up for The Scoop STLMAG.COM/NEWSLETTERS

October 2019 stlmag.com

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HOT SEAT

When did you first make the decision to open your own restaurant?

Dave: I was managing full-time at Sasha’s and at Pomme and working at a local Radisson—like, 14 shifts a week—when I decided to open my own place. I signed the lease for Baileys’ Chocolate Bar a year after Kara and I met.

Empire Builders

Dave and Kara Bailey continue to open restaurants at a furious clip.

B

ECAUSE DAVE AND KARA BAILEY

have created 10 restaurant concepts over the past 15 years, perhaps it’s time that someone create an appropriate term for them, like “restrapreneurs.” The prolific husband-and-wife team recently opened Knockout BBQ, their first barbecue restaurant. Next up: the conversion of an old filling station into another Baileys’ Range— and they’re hungry to do more. —G.M.

How many more concepts do you have in your head, and how many will become a reality?

Dave: [Laughs.] The number’s dwindling.

There are only a few left that we haven’t already done.

Is there a magic number of restaurants you want to own?

Kara: [Looks at Dave.] That’s an animal we’re still trying to tame.

ONLINE Visit stlmag.com to read more about Knockout, as well as whether the Baileys would expand beyond the city limits.

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What’s your takeaway from a few of your current restaurants?

Kara: Baileys’ Chocolate Bar: I love that people who had their first date there end up getting married and keep coming back for anniversaries, celebrations, brownies, and chocolate martinis. We hope having POP located downstairs will start its own series of traditions.

Dave: Rooster: It started as 21 seats for breakfast and lunch on weekdays. When we added weekend brunch, business took off, and then it became the thing we were known for. That location has 190 seats now.

Dave: Bridge: That one’s named for my late brother and his passion—the violin—so it’s especially sentimental for me. It’s tall and narrow but doesn’t feel confined, because of how we developed the mezzanine. When we opened, 10 years ago, every one of our craft beers was from somewhere else, except for Schlafly, which at the time was the only small brewer in town.

Kara: Baileys’ Range: I definitely remember that one. We were having our first child, which coincided perfectly with Range’s orientation and opening.

Why did you introduce POP the way you did?

Kara: The idea of closing a restaurant [L’Acadiane] and opening another [POP] in the same place on the same night was crazy. We scripted every change, down to the minute, for the various teams—culinary, front of house, and décor—then we rehearsed it, cue sheets and all. Our guests totally got into the drama and excitement.

Is today’s restaurant customer getting harder to deal with?

Kara: No, they’re just more vocal about their opinions. We please, like, 7,000 people every weekend, but there’s always one or two that have something negative to say.

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

9/6/19 4:10 PM

ST. LOUIS MAGAZINE’S 2020

How has a nurse impacted your life?

Dave: Some, for whatever reason, don’t even eat but file a one-star review anyway, and that wears on an owner. You get a few five-star reviews, then a single one star, and you net three and a half, which hurts.

St. Louis Magazine is looking to honor nurses who go above and beyond the call of duty—whether it be a nurse from a private practice, hospital system, or school; or a nurse who specializes in home care, pediatrics, surgery, or education.

Help recognize those who provide outstanding care by submitting a nomination for SLM’s 2020 Excellence in Nursing Awards.

What’s the hardest part of the industry?

Dave: It changes over time. Today, it’s recruiting and retaining. Across all our restaurants, we offer enough internal advancement where some of them, thankfully, stick around. What amazes me is how many people call for an interview and either never show or do show up and totally ghost us after that.

What factors have changed from when you started in the business?

Dave: Work environments are a lot better—a lot less toxic—than 15 years ago.

I wanted to treat people better than I got treated, so we try to create places that are safe and accepting. When people are free to be who they are, they’re more likely to excel, and as long as people can adhere to certain respect and service standards, we all benefit. Restaurants should represent the diversity of where they’re located, and we live in a very diverse town. [Laughs.] As long as you’re not violent or a jerk, we’ll hire you.

Why did you decide to open a barbecue place—or possibly two—now?

Dave: We first talked about doing a barbecue place five years ago, in a building that we own downtown; then we got involved in other projects. Now, we have the opportunity to start on a smaller scale first. The Rooster South Grand space had some extra space, and we had a working smoker there already that serviced the other restaurants.

We called it Knockout because of the positive food connotations.

Isn’t the barbecue niche in St. Louis becoming saturated?

Dave: I don’t see that many more places than I saw 10 years ago. What I do see are better and more vocal players in the game.

The barbecue bar is continuously being raised in St. Louis, and I want to do my part.

To make a nomination and for more information, visit stlmag.com/nurses.

NOMINATE A NURSE

TREAT YOURSELF ALL YEAR GET A 1-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION FOR ONLY

$19.95 ORDER ONLINE AT STLMAG.COM/SUBSCRIBE

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At his Fox Park restaurant, Savage, chef Logan Ely performs culinary wizardry. Among his creations: beet chicharrรณns and a dip of hibiscus emulsion with black citrus peel.

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WHERE TO DINE NOW WRIT T EN BY

AL E XA B E ATTIE , B I L L B U RGE , PAT E BY, H OL LY FA N N, DAVE L OWRY, G E O RG E M A HE , AN N L E M ON S P OL L AC K, I AI N S HAW, A N D E M I LY WAS SE RM A N

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H A M I LT O N ’ S U R BA N STEAKHOUSE

A haven for the steak-and-sip crowd, Hamilton’s is intimate, rustic, and relaxed. The charcuterie board comes with a bacon fat candle (don’t ask; just order), and the wet-aged ribeye (pictured) is among the best in town.

Peruse the three reserve menus— vintage wines, rare bourbons, superpremium steaks—and prepare for a most memorable evening. 2101 Chouteau, Lafayette Square.

808 MAISON

Request the table by the front window.

Order the bourride (pictured) or saffronfragrant Marseille seafood stew. Relish every bite, and reflect: At one time or another, men in tricorn hats, flappers, fur traders, and veterans of Gettysburg ambled down the street outside. This French restaurant is steeped in St. Louis history. 808 Geyer, Soulard.

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CINDER HOUSE

Stunning views of the Arch and river from the plush outdoor and indoor eighth-floor dining rooms serve as the backdrop to chef Gerard Craft’s Four Seasons restaurant. Consider the new 10-seat dining experience, Dia’s Room, with its gorgeous 13-course Brazilianinfluenced prix-fixe menu that includes dishes prepared tableside.

999 N. Second, downtown.

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B A L K A N T R E AT B O X

Loryn and Edo Nalic have aced the transition from food truck to crazy busy brick-and-mortar. The expanded menu includes familiar items—ćevapi sandwiches and boat-shaped beef pide (pictured)—and new additions— the “Balkan burger,” pljeskavica. The cheerful décor features a colorful woodblock wall mosaic that doubles as a sound dampener. Despite the lines out the door, service is well organized and typically keeps wait times down.

8103 Big Bend, Webster Groves.

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S AVA G E

Few establishments present such a unique vision as that of chef Logan Ely’s restaurant, which offers four-, six-, and 12-course tasting menus. Ely and his staff lead diners on a playful adventure with seemingly simple food— a spot prawn cooked in its own roe or tilefish with anchovies and cured romaine lettuce (pictured)—transformed into a spectacular experience. 2655 Ann, Fox Park.

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The best seat in town? Indo’s sushi counter, where you can watch chef/owner Nick Bognar in action, slicing, squeezing rice, composing fish-topped nuggets with confidence and skill. The 40-seat space is inevitably packed. The Thai dishes are perfection, but it’s the masterfully crafted sushi and sashimi (pictured), with rare toppings imported from Japan (in this case, three types of bluefin tuna), that make indo special. 1641D Tower Grove, Botanical Heights.

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E L M WO O D

The Maplewood hot spot has quickly garnered accolades for its upscale-yet-approachable fare and impeccable service. A coal-fired grill and oven lays the foundation for its offerings, which include Korean grilled pork steak and a Flannery dry-aged burger with bacon, shallot, American cheese, and gochujang barbecue sauce (pictured). Co-owner Chris Kelling and assistant general manager/sommelier Juliette Dottle have pulled together an extensive beverage menu, including a fine wine list. 2704 Sutton, Maplewood.

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BEAST BUTCHER & BLOCK

Over are the days of trekking to Belleville to tuck into David Sandusky’s raveworthy heritage breed barbecue, which many consider the best in the region. The new Grove location offers all the staples of the original, a butcher shop, and The Skullery, Sandusky’s culinary playground, in a beautiful restaurant designed by neighbor SPACE Architecture + Design.

4156 Manchester, The Grove.

Y E L L OW B E L LY

The tropical-themed restaurant has made a name for itself with seafood dishes created by celeb chef Richard Blais and creative cocktails by co-owner Tim Wiggins. Among the must-trys are the lobster enchiladas at lunch, the Spam fried rice and Wu-Tang Clams at dinner, and cheddar sea biscuits with uni butter and the Lion’s Share cocktail (pictured) anytime. 4659 Lindell, Central West End.

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Sit on the sprawling patio, and enjoy a striking view with your Champagne, togarashi fries, and a favorite entrÊe— perhaps the sous vide pork steak, the sliced tri-tip, or the salmon fettuccine. Polish it off with the carrot cake, served with vanilla bean mascarpone and candied carrots, as well as carrot, cardamom, and honey ice cream (pictured). 1419 Carroll, Lafayette Square.

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BULRUSH

Creativity, often hyped in the food biz, is actually rare—making chef Rob Connoley’s new place all the more impressive. Ozarks food and foodways are the inspiration. Extraordinary native ingredients are rendered into meals that are simultaneously a celebration of a regional cuisine and an unmatched dining experience. The setting’s minimalist; the focus is on the food, along with some very fine cocktails, stirred with indigenous ingredients. Everything from venison to prairie flowers goes into a seasonally changing menu that’s as much folk art as it is fine dining. Bulrush is unique, fascinating, and completely rewarding. 3307 Washington, Midtown.

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The Missing Year Because SLM’s Best New Restaurants issue is published biennially, the feature always includes some not-as-new but eminently worthy recommendations. Consider it a reminder to return or an invitation to pay an initial visit.

TA C O B U D D H A

Inspired by co-owner Kurt Eller’s upbringing in Texas and abroad, Taco Buddha serves tacos with an international flair.

Dishes include tandoori-style chicken tacos, Baja salad, and Mexican street corn on the cob. 7405 Pershing, University City.

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THE MIDWESTERN In a Nutshell: After shuttering brisket-

and-pastrami temple Big Baby Q, Ben Welch partnered with the owners of Wheelhouse and Start Bar to open The Midwestern. Dine: Although the brisket leads the popularity contest, the ribs are worth a try. Oh, and don’t forget the chicken wings. And the pastrami… OK, just order the sampler platter (pictured), and try a little of everything. Drink: The Old Flames, from a cocktail list that rivals that of any bar in town, thanks to master mixologist-in-residence Tony Saputo.

Tip: For such a large space (including a building-length patio that faces Busch Stadium), service is amazingly quick.

900 Spruce, downtown.

T H E C H O C O L AT E P I G In a Nutshell: As the name implies,

the Southern-inspired restaurant serves meat- and chocolate-centric mains and desserts, along with creative cocktails. Dish: Chickenfried Brussels sprouts with tangy buttermilk dressing, lemon confit, and pickled spring onions. And the Peanut Butter Bomb, a filled chocolate globe that dissolves under a pour of hot caramel.

Drink: The Queen Bee, a decidedly Southern house cocktail made with Four Roses bourbon, honey, lemon, Big O ginger liqueur, and Angostura bitters. Tip: Weekend brunch offers such standouts as the maple-bacon cinnamon roll, a decadent creation of brioche and candied bacon, and the fried chicken biscuit with pimiento cheese. Request one of the high-backed curved booths— the best seats in the house.

4220 Duncan, Central West End.

INNOVATIVE CO NCE PT

Cobalt Smoke & Sea The smoked meats–meet– seafood premise is bold but not as audacious as the bespoke sculpture of a pygmy sperm whale. 12643 Olive, Creve Coeur.

O NE TO WATCH

Little Fox Husband-and-wife team Craig and Mowgli Rivard will bring Eurocentric small plates and wines by the glass to the former Purple Martin space. Slated to open in late October. 2800 Shenandoah, Fox Park.

OA K E D In a Nutshell: Soulard goes snazzy with

a cool two-story eatery featuring a piano, gracious patio, and tucked-away second-floor terrace. Explore. Dine: Start with a cheese and charcuterie board (pictured). Then try the scallops atop risotto with pink grapefruit and chimichurri—it might sound strange, but it works. Drink: Let sommelier Denise Mueller guide you through the wine bible she’s assembled. At last count, wines by the glass numbered a whopping 207. Tip: A selection of dark whiskeys, part of Oaked’s doublebarreled theme, is robust as well.

1031 Lynch, Soulard.

NUDO HOUSE

THE FRISCO BARROOM

The city’s best ramen spot (now with two locations) also offers solid banh mi and pho. Consider the O’ Miso Spicy ramen and a Japanese Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale. Or extend the concept of the Banh Mi Pho Dip by using the broth from any of the pho or ramen as a dip for your banh mi. 11423 Olive, Creve Coeur; 6105 Delmar, Delmar Loop.

Webster Grove’s top après-work destination—and a family favorite—is roomy and convivial, with rooftop and patio seating. To get started, try the flaky Cornish pasties and a whiskey/ginger ale Irish Buck. It’s open into the wee hours, a perfect spot for late-night noshing. 8110 Big Bend, Webster Groves.

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P O P S PA R K L I N G B A R & R E S TAU R A N T In a Nutshell: This place celebrates the

everyday with verve—and Veuve Clicquot. Dine: Ahi tuna tacos—paper-thin jicama tortillas, blackened ahi tuna, peanut sauce, orange, and avocado.

Dine on the charming rear patio if the weather permits. Drink: The sparkling wine list is extensive—including 10 by the glass, including a pink Champagne (pictured)—but the fizzy theme extends to beer, cider, sake, and cocktails, including the Sakura Pop, made with black cherry vodka, Joto sake, lemon, Cointreau, and sparkling sake. Tip: If there’s a wait, climb the staircase to Baileys’ Chocolate Bar and carry a bourbon down to POP to accompany your vittles—or take your bubbles upstairs for dessert. 1915 Park, Lafayette Square.

Rhone Rum Bar With around 130 rums, a sandy terrace, and an indoor volleyball court, Paul and Wendy Hamilton’s bar gives St. Louis a slice of Caribbean beach life.

2107 Chouteau, Lafayette Square.

S U LTA N M E D I T E R R A N E A N R E S TAU R A N T In a Nutshell: The menu of Middle

Eastern dishes is sprawling, the atmosphere suitably lively and romantic.

Dish: The stuffed chicken and lamb shanks are terrific, but the phylloencrusted Sultan pilau is an edible monument. Drink: Turkish coffee— what else? Tip: Go for lunch to avoid the inevitable dinner crowds. 4200 Manchester, The Grove.

O NE TO WATCH

Tempus This fall, award-winning chef Ben Grupe will finally helm a kitchen of his own in one of the most highly anticipated restaurants in years, offering what are sure to be among the most sought-after seats in town.

4370 Manchester, The Grove.

The Missing Year (CONTINUED)

TOMPKINS BY THE RACK HOUSE In a Nutshell: A rehabbed 1860s–era

building on St. Charles’ historic Main Street has been transformed into a rustic, inviting space serving locally sourced fare. Dish: The 50 Mile BLT— none of the ingredients travels farther than 50 miles to reach your plate.

Drink: The Smoked Maple Old Fashioned or a Paris Is Burning (a sublimely heady mix of Boodles gin, mezcal, and St. Germain elderflower liqueur).

Insider Tip: Request server Kristen Brown, who doubles as the restaurant’s ambassador. 500 S. Main, St. Charles.

AKAR In a Nutshell: Rooted in the Malaysian

comfort foods of owner Bernie Lee’s youth, Akar’s offerings are designed to travel and reheat well. Dine: A killer short rib, its thick juices scented with star anise, is accompanied by a head of roasted garlic. Drink: Gerard Bertrand rosé, from Languedoc-Roussillon, France. Insider Tip: The interior seats just 12 and the outside terrace takes no reservations, so consider arriving early or late. 7641 Wydown, Clayton.

CRISPY EDGE

THE CLOVER & THE BEE

Owner David Dresner has taken that beloved Chinese delicacy the potsticker and filled it with creative sweet and savory fillings (pictured) inspired by cuisines ranging from Indian and Vietnamese to Cajun and Mexican and offers handcrafted cocktails to boot. Don’t overlook the dessert potstickers, the Cherry Blossom in particular. 4168 Juniata, South City.

Serving three squares a day (not to mention a happy hour menu from 4–6 p.m. Wendesday through Sunday), the sister restaurant to Olive + Oak offers something for everyone. There’s a walk-up window for quick ordering, seasonally inspired dishes, and an extensive drink menu. 100 W. Lockwood, Webster Groves.

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SZECHUAN CUISINE In a Nutshell: The latest on a growing

I L PA L AT O In a Nutshell: Luminous wood and

list of “real” Chinese eateries, including Tai Ke and Cate Zone, that serve authentic regional dishes. Dish: Feeling adventurous? The fried shrimp in spicy hot sauce is piquant. Feeling really adventurous? Dry pot frog is an incendiary hot pot without the broth.

Drink: Sweet, melony white gourd tea Tip: The portions are large enough to share. 7930 Olive, University City.

Vermont marble tables, a glowing coffered ceiling, and elegant art make for a wholly aesthetic experience. Dish: Start with the tonno crudo bruschetta (pictured). Then try the tortellini filled with sweet corn and mascarpone, served with shiitakes in a beautiful corn brodo. Drink: If it’s still warm outside, try the lighter soaves and pinot grigios. Tip: The bar menu is full of standouts, including oil-poached tuna, roasted-cauliflower flatbread, and an unlikely scene-stealer: roasted carrots with whipped ricotta. 222 S. Bemiston, Clayton.

58HUNDRED In a Nutshell: Acclaimed chef Marc

Del Pietro owns the quintessential neighborhood restaurant, where meat and vegetarian entrées are priced in the teens, making 58hundred equally suited for weeknight and weekend dining. Dine: Brussels sprout tacos (pictured), a dish that came to Del Pietro in a dream, marries caramelized sprouts with pickled-pink onions, toasted almonds, and lime crema. Drink: Tell bartender Brad Chapman, “Make me something.” He’ll do the rest. Insider Tip: Ask for shaded table No. 73, on the patio. 5800 Southwest, South City.

BILLIE-JEAN

T H E B E N EVO L E N T K I N G

The sleek candlelit 22-seat bistro, with its predominantly black interior, Robert Motherwell prints, and chef Ny Vongsaly’s tightly curated menu, is arguably the most modern of Zoë Robinson’s three restaurants along Wydown. 7610 Wydown, Clayton.

Chef/owner Ben Poremba’s Maplewood restaurant pays homage to his Middle Eastern roots. Even simple dishes, such as a grilled zucchini salad (pictured), are presented imaginatively.

Happy hour features a selection of salatim (small dishes) and arrack (a highly potent drink). 7268 Manchester, Maplewood.

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Restaurant RIPs When one restaurant door closes, another opens.

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PORANO

C A R D W E L L’ S AT T H E P L A Z A

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✕ LAST MEAL SERVED: JULY 31, 2018

✕ LAST MEAL SERVED: DECEMBER 23

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Why (We Think) It Closed: Created by James Beard

Why (We Think) It Closed: At age 68, one of the

Award–winning chef Gerard Craft, Porano was the right concept (higher-end fast-casual Italian) in the wrong place. The restaurants that thrive along that stretch of Washington Avenue lean toward basic fare (barbecue, pizza, tacos, etc.). Why We’ll Miss It: Porano was unique, serving creative pasta bowls, Negroni slushies, and Detroit-style pizza.

Where to Go Now: There is no close equal in the fast-casual segment, so we suggest full-service Pastaria, also owned by Craft.

city’s most respected restaurateurs said it was time to “semi-retire.” Why We’ll Miss It: Cardwell’s at the Plaza was perhaps the most consistent, timeless restaurant in town. Where to Go Now: Cardwell’s semi-retirement didn’t last long. The chef is busy teaching, consulting, and conducting private dinners and events.

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PÚBLICO

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✕ LAST MEAL SERVED: DECEMBER 22

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✕ LAST MEAL SERVED: APRIL 21

Why (We Think) It Closed: After years of trying to

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T

SCAPE

Why (We Think) It Closed: The cognoscenti were

shocked when Mike Randolph closed the awardwinning restaurant just months after the closure of Privado, the chef’s tasting-menu eatery steps away.

Why We’ll Miss It: The wood-fired Latin-inspired fare and hip surroundings worked equally well on a weeknight or a date night. Where to Go Now: Cocina Latina in the CWE serves Peruvian, Cuban, and Colombian cuisine and boasts interesting visuals.

establish its culinary identity, the owners opted to close rather than replace the two lead chefs who departed simultaneously. Why We’ll Miss It: The secluded rear courtyard was inarguably one of the best in town. Where to Go Now: The somewhat hidden west-facing third-floor patio at The Bellwether boasts superior cuisine and the option of dinner at sunset.

R E E D S A M E R I C A N TA B L E ✕ LAST MEAL SERVED: JULY 3

Why (We Think) It Closed: Reeds could never fill its PA R I G I ✕ LAST MEAL SERVED: O C TOBER 23

Why (We Think) It Closed: Despite the progressive

décor and commendable fare, the tree-cloaked above-grade location and darkened windows made Parigi easy to overlook. Why We’ll Miss It: Its bigcity look and feel made it a solid choice for impressing friends and out-of-towners. Where to Go Now: Executive chef Ramon Cuffie moved up the street to Herbie’s. Or consider The Crossing, which has long combined Italian food with French technique.

less desirable second-floor seats, which were critical to its survival. Why We’ll Miss It: Chef/owner Matt Daughaday assembled a team of food-andbeverage all-stars whose professionalism was evident on every near-flawless visit. Where to Go Now: Though it’s impossible to check all of Reeds’ boxes, the neighborhood vibe and attention to detail help Louie get close—and the action’s all on one floor.

The Missing Year (CONTINUED)

CA R N I VO R E

WESTPORT SOCIAL

Carnivore presents a reasonably priced steak house to an area formerly devoid of one, throwing in a collection of Alfredos, primaveras, and raviolis to pacify the pasta-loving inhabitants of The Hill. In the trade that’s called nailing the niche.

5257 Shaw, The Hill.

If you’re not up for 13,000 square feet of fun, games, and karaoke, sit on the sidelines in a leather rocker snacking on burnt end nachos, hot chicken sliders, and cocktails created

by Kyle Mathis, one of the best bartenders in town. 910 Westport Plaza, Maryland Heights.

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CHAO BAAN In a Nutshell: Thirty-year-old Shayn

Prapaisilp (whose parents founded King and I) thought the city was ready for regional Thai cuisine and that The Grove was the place to do it.

Dish: Start with the mieng kham, a mandatory amuse-bouche of sorts with pops of unexpected flavors and textures, and transition into khao tod nam sod, a “twice-fried rice salad” that’s also good the next day, hot or cold. Drink: The wine list is line-priced (glasses are $10, bottles $40) and white-heavy, but consider a light Thai beer like Singha or Chang. Tip: Don’t expect basics such as pad thai or esoterics like blood sausage. Do expect new flavors presented in familiar ways—for instance, sliced grilled sirloin with fish sauce, lime, and chili. It’s a dish you won’t find anywhere else in town. 4087 Chouteau, The Grove.

INNOVATIVE CO NCE PT

Open Concept At this venue, you pay $10 for every hour you spend there—but the cocktails flow freely (one at a time, for the sake of moderation).

2712 Cherokee, South City.

O NE TO WATCH

Utah Station Vegan and vegetarian comfort foods are the mainstay at this up-and-comer in a former filling station. 1956 Utah, Benton Park.

BAIT In a Nutshell: This cool lounge just off

the beaten path in the Central West End opened in February and quickly filled a niche, serving colorful, aromatic seafood in a refined velvet-accented setting. Dish: It’s almost impossible to choose from the chowder, squid ink seafood fettuccine, whole red snapper, and such surprises as duck Rangoon and (literally) flaming prawns. Drink: The tiny bar is a powerhouse, serving such drinks as a mauve Lavender Sidecar containing a measure of crème de violette. Tip: Chef Ceaira Jackson also serves plant-based versions of menu items. Her vegan bourbon “shrimp” consists of crispy-yet-juicy mushrooms served with flash-fried spinach and crispy rice noodles. 4239 Lindell, Central West End.

L I L I A N A S ’ S I TA L I A N KITCHEN In a Nutshell: In a humble strip center,

veteran restaurateurs Tim and Kathy Pieri revive old-school Italian charm, from Rat Pack and Sopranos references to an oversized chalkboard menu with specials. Dish: The combination of a winning homemade pizza crust and top-notch toppings (fried spinach, garlic shrimp, white anchovies, giardiniera, goat cheese) has made many a convert. Drink: Go near (Bud Select), go far (Birra Moretti), or go nearby (Logboat Wheat Porter), but go for a beer with that pizza. Tip: The Pieris campaigned to have customers drop off “Grandma’s dishes” and came up with enough plates for several restaurants: “Expensive, gaudy, classy—we love them all.”

11836 Tesson Ferry, Sappington.

G R A C E M E AT + T H R E E

Chef/owner Rick Lewis serves up his signature Southernstyle cooking, regularly stepping out from the kitchen to greet diners. Try the hot-fired chicken with mac and cheese and cornbread (pictured). And look for Lewis’ new late-night concept, Grace Chicken + Fish, next door.

4270 Manchester, The Grove.

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I N N OVATI V E CON CEPT

B E S T

Kimchi Guys Munsok So has raised the bar in St. Louis for Korean fried chicken, double-fried for maximum crispness and coated in a sweet, sticky gochujang-based glaze. 612 N. Second, downtown.

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Mayo Ketchup Catering and pop-up champ Mandy Estrella (a.k.a. Plaintain Girl) finally has a permanent kitchen in Lafayette Square, where she cooks up an expanded menu of Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican dishes. 2001 Park, Lafayette Square.

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A LTA C A L L E In a Nutshell: This South City addi-

tion is vibrant with color: the food on the plates, the brightly painted chairs, the Coco-themed Dia de los Muertos pennants overhead. Dish: Flautas— corn tortillas rolled around roasted potatoes, baby ’bellas, and shiitake mushrooms, topped with edible flowers—or the vibrant ceviche (pictured).

Drink: The fuchsia hibiscus margarita, as colorful as the plates themselves.

Insider Tip: Look for portraits of sisters Veronica and Dulce Morales in the mural. 3131 S. Grand, South City.

POKE MUNCH In a Nutshell: The restaurant boasts

a veteran sushi chef and such innovations as modular “fish lights.” Dish: Maui’s Fury (with tuna and salmon) packs a punch and can be “bowled or rolled.” The tofu fries are a must.

Drink: The best nonalcoholic drinks in town include Fitz’s, Aloha Maid, and (our fave) Bundaberg ginger beer from Australia. Tip: Don’t miss the not-toosweet Korean ice cream sandwiches.

630 N. New Ballas, Creve Coeur 78

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Photography by John Smith

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Checking In In the past year, four restaurants have opened in St. Louis hotels, upping the options for hotel dining.

G R A N D TAV E R N B Y D AV I D B U R K E

Q UAT T R O T R AT T O R I A + PIZZERIA

Celebrity chef David Burke brings to St. Louis a sampling of his timetested classics, such as clothesline bacon, lobster steak, and a 34-ounce salt–aged porterhouse (pictured).

Guests can choose between a lively bar area and a more formal and sedate dining room. Before or after, check the ART (Angad Rainbow Terrace) for a beverage. Angad Arts Hotel, 634 N. Grand, Grand Center.

With the location in The Westin St. Louis, immediately across the street from Busch Stadium, it’s fitting that Quattro’s logo resembles a baseball diamond. Cardinal fans have a new place to go for a burger, a beer, and, now, a wood-fired pizza paired with a Negroni prepared tableside. 811 Spruce, downtown.

UNION 30

On the first floor of the Louis Sullivan– designed Union Trust Building, guests experience hearty and often whimsical takes on comfort food classics, many with local connections (Mayfair Grilled Caesar). Upstairs, a window wall in Form Skybar opens up to a view of Busch Stadium. Hotel Saint Louis, 705 Olive, downtown.

Photography by John Smith

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THE LAST KITCHEN

The lobby of The Last Hotel (former International Shoe Company building, named for the wooden molds cobblers use to make shoes) transitions seamlessly into a cleverly designed restaurant/bar where former Pastaria chef Evy Swoboda turns out Midwestern melting pot cuisine that includes, of course, a seasonal cobbler. The Last Hotel, 1501 Washington, downtown.

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Restaurant of the Year LOUIE

You want that place: a neighborhood destination, one where you can drop by for a drink or a linger-all-evening dinner. A place where the menu is just familiar enough for you to develop reliable favorites but also sufficiently inventive that you’ll never tire of the offerings. And it has to be situated just right, on a leafy street off the beaten track with a sylvan park right across the street. Plenty of parking, close enough for people to stroll in, walking from nearby homes and apartments.

Louie is that place. It’s quickly become a fixture in the relaxed DeMun area. The atmosphere’s a happy mix: local

pub and folksy trattoria. A long bar ends at the rear, where an incandescent brick oven breathes flame, toasting exquisitely charred pizzas. Tables are close-set; clever ceiling baffles muffle some noise, but it’s still lively. Louie is the archetype of that eatery we all seek, from time to time or on a regular basis.

The menu speaks with a decidedly Italian inflection. Wide pappardelle streamers are swirled in an aromatic Bolognese sauce. Hand-cut chitarra strands are tossed with olive oil, basil, and tomatoes. That wood-fired oven is so fearsome, pizzas must be tended constantly; they’re finished in minutes, smoking, crusty, tomato-sweet, and tangy. There are variations in toppings: broccolini sprays, blobs of melty ricotta, fennel slices, salsciccia… The Margherita—basil, mozzarella,

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DISHES, LEFT TO RIGHT: A seasonal

heirloom Caprese salad. The popular pork chop with shishitos and chermoula. Panna cotta with blueberry compote. The wood-fired Pomodoro Fresco pizza. Mussels with shallots, garlic, tomato, and white wine.

fresh tomatoes, and a blistered crust—displays the artistry of Louie’s oven-keeper. Exquisite.

A strip steak is seared and slathered in salsa verde. A cumin-smacked chermoula enlivens a fat, marbled pork chop.

Mussels are fragrant in broth. The burrata’s creamy. Desserts include a dauntingly rich “ice cream sandwich.” Whatever your appetite, you’re covered. (Rapper Drake apparently agreed: He dined here several nights in a row on a recent visit.)

Every element at Louie speaks to a refreshing individuality, the opportunity to enjoy it as you wish. Want to perch outside on a summer evening? A bowl of Castelvetrano olives, shimmering in oil, with a hunk of hearty focaccia is the perfect accompaniment. A frosty winter night’s repast? Try that

splendid roast chicken breast, its skin bronzed and crackly, nestled on a bed of emerald rapini greens.

A family’s gathered around tables pushed together. A couple are head to head, lost in conversation. At the bar (among the most intimate in town, small enough to be comfy, big enough to carry an impressive stock of spirits), a young woman queries the bartender on the making of a proper bourbon cocktail.

There are kissy faces and handshakes. Backslaps, hugs, and a European cool. It’s magic when a restaurant can accommodate it all, make it work and glow, night after night.

There’s not a lot of hype. It’s all understated and all the lovelier for it. Just a neighborhood joint. A place you want.

706 DeMun, Clayton.

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HEALTH GUIDE October 2019 stlmag.com

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WOMEN ’S H EA LTH GUIDE

TREATING BREAST CANCER LIKE A JOB When a doctor becomes a patient, she tackles recovery with steady intelligence— and a subtle shift in priorities. By Jeannette Cooperman

FROM THE DISTANCE of our monthly book club, I watched Dr. Tammy Ostapowicz, a retired obstetrician/gynecologist, recover from breast cancer. She seemed to grow lighter, softer, more fun; she added a bottle of good Champagne to her grocery cart every week; at restaurants, she ordered seafood and salads and ignored dessert. How much of this, I wondered, had come of her brush with mortality?

“None of it,” she says, blowing my story premise. “I never did eat much sugar. I was one of eight kids! I liked Tootsie Rolls; that was about it.” She brightens, tells me how her grandson just had his first Tootsie Roll.

I’m still waiting for a transformation story. Trying to help, she describes the cancer itself. It was the tricky kind, “triplenegative”: “When I left active practice, I’d never even heard of it. Triple-negative is defined by the characteristics it doesn’t have.” The tumor is checked for three kinds of receptors—estrogen, progesterone, and a hormonal growth factor. If one shows up, the hormone in question may have played a role in the cancer, and that can guide treatment.

Ostapowicz’s tumor tested negative for all three, and she didn’t have the BRCA gene mutation, either.

Researchers probably figured out triple-negative breast cancer by looking into the reason some people weren’t doing well, she adds: “Most breast cancers have a 98 percent success rate. This one has a 75 percent success rate. So you’re finding out that you’re not in that 98 percent, and you’re going to be blasted with chemo…”

She’d just had a nice clean mammogram four months earlier, so the news fell like a hammer. But she decided to treat cancer like a job—something to research, manage, solve—and not let it become her identity. “I’m practical almost to a fault,” she says, remembering her thoughts about how far she’d go in experimental treatment if the cancer came back.

“Wouldn’t I just as soon take that money and take our kids on a cruise versus putting myself through hell?”

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She found a few good wigs, learned to draw on eyebrows, put the people taking care of her at ease. “Oh good Lord, don’t worry about it,” she told one young man.

Often she never even mentioned her medical background, figuring it wasn’t relevant.

She was putting herself in their hands.

“If anything changed me, it’s this,” she adds, hoisting a fat folder of insurance paperwork to show me what a nightmare it is, even when you know the system.

I nod absently, unconvinced. She’s so damned stoic. I’ll have to press her family.

“She’s always been constant,” says her daughter, Michelle Thore. “She’s always been a fighter. She was quiet yet steadfast in her recovery. Hell, no one would have known she had cancer if it weren’t for the baldness and the port!”

As for the Champagne, it was already on her mom’s bucket list, Thore says.

“But if anything, the diagnosis made

sure that the bucket list would happen.”

Next, I call Ostapowicz’s husband, Dr. Steve Pisoni, who forced red roses on his unsentimental wife every week of her recovery. “It isn’t like it suddenly dawned on her that you only have one life,” he says. “You’re a doctor all those years; you get your nose rubbed in it. But she’s gotten more relaxed about what you might call small stuff. She pays even more attention to what’s important”—like their grandson. “I think she emphasizes love more than anything else.”

I repeat this to Ostapowicz. “Oh,” she says softly. The words remind her of David Foster Wallace’s famous Kenyon College commencement speech, and she finds it on her phone, reads me the ending, in which he emphasized “simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us.”

And with that, her voice cracks, and her eyes fill with unexpected tears.

Photography by Kevin A. Roberts

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WOMEN ’S H EA LTH GUIDE

PLATE PROTOCOL

Dietitian Reshaunda Thornton wants you to love food again.

Here’s how. By Samantha Stevenson “Food is a constant in our lives,” says Reshaunda Thornton. She’d know: As a dietitian, she’s constantly helping people navigate their relationships with it. As part of her business, BetterVessel Nutrition, she consults with clients about ways to make sustainable changes. “Food is at every point in our lives,” she says. “Every time there’s a celebration, every time there’s a vacation. When good things happen, and when bad things happen: a death or a divorce; the highs and lows.” Over the years, she’s collected a few rules of thumb, many shared in her book, Play to Win the Food Fight. Although each client she meets is unique, she says, there are some basic tips that everyone can use.

3.

IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT FOOD. “Every person that you ask, someone has tried at least three different diets in their lifetime,” says Thornton, who emphasizes self-love and a healthy relationship with food. When diets don’t work, many people are left with a sense of defeat. “They’re feeling failure and are continuously struggling emotionally with body image,” she says. “Their relationship with food becomes sour. It’s this cycle.”

A BALANCED DIET Many women suffer from nutritional deficiencies, and though supplements are great, Thornton recommends adding these foods to your plate:

4.

VITAMIN D · Dairy products · Eggs (yolks) · Salmon · Cheese

YOUR CONSISTENCY MUST BE LIFE-PROOF. Between vacations, holidays, and the unexpected, people drop the ball. Then old habits and patterns return. “Life is always going to come with ups and downs,” she says. “If you let [good] food [habits] fall apart every single time, you’re always going to be going back and forth like a yo-yo.”

5.

SHOP THE PERIMETER OF THE GROCERY STORE. It’s the oldest trick in the dietitian’s handbook, and Thornton stands by it: “I call it strategy shopping.

On the perimeter, everything is fresh; there aren’t any preservatives. If you can pull it, grow it, or kill it, in my opinion, that’s unprocessed food.” While shopping, pick up these healthy snacks: fruit, nuts, pretzels or popcorn, and string cheese.

1.

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2.

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YOUR GOAL AND PLAN OF ACTION HAVE TO FIT YOU . Though she admits that a dietitian’s role is primarily to teach clients, Thornton has found that just educating others isn’t always enough to help “people make the move forward.” It’s not just telling clients what they should eat, she’s learned; it’s telling them to do it in a way that fits their personality and lifestyle.

UNDERSTAND WHY YOU NEED TO MAKE CHANGES. “We know the difference between an apple and a doughnut,” Thornton says, “but for some reason, we’re not choosing that apple more than a doughnut.” Take a moment, she tells clients, and reflect on why—then think about how a healthy decision might be more beneficial.

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LOOK FOR A GUILTY FOOD ALTERNATIVE. Have a guilty pleasure? Figure out what you like about it, then look for it in a healthier form. Soda drinkers often just like carbonation, so she points those clients to sparkling water. Like the sweet taste? Try adding a flavor to your water.

DON’T QUIT COLD TURKEY. Instead, see where you can add and subtract. For example, rather than having a chocolate bar or brownie, switch it out for a breakfast bar or trail mix a couple times a week. “Transition by having it less and less often,” she says. “Over time, you might find yourself saying, ‘You know what? That brownie really isn’t all that good. I’d prefer to have this instead.’”

CALCIUM · Dairy products · Low-fat c heese · Fruit (for those who are lactose intolerant) · Fortified foods (mostly grain- based) · Soy products, such as tofu and edamame · Almonds IRON · Dark-leafy green vegetables such as spinach or kale · Beans · Dried fruits, especially strawberries

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WOMEN ’S H EA LTH GUIDE

SHOULDN’T I BE HAPPY NOW? Why many women find themselves depressed at major life turning points By Jeannette Cooperman

A GIRL’S BODY signals that she has become a young woman, able to bear a child. A young woman gives birth to a soft, tiny new human being. A middle-aged woman says goodbye to those complicated years of monthly blood and pain and worry.

You’d think these would be happy times, and for many, they are. But they’re also times of dramatic hormonal change that, when combined with genetic predisposition or sleep deprivation or stress, can trigger a serious flare of depression.

This may explain why, the world over, twice as many women as men suffer from depression—a gender difference that emerges at puberty.

Hormone levels rise and fall to prepare the body for fertility or its end, but they also influence brain systems connected to mood and stress response. One major

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risk factor for depression is family history, but genes aren’t sufficient cause, notes Dr. Cynthia Rogers, associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine and director of the Washington University Medical Center’s Perinatal Behavioral Health Service. “In the right environment, people at more genetic risk might do just fine. There are also environmental factors—trauma, acute stress, chronic stress, lack of sleep, inflammation, diet, toxins.” Hunting for a single cause is pointless, because hormones interact in complicated ways with other physiological and psychological changes and predispositions.

Hormones also prompt the brain to release other compounds. Exciting new research, done in part at Wash. U., iden-

tified a neurosteroid that’s just been approved by the FDA as a medicine called Zulresso (brexanolone). The brain uses its naturally occurring form for damage control, alleviating the effects of stress during pregnancy. This hormone decreases at the same time progesterone does, at childbirth. That leaves some women, especially those with a genetic predisposition to and history of depression, vulnerable to postpartum depression (experienced by one in nine women in the U.S.).

In postpartum depression, not only has progesterone plummeted but also “your body has changed, you have this new being that does not sleep like a normal person and, if you’re breastfeeding, requires you for sustenance,” notes Dr. Denise Hooks-Anderson, associate professor of family and community medicine at Saint Louis University. “That’s a lot of pressure. And lack of sleep can cause your mind to go all kinds of places.”

She urges women to seek help from their mother, mother-in-law, sister, or friend, just so they can get a consistent four hours of sleep. Somehow women have gotten the idea they have to do it all alone, she says. “I don’t know how we came up with that. If you do have that village, please use it.”

When she sees teenage girls, HooksAnderson makes sure to take a thorough history and do a careful exam so she can rule out concrete causes: “I want to know if a teenage girl is being bullied. Is she getting enough sleep? Are there stressors at home; is there any abuse; does she feel safe? Kids are more stressed now—in some cases, to the point of suicide.”

Research also links many cases of first-onset depression to estrogen loss at menopause, though Hooks-Anderson more often sees irritability and insomnia.

To ease symptoms, she starts with “black cohosh, then certain antidepressants, and if symptoms are really severe, we talk about hormone replacement, which is the only thing that will completely ease the symptoms but does come with risks.”

And at every stage of a woman’s life, she checks the thyroid hormones, which affect almost every system of the body.

“It has to be at a sweet spot. If it’s too low, that can cause depression; too high, and it can cause anxiety.” She pauses. “We’re complicated beings.”

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WOMEN ’S H EA LTH GUIDE

A CUP OF TEA A DAY

Oolong tea may fight breast cancer, SLU researchers find. By Samantha Stevenson

SUPPLY & DEMAND As a recent study found, OB/GYNs in St. Louis are in high demand—and that demand is on the rise.

Last year, a national study ranked St. Louis as having the highest OB/GYN workload in the United States, with an average of 247.23 births per physician per year. The study, conducted by medical social network Doximity, also ranked St. Louis No. 7 among metro areas at the greatest risk for an OB/ GYN shortage and No. 4 among metro areas with the lowest percentage of OB/GYNs under age 40 (12.9 percent).

In other words, OB/GYNs are in high demand in St. Louis—and that demand may only increase in the years to come.

Aside from brain drain, many graduates are pursuing fellowships and become specialists, serving a small subset of patients.

In addition, a desire for work-life balance may have some doctors working part-time or preferring predictable hours.

“While it may be a little harder to recruit to St. Louis, I think the bigger issue is that it’s hard to recruit to Missouri in general, and particularly rural Missouri,” says Dr. Mary McLennan, a SLUCare OB/GYN and chair of the Saint Louis University School of Medicine’s Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health. In 2017, she notes, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reported that half of U.S. counties didn’t even have one OB/GYN. To bridge the gap, McLennan cites telemedicine as a possible temporary solution. The real change, though, might have to come from initiatives to keep young physicians working in the state after graduation, particularly in low-population areas.

TREATING A SILENT EPIDEMIC An oral antibiotic shows promise against endometriosis, according to a Washington University study.

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SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY researchers knew that tea, especially green tea, may help prevent various types of cancers. They also knew that oolong tea, which accounts for just 2 percent of the world’s tea (compared to 78 percent black tea and 20 percent green tea), is popular in the Fujian province of China and that Asian women typically have a lower incidence of breast cancer and, if they get it, less aggressive types. Then researchers connected that breast cancer cases and death rate percentages are lower than the national averages in the Fujian province. The pattern led SLU scientists and a visiting scientist from Fujian Medical University to explore how oolong tea could be a nontoxic preventative option.

In the study, published in the journal Anticancer Research, the five researchers documented treating six breast cancer cell lines (two ER- and PR-positive, one

HER2-positive, and three triple-negative) with different concentrations of green, oolong, black, and dark tea extracts. Their findings? Green and oolong tea extracts prevented breast cancer cell growth in all six cancer cell lines, whereas those infused with black and dark tea extracts showed little to no difference.

“It’s very meaningful,” says Yifan Tu, an assistant professor of hematology and oncology at SLU and one of the study’s authors. With straightforward baseline tests like these, she says, “the hope is to just give some idea and to guide further for the experiment if needed. Next, maybe going to mouse models, then human experiments.”

Oolong tea as a preventive measure is “very doable…and doesn’t cost too much money,” Tu says. “You can cook tea—you don’t have to have a pharmacist make tea for you.”

Globally, more than 176 million women suffer from endometriosis, an incurable disease in which the tissue that makes up the uterine lining grows on or inside other organs, often resulting in painful inflammatory lesions. In April, Washington University researchers published a study in the journal Human Reproduction showing that the broad-spectrum antibiotic metronidazole reduces the size of those lesions in mice. Further, the research indicated that the bacteria found in the gut microbiome could help accelerate or stop endometriosis’ progression. The next steps include a pre-clinical trial, which could prompt researchers to move forward with a clinical trial.

Principal researcher Ramakrishna Kommagani says the study’s original goal was to determine how gut bacteria, or microbiota, might be connected to endometriosis, but researchers may have also discovered an affordable treatment option: “a simple oral antibiotic,” as Kommagani says. “I think that’s very encouraging.”

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Erol Amon SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455

Daniel J. Baumann SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 3555 Sunset Office Dr., Ste. 107 St. Louis, MO 63127 314-238-9000 Michael W. Bebbington Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Fetal Care Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 703 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-747-6539 Scott W. Biest Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Division of Minimally Invasive Gynecology 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-747-5470

John K. Appelbaum Missouri Baptist Medical Center Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology 3015 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-996-5000

James P. Boedeker SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 3555 Sunset Office Dr., Ste. 107 St. Louis, MO 63127 314-238-9000

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Jessica N. Bowers SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 3555 Sunset Office Dr., Ste. 107 St. Louis, MO 63127 314-238-9000

Breton F. Barrier MU Health Care Missouri OB/GYN Associates 2325 Smiley Ln. Columbia, MO 65202 573-817-3535 James A. Bartelsmeyer Mercy Clinic Maternal and Fetal Medicine Medical Tower B, Ste. 2007 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-991-5000

Craig W. Boyd Signature Medical Group Allied Associates Ob/Gyn Tower A, Ste. 101 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-569-2751 Igor Brondz SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 400 First Capitol Dr., Ste. 201 St. Charles, MO 63301 636-669-2332 Robert John Brown SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 1475 Kisker Rd., Ste. 200 St. Charles, MO 63304 636-498-5870

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Alison Cahill Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-454-8181 E. Cristian Campian SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Urogynecology 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63110 314-977-7455 Chadwick T. Caudill Southwest Women’s Health 13131 Tesson Ferry Rd., Ste. 210 St. Louis, MO 63128 314-842-5583 Michael Chen BJC Medical Group Contemporary Women’s Healthcare 20 Progress Point Pkwy., Ste. 100 O’Fallon, MO 63368 636-344-3105 Octavio R. Chirino Mercy Integrative Medicine and Therapy Services 15945 Clayton Rd., Ste. 230C Ballwin, MO 63011 636-256-5200 Camaryn Chrisman Robbins Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-4211 Amber R. Cooper Vios Fertility Institute Medical Tower A, Ste. 676 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-266-2062

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Sara Crowder Mid-Missouri Gynecologic Oncology 1605 E. Broadway, Ste. 260 Columbia, MO 65201 573-442-2221 Michelle R. de Vera Women to Women Health Care 8888 Ladue Rd., Ste. 220 St. Louis, MO 63124 314-644-3336 Jeffrey Dicke Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 720 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-454-8181 Shelby M. Dickison Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211 Michael B. Dixon St. Gerard Obstetrics and Gynecology 10004 Kennerly Rd., Ste. 386B St. Louis, MO 63128 314-842-7910 Erin M. Dumontier BJC Medical Group Ob/Gyn Associates 3844 S. Lindbergh, Ste. 210 Sunset Hills, MO 63127 314-525-0420 Fred B. Durer BJC Medical Group Women’s Health Care 3009 N Ballas Rd., Ste. 360C St. Louis, MO 63131 314-576-0930 Kevin O. Easley Mercy Clinic GYN Oncology 607 S. New Ballas Rd., Ste. 2350 St. Louis, MO 63141 314-251-4260

David Eisenberg Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211 Alaa A. Elbendary Saint Louis Gynecology & Oncology 11652 Studt Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-991-5445 Raymond T. Foster Sr. MU Health Care Missouri Center for Female Continence and Advance Pelvic Surgery Keene Medical Bldg., Ste. 306 500 N. Keene St. Columbia, MO 65201 573-817-3165 Jennifer M. Goldkamp SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Brian S. Gosser St. Joseph Obstetrics and Gynecology 1747 Smizer Station Rd., Ste. 1 Fenton, MO 63026 636-861-2125 William Mark Grant Womens’ Wellness Center Center for Maternal Fetal Care Broadway Medical Plaza 4 1705 E. Broadway, Ste. 300 Columbia, MO 65201 573-817-0810 Diana L. Gray Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-454-8181

Rosanna Gray-Swain BJC Medical Group West End Ob/Gyn 1110 Highlands Plaza Dr. E, Ste. 280 St. Louis, MO 63110 314-286-2620 Gil Gross SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Andrea R. Hagemann Washington University Physicians Center for Advanced Medicine Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center 4921 Parkview Pl., 13th Fl., Ste. C St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-3181 Richard A. Hartman SSM Health Medical Group Kirkwood OB/Gyn 816 S Kirkwood Rd., Ste. 100 St. Louis, MO 63122 314-686-4990 John T. Hoff SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 William L. Holcomb SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital–St. Charles Maternal & Fetal Care Center Medical Office Bldg. 1, Ste. 210 330 First Capitol Dr. St. Charles, MO 63301 636-947-5615

M. Brigid HolloranSchwartz SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 William E. Houck Obstetrical Associates of St. Louis South Medical Bldg., Ste. 750 224 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-576-9797 Sonali Jain SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 3555 Sunset Office Dr., Ste. 107 St. Louis, MO 63127 314-238-9000 Gregory L. Jewell Signature Medical Group ObGyn Physicians– Ballas 621 S. New Ballas Rd., Ste. 695A St. Louis, MO 63141 314-872-7400 Mark J. Jostes Suburban ObGyn 3009 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 366C St. Louis, MO 63131 314-569-2424 Emily Jungheim Washington University Physicians Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center 4444 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 3100 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-286-2400 Ming-Shian Kao SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Gynecologic Oncology 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455

Sarah L. Keller Washington University Physicians Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center 4444 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 3100 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-286-2400 Chi Y. Kim Missouri Baptist Medical Center Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology 3015 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-996-5000 Laurie A. Klabi Signature Medical Group Healthcare Group for Women Bldg. D, Ste. 600 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-567-7018 Claudia C. Krasnoff Suburban ObGyn 3009 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 366C St. Louis, MO 63131 314-569-2424 Christine Ladd Suburban ObGyn 3009 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 366C St. Louis, MO 63131 314-569-2424 Donald H. Lange Mercy Clinic Ob/Gyn– Sunset Hills 10777 Sunset Office Dr., Ste. 200 St. Louis, MO 63127 314-842-4802 Paul G. LaPoint Obstetrical Associates of St. Louis South Medical Bldg., Ste. 750 224 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-576-9797

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Š2019 SSM Health. All rights reserved. ACC-SYS-19-606703 8/19

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Selecting the right primary care provider is one of the best things you can do for your health and right now we have several area providers accepting new patients and offering next-day appointments. At SSM Health, we believe knowing you better as a person helps us treat you better as a patient.

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Cherie A. LeFevre SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 200 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Fah Che Leong SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Urogynecology 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 200 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 David J. Levine Mercy Clinic Minimally Invasive Gynecology Medical Tower A, Ste. 499 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-251-7650 Edward S. Levy SSM Health Medical Group Kirkwood OB/Gyn 816 S. Kirkwood Rd., Ste. 100 St. Louis, MO 63122 314-686-4990 Scott A. Lieberman SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 12277 DePaul Dr., Ste. 305 Bridgeton, MO 63044 314-344-7585 Julio Ricardo Loret de Mola SIU Fertility and IVF Center 751 N. Rutledge St., Ste. 0100 Springfield, IL 62702 217-545-8000 Jerry L. Lowder Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-747-1402

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Becky K. Lynn SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 200 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 George A. Macones Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-454-8181 Tessa E. Madden Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211 Margaret Marcrander Mercy Clinic OB/Gyn Medical Tower B, Ste. 4017 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-872-9192 Carolyn Martin Mercy Clinic Maternal and Fetal Medicine Medical Tower B, Ste. 2007 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-991-5000 L. Stewart Massad Washington University Physicians Center for Advanced Medicine Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center 4921 Parkview Pl., 13th Fl., Ste. C St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-3181

Leslie McCloskey SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Daniel S. McDonald SSM Health Medical Group Kirkwood OB/Gyn 816 S. Kirkwood Rd., Ste. 100 St. Louis, MO 63122 314-686-4990 Mary McLennan SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Urogynecology 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Colleen P. McNicholas Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri 4251 Forest Park Ave. St. Louis, MO 63108 314-531-7526 Denise A. Meckler BJC Medical Group Ob/Gyn Associates 9450 Manchester Rd., Ste. 206 St. Louis, MO 63119 314-725-9300 Diane F. Merritt Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-273-4724 Jennifer A. Meyer Missouri Baptist Healthcare Center Women’s Care Consultants Bldg. D, Ste. 120 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-432-3669

Laura Moore St. Luke’s Hospital Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology 232 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-434-1500 Caroline Morgan Women’s Health Care West Medical Bldg., Ste. 68 226 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-576-0930 Jeffrey S. Mormol Professionals in OBGYN 3844 S. Lindbergh Blvd., Ste. 125 Sunset Hills, MO 63127 314-842-0340 Dorothea J. Mostello SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Karuna Murray Women’s Oncology Care Walker Medical Bldg., North Tower, Ste. 325 12855 N. 40 Dr. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-989-9244 David G. Mutch Washington University Physicians Center for Advanced Medicine Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center 4921 Parkview Pl., 13th Fl., Ste. C St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-3181 D. Michael Nelson Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-454-8181

Randall R. Odem Washington University Physicians Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center 4444 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 3100 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-286-2400 Kenan R. Omurtag Washington University Physicians Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center 4444 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 3100 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-286-2400 Jay Padratzik Mercy Clinic OB/Gyn Medical Tower B, Ste. 4017 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-872-9192 Meera R. Patel BJC Medical Group Ob/Gyn Associates 9450 Manchester Rd., Ste. 206 St. Louis, MO 63119 314-725-9300 Carlton S. Pearse Women’s Health Care West Medical Bldg., Ste. 68 226 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-576-0930 Diane M. Petersen SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Timothy Philpott Missouri Baptist Medical Center Women’s Care Consultants Bldg. D, Ste. 120 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-432-3669

Blase J. Pignotti West County OB/GYN Specialists Medical Tower B, Ste. 75 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-251-7564 Aaron J. Pile 10135 W. Florissant Ave. St. Louis, MO 63136 314-521-1444 Matthew A. Powell Washington University Physicians Center for Advanced Medicine Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center 4921 Parkview Pl., 13th Fl., Ste. C St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-3181 Carolyn Pryor SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 12277 DePaul Dr., Ste. 503 Bridgeton, MO 63044 314-344-7700 Jamie L. Puckett Boonslick Medical Group–Obstetrics & Gynecology Medical Office Bldg. 3, Ste. 100 201 BJC St. Peters Dr. St. Peters, MO 63376 636-916-8200 Jodie Rai Women’s Healthcare Consultants Bldg. C, Ste. 352 3009 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-395-8192

D t

Roxane M. Rampersad Missouri Baptist Medical Center Center for Women’s Wellness Bldg. D, Ste. 450 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-996-6000 Valerie Ratts Washington University Physicians Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Center 4444 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 3100 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-286-2400

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Amy J. Ravin SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Angela Reining Missouri Baptist Healthcare Center Women’s Care Consultants Bldg. D, Ste. 120 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-432-3669 Margaret Ann Rempe Signature Medical Group Healthcare Group for Women Bldg. D, Ste. 600 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-567-7018 Ann Marie Rockamann Signature Medical Group Healthcare Group for Women Bldg. D, Ste. 600 3023 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-567-7018 Amy H. Ruggeri Mercy Clinic Women’s Health Medical Tower A, Ste. 499 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-329-0894 Andrea Sample SSM Health Medical Group–OB/GYN 12277 DePaul Dr., Ste. 305 Bridgeton, MO 63044 314-344-7585 Caren P. Schaecher BJC Medical Group Women’s Health Care 3009 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 360C St. Louis, MO 63131 314-576-0930

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Evelyne Gabriele Schuetz Boonslick Medical Group–Obstetrics & Gynecology Medical Office Bldg. 3, Ste. 100 201 BJC St. Peters Dr. St. Peters, MO 63376 636-946-3089 Katherine M. Scolari Childress SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Mitul Shah SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Becky Shelton Mercy Clinic Women’s Health 1000 Des Peres Rd., Ste. 300 St. Louis, MO 63131 314-919-2600 Sarah B. Shores Signature Medical Group Allied Associates Ob/Gyn Tower A, Ste. 101 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-569-2751 Jaye M. Shyken SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis WISH Center 1035 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 205 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-768-8230

Jennifer H. Smith Consultants in Women’s Health Care 3023 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 440D St. Louis, MO 63131 314-432-8181

David L. Super Mercy Clinic Ob/Gyn– Sunset Hills 10777 Sunset Office Dr., Ste. 200 St. Louis, MO 63127 314-842-4802

Kent L. Snowden Mercy Hospital St. Louis Saint Louis Associates in ObGyn Medical Tower A, Ste. 584 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-993-6401

Premal Thaker Washington University Physicians Center for Advanced Medicine Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center 4921 Parkview Pl., 13th Fl., Ste. C St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-3181

Tammy Sonn Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211

Jeffrey B. Thompson Obstetrical Associates of St. Louis South Medical Bldg., Ste. 750 224 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-576-9797

Andrew C. Steele SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Urogynecology 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455

Michael Thomure SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertilty 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455

Holly L. Steiner Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211 Andrea L. Stephens St. Luke’s Hospital Women’s Care of St. Luke’s 226 S. Woods Mill Rd., Ste. 55W Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-542-4953 Eric Strand Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211

Tracy M. Tomlinson SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Amanda S. Trudell BJC Medical Group Town & Country Perinatology Bldg. C, Ste. 351 3009 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131 314-996-6800 Jacqueline S. Turner BJC Medical Group West End Ob/Gyn 1110 Highlands Plaza Dr. E, Ste. 280 St. Louis, MO 63110 314-286-2620

Dionysios K. Veronikis Gynecologic and Reconstructive Surgery Medical Tower B, Ste. 2002 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-251-6753 Karen A. Voegtle BJC Medical Group Women’s Health Care 3009 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 360C St. Louis, MO 63131 314-576-0930 Laura K. Vricella SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Corey A. Wagner Mercy Clinic Minimally Invasive Gynecology Medical Tower A, Ste. 499 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-251-7650 Daniel G. Wagner Obstetrical Associates of St. Louis South Medical Bldg., Ste. 750 224 S. Woods Mill Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017 314-576-9797 Donald Gregory Ward SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Gary M. Wasserman Mercy Clinic OB/Gyn Medical Tower B, Ste. 4017 621 S. New Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63141 314-872-9192

David L. Weinstein Consultants in Women’s Health Care 3023 N. Ballas Rd., Ste. 440D St. Louis, MO 63131 314-432-8181 Denise Willers Washington University Physicians Center for Outpatient Health Women’s Health Center 4901 Forest Park Ave., Ste. 710 St. Louis, MO 63108 314-362-4211 Barry I. Witten The Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine 555 N. New Ballas Rd., Ste. 150 St. Louis, MO 63141 314-983-9000 Francisco P. Xynos SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Division of Gynecologic Oncology 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Pericles Xynos SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Patrick Yeung Jr. SLUCare Physician Group SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital–St. Louis Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health 1031 Bellevue Ave., Ste. 400 St. Louis, MO 63117 314-977-7455 Casey Younkin HSHS St. John’s Health Center SIU OB/GYN 1100 Lincolnshire Blvd., Ste. 200 Springfield, IL 62703 217-545-8000

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400945 BJH

© Women & Infants Center 2019

What if I hate being in my fifties? What if I have a major hot f lash in my meeting? What if

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WomensHealth_1019.indd 99 400945 BJH W&I_WhatIf-FiftyPlus_StLMag update.indd 1

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Paris had Madame de Staël and Gertrude Stein. St. Louis has Lana Pepper.

BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEVIN A . ROBERTS

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His musical Merrily We Roll Along has returned to the stage, and Stephen Sondheim has invited Lana Pepper to the opening-night party. She’s stunned, and she knows he’ll be thronged with fans, so she barely expects a nod—but they wind up chatting all evening. When she says, “I see you value friendship the way I do,” he leans forward. “I just looked back at my body of work,” he says, “and I think it’s all about friendship.”

A few times, Sondheim breaks off to chat with various celebrities. Pepper recognizes J.T. Rogers, whose play Oslo was just staged in St. Louis. Dazed, she turns to the woman seated next to her, a stranger until that evening, and whispers, “How did I get here? My mother grew up in a house with dirt floors!”

Technically, the journey was straightforward: Pepper was president of the Saint Louis University Library Associates board for years, and she hosted a dinner for Sondheim when he flew in to receive the organization’s 2018 St. Louis Literary Award. Hearing that he drank vodka, she was dismayed—“All we had was rotgut”—and raced out to get something finer. That evening, Sondheim poured himself a glass of white wine. “But you drink vodka!” she exclaimed in dismay, and he shook his head sadly: “Can’t drink that anymore.”

Pepper nodded. “We’re in the age of subtraction,” she said, and they fell into a long conversation about aging, giving up little indulgences, losing friends, facing death. Later, he asked if she’d made up “the age of subtraction” herself and warned that he might steal it.

Now, as he chats with Rogers, she thinks about the arc of her own life, and her favorite Sondheim lyrics come back to her: “Bit by bit, putting it together/Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art.” Her first bit was her childhood in Boss, Missouri, and the one-room schoolhouse built of thick-mortared gray stones as a work project during the Depression. Eight grades, one teacher. All she remembers learning is how to teach the younger kids to read. She begged her parents hard

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to send her to Salem, a bigger high school. The Sunday after graduation, she moved to St. Louis.

What she wanted was this: music, drama, compelling ideas, interesting people to talk to, and dinner someplace besides White Castle, where her high school boyfriend took her with a flourish when he snagged a job at the Chevy plant in St. Louis. If he hadn’t dumped her, she’s dead sure she would have wound up living “in a kid-filled trailer in my parents’ backyard,” not starting the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, directing plays, organizing galas, and flying to New York to hang with Stephen Sondheim.

Pepper isn’t religious; her dad was the only professed atheist in Boss. (Also the man all the Christians turned to when they needed help or mercy.)

Her life doesn’t feel predestined to her, or even

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“First of all, you need a good foundation.”

porous enough for divine intervention. As far as she can tell, the forces at work have been love, grit, and the kind of optimism that creates luck.

Everything that happens to you, she believes, is the upshot of a lot of tiny decisions made along the way. “Every moment makes a contribution,” as Sondheim put it. “Every little detail plays a part.”

The woman next to her smiles, maybe a little too politely, at the “dirt floors” remark. Pepper is used to people not knowing quite how to respond to her directness. It’s weird, and sometimes a little lonely, moving between such different worlds—especially when you’re the sort to blurt the honest truth. There have been so many times she could easily have held it back, faked a background she never had.

Except, the way she got here was by being herself.

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Lana’s mother warms a blanket on an enameled wood stove—fancy for the country, a Heatilator. Wrapping it around Lana, who’s just learning to walk, she carries her upstairs to bed. The added warmth is necessary: The only heat on the second story comes from the chimney. But the memory of being swaddled in that blanket will warm Lana for the rest of her life.

Their next house, her dad builds himself, board by board. Her mother glories in it, sweeping and polishing in supreme contentment. She’s not especially curious about the larger world, just happy to be running her own house. One of the prettiest girls in Boss, she married late, because she had to keep house for 12 brothers. She hadn’t even gone to grade school, because she had no shoes. The house she grew up in had cracks in the wall so wide that the snow blew in, and they’d wake up with icy white flakes on their blankets.

Lana’s dad reads like he’s starving and books are steak and potatoes. He fills all available space with newspapers and magazines, understands history, worries about current events. His daughter catches his enthusiasm but isn’t yet sure what to do with it.

He runs a general store in Boss, and he brings Lana whenever he drives to St. Louis to buy dented canned goods at the salvage store. Her little nose wrinkles and she laughs in delight when they drive Continued on p. 124

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Join us for an

Open House Sunday, November 3 | 1-3pm

Grades PreK-8

Grades 9-12

501 Bacon Avenue St. Louis, MO 63119

2845 N. Ballas Road St. Louis, MO 63131

Our individualized programs are designed to empower unique learners by building confidence and a foundation for success.

Come tour our schools, visit with our faculty and staff, and hear life-changing stories from our current families. No reservations necessary - we look forward to seeing you!

(314) 968-3893 | miriamstl.org

One of a Kind OPEN HOUSE: A TASTE OF FORSYTH Saturday, October 26 9:30–11:30am AGE 3–GRADE 6

ForsythSchool.org 6235 Wydown Blvd. | St. Louis, MO 63105 Wydown-Forsyth Historic District

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EARLY CHILDHOOD OPEN HOUSE Saturday, January 11 9:30–11:30am

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S P EC IA L A DV E R T ISI NG S EC T I O N

OPEN HOUSE GUIDE OPEN HOUSES ALLOW PROSPECTIVE FAMILIES TO TEST-DRIVE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS. __ Touring the campus and speaking with faculty and staff a e important steps before making a selection.

We’ve compiled a list of open house dates for several local schools, so you can easily keep track of your admissions schedule.

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

OPEN HOUSE GUIDE

Chesterfield Montessor

Crossroads College Preparatory

14000 LADUE ROAD

500 DEBALIVIERE AVENUE

CHESTERFIELD, MO 63017

ST. LOUIS, MO 63112

314-469-7150

314-367-8085

CHESTERFIELDMONTESSORI.ORG

CROSSROADSCOLLEGEPREP.ORG

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

Call to schedule a tour.

September 24, 2019 (Immersive Preview Day) October 27, 2019

DID YOU KNOW?

In response to high demand for the school’s AMI Montessori programs, CMS acquired a 7-acre Land Lab for adolescent students and added a second toddler classroom. CMS educates global innovators from 16 months to 14 years through individualized, hands-on, evidence-based learning to reveal each child’s unique potential.

DID YOU KNOW?

Crossroads’ rigorous academic program provides opportunities to explore and to focus and dive deep. With more than 10 AP courses, a college counselor, and ACT/SAT test prep, each student is prepared to thrive at the college of their choice.

900 LAY ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63124 314-991-0005 | C OMMUNITYSCHOOL.COM

233 N. NEW BALLAS ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63141 314-567-3500 | DESMET.ORG OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019

OPEN HOUSE

November 2, 2019 | 9–11:30 a.m.

November 12, 2019 | 9:15–10:45 a.m.

January 14 & 28, 2020 | 9:15–10:45 a.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

CS has a 7:1 student/teacher ratio. Students are immersed deeply in a STEAM program, which in addition to science, technology, and math includes drama, art, music, band, and woodworking. As a testament to their academic preparation, students’ test scores are among the highest in the nation.

DID YOU KNOW?

De Smet Jesuit students serve more than 26,000 hours in the St. Louis community each year. Our signature junior year program places students with an organization where they volunteer on a weekly basis for an entire school year.

Forsyth School 6235 WYDOWN BOULEVARD 314-726-4542 | FORSY THSCHOOL.ORG

Cor Jesu Academy

OPEN HOUSE

10230 GRAVOIS ROAD

October 26, 2019 | 9:30–11:30a.m. (regular admissions)

314-842-1546 | C ORJESU.ORG OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019 DID YOU KNOW?

Thanks to a donation from a generous alumna and her husband, Cor Jesu Academy will meet 100 percent of the calculated financial need or students accepted into the Class of 2024.

January 11, 2020 | 9:30-11:30a.m. (early childhood) DID YOU KNOW?

Forsyth School’s unique campus consists of six historic homes that have been repurposed and renovated into classrooms and administrative offices. With the houses on parallel streets, the adjoining backyards create a large courtyard area with playgrounds, gardens, and athletic spaces.

The Fulton School 123 SCHOOLHOUSE ROAD ST. ALBANS, MO 63073 636-458-6688 | TF SSA.ORG OPEN HOUSE

October 15, 2019 | 9–11 a.m.

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Incarnate Word Academy 2788 NORMANDY DRIVE ST. LOUIS, MO 63121 314-725-5850 | IW ACADEMY.ORG OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019

Founded in 1932, Incarnate Word Academy is a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. As they celebrate the sesquicentennial of their founding in 1869, the Sisters continue to serve others through a variety of ministries including education, health care, pastoral and social services.

John Burroughs 755 S. PRICE ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63124 314-993-4040 | JBURROUGHS .ORG OPEN HOUSE

ST. LOUIS, MO 63105

ST. LOUIS, MO 63123

Fulton School received a $56,000 STEM grant for the 2019/20 school year to expand their Makerspace Lab. The lab is outfitted with obotics equipment, 3D scanner and printer, laser cutter, CNC machine, woodworking tools, vinyl cutter, heat press, ZSpace computers, and more.

DID YOU KNOW?

De Smet Jesuit Community School

DID YOU KNOW?

October 26, 2019 | 9 a.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

Burroughs’ core curriculum focuses on arts, athletics, global studies, humanities, and STEM. The school also offers deeper dives with programs like summer Praxis Week, which provides STEM career exposure through visits to universities, engineering firms, start-ups, and labs

Kirk Day School 12928 LADUE ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63141 314-434-4349 | KIRKD AYSCHOOL.ORG OPEN HOUSE

October 18, 2019 | 9–11:30 a.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

Kirk Day School hosts a gifted parent support group with well-know gifted psychologist, Dr. Agnes Meyo, providing information and support to the parents of gifted children. The group meets monthly and focuses on specific topics impacting parents and teachers of the gifted. For information, go to kirkdayschool.org.

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ry

e v o c s i d f a life o OPEN HOUSE

Oct. 19, 2019 Saturday at 9:30am

MICDS is one of the nation’s leading independent schools, specializing in educating students JK-12. Join us at our Open House to learn about the unique classes, extracurriculars, athletics and more that will prepare your child for a life of discovery.

101 N. Warson Road, Saint Louis, MO 63124 • micds.org

OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY, NOV. 10 12:30 P.M.

• Meet current students, faculty and alumni • Tour our 150-acre campus • Explore our academic program, Catholic identity, athletics, student life and resources

OUTSTANDING

• All-boys

Register today at priory.org/openhouse

PREPARATION

• Grades 7-12

• Ranked #1 in

Best

Catholic FOR ANHigh Schools

in Missouri by Niche.com EXCEPTIONAL

LIFE

OUTSTANDING

500 South Mason Road, St. Louis, MO 63141 314.434.3690, ext. 101 • www.priory.org

PREPARATION FOR

AN

EXCEPTIONAL

LIFE

October 2019 stlmag.com

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

OPEN HOUSE GUIDE

LOGOS School

Lutheran North

Lutheran South

9137 OLD BONHOMME ROAD

5401 LUCAS AND HUNT ROAD

9515 TESSON FERRY ROAD

ST. LOUIS, MO 63132

ST. LOUIS, MO 63121

ST. LOUIS, MO 63123

314-997-7002 | LOGOSSCHOOL.ORG

314-389-3100 | LNCR USADERS.ORG

314-631-1 400 | LSLANCERS.ORG

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

November 17, 2019 January 12, 2020 March 29, 2020

October 2019 (date TBD)

October 24, 2019

DID YOU KNOW?

DID YOU KNOW?

Lutheran North now provides coed, Christian education for grades 6 through 12. Middle schoolers benefit f om the use of the high school’s biology and chemistry labs, art studio, band room, and other amenities on the 47-acre campus.

Lutheran South offers college-style scheduling, preparing students for university life. With varying breaks between classes, students can study, enjoy lunch with friends, or work as a group, learning to manage their time and taking one more step toward independence.

DID YOU KNOW?

LOGOS School’s Student Support Center added a new Sensory Room to enhance concentration, attention, and alertness.

Optical, acoustic, and tactile stimuli in the room teach students to self-sooth, direct their focus, and deal with real-life encounters in a healthy way.

INDEPENDENT • COEDUCATIONAL • GRADES 7-12

Open House Saturday, October 26 Pre-register at jburroughs.org/openhouse or at 9 am on the day of the event Presentation begins at 9:30 am

John Burroughs School 755 South Price Road, 63124 • 314.993.4040 • jburroughs.org

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

MICDS (Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School) 101 N. WARSON ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63124

Choose

314-995-7367 | MICDS .ORG

WHITFIELD

OPEN HOUSE

October 19, 2019 DID YOU KNOW?

The MICDS STEM building is the most advanced of its kind in the region and earned LEED v3.0 Platinum certific tion for its design and construction, LEED’s highest level of certific tion, attained by just a small percentage of LEED-certified p ojects.

Miriam MIRIAM SCHOOL: 501 BACON AVENUE, WEBSTER GROVES, 63119 MIRIAM ACADEMY:

Join our community of innovation, collaboration, and trust

2845 N. BALLAS ROAD, TOWN & COUNTRY, 63131 314-968-3893 | MIRIAMSTL.ORG OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019 | 1–3 p.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

O P E N H O U S E : S U N DAY, O C T O B E R 1 3 , 1 P. M .

GRADES 6-12

•

COED

•

C O L L E G E P R E P A R AT O R Y

Miriam serves more than 1,200 students 175 S. Mason Rd. • St. Louis, MO 63141 • 314.434.5141 • www.whitfieldschool.org from over 80 ZIP codes and provides $1.5 million in need-based assistance to 60 percent of admitted families. Through Miriam School (pre-K–8th grade), Miriam Academy (grades 9–12), and Miriam Whitfield_STL Magazine '19_open house_MS Group_COMMUNITY.indd 1 8/13/19 Learning Center, Miriam helps unique learners thrive by building confiden e and a foundation for success.

10:27 AM

Missouri Military Academy 204 N. GRAND STREET MEXICO, MO 65265 573-581-1776 | MISSOURIMILITARYACADEMY.ORG OPEN HOUSE

Call to schedule a tour DID YOU KNOW?

Qualifying cadets can earn their associate degree in high school through MMA’s Triumph Program. Consistently achieving 100 percent college acceptance, MMA grads have gone on to Case Western Reserve, Savannah College of Art and Design, Texas A&M, and more.

October 2019 stlmag.com

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

OPEN HOUSE GUIDE

Nerinx Hall 530 E. LOCKWOOD AVENUE WEBSTER GROVES, MO 63119 314-968-1505 | NERINXHALL.ORG

inclusion, and community. Students in the earliest days attended peace rallies; students today work with an urban farm to address issues of local poverty.

OPEN HOUSE

Rossman School 12660 CONWAY ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63141 314-434-5877 | ROSSMANSCHOOL.ORG OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019

Notre Dame High School

DID YOU KNOW?

320 E. RIPA AVENUE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63125

Protecting the planet is an important part of the culture at Nerinx. Students are encouraged to make small changes to do their part, including bringing waste-free lunches. Last semester, Nerinx diverted more than three tons of waste through composting.

314-544-1015 | NDHS .NET

New City School 5209 WATERMAN BOULEVARD ST. LOUIS, MO 63108

OPEN HOUSE

September 18, 2019 | 8:30–10:30 a.m.

October 16, 2019 | 8:30–10:30 a.m.

November 20, 2019 | 8:30–10:30 a.m.

December 7, 2019 | 9–11 a.m.

January 15, 2020 | 8:30–10:30 a.m.

November 3, 2019 | 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

DID YOU KNOW?

With one class per grade, junior kindergarten to sixth, Rossman offers a small, intimate community that feels like family.

Experienced educators nurture that which makes each child one-of-a-kind while implementing a rich curriculum emphasizing strong academics, character development, and leadership skills.

Students follow the mission of Notre Dame High School by integrating lifelong learning, faith and service into their lives.

Our network of over 7,500 alumnae continues to transform the world with their confiden e and compassion in college and beyond.

314-361-64 11 | NEWCITYSCHOOL.ORG OPEN HOUSE

November 9, 2019 January 9, 2020 DID YOU KNOW?

New City School, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has a long history of emphasis on social-mindedness, diversity,

St. Louis Mag 2.2 x 4.6” SAVE THE DATE

OPEN HOUSE SunDAY, Oct. 27, 1-4 pm

A bright future awaits! Come be age 4 - grade 6 | St. Louis

EVERYONE HERE

HAS A place, A VOICE,

Sneak a Peek

Tues. Oct. 29 @ 6:30 pm Open House for parents of children K-5

and something to contribute.

Middle School Open House Wed. Dec. 4 @ 8:30 am

Grades 7-12 • 10+ AP courses • CWE campus near WashU & SLU • Schedule a visit: 314.367.8085

crossroadscollegeprep.org

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! amazed

Academic excellence, Jewish knowledge and social responsibility for grades K-8.

Open Houses Oct. 16 | Nov. 20

RSVP online: www.mirowitz.org/explore For a tour, call Patty or Lee’at: 314-576-6177 or pbloom@mirowitz.org

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OPEN HOUSE

Oct. 23

Nov. 3 Noon - 4 p.m.

LOWER SCHOOL Toddlers-Grade 5

MIDDLE AND UPPER SCHOOL Grades 6-12

8:30 - 10:30 a.m.

Catholic | Independent | Coed Montessori Early Childhood All-Girls Grades 1-12

Visit us in the heart of Webster Groves for Open House on Sunday, November 3. www.nerinxhall.org

visitationacademy.org

DRAGON FOR A DAY

Friday, October 4, 2019

Join us for our Open House

Nov. 3rd | 12:00 - 4:00PM www.ursulinestl.org 341 South Sappington Road St. Louis, Missouri 63122

Schedule a family tour or plan a shadow visit! stmaryshs.com â–ª 314.481.8400 October 2019 stlmag.com

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

OPEN HOUSE GUIDE

Saint Louis Priory School

St. Louis University

500 S. MASON ROAD

4970 OAKLAND AVENUE

ST. LOUIS, MO 63141

ST. LOUIS, MO 63110

314-434-3690 | PRIOR Y.ORG

314-531-0330 | SL UH.ORG

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

November 10, 2019 | 12:30–3:30 p.m.

October 17, 2019 (SLUH Night) | 6:30 p.m.

November 3, 2019 | 11:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

For the current school year, Priory gave more than $2.1 million in need-based tuition assistance to students.

Saul Mirowitz

address the development of the total student—intellectually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

DID YOU KNOW?

314-576-6177 | MIRO WITZ.ORG/EXPLORE

October 29, 2019 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.

CLAYTON, MO 63105

OPEN HOUSE

2019: October 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 | 10 a.m.–12 p.m.

2020: April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 | 10 a.m.–12 p.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

The St. Michael School of Clayton teaches to all faiths, with a personalized, experiential education for children from infanthood through the eighth grade.

St. Mary’s High School 4701 S. GRAND BOULEVARD

OPEN HOUSE

6345 WYDOWN BOULEVARD 314-721-4422 | ST MICHAELSCHOOL.ORG

SLUH athletics claimed seven state team titles in ice hockey, racquetball, rifler , rugby, swimming, volleyball, and water polo; plus one individual title in track, and a national championship in racquetball.

348 S. MASON ROAD ST. LOUIS, MO 63141

The St. Michael School of Clayton

ST. LOUIS, MO 63111 314-481-8400 | ST MARYSHS.COM

St. Paul’s Lutheran School

DID YOU KNOW?

OPEN HOUSE

During their nine years (K–8) at Mirowitz, students travel nearly 18,000 miles to restore prairies, lobby elected officials, test water quality of streams, pick vegetables on a kibbutz, and walk in the footsteps of MLK.

November 3, 2019 | 12–4 p.m.

1300 N. BALLAS ROAD

DID YOU KNOW?

314-822-2771 | STPL UTHERANSCHOOL.ORG

DES PERES, MO 63131

St. Mary’s High School has been a regional leader in brain-compatible curriculum development and professional learning teams. The school offers a different approach to instruction designed to

OPEN HOUSE

November 14, 2019 | 6:30 p.m.

November 17, 2019 | 12 p.m.

January 14, 2020 (kindergarten only) | 6 p.m.

January 26, 2020 | 12 p.m.

Discover your Passion for Learning

SLUH Open House

Sunday, November 3, 2019 11:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m Go to sluh.org/admissions/other-events to learn more.

Children Ages 3–12 Tours by appointment, 314-822-2601

VISIT 4970 OAKLAND AVENUE • 314.531.0330 • SLUH.ORG

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AMI Accredited Education

@SLUHigh

SLUH

@sluhjrbills

1280 Simmons Ave. Kirkwood, Mo 63122 www.villadimaria.org

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON DID YOU KNOW?

Founded on 170 years of Christ-centered academic excellence, St. Paul’s is reaching for the future by building a new state-ofthe art facility that will feature tech-enabled classrooms, STEM lab, art studio, and media center. Be a part of the legacy!

Twin Oaks Christian School 1230A BIG BEND ROAD BALLWIN, MO 63021 636-861-1901 TWINOAKSCHRISTIANSCHOOL.ORG OPEN HOUSE

October 16, 2019 | 9:30 a.m. & 11:30 a.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

Twin Oaks has provided a rigorous and joyful learning environment for more than 45 years. The school’s annual Festival of Learning highlights how foundational skills connect to real-world contexts.

Classrooms preschool through eighth grade offer students opportunities for spiritual growth and leadership development.

Important Dates 2019/2020 OPEN HOUSE: November 2 CONNECT WITH COMMUNITY: Nov. 12, Jan. 14, & Jan. 28 REGISTER ONLINE OR CALL

Ursuline Academy 341 S. SAPPINGTON ROAD

communityschool.com | 900 Lay Road | 314.991.0005

KIRKWOOD, MO 63122 314-984-2800 | URSULINESTL.ORG

JOIN US LIVE AT CJA!

OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019 DID YOU KNOW?

Ursuline Academy is part of a network of schools in 16 U.S. cities and 39 countries. The global scholars program offers students a unique opportunity to develop as global citizens through academics, cultural exchanges, service opportunities, and exposure to international companies.

Villa di Maria Montessori 1280 SIMMONS AVENUE KIRKWOOD, MO 63122 314-822-2601 | VILLADIMARIA.ORG OPEN HOUSE

Call to schedule a tour DID YOU KNOW?

As an AMI (Association Montessori International) accredited school, Villa di Maria provides an authentic, world-class Montessori experience for children ages 3–12. Here, teachers support developmental needs of children in mixed-age classrooms designed to cultivate a love and enthusiasm for learning.

Montessori at its Best Authentic AMI Montessori education from 16 months through 8th grade. Contact us to schedule a tour: 314-469-7150 chesterfieldmontessori.org

Cor Jesu Academy OPEN HOUSE Sunday, November 3

Noon - 4 p.m.

Visit allheart.corjesu.org/visit to pre-register!

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

OPEN HOUSE GUIDE

Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School

Visitation Academy

Whitfield Schoo

801 S. SPOEDE ROAD

3020 N. BALLAS ROAD

175 S. MASON ROAD

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 63131

ST. LOUIS, MO 63131

ST. LOUIS, MO 63141

314-810-3556 | VDOH .ORG

314-625-9103 | VISITATIONACADEMY.ORG

314-434-51 41 | WHITFIELDSCHOOL.ORG

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

OPEN HOUSE

November 3, 2019 | 12-4 p.m.

January 26, 2020 (age 3–grade 6) | 1–3 p.m.

October 23, 2019 | 8:30–10:30 a.m. (lower school)

October 13, 2019 | 1–4 p.m.

DID YOU KNOW?

November 3, 2019 | 12–4 p.m. (middle & upper school)

Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School’s talented educators bring STEAM to life.

Boys and girls ages 3 through grade 6 create in Oak Hill’s Makerspace and production studio. Girls in grades 7–12 learn and build in the Rull Family Innovation Center, a new technologically-rich space for sciences and math.

November 13, 2019 | 8:30–10:30 a.m. (lower school)

DID YOU KNOW?

Ninety-five pe cent of the Class of 2019 received merit, athletic, and leadership scholarships totaling $3.2 million for their first year f college.

DID YOU KNOW?

Visitation Academy is the area’s only all-girls school for grades 1–12. Viz girls excel academically, spiritually, and socially in an environment of individualized attention. The Academy understands the unique ways girls learn and are able to nurture their individual potential.

Wilson School 400 DEMUN AVENUE CLAYTON, MO 63105 314-725-4999 | WILSONSCHOOL.COM OPEN HOUSE

November 2, 2019 DID YOU KNOW?

In its 107th year, Wilson School expertly balances classic and innovative instruction.

Informed by research and current industry innovation, Wilson is planning a cuttingedge redesign of key educational spaces to provide students new opportunities for learning and innovative thinking.

Structure + Responsibility + Love = Since 1889, parents have looked to Missouri Military Academy to give their boys structure, responsibility and love they need to grow, compete and thrive — and become young men in full command of their lives.

MMA

M I S S O U R I M I L I TA RY A C A D E M Y

Embark upon a SACRED HEART JOURNEY filled with possibility!

Visit or tour this fall to learn more about Sacred Heart education for boys and girls ages 3-grade 6 and young women grades 7-12.

Schedule a visit at www.vdoh.org.

Admissions Office 801 South Spoede Road, St. Louis, Missouri 63131 314.810.3556 | admissions@vdoh.org

Serving grades 7 through 12 PG Mexico, Missouri • 888-564-6662 missourimilitaryacademy.org

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ST. PAUL'S LUTHERAN SCHOOL

Open House Thursday, November 14 | 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Sunday, November 17 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

Sunday, January 26 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

- Kindergarten Only -

Tuesday, January 14 | 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Academic excellence rooted in God’s Word since 1849.

BE A PART OF OUR LEGACY! STPLUTHERANSCHOOL.ORG/ADMISSIONS

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SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

LOGOS School Helping students and their families find hope, healing and academic success.

Join Us for One of Our Open House Events on the following Sundays from 1-3 p.m.

November 17, 2019 January 12, 2020 March 29, 2020

OPEN HOUSE N O V E M B E R 3 / 1 0 A M – 2 PM (314)544-1015 x1104

(314) 997-7002 ext. 116

LogosSchool.org

NDHS.NET

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S P EC IA L A DV E R T IS IN G S EC T IO N

Chef & Restaurant profiles / q+a s

chef Q+A

G E T TO K N O W S T. LO U I S E AT E R I E S A N D T H E N OTA B L E S TA F F B E H I N D T H E M .

CHIEF CULINARY OFFICER // BUTLER’S PANTRY

Vince Bommarito, Jr. FOR GUESTS ATTENDING AN EVENT CATERED BY BUTLER’S PANTRY, WHAT CAN THEY ANTICIPATE? Unparalleled service and an unforgettable culinary expe-

rience. The plating and presentation highlights each component yet finds balance, so the sum is truly greater than its parts. And, of course, our cuisine is delicious!

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE YOUR INGREDIENTS? When I go to the market, I look for the freshest ingredients, those that are at their peak right now. These ingredients are simple to cook with, complementary, and delicious on their own. But when combined, a dish can be a total showstopper!

14 14 PA R K AV E N U E , S T. LO U I S , M O 6 3 1 0 4 3 14 - 6 6 4 - 7 6 8 0 // B U T L E R S PA N T RY.CO M

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SPECIAL ADV ER TI S I N G S ECTI ON

chef Q+A

EXECUTIVE CHEF // THE SAINT LOUIS CLUB

Mathieu Lefebvre WHAT INSPIRES YOU AS A CHEF? Life. Every day, everywhere, food is always on my mind.

I use inspiration for my menus from all aspects of my daily life.

WHAT CUISINES INSPIRE YOUR MENUS? French basics are my roots. This will always drive my inspiration. However, there’s a lot to be said for modern cuisine, too. The palate of the typical diner today is very different than when the classics of France began.

HOW DID YOU COME TO BE A CHEF? In France, I didn’t care for school, to be honest, so I had to find a trade. A friend told me he liked cooking, so I tried it. Turned out I was a natural in the kitchen. The food, the hours, the work ethic—it all just fit with me.

I wanted to do more. I wanted to see what other countries had to offer in the culinary world. Former Saint Louis Club Chef Pierre Chambrin offered me a job I couldn’t resist. The rest of my beginning is history. Now I’m in the position to give other young cooks the opportunity to work here. I’m very excited for the future of the Club these cooks are going to be a part of. Bringing this full circle will be one of the greatest highlights of my career.

DESCRIBE THE EXPERIENCE YOU WANT YOUR MEMBERS TO HAVE. Let’s say a couple leaves the Club after their meal; during their drive home, all they can talk about is how good the food was. They describe their dishes to each other and the incredible taste and service.

That’s what I want everyone to leave with: the experience, a wonderful experience.

Best Known For THE HIGHEST-LEVEL FRENCH CUISINE FRESH, RESPONSIBLY SOURCED INGREDIENTS EXPERIENCES DINERS CAN’T FIND ANYWHERE ELSE

7 7 0 1 F O R S Y T H B O U L E VA R D, S T. LO U I S , M O 6 3 1 0 5 3 14 - 7 2 6 - 1 9 6 4 // S T LC LU B .CO M

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chef Q+A

restaurant PROFILE

S P EC IA L A DVE R T I S I NG S EC T I O N

EXECUTIVE CHEF // ST. LOUIS UNION STATION

Russel Cunningham WHAT HAS ALL THE DEVELOPMENT AT UNION STATION MEANT FOR YOU? It’s really

exciting to play a part in this and test out new menu concepts while really catering to what guests are looking for when traveling to St. Louis. Union Station showcases a lot of local ingredients in all our menus while providing unique and fun executions of those items.

We might make a meal to feed 1,000 people, but we don’t lose that personal touch on each plate that goes out. Everything we do is special.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE CHECK OUT THE ST. LOUIS UNION STATION SODA FOUNTAIN OPENING IN OCTOBER? The Soda Fountain is a big part of the exciting

family experiences opening here. It’s a modern take on an oldfashioned diner, and it overlooks the lake and the St. Louis Wheel.

People are already wild about our Freak Shakes. We’ve previewed them on social media, and the reaction has been amazing. They are milkshakes overstuffed with candies, pastries, and other goodies.

St. Louis Union Station Soda Fountain Are you ready for a new twist on a classic soda fountain? Located in the former Hard Rock Café space, this new LHM-owned and operated restaurant is an open and active space overlooking the Union Station lake. Inspired by classic Art Deco interiors, the Soda Fountain is unlike any other dining spot in St. Louis. Drinks will be created to impress and will include boozy shakes, phosphate sodas, champagne, and Italian aperitifs. Ice creams from local favorite Clementine’s will provide the basis for the shakes and other treats. Grill items include a smashburger and other creative twists on classic diner foods. Guests will enjoy the restaurant’s location just steps away from the entrance to the new aquarium. The Soda Fountain will offer both indoor seating and outdoor seating and will be open daily from 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Women Who Move The City THESE ST. LOUIS WOMEN ARE LEADING THE PACK AS BUSINESS OWNERS AND THOUGHT LEADERS.

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Vicky and Madison Smith Owners of Mia Grace Bridal

WHAT SETS YOUR SHOP APART FROM OTHER BRIDAL SHOPS?

This fun and inspiring shop was a vision conceived by a team of women passionate about providing a fresh approach to the St. Louis bridal experience. We believe that every bride deserves to have the experience of a lifetime as she searches for the dress of her dreams. We believe brides are shopping for more than just a dress; they are looking for an intimate, individualized experience in a fun and comfortable setting. Our philosophy is simple: to help you look your most beautiful, retain your own individuality, and be totally confident in your choi e.

The ambiance is laid-back and relaxed, the perfect environment in which to choose a wedding dress. If you are looking for an experience that celebrates you, your day, and your unique style, visit Mia Grace Bridal.

EXPLAIN YOUR MOST NOTABLE CAREER MILESTONE.

We’ve expanded twice since opening in 2015 to make sure our brides always have an exceptional experience and have an outstanding selection of dresses to choose from.

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED IN YOUR CAREER?

The most important thing we have found is how a bride feels in her dress, not just how she looks. She may be beautiful in a variety of gowns, but if she feels joy, then we know it’s the wedding dress for her.

108 Chesterfield Towne Center Chesterfield, MO 63005 636-778-3433 miagracebridal.com

Mia Grace Bridal provides an extensive collection of bridal, bridesmaid, mother of the bride/groom, flower girl, and graduation gowns. For the past five years, Mia Grace Bridal’s distinctly comfortable and unique shop has set the standard for St. Louis bridal gown shopping, providing an unmatched experience that brides will remember long after they say “YES” to their dream dress.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Susan M. Hais Founding partner at Hais, Hais & Goldberger

WHAT SETS YOUR FIRM APART FROM OTHERS?

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE OF YOUR BUSINESS?

What sets our professional standards high is the uncompromising goal we maintain in our cases to achieve the best possible outcome for our clients, with the strictest adherence to the Code of Professional Responsibility. We never yield to bullying tactics or attempts by other attorneys to “game” the system and then sweep it under the rug. Some have tried; all have failed.

Fortunately for the public, having right on your side, together with tenacity, prevails. The “bad apples” of the legal profession are a small group—and getting smaller.

The future of our business is to continue making better lives for our clients—to keep fighting ha d for their rights. We always tell them that justice is a right, not a privilege.

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED IN YOUR CAREER?

Hais, Hais & Goldberger is a full-service family law firm, limiting its practice to complex divorce cases and modifications of decrees, custody, property division and support, business and professional practice valuations, stock options, tax-related divorce issues, pension problems and enforcement of decrees.

The most important lesson for lawyers to learn is always to simply do the right thing. In this way, justice has a fighting chan e to prevail. This is what we work toward, every day. Ours is a service profession. Our clients’ interests are paramount.

222 S. Central Avenue, Ste. 600, St. Louis, MO 63105 | 314-862-1300 | hhg-law.com

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The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Julie E. Bahr, CFP®, AWMA®, MBA Managing Director of Clayton Financial Group

HOW DO YOU GIVE BACK TO THE COMMUNITY?

I believe individuals and organizations and our wonderful community need cheerleaders—a role I’ve eagerly accepted. My current activities include serving on the board at Churchill Center & School for Learning Disabilities, Rossman School, and the finan e committee of Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis.

Our firm also supports many other charitable g oups in the St. Louis area.

WHAT PART OF YOUR BUSINESS BRINGS YOU THE GREATEST SATISFACTION?

Helping individuals and families secure their financial futu es brings me enormous satisfaction. Before I help clients earn a return on their investments, I have to earn their trust. Building relationships and guiding them on making great financial choi es is very fulfillin Julie Bahr uses her experience as a Certified Financial Planner® to guide clients to make solid financial decisions. She has been involved with clients since 2001 and in financial services her entire career.

165 N. Meramec Avenue, Ste. 130, St. Louis, MO 63105 | 314-446-3250 | claytonfinancialgroup.com

Jennifer A. Shaw & Amanda G. Highlander The Shaw Law Group, P.C.

WHO IS THE SHAW LAW GROUP?

An all-female law firm p oviding high quality, creative domestic relations legal services. We are Metro-East natives who returned after law school to live, work, and volunteer in our hometowns. Jennifer started the firm and Amanda joined later, solidifying a friendship that grew years before. We believe lawyers can serve their community and their clients with integrity and humor. Our innovative team is compassionate, diverse, and highly experienced.

WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO?

We are rooted in tradition, yet we are forward-thinking. Our clients’ individuality and unique circumstances demand nuance. The way we practice law is shaped by volunteer work with bar associations, animal rescue, domestic violence shelters, and charitable giving boards. We believe in client-centered, zealous representation.

FROM LEFT: Jennifer A. Shaw, Amanda G. Highlander

Recognized by Super Lawyers, Leading Lawyers, Best Lawyers®, and U.S. News & World Report, The Shaw Law Group provides creative solutions for all aspects of family law.

201 Hillsboro Avenue, Edwardsville, IL 62025 | 618-655-0555 | jashawlaw.com

The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.

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“EVERY WORD, EVERY LINE… YOU IMPROVE AND REFINE.” R

Paris had Madame de Staël and Gertrude Stein. St. Louis has Lana Pepper.

BY JEANNETTE COOPERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEVIN A . ROBERTS

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under the Gravois viaduct and she can “smell the city.”

Lana moves to St. Louis at 18 with no money, no job, and no car in which to look for one. A cousin has agreed to let her sleep in the basement until she can afford rent.

What she really wants is to go to college, but it’s the ’60s, and students are doing everything but study, as far as her father can tell.

“If you want to go bad enough, you’ll find a way,” he tells her, “and if you pay for it yourself, you’ll be serious about it.”

Lana arrives on a Sunday, and on Wednesday, he calls: “Found a job yet?”

When she says no, spluttering about the difficulties of transport, he says, “I’ll be up in the morning.” He rises at 4 a.m., reaches St. Louis by 8, and drives her around town. By noon, she has a job at the American National Insurance Company. Her fingers are soon crisscrossed with paper cuts from all the filing, but she saves enough money to enroll at Southwest Missouri State that spring.

Alas, she soon runs out of money, so she finds a job working for the manager of a new plant. The owner’s son, he’s not much older than she is, and neither one of them is qualified to do what they’re doing. After months of trying, she takes a rare weekend off and drives to New Orleans with high school friends for the Sugar Bowl.

She doesn’t sleep a wink all weekend, and they drop her off at her women’s boarding house at 4 a.m. on Monday. Five hours later, someone’s shaking her awake: “Your boss is on the phone.” She stumbles to the hall phone and hears a peremptory “Are you coming to work today?” Still half asleep, she replies, “Why, are you busy?”

He fires her. Years later, she and her husband, Dr. Ted Pepper, will be heading toward a tennis court in Hawaii and hear a man’s voice boom, “Lana Rae?” They’ll have a brief, bubbly exchange, and as soon as he’s out of earshot, she’ll mutter, “I can’t believe he remembered me,” and Ted will chuckle: “You always remember the first person you fire.”

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You also remember, if you’re Eliza, your Henry Higgins. For Lana, it’s Alan Ash, a former radio announcer from New York. She’s 20; he’s 50. They both know this romance won’t last. But he reads her poetry in his deep radio announcer voice, and suggests good books, and introduces her to shrimp scampi…

(Decades later, in Chicago with Ted for one of his medical conferences, Lana will look Ash up in the phone book. “I’m where I am today because of you,” she’ll tell him. “I don’t think Ted Pepper would have liked who I was if it hadn’t been for you.” Ash, who’s just home after cancer surgery and hasn’t long to live, will reply, “You can’t imagine how important this call is to me.”)

Lana does some Pygmalion work for herself, too, modulating her “twangy Ozark country accent.” She grew up hearing “They was” or “I seen,” never the word “were.” St. Louisans keep asking, “Where are you from?” So, she makes her friends promise to stop her immediately if she makes a grammar mistake, and she trains herself—“Me, who has a mouth that runs before the brain”—to stop and think before speaking.

Luckily, she has plenty of social confidence; gaps in her knowledge of the world just prompt her to fill them. Born on the Fourth of July, Lana thought at first that the fireworks were for her. (“My parents supported that for far too long,” she says dryly.) An only child, she had a mother who was “just all love” and a father who took daily delight in her, and they lived in a town where 6-yearold Lana felt comfortable writing in her diary, under Notify in Case of Emergency, “anyone in Boss.”

After the thousand cuts of the insurance company, she applies for a hotel job. Her prospective boss suggests they meet for the interview in the evening, in a bar. On Lana’s first day of work, a Frenchwoman in the department warned her, “He’s going to hit on you.

And he’s married.”

Primed, Lana rebuffs him. From that day on, though, nothing she does seems adequate. He insults her in front of everyone. She finds a deserted hallway in the basement where she can weep.

It’s a shame, because she’s learning so much, sitting in on planning meetings

and working with florists, ice carvers, butchers, bakers… The experience will come in handier than she knows. But the job is untenable. She goes to work as a secretary downtown and spends evenings as a live-in nanny on Westmoreland, eating her dinner “alone at a little round table on the other side of the dining room door. I could hear everything!” When babysitting every evening exhausts her, she and a girlfriend splurge on a “convertible” apartment at Mansion House, “with a little accordion door you could draw across the room.”

There’s a tall, earnest med student in their building, so mild-mannered, Lana barely notices him. But when he hears that she’s taking a Greyhound bus to Boss for Easter, he urges her to drive his new car instead, a metallic-green Buick Electra convertible.

She agrees—then backs down her family’s driveway crooked and drives straight into a woodpile, putting a dent in that nice new convertible. Her relatives tease her, because she doesn’t usually drive so crazily. But she insists that she’s not in love, says all weekend that Ted Pepper is just “one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.” Says it so often, in fact, that she starts to hear herself, and the significance of the words sinks in.

She returns Ted’s car with a changed heart, and they date with increasing fervor. One evening, they’re at the ballpark, and Ted goes off to buy a box of Cracker Jack. When he hands it to her, he teases, “If there’s a ring in it, you know what that means,” referring to a scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which they saw together.

She opens the box, and the prize is a ring. Jumping up and down, she falls off the curb and sprains her ankle. Home with her swollen ankle propped, she comes down with the mumps. Who gets the mumps? Her boss will never believe her.

“You know what?” Ted says. “Why don’t you just quit?’”

They marry in 1970. A year later, their son is born, and in 1974, their daughter.

“ADDING UP TO MAKE A WORK OF ART...”

Freshman year at Salem High School.

Lana does a monologue called “I’m Engaged to Lemuel” and wins the talent contest. “Over the Heitman brothers, who played the trumpet,” she tells her parents, elated and a little worried.

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She’s not sure she deserved it.

The monologue, by W’ilma Faye Yokely, is indexed alongside “Sis Hopkins and Her Beau, Bilious,” “Uncle Josh’s Idees on Wimmin,” and “Oh! To Be an Actoress!” This will be Lana’s peak experience of drama until her twenties, when she and Ted see Othello. In the middle of his grueling medical residency, Ted falls asleep as soon as they settle themselves in the warm theater. Lana sits forward, teetering on her seat’s edge until the final curtain, dazzled by the wordplay.

Once both children reach school-age, she goes back to college, telling nobody.

She studies in the back of her Volkswagen bus, cozy and private, as she waits to pick up the kids. She plans to major in sociology, because it’s about “people and how people work.” But along the way, she takes a history of theater class at Fontbonne College, then another, and another. “I believed you could judge a country’s civilization by its theater,” she explains. “I still kind of think that.”

Lana goes on for an MFA in theater at Lindenwood University, and she’s just finishing when R. Crosby Kemper III decides that St. Louis needs a Shakespeare Festival. Anabeth Weil (then Calkins, not yet married, and the manager of Forest Park) tells him he needs Lana Pepper. “She’s unflappable.”

Working gratis for the first two years, using her sunporch as her office, Lana starts the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.

Once she’s raised enough money to hire an artistic director, he says he’ll take care of everything onstage and the rest is up to her: lining up six different groups of entertainers every night for the green show; wrangling 25 volunteers a night for 16 nights; finding vendors; getting the program printed; selling the ads; arranging free housing for the actors; schlepping green plastic lawn chairs from various dollar stores. If she stacks them just right, she can cram 40 at a time into her station wagon.

Her only help is a Russian intern who’s seven months pregnant. The Festival needs a website. So when Lana’s daughter, Haley, is in the Baltic learning to captain a tall ship, and she hasn’t slept for days, and a kindly couple takes her in, and Lana calls to thank them, and they mention a young German woman who wants an internship in the States, Lana asks instantly, “Can she do a website?”

Melanie Steinborn comes to live with the Peppers for many months, and longsuffering Ted endures cascades of chatter as he cooks and restocks the pantry.

Lana works “concentrated and ambitious on countless tasks,” Steinborn will say, watching the older woman “networking, working under time pressure, going optimistic into unplannable situations.”

Here’s an example of how Lana fundraises: She wants to add a touring educational show, so she calls Graybar Electric Supply and speaks to vice president Dennis Grousosky, who likes her so much, he invites her to dinner. When she assures him that she eats “everything but liver,” he says, “Life’s too short for liver.” So Lana writes him a poem, “Life’s Too Short for Liver,” which he frames and hangs on his dining room wall. Her original purpose had been to find a van to haul actors, sets, and costumes around Missouri; she finds it easier to ask for inkind donations than money. For many years, Graybar donates a van—and money.

Eventually, Lana moves on to direct an arts management MFA program at Webster University and to direct plays herself. She works at Stray Dog Theatre, the New Jewish Theater, and the St. Louis Actors Studio. Actor Glynis Johns says Lana gives her cast free rein to interpret, “but every once in a while, she’ll say, ‘I have an idea.’ And it’ll turn out to be the one thing people love most and talk about.” Her direction, like her conversation, is lively, full of emotion and humor, with plenty of room for individual quirks of character—but a solid internal logic. Theater critic Gerry Kowarsky can detect Lana’s hand even in the monologues she directs, because they shift so smoothly, and with such clarity, “to signal changes in time, speaker, and mood.” Directing shows and running an arts organization “require different kinds of talent,” he adds. “Lana has both.

That’s rare.”

“EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON EXECUTION.”

“Lie down on this mat,” instructs Lana’s close friend Donna Rogers-Beard.

“Donna, you mean to tell me I got out of bed just to lie on the floor?”

Lana demands. Her small, taut body is vibrating with energy, and now RogersBeard can’t relax. She gently informs her friend that yoga is not something they’ll

be able to share. Months later, Lana, all excited, mentions this great yoga place she’s found for them to try. Rogers-Beard sighs: “Lana, if you like it, it’s not yoga.”

Ted has the same strong work ethic she does, Lana tells me: “Just give us a basement to clean out, and you’ll see.”

The Pepper family started making Pepper’s Ginger Ale in Pennsylvania in 1885, and presidents have drunk the stuff. Mrs. Tommy Dorsey, wife of the bandleader, was said to find it so delicious, she had it shipped to her wherever she traveled.

Ted worked at the plant as a kid, and he remembers how to roll up his sleeves. As for Lana, her son gave her a plumber’s wrench because she kept tackling her own repairs at their Central West End condo and at the contemporary threebedroom in Tower Grove South that she designed herself.

That project started as an effort by Ted to channel some of his wife’s exuberant energy. “You’ve always wanted to design a house from the ground up,” he said. “Why don’t you?” What Lana came up with was so much cooler than the surrounding homes, it was impossible to sell for a profit. So she turned it into an Airbnb, art gallery–sleek, with a built-in wine fridge, a long black table with Lucite chairs, Juliet balconies off the living room.

She furnished her Airbnb by haunting the Habitat for Humanity Restore for two years, plucking the best granite, cabinetry, light fixtures, iron railings.

Between guests, she’s often cleaned the place herself, ironing the pillowcases and top sheets, “making everything five-star.

I put on some great music, and I make it a challenge, see how fast I can do it.” Once the house sparkles, she fills baskets with small comforts and—a practical romantic—tucks in a packet of condoms.

One afternoon, I watch her tear through the Airbnb to ready it for that evening’s guests. She’s worried about her neighbor not having enough airconditioning for the heat wave. She makes sure there are ice cream treats in the freezer, spots a smudge on the shower door, resets a clock that’s not the right time, notices a missing white patch that covered a nail hole. I see none of this. I’m enjoying the subtle touches: a lamp base wrapped in rope, set in front of a blown-up, textural photo of a dock; a striped pillowcase border that picks up October 2019 stlmag.com

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a tiny striped patch in a contemporary painting above the bed.

“She’s got this incredible taste,” marvels Johns. “She’s very sure, and she doesn’t settle. She has this vision in her head, and unless something strikes her as absolutely right, she won’t buy it.”

It’s far more fun, Lana thinks, to create something beautiful for next to nothing. “She can go to Goodwill,” says Johns, “come out with a cartful of things and put them in place, and they’ll look amazing.”

At an age before tact, Haley once announced, as they were visiting a friend of Lana’s, “My mom said that if you’re poor and you live in a gaudy house, then when you get money, you will live in a big gaudy house.”

“And there we were,” says Lana wryly, “in a big gaudy house.” She quickly finessed her daughter’s faux pas, just as she redeemed herself after Sondheim’s opening night party, when she was so engrossed, she kept picking up his wine glass by mistake. “Lana, that’s my wine,” he’d tease. So she came home, picked out some fabric (she’d snapped up hundreds of samples when they were being discarded) and made him three pillows. The first, she had monogrammed in small script, “that’s”; the second in large caps, “MY”; the third, “wine.”

“IT’S RISKY FROM THE START.”

Flashback: Lana’s 21 and, fed up with the hotel job, she’s ready to sell her car, TV, record player, and all her best clothes so she can take the first transatlantic trip of her life. She lands in Luxembourg and manages a train to Wiesbaden, where a friend is working for the U.S. Air Force.

Except that instead of welcoming Lana with a big hug, the friend announces, “I went to Morocco and spent all my money, so I have to go home.” So Lana’s alone in Europe, and so freezing cold (she packed the lightest of what clothes remained) that she bounces into a travel agency and asks if $180 will get her someplace warm. She winds up in Majorca—her first sight of the sea—and falls briefly, madly in love. When it’s time to leave, she goes up to the hotel’s roof and sobs. But grief doesn’t stop her from taking a weekend bus trip to Paris and heading to Oktoberfest in Frankfurt.

Years later, at a time when Ted’s busy, Lana changes her mind about refusing a trip with friends and flies alone to Ireland

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to surprise them. Having had no food, drink, or sleep for many hours, she straps herself in behind the left-side steering wheel and drives a rental car down rockwalled country roads and around dizzying roundabouts, clutching convoluted handwritten directions in her left hand.

Miraculously, she finds the country house that her friends are renting, but they’re gone and the door is locked. I’ve got to find food, she thinks, but I can’t get lost. I’ll just keep making right turns.

When she pulls over a few minutes later, second-guessing her plan, someone waves from a lit cottage window. Two couples from England are vacationing there, and they’re eating in tonight, and they have plenty of food, even an extra dessert. They feed Lana, pour her wine, and lend her a blanket to wrap up in while she waits for her friends.

She’ll stay in touch with these couples for the next quarter-century, and they’ll wind up visiting her in St. Louis.

On a trip to Spain, Rogers-Beard sits next to Ted in the back seat, arms folded tightly over her stomach, while Lana drives along the Amalfi Coast at dizzying speed, hands relaxed on the wheel as she navigates the twists and turns.

Beneath her terror, Rogers-Beard knows instinctively that they will arrive intact.

She thinks back to the first time Lana scared her: Having met an elderly man at Schnucks, she said, “He looked so tired, and it was such a cold, awful day that I asked if I could give him a ride home.

I gave him my phone number, and he wants to go to lunch. Would you like to come?” Rogers-Beard sighed that time, too. She couldn’t let Lana go alone. And it turned out the gentleman was delightful, self-educated but a sensitive soul, and they had a wonderful conversation.

Another time, Lana hosted a Prison Performing Arts party at which alumni of the program, now out of prison, mingled with board members. You wouldn’t do that, Rogers-Beard told herself. Lana’s fearless.

She’s always bringing together people who would not ordinarily find themselves in the same space.

“TAKES A LOT OF EARNEST CONVERSATION”

At an auction in St. Charles, Lana’s meant to be looking for furniture. Two years married, she and Ted have just bought a gorgeous old house on Kings-

bury Place with big high-ceilinged rooms they can’t quite afford to furnish. But she spots a 1946 Wurlitzer jukebox with bubbles, and every time the auctioneer looks at her, she gives a tremulous little nod. She drives home with butterflies trapped in her stomach, terrified that Ted will be upset. He likes it. So they have a sock hop, inviting their new neighbors and his medical colleagues, and they all dance, and Lana has so much fun, she forgets to bring out the food that’s in the oven.

The sock hop sparks a social creativity that will grow into an avocation. Soon Lana throws a not-going-away party for one of Ted’s doctor friends, who’s from Chile and has decided not to move back after all. Lana writes a script, tells all the docs what to say when, and syncs a tape with sound effects—the president of Chile speaking, people celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square...

For another party, she and Ted refine their bouillabaisse recipe and she turns the garage into a French bistro, blacking out one window, adding an Eiffel Tower silhouette, setting up little tables with red-checked cloths, sticking candles into wine bottles with melted wax, and hiring the Poor People of Paris to play.

Soon she’s planning galas for a cause: an antique show for The Rep, a gala for the Kevin Kline Awards, a benefit for Operation Food Search; a Tennessee Williams–themed fundraiser for The Beacon; all the Shakespeare Festival opening- and closing- night parties. Pretending she’s a guest, she starts with receiving the invitation and walks every step.

Many a St. Louisan has stood on the Peppers’ wraparound terrace, sipping wine and watching the sun set. I’ve been part of Shakespeare dinners there, and the group’s a motley one: Some are brilliant but flat broke; others are scions of St. Louis’ oldest families. Elizabeth Oldham, a ninetysomething Quaker from England, sounds like Vanessa Redgrave when she reads the Bard’s lines aloud.

The common denominator in Lana’s guest lists isn’t social standing or common history, observes makeup artist Scarlett Monks. It’s creativity: “Every time she invites you to dinner, you change your plans and go, because the people you meet will be amazing. Graphic designers, antique shop owners, writers… They all love the arts.”

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When Monks agreed to move here from London for her husband’s job, a friend of a friend of her father’s announced that she simply had to meet Lana Pepper. “We came for nine days to look for an apartment, and Lana had planned a dinner party for me. She hadn’t even met me yet! She invited all the cool young people in her building.”

One, an immigrant from Iran, was just Monks’ age, and they wound up having baby girls at the same time. “We bump into Lana when we’re together, and she’s like a proud mother. I don’t think I could have gotten through last year without both of them.”

Lana took New York editor George Hodgman under her wing, too, after he moved back to his small Missouri hometown to write his best-selling memoir, Bettyville. “She didn’t know me from Adam,” he told me shortly before his death, “but she organized a reading for me, and she turned it into an occasion.

She turned it into a beautiful thing. It was very smart, because nobody knew who I was, so she made the reading a destination.” They became friends, as invariably happens with Lana and anyone she likes. “I relate to Lana, because she sees so much from the vision of a smalltown girl who’s come to the city,” Hodgman told me. “Everything is still just a few times more interesting, a few times more wonderful. She wants things for the city that she loves—she wants it to stay that city in her mind—and she’s willing to do the work. She’s not on a chaise longue in Ladue.” He thought a minute, smiled. “There’s part of her that likes running the show a little bit. But she’s not skulking in the background scheming— she’s direct and straightforward, not coy behind her fan, pushing the pieces around. She has real ambition. I have a lot of respect for her.”

Some friends call her LAH-nah and some call her LANN-nuh, and to anybody from Boss, she’s still Lana Rae. “She’s always been open,” says her cousin Sis Miner. “If anyone from the country needed a place to stay, she’d fix up a room.” When the Saint Louis University Library Associates brought in Margaret Atwood, Lana wound up dancing the Charleston with her.

The hospitality even crosses species lines. When her kids were little, the family dog, a golden retriever named Pepper,

sat at the dinner table with them. And Rogers-Beard, who isn’t fond of birds, was appalled to learn that her friend could talk turkey. The women were walking at Forest Park when a large specimen appeared. Hearing Lana’s gobbled greeting, he strutted toward her. “I don’t know what you just said to your little friend,” Rogers-Beard gasped, “but tell him to get the hell away from us!”

“WIPING ALL THE SCENIC OSTENTATION”

At an elegant summer picnic, the conversation turns to economics, and a corporate lawyer notes Walmart’s generous employee benefits. Lana isn’t buying it.

She pulls out her phone and texts a relative in southern Missouri who works at Walmart. “What you’re talking about must only be for management,” she informs her friend.

The boundaries of Lana’s life expand to contain everything bad that ever happens to anyone in her orbit, every outrage born of injustice, every tragedy on the news. She raised her kids to listen to NPR—not for political reasons but instead because she thought its reporting would provoke curiosity and compassion. Long before the closet doors opened, she tactfully began addressing all correspondence to an old friend to include her “roommate.” As exacting as she is about things being done right, she accepts people just as they are.

“When you live in a small town, you are exposed to all levels of society,” she explains. “You know the village idiot, you know the bank president, you know the doctor—and you know them all personally. I’ve known people who lived in shacks during the winter and as soon as spring came, they took their five kids and moved to a river bank and camped out the entire summer. One of the myths is ‘Oh, if they just tried harder.’ Well, let me tell you: There are levels of intelligence you are born with that you cannot do a damned thing about. When they say there are people who aren’t smart enough to come in out of the rain, it’s true. You can’t say those people are lazy. That’s just how they’re equipped.

Or maybe they’re smart about intellectual things, but they have this glitch that keeps them from being able to hold a job. I’ve known all kinds. The people I worry about are kids who grow up in sub-

urbs where the houses all cost about the same, and the education of the parents is all the same, and they don’t know how to accept people who are different.”

When Lana received the St. Louis Visionary Award in 2018, honoring years of tireless service in the arts, she told the audience, “Compassion is what keeps us civil and kind and able to play with others on the world’s playground.”

I ask what works have moved her most profoundly. “I’ll never get over ‘Master Harold’...and the Boys,” she says. “The failure of the old man trying to change generations of inbred social injustice and racism…”

The arts pry open closed minds, she says. “They make us more human.”

She reads avidly, goes to the theater, inhales the paintings and music she was starved for as a kid. She’s still filling in gaps. Her grandsons teach her about the sun and the moon, about science, about history. Before seeing Hamilton, she digested the book, the score, and the libretto.

“When I went to sign up for high school, I had never heard the word ‘biology’ before,” she remarks. “When I told my mother I’d gotten a job working for the Shakespeare Festival, she’d never heard of Shakespeare.”

Those gaps left Lana hungry for knowledge, unwilling to tolerate anything less than excellence. Any event she’s connected with will be visually stunning, comfortable, and alive with stimulating ideas. As her German former intern puts it, she has “a talent for the great all and the detail at the same time.”

“And she pulls it off,” concedes RogersBeard, “but at the end of the evening, I’ll look at an exhausted Lana Pepper and think, ‘How did you do this? The person who caters couldn’t do it this time so you made everything from scratch?’”

Lana readily agrees that her biggest fault is “not letting people do things for me. I want to do it myself, hands on—and I’m turning into one of those old women who walk down the street and mumble about how things should be done better!” Maybe, but she delivers criticism with such warm enthusiasm that people tend not to bristle. They know she’s on their side.

“I want to be the old lady people come to for advice,” she decides. “That would be fun.”

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S T. LO U I S SAG E

PA S S T H E P U C K

Which franchise kissed the Cup before playing one season here?

I

T’S ALL RATHER complicated.

The team wa s b orn in Ottawa in 1883, when fans pelted opposing teams with lemons and got splashed with ice melt on warm days. The Ottawa Hockey Club won the Stanley Cup in challenges (the contest was structured differently back then) in 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1909, 1910, and 1911, earning the nickname The Silver Seven. (In 1906, Ernie “Moose” Johnson— who carried a stick so long, it gave him a 99-inch reach—knocked the top hat off the governor-general.)

In 1917, the team joined the National Hockey League (known as the National Hockey Association till 1917). Called the Ottawa Senators by that time, the club came back to win the Stanley Cup again— in 1920, 1921, 1923, and 1927, becoming the NHL’s first dynasty. The Senators would be selected by Canadian sports editors as the nation’s greatest team for the first half of the 20th century.

Alas, Ottawa was a relatively small market at the time, and when the NHL expanded to include its southern neighbor, some of the fans lost interest. Broke, the Senators left the ice in 1931, sold off their best players, returned but finished in last place for two straight seasons.

To pay off $60,000 in losses, the team moved to St. Louis and was reborn as the Eagles, in honor of a certain beer

BY THE NUMBERS 1934–35 ST. LOUIS EAGLES SEASON

48 11 31 6 28

GAMES PLAYED

WINS

LOSSES

TIES

POINTS

logo. (Prohibition had just ended.) This was a coup, because St. Louis—then the seventh-largest city in the U.S.—had nonetheless been denied an NHL franchise two years earlier; travel to the Midwest was deemed too expensive during the Great Depression. There was already a pro hockey team in St. Louis, the Flyers, but they were begged not to protest the new arrivals.

The Eagles played here for one season, 1934–35. The players wore patriotic red-white-and-blue uniforms rather than the famous barbershop-striped red-black-and-white of the early days. Oddly, instead of having the team join the American Division, the league kept the Senators in the Canadian Division, and all that expensive travel punched a big hole in their budget. Again, they finished last in their division. Georges “Buck” Boucher took over as head coach, and the team did a little better, but attendance wasn’t strong. This time, they sold off all of the players.

After the Senators’ brief and not-so-shiny season, St. Louis waited 32 years for an NHL team. The Blues arrived with the 1967 expansion—and this year, they came from last place to win their first Stanley Cup.

ST. LOUIS MAGAZINE, VOL. 25, ISSUE 10 (ISSN 1090-5723) is published monthly by St. Louis Magazine LLC, 1600 S. Brentwood, Suite 550, St. Louis, MO 63144. Change of address: Please send new address and old address label and allow 6 to 8 weeks for change. Send all remittances and requests to St. Louis Magazine, Circulation Department, 1600 S. Brentwood, Suite 550, St. Louis, MO 63144.

Periodicals postage paid at St. Louis, MO, and additional mailing office. Postmaster: Send address changes to St. Louis Magazine, 1600 S. Brentwood, Suite 550, St. Louis, MO 63144.

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Illustration by Britt Spencer

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