The Fonda Blog

Raiders’ return never was assumed

East Peoria, IL – There was Julie Fonda on Thursday morning, driving the Glenbard South team bus on a familiar path to East Peoria.

Glenbard South's Danielle Chitkowski (left) gets some instructions from coach Julie Fonda in the bottom of the 7th inning during the Class 3A semifinal against Chatham at East Peoria Thursday.

Boy, has it been an interesting ride back.

Glenbard South, the lone team returning to the state softball tournament in either Class 3A or 4A, will play Chatham Glenwood today in a noon 3A semifinal at EastsideCentre.

The Raiders (24-12) lost five starters, including ace pitcher and 2008 Daily Herald All-Area captain Jill Trzaska, off last year’s third-place team. They started the season 1-8 but have been a different team since a 5-4 extra-inning win over Naperville Central on April 11.

Keying the Raiders’ resurgence are sophomore shortstop Jenny Wittenberg, senior center fielder Lauren Podgorski and freshman second baseman Brianna Meath. Sophomore pitcher Jess Wilkes has shut out two of the Raiders’ last three playoff opponents.

“That’s the goal, is to be playing your best at state tournament time,” Fonda said. “If you can play your best at the end, you have a chance of going somewhere.”

In an eerie parallel Chatham Glenwood (27-8) has not lost since an 8-0 defeat to Edwardsville, which will play Naperville Central today, on May 8. In supersectional Chatham Glenwood upset Mattoon, which beat Glenbard South in last year’s Class 3A semifinal and was ranked No. 1 in the latest Illinois Softball Coaches Association poll.

Leading the attack for Chatham Glenwood is senior catcher Kaitlyn England, hitting .416 with 17 extra-base hits and 39 RBI.

Fonda’s knowledge of her opponent is limited – but the same went for the Raiders’ supersectional opponent, Trinity.

“We’ll show up and play our game,” she said. “That’s the best we can do. We’ve been good at adjusting as the games go along.”

In the first semifinal Burlington Central (25-5) will play Oak Forest (29-4), which lost to Glenbard South in supersectionals last year.

Fonda is hopeful her group can draw on the experience of last year, both the highs and lows. Glenbard South lost a 5-0 lead in a semifinal loss to Mattoon, then rallied to beat Marengo in eight innings in a thrilling third-place game.

“That gives us an advantage,” Fonda said. “They know what the field looks like down here, and they know what it feels like to win and lose down here. I feel like that experience is definitely going to help us.”

written by admin \\ tags: News, Sports

The pre-club: Old Precinct finds a niche

Sometimes one-night stands turn into something more.

Youngstown, OH –  It certainly did for Old Precinct, a new downtown bar.  Manager T.J. Parker says the owner, Mike Fonda, 52, used to run a deli at the Phelps Street location but closed for about a year.

The Old Precinct in Youngstown, Ohio

Fast forward to February 2009, and Fonda asked Parker, 24, and his friends, Patrick Bokesch and Michael Howley, to open the bar up for one-night for the Kelly Pavlik fight. It went so well that Old Precinct is now open every Friday and Saturday night.

Fonda, a 17-year veteran of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department, says Old Precinct benefits from the increasing number of people coming to downtown Youngstown. “Downtown is becoming more of a destination itself,” he says. Parker says they’ve tried to keep Old Precinct “laid-back” and “chill.” He says it’s a place to “pre-game.” “We want it to be a place to go before you go out,” Parker says.

Parker, a teacher at Austintown Middle School, says Old Precinct’s crowd is generally made up of patrons in their 20s and younger 30s. The deli transitioned into Old Precinct with the addition of a bar, a renovated loft area and TVs. At first, it was only open Saturdays nights, but after about a month, Old Precinct was also open on Fridays. There’s a gentlemanly vibe to the building, erected in 1923, due in part to the Youngstown Police theme in the decór.

The music selections lend to the low-key atmosphere: While the sound of dance music echoes from Downtown 36 and the music of local bands emanates from Barleys, Old Precinct sticks to more mellow musicians like Dave Matthews Band, O.A.R. and Jack Johnson. In the future, Parker says Old Precinct will be open Sundays and Mondays for sporting events.

Fonda and Parker say that so far, they’ve relied heavily on word-of-moth advertising, although they plan on some marketing in the future. Additionally, they say oldprecinct.com is in the works. Parker says in addition to the wraps the bar currently serves, they plan on grilling out on the sidewalk more frequently this summer, including cooking on a spit. He says they also plan on a cornhole tournament.

written by admin \\ tags: Achievements, Business, News

Ten Things I Have Learned About The Sea

Ten Things I Have Learned About The Sea

Italy – I crossed the Atlantic one a ship a few years ago and after it I knew I wasn’t the same anymore. Director Lorenzo Fonda has also felt the powerful insights that only the ocean can reveal, and in his beautiful short film “Ten Things I Have Learned About The Sea” he details them.

The visuals are stunning – a sort of transcendent combo of nature and the ships man has built to traverse across it. The industrial symmetry and mechanical serenity in the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky.

I also have to give props to Fonda for saying under the film “it is 104 mb, there’s no low res version and it is 10 minutes long. let it load. if you don’t have patience or don’t know me personally, you might not want to watch this.” The confidence of that speaks for itself.

Click here to watch “Ten Things I Have Learned About The Sea.”

written by admin \\ tags: Art, News

McCotter’s Lake Anna Guide Service

June 19 – Topwater Fun!

Chris Craft, Eric Fonda (center) and Chris

Mineral, VA – Here how Chris Craft’s morning went recently with some special clients….
This morning I met Eric Fonda and Chris at 5:30am. Chris is another one of the guys in Eric’s program. Eric works with special needs people. We started throwing top water and hooked up pretty quick. The first fish of the day was a nice four pounder. Chris caught the second fish on a popper and that was a funny one. He cast up and into a small tree, the popper fell to the water and I was on my way to retreive the bait…. that is when the fish ate it. We landed the fish and he measured up. The top water bite lasted about four hours and then it was time for shakey heads. Chris was throwing a Bandit 100 series crankbait and was catching everything in the lake. He caught four different species. Bass, striper, shellcracker and white perch! By the end of the day we put 16 fish in the boat and lost five. Not bad for a lake that a lot of people still refer to as “The Dead Sea” or “One Fish Anna”. LKA in the summer time can be outstanding, you just have to give her a chance!

Blogger update: Eric Fonda fished a tournament after fishing with MLAGS Associate Guide Chris Craft and Fonda won with just over 12 pounds! Good work guys.

written by admin \\ tags: News, Recreation

First Look: Ristorante Al Teatro

This new Pilsen spot is a feast for the eyes, even if the kitchen needs more rehearsal time

Ristorante Al Teatro
Address: 1227 W. 18th St., Chicago, IL, 60608
Phone: 312-784-9100
Hours: 4-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 4-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Week-old Pilsen spot Ristorante Al Teatro offers a full bill. There’s food, sure. But chef Maurizio Fonda‘s Italian fare is just part of the show. The other part, the lavish space in which it’s served, is a feast for the eyes.

In the Kitchen at Ristorante Al Teatro

The grand, 200-seat restaurant occupies the ground floor of Thalia Hall, the corner building that lords over the intersection of 18th and Allport Streets. The hall, named for the Greek muse of comedy and idyllic poetry, houses apartments on the upper levels, as well as retail spaces that are still undergoing renovations and an interior theater, the restaurant’s namesake, that’s next in line for restoration. Originally completed about the time of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the building earned city landmark designation nearly a century later, in 1989. But it was abandoned and in disrepair until late 2004, when restoration efforts began.

Though the building is late 19th Century, the ornate interior has been transformed into something almost Baroque. The restaurant has a larger-than-life feel, with four airy rooms spread out over two floors. There’s hardly an inch that’s not gilded, covered in some sort of polished stone or painted with trompe l’oeil curtains and arches. With its beautifully restored tin ceiling, fleur-de-lis patterned upholstery and other generally over-the-top embellishments (did we mention the downstairs waterfall?), there’s nowhere quite like it in the city.

Tucked away in the back of the ground-level dining room are two wood-fired pizza ovens where pizzaiolos toil under the watchful eye of a larger-than-life mural of Thalia herself. In any other restaurant, the brick ovens would be a focal point. Here, they’re just another piece of eye candy vying for your attention. But to overlook them would be a mistake.

Servers ferry the pizzas ($11.95-$14.95) from oven to table in seconds so they arrive still steaming, flame-kissed around the edges with a chewy crust and slightly wet center. As if taking a cue from the decor, the pizza menu covers a lot of ground, listing 20 options, from the house specialty pizza al galletto (roasted dark-meat chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, house-made pesto, goat cheese and mozzarella) to classics such as margherita, quattro fromaggi and pepperoni.

House-made pastas are a solid bet too, with options such as gnocchi al fromaggi ($13.95), soft, chewy pasta pillows in a rich five-cheese sauce, and rustic, mushroom-filled tortelloni alla boscaiola ($14.95).

Starting with our antipasto order-too-briny Mediterranean mussels in a savory white wine, herb and tomato broth-almost everything more nuanced than pizza or pasta went astray. Veal scaloppine ($21.95) was so overpowered by tart lemon juice that we could only manage a couple of bites before puckering up-and eventually giving up. Grigliata di calamari al limon ($14.95) suffered the opposite fate, though not to the same extreme. The grilled calamari had a divine smoky char but lacked the bright citrus notes needed for balance.

Ristorante Al Teatro owner Dominick Geraci also owns Caffe Gelato in Wicker Park, and the artisan gelati ($3.99 to go, $5.95 dine-in), available in two dozen flavors, are every bit as rich and silky as you’d expect. Other desserts, including wonderful house-made, chocolate-dipped cannoli ($7.95), are just as good. Most are available for carryout from the front gelato bar-which is perhaps your best option while Ristorante Al Teatro takes a little more time to rehearse its main act.

M. Kathleen Pratt is the Metromix dining producer. kpratt@tribune.com

written by admin \\ tags: Chicago, Dining, Entertainment, News