The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

BUT DID HE GET FREE PARKING????

Yesterday was truly an historic day. "A staggering defeat...for the former mayor," says Jim Schaefer of the Detroit Free Press in their live blog announcing the verdict of Former Mayor and Convicted Felon Kwame Kleptocrat Kilpatrick's corruption trial. This was the day that Detroiters made it clear that we're taking our city back. It was the equivalent of the moon landing and the day Kennedy was shot for Detroit citizens, as all of us will remember exactly where we were when Kwame was found guilty on 24 counts. This was also the day that Ferndale's city council finally acquiesced to Ferndalians' incessant whining about a 25-cent-per-hour parking rate increase and decided to roll back the rates to the much more community-friendly 50 cents per hour AND continue offer free parking until March 24. WE TOTALLY WON, YOU GUYS. [Freep / Lower Ferndale's Parking Rates FB]

Chef James Rigato of The Root Restaurant and Bar is the only Michigan Chef nominated for Food + Wine's People's Best New Chef Award for the Great Lakes Region. 1 of 10 in the Great Lakes Region, 1 of 100 in the US. Show your support for the local food movement; a vote for James is a vote for Michigan! [F+W]

Awrey Bakeries, LLC is here to stay. Unlike Kwame. [MLive]

Where to go for St. Patrick's Day in Detroit? All of these places. [Visit Detroit]

Plus Mudgie's special St. Pat's menu is available through March 17. [Mudgie's]

And Bastone's goes until the 24th. [Bastone]

So guess who decided to talk to Crain's Detroit Business after all? David Overton, Detroit native and CEO of The Cheesecake Factory (which has its roots in Detroit), explains why Novi, why now, and why it took them so long to come home. [Crain's]

New Food Network show produced by Gordon Ramsay and hosted by Tyler Florence is now casting; local teams with pre-existing relationships battle it out for their own restaurant space inside a Michigan mall which they will get rent-free for a year. [RO Patch]

So now both Barrio AND the Hamilton Room are closed; apparently it's just getting too hard to be a nightclub in Birmingham. But never fear, the former owner is a partner in the new venture taking over the old Sangria space in Royal Oak, because Royal Oak is A-OK with nightclub douchebaggery! [Downtown Publications]

One of Mila Kunis's favorite places to eat while staying in metro Detroit to film Oz The Great and Powerful was Ronin Sushi. So there you go. Go there and you just MIGHT be putting your mouth on the same silverware that touched Mila Kunis's and, like, 700,000 other people's. But Mila Kunis! [My Fox]

Bruce Campbell's chin made an appearance at Tom's Oyster Bar in Royal Oak. [Tom's FB]

Atwater Brewery has been in a very (very) slow process of expanding over the past several years, with a whole lot of best laid plans falling through in between. Now it seems like they're about to (finally) explode, not with just expansions but with a brewpub in Grosse Pointe Park - another project spearheaded by the Cotton family, who are pretty much re-building that area themselves - and plans for a distillery operating by the end of 2014. [Crain's]

For those of you who like to piss and moan that Zingerman's Delicatessen et.al. is too expensive, shut up. For the love of God and Jesus and Allah and Obama and Jehovah/Elohim/Adonai, just shut up already. [RH Reality Check]

The official grand opening of Sauced at Go Comedy! Improv Theater was Sunday featuring lots of Guinness-ified food stuffs. [Thrillist]

B. Nektar in Ferndale has added jobs and a second location. [Metromode]

The Dunch Club is back in biz every Thursday 2-8 p.m. [Dunch Club FB]

Oh good, someone else repurposed this press release. eat ... catering and chef services in Ann Arbor has expanded their menu offerings! [AnnArbor.com]

Somewhere on the Facebooks I made a comment about the coming craft-beer-MEETS-craft-cocktail craze. (Wouldn't it be nice if you could search your own FB history?) Anyway, so the Daily Mail UK has confirmed: yes, beer cocktails are indeed becoming A Thing. [Daily Mail UK]

Historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects are talked about a lot in Detroit, but Oakland County isn't slacking either. Here OC Preservation Architect Ron Campbell talks about different projects going on around the county and why historic preservation is better all around, with shout-outs to Vinsetta Garage and Clarkston Union Bar + Kitchen. [Prosper]

Auburns Hills is working hard at establishing their own downtown Main Street community, and the cozy modern American Elwell Grill is part of that development. [Prosper]

Noam Kimelman isn't trying to "save" Detroit, but he is trying to get more healthful food options in the locations where Detroiters often grab quick snacks on the go: gas stations, convenience stores and the like. While others quibble over the definition of "food desert," Kimelman actually did something about it: hence, Fresh Corner Cafe was born. [UIX]

Tony Wisne Sabina, the uncompromising founder of Tribute and Epoch Hospitality Group, died at age 48 last week. May her legacy not die with her. [Crain's]

Detroit's iconic Sydney Boggs candies (which went bankrupt and closed in 2002) are reborn at Berkley's Sydney Boggs Sweet Essentials, run by long-time Boggs candy makers. [Prosper]

Miscellaneous
~Taco Bell's Cool Ranch Doritos Taco Loco is as real as gonorrhea. [Daily Finance]
~We've been abiding for 15 years now. [CNN]
~Of interest to Detroit/Brooklyn comparisons; this is what it means to be "the new Brooklyn." (Do you see a little bit of Detroit in this already?) [Esquire]
~Pyongyang has threatened to end a 60-year armistice with South Korea, which would likely lead to imminent war. Meanwhile, in New York, a judge says to Mayor Bloomberg "Let my sodas go." [Guardian / Death + Taxes]
~Staged or not, this is the best photo bomb in all of history. [106.9 WRQK FB]