Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 30, 1993 TAG: 9308300024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The coffee-and-dessert crowd in Roanoke recently was shocked to discover that a favorite item has disappeared from Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea on the Roanoke City Market.
The Italian cookies known as biscotti, both chocolate-covered and plain, no longer are sold there.
Doug and Evie Robison, owners and operators of Wildflour Cafe and Catering at Towers Shopping Center, are too busy with their new Buck Mountain Grille to provide wholesale biscotti - or their Killer Carrot Cake, lemon bars and granola bars - to Mill Mountain any more.
This is a serious matter to the coffee shop's regulars, some of whom have vowed, jokingly, never to return.
The shop sold some 16 dozen biscotti each week. With its Blacksburg and Richmond branches, the chain went through about 24 dozen - or 288 - per week, Roanoke manager Janet Carty said.
Fortunately, there is a creamy side to this dark brew of news. Biscotti are still available at the Wildflour and at the Buck Mountain Grille on U.S. 220 South.
"People are real surprised to find them here," Evie Robison said. "They've always been a pretty lackluster item at our place. It's nice to see them sell."
Carty, meanwhile, has gone to Plan B. "We have three or four bakers trying to come up with their version of biscotti," she said, "and we're getting close."
\ Small change
There's so much conflicting information about the economy out there, it's hard to figure out whether we're still wallowing in a recession.
Wonder no more. The most telling economic indicator of all says we're living in nasty financial times.
Escalator repairmen doing maintenance on the up escalator at the\ Roanoke Regional Airport recently found only $1.06 in change that had been dropped into the machinery. Most were dimes.
Am embarrassingly small yield - considering that, on a good day, a dismantled escalator can yield $20 bills.
Tight-fisted, sticky-fingered travelers are telling us that there is still very much a recession going on.
\ Basque-ing in the limelight
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers is hosting an exchange student from the Basque region of Spain.
That part of the country has long harbored secessionist tendencies, which has given Bowers a new punch line for his favorite crusade.
"He's a separatist," Bowers says, when he introduces his exchange student. "I'm a consolidator."
'\ They asked too soon
Bowers, meanwhile, is puzzled about something.
A few weeks ago, a scientific survey showed that 90 percent of residents were satisfied with life in the city. And they were generally pleased with City Council.
But there was a sudden change in residents' views when they learned council was looking into the possible takeover of Roanoke Gas Co. The city was besieged with hundreds of phone calls from angry residents who said council should leave the gas company alone.
Was the survey accurate?
"I am surprised that it could have changed that much so fast," Bowers says.
\ Expensive, but affordable
Two of Virginia's most expensive colleges have been listed by a consumer magazine among the nation's 100 most-affordable schools.
Your Money magazine, in its August/September issue, placed Hollins College in Roanoke County and Roanoke College in Salem on a list of 100 colleges and universities whose financial aid packages put an otherwise costly education in the affordable range.
The magazine equated "affordable" with "generous." The schools were listed based on their ability to fully meet the financial needs of their students.
A truly generous school, according to the magazine, was one that offered each student a financial package that made up the entire difference between its tuition and the amount his or her family could afford to pay.
At Hollins, 61 percent of incoming freshman are receiving some form of financial aid. At Roanoke College, that figure is close to 90 percent.
\ Hot in the hot tub
The Salem hot-tub lover case has taken a bizarre turn.
The man who earlier this month told a local TV station that he had been accused falsely of engaging in frothy sex in full view of his neighbors now says he knows nothing about the complaints.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm too old to fool with a hot tub," the man said.
Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King wrote the man, suggesting that he build a privacy fence around his hot tub or take his love life indoors.
Roanoke's WSLS (Channel 10) later aired an interview in which the man - his face partially obscured to protect his identity - claimed that he had been falsely accused.
Now, however, the man tells us that he neither received King's letter nor talked with Channel 10.
by CNB