Jake's Burgers

The other day at the shopping center a guy handed me a flyer for a special promotion at Jake's Wayback Burgers and informed me, with supreme confidence, that their milkshakes were simply the best.
I was not about to resist a sales pitch like that. So the other night, after an afternoon of yard work, I went to Jake's with two of my favorite dinner companions, all of us first-time visitors.
Taste-Testers #1 and #2 had Jake's Cheeseburgers (two patties) and they were delicious; Taste-Tester #3, the youngest member of the party, had the chicken fingers, his usual order at restaurants, and reported they were very good.
All of us had the French fries, which were fresh, hot and the right degree of crispy.
"I'm not a big fan of fries, but these were good," said Taste-Tester #1.
And, yes, all three of us had the milkshakes, which were ice-cold and just the right consistency -- very good.
The place was bustling on a Saturday at 6 p.m., mostly with families. There are ten tables, plus counter space, and you can order your meal to go as well.
Jake's is on Route 1 east of Kennett Square, between Applebee's and the Hilton Garden Inn.
(If it were up to me, I would add that the yummy milkshakes were enhanced by the retro-style metal containers they came in, but that didn't impress jaded Taste-Tester #3: "Who cares?" he opined.)

Book 'em

Hats off to Leah Gower and her staff, who undertook the mammoth job of running the Unionville Used Book Sale. I stopped by on Saturday -- opening night has just gotten too crowded for me -- and as always had a great time browsing though the vast selection of books, everything from Rod McKuen poetry to a lab manual for dissecting rabbits, from Nancy Drew to Richard Brautigan to John Fowles. There were coffee-table books, kids' books, romances, mysteries, foreign language dictionaries, textbooks and even old VHS tapes ("What are those?" I overheard a boy asking his mom). Everything was very well organized and labeled, and there were lots of volunteers on hand, including high-school kids racking up their community service hours.

Let's be careful out there

As soon as I posted last week's item about the international e-mail scam that almost trapped my parents, I heard from two readers who had received similar fraudulent e-mails last summer. So beware if you get an e-mail purporting to be from a traveling friend who claims to have gotten mugged and begs you to wire cash to a foreign address!

Good germs

According to a European study in the latest "New England Journal of Medicine," children who live on farms have a much lower risk of developing asthma than suburban and urban dwellers because the rural children are exposed to a greater diversity of germs, helping to fortify their immune systems. The researchers collected samples of dust from houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, analyzed the microbes in the samples and linked the data to the incidence of asthma in each family.
The scientists stressed that it was the variety of bugs that made the difference, not the sheer number.

Dollars and rubles

The ATM screen at my bank (Wachovia, soon to be Wells Fargo) informed me the other day that it now is capable of doing business in Russian, and even showed some sample Cyrillic lettering to prove it. Who knew there was a demand for Russian-language banking services in southern Chester County?
I visited Wells Fargo's website to find out about this new service and found a really interesting little essay by historian Ileana Bonilla about the bank's links with Russia, dating back to the early 20th century. For instance:
"In 1912, Wells Fargo made sending money to Russia easier by introducing Foreign Postal Remittances. D.G. Mellor, the Foreign Traffic Manager at the time, stated that in offering this service Russians were one of the groups at whom they were aiming "the great field of [their] efforts." These remittances would be for "people who have money to send to their home villages in Europe, where there are usually no banks and where our foreign money orders, printed in English, cannot be read or understood."
Through correspondent banks, Wells Fargo would arrange for cash to be mailed directly to the recipient. The new service allowed Russians in the U.S. the convenience of sending money back home easily, knowing it would arrive right at the door of their relative or friend."

Fighting back

The Bayard Taylor Memorial Library, the Brandywine Valley Girl Scout service unit and the community group Consecha ("Harvest") are together sponsoring a showing of "Bullied," a documentary about a gay teenager who fights back against his tormenters. Dr. Loren Pearson, a psychologist with the Kennett Consolidated School District, will lead a discussion after the movie. The film is appropriate for sixth-graders and up. The movie will be shown at the library, 216 E. State St., Kennett, at 5:30 p.m. March 10. There is no admission charge, but please register with library director Donna Murray at dmurray@ccls.org or call 610-444-2702.
Loren told me that the bullying that today's kids face is not just the harassment you may remember from your school days: nowdays they have to contend with pervasive cyberbullying by e-mail, Facebook, MySpace and text messages. And, as we know from recent tragic headlines, the consequences can be deadly.

Mango

La Michoacana Homemade Ice Cream is opening for the season on Saturday, March 5! If I were a betting woman, I would wager this is the absolute best news you will read in "The Kennett Paper" this week. La Michoacana is at 321 East State Street in Kennett, and Noelia and her staff serve up delicious ice cream in traditional and exotic flavors. My favorites are coffee and mango, but I have friends who love their corn ice cream, with cinammon sprinkled on it.