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Mansion PatigHlnurmtl Good to be home Welcome the Winstons! My life will never be the same! For the first time in 11 years, I have family right here in middle Georgia. While I was away this summer, my son Jeff Winston (a former Northside High School English teach er and coach) and his wife 1 Mendi Smith Winston (a native of Warner Robins and graduate of Northside) and their three children, Zach, 13, Courtney and Keeley, 10, small dog and four cats, moved into my house - tem porarily - while they scoured the area looking of a house to buy in Houston County. They bought one, and they will be moving out of my house shortly (smile). Since they are now mem bers of the Perry communi ty, I want to introduce them to you and extend to them a warm Georgia howdee!! Jeff is teach ing ninth grade English at Perry High School and doing some coach ing. Prior to mov ing from 9HI IHSi JlflL ’ * MM Jane Winston The Left Rail fNtaiia@tf.tf Indiana, he was the varsity tennis coach, and the varsity golf coach. He has taught English grades eighth-12, coached men and women’s basketball and is a certified basketball referee. Mendi is in the special education department of Perry Middle School and is the coach of the seventhth grade girl’s softball team. Mendi was a scholarship softball play er at Macon State, and she coached the girl’s varsity softball team in Indiana. John Zachary (Zach) is an eighth grader at Perry Middle School. He is 13 and has done it all: football, basketball, golf, tennis, the atre and band (saxophone) plus serves as a class officer in his seventh grade class in Attica, Indiana. Courtney and Keeley are the 10-year old twins, and they are fifth graders at King’s Chapel Elementary School. They are great softball players as well as bundles of energy and fun, and whereas they are not identical, I challenge you, when you meet them, to figure out which one is which. I am delighted to have them here. This means I don’t have to move north! A Good Read Last count, I read a dozen books since early May ... some good and some bad, real bad. I will skip the sharing of the bad ones, OK? The Glass Castle - I learned of this book while traveling through Michigan. It is required reading for all incoming freshmen at Michigan State University, plus the book is being used as a “one book, one com munity” project (a proj ect I hope to launch in the area this year). No writ ten assignment is attached, but students are required to attend the assembly where the author speaks and signs autographs. Additionally, they are required to attend discussion groups held on campus and in the commu nity. These provide students the opportunity to meet and learn with other students and members of the com munity. Another plus is that each new student will have See WINSTON, page 4C SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2006 ■■■■lMilßlf M WTt|ta - j/f *■"% * JBnxSSsm ■ ■ —— - - " m. ill IIH IP u ENI/Gary Harmon Josie Piotrowski and Hank Dean welcome guests at their Warner Robins restaurant, which opened in March. Couple providing WR new menu delights By JOE SERSEY Journal Correspondent It’s true! The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Just ask Josie Piotrowski. She met Hank Dean and the two of them opened Sumthin Diffrent Restaurant off Watson Blvd., in Warner Robins in March. At the time the two met, Dean owned Macon Cycles, a Harley Davidson repair and service center. He and his four employ ees were subsisting on TV dinners. “We were eating what ever we could find,” Dean said. “I started seeing Josie, and she started cook ing for all of us. “We were flipping out over her food.” He grew tired of the chop per business and started thinking restaurant. He said that everybody who worked at Macon Cycle told him, “It would be great if she had her own restaurant.” Piotrowski had been a chef for 25 years but had never owned her own place. Her good fortune was meeting a man who had spent most of his life self-employed. Dean, an Albany native, has spent most of his working life as his own boss. Before his foray It’s all simply just a matter of taste I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was something I never in my life thought I would witness: my sister eating a green bean and enjoying it! My sister is well-known for her dislike, even hatred, of green beans, something she proved to my brother in-law early in their rela tionship by gagging and running to the bathroom when he cajoled her into eating one. But there she was, munch ing away. It seems she likes this particular veggie if it is stir-fried and still on the crispy side. What she doesn’t like is green beans cooked the Southern way - soft and mushy and sea soned to perfection with some fatback. Lifestyle ”1 used to get excited about motorcycle psrts. Now I get excited about kitchen equipment." - Hank Dean into motorcycle repair, he worked in web design. He also had his own country/rock band that attracted the attention of people from Nashville. His band was called Hank and Hard Knocks, and he played guitar and sang. “We played on Farm Club in Hollywood (Calif.),” he said. “It had a television audience of four and half million.” Dean still plays and also masters CDs, but his first interest is his restaurant. “I used to get excited about motorcycle parts,” he explained. “Now I get excited about kitchen equipment. “You can always get another bike, but you can’t always open another busi ness.” In fact, he is so com mitted to the success of this restaurant he sold his 2002 Harley Fat Boy to help with start-up costs. See COUPLE, page 4C My family can rarely get together without discuss ing everyone’s various likes and dislikes. For instance, neither my sister nor I like nuts in sweets. No brown ies with walnuts, no con gealed salads with pecans, no white chocolate maca damia nut cookies for us, thank you very much. I say why put nuts in a cookie to take up space where choco late could go? Ah, but that’s where our taste bud similarities end. She likes bell peppers; I can only eat them if they’re cooked beyond recognition or diced so finely I mistake them for celery. I like turnip greens and collards. To her, they’re right up there with green beans. And she likes coconut. or, ’‘MmtM t‘% * » TBps 1 V.'‘> "“'A ' ' A '' y\.f" •'* |k Sf&Sk. i _ _ ENI Gary Harmon Dean watches as Piotrowski gets ready to cook food that will have their customers “flipping out.” Ugh. Just the thought of it makes me shiver and makes my taste buds cringe. * rr Sherri Martin The Front Porch Anything that hints of the word gelatin makes him jiggle inside. He says there’s just something not natural about it. My mother also likes just about anything, except salmon. If we have salmon croquettes for supper then go over to her house for a visit, she’ll sniff and say, “You had salmon for sup per, didn’t you? Blech!” I have taken to planning ahead; if I know we’re going over there, I’ll just think of something else to cook. Then there is my hus band, who has his own set of strange likes and dis likes. He calls himself a “super taster” after hear ing a news report of people who have and more sensi tive taste buds, and more of them, than most people, so their likes and dislikes are more extreme. I think they are also super smell ers, because the other day when I closed up a package of baked cheese chips I had been entertaining our sons and myself with while rid- M y brother in-law, on the other hand, prides himself on liking justabout anything, except jello. SECTION c ing in hjs truck, he said, “Finally!* I didn’t know the smell had been bothering him. He elaborated, “If y’all weren’t missing most of your taste buds you would know those things taste yucky!” He’s quite the critic. Of course, his super taste buds sometimes don’t real ize they like something until he has no choice but to give the food a good try, which is how he came to love asparagus. So I have hope that some where out there will be a few more foods he will give another good try and come to like. Then I will be able to expand our menus. Hey, if my sister can eat a green bean and smile, any thing is possible.