Jim Duncan

3 weeks ago | dmcityview.com | Jim Duncan

Food Dude 4/2/2025The year was 1978, a most Dickensian time. A murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, ended 909 American lives while Israel and Egypt were finding accord at Camp David, Maryland.

3 weeks ago | dmcityview.com | Jim Duncan

Feature Story 4/2/2025Growing up in 1950s Des Moines, my family’s backdoor neighbor was an elderly German professor of Humanities at Grinnell College. Because our backyards were our baseball fields, we kids had several run-ins with the prof whenever we tried to retrieve foul balls from his fenced-in yard. “Get out of my yard.

3 weeks ago | dmcityview.com | Jim Duncan

Art News 4/2/2025The world edged a little closer to discovering what art is, thanks to the German court system. At least, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice determined what art isn’t — that being Birkenstock sandals. The German company that makes those, which goes back to 1774, filed a lawsuit against three competitors who sold sandals that were similar.

3 weeks ago | dmcityview.com | Jim Duncan

Lunch With... 4/2/2025David Baruthio is Des Moines’ most traveled top chef. A native of Strasbourg, France, the “cradle of great chefs,” he began working in Michelin star restaurants at age 15 under Hubert Maetz, and then under Gordon Ramsey at Aubergine, his breakout restaurant in Chelsea, England. Baruthio brought new ideas about dining to town more than two decades ago.

1 month ago | dmcityview.com | Jim Duncan

Feature Story 3/5/2025If anything has been learned from the popularity of DNA-based ancestry services, other than that your test results are likely being sold to insurance companies, it’s that “pure” blood is extremely rare. That is particularly true for ethnic groups who identify with places that have been conquered and reconquered throughout their histories.