Fruit Basket Is a Healthy Choice

The fruit basket is as big a part of our house as the fruit bowl is a part of our breakfast. This bed and breakfast in Michigan offers healthy choices along with decadent choices. Bananas are almost always available along with apples and oranges. When peaches plums and grapefruit are in season, they make their way into the basket, too.

The breakfast bowl of fruit is our signature item. I always try to cut too much fruit so that everyone gets as much as they want. We don't mess up the mix with cream or yogurt. Whatever fruit is left over becomes my secret home-made recipe mixed fruit jam. Guests like it.

Mike Venturini
Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper
"Life is good in Jonesville"
Munro House Bed and Breakfast

Celebrity Guests at Michigan B&B

Celebrities travel to Michigan all of the time. But, how often do they come to Jonesville to stay at the Munro House B&B? Over the years, we have had the pleasure to serve a few celebrity guests out of all of the famous people in the world of news, sports, radio, television, politics, and music. Today was one of those days.

I have only lived in Michigan for 12 years. In that time, I have become aware of many Michigan celebrities that were formerly unknown to a guy from Wisconsin, but were synonymous with Michigan culture. So when a guest at our house, who is a lifelong resident of Michigan, recognized a famous person at our communal breakfast table, it was a moment of fandemonium followed by the realization that they are really just nice people who happened to share breakfast at my house.

I am sure that the celebrity was more interested in having a pleasant getaway than talking about themselves, so the conversation moved on from their personal experiences to the current situation of their industry to life in general. We enjoyed their company and sent them on their way.

So if you happened to be shopping at the antique malls in Allen today and thought that one of the other shoppers seemed familiar. Yeah, that was the person you thought it was, and it was a good thing that you didn't make a scene.

Name withheld to protect privacy.



Mike Venturini
Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper
"Life is good in Jonesville"
Munro House Bed and Breakfast

Lori's Secret Recipe Belgian Waffles

There are choices for breakfast every day at the Munro House B&B in Jonesville. Eggs are offered every day because a lot of people still like the high protein diet that was made popular during the Atkins Diet era. Some folks like a breakfast that is a little more special American Breakfast--Pancakes, Waffles, French Toast, etc. Our specialty is Lori's Secret Recipe Belgian Waffles.

The story is that when we got here and were making waffles, we realized that there was nothing special about them. So a search began to find an excellent waffle that didn't need to be covered with strawberries and whipped cream to be good. Our goal was to create a waffle that could stand on its own or with real maple syrup--that's all. 

My wife experimented for weeks until she came up with her secret recipe. Our guests consistently remark about how much they enjoy our waffles. We serve them every other day to give variety to our guests. A 2 night stay will guarantee that one of the breakfasts will feature Lori's Secret Recipe Belgian Waffles.

Mike Venturini

Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper

"Life is good in Jonesville"

Munro House Bed and Breakfast

Breakfast Fruit Bowl

The breakfast fruit bowl at the Munro House B&B is pretty special every day. It is layered with 3-10 varieties of fresh cut fruit. Today the bottom layer was red grapes, followed by the nicest strawberries I've seen this time of year. The next layer was pineapple, followed by blueberries, raspberries, and kiwi. We don't mess it up with cream or yogurt--just fresh fruit. It was very well received (as usual) by our breakfast guests. A delicious and healthy breakfast treat, or topping for our main entree.

Mike Venturini

Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper

"Life is good in Jonesville"

Munro House Bed and Breakfast

Interesting Breakfast

The best thing about our bed and breakfast is the breakfast--and it is not necessarily because of the food. The conversations over breakfast at our house leave lasting impressions on us, and hopefully on our guests, too. Just when we thought we met the nicest people in the world, more people check-in to reaffirm our belief that there are a lot of really cool people out there. They get together at our house where mingling and meeting new people is encouraged at our big old breakfast table.

When was the last time anyone said that an accountant was the life of the party? It happened twice this weekend at our house. Art was a very interesting and colorful communicator who enlightened everyone at the table with an accountant's perspective on everything from politics to the economy, higher education to investments, and history to housing in a very informal and engaging manner. We encourage the extrovert in everyone to emerge at our house

We may not have the nicest B&B in Michigan, but ours is right up there when it comes to comfort and hospitality. Who knew that Jonesville Michigan could be such a melting pot of people from across the Midwest and around the world? We hope we made a lasting impression on the getaway girls, the CPA families, the Hillsdale College parents, the anniversary couple, and the Nigerian college professor and his lovely wife. We are eagerly awaiting the next interesting people to grace our home.

Mike Venturini
Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper
"Life is good in Jonesville"
Munro House Bed and Breakfast

The Perfect Spatula

I have been the chief breakfast short order cook at the Munro House B&B in Jonesville Michigan since 1999. I have served over 20,000 breakfasts. I offer eggs every day, plus an optional choice of Belgian Waffles, or French Toast, or Pancakes along with fruit, juice, and coffee. In all that time, I have preferred one spatula over all others. It is not from Pampered Chef or Rubbermaid or any of those high end kitchen utensil manufacturers. The perfect spatula in my kitchen comes from Tailor Made Products in Elroy, WI. I have preferred this spatula over all others for its size, weight, shape, flexibility, durability, and familiarity. I bought it back in the 1990's when we lived in Wisconsin and have used it virtually every day since. Oh, I've tried other egg turners, but this has been my favorite by far.

Today will live as a day of infamy in my house. It was today that I received an odd numbered order of egg dishes for breakfast. Usually, I make everything 2 at a time and use just 2 of my 4 stove top burners. Today I decided to use 3 of the 4 burners and cooked everything as ordered. In my routine to turn off the stove top, I switched off the burners I usually use and left the third burner on... with my perfect spatula resting on it.

I came back several minutes later to find the part of my perfect spatula that was touching the burner in a near-liquid state. I carefully removed it from the stove top with 2 hands and placed it under cold running water. The molten nylon immediately hardened and my perfect spatula was saved, but is not-so-perfect anymore.

In my haste to keep it near its original shape, I inadvertently let in harden at an opposite angle. Now the bottom is the top and the top is the bottom. My search has begun to get a replacement perfect spatula. I hope that Tailor Made Products in Elroy, WI, will sell me 1 spatula. If not, I hope that someone from Wisconsin will read this post, find the spatula at their local grocer, and send it to me before my imperfect spatula wears out.

Mike Venturini

Jonesville Michigan Bed and Breakfast Innkeeper

"Life is good in Jonesville"

Munro House Bed and Breakfast

p.s. The folks at TailorMade Products read this blog and sent me 2 replacement spatulas that I received within a week of its original posting. I appreciate companies that stand behind their products and go out of their way to make consumers happy.

Thank you very much.

Mike

What's for Breakfast in Michigan?

Owning a Bed and Breakfast in Michigan sounds easy. You provide a bed and you make breakfast--simple. But what to serve for breakfast? There are eggs and sausage and bacon and bread and oatmeal and cereal... right? Then you combine ingredients and follow recipes to create a meal that people will enjoy.

We have found that to most people, a normal breakfast consists of coffee along with toast, or a pop tart, or cereal--that's it, if they have anything at all. So for most people, any hot breakfast is a real treat.

Dr. Atkins had a world famous low carbohydrate diet that was extremely popular several years ago. His diet was high in protein and low in carbs. To this day, many people still enjoy this diet for breakfast.  This creates a problem for many innkeepers, as most of us offer a breakfast loaded with carbs--pancakes, waffles, French toast, etc.

On the morning we prepared a gourmet high protein/high carb breakfast and all 14 guests informed us that they wanted just eggs on their Atkins Diet, was the morning that we decided that we had to have options for breakfast. Never again will I spend 3 hours preparing a breakfast that will be thrown away.

We decided that we would offer eggs every day. We will make them fried, scrambled, or as an omelet.  In addition to that, we will have a choice of either French toast, or waffles, or pancakes, or oatmeal. In addition to that, we will serve coffee, orange juice, bacon, and fresh cut fruit.

We decided to not go the gourmet route and just make a traditional American breakfast using family recipes--all developed by my wife, Lori. After all, for most people, any hot breakfast is a real treat.

Based on the reviews that we get, folks like our simple traditional breakfast style and our secret family recipes.  Because everything is made fresh, we can always make more, so no one leaves the table until they are full.

Mike Venturini - Innkeeper
"Life is good in Jonesville"
Munro House Bed and Breakfast