Saranac has once again come out victorious at a national competition, this time at the Great American Beer Festival, held Sept. 24-26 in Denver. This brings the Utica brewery’s awards in 2009 to 10. Saranac’s award-winning beers were the Irish Red and Black Forest.

This time of year, also known as soup season, it’s nice to devise different side dishes to go with the hearty pots of goodness simmering on your stovetop. The Fillo Factory has just the ticket for you, as long as you don’t go overboard with their tasty, but high-fat, treats. Three of these two-bite taste treats will set you back 190 calories. Or serve these finger foods as appetizers during holiday season.

Click here to flip through photos from our Best of Syracuse Awards Party.

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John Barrymore’s ghost launches the laughs in Cortland Repertory’s I Hate Hamlet

One of the late Joseph Papp’s best ideas was staging Shakespeare for free in Central Park, and then casting people not usually associated with classical theater in leading roles. John Cazale (Fredo in the The Godfather movies), to name but one, was breathtaking as the puritanical Angelo in Measure for Measure. This week anticipation is running high for Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries, Rachel Got Married) as the cross-dressing Viola in Twelfth Night. But the risk of public humiliation is palpable for an otherwise successful TV or film actor.

Gone are the days when libraries serve as a respite from the distractions of a chaotic, new-millennium world. Instead, post-modern entropy that sounds more like the pangs of a raging guitar solo, the clattering of a bowl-a-thon and the clash of epic battles among fantastic creatures has invaded libraries, Jumanji-style, in the form of videogaming nights. Locally, the Fayetteville Free Library, 300 Orchard St., Fayetteville, is the first to offer such distractions. The programs feature new gaming equipment the library bought this year, including projectors that serve as huge monitors for Playstation 2 and Wii consoles with attractions like Wii Sports and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

Word is that the local fallout from the bursting of the Starbucks bubble will affect three of the newest stores opened in Central New York. Unofficial but uniformly polite Starbucks spokespeople have confirmed that the coffee shops at Sweetheart Corner, 3911 Brewerton Road, North Syracuse, at Carrier Circle, 6570 Weighlock Drive, East Syracuse and in Cicero, 7897 Brewerton Road, will all shut their doors sometime in the next eight months.

There was a threat of thunderstorms throughout the weather forecast for July 9, but nary a droplet fell from the occasionally cloudy afternoon during Mike Price Appreciation Day festivities at Onondaga Lake Park. No sirree, nothing was going to rain on this guy’s parade, as Price, 71, was embarking on a well-deserved retirement after nearly 46 years with WSYR-Channel 9, with several hundred fans and friends joining in to wish him well.

New Times publisher Art Zimmer has guested on local TV’s cooking shows, including a memorable blood-curdling encounter on the old Freaky Flix and Food, so it was only a matter of time before Food for Thought, the chat-and-chow half-hour series airing on WCNY-Channel 24, would come calling. On Tuesday, July 22, 12:30 p.m., Art will talk about all things Art with co-hosts George Kilpatrick and Chris Xaver, while preparing a special recipe; vivacious promotions manager Marlene Belge will also be on hand to discuss the July 26 Street Painting Festival, which moves this year to the 200 block of downtown’s Montgomery Street. The show repeats at 10 p.m. on WCNY 2 on Time Warner Cable’s Channel 12.