I love brunch. What’s not to love? Breakfast is great, and lunch is great. Put them together and you have possibly the best meal of the day.

There is a restaurant that serves brunch on the weekends in my hometown, so when I came to MSU I just had to find another place I could go to.

This past Sunday before I came into the newsroom, I made a stop at Clara’s Lansing Station, 637 E. Michigan Ave., Lansing, for its Sunday brunch.

I’m a sucker for the small-town feel to a restaurant, and Clara’s didn’t disappoint. I like its unique train station style. Although for me it has a small-town feel, the restaurant is pretty big, and I loved actually being able to eat in a train car.

The setup for the restaurant is very neat, but you can’t forget about the food. The Sunday brunch was amazing, with eggs, biscuits and gravy, fish, shrimp, meatballs and more.

Although I only live about 45 minutes away from Lansing and have been in Lansing several times, I’m not very familiar with the different places to eat.

So I like to experiment new places as I hear about them from my friends. A couple of weeks ago, a friend in the newsroom told me about The Golden Harvest, 1625 Turner Street, in Lansing Charter Township. Although she warned me of the long lines, she said it was worth the wait, so I decided to check it out.

Last Saturday, I went with a friend from high school, and she decided to stay simple and order an omelet. However, I decided to try something I never really tried before. I’ve had french toast before, but I’ve never had blackberry and custard french toast. It was delicious, and was something completely different than I’m used to. I also looked at the rest of the menu, and I could see they tried and put their own twist on simple foods, and in my case it proved to be a great decision.

The food was the main part of my satisfaction, but I enjoyed the small-town feel to it. The employees were very enjoyable, and made my time there worth sharing. I thought this was a great place to go out to eat for breakfast or lunch, and if your parents are in town for the weekend, The Golden Harvest is a great place to spend a Saturday morning with family because of its family atmosphere.

Increases in the price of gasoline outpaced the earnings of workers during March, according to a New York Times report.

Consumer prices in March increased 0.3 percent, while gasoline prices rose 1.7 percent.

Workers’ earnings, on the other hand, fell 0.4 percent in March, according to the report.

Core inflation also rose, raising the price of products such as food and energy.

Positive consumer sentiment in regards to the economy and pricing slipped slightly, but electricity costs fell by nearly 1 percent.
As costs increase, the jobless continue to struggle.

In another report published on the New York Times website, the number of unemployment claims last week jumped to 380,000, after experts estimated the number of claims filed would drop to about 355,000.

Wells Fargo Securities economist Tim Quinlan said in the article that the statistic “bolsters the view that things are starting to slow down.”

Large corporations in the United States could continue to add jobs in the years to come despite some current struggles with the nation’s economy, according to one author.

In a report published by The New York Times, Gus Faucher, an economist with PNC Financial Services Group, notes that in the last quarter of 2011, corporate profits after taxes hit a higher level than prior to the recession.

This comes after corporate profits grew by 32 percent in 2010, without taking inflation into account.

Net cash flow among companies was also high, according to the report, topping more than $1.8 trillion on an annualized basis.

Those two factors mean that companies could continue to add jobs at a rate of about 200,000 per month.

Healthier profits for companies will continue to drive the stock market, experts agree.

The Soup Spoon Cafe, 1419 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing, is a perfect spot to enjoy a quite lunch or get together with some friends for a bite to eat.

The beautiful pictures on the wall brings a small town feeling to it, but the restaurant also is big enough to accompany a large group of co-workers.

While I was there, I enjoyed a delicious bowl of cheesy broccoli and bacon soup I thought was some of the best soup I have had in a while. After living a “routine” life the last couple of weeks, I thought Soup Spoon was a great place to get out of the dorm and explore Lansing.

The gentle background music also gives it a fun atmosphere to eat in, and the employees had a fun time to lighten the atmosphere even more.

If you’ve been stuck in your dorm for a while, Soup Spoon Cafe is only a short bus ride away and is fairly inexpensive.

Two economists argue in a recent paper that lengthier recessions damage future prospects for an economic recovery, according to a report in The New York Times.

J. Bradford DeLong, a professor at the University of California, and Larry Summers, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, write that recessions may do more than simply disrupt the economy — they may lead to lasting damage.

Over time, The New York Times report notes that reduced capital investments, declining research and development expenditures and lengthier periods of unemployment decrease the likelihood that economies can bounce back from recessions.

The United States has rebounded from previous recessions before — including the Great Depression — but other economies have struggled to bounce back from economic downturns, according to the report.
And the longer workers stay out of the workforce, the longer it takes the labor supply to rebound, the report states.

Volunteering and community service was all Stacy Johnson-Powell knew growing up, and she continues to give back using the business she started two years ago.

In March 2010, Johnson-Powell opened Fran’s House and Rudy’s Kitchen in Pomona, Calif. — where she currently resides — and in January of this year, she opened another nonprofit shop at 1500 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing selling See’s Candies.

After having the business in Pomona for more than a year, Johnson-Powell decided to open a shop in Lansing. However, Johnson-Powell isn’t new to the Lansing area, having lived in the area for a short period of time, and still has family in the area.
“I like See’s Candies because it started out as a family business,” Johnson-Powell said. “It’s also the finest chocolate I’ve ever tasted.”
See’s Candies also started out as a family business, and has grown to over 200 shops. In an episode of the 1950s TV show “I Love Lucy,” See’s Candies gained notoriety during a famous scene showing Lucille Ball eating the candies off of a conveyer belt. Then in 1972, the company was sold to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. — whose CEO is Warren Buffett.

However, selling See’s Candies is just a small part of Johnson-Powell’s business. She also has decided to make her business nonprofit, and uses See’s Candies to raise money for different causes.

For example, her store in Pomona offers free ultrasounds for both men and women, and it offers a room people can use for business meetings.

“The whole reason (my business is nonprofit) is because my parents have done community service their whole life,” Johnson-Powell, whose business is named after her parents, said. “I wanted to continue what they have been doing, and I don’t know anything else.”

With the movie adaptation of the popular series “The Hunger Games” set to hit theaters Friday, the book’s publisher is reaping the benefits.

Sales of the trilogy by Scholastic Corporation in the last quarter spiked drastically, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, allowing the company to narrow its losses for its last quarter.

Shares of the company’s stock rose 13 percent to $36.36 on Thursday, as adults read the series digitally and younger people — including MSU students — picked up the book in print.

More than one million e-book versions of the trilogy have been sold, and the book’s author, Suzanne Collins, is the top-selling Kindle author of all time, according to Amazon.

Both underscore a growing trend toward digital technology and books.
The series centers around 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic nation called Panem.

The nation’s 12 districts are controlled by a cruel and ruthless Capitol that forces its citizens to participate in and watch a yearly televised fight to the death in punishment for a past rebellion.

Experts have projected the movie could make more than $100 million in its opening weekend alone.

The books have been translated into 26 different languages and have received numerous popular reviews.

More than 5 percent of total retail sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 came from online shoppers, according to a report released by the Department of Commerce.

The Wall Street Journal reports that more than $61 billion of retail transactions occurred online in 2011’s fourth quarter, a 16 percent increase from the same time period in 2010.

Some area businesses, including Curious Books Shop, 307 E. Grand River Ave., have websites that allow you to purchase products online, but it’s unclear how large a portion of sales come from online versus in-store purchase.

The surge in online sales can be attributed to greater comfort among consumers purchasing products through the Internet, according to the article.

City officials said retail trends in East Lansing tend to follow national trends, including that of declining retail sales and closing businesses.

Some businesses tend to do better than others, some close and some flourish, East Lansing Planning and Community Development Director Tim Dempsey said.

Employers across the country added more than 240,000 jobs during the month of January, according to a report from the Department of Labor, an employment trend also reflected in a recent report examining the Lansing and East Lansing metropolitan area’s job creation.

The Department of Labor’s report said the unemployment rate across the country fell to its lowest level in three years, as employers added 243,000 jobs in January, while research released from The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., ranked the Lansing and East Lansing metropolitan area No. 1 in the country among 100 metropolitan regions in three job creation areas last year.

East Lansing and Lansing were ranked tops for job creation in manufacturing, goods producing and transportation and utilities, which can be attributed to a rise in manufacturing positions, city officials said.

In the month of January at the national level, jobs in manufacturing also saw a large amount of growth, while federal government downsizing continued.