Events this week — what's on, where, and how to get in.

Syracuse Crunch vs. Laval Rocket, Military Appreciation Night — Upstate Medical University Arena at the Onondaga County War Memorial, 800 S. State St., tonight, 7 PM. Free tickets for veterans, active military and their families.

The Crunch (Syracuse's American Hockey League team) wear olive-drab camo jerseys and auction select game-worn ones on the ice after the game. Bring unopened, wrapped candy for Treats for Troops care packages, and watch Jakob Pelletier: 8 goals in his last 4 games. Details

Thursday, November 12

The Fran Brown Show, live — Meier's Creek Inner Harbor Taproom, 720 Van Rensselaer St., 7 to 8 PM. No tickets listed. Coach Fran Brown and Matt Park, the Voice of the Orange, record the weekly show live and preview NC State. Meier's Creek says fans there may get to meet Brown and ask him questions. Details

Friday, November 13

Holiday Shoppes — Horticulture Building, NYS Fairgrounds, Friday to Sunday, opens 11 AM Friday. $10; veterans and kids 12 and under free. New: $25 early entry at 10 AM Friday, with a gift and bag. Santa's back. Details

Henry V — Syracuse Stage/Drama Theater Complex, 820 E. Genesee St., 8 PM, through Saturday, Nov. 21. $15 to $25. SU Drama stages Shakespeare's young king at war with France. Details

Saturday, November 14

Great New York State Model Train Fair — Exposition Center, NYS Fairgrounds, Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM, Sunday 10 AM to 4 PM. $16; 15 and under free. 25+ working layouts and a kids' train ride. Details

Holiday on the Hill — Heritage Hill Brewery, 3149 Sweet Rd., Jamesville, Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM to 4 PM. The 4th annual: 50+ holiday and craft vendors, with Heritage Hill's beers on tap. Details

Holiday pop-up at Playa Bowls DeWitt — 3409 Erie Blvd. E., 11 AM to 2 PM, with Goldiluxe Patch Co. and KW Fitness. Details

Art Gone Wild! LIVE Auction — Rosamond Gifford Zoo, 1 Conservation Pl., 6 to 8 PM. $8 in advance, $10 at the door, $35 VIP. 40+ pieces of animal art, plus wrapped mystery pieces. Tickets

Sunday, November 15

Handle With Care Market — The McCarthy Building, 217 S. Salina St., noon to 5 PM. Vintage clothing, jewelry, candles and more, with Ayrloom setting up again. Details

Monday, November 16

Turkeys for Veterans — Raynor Lot behind Syracuse University's College of Law, 950 Irving Ave., noon to 2 PM. Free turkeys for veterans. Details

JCC Holiday Shopping Soiree — Sam Pomeranz JCC, 5655 Thompson Rd., DeWitt, 5 to 7 PM. Local vendors selling handmade gifts, artisan goods and home décor, for the JCC's early childhood program. Details

Tuesday, November 17

Kevin Young, Friends of the Central Library Author Series — John H. Mulroy Civic Center, 7:30 PM. The author of Night Watch: Poems; tickets through the Oncenter Box Office. Details

Wednesday, November 11

Harmonic Dirt and Friends — The Whiskey Coop, 120 Walton St., 6 to 9 PM. Free. Weekly Americana, folk and bluegrass night. Details

Thursday, November 12

Asphodel, Jayne Huntsman, Drugstore Makeup — Pink Rock Culture Co-op, 201 E. Jefferson St., 6:30 PM. $10. Indie pop-punk triple bill. Tickets

Annika Chambers & Paul DesLauriers — The 443 Social Club & Lounge, 443 Burnet Ave., 7 PM. $44.43 to $87.07 (most seats are tables for two). Married soul-blues and blues-rock duo; she won a 2022 Blues Music Award. Tickets

Friday, November 13

Lafayette Gilchrist — CNY Jazz Central, 441 E. Washington St., 7 PM. $27.28; students $16.78. Solo jazz piano rooted in New Orleans barrelhouse and Duke Ellington, per The New York Times. Tickets

Saturday, November 14

Echoes of America — The Syracuse Orchestra, Oncenter Crouse Hinds Theater, 7:30 PM (talk at 6:30). American music, including Barber's Adagio for Strings and Copland's Appalachian Spring. Tickets

Sunday, November 15

Happy Thanksgiving Concert on the Mighty Syracuse Wurlitzer — Empire Theater, NYS Fairgrounds, 2 PM (doors 1:30). $15; kids 16 and under $5; cash only. Juan Cardona Jr. plays the theater organ volunteers saved from demolition in 1966. Details

Joe Bell Benefit — Middle Ages Music Hall, 120 Wilkinson St., 5 to 10 PM. $25 plus fees; all ages. Sophistafunk and six more acts, for Joe Bell's medical bills. Tickets

Miracle on 34th Street, the musical, Crouse Hinds Theater, Nov. 19 to 21; opens Thursday at 7:30 PM. Tickets

Gingerbread Gallery, Erie Canal Museum, 318 Erie Blvd. E., Friday, Nov. 20 through Jan. 10. $12 adults, $5 ages 3–17.

SavorCuse's Favorite Things Holiday Market, Gereblock Lounge, 1970 W. Fayette St., Saturday, Nov. 21, 11 AM to 3 PM. The 2nd annual.

New York State Craft Brewers Festival, Landmark Theatre, Saturday, Nov. 21, 4 PM. 45+ New York breweries.

Lights on the Lake, Onondaga Lake Park, opens Saturday, Nov. 21, nightly 5 to 10 PM through Jan. 4.

One food or drink spot a week — what's new, what's worth the trip, and what to order.

The Steamy Bun, 3206 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse — steamed buns, ramen and poke; open Monday to Saturday, 11 AM to 7 PM, closed Sunday

The Steamy Bun is veteran-owned and operated, and it's taking 15% off today for Veterans Day. There's a 10% military discount every other day of the year, too.

Start with the buns, 2 to an order. The pork bun comes with roasted pork belly, cilantro, cucumber, grated peanuts and hoisin ($8.75). There's also a Korean fried chicken bun with Sriracha aioli and pickled daikon and carrot ($7.75).

Six ramen bowls run $12.95 to $14.95, from a vegetarian soybean broth to tonkotsu, a rich pork broth with pork belly, egg, mushroom, bamboo shoots and fish cake. Poke bowls are $12.95 regular and $13.95 large, the drink menu has milk tea, fruit tea and slushes, and you can reserve a table online.

We haven't been yet, but here's what we want to order: the pork buns and a bowl of tonkotsu. Check out the menu.

A deeper look at one person, place, or project in Syracuse.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que has been a Syracuse staple for decades, and it could probably coast on that. It doesn't. We were lucky to get a look at how the team keeps its food consistent: they sat us down and brought out trays, one after another, in the same lineup the managers taste every day.

Dinosaur started in 1988, serving barbecue at motorcycle rallies and festivals, and opened its downtown restaurant in 1990 as a quick-service lunch and dinner joint. Today, between the dining room and a catering business that booms every summer, that same location turns out food at serious volume.

The wood-fired smokers out back run every day on regional hickory and oak stacked right outside, with one load of meat going in at night and another in the morning. When we looked in, pork butts and briskets were turning on the rotating smoker. Inside, the kitchen makes about 24 gallons of cheese sauce a day for the mac & cheese, and on a busy day it boils as many as 450 eggs for the Creole deviled eggs.

With that much food going out every day, the team doesn't leave quality to chance. It's on the schedule: twice a day, at 11 and 4, the managers taste the entire line, from the brisket down to the applesauce. They try to have the front-of-house, smokehouse and kitchen managers there, along with anyone else from the leadership team who's in the building. They do it, in the smokehouse team's words, "so we know what we're serving."

Every item on that line has a standard, and the team can tell you exactly what it is. Pulled pork should be "pulled, not chopped." A rib should have a little bounce to it, holding a clean bite mark instead of pulling off the bone all at once. The black beans shouldn't be soup, and in the team's words, "You shouldn't be able to plant a flag in it either." When something is off, it's usually a matter of salt, and the tasting is where they catch it.

The Mr. Crisp, Dinosaur's fried chicken sandwich, takes more work than it looks. Every chicken breast is pounded thin by hand, then marinated and breaded, and the kitchen preps about 60 a day so the hard part is done before anyone orders. It comes with house pickles, crispy coleslaw and zip sauce. One of the team adds K-Pow, the house Korean BBQ sauce that normally goes on the pork belly.

Most sides are made from scratch in the kitchen, down to the gravy, which starts with stock from roasted beef bones and pig's feet. Even the fries take serious prep. The potatoes are cut, soaked for a day in water and vinegar, then drained, dried, blanched and cooled, and they're fried only once you order.

That twice-a-day tasting tells you a lot about Dinosaur. It's a big part of why the food stays consistent, and why Dinosaur is a Syracuse institution that still earns the recognition it gets. Hosting this season? Dinosaur is taking Thanksgiving dinner preorders through Nov. 18 (they may sell out sooner), and there's private dining space upstairs for the holidays.

See Dinosaur's Syracuse menu.

Construction and development around the city, in plain English.

If you drive north on I-81 through downtown and take the ramp onto eastbound I-690, that direct connection closes for good on Monday, Nov. 16, WAER reports.

It's one of several ramp changes this month. The I-81 off-ramp to Franklin and West streets (Exit 20) also closes for good, and the North Franklin Street on-ramp to West Street already did, on Tuesday, Nov. 10. The I-690 westbound off-ramp to West Street (Exit 15A) closed this morning for several years and will reopen with a new design; NYSDOT's detour sends drivers to Exit 14 (Geddes Street).

All of it is the I-81 Viaduct Project, which takes down the elevated highway through downtown and spreads its traffic across city streets (the plan known as the community grid). Bigger change comes in late 2027, when eastbound I-690 traffic gets detoured onto city streets for about 2 years.

Coverage from WAER and NYSDOT.

One neighborhood at a time — what's there, what's changing.

East Syracuse, a village of 3,039 people in the Town of DeWitt, started as Messina, a settlement on the north bank of the Erie Canal, across from Headson's Landing, a busy canal port. The landing sat where Thompson Road crossed the canal, near where Thompson Road meets Erie Boulevard East today, and a short street there, Headson Drive, still carries the name.

The railroad is what made it grow. The New York Central built freight yards and shops there, which became the major yard for sorting freight cars on the New York Central system, and the village grew up around the railroad workers and their families. East Syracuse incorporated in 1881.

In 1943, a pharmaceutical campus opened off Thompson Road. It became Bristol Labs, and a trade profile says it made nearly 70% of the world's penicillin until the mid-2000s. Production ended in 2005.

In January 2023, Lotte Biologics, a drugmaker based in Seoul, bought the campus for $160 million. On Oct. 8, it signed a deal to make biosimilars there (biologic drugs highly similar to ones the FDA has already approved) for Alvotech, an Iceland-based company.

Where to go in East Syracuse:

History from the Onondaga County and Pharmaceutical Technology.

Local sports — what just happened and what's next.

SU football lost 18-13 to Clemson on Saturday, Nov. 7. Next: Saturday, Nov. 14, noon at NC State.

SU men's basketball lost 83-80 to Indiana on Monday, Nov. 9. Next: Sunday, Nov. 15, 7 PM at St. John's, then Wednesday, Nov. 18, 8 PM vs. Cornell.

SU women's basketball beat Cornell 80-48 on Sunday, Nov. 8. Next: tonight, 6 PM vs. Siena.

SU field hockey won its first-ever ACC title. Next: the NCAA first round vs. Princeton on Friday, Nov. 13, in Storrs, Conn.

The Crunch lost 3-2 in overtime to Hartford on Saturday, Nov. 7. Next: tonight vs. Laval, then Friday, Nov. 13, 7 PM vs. Toronto. Schedule

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— Salt City Club Team