Why I Oughta...

9 bucks for 3 cans?  Seems cheap to me.  They are stamped D.O.P but are they really from San Marzano?

Last week, I posted a photo and description of the Suncast Wood and Resin Playset from our local Costco in Oak Brook Illinois and commented that I was pleased that we purchased the Cedar Summit version last year because I preferred the looks of all-wood version over this year's edition that has a lot of plastic panels and elements.  I was surprised that Costco eliminated the Cedar Summit folks in favor of Suncast - it seemed odd to me that they'd take out a nice (seemingly) higher-end product and replace it with something that I perceived as being lower-end with increased pricing. A few days later, I received a nice note from the folks at Cedar Summit that set me straight and provided some good news for Costco Playset/Swingset shoppers around the country.  They, indeed, are selling this year's Cedar Summit edition and it is called the " Mountainview Resort '.  He also laid out the facts: The Suncast plastic/wood playset is ONLY available in the Midwest an...

Guess who runs an award-winning event design firm in Chicago ?  That's right, my dear wife Nat now does with her Chicago event design and planning firm   Pemberley Events ! Last week, it was announced that her team won the "Inspired Creations" contest at IndieWed.  I'm so very proud of her and all the effort she put into it.  I went to IndieWed to help her team break down their booth earlier this year and even though I don't have a lot of sense of style/fashion/what have you, it was plain to see that Nat's team put the most thought and effort into the contest and deserved to win. If you're looking for event planning and design ,   wedding planning and design in Chicago , or even just a Chicago Wedding Planner , you can't go wrong with Pemberley Events .

The mold for my Easter Bunny Faux Chocolate craft project arrived via the USPS a few days ago.  He's about 11" tall which is about the same as the ones I made last year.  Here's last year's version of the Faux Chocolate Bunny craft project . I made four of them last year with Durham's Water Putty and gave three of them away.  Hopefully, I'll find time to make at least four of them again this year to start what I'll call a 'collection'. Now that I have the mold, it is just a matter of buying enough Water Putty and paint!

On Saturday, we went to Angelo Caputo's up in Addison for some various items including the Chellino Scamorza Cheese that I use in our pizza making.  Unfortunately, Caputo's was all sold out.  Weird.  But, I didn't want to give up, so Nat pulled out her phone and found this place:  Amici's Italian Deli and Fruit Market in Westmont.  We called them and asked if they carried Chellino Scamorza?  Sure enough, they have a lot of it they said. When we arrived, I immediately went to the refridgeration case and saw these beauties. A whole dollar cheaper than Caputo's at $5.99. We found a few other items to pick up, but didn't give the store a real good once-over.  It appears to be a solid Italian deli with the majority of the customers milling around in the back by the deli counter.  Lots of cuts of meat, lots of sliceable meats.  We'll give it a shot for lunch one day soon.

There's a few new houses going up in Elmhurst and as we drive through the neighborhood, it has been fun to watch them come together.  One of them - which is across York Street from us - has been going up fast.  Nat noticed that they had put up their siding and had chosen vertical red siding for the garage - making it look just like a red barn in their backyard.  The photo I took above is from the alley in back. Pretty stinkin' cute, eh?  I'd love a barn in my backyard, wouldn't you?

As I was driving across the railroad tracks this weekend I saw the signs had gone up on the new School of Rock building right on First Street.   Technically, the address is 105 N. Maple Street , but the building's signage is all facing the more public First Street side.    Either way, it is just a block or two from the main core of Downtown Elmhurst, so I consider this a welcome addition. From their site , School of Rock (cute name, btw) is clearly aimed at kids so that means that plenty of moms and dads will be dropping their kids off with an hour to burn.  This is exactly the type of business that we should be luring to the Downtown.    There likely isn't going to be a ton of retail sales (maybe some?  Like guitar strings or drum sticks and what not), so it won't be material to the city's revenues, but like an office that has employees that go out to lunch, the benefits are tangential. As for the building, I think I remember it being home to a ...

Over the weekend, we hit up the Oak Brook Costco and came across this behemoth.  This is the Suncast Wood and Resin Playcenter - Costco Part #588674.  It is priced at $1299.99 (see the bottom photo for pricing details). This is the 2012 version of the VERY popular Costco backyard playground/playset series.  Last year, they featured the Cedar Summit Panorama - which we brought home.  This year, they've gone with the Suncast Wood and Resin Playcenter which has many of the same features as years pasts. ***Update on 2/28/12 - If you are looking for the Cedar Summit Mountainview Resort Playset you can find the details here .  Turns out Costco is indeed selling a Cedar Summit swingset, but just not in Texas or the Midwest.  *** The 2012 Suncast structure is made up of both wood and a lot of plastic parts - unlike the Cedar Summit.  There are certainly plastic elements in the Cedar Summit version, but they're mostly highlight/enhancement pieces...

Since I posted on the (unfortunately) early emerging French Pussy Willow plant last week, I've been keeping a close eye on it to make sure things don't take a turn for the worse.  When I was out there yesterday, I noticed that some sort of critter had decided to hack away at a few of the branches and there were 6 or 7 of them laying on the ground with gnaw marks on them.  Maybe a rabbit?   Not sure. I picked 'em up, brought 'em in and decided to hop on the ole' series of tubes to see if it was possible to get them to root in a glass of water.  Sure enough.   It sounds very easy .  Just trim them up, drop them in the glass and wait.  A few weeks from now, we should have some cuttings that we can give away for others to enjoy the pussy willow in their own backyards.

This morning, we packed into the car and went wandering out for some doughnuts.  After a not-so-great experience at Dunkin' Donuts a few weeks back, we wanted to go local so we went down to Elmhurst's Julianne's Bakery.  But, what did we find?  The place is closed and has been shut down due to a fire.  Bummer. When we got home (BTW, we found a bakery in Villa Park on St. Charles that was pretty good), I looked around to see what happened with Julianne's.  Turns out, the fire that took the place out occurred LAST OCTOBER.   Almost six months ago . Guess we don't get out for donuts often enough.

Look at the size of that stick.   I put the 'Ove Glove' in there for some perspective.   I normally try to avoid pepperoni in favor of sopprasetta, but I was in a pinch last night and had to pick something up at the local Jewel.  Instead of the normal pre-sliced version, I came across this HUGE stick from Bridgeford.  The skins came off really easy and it was mighty tasty.  Liked it all around, but still not the best product for the pies we make at home.  However, when we're in a bind and buying the meats locally, I'll choose this one.

Yesterday, Politico ran a sharp piece on how the Santorum presidential campaign is running ads with Google that feature a endorsement from Rush Limbaugh and lead to a custom landing page that plays a Limbaugh clip that promotes Santorum.  Politico pointed out the importance/relevance  of the Limbaugh connection: It's a smart ad regardless of what state it's in, since Limbaugh tends to be popular with the types of GOP primary voters Santorum is hoping to pick up. But a Google  search analysis   shows that on average, Michigan residents search for Limbaugh in much higher numbers than internet users of the overall United States, meaning the ad is even more effective in that state than it may be elsewhere. Here's a screenshot of the ad.  It was running for users up in Michigan against a series (as far as I can tell) of generic GOP-related queries like [Michigan GOP Primary].   Campaigns have been using search for years, but the possibilities of targ...

Nat picked up this little pot of Cineraria a few weeks back at Trader Joe's.  They had these really pretty purple flowers that bloomed strong.  Then...it started to fade and wilt and the leaves started to go limp and grey.  Something was wrong.  I mean...look at it.   Sad, right?  Lots of deadheads and sick foilage.  So, I replanted it into a real pot (with drainage) and hoped for the best.  It kept going the wrong way, so I turned to the web. Turns out, they thrive in cool weather .  Our house, with the thermostat set to 70 degrees was, apparently too warm for it.  Weird, right?  This is how it is described: Locate the plant in a cool room where temperatures are near 50°F to 55°F at night. Provide bright light but not direct sunlight. Excessive heat or dry soil can cause rapid decline.  So...off to the basement it goes.  On a ledge on the south side of the house to get some of that light.  But...NOT direct lig...

What's this?  Another Christmas post?  In February?  Yes indeed.  Sorry about it.  When I was cleaning out the trunk of my car over the weekend, I came across this light set that I picked up close to Christmas (during their big sale) for Nat.  She'd been eyeing this thing since Menards put up their Enchanted Forest display but it was priced up near $25. I think I picked it up for $12.50 - 50% off but I forgot all about it.   I gave it to her for Valentine's Day because there's no reason not to. I'll put it away in the crawlspace with our other holiday stuff and when Thanksgiving comes around we'll pull it out having forgotten all about it.  Merry Christmas to us!  Indeed.

Even at Tebow's peak, he never caused quite the stir that the Knick's Jeremy Lin has in the past week.  According to Google's Insights for Search Tool, Linsanity is (still) surging. (If you are reading this in your email, you'll need to click here to see the chart below)

Just throwing down a marker her to note what a 'new' pizza pan looks like after a few dozen hours of seasoning in the oven and a few skins baked on it. Nothing for anyone to see here just yet.  We can just move along.  By Christmas-time, these babies should have a nice thick coat on 'em.

This was Friday's example.  Just going to take a few (dozen) more trials to get it perfect.  But...look at that charring/carmelization along the edge.  That's-a-nice!

This is what our French Pussy Willow looks like right now:  plenty of new red growth and these big red bulbs ready to burst open full of furry little dots.   We planted it this past season, so I'm not sure if this is what these things look like normally at this point in the season or if the plant is confused due to the unseasonably warm weather a week back. When Nat and I were driving around over the weekend, we spotted a few little flowers springing up, figuring they were just confused.  Sad to think that everyone might be loosing some spring growth because it is going to come up too early only to be killed by the certain frost left this winter. It's early February.  Does anyone have any experience with this type of plant/bush?  Are we on track and this is normal?  Or if not, is there something we can do to help it along and maybe slow down the spring awakening? BTW...looking through the analytics account for this site and the above-linked French ...

Hide your kids, hide your wife.  There's big news afoot!  Attention Chicago and Suburban folks:  Shamrock Shakes are NOW available at area McDonald's.  The Babe had her first one EVER yesterday and loved every drop of it. Stop what you are doing and get out to McDonald's RIGHT NOW. What's that?  Giving our daughter a milkshake while she mindlessly watches tv?  Sweet parenting! P.S.  Hide your husband, too!

I just renewed my driver's license via the Illinois Secretary of State's website.  No visit to the dreaded DMV.  No dealing with cranky civil servants.  Just a few keystrokes and in a few weeks a sticker will show up that I can stick on the back of my license that keeps me legal. Thanks, Jesse White.  No wonder he keeps getting re-elected by huge margins.  This is how government is *supposed* to work.

Spotted this SSID in Downtown Elmhurst last week.  Pree-tay cute.

Yesterday, the three of us spent part of the morning up in Bensenville, watching my nephew play in one of his first full-ice hockey games.  He's only 5, but he's already part of the Elmhurst Chiefs Hockey program and lovin' every minute of it.  They played well, but on this day were outmatched by the visiting team. Youth hockey is so foreign to me - mostly because I didn't see a second of ice time during my childhood.  In fact, I'm not sure there was a rink that was within 30 miles of my folk's house.  With this rink being so close and hockey being a 'big deal' in the neighborhood - based on the other kids on the team including one girl - I'm wondering if the hockey bug will catch on in our house?

Here's my latest pre-baked Detroit-style pizza pie.  You'll note the seasoned blue steel pizza pan and the 'signature' diagonal lines of sauce.  Although this pic may not make your mouth water , jt turned out pretty great, aside from the 2 spots that stuck to the bottom of the new pans.  They just need a big more seasoning, I guess.  Off to the kitchen laboratory!

After suffering through a few weeks of trial and error with my Detroit-style pizza recipe, I finally decided to get serious and order *REAL* Detroit-style Blue Steel pans - directly from Michigan.  Actually...turns out they're made in Mexico, but sold from a restaurant supply shop *in* Michigan ! So, why special pans?  Well, the lore around Detroit-style pizza is that these pans were originally intended for the automotive world:  they're pans that auto repair/assembly works put the various pieces/parts that they're working on.  Detroit being an Auto-Town, the transition to using them in a pizza joint seems quite fitting.  They have a higher lip than standard pans and are even a bit taller than my deep-dish pans. They are Blue Steel 10" x 14" pans and come with a weird grease on them - that I'm assuming is food grade?  I seasoned them as best as I could by coating them with corn oil (olive oil won't work for this because it has too low of a burning/sm...

See those four Arborvitae trees starting in the middle of the photo and heading to the right?  They're leaner than the ones on the far left side.  And 2 years younger. The older ones are strong and I know they'll be coming back this year to grow bigger.  But these?  I dunno. I planted these four in the Spring of 2011 after having the same four die from the previous year.  As you can see, these four aren't dark green, but aren't that much lighter than the ones on the left.  There are some little orange/brown bits on them, but the bulk of the trees (Are they trees?  Or bushes?) are mostly green. What do you think?  Will they survive?

Well, well, well.  Look at what arrived in the mail yesterday:  the logistical details for the Babe's upcoming trip to "Mickey's House".  Can't wait to make even more memories with her and Nat (and just about my entire family).