Why I Oughta...

With no classes at Kellogg to keep me busy, I began to look around at some craft projects that I'd wanted to give a try and began to organize my thoughts around them.  Some of them are pretty seasonal - gardening, jamming, pickling , but I also wanted to try to take on some non-seasonal projects like cheese making and woodworking.  With a fiesta planned, cheesemaking came first.   It started - like a lot of my hobbies do - with a trip to the Elmhurst Public Library where I checked out a few cheesemaking books.  After a few thumb-throughs, I settled on making Queso Blanco.  This appeared to be the easiest cheese to make (maybe Ricotta is up there, too) and one that I could cut my cheesemaking teeth on.   We choose to go organic this time with both organic whole milk and organic apple cider vinegar.  Add salt and you have the three ingredients needed to make Queso Blanco.   I started by heating the milk to 185 degrees.  (Pardon the electric stove, we were in Michigan at the lake w

DiMaggio's Pizza ( site ) 6410 Michigan 63, Coloma, MI 49038-9319,  (269) 849-1521 Pizza Snob Says:  DiMaggio's imports a twist on Chicago-style tavern pizza to Southwest Michigan.  With the new non-smoking law enacted, this family-run bar is all the more desirable.  Order extra, because the pies are just as good the next day.  If it makes it that long.  If you're a little uneasy about hunting, sit in the dining room, not the bar.  Rating:   Five "Ats-a-Nice" DiMaggio's of Coloma has been making pizzas since 1957 when Tony & Madeline DiMaggio purchased Serpe’s Inn from Mayme Serpe (Madeline’s sister). From their years of experience in owning a bar and restaurant at Belmont and Western in Chicago, they brought with them Tony’s family’s original Italian recipes and a love of cooking and bringing happiness to the table. From their site they say:  "Tony and Madeline continued to bake delicious Chicago style pizzas, homemade lasagna, meatballs, spaghett

(Note:  As an homage to Dennis Rodkin's "What does $1M buy you" series , I'm going to occasionally check in with what $750K buys you in Elmhurst.  At $1,000,000 you get a bit more house, but they're all new construction and a lot less interesting than around $500K-$800K in Elmhurst. ) 119 S. Arlington Avenue, Elmhurst, IL  60126 Asking Price:  $729,900 Purchase Details:  Bought in March, 2007 for $772,500 Details:  4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths built in 2000 This house is on our walk route - we pass it by early every Wednesday morning as we're out getting a bit of exercise.   It sits just across the tracks (Center of Town side) directly south of an apartment complex.  The listing says that it was built 10 years ago, but it looks like it could have been here for 100 years.  Kudos to the builder and the architect. Some of the advantages of living here are that you are in the highly desirable Center of Town neighborhood, you're still very close to the Jew

Those of you who knew us B.E. (Before the Babe), you need no introduction to this lovely lady. For those of you who don't, well...meet Ms. Margaret Thatcher Moran Parrillo.  We call her Maisy.  She's not getting near as much attention as she used to, but (as we call her) the Original Girlfriend has managed to make it through the first six months of the Babe's life.  Now that she's starting crawl, Maisy is in play and close to eye level.   Even though she's now second banana, she still was first and that matters for something!  She just turned five a few weeks ago and still has her puppy moments - even with all the sleep she does everyday. The Rooster, as we call her, is such a good girl (even she's awfully needy) and as I keep telling her, she'll be besties with the Babe as soon as we introduce Cheerios on the high chair.

Guess that serves me right for shooting my mouth off about our impending pear harvest .  The same storm that flooded the Palmer Underpass over the weekend, also took out our fledgling pear tree.  It snapped right in half.  Unbelievably.  I had it staked with a heavy-duty stake and some zip ties loosely around the trunk.  Looks like the wind didn't think much of my stake job.  There are 2 branches (which carried most of the fruit) on the main trunk below the break, so the tree will (hopefully) survive, but it won't be a high-flyer for a bit now.  The top that snapped off had some largish pears, so I grabbed those.  They aren't ripe, but maybe they'll ripen up off the branch.  Here they are relative to a quarter.  Have my fingers crossed that we'll get a couple dozen normal-sized pears off the lower branches come mid-August.

The storm last night was a big one in Elmhurst.  We didn't loose power (thank you!), but we took on a lot of rain the backyard.  We weren't the only ones, as Palmer Underpass - the main route around Downtown Elmhurst - was closed all day.  This photo was from Saturday at 3:30 PM and the water was still almost 10 feet deep. Traffic is snarled all over because of this blockage.  To compound matters, the ramp to the Eisenhower off of North Avenue was closed for hours this morning.

Today is YouTube's Life in a Day.  TODAY! For those of you who don't initially know what that means, you can see more details on their YouTube Channel or the O fficial YouTube Blog post  or on Faceboo k.  Alternatively, you can read my description below. It really is a pretty cool concept (you guys do know that I work for Google , right?  They're paying me, but not paying me to promote this!) where ordinary people from around the world should whip out their Flip Cameras or mobile phone cameras and contribute a short bit of footage from their lives today.  In the end, Life in a Day will be turned into a feature-length documentary film that is set to be premiered at Sundance 2011.  And...if that's not cool enough,  if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere. There are some heavy hitters involved ( Ridley Scott , Kevin McDonald ) pulling the whole thing together.

People are finding our little skunk site.  And...reporting their skunk sightings across Elmhurst!  I've updated the map over at ElmhurstStinks . View ElmhurstStinks.com in a larger map As a reminder, I wrote this post about the genesis of the site b ack in March as a way to utilize a series of free Google tools to build a site.  Either July is skunk season or my "dollar-a-day" AdWords campaign is bringing the folks in as 4 people have submitted sightings in the past 3 days. Since we've put up the fence, I haven't had a single skunk encounter, but the summer isn't over yet!

San Marzanos, according to Wikipedia are the most desirable sauce tomatoes in the world.  At the retail level, they typically run upwards of $5.00 per 28 ounce can.  They have a few varieties at Angelo Caputo's, but the Jewel doesn't carry them.  You can buy cases here - and those run $4-5 per can, too.  I have to think that a case of these babies would weigh a ton, making shipping a bit pricey.  With our home pizza-making adventures taking on new, interesting ingredients, I've now tried to add these to our regular rotation. The history of these tomatoes is rich in history : The story goes that the first seed of the San Marzano tomato came to  Campania  in  1770 , as a gift from the Kingdom of  Peru  to the Kingdom of  Naples , and that it was planted in the area that corresponds to the present commune of San Marzano. They come from a small town of the same name near  Naples ,  Italy , and were first grown in volcanic soil in the shadow of  Mount Vesuvius . Compared to

Earlier in the year, Nat and I spent time at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis near Wash U (Nat's alma mater).  In each of the booths (on the bar side, by the dart room), hung one of these beauties. There must be 10 of them on one wall - all with glass shades.  They're certainly not reproductions, but it is a wonder how they could have kept these in such pristine condition throughout the years.  Nat tells me that "Blue Hill" was a Wash U hangout, so they must not have been as rowdy a crowd as the one I spent many a night with at Kam's.  Guess that's what happens when you're school is ranked 12th in the nation.