Only Mountain

Well, thanks to Melissa, I now have my daily dose of puppy cuteness at www.dailypuppy.com. I highly recommend you bookmark, visit and enjoy it.

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It's Casimir Pulaski Day here in Chicago, celebrating a Revolutionary War hero. Kids are out of school, local government offices are closed, but we get mail. I keep on thinking about the Sufjan Stevens song all morning. I'm glad it made the cut for the album. It's a strange Chicago holiday that I will always closely link with my time here.

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I've been quiet here lately, and I apologize. My most recent news that's kept me away from the internet is that my grandmother, Susan Holub died on February 25. She was 96 years old, and it was not all that unexpected, but of course I'm filled with regret over not seeing her more and pressing her for stories and recipes. I'm proud that I live near where she was originally born (Gary, IN) and that so much Slovak culture is preserved in Chicago through descendants of what could very well be cousins of mine from the steel mills of Indiana at the turn of the last century.

So far I've spent many hours trying to get some of her signature dishes made, which is hard b/c she wrote so little down. But, I've made her poppy seed bread and I've tried my hand at pierogis and kolache (which we've always just called "granny cookies") and I hope to get better. I'm trying to decide whether to track down Czech restaurants to visit or to try Polish ones in order to get my fix of food like what she would make. I guess probably both. Russian Tea Time downtown has some very similar cabbage rolls.

I think it's probably a good thing that both sides of my family are so tightly intertwined with food in our history, since you can always have food physically in your hands even after someone is gone and you still have a very tangible reminder of them. But, as always, you know that there is no one who can make it "just as" that person did, and even if you get close, that small fact will always be there. I hope I can always do them justice in the kitchen, in my own small way.

Hey, it's actually sunny out. (shock! surprise!) I've pulled out cute little skimmer shoes from last year. I wore flip flops downstairs to get the mail! It's just insanity.

Of course, it's going to be back to highs in the 30s by Wednesday, but that's cool. Spring's just like that.

Amazingly enough, I actually got out and got some sunshine (on my face! amazing) this weekend with Dan. We ended up at the Indiana Dunes and just happened to time it right to enjoy "Maple Sugar Time!" -- one of two yearly festivals at the Dunes. It was good ole family fun, and we actually learned a lot about maple sugar, etc. And I pet a goat! We ate cheap pancakes and sausages provided by the Chesterfield Lions Club (thanks, fellows!) and took a great hike through a bog and over a giant dune and onto the lakeshore right by a steel mill (ah, smell that Indiana!). It was a lovely day. Pictures are up on flickr, of course, but here's a taste! (har har)

This time it was maple sugar, last time, it was burgoo. There's an uncanny need to combine hiking with food in the midwest, I guess.

These guys would make me happy (though not if I had wet nail polish...).

In other news: I actually cooked fish for dinner...twice! It's Halibut Season (which is kind of like wabbit season?) and I went to Dirk's Fish Market over on Clybourn and got a nice 8oz. piece of halibut and 2 8oz. pieces of salmon and cooked them Saturday and Sunday nights respectively. Can't believe how well they turned out, and how fast it all was. I used my new favorite cookbook How to Cook Everything which I'd seen others use and read lots of good things about. The book is kind of like an updated Joy of Cooking with it's size and scope, but it doesn't make me frustrated with antiquated cooking methods and ingredients the way Joy does.

Anyway, the halibut with soy and the basic roasted salmon recipes are fantastic and are definitely in the rotation. If I can scare up more halibut this season, I'll be doing it again really soon.

Took a picture of the salmon last night, like a dork. (The butter got 86'd after the photo.)