It takes a village...

I tossed this apple core out the front door for one of our chipmunk friends, but instead ended
up supporting an entire army of particularly puny ants.  I took this shot about 10 hours into
the process when all hands (and legs) were on deck. 

No idea how they moved those sequoia-like twigs into place -- the whole scene was like
something out of Gulliver's Travels though with ceaseless, orderly activity taking place
on a microscopically epic scale. 

Alas, by morning, the core was gone, no doubt gobbled obliviously down by some
 night creature passing by on its rounds, so I just threw another one out there....

Joyeux Anniversaire à vous, Pierre!

Paris, France, 1992

 Elegant early-adaptor Pierre, seen above clutching
his champagne in eager anticipation of all those tiny bubbles
cascading over his tongue, dancing around his mouth, then
going to his head.  (To think that the best that 6-year-old
 Americans can hope for on festive occasions is a plastic cup
of Kool-Aid or sparkling cranberry juice.  Not fair!) 
  C'est la vie.


All the Best on Your Big Day, Pierre. 
See you soon in NYC!


We don't need no steenking Kool-Aid.

On Spring Sabbatical....

Back at the end of the month, y'all!

It's Official...!

Fresh from France...

M. et Mme. Pierre Carpentier

or

M. Pierre Carpentier and Mme. Amira Marion, couple marié

(However you spell it or slice it, they are now joined in matrimony!)

May for better or worse always and forever

 be far better than worse.

Break out the Bubbly! (Well, almost.)

At this writing, Amira is still single, but in about

11 hours, all that will change.

Stay tuned for updates on the blushing bride-to-be....

The perils of peeping...

Time to move on:  Dr. Weinblatt (center), the image of a man who really, truly fucked up.

We've been following this bizarre story because the physician

involved was our family pediatrician.  For the final chapter in

this sad, sordid story, click

 HERE.

Hot off the press...

To set the proper mood, click right 

HERE.

A note from the Bride to Be:

  On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Amira Marion <amiramarion@gmail.com> wrote:

make sure to inform everyone that we’re having

 another wedding in the USA in a couple years!!!!!!!

A new-fangled old-fashioned contraption (part III)...

Santa Catarina Palopo, Guatemala, August 2011 - An early morning smokey haze hovers above the
village as the women fire up their wood burners to prepare breakfast.  This is the equivalent of Main St.
(and one of just two roads in town).  Back in 1977, Linda I lived in a one-room casita right about
where the red storefront is in this photo (center-left), and the road was hard-packed dirt.

Can you imagine having to build a fire everytime you wanted to
cook something?  Me neither.  But that's what millions of people
around the world have to do each day if they want hot food (and
who doesn't prefer their food good and hot?).  Count the
indigenous people of Guatemala -- including our friends in Santa
Catarina -- among those millions who, knowing nothing
else, still cook everything with wood as their primary fuel.

If you have a few minutes, check out this VIDEO.  It will
help you appreciate all the more just how amazing your trusty
electric or gas stove really is....

In with the new (part II)...

Back on February 25th, I wrote about the family in Santa Catarina that we've
known since we lived in that village during the summers of 1977 and 1979.
Our good friend Sra. Petrona died nearly two decades ago, but her daughter,
Susana, and son Luis still reside there.  Susana is a single mother with four
children ranging from 6-18 years old.  Luis never married and lives with his
sister and her kids.  We try to help them out when we can, and recently were
able to arrange the installation of a new stove in their casa overlooking Lake
Atitlan.

I explained in Part I that back in the old days (when we were there), the women
cooked on open fires inside their casitas, the most inconvenient, dangerous
method possible since they had to build these fires from scratch each time they
cooked, and there were always toddlers around and about, accidents just
waiting to happen.

But cooking like this was tradition, all they knew. And of course, few had the
resources to upgrade to a proper wood burner or propane stove. They were so
poor, in fact, that they had to go out and find their wood, almost every day, an
arduous task that meant making their way up the mountain, finding a source,
cutting down a tree or just its branches, trimming, stacking, harnessing, then
transporting it all back down the mountain.  This would take hours, and was
a beastly task.

Linda and I met this muchacho on our way up the mountain
late one morning in the summer of '77.  He had ascended
early in the cool of dawn and collected this supply of
wood-fuel.  It looks like a lot, but actually, his family would
run through this in just a couple of days or so.  Then it would
be back on up to repeat the process.  Linda gave our friend
 here the nickname Adidas (she pronounced it Ah-dee-DAS)
which made him break into a broad smile whenever we'd
run into him. Note his "capri-style" pants woven in the
 Village colors and patterns. They were often worn
with a shirt of identical colors and patterns, but by then,
 western-style clothing, especially t-shirts, had made
 their way into everyday use in the village for many men.

(Stay Tuned for Part III)

Oh, by the way...

Was briefly gchatting yesterday with Amira (just back from a long

weekend in Italy with Pierre), and at the very end, as we were about
to go our separate ways, she came out with this...

Amira:  oh btw pierre proposed to me!

hehe

(officially)

you can tell mom

 me:  Holy shhhhh********T!  SOO happy for you two!

 Amira:  proposal in front of saint peters basilica at night v. romantic

ok g2g!

 me:  BYE!!!!!

 Amira:  BYE!

xoxoxo

Artist's rendering of Pierre proposing to Amira. Except that the
 proposal took place in Rome. In front of St. Peter's Basilica. At night.
  But insofar as the artist is Gustave Caillebotte, I mean, seriously, what
 can you say to the guy?

Pierre, seen here in another artist's rendering by
 Gustave Caillebotte, weeks earlier in Paris rehearsing
 his lines. He ended up speaking them in Italian (of course).
 Note: Soon  after he'd uttered them, a Vatican security
 team booted the newly-betrothed couple out of the Square.
  Didn't they know that it was closed!?  And that Pope Benny
 was  trying to catch up on last season's dvr'd episodes
 of Glee for godsakes?!) 

PS  Yes.  He gave her a ring (he bought it earlier
 in the trip  in Naples). No.  It doesn't fit.  Yet.

Out with the old...(part I)

First there was this...

Our late friend Sra. Petrona and son Luis in their casita,

Catarina Palopo, Guatemala, circa 1977. (Not present above:

two-year-old Susana, la señora's daughter.)

 Back in the late 70s when Linda and and I lived in the

 village, the women cooked every meal on open, uprotected fires

 inside their huts. It was smokey, labor-intensive, polluting, and

 horribly unhealthy (not to mention dangerous).

Little Susana, back in the day

Then there was this...

This is the stove that Susana cooked our dinner

on (gnocchi!).  There's a hatch in front where

the wood goes. This particular construction was so 

poorly vented that everytime she used it (2-3 times

 a day), her entire house would fill with smoke.

  (Imagine grilling on a Weber in your kitchen or building

a raging fire in your fireplace...then closing the flue.)

Fast forward 35 years.  Little Susana now has four

children of her own ranging in age from 6-18 and just like her

 mother, she struggles day-to-day to get by.  When Amira and I

 visited the village in August 2011, she invited us for dinner, and

when we arrived at her casa -- a rudimentary cement block structure

high up on the mountain overlooking Lake Atitlan -- it was like entering

a smokehouse.  I was immediately alarmed. Was the house on fire!?! 

 No! Not to worry! was the sheepish, resigned reply...just cooking....

And finally...

This pre-fabricated wood burner (called an ONIL stove after its
inventor, an American engineer) eliminates the danger of burns

 and pulmonary illnesses caused by the traditional open fires and
inadequately-vented makeshift stoves still found in so many
Mayan homes. Known for its efficiency, the ONIL eliminates
 smoke from the interior and uses 70%  less firewood (thereby
 addressing another major environmental

concern in the area: deforestation).

(Stay Tuned for Parts II & III)

A Taste of the Old Country...

Vintage Rose

found this on the flip side.

I've had this recipe taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet for years.

Rose sent it to me in the mid-90s after I told her about a Polish

meal we'd just had that included dill pickle soup. We ate it

for the first time at the Polish Village Cafe (the PVC) in Hamtramck,

a struggling city in the shadow of Detroit that is also known as

"Little Poland" -- though if the truth be told, there are more Bangladeshis

living there now than Poles. (Jason and Mira reside in Hamtramck,
by the way, representing another trend, that is, a segment of young, white,
 formerly-suburban residents making their way back toward Detroit, no
doubt because of the PVC's dill pickle soup.)

The PVC is a classic neighborhood gathering spot, very old-fashioned

with ridiculously low prices and a warm ethnic atmosphere that

money just can't buy. (The last time he was in town, Steve Marion insisted

on eating here again, as he vividly recalled the first time several months

earlier. And we all know how picky Steven is about his food -- no doubt

more so than ever upon his return from India.)

Anyway, when I was telling Rose about the soup (which for us was a novelty --

dill pickle soup?) and how we had all (including the girls!) enjoyed it immensely,

she said that her mother, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, used to make it.
  In fact, when Rose was growing up on the  farm in Edinboro, PA, the family
 ate it often (which might explain why she no longer liked it).

She also said that she had a recipe and promised to send it me. She then

painstakingly wrote it out, mailed it off, and I’ve had it ever since.

NOTE:  Depending on one's dietary restrictions, other additions to

 this recipe include a T or two of butter and a half-cup of heavy cream
 or half-and-half added at the end (along with the sour cream) -- or not. 
Just depends on how rich you're willing to go.
 

Also, I often smooth it out with a stick blender or potato masher,
 leaving a few chunks of potato and pickle, but this is not necessary either.
Additionally, you can garnish with fresh dill, if you have it on hand.
And finally, for the hopeless carnivore, some slices of cooked
kielbasa can be tossed on top for that meaty finish.   

Smacznego!

Rose's Dill Pickle Soup

A Birthday Boost from Bunny...

Lyla Kettenhofen, AKA "Bunny," was first Martha's cousin, then her cousin/step-sister
when M.E. O'Brien married his late wife Nell's sister, Lyla -- Bunny's mother. 
 (Got that?) When she wrote this letter, Bunny was Mrs. John Doherty with a
 young family of her own....
PS  Happy B'Day to me, Happy B'Day to me, etc., etc., etc....

Tick another one off the bucket list...

Accidentally came across Linda's "Bucket List" while I was helping
her search for her reading glasses (they were around her neck on a
cord, as it turned out).  Although I didn't want to be snoopy, I did
manage to see the first several items before I heard her coming down
the hallway had to quickly close the drawer. (Note: When I
checked back the next day while "looking for a pen," the list was
gone, dammit). 

Anyway, this is what I remember from that fleeting glance (note:
they may be a bit out of order)... 

-  Grow up in a Mexican family in 1960s racist, blue-collar Taylor, MI ✔

-  Attend the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City (after driving all the way there
from Michigan).  Then drive all the way back.  (With my parents.) ✔

-  Somehow overcome a suspect education at Taylor High; earn a
 grant to study at U of M ✔

- Enroll in art school at U of M; become a doctor ✔

- Marry into an elite family from racist, white-collar West Dearborn, MI ✔

- Research husband's family's confederate, slave-owning Southern roots ✔

-  Have two children:  one a lawyer in Chicago, the other a designer in
 NYC/Paris ✔

- Accidentally lock myself into a public restroom in Ecuador ✔

-  Go to law school myself, what the hell ✔

-  Meet Monchy and Alexandra, the Dominican Bachata singers ✔

-  Survive a collision with a deer just two blocks from the house (be driving
husband's car at the time, so no biggie) ✔

-  Make a 100-year-old woman my BFF ✔

-  Buy tons of American Girl Doll stuff for my daughters (but not until they're
 in their 20s) ✔

- Take my sweet, elderly Mexican immigrant half-sister Angie -- who has rarely
  left Taylor except for random trips back to Mexico since she arrived in the U.S.
  in 1951 -- on the vacation of a lifetime to Paris

-  Completely forget that I have them on and wear my new Halfinger
    indoor/outdoor slippers to work ✔

- Take an accordion lesson from the legendary Riobard O'Dwyer in
 Eyeries Village, County Cork, Ireland ✔

Linda and Riobard, Eyeries Village, County Cork


All the Best on Your Big Day, Linda!

Sordid story out of A2...

BEFORE

AFTER

This guy was our pediatrican for years.  And an extremely good one, at that. 

 Very strange story.  The poor sod is accused of peeping on a 12-year-old

 girl-neighbor (also a life-long patient) while standing in his own home. 

(Blinds, shades, drapes, and curtain have not yet been introduced

to the residents of this side of the city, apparently.)

He is alleged by the girl's mother to have perpetrated this act some
four times, and the mother videotaped Dr. Weinblatt the final
time before going to the police with her proof.  Furthermore, the
good doctor is also accused of.... Well, better read all the seamy details
 HERE.

Best Bread Ever.

Right out of the Warrington Drive oven, 10/31/2011

Yes...you too can make bread exactly like this with a simplified recipe offered

 up by Jim Lahey and the Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC.  Once you've mastered

 the basic method (as easy as making, say, pancakes), the sky's the limit.  You

 can then mix and match flours and add seeds, nuts, raisins, etc.-- everything but

the kitchen sink.  It all works spectacularly. 

I consider this process to be a step up from the "Artisan Bread in 5

 Minutes a  Day" technique that some of us have been using for

 several years now.  That bread is very good, mind you, much better than

 "store-bought," especially when toasted.

  

This bread, on the other hand, is outstanding, up in the Zingerman's 

stratosphere without the hefty price of $7.50 - $26 (yes, some of their

 breads sell for that much).  If you're interested in checking this process

 out, first watch this

VIDEO.

For reference, the  recipe itself is right HERE.

Any questions?  You know how to get ahold of me....

According to Char...

"The photo [see posting for October 28 below] was taken at Rich's wedding!  I have a photo of myself in the same dress dancing with Mark at the wedding-the photo must have been taken while we were outside-that's the only time we all were together."  L,Char

Ed. note:  Char...we need that shot of you and Mark dancing (for genealogical purposes only, of course).  Just wondering...were you two doing the Freddy, the Hully Gully, the Frug, or the Mashed Potatoes?  Help us out here....

 

License to Bill.

The site:  McCormick Place, Chicago

Admission to the Illinois State Bar Ceremony 

November 10, 2011

The lawyerly licensees:  Luke & Mav

The Sheepskin itself:  Wow.

The Aftermath:  Waiting 45 minutes on the

parking structure's 5th level to exit. 

We finally did escape, popped a
much-deserved bottle of champagne,
and went off for a splendid Italian repast. 

(Congratulations on your perseverence, 
Mavourneen and Luke -- not necessarily for
fighting your way through law school and
 the bar exam and then being sworn into the
Illinois Bar - all very impressive feats for
which we loudly applaud you, of course -
but in particular for surviving our madcap,
 detour-ridden drive to the swearing in
ceremony itself.  Whew!)

As they say, all's well that ends well, and
 this day, most decidedly, ended well.   

Please. Call me Norm.

On this date in 1976...

Bill and Rose were married 35 years ago today.  Hard to fathom.  Dug this card out of the vault in honor of the day.  It dates awaaaayyyy back to '88...