Tina and Brad are married

I don't think there's much to be written here. Two weeks back, on a day that ended with enough sunshine to make an outdoor wedding by a small lake altogether wonderful, our friends and former swim teammates Tina and Brad were married. The Smelts, of course, claim credit for setting them up, and well we should. Just look at them:



A fine, handsome, happy couple. Smelts, well done!

Many things we loved about that day:

Tina was gorgeous. She has such a lovely trim figure, it's small wonder she was a matchless bride in her dress. How beautiful she was coming down the aisle with her father. I truly choked up a little.

The ceremony itself.
I liked what the officiant said, and I thought the speakers and the music (including bell players led by Tina's mother) were all enjoyable, not overly serious.

Other librarians!

Chocolate cake slices greeting us all at our table - a shared pre-dinner dessert we muchly enjoyed.

A fun reception with the traditional speeches and cutting of the cake but none of the clanging of silverware on glasses to make the couple kiss. I rather hate that inane custom.



Friends from the team - Ron and Carrie shown here.

This man. Actually danced with me a few times. Only the second time in our 8 years together - Allison's wedding last year being the maiden run at that activity. Something about weddings, I guess.

Oh, and did I mention that Tina was gorgeous? Because it truly bears re-mentioning. Stunning.


They may be back from their New Zealand honeymoon by now, and by back, we mean to their lives in Colorado. We miss them from the team, though, and we hope they come back and see us soon. Many happy wishes to them for a long, loving life together.

things Americans eat

Seriously, though, shell and all?



And waddaya know? They were pretty tasty. Deep fry anything, it seems, and it's rendered more than edible. I'll keep my eyes open in service station food marts in the future for more such treats like this.

rehearsal dinner

It's been two weeks now since Brad and Tina were married, and I still haven't written up the whole weekend?

Bad Peter! Bad Peter! Bad Peter!

Well, let's ease back into it with a simple bunch of photos from the rehearsal dinner. In fact, this was essentially a full-on reception, but that's fine with the many of us there. Good - and plentiful - food at a restaurant in Niles. Wine flowing like water. People to meet and familiar faces. We were tucked in one corner of the dinner along with other Smelts in attendance:

Kyle, with Derek.

Carrie (Ron was there too!).

Ruben, with Elizabeth (and Carrie in this shot - where the heck is Ron in all the photos??).

Fun evening, definitely, plus it gave us all a chance to chat with Tina and Brad on the eve of their wedding. We're very grateful to Brad's parents for providing us all with such a delightful meal.

And finally, are we not one fine looking couple?

passing of time

It's a melancholy time of year: the days shorten, sunrise is later. I now get up most workdays before sunrise. A few days ago I slept in (relatively speaking) and caught this a little after 6 AM.



The passing of time. Of course, on the other hand, it does mean it's now less than 11 weeks until Christmas.

Peoria

My confession: in 9 years (and a bit) in Illinois, I've so seldom ventured outside of Chicago that I haven't yet seen most of the larger regional centers, including the state capital, Springfield. This week I took a baby step forward, spending Thursday night in Peoria.

I can't comment on Peoria quite so much and favourably as I did on South Bend a couple of weeks ago. The weather, for one, was kind of lousy. Grey, wet, cool, misty. The city sits overlooking the Illinois River, yet the afternoon RAS and I arrived, we could barely tell there was a river below the bluffs. We did take a nice drive through a swanky neighbourhood, but given conditions, real estate porn shots weren't going to happen. We also left fairly quickly after our presentation Friday morning, so we didn't explore very far then either.

A few things I noted:

There are hills, landscape, texture, colour. I think on a crisp, clear fall day with the leaves turning, it must be gorgeous.

The downtown needs an infusion of life and businesses.


There are offices downtown, but few services and amenities. A metro area on 350,000 and no Starbucks (or other chain) in the downtown core? Odd, and on a morning when it was damp and cold and we really wanted coffee, it was more than just odd. It became a little desperate. We found a Starbucks up near Bradley University.


Driving there from Chicago is nicer than the drive to Urbana (and the stop for lunch at a smalltown BK was priceless for the self-serve soda fountain with suggested pop-food pairings). Not so flat, not so much a dull, straight landscape of corn fields (though, as you can see, we passed between cornfields coming and going).
Even on a gloomy day, it wasn't bad, perhaps because it was new to me and perhaps because I had RAS for company.

I hope to get back to Peoria one day, in fact. Always good to see the rest of the state. May it not take me until 2018 so to do!

first lamb shanks of autumn

Do a search for "lamb" in this blog, or - better still - click on the tag for "lamb". You'll see that I'm something of a fan of the little woolly darlings and their tasty tasty meat. And, given that I can grab a pair of shanks at Whole Foods at a fairly moderate price, I'm all-too glad to cook a bit of lamb on a semi-regular basis.

Lamb shanks, in my view, benefit nicely from a good gentle braise. A few hours in the oven? Not a meal for warm summers. With the return of cool (and rather wet yesterday) weather, and with an arrival home from Peoria not too late in the afternoon, I set to work on making us some shanks for dinner.

Simple process: season the shanks and brown them lightly in a skillet. Remove to a roasting pan. Use the same skillet to lightly saute some onion, garlic, carrot, and dried mushrooms along with seasonings. Deglaze with white wine and chicken broth. Add the vegetables and liquid to the lamb. Pop it in the oven and go do other stuff.

Closer to dinner time I produced a garlicky cauliflower puree and some Brussels sprouts. I held the lamb warm but reduced the strained braising liquid down to a thick, rich sauce.



Plating done, I joined Conrad in the living room where we sat by the window, looking out on the city, sipping a Minervois, and having the first lamb of the fall season.

Lufthansa comes to Yoshi's

So this was kinda cool...

You know how we dine at Yoshi's sometimes? Like, a lot? Well, this past Friday we got an e-mail from Nobuko, Yoshi's wife, asking us if we could dine there that night at 7:00. Lufthansa was filming a promotional video for showing on flights, and Yoshi and Nobuko wanted diners at the bar filling in the background.

Twist our rubber arms!

We put on blazers and took up places at the bar, and though we glanced occasionally over at the table where a couple was being filmed, dining, we mostly just had a good meal. Oysters to start. Duck for me, with a superb red wine sauce that paired so well with the Cab offered by the glass. Conrad opted for salmon and was no less happy. Instead of dessert, we ventured back to the salad menu and ordered the burrata with grilled figs to share. The wine flowed. A bit too well.

The capper? Yoshi and Nobuko comped our meal! So not only did we get to dine at our favourite place, among our friends, with great food, drinking generous amounts of wine (and martinis for Conrad), but it cost us only a very good tip for Fernando.

Small wonder we love the place. We hope we get to see the video, even if we can't pick ourselves out in it!

South Bend, IN

Just home from a dinner at Yoshi's, and almost time for bed. Gosh, we've had a wonderfully full, relaxing, accomplished, lazy weekend - if that makes sense. I think I napped for a good hour this afternoon, for example. On the other hand, I managed to deal with 7 loads of laundry on Friday night before going out for dinner. A little of everything. It's been good.

Before bed, then, let me post a bit to the blog, and - jumping all around in time - go back to last weekend's Michiana adventure.

After a morning in Niles, visiting Darth and Heidi, Conrad and I turned our attention south across the border, wandering into South Bend to see what the fabled city was like. Home of the University of Notre Dame (lovely campus, we did drive through it), it's a city that should have fallen on hard times like many other modest-sized Midwest and Rust Belt communities. The university, doubtless, helps keep it going. As a result, there is a life and energy to the city, and some handsome and interesting efforts at restoring and reclaiming its past.

South Bend straddles the St. Joseph River, and has done some nifty things with the old mill races on each side. On the west there appears to be a substantial fine arts museum with some landscaping incorporating remnants of the race. We didn't venture that way. On the east, though, the race has been converted to a whitewater course for kayakers amid paths and park.


Nicely done. We walked a short ways on that side, watching a few kayakers attempt the course.

After that, it was on to lunch. Not really blogworthy, though not bad. What was nice, though - aside from the big outdoor arts fair that was drawing quite a number of people - was the Morris Performing Arts Centre around the corner - lovely building with some gorgeous terra cotta detail. We peered inside, and were struck by the beauty of the interior, too.

All too often I think we in Chicago disparage the "small towns" (as if hundreds of thousands only constituted small!) around us, downstate and in neighbouring states. Oh, sure, I think there are ways to make South Bend more attractive. But, crucially, it seems to be surviving and thriving and doing what it can. Nice to visit, in fact, and I, for one, am rather glad I did.

some times I really do rock

Ouch, my arm. Sore from patting myself on my back, of course.

CG and Dan came for dinner last night, and I busted out a recipe I always loved from the Don Diego's days: Torta Rustica. It's from Evan Kleiman's Pizza Pasta Panini cookbook, and though there are many components, it makes for a satisfying, simple meal. I was able to get components made on Thursday and Friday evenings, and then put it together and baked it Saturday.

I hope CG and Dan liked it, but ultimately, I'm really pleased with it. Bonus: I have leftovers for lunches and dinners. Yum!

All in all, I was pleased with yesterday. After we had nuts, cheese, apple chutney, bread, and some Éphémère beer, we sat down to a fennel and potato soup and a bottle of Mt. Difficulty Riesling. Next came the torta along with a very simple salad and a bottle of the delicious Church and State Merlot we'd tasted last month.

I didn't photograph most of dinner, sorry. I should have. The dessert was really good, too (yes, yes, I'm bragging) (OK, I'll humble myself and admit it cooked have baked a wee bit longer). I made us individual plum souffles with a homemade cardamom ice cream. Friends, I more than rock. Once in a while, I kick serious butt.

;-)

We had an Inniskillin sparkling ice wine with dessert, and then moved back to the living room where an Oliver Merlot and some cheese that was so rich it really should have been labeled "butter" awaited us.

Surprisingly, we weren't hungover today. I did, however, decide that I didn't really need breakfast!

pork for dinner, pork for breakfast

I am fasting until tomorrow night. Long story, support for Conrad, nothing horrible, don't be concerned. Just me, being sensitive.

I am starting to get crabby.

I. Love. Food. And a glass of wine with it. Tomorrow night's dinner will be most welcome.

So I sit, having downed a third mug of the permissible broth, and obsess over food, killing time until bedtime. Wedding photos from the weekend, mostly, but I wanted to sneak this in just to torture myself a little more:



A big, thick pork chop, oven braised in a tomatillo sauce. A poor iPhone photo, but it's enough to make me yearn for tasty tasty pig products. Like what I had this morning:



Yep, that's an omelet - an egg dish. But friends, it is studded with pancetta. A good way to start a day wherein I would forego all other food the rest of the day. Mmmm. I wish I had that omelet now.

Round Barn Winery

Many are the states that make wine - all of them, in fact. A week or so ago, Conrad and I decided to finally open a bottle of a Maui Syrah we purchased from a winery there last year. It was... interesting. Far better than the Carlos and Noble. More "interesting" than the Missouri wine. We thought it was kind of watery, and as we went on, the initial appealing funk became more than we cared for.

We've also had Michigan wine before, both at wineries and at restaurants and homes. We've been told the names of some good wineries, too, though we don't think we've stumbled upon them in our travels. Tabor Hill is a name that comes up, and we enjoyed generous pours of it at the rehearsal dinner I have yet to blog. But it's not our favourite, no. Instead, we turn to Round Barn Winery, a place we came upon while out with Darth and Heidi a few years back.

(Long story about ViJ's here, ask me another day.)

The day after the wedding we dropped by Tina's parents' home for the send-off brunch, and - with a little food in our bellies - we set out through gently rolling landscape clothed in cornfields and grape vines. Ah, the vines, heavy with ripe berries.
When will they pick them all.

Frankly, I'm not a fan of the grape wines from Michigan with rare exception, and the visit this time to Round Barn didn't dispel that notion much. The Chardonnay, for example, had a big, oaky nose, but was like water in our mouths. Conrad liked the regular Cab but thought the reserve Cab was lacking. We tried several grape wines, in fact, and at best they were ok.

Ah, but the fruit wines, the fruit wines. Oh, scorn fruit wine if you will, but it can be a lovely thing to sip alone, or with cheese or desert or even some savoury foods. We're huge fans of the black walnut, and were dismayed that they had none. Our spirits (ha! see what I did there?) lifted when they told us it was coming out later this year.

The fruit wines were as lovely as we recalled from years past, and we happily bought a handful of bottles. Declining the beer tasting, we headed outside, took some photos, and began the (happily not too long) trek back around the bend of the lake to Chicago.

Darth! Heidi! Niles!

First in a cluster of blog postings to appear in the next day or two, most of them related to the recent weekend in Michiana. Ah, glorious Michiana. Home of many strip malls, as we learned. The stretch from South Bend, IN, to Niles, MI, is replete with them.

But never mind, for Niles is also the home of friends: Darth and Heidi.

Yes, you wonder, I know: what sort of name is Darth? A nickname, of course. Darth is better known to our library school classmates and others by his real name, Conrad. But that, as you may guess, gets to be confusing in conversations among the four of us. Whether he approves or not, he is Darth, and Allison will back me up on this one!




Given the schedule of wedding events and things going on with Darth and Heidi, we had to settle for a quick visit with them at the library in Niles, catching up on our personal events, wishing for a future longer visit together. Funny coincidence: Darth is taking part in a community theatre production of Escanaba in da Moonlight, a play of a movie set in Conrad's (my Conrad's) hometown. Yooper jokes popped out for a minute or two.

And then we had to leave Darth to his work (Heidi, by then, was en route to Ann Arbor). At least he gave us a must-see/must-do in Niles recommendation before we left: Veni's Sweet Shop. Conrad and I had a little fun shopping in there, restraining ourselves somewhat. And, as a thank you to Darth, dropped off a little treat box with him from the shop before we drove on out of town.

Happy birthday handsome man!

No, Conrad will not mind this post or its title. He's well aware of my unrequited crush on the NBF's BF. In any case, as handsome as I think Brett is, he's sooooo darn fussy with food that it would drive me nuts.

Brett = hot. Jeph = a saint for putting up with Brett.

:-)

Happy birthday Brett, you handsome man! Your BF better be treating you right!

turkey breast

This will be a short post. I have plan B in the oven right now, baking for an office function tomorrow. And while I'm not hugely confident in how it will turn out, I will say that the kitchen is beginning to smell really awesome.

So then, while it bakes, a photo and comment on dinner tonight. I came home, put season 2 of Big Bang Theory on the laptop on the kitchen table, and set to work on roasting a turkey breast for us. Seasoned, browned it, chucked it in an oven for a while. Took it out, checked the temperature/juices, rested it. Sliced it up.

In fact, I was pleased. Turkey is often so dry, but this was fairly moist even before I drizzled some pan drippings over it. I plated slices atop parsnip-leek puree and added mustard-glazed Brussels-sprouts to it all. A simple, compact plate. We sat in the living room and ate, sipping a Foxen 2006 Pinot Noir.