Crickets, Cats, Art and Authors...Chicago Part Deux

Okay, just to keep some semblance of a food blog--here is another loaf of challah and some dipping sauce I made before we left. As requested, the recipe follows below.




Challah Bread

* 2 c White bread flour
* 1 c Wheat bread flour
* 2 tb Sugar (I used brown)
* 1 1/2 ts Salt
* 1/4 c Butter
* 2 Eggs
* 1 Egg yolk
* 3/4 c Water
* 2 1/4 ts Yeast
* Sesame seeds to put on braided loaf

(make sure you save that egg white to brush the loaf with!)
This is enough to make one large loaf or two small loaves. I set my bread machine to dough cycle, braided and baked at 375 for about 25 minutes. Eat right away!!

Now that we have that out of the way--here is some more Chicago for you! As I said, I stayed in Chinatown--I tried a different restaurant every night, and I'll be honest--I made some poor dish choices. I did really, really love one version of seaweed egg drop soup from the place next door. Clear broth--very good--not your traditional fluorescent yellow variety ;) Did not take pics of the food because it was not very photogenic.

my key.

Went to Second Friday in neighboring Pilsen. My friend, Kate, and her man, Robert, had their studio open to the public along with a variety of artists and crafters. Here are the cats, quarantined to the loft, along with some of Kate's paintings.


a bowl of delicious grasshoppers.


Robert, after trying the delicious grasshoppers.


Some of Robert's stained glass work, gently blurred.


Kate's painting--this photo doesn't do justice to the color or sheer size of this piece--it's huge.


Speakers at the American Library Association Conference--there were so many excellent authors!! Here's just a glimpse, because I don't think you want to look at 30 pics of authors ;)

James Ellroy

Chicago Gay Men's Chorus

Melba Pattillo Beals (one of the Arkansas nine--incredible speaker!!)

And I had to sneak a seat on the side to see Sherman Alexie speak.

ALA 2009 was absolutely excellent--thank you so much to my employers for sending me!

Back from Chicago!

I have some more pictures to upload later, but these are from my jogging route. Chicago is just awesome during the summer!! Stayed in a fourth floor walk up in Chinatown--was a great trip. I took these with my phone, so not the best quality pictures. More to follow later on.

Challah and that house is going DOWN!

Oh dear--do you ever make something that is SO GOOD that you eat too much of it? I made a loaf of challah last night, and we sat down to watch season two of Weeds (we just rented season one a couple days ago and fell in love with the show!) Forty minutes later, I looked down and was shocked to see that we'd eaten almost the entire loaf!! Sheesh! At any rate, this is obviously an excellent loaf of bread.


A bit of a lumpy braid--but I made the small loaf of bread. I'll try a full size loaf next time, and see how my braid looks, then. Recipe from Electric Bread was used, subbing sesame seeds for poppy seeds.

So...remember that enormous fire that occurred way back in February? After numerous calls to the owner of the burned out house, calls to the city, calls to the demo company, and in general mayhem...its FINALLY being torn down. We have had a LOT of problems with homeless and vagrants so I am very, very pleased that this scary heap is going away.


This will no longer be our view from the window!


Got a bit precarious, but luckily, the side of this house didn't crash down on us. The demo guy came around and pushed it away from our house. I was scared!


Supposed to be down completely by the end of the week! (we'll see....)

I'm off to Chicago for a week for work, but Tavo will stay in Atlanta and hold down the fort. Happy Wednesday, everyone :)

Fireworks, Friends and Food

A couple of young men decided to take a quick trip to Alabama and grab some fireworks...
Wait--here's a close up of that one. O-Bomb-A


Here are some shots of the race! Natalie and I running--I'm on the right with the sunglasses. This is about 6 miles in, so we're almost at the finish line.



Post race, we went to our friend Mark's house for pool swimming and firework watching!


(I'm there, too. I'm the one that is a foot shorter than everyone else)



Every single pizza place was closed! Every single Chinese food place was closed! Even the wing place was closed! No worries, though. Somehow a box of rice and a bag of frozen veggies managed to feed all eight of us--chicken, too, for the non-veggies ;)
Happy Fourth of July!!

Peachtree Road Race 2009

Hello everyone--Happy Fourth!!

I ran the Peachtree Road Race 10K yesterday, with my friend Natalie. Here is a link to a really cool time lapse photo of the race--with all 55,000 runners! I'm in the very last group--time group 9. Clark Howard always runs in time group nine, too ;)

Peachtree Article

Tavo brought us Krispy Kreme doughnuts after the race--thanks, babe!

Driving Range and Shrimp Etouffee

Would you believe that before yesterday, neither of us has ever been to the driving range before? Wow, what fun! A hundred balls for $10, we could borrow the clubs, and just whack the heck out of them. My shots were wayward at best, but Tavo really was getting the hang of it. (it didn't hurt that they had beer for $2 to sip while watching or playing) Here's some pics of the up and coming golf pro.
(I can't believe these photos came from my cheap camera phone...I'm impressed!)
Very fun! We'll definitely do that again.

Now, I've made Shrimp Etouffee before, altering Katherine's Crawfish Etouffee recipe from Smoky Mountain Cafe. I really, really enjoyed that recipe. I do love to experiment, though, so this time I decided to give Paula Dean's recipe a try.

Rouxing it up--I'm never using butter again, oil is so much more forgiving...
**ad lib** maybe I should stick to butter? How do you roux?

Everything but the shrimp, cooking down. Paula's recipe suggested using Ro*Tel but I stuck with regular whole tomatoes, broken up by hand.
Dinner, with our herbs from the garden. I was in the healthy mood, so we have brown rice.
Lunches!

Verdict? We both still like Katherine's recipe better. Maybe its because we cooked the veggies down first, then started the roux? Maybe it was the use of stock as opposed to clam juice? The addition of sherry? I'm not sure, but both of agreed that while Paula's recipe is good, it isn't the best.

Custard, Plants, and what is wrong with our Tomatoes???

We will always remember Michael Jackson. Had to pull out the Thriller album and play it all night last night to celebrate his memory. "He is one hell of a dancer" -Fred Astaire

Our roses are blowing up, despite the lack of rain...

Police on horses, headed down Georgia Avenue.
Mexican Chocolate Custard, based on Molly Katzen's recipe from the original Moosewood Cookbook. If I made it again, I think I would mix some high quality dark chocolate in--I needed a little more bitterness.
(yes, I used coffee cups because I don't have custard cups. They matched, though!)
My favorite flower in the entire world, my gladiolas :) They make me glad.
Petunias!

Peppers!
Healthy tomatoes...


Okay--my Gardening Gurus...what happened to these guys??

(I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with 100 degree days and no rain for a week....)

I can't leave this post with such a sad end...one more flower picture for you.