The Best of the Blog

Where to start? So many good posts, so little time to recap. It was hard to choose, but here are my favorites...some for the pictures and some for the stories behind them...of what I've already posted on the blog. Each title links to the original post.

The Top Ten (In No Particular Order):
1) At the Cottage
2) Irving Place
3) Lawnmower Escape Artist
4) He's Sad Because We're Eating Him
5) A Birthday Invasion (This one goes out to the late, great Grandma Alma)
6) Fountain Play
7) Girl
8) Late to the Party
9) Family Round Up: Part 4
10) Cherry Tree Time of Year

The Runners Up:
Halloween - The Morning After
The Family Chef
Friday Means Fries Day
Blame E.T.
Self Portrait
6 Train
Like Dads Do
Just Your Average U.F.O.

Also, my favorite photo series on the blog (East Side Walks was a good series, too):
Let's Put the Cat in Things
Let's Put the Cat in Things: A Before and After
Let's Put the Cat in Things: A Reprise
Let's Put the Cat in Things: A Reprise, Part 2

Happiness is a Cold Shamrock Shake

Shamrock shakes...enough said.

Mmm...more burgers

A few days ago, I went with Jess and her friend Alex to eat at The Counter in Palo Alto...a place that specializes in letting people order build-your-own burgers. This beauty had juicy beef, sharp provolone, pickles, lettuce, ketchup, bacon and carmelized onions on it. Jess went wild and ordered hers with tzatziki sauce on it...it's a good thing I don't live here because I would truly come every day just to try a different combination of toppings and sauces.

In-N-Out

I'm in sunny California (actually not that sunny today) and one of my first stops was an In-N-Out Burger, which is a quasi non-healthy, delicious mess. When you go to In-N-Out, always order off menu, meaning order it "Animal Style"--means your cheeseburger is then cooked in mustard sauce and topped with lettuce, tomato, secret sauce, pickles, and grilled onions. Sweet! I went all out and had a Double-Double Animal Style, which means all that yumminess but with twice the meat and twice the cheese. I am, after all, still a Midwesterner.

Fat Tuesday

So although my last name is Pierski, I do not celebrate Fat Tuesday by running down to the nearest bakery for finely crafted Paczki (Polish jelly filled donuts) but instead stuff my face with, you guessed it, French fries. These fries came with a humongous sandwich at Honeypie in Bay View, where the portions are all humongous...see conversation below for reference.

Me: "This plate is, like, 12 inches wide. That's a lot of platage..."
My boyfriend: "Especially when your food is piled 6 inches high"

I think you get the idea.

Chez Jacques

You're all probably sick about my writing about food, but I've come to realize that not only do I love food, but I love all varieties and kinds of food--I can wax eloquent on fine dining and fast food alike. Today, I'm handing out kudos to Chez Jacques in Milwaukee's Fifth Ward. It probably looks to you like it's just a ham and cheese melt, but is in fact a superbly executed croque monsieur (so make that a French ham and cheese melt, naturellement) and salad served with the world's most delicious dijon mustard vinaigrette. They also have some fantastic crepes in a variety of flavors, including a tasty chicken curry crepe (not traditionally French, but still delicious). I'll definitely be coming back here again.

A Little Baking

Just a good old-fashioned Pierski Christmas cookie baking assembly line at Grandma's...you know, like back in the day before child labor laws made Grandma give you an occasional break from all your hard work.

(If my grandmother is reading...I'm just kidding. And I love you. Do I still get a Christmas present?)

Honeypie

Honeypie, a new(er) restaurant in Bay View, is home to all sorts of delicious home cooking and midwestern-ish comfort food. I've been meaning to go there for awhile, and finally got there this week. I ordered some white bean chili, to keep it warm and simple, which was delicious. I was with a friend, who pointed out a dish called the Davenport on the menu: it promised a "mound of turkey," mashed potatoes, cheesy sauce, assorted veggie toppings, and a some bread. He sort of scoffed at the menu's boasting, but he shut up real quick: it was indeed a real mound of turkey and mashed potato deliciousness. I would have to say, I'd recommend Honeypie to anyone who's as hungry as a horse. Or hungrier.

Grandma's Cookies

My great-grandmother Alma passed away this past week. She was a whopping 96 years old, and just decided one day not to wake up for us. I decided to blog about her because she was something of a family matriarch (she shared that title with my other great-grandmother, who is herself an impressive 95 years) and because it's the Christmas season. Grandma Alma's parents owned a German bakery when she was growing up, and every Christmas she still brings over plates of homemade cookies, just like she used to make in the bakery. These cookies are a family favorite, and no one makes them like Grandma did.

The recipe is a simple sugar cookie one, and the taste is not unusual as far as cookies go. The real secret to their deliciousness is that Grandma hand decorated each one with chocolate chips, colored sugars, sprinkles, nuts, powdered sugar, sno-caps, and hershey kisses in the shapes of candy canes, stars, christmas trees and ornaments. At her funeral, one of my younger cousins was crying because he was afraid he wouldn't get to have any more of these...not exactly grief for the loss of Grandma, but I'm sure she would still be pleased to know that she, and her cookies, will be missed. I'm hoping the recipe won't get lost, so I'm putting it here for myself, and for any of you, if you're interested.

A Holiday How-To: So the Oven Broke on Turkey Day...

Well, it's Thanksgiving...which means family, food, and football on TV. Just before the holiday could kick off, however, Mama D's oven broke down. Not to be deterred (and having a turkey large enough to feed a small army), she figured out how to grill out bird on the gas grill, cook the stuffing in a crock pot, and still have dinner on the table by mid-afternoon. Here she is checking out the turkey's progress.

Update, 12:05 pm: Mama D says the turkey takes 4 hours on the grill, and is turning out so brown and lovely that she may grill the turkey every year from now on. You heard it here first, friends: necessity is indeed the mother of delicious invention.

Baking Again

A little almond pound cake with vanilla drizzle...by far the most easy dessert I have in my repetoire because I can cheat and use box mix or store frosting for the drizzle if I want. No one needs to know, and it comes out delicious either way.

Dinner and Dessert

I know, I know, another food post. Maybe you'll forgive me once you see how delicious this all is. On Saturday night, I had the most amazing chicken florentine with pesto sauce while in the midst of a baking session.

On the menu for dessert - apple pie. I tried a new recipe of my own, which I think turned out quite well (I combined a recipe I got from Mama D with another I pulled from Epicurious.com, adding a little extra sugar and small amounts of brown sugar, nutmeg, and vanilla into the usual apple pie filling). I'm proud of the few things I can cook or bake well, so I felt like sharing the pictures of the results with all of you.

Another Delicious Post

I went to Transfer Pizzeria in Milwaukee for the first time last night, and enjoyed the general atmosphere (they have local art displayed on the walls, and live jazz on Tuesday nights) as well as some decidedly delicious food. If you go, I would highly recommend the bruschetta as well as the Pollo Fungi pizza, which had an unusual name (do you usually think of Fungi as delicious?) but was a dreamy combination of a perfectly hand tossed crust, chicken, mushrooms, onions, and sauce.

On a side note, I realize that I love to blog and talk about food. A lot. So to help myself out, and you all as well, I added food to the list of things I talk about alot on the blog's home page. If you click on it, all of my food related posts should now pop up. I've blogged about food so much that there's actually more than one page of pictures-just hit "older posts" when you get to the bottom. Looking at all that culinary goodness made me so hungry, I had to go eat something.

Belated

My belated birthday cake from my Grandma Marge was epic: it looked like a Swiss Cake Roll, and had ice cream in the middle. Nothing says Happy Birthday like Chocolate-chip-ice-cream-birthday-cake. Cheers to that!

The Family Chef

Mama D is one hell of a cook - while I was at home visiting her and the family this weekend she whipped up a lobster bisque, steak, carrots, and baked potatoes for dinner. She's a pro, and is single-handedly the reason that I cannot cook very well (I'm learning...I only fill the kitchen with smoke about once every two weeks now...quite the accomplishment). Above, she stirs the bisque, and below, stirs up some simmering carrots.

Kansas City Beef

I went to visit Mama D in Kansas City over the weekend. Knowing my obsession for cheeseburgers, she made a smart choice and took me to lunch at J Alexander's, a local restaurant that has delicious well-done fare as well as one of the best burgers in town. Other than wanting to slather ketchup all over it (perhaps a second obsession), I enjoyed it thoroughly. You can see below just how much I enjoyed it...just call me a member of the clean plate club.

Cooking while Camping

Campsite eggs benedict: a study in culinary failure. We ended up scrambling them instead, and eating them sandwich style with some cheesy Doritos (very classy).

Brunch at Bayou

My roommate and I went to have brunch today at Bayou, which is a fantastically delicious place to grab brunch near North Ave and the east side/riverwest. I had a salmon omelet with a weird but satisfying combination of salmon, tomato, cream cheese and egg topped with mango chutney and with a side of potatoes done just the way I like them.

Chopstix

This is very consciously a shout-out and shameless plug for the Chinese take-out place on Farwell Ave., Chopstix. I'm not sure if they're under new management, or have a new cook, but the last two times I've ordered from them the food was ridiculously fresh, delicious, and generously portioned (I was totally sold when I saw they gave me an extra crab rangoon). Deliciousness.

A Rare Culinary Success

Many of you know how I love to partake in my own little culinary disasters- I'm much too spontaneous and creative a cook to be really any good at it. However, I've been slowly endeavoring to get good at baking, and I'm starting to have some success. In celebration of summer and easy to bake things, I made a blueberry and a peach cobbler. I took the peach to work and the blueberry to my dad so they could all try it out for me--and--success! The verdict seems to be that I did just fine. Here's a before and after of the blueberry...