Directional

At City Lights Bookstore, in San Francisco: in case you were looking specifically for A Coney Island of the Mind, it's through the doorway and up the stairs.

Chinatown

I went to explore San Francisco yesterday...it was a crazy busy day in Chinatown, where they're still celebrating the Year of the Tiger.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Here at the Lee house in Palo Alto, CA, as a family they're all about saving things that still work, even if the kids are now grown and have outgrown them. There's a Winnie the Pooh musical clock in the kitchen, a soccer and basketball themed rug in the bathroom, and then this old-school style Kermit the Frog telephone. I love the quirky atmosphere it gives the house!

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.

Snow Globe

Went to have lunch with my dad today and got this shot out his office window...it may be almost March, but it's still a wintry wonderland in Milwaukee.

Nostalgia

I'm at Mama D's house in Kansas City, cleaning out old boxes of stuff that's been accumulating for more than ten years. Here's the most amusing stuff I've found so far: my 8th grade basketball picture, a New Found Glory sweatshirt (no comment), a greeting card I meant to give someone in 2006, and an old copy of my high school newspaper, the Thomas More Utopian (aptly named?).

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.

A Blogging Hiatus Recap

So, dear friends, I've been away for awhile. I've had some mishaps, some adventures, and accomplished a few things. Let me show you a few:

Celebration: I toasted to the New Year with a good looking young man...
Happy surprise: I found a vending machine that serves all kind of addictions...nicotine, chocolate...

Industriousness: I found time to bake, and learned to cook a few new things (my own version chicken chili, homemade chicken pot pie, apple crisp, and macadamia and chocolate chip cookies all went in the 'win' column)...
Stranded: I was officially the last one living on Farwell Avenue to realize it's one giant tow-away zome during snow emergencies. It turned into a ghost town, and I got my car stuck in the snow twice trying to trek out to my dad's house (with it's sweet promise of a garage and plowed drive-way)...

Relief: The first of what is hopefully many acceptance letters to a Ph.D. program, so that I can fulfill my goal of becoming a professor and academically stressing out the--ahem--future leaders of tomorrow...

The Shout

Sometimes my camera has a mind of its own, and throws a blurry picture my way.

It's Christmas!

More proof that the holiday season is always a tasty time of year (not to mention over commercialized). Have a happy Christmas, Hanukah, Festivus, and New Year!

Christmas Tree, XL

If there was ever a contest for the most intense Christmas Tree set-up, I think this triple decker tree would probably have to win....can you imagine putting lights on that thing every year?

Art Museum Part 2

Just a little playing with color and light...and I thought modern art couldn't be functional.

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.

Art Museum

I went to the Art Museum last week to check out the Andy Warhol exhibit (which they wouldn't let me take pictures of it, so it doesn't get its own post) and while I was there went to visit my favorite piece of art in the regular collection. It looks unassuming, just an open suitcase on the floor, until...

You walk up to the suitcase and look in. This isn't the best picture of it, but in the suitcase is a sewer grate, and under the sewer grate is a stream with plants, rocks, and running water. If you're really interrogative in nature, you can walk around the back of the suitcase and see two pairs of feet...

It looks like a dad holding a little kid up over the water as it runs by. I think I love this because it's three things in one, isn't what it seems on the surface and isn't the sort of modern, abstract art that I could do myself at home with rocks or finger paints. Thumbs up for the suitcase.

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?)

That Time of Year

Lots of accidents this time of year, clearly. Roads are slippery, and that sleigh just doesn't brake like it used to.

We Put the Kitsch in Christmas

My Grandma Marge is a big fan of her 1960s Christmas decorations: big, multicolor lights and home-made Christmas tree ornaments. My cousin Cassandra mugged for the camera as Grandma gave us decorating instructions...and I wanted to give you a close-up of her ornaments, because I'm pretty sure she and her mom (my grandma Alma) made a lot of them by hand. They just don't sell ornaments like this at Target, now do they?

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.