Soak It, Spice It, Smoke It, Slice It

So what do you do if you have five pounds of corned beef, but only need four pounds for your St. Patty's Day dinner? Make pastrami!! Oh, and you'd better bake a loaf of traditional rye bread too:

St. Patrick's Week

Since St. Patty's day falls on a Wednesday this year, we'll be busy at church, and unable to manage a big meal. So instead, we invited friends over for dinner tonight, and cooked up a traditional American St. Patty's Day feast.

Dinner in the City, Movie in the Suburbs

For a very delayed Valentine's day celebration, Cori and I braved the St. Patrick's Day parade traffic and headed into Chicago to visit Rick Bayless's new restaurant, Xoco, for lunch today. Xoco serves Mexican fare in a "street food" style. For lunch, their primary offering are tortas, wood-fire roasted sandwiches.

Brightening the Dreary Winter Months

A little secret: I love snow. Give me a great big storm with a foot of snow, so I can't do anything but stay home and cook and play games...I'm a happy camper. No wait, I'd be a miserable camper, I'm a happy homer. D'oh! You get the idea. I suspect the only reason I look forward to these events is because I'm blessed to live in a city where it only takes a few hours for the plow crews to clear the roads, so we're never homebound long enough to get cabin fever. Plus, when the storm blows itself out, we can take Elly SLEDDING!

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

Ok, so I got behind again on posting Elly photos, and it's time to catch up. When we left off, it was Elly's birthday...the week before Christmas.

As with most families, I suppose, Christmas is a very busy time. We have two families to visit, multiple church services, choir, and we almost never do our present wrapping until Christmas Eve. Toss in a one-year-old, and the week starts to feel a little like this:

...and then she was one.

On Saturday, we celebrated Elly's first birthday. Both sets of grandparents, and her aunt Becky, uncle Justin, and cousin Nathan came to party. Everyone was greeted at the door by that same giggling cloud of balloons, which had by now become completely entangled around her leg.

Elly, 11 months old.

Elly is now in full-tilt toddler mode. She constantly keeps us on our toes, as she literally runs from one thing to the next. She has also developed her own little (or rather, big) personality.