What if Horst Kohler came to Chicago?

Would anyone show up? Conversely:

The New York Times caption for this photo reads "Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, waved to the crowd gathered at the Victory Column at Tiergarten Park in Berlin on Thursday. An estimated 200,000 Germans gathered to watch Mr. Obama's speech."



(note: NY Times photo)

Cutting Back On Beef

If you saw Mark Bittman's talk on TED (see my previous post), you are probably ready to think about cutting back on meat (cow and pig) and focusing on chicken and fish. I certainly am. Not because I watched the video, but because Carolyn watched the video and our menu options have since changed . . .

So, how to cut back? Mark Bittman has suggestions here.

p.s. if you didn't watch Bittman's video, give it a try and you will learn some amazing facts. For example, how many cows would you guess we slaughter in the U.S. each year?

a. over a 100 million.
b. over a 200 million.
c. over a 700 million.
d. all of the above.

If you guessed "a," you're way off. If you guessed "b," you're still too low. The answer is "d." Yes, over one billions cows a year. And the environmental impact is devastating. Too bad, because I really like beef.

Lastly, if you have read this far, you deserve a bonus: Chef Mary's video: Rabbit With Mustard.


Believe me, you do not want to miss this video. Nor Chef Mary's numerous other videos. Bon Appétit!

Mark Bittman on what's wrong with what we eat

A fascinating talk with some stunning statistics and a formula for eating in the future. This won't be easy.

Big News

The dark days are over. Yahoo! CB2!

Congratulations, Natalie, on your first full time job! Suerte!

Road Trip to Madison

Skip the text and go straight to the slide show here.

We took a trip to Madison to attend our friend Tom's birthday party this past weekend. It morphed into a one day road trip of sorts when we decided to take a leisurely back country approach to Madison instead the interstate. See map below. We left Evanston around 10 am. We spotted a custard stand in Burlington around 11 am, which caused us to stop. After inhaling a chocolate-vanilla swirl we decided to take a short bike tour around the downtown. Nice and clean. Real Wisconsin. And a remarkable number of museums for a small town:

• BURLINGTON UFO AND PARANORMAL MUSEUM & RESEARCH CENTER SCI FI CAFE 'With' OLD FASHIONED ICE CREAM PARLOR AND GIFT SHOPPE.
• Spinning Top Museum
• Logic Puzzle Museum
• Chocolate Museum
• Burlington Historical Society Museum

We took a pass on visiting the museums this trip, loaded the bikes back on the car and headed for Palmyra. By the time we got there it was time for lunch and we were ravenous. We walked into one place but there wasn't a soul to be seen so we walked across the street to Hot Rods Bar & Grille. I wondered if it was a gay bar, but it wasn't. The theme was hot rods, although the only indication was the grille of a car on the wall. That's it. One solitary grille. Perhaps that's why the name is Bar & Grille rather than Bar and Grilles, because there was no grill to cook on. Just a toaster oven. Either very clever of the owner or happenstance and the entire concept of my observation this is way beyond them. I think the later.

Fort Atkinson was a real surprise. We didn't realize how bad the flooding was. The highlight of the trip, however, was stumbling across the Cold Spring Egg Farm. What an operation! See the photos. Unfortunately we didn't go inside. It's not open to the public.

A slide show of the trip can be seen here.

A short movie of the party appears here.