thankful tuesdays: good reads

This Tuesday I am thankful for good books.

We are so lucky in Milwaukee to have an excellent library system. We are also lucky that the ashes of the former Harry W. Schwartz stores are being revitalized. In my neck of the woods, it's Boswell Books, where I recently visited for the first time.

I haven't had a chance to plow through any of the reads I picked up there, but I did want to share my thoughts on a book I reserved from the library after reading about it on the Wisconsin Public Radio Here on Earth Podcast.

I'm not generally a chick-lit fan (Bridget Jones and Jane Austen excluded), but the conversation with Margot Berwin about her debut novel intrigued me. Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire didn't break any new literary ground, but it was the first book I've read in a long time that I just could not put down. When I wasn't reading it, I was plotting time to get back to it. Berwin knows how to craft a story and the reader becomes completely invested in the world of botany, suspense and romance she creates. If you are looking for a quick, entertaining and at times, salacious, summer read, I highly recommend this novel.

I seem to have lucked out as I spotted White Tiger on the shelf today when I went to return Hothouse. I have to wrap this blog up to get back to reading it. I heard lots of buzz about it last year when the author, Aravind Adiga, upset literary stalwarts to win the Booker Prize. As I wrote to my friend and India travel companion, Jason, this evening:

I almost called you on page 7 after noticing that almost every single word describes our trip in general.

I have no idea how it ends, or where exactly the plot is going yet, but I guarantee you it's better than Slumdog.

I'll be sure to share my thoughts on this blog when I finish the book (which looks to be this week at the rate I'm flying through it).

meghan & julie & julia

Welcome everyone who has popped over from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I hope you've taken the time to skim a bit of my blog. If you like what you see, please come on back. If you don't, please don't leave a nasty comment. In the immortal words of Thumper, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." On that note, constructive criticism and healthy debate is always appreciated!

I also encourage you to check out the other fabulous bloggers involved in the project. I signed up for all their RSS feeds, especially if any of them continue to take on this challenge.

While many of you probably read my whole tale over at the JS, I'm including my unedited version below (with links to the vendors I used in the process).

The True Adventures of Meghan and 4 Lobsters

It all started with twittering about radishes.

I’d been on a radish kick earlier this summer and when the Journal-Sentinel’s PostCollegeCook was looking for radish recipes via social media I was happy to oblige.

Little did I know an insignificant spicy root vegetable would lead me to taking on the master—Ms. Julia Child.

After some tweets back and forth, sharing a radish slaw and radish tart recipe I noticed a call out from the JS looking for twentysomething bloggers to try a “food challenge.” Intrigued, and always hunting for recipes and experiences to fill my “Monday Munchies” blog column, I followed up.

This wasn’t any old challenge. This was a tie-in with the forthcoming Julie/Julia biopic profiling the original food superstar and an NYC blogger trying to learn her cooking methods. I was to roleplay the blogger role, and well, Julia was to manifest through her classic tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Always up for a good test, and looking for an excuse to finally clean my apartment and have a few friends over for food and wine, I took the assignment.

I don’t consider myself a great chef, but like Julia Child, who learned midlife how to tackle the gourmet, I don’t shy away from throwing myself wholly and fearlessly into the kitchen. Unlike Julia, I’m a little bit more free-form of a cook. She’s more classical musician, I’m a bit more jazz. I usually throw in “whatever.” But, I acquiesced, it would probably behoove me to follow directions and see what turns out.

Where to start in emulating a pop cultural touchstone of my childhood (just weeks after another had so publicly been mourned)? How to begin following in the footsteps of my farmshare partner, Becky’s, distant relative? Each week we divvy up our vegetables, but isn’t she genetically predisposed to make them gourmet?

I didn’t want to cop out and try something that would be easy for me. I had the added challenge of avoiding any recipe that involved red meat or pork, since I don’t eat them. Let me tell you, this is extremely difficult considering even most veggie dishes require bacon fat or beef bullion.

After seriously reflecting on duck, I flipped to the seafood section. Page 221 called out to me. Homard Thermidor – Lobster Thermador, Gratinéed in its Shell.

Hmm…sounds delicious.

But a lot of work! But Julia promises “it is not a particularly difficult dish to execute.” Well, then okay, I’ll give it a go.

I read and reread the recipe for a week. Unfortunately lobster is not quite something you can give a dry run. Like studying for an exam, I plan my strategy. I invite my guinea pigs, providing full disclosure as to what this all about. The dish is built for six, but only three can make it.

“Good, I’ll keep the death toll to a minimum,” I joke.

I invite only my most foodie-freak friends. The ones who will tell me if it totally sucks. They decide to take on the challenge themselves. Aimee offers to bring an escargot appetizer. Jason pledges to make Julia’s chocolate mousse for dessert.

Suddenly this is becoming very real.

I make one side dish the night before (potato salad with radicchio and cilantro pesto), otherwise there’s not much advance prep I can do. The big day arrives.

I drag myself out of bed and hop on my bike over to Blatz Liquor to pick up the vermouth and cognac Julia calls for, as well as some wine to accompany dinner. They’re closed. I take this as a bad omen.

Running a bit behind schedule (according to the strategy in my head), I turn the bike down Broadway to the Milwaukee Public Market. First stop, Good Harvest Market. Committed to natural and organic ingredients, it’s great to have this store close to home. I pick up the required vegetables, European style butter (what better for French cooking?), and organic cream. Being a slow food proponent, I was a bit disappointed to find out that even the loose vegetables, according to the cashier, “were probably from California,” but justified as an homage to SoCal native JC.

Next, to the Spice House – one of those places that would be on my “top five first stops if I ever won the lottery.” I am excited to see that they now have “certified organic” spices and grabbed cayenne pepper and thyme. I also stock up on tarragon and dry mustard, as called for in the three-page recipe. The helpful clerk tells me other uses for the dry mustard, which was a new herb for me. Apparently I can mix it in with tuna salad or mayo for a “nice kick.”

I swing by the West Allis Cheese Shoppe to grab some shredded Sartori Parmesan, then finally, show time. I walk slowly but intently to St. Paul Fish Market and look down at my shopping list one last time.

“Three two pound lobsters please, “ I ask.

The kid behind the counter politely explains that they don’t carry any lobsters that large. Just about a pound and a quarter.

Crap. Bad omen number two.

Doing some quick math (as well as thinking about the limited cooking supplies I have at home), I opt for “four of the fattest lobsters you have.”

My four petite homards, get loaded into a long styrofoam cooler. I request they wrap it with packing tape so I can flip it vertically in my bike basket.

“I don’t want lobsters running loose on Wisconsin Avenue.”

After a precarious ride home, avoiding any spills or attacks by PETA activists privy to the massacre I will soon commit, I drop my crustacean pals off at the apartment, then head back to Blatz Liquor.

Thanks to twitter, they’re ready for me. There’s a nice small bottle of dry vermouth and I opt for brandy over the more expensive cognac. Being an “accidental Wisconsinite,” I still haven’t embraced the brandy/cognac thing and know the bottle will go unused unless I cook with it again.

After purchasing my cooking liquor, I realize I need wine pairings. The clerk assists me in selecting a Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier blend, as well as Charles Smith’s Kung Fu Girl Reisling. I’m taken with the idea that I should have a cold beer to sip while cooking, so he directs me to a new beer, Southern Tier Brewery’s Crème Brulee Stout.

Shopping is complete. Time to really attack the task at hand.

Not ready to face reality, I call my parents as I walk into my apartment. I don’t want to tell them what’s going on, so I get 10 more minutes of avoiding reality until the fighter jets for the airshow start up and I am forced to get off the phone.

I change into my best ‘50s housewife dress and take a deep breath. It’s go time.

I start slicing and dicing my veggies. I learn from Julia the proper way to clean mushrooms (soak in a basin of cold water and rub dirt off with your fingers, drain and wash again). I cheat a little with some of my Pampered Chef gadgetry. No thin slicing when I have a food plane. I don’t want a trip to the ER and this is a good way to avoid that.

While in the prep phase I hear my friends clawing at the Styrofoam. It’s a little off-putting but I concentrate on the task at hand.

Everything is ready and I read and reread the recipe about 50 times in a minute. It just doesn’t seem right that there’s only about 4 cups of liquid in my huge canning kettle (which conveniently doubles as a lobster pot). Don’t you boil lobster?

Apparently you steam them in this case, after simmering herbs and vegetables in the water for 15 minutes prior. Things are starting to smell good in the kitchen. And I am ready to escort the little guys to Lobster Death Camp.

I successfully make it through step one. Having spent the first year of my life in Maine, I’m unfazed by the slaughter. The lobster steams to a pleasing bright red and the mushrooms I simultaneously stewed in butter look perfect as well.

All is right in the world.

Unbeknownst to me, that was the easy part.

I’m instructed to split the lobsters in two, but leave the shells intact. What sort of laser beam eye, magic powers did Julia Child have to divide lobsters? I use my biggest, sharpest knife, but there’s shell flying everywhere. I manage to salvage the tails pretty much intact. The heads/torsos are a different story. I need to remove the “sand sacks” and intestines, but I have no idea how to identify those. I end up tossing a lot of creature and am left with a shell of the shell.

I figure I’m blessed by the fact the cookbook doesn’t include photos.

At this point I can set the lobsters aside, after scraping that green oozy stuff into a “sieve” and adding to my sauce. Not quite sure what qualifies as a sieve, I use the sifter I got at IKEA. Seems to work.

Sauce time is hard. I’m supposed to reduce the mushroom juice mixed in with the lobster juice to 2 1/4 cups. How are you supposed to measure that when it’s boiling hot and in a ginormous container? I eyeball it, but only get about 1 1/4 cups. I justify this with that fact that I have skinnier lobsters. Lacking the energy or latent fraction skills to substitute other ingredients, I sally forth. The sauce gets a little chunky, but I just keep beating and adding in more cream. I feel a sense of pride using egg yolks from my CSA farm, Rare Earth, since I’ve had to neglect the local in a lot of this process. I’m happy this part includes the instructions “taste carefully for seasoning.” Although the sauce looks a little wonky, it tastes great. I’m sold on the dry mustard.

I am not sure if when Julia Child ended the sauce section with “set aside,” she meant for over an hour while you meticulously pick out lobster meat, but that’s what happens next.

I further massacre the lobster by picking the meat out of the tails and claws. I don’t have any of the lobster tools, so I use a fork, knife and my lemon hand juicer to crack the shells. After what seems like forever, I have a heaping bowl of meat, which I then cut into the arbitrary 3/8” size cubes. Seeing as most of the meat is somewhat stringy, I wing it, knowing I’m almost to the end of the tunnel.

Although by this point I’d cracked open the beer, I’d realize it would be better suited to go with dessert than to cool me off in the kitchen. Thus, I have no glass to raise when I get to the magical words “Final assembly.”

All the steps suddenly make sense. I sauté the meat in the cognac (and more butter!), fold in the mushrooms, and some of the sauce (which I reheat and add more cream to, as I’m still not sure about the consistency), and prep it to “heap into shells.” The shells seem purely decorative at this point, and although it doesn’t call for it, I clean off the pieces I have left before I put anything “into” them. Mostly it’s just “on top of,” but it looks like it’ll do. At this point I reach the magical asterisk in Julia’s recipe, which means I can put the pan in the fridge and wait to bake.

I decide to make a pitcher of lemon cucumber water before starting on my sides. I toss my potholders on the stove and go out on the balcony to pick mint and get some fresh air. I come back in and rinse the mint, a faint burning smell wafting up my nose. I turn around and see open flame. My potholders are smoldering. Apparently I was so excited to get to the asterisk, I forgot to turn off the burner.

Bad omen number three.

My friends arrive shortly. Yesh with fresh flowers, Jason with mousse and Aimee with snails. We visit and I chop the green and purple beans for a side and prep an easy summer salad and vinaigrette. While we eat our escargot, I toss the lobster in the oven and pray. I’ve already braved fire today, I just want this to turn out okay.

The timer beeps and the moment of truth arrives. The appetizer course was out of this world and I hope I’m not a disappointment. I arrange the dish on a serving platter with lemon and parsley. I feel I’d make up for the half-assed shell job. My friends are impressed when I walk into the dining room with the platter. They all dish up, while I try and finish my first course.

Then I hear it.

The mmmms. At first I think they’re being polite. But then Aimee declares:

“If I’m ever on death row, this is the last meal that I’ll request.”

The serving dish makes its way around again. I’d planned to repurpose this for lunch tomorrow, but I look over and see Jason greedily scooping seconds off the platter and Yesh sopping up every last morsel on her plate.

The omens had stopped at three. My friends were happy and my dish definitely blew my own expectations. I didn’t know that I had it in me. I’d love to challenge myself again, but I think I’d need to sleep for days before attempting another five hour kitchen marathon.

Reflecting on this project, I realized that in the past year I’ve really ramped up both my cooking and my blogging. Much of the cause has been becoming single and needing to find an outlet. Ironically, Julia Child learned to cook to please her husband. I learned to cook to please myself.

At any rate, that's the whole tale, in a nutshell.

What other culinary adventures would you like to know about? Please leave in the comments.

milwaukee challenges: a trip to the martin luther king library

On the last day of February, I squeaked in part two of one of my self-issued challenges for the year.

To refresh: I'm talking about Milwaukee Challenge #1: Read my way through Milwaukee's Public Libraries, in which I pledged to obtain my 12 books--for an online "Support Your Local Library" challenge--each from a different branch of the city's libraries. Even though the official challenge doesn't have a "one-per-month" limit, that's how I've elected to pace myself.

You may recall last month I visited the East Library. Although I'd originally selected Rabbit, Run by John Updike as my book of the month, I gave up. I'm sorry but it's incredibly rare that I just don't get into a book, but this was one. And you always feel bad when it's supposed to be "important" literature. But crap, man, I really, really, really dreaded having to pick this sucker back up every time I closed it for the day. I got about halfway through and after conversing with a friend about it, who had pretty much the exact same opinion as I, I realized it was okay to let go. Maybe I'm not fully embracing my English major, but I need books with plot or at least where the external internal dialogue doesn't make me want to punch the main character. Yeah, yeah, I understand the anti-hero, but this was too the extreme. Sorry if anybody thinks I'm less intelligent now.

Conversely, I sped through another book I grabbed from the "new fiction" shelf--A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar. This was a funny and poignant story of both the Islamic female and American immigrant experience. I loved it. Couldn't put it down, in fact. I'm anxious to check out Jarrar's other works.

Though I'm still working on It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways and the Search for the Next American Music by Amanda Petrusich, I made myself get to the Martin Luther King branch yesterday before the close of the month.

Located at Martin Luther King and Locust Street, the King library looks a lot like the East library from the outside--squat, post-modern architecture.

The inside, however, couldn't be more different. Although the building opened in 1971, the inside is fully modernized. It's bright and sunny and has many modern computer terminals. It's got a cute little children's area and a nice area for young adults. There were actually a few kids there studying on a Saturday. Great to see in this part of the city!

I didn't see a "Librarian's Choice" display, but I did notice their "African-American Collection which includes both current and historical works of fiction and non-fiction reflecting African-American life and culture." From this I selected my "book of the month": Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston. I also found a book called The History of Black Catholics in the United States by Cyprian Davis. I'm not sure if I'll get through it, but I figured it may help with my other challenge. And in the "one of these things is not like the other" category, I happened to pass by Anthony Bourdain's The Nasty Bits while walking through the shelves, so I picked that up too.

Learning my lesson again to read up before I visit places, I missed a couple features of note at this library:

…an African American Archives collection that focuses on local African American history and persons.

… a sizable collection of permanent art, some pertaining to Dr. King, and a unique accordion book by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. which contains Dr. King’s most noted quotations and adinkra symbols associated with the Ashanti people.

...Recently reinstalled photo exhibit titled: Milwaukee Leaders. Originally introduced in 1989 as “Black Role Models in Milwaukee,” the Milwaukee Leaders collection honors those chosen by members of the community as exemplifying strong role models for their own generation and for those that follow.

There were no newsletters for me to pick up this time, but I did take the time to walk through the neighborhood up Locust on my way to bid adieu to Atomic Records. I will post on that adventure in the coming week.

At the recommendation of my friend Angie, next month's library will be the Villard Avenue Branch. It's Women's History Month, so I'll try to fit with that theme.

milwaukee challenges: trip to the east library

The month is almost out, but I finally got a start to one of my self-issued challenges for the year.

You may recall Milwaukee Challenge #1: Read my way through Milwaukee's Public Libraries, in which I pledged to obtain my 12 books--for an online "Support Your Local Library" challenge--each from a different branch of the city's libraries.

Even though the official challenge doesn't have a "one-per-month" limit, that's how I've elected to pace myself. I knew I had to get cracking. So after work today, I swung by the East Library to begin.

Remember the library at your elementary school? That fairly accurately describes the layout and decor of the East Library. It's one big cozy room with a community reading area running down the middle between the shelves. The walls are red brick and I think there's purple or some other retro-color carpet, that likely has been there since the place was built in the late '60s. There are some very swingin' looking chairs and I regretted that I did not have time to hang. The place WAS packed though, not surprising given the increase in library use due to the recession.

A more accurate description of the layout from the branch page:

East Library, located at 1910 E. North Ave., opened in 1968 and features a special art collection, Works of Wisconsin Artists, donated by William and Virginia Vogel. A striking feature of the building is the ceiling-height, multi-colored glass panels, designed by Conrad Schmitt Studios.

I wish I'd looked up!

There's definitely a sense of community in this library that doesn't exist at the grandiose Central branch. When you enter the building it's via a long hallway scattered with bulletin boards and fliers, some for events I never heard of outside of that realm.

I picked up two newsletters while I was there as well to learn a bit more about my surroundings. I grabbed a copy of the Milwaukee Public Library Reader, as well as the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association newsletter, Murray Hill News.

Still have to peruse the latter, but the former has some tips on what's going on in February at the libraries. It looks like I will be hitting up the Martin Luther King branch as that seems to be the hot spot for Black History Month.

Obviously the destination is only part of the challenge, I still have to pick out a book. The layout of the place was a little confusing, so I was first drawn to the "New Releases" shelf. I selected a fiction book called A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar about a girl immigrating to Texas from the Middle East. One of the last fiction books I read in 2008 was about an American girl of Middle Eastern descent living in Texas, and I am curious to compare the two. That book, Towelhead by Alicia Erian was extremely gritty, but a solid read. A Map of Home also had an intriguing book jacket blurb:

"Funny, charming, and heartbreaking, A Map of Home is the kind of book Tristram Shandy or Huck Finn would have narrated had they been born Egyptian-Palestinian and female in the 1970s"

I then slid over to the New Non-Fiction and spotted a book that's been highly promoted on Pitchfork -- It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways and the Search for the Next American Music by Amanda Petrusich. The Amazon review is a little disheartening, but I'll give the book a whirl.

Since it's extremely difficult for me to walk out of a library without my hands full, I noticed a small "librarian's choice" table as I headed to the desk. I was ridiculously impressed that they'd pulled together a selection of John Updike works, complete with a framed obituary, since the man died TODAY. I'm actually not sure if I've ever read any Updike (maybe a short story along the way of my storied career in English Lit?) so I picked up Rabbit, Run to be my first official book of the challenge. I suspected the copy may have been procured when the East Library was built, but upon further inspection it looks like it was printed in 1991. Also, not to be crass, but it seems perversely appropriate that a copy of a book by a man who died of lung cancer would reek so badly of cigarette smoke.

If you're the mood for multimedia, or you speak Russian, apparently the East Library would have a lot to offer you:

In addition to providing an especially strong fiction and videocassette collection reflecting the diverse and eclectic interests of the East Side community, the library also maintains a small collection of materials in the Russian language. Patrons also have access to bestsellers, classics, picture books, magazines, newspapers, books on tape and a compact disc collection which includes many jazz and classical titles.

I'm glad I stopped by and took a little more time to learn about this asset nestled on the Upper East Side.

milwaukee props: library usage increasing

So even though those unfinished challenges are still unfinished, I read this week that more people are getting out to use Milwaukee's Public Libraries. It's unfortunate that it takes a huge recession to drive that usage, and it's extremely unfortunate that fantastic independent bookstores are dying at the same time. However, I am glad to hear that people are finding value in an underappreciated and essential public resource. Hopefully they're doing more than just using computers and DVDs -- hopefully people are rediscovering the joy of reading!

Thanks to Left on the Lake for bringing light to this issue.

milwaukee challenges: three challenges for 2009 (more may come)

Another promise from last Sunday, was to outline some of the "Milwaukee Challenges" I've been thinking about for next year. These will certainly give me instant blog-fodder and help me highlight Milwaukee's best to you, my hopefully increasingly loyal reader.

Milwaukee Challenge #1: Read my way through Milwaukee's Public Libraries

I mentioned part of this challenge here, when I signed up to do the Support Your Local Library online challenge. The challenge is rather simple in that I just have to read 12 books (one a month) from the Milwaukee Public Library.

I decided to add my own "Milwaukee Challenge" twist to that, and vow to visit each location of the library system and pick one of the librarian's choice books there. Conveniently there are 13 locations, but since I visit the Central Library all the time, I will focus on the 12 satellites.

Milwaukee Challenge #2: Ride my way through the Milwaukee County Transit System

Speaking of visiting new parts of town, I will definitely be using the bus to get to the libraries above. I actually am challenging myself to get the most out of my employee pass and ride each of the nearly 30 regular routes in the system round-trip next year. Not only will this help me do my day job better, but it will allow me to explore many parts of the County I don't regularly visit.

I may also hop off the bus at landmarks along the way to give the blog posts some extra flavor, so if you have some tips on unique spots on Milwaukee's various bus lines, leave them in the comments.

Milwaukee Challenge #3: Pray my way through the Archdiocese of Milwaukee

For quite awhile I've toyed with the idea of starting some sort of Church blog, as I definitely enjoy visiting historic churches and places of worship in my domestic and world travels. One of the cool things about Milwaukee is that there are several unique churches of all faiths here and many associated with a particular ethnic tradition.

It would be impossible for me to hit all the churches in the city in a year, even at the rate of one a week. It would also be foolish of me to commit to going to Mass once a week, as I know myself too well.

I do however, think it realistic, to commit to a "church blog" twice a month. So, 24 churches next year. I'm going to start with what I know -- Catholicism, but I'm always willing to check out other traditions (keyword being "tradition" -- no "Christian New Wave" for me, thank you, I can respect you (well provided you truly are "Christ-like" in your teachings), but I'm just not interested) as bonus blogs. As you've probably also guessed from this blog, I'm a very liberal person and there are certainly opinions of the Catholic Church that I disagree with. I am a self-described "Cafeteria Catholic" and that viewpoint should be taken into account as I describe the services. I'll also focus on the art and architecture of the church as well. I'm also going to stick to the City of Milwaukee, with one exception, to keep things simple.

What churches will I be hitting up? I'll cross the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist off my list, as I just gave a description of that, and it is just a hop away. I should make some effort!

• Old Saint Mary Parish is just up the street from me and one of the oldest churches in town. I also just saw on there website that one of my favorite priests, Fr. Tim, who also presides at the Three Holy Women parish is assigned there as well.
• Speaking of Three Holy Women, I will add that to my list as well. I'll probably try to blog about St. Hedwig, as it's a predominant landmark on Milwaukee's popular Brady Street. It's also the parish I used to attend when I lived over on the East Side.
• No Milwaukee Church tour would be complete without the Basilica of St. Josaphat. I'm ashamed to even admit I've never been in here, as it was the third minor basilica designated in the U.S.
• St. Stanislaus has always intrigued me because of it's unique architecture and the fact that it's perched right over I-94. Now I'm even more intrigued because the Sunday masses there are held in Latin!
• St. Joan of Arc Chapel at my alma mater Marquette is another unique to Milwaukee place of worship that I couldn't possibly leave off this list.
• St. Benedict the Moor is another Milwaukee church with an interesting history. It was founded in 1908 to serve Milwaukee's African American population.
• Many of my friends who live on the west side of town attend St. Sebastian church in Washington Heights. Sometimes you need a little help from your friends to complete these types of challenges.
• I happened upon St. Michael parish while canvassing on election eve and was struck by its imposing beauty. My co-worker used to be a member of the parish and told me it's gorgeous inside. Not in the best of neighborhoods, but it's going on the list. It also has a Hmong service, which might be interesting to witness.
  
• Ss. Peter & Paul has some very fascinating architectural features I'd like to write about. I've been to this Eastside church before, but will probably swing through again for the challenge.
• St. Adalbert on the Southside is a former Polish church that now has primarily Spanish masses.
• In browsing the listing of churches out there, I came across St. Catherine of Alexandria, a historic church in the far northwest corner of the city. This is a part of town which I'm quite unfamiliar with, so I may as well add it to the list. I may hit this one up after the bike racks go on the buses!
  
• I bike by St. Francis of Assisi sometimes on my way home from work and am interested to see that they have mass with gospel music and one with Spanish folk music. Which to hit up?!
• St. Hyancinth has a great name, a history, and Misa en Español.
  
• Immaculate Conception is in the heart of Bay View, so it'll be interesting to check out where those in that cult worship
• St. Martin de Porres is another African American Catholic church, located in Riverwest.
• Speaking of Riverwest, Our Lady of Divine Providence parish is comprised of two historic churches in that area. I think I will try and visit St. Casimir.
• St. Rose of Lima church is near Marquette and tucked away. I've never heard of it, but I'll add to the list.
• Sacred Heart Croatian has Croatian Mass. I'm intrigued and there!
• St. Vincent Palotti is another combined parish with historic churches on the west side of Milwaukee.
• All Saints is a combined parish of 9 central city churches. It has a gospel choir as well.
• Congregation of the Great Spirit is a Catholic Native American Community. Fascinating!
• Ss. Cyril and Methodius has Polish Mass
• St. Mary Magadelen has Korean Mass.
• My one exception to Milwaukee churches is Holy Hill, another Wisconsin basilica. I've never been here either and hear amazing things.

What challenges are you issuing for 2009? Are you interested in participating in any of these?

book club for one: 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge

I love my local library. Not only do I get to go into a beautiful building each time I want to check out a book, but I have access to millions of resources for FREE.

I've started following a blog called Novel Challenges, that really is designed for people who are goal-oriented and like to read A LOT. I finally spotted a challenge that sounds doable for me, so I'm signing up and will post my books in this post and on this blog throughout 2009.

The challenge, run by J. Kaye's Book Blog, is to pick a number of books that you will read from your local library in 2009. I'm going to undershoot here and say that I will read 12 books from the Milwaukee Public Library in 2009. One a month is totally feasible.

Are you up for a similar challenge?

My Books:

1. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

1. A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar
2. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston
   

reading for pleasure

A recent comment asked how on earth I have time to read for pleasure.

I'll admit, this hobby had all but dropped out of my life for awhile, with the exception of long plane rides.

However, in the past year it's resurfaced in full force. How?

Well, that's one of the absolute beauties of public transportation.

I have 20 minutes in the morning and 20 in the afternoon to dive into a book. I also find this a good time to listen to new music on my iPod.

What if you don't have someone else driving on your commute? I've heard audiobooks are good for long drives. Also, try blocking off the 15 minutes before you go to be at night to read at least one chapter of a book. Or set small goals like reading three chapters a week.

I found once I started reading again that I made time, as it's hard to put some books away.

Case in point, I just finished The Kite Runner. I stayed up late to finish it, because it was so emotionally gripping that I knew I couldn't read it on the bus as I found myself sobbing pretty much every 50 pages.