You might remember me blogging about this a few weeks ago, but now there’s a Facebook page that organizers are using as a kind of digital petition to help save the Turf bowls that were uncovered a couple months ago in Wisconsin.

Go to their page and ‘Like’ it to show support.

We met the nice guys from Destihl at the Beer Hoptacular in Chicago back in June. They were one of the lone stand outs at that event, both in their seeming genuine enjoyment of their hobby cum job and also in their beer – they offered the only sour at the event and, sour or not, it stood head and shoulders above everyone else’s phoned in contributions.

So you could imagine my excitement when I got news from their facebook page that Destihl is hosting an Oktoberfest at their brewpub in Normal, Illinois September 25th. They’re promising some suckling pig, fresh brewed Marzen, and a bavarian influenced menu. Willie and I have been threatening a bike trip down there since June and an early fall ride through middle Illinois’ shifting colors seems just what the doctor ordered.

Now I just gotta go get my freaking bike out of the shop.

Pelican is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary of deliciously textured instrumental metal this year with a box set, limited to 500 in a wooden box containing their 4 LPs and 3 EPs on Viva Hate Records. They’ll also be playing a show at the Bottom Lounge on October 23rd. And, yes, 3 Floyd’s is releasing an as yet unspecified doppelbock to help mark this momentous occasion.

It’s times like these that make a fellow proud to be alive.

Arrived last night from Seattle after an AA fare sale kept us stuck in the northwest a few days longer than planned. I’ve uploaded some photos from the trip to the facebook account, but who knows, I might even post something more extensive about it here.

The trip was amazing, we hit 6 parks – Woodland, Ballard Bowl, Burien, Renton, Milton, & Marginal Way – in 5 days and even managed to unsuccessfully fish Puget Sound as well. For some reason the kings weren’t biting for anybody, I guess that means I’ll have to go back when they are.

Our trip home found us in Phoenix for the night staying, literally, at the scene of probably the most heinous accident that happened in that town that night. We tried and failed to hit the Desert West Skate Park before our flight in the morning, but fucked up and went to 67th Street instead of 67th Avenue. Huge bummer as that place looks sick.

All in all the trip was an amazing success. Skating for sometimes up to 8 hours a day for 5 days in a row has really bumped both mine and Trevor’s skills up to the next level. We got schooled on some carving techniques and found a couple great parks for practicing technical stuff, the best probably being the Burien skate park.

Going into the trip I was viewing it as a kind of shamanic vision quest, a dance with old Mescalito, where I knew I would be pushed to some scary places, but eventually come out the other side with some new, hard won knowledge gained. Sitting on the other side of our trip it’s safe to say my presumptions were right. I can’t wait to Dawn Patrol tomorrow.

I didn’t realize people did this. Check out these maniacs.

I’m gonna make a trek out there next time I cross the border into that state which shall not be named.

Awesome.

UPDATE:
Shit on toast. Apparently, the city took it upon themselves to cover the bowl back up, but not before a couple guys got to skate it.

Fortunately, the spirits of this strange ship have not been entirely split yet. A search is underway for who the best contact is to make this excavation permanent and legitimate. When they find out the proper steps to take they’re going to post it on the Wiskate.com site. When they do that, I’ll post it here.

Here’s a great old video from the Turf:

American Homebrew Association members are invited to a, uh, rally (?) tomorrow at the Goose Island brewery in the fulton market. It looks like the rally includes a brewery tour, complimentary samples of Goose Island beer, a meet and greet with the brewers and a chance to chat up some folks from Siebel and White Labs.

This is from 6-9pm at the Goose Island brewery 1800 W. Fulton Street in Chicago.

If you’re not an AHA member you can sign up at the door. This is free for members. You can RSVP here.

If I don’t go see Inception at the IMax again, I’ll probably be there. Come and rub my belly.

How We Roll: An Exhibition of Black Surf & Skate Culture is opening up at the Californina African American Museum tomorrow July 22nd.

Starting with the history of black surfing from the 17th and 18th century in Polynesia and Africa and on into the US, the exhibit rolls through the African-American surf-skateboard-rollerskate continuum featuring photos by Glen E. Friedman, Grant Brittain, Jim Goodrich, Lance Dawes, Atiba Jefferson, Neftalie and more. Spotlights include the legacy of pioneering black female pro skateboarder Stephanie Person and the way that skateboarding has cross-pollinated with black music formats like Afropunk, hip-hop, jazz and reggae.

Stumbling around the tighter turns of procrastination yesterday I came across an interview with my favorite local artist, Tony Fitzpatrick.

I see Tony as one of a very few and dwindling set of representatives of the Old Chicago. The Chicago that I believe in, but, really, never knew. Tony comes from a time when you could walk down most streets and, if a story wasn’t there in the flesh, the walls still had sharp enough memories to speak clearly about the shadows that cast past them not so long ago.

Now, most the building’s memories have been wiped clean or torn down. This city’s soul has become so cold it’s balls have shriveled right up tight against it’s belly, like two rotten prunes all shifty eyed and fearful of the heat they need to drop back down. Sure, you can still see Old Chicago’s nuts if you hunt around in pockets long enough, but this city just don’t dangle like it used to.

Tony’s art celebrates this city in a meter that rings true, from a time that was forever Chicago. Less polished, less preoccupied with futures, Tony is preserving our city like a stead, surly, architect, building a memory of Chicago from the same violent, vulnerable and pissed off primacies that forged it in the first place. And he’s one of the few still able to do this.

Stay plugged in to Tony’s work and hillarious stories that accompany them on his blog and be sure to check out his show “This Train” playing for the next two weeks at the Steppenwolf.

Last weekend was remarkable, one for the record books. Friday I got up at 6 in the morning and dawn patrolled with Trevor. We came home around 9:30am and toured through several New Glarus brews in honor of his *cough* 43rd birthday. We hit the Enigma, the Old English Porter, the Two Women Lager and the Golden Ale. We wrapped up our impromptu celebration with Dark Horse’s Perkulator, their dopplebock with coffee which seemed the proper elixir to get my head back in the working game for a while. Alas, the Perkulator’s power to inspire work is not as powerful as the brews wicked ass label would have you believe.

Like any good morning of drinks, this one inspired us to eat steaks for dinner. Trevor went home to wrangle his daughter for the afternoon and I hopped on my motorcycle for a visit to the Paulina Meat Market to pick up 4 prime new york strip steaks. Nobody gets cuts in Chicago like Paulina and nobody is as eager to charge you as Paulina either. Honestly though, if I’m going to get jacked for my meat (heh heh) I’d prefer to get jacked at Paulina. Their staff are consummate professionals, butchers with a great understanding of their product that are always willing to share that wisdom with their customers. And they’ve got the mustaches to prove it.

It’s hard for a fat alcoholic to stay focused in Paulina, the place is wall to wall of the finest cuts of meat you’re bound to find anywhere. Packaged in all kinds delicious manner. Someone needs to create a religion where Paulina is the reward for a life well lived. Of course, that “life well lived” would require plenty of time spent at Paulina in proper preparation for that sweet, sweet after life as well. So to help bide my time waiting for my number to be called I developed my shopping list into a respectable effort. In addition to the 4 new york strips, I would pick up 6 of their Jumbo Grilling Wieners, some bisquits to go with our dinner and, at Matt’s recommendation, a package of 6 veal cheeks.

The Jumbo Grilling Wieners were transcendental. The wiener is about the size of a baby’s arm, which is to say slightly smaller that John Holmes’ private collection. I shit you not, these wieners were at least 10″ long with about 3.5″ of girth. The flavor was of the finest beef I’ve had in a dog and the snap was audible. I don’t know who the wizard was that developed these Jumbo Grilling Wieners, but when I start my religion with Paulina as the after life that guy is probably going to have to be the first pope or at least get some kind of sainthood or a holy day or something.

I dropped off the steaks at Trevor’s and we each had a Jumbo Grilling Wiener (I just enjoy hearing that combination of words). Did I mention the snap on these things? Later that evening we enjoyed all the beauty that is a new york strip with our lovely brides under the fantastic summer night with a sultry soundtrack of Tejano music oompa-paing from Trevor’s neighbors.

Saturday I was up again with the sun to spend a lovely day of relaxation in the blistering summer heat smoking a pork shoulder. Something we’ve learned with these pork shoulders is that you definitely want to get boneless pork shoulders. The bone-in pork shoulder has too many layers of fat and other junk that makes it more challenging to pull. There’s enough fat in a boneless shoulder to keep your meat plenty juicy.

Sunday was a banner 4th of July as a bunch of us headed out to Winnemac Park for the best 4th of July celebration in the city. Amateur pyrotechnicians flooded the baseball diamonds to assault the skies with professional fireworks. There was nothing planned about this assault on the neighborhood and nothing regulated about it either. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate freedom than to stroll through a city park while literally hundreds of people indulge in illicit fireworks displays without any bother from police.

Monday I awoke from my long night of yelling at explosions to drop into the Wilson pool for the first time. 1 year of work and daydreaming finally paid off. I did eat some shit a couple times, but I managed to stay up at least as much as I fell. After we finished Dawn Patrolling Trevor dropped me off at the Fireside Lounge in Ravenswood to enjoy some delicious Arrogant Bastard Ale and a sandwich with our crew of delinquents. We spent a few hours putting sobriety in it’s place before hitting the Foster Street Beach. After a couple hours drinking delicious Daisy Cutter from cans and playing catch in the water we packed up our goodies and headed back to the Fireside for some more cocktails. After a few more beers we made a bee-line for Chicago’s best pizza, Pequod’s, and indulged our sun-satiated selves on a couple large pan pizzas (garlic, basil, onion and pepperoni on one and sausage, mushroom, giardinara on the other… definitely with a side of ranch, sucka).

Still not quite finished, we retired to Matt’s for some 12 Year Macallan with an ice cream chaser.

It was a banner weekend, my friends, the kind that reminds you just why you built that nervous system in the first place.

Wow, holy shit, all this was just a preamble to talk about the amazing meal we had last night. Remember those veal cheeks I picked up at Paulina on Friday? Me neither. Well, I finally got around to cooking those buggers Thursday night. And what an amazing treat it was. You could literally eat these these without teeth, you certainly didn’t need a knife.

Strange thing these veal cheeks. They’re about the size of a pancake when you get them, or, more specifically, the size of a 6 month old calf’s cheek. When you cook them they puff up into something more the size and shape of a small hamburger patty. At first they tend to get very hard, but over the 3 hours that you cook them they eventually turn into the most tender piece of meat your liable to come by.

Here’s the recipe I basically used courtesy of Ron Eade and the Ottowa Citizen. I skipped the juniper berries and replaced the veal stock with reduced chicken broth for no other reason than I didn’t have those ingredients. Essentially, it’s a beef bourgingon that’s a bit easier to make and much more tender. Imagine a pot roast that literally dissolves across your tongue and you’ve got a fairly close approximation of what this majestic little monster tastes like.

– Six veal cheeks, each about the size of a closed fist

– 1/3 cup (75 mL) olive oil

– Salt and pepper, to taste

– 3 1/2 cups (875 mL) of robust low-salt veal stock

– One small piece dark chocolate, about 7 grams

For the marinade:

– 1/2 large carrot chopped

– 1 medium onion, chopped

– 1 teaspoon (5 mL) dry thyme

– 1 large clove of good garlic, chopped

– 1 bay leaf

– 10 sprigs of Italian parsley, chopped

– One 750-mL bottle dry chardonnay

– 6 juniper berries

1. Place all marinade ingredients in a stainless steel saucepan; bring to boil and simmer 5 to 7 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Cool to room tremperature, then immerse veal cheeks in marinate. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. At noon the next day, preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Remove meat from marinade and strain to separate liquid and solids; reserve both. In a saucepan, bring liquid to boil and simmer until reduced to 1 cup (250 mL). Set aside.

3. Pat cheeks dry with paper towels, season lightly with salt, pepper, then lightly dust with all-purpose flour. Heat about 1/3 cup (75 mL) canola oil in a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven and brown cheeks well on both sides, working in batches if necessary to not overcrowd the pot. When browned, transfer cheeks to a plate and, in the same Dutch oven, saute reserved vegetables from the marinate for about 4 minutes.

4. In a large saucepan, warm veal stock to almost-boiling and toss in chocolate to melt; stir to combine. Return cheeks to the Dutch oven and nestle over the bottom, trying to not overlap. Add reduced marinade and veal stock just to cover and bake, covered, until meat is very tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife, about 3 hours.

5. When done, carefully transfer intact cheeks to an ovenproof casserole with a lid, and set aside. Strain liquid into a clean saucepan (discard solids) and simmer to reduce to gravy consistency, stirring as necessary to avoid scorching.

6. About 40 minutes before serving, pour thickened sauce over cheeks to cover, and return to oven to reheat. Serve with side dishes that will take best advantage of rich sauce.