letter nov 9 2010

Dear Everyone,
Today (Nov 8) I am officially a candidate for AARP membership. Oh, joy! So, the weekend has been with several related events. Saturday night Roger and Barbara took Gail, Andy, Cindy, and me to Tuscany restaurant in Wheeling http://www.tuscanychicago.com/tuscany-wheeling.html. You may recall that this was the locale for Amy Tuchler’s surprise 40th birthday party not many years ago. Cindy correctly summed up the food as ‘Italian-ish”. Before ordering, the waiter made a concoction of grated parmesan cheese, crushed roasted garlic, and olive oil, quite nice on bread. Of course, a variety of food was ordered. I recall both grilled and fried calamari, seared bay scallops with bacon, beet ‘carpaccio’ (thin slices of beets with shaved parmesan cheese and truffle oil), osso bucco, beef carpaccio, tilapia saltimbocca, pretzel crusted sea bass. There were a variety of gooey desserts also. I made the mistake of getting a full strength cappucino, which woke me up at 2:30 in the morning (or was it 3:30 due to the time change?). Luckily, I had something to read, a book called Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier http://www.amazon.com/Travels-Siberia-Ian-Frazier/dp/0374278725. This is a very interesting travelogue about his five trips to Siberia. He puts a lot of history into the book, recounts other famous journeys into Siberia, and writes about current and recent conditions there. It was very well done, but I found him a bit naïve, and I was disappointed that he didn’t mention the environmental problems this area will most likely undergo over the next century.

Yesterday there was a bonus win by the Bears against one of the weakest teams in the NFL. The Bears managed to not lose the game. Later, for dinner, Cindy took us all out to a restaurant called Maijean in Clarendon Hills http://www.maijean.com/. Cindy and I have been there before, but our children’s palettes are finally developed enough to go out to a nice restaurant. I had steak tartar, and roast duck on polenta. Nicola had coq au vin, Cindy had a scallops dish, Lucas had salmon, and Jasper had a rib-eye steak with shoestring potatoes. And then another collection of gooey desserts: Lucas with a caramelized pear tart with mint ice cream, Jasper with a chocolate-hazelnut cake with butter-brickle ice cream, Nicola had a caramel tart with pecans and walnuts. I had three sorbets with unusual flavors. Afterwards we went home and watched the last Sherlock on Masterpiece Theatre. It ends on a cliffhanger involving explosive devices. We will be waiting for them to film and air the conclusion. There was also some opening of presents. I got a molecular gastronomy kit (contents include agar-agar, sodium alginate, calcium salts, etc), a weird curved knife, and the present I have been agitating for since our wedding, a Kitchen-Aid mixer. Now I will have to start using it! (My first response on opening the mixer was that Cindy was getting ready to divorce me…) Thanks to all of you.

The other big event of the weekend was Jasper’s latest swim meet. He almost didn’t participate on Saturday because he slept through his alarm, and Cindy forgot to set hers. They woke up about 30 minutes late, but still managed to get to the meet before sign-in was closed. Starting Friday evening through Sunday he swam eight events, including 1000 yd freestyle, 500 yd freestyle, and 200 yd butterfly. I am tired just thinking about it. He managed to put up two qualifying times for the ‘Indy’ meet this January. He did quite well, considering the number of races he was in, and he still had enough energy to play quidditch Saturday afternoon with Nicola, Lucas, and their high school pals.

Nicola has been busy singing – she made the regional IMEA chorus again, and she has been practicing for her madrigal performance, and her role of Hippolyta in A Midsummer’s Night Dream coming this weekend. Lucas is crewing on the play.

You have all probably seen the pumpkins. These were pretty easy to carve this year compared to previous years’. Some of you have asked how this is done. First, we all try to figure out a good theme for the pumpkins. Then I go on the internet and look for suitable pictures. I download the pictures, and manipulate them in photoshop to create a stencil. I gut the pumpkins (none of the kids will do this). We tape the stencils to the pumpkins and poke through the stencil onto the pumpkin skin. We rub some flour on the pumpkin to make the holes stand out better, and then cut along the lines with the little saws you get in a pumpkin carving kit. Patience is required, and your hands get pretty sore.

Not much else to report. I was at Loyola a couple of weeks ago for a teaching session. I think the residents still appreciate this, but pretty soon the senior ones will graduate, and I won’t really know the new ones. Perhaps I will have to start doing this with University of Illinois residents at Lutheran instead. During our dinner Dad was asking about the sizes of the different hospitals – so I thought I would run down some statistics. The Advocate group has ten hospitals in the Chicago area: Bromen (in Normal), Christ/Hope, Condell, Eureka, Good Samaritan, Good Shepherd, Illinois Masonic, Lutheran General/Lutheran Children’s, South Suburban and Trinity. The hospitals combined have more than 3000 beds (Christ has about 700), 28,000 employees, and 3600 doctors. Aurora, our sister organization in Wisconsin, has 29,642 employees, 6,021 RNs and 3,067 physicians on staff, including 1,400 employed physicians working at 155 clinics. In comparison, Northwestern has 900 beds, U of Chicago 665 beds, Rush University 963 beds, University of Illinois 530 beds. All of this information is available on the web!
Love, H.