Jello Salad

Well, so far my Midwest adventure (aka visiting my homeland) has been a great time. Thursday I flew into Chicago and got to meet up with my long-time friend, Diana (see her wedding blanket here). As Diana is also a knitting enthusiast, and also the person who first taught me to knit, we of course had to include some knitting adventures in our trip. Our first stop was to Diana’s favorite yarn shop in Chicago, Loopy Yarns, which actually is quite fantastic. They have a great selection of high-end yarns and also some fabulous yarns at very reasonable prices. I found a couple of yarn brands I’d like to investigate more including Pear Tree Yarns of Australia and Frog Tree Yarns of Bolivia. The ladies working at the yarn store were fantastically helpful and knowledgeable. One of the workers, Lisa Whiting, is also a knitwear designer with some fantastic patterns that I will be repping as soon as she has them reprinted. Yay! Diana purchased some Frog Tree Alpaca to make a Slytherin hat for her hubby and we each picked out some sock yarn as we’re going to do our own little self-striping sock KAL. Picks to follow as soon as we get to the socks…..

When we got back to Diana’s place we had an exuberant show-and-tell of her yarn stash and my works in progress that I’d brought along. Diana showed me her new pride and joy… Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears and The Knitters Almanac both of which were immediately added to my wish list.

The coup d’etat of my reentry into Midwestern society for the week was our making of what I think is the official mascot of all Midwestern potlucks – the Jello Salad. Mmm… We made a lovely raspberry jello with Mandarin oranges. Fantastic! Why don’t we eat this more in California? I’m bringing it back.

Step one: Pour Jello powder packet in a bowl

Step 2: Pour in boiling water

Step 3: Add delicious canned mandarin oranges

Step 4: Refrigerate until firm

Step 5: Enjoy!!!

Friday

Friday, Diana and I decided we simply must do something cultural with our time as on my last visit the only museum we made a point to visit was the Swedish National Museum of Modern Home Furnishing and frankly we only made it to their gift shop, IKEA.

So this time we vowed to be better and decided to visit The Lithuanian Museum. I’m going to honest and say, this was not the best museum I’ve ever been to. Our introductory video to Lithuania was nothing more than a tourist propaganda video about the many merits of Lithuania’s beautiful nature and Medieval architecture, but it failed to touch on the fact that Lithuania is cold and dark a great deal of the year. The museum itself was just a few cases of Amber Jewels and some great examples of Lithuanian textiles:

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However, despite the museums time-worn displays and lack of funding, I was still sold. Lithuania is definitely on my intrigue-list and we wanted to learn more.

Our next stop of the day was Duke’s Lithuanian Restaurants, Chicago’s newest and fanciest Lithuanian restaurant (as far as I know there are only two Lithuanian restaurants in Chicago, but it’s still something). Diana and I apparently have the chick look of an Eastern European import because the hostest managed to speak to us in Lithuanan a few times before she caught on to the fact that we were just Americans. How boring. We decided to delight in Duke’s Potato Plate Sampler. Until this meal, I had no idea just how many ways there are to prepare potato-stuffed-meat and/or meat-stuffed-potato. Here’s the view:

Insert Pic here

I don’t think I’m going to be eating this meal anytime again soon. Nothing like a brick of potatoes in your tummy to help you go on an all-liquor diet for the rest of the day.

Saturday

Saturday I said goodbye to Diana, Carl and their lovely cat, Ninja, that Diana was kind enough to sequester to her bedroom for my stay (due to my extreme allergies not my hatred for animals). I met up with my parents and we headed off for our own Chicago adventure.

Our first stop was lunch at the Greek Island Restaurant. Pretty tasty. I was still feeling the effects of my Latvian extraganza and stuck with simply greens, but it was great.

Next up we swung by the Field Museum. This was my absolute favorite museum when I was little, but for whatever reason I was less impressed this time. Maybe I’ve been to too many museums now, each showing similar exhibits that I’ve become numb to the extrodinary displays that now replace the endless rows of cases filled with artifacts. I don’t know, I think sometimes the artifacts, fossils and art can speak for themselves without an overwhelming array of media and interactability. I think it’s ok to draw a firm line between museum and arcade. Let’s hope it never gets there.

Saturday night we ate out at The Italian Village, a long-time Chicago tradition of my parents. Apparantly it predates me, which to me seems quite old (after all I will be 25 this summer).