Yuri & Family

We've enjoyed introducing Yuri to our family... of course we've had several visits from Vivian and UBS (that's Uncle Big Steve), and he met his Grandma and Grandpa Kreider mere seconds after birth. Most recently, we've had visits from Aunt Kara, Grandma Kay and Great-Grandma Sutter, as well as a quick trip out to Kansas City to see Bill's family (and he was a pretty good traveler, so look out!). In KC, Yuri met his Grandma & Grandpa, two uncles, and 5 of his 6 first-cousins. His Grandpa Sunderland recently had surgery for an acoustic neuroma, and so it was good to see him recovering nicely at the nursing facility.


Yuri is a pretty happy baby, but Aunt Kara had a way to really get him going. I see family resemblance!


4 generations. I hope to get this same photo with Dad and Grandma Kreider one day!


Yuri with his first-cousins ... all but one who was away at camp. They were all excited to meet the lastest addition to the family.


Yuri's Grandma Esther and Grandpa Jim Sunderland.



The growing kid himself...

And, this weekend we'll introduce him to Evan and Janice at Steve's 50th birthday bash in Hoquiam.

Visiting Grandma in Goshen

After the Brothers 2010 Reunion, three of the brethren went to Goshen to visit Grandma for a few days. Grandma was both in fine spirits and the best health we have seen her enjoy for some time.

We played several games of Wii-Bowling (or whatever) in the chapel on the games TV. Grandma is of course a champion. I wish I had a picture of Aunt Rachel playing. She joined us briefly and actually caught on which was very impressive, considering that she is 101 these days. I did, however, sneak a shot of her eating with a table mate. Usually, they conversed while eating, but this shot caught both examining the food which had just arrived.



On one of the days, Grandma took her customary time to volunteer at the library cart in the hallway across from the dining room. She clears away the magazines from a large table once a week, gets out the library cart with its new selection of books, sets out at least some of the books on a table for those unable to reach the lower shelf, organizes the borrowing cards and generally helps anyone interested in borrowing another Goshen Public Library book (at least I assumed that is where they usually reside). This is a very important service to Evergreen, particularly for residents unable to get to the library to borrow interesting things to read. Mark took this picture showing Grandma helping someone. This reminds me of how very useful her electric wheelchair continues to be, fitting nicely and unobtrusively under the table. The Goshen Library has been very important to her life for decades. I wonder if anyone has read as many of their important holdings as has she.


Grandma then took us to Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, IN, Bruce driving his new and beautifully air-conditioned car. We got a table for five for lunch on a (?) Tuesday. Even so, the place seemed essentially full. Helpings are substantial (as are some of the faithful patrons) and the menu reflects earlier midwest traditions of cooking beef, chicken and pork. Nobody leaves the table hungry.

I like to photograph our food in restaurants with Janice's point-n-shoot. I'll start with Grandma's most sensible plate, obviously the most healthful on the menu.

My photo of Bruce's pile (as in Heaping Pile) of dripping deep-fried chicken unfortunately got blurred in all the excitement, but you can imagine the scene . . . no room for veggies on the plate, etc.

My plate seemed like a good choice at the time, recalling Grandma's beef noodles made with leftover beef, but it could never match my memories of her cooking, and the serving would have sufficed for the 5 of us. Naturally, I nevertheless cleaned my plate.


Since Janice so rarely orders anything but health food, I simply had to record, for posterity, what she had to eat that noon:

Mark took it all very seriously, photographing everything in sight, the closer the better. Look carefully and you will see Bruce polishing yet another bone while wondering why the helpings are so tiny.

I'm of course never happier than when two beautiful women pretend they are interested in hearing one of my stories. Mark took this photo while the youngsters let the elders of the family sit together on a bench at the restaurant, waiting for our table.


And back in Grandma's apartment, Janice took a picture I will always treasure. I entitle it,

Mother with one of her five favourite sons

In the beginning, the brothers said, "Let there be coffee!" And it was good!

Each part of each day of our 2010 Brothers Reunion began with or somehow included coffee. Interestingly, aside from our traditional trip to a fabulous ice cream farm (yes, farm), we never ate out. Since we prefer to do the cooking ourselves, this draws us into the general kitchen area, which means that at least one of us will think to ask, "Anyone care for coffee?"

Paul has spent decades discerning which outfit roasts the best beans to his satisfaction, exactly what measure of beans is required for the perfect pot, how to best grind the beans, etc. I have no idea how many bags of roasted beans were consumed, but they did the trick.

Alex was the sole male uninterested in coffee that weekend. Judging from how much he slept, he could have used a cup or two, but nevertheless, he kept a watchful eye on everything.


Paul either produced each and every pot, or taught yet another brother how to use the equipment at hand.

Paul was also ever ready to refill cups as might be required. After all, when two brothers are engrossed in on-line poker, there is obviously no time to get up and make coffee. As evening approached, we usually switched to decaf.


As 17th-century Londoners discovered, sipping excellent coffee is the perfect way to keep conversation flowing.


Occasional breaks were taken so that Mark could try to convince Frank to get a new camera (". . . and, it's a tax write-off!" . . . .)


And at times, one was simply forced to wait for the next pot to be brewed . . . .


Thanks for all the coffee, Paul!

We Brothers Rolling In Dough

A decade and two weeks passed since our inaugural brothers reunion held in Springfield, Ohio in the year 2000 at the home of Paul and Kay.  This July we came full circle back to Springfield to their welcoming home for another gathering with great fun and food along with time for some of the deeper stuff.  We want to recognize that Kay was instrumental in bringing about the first reunion, an important milestone, and graciously thank her for this invitation into their home again.  We were also very thankful that you had central AC on this particular weekend of blistering heat!

Here is a compilation of photos taken by various brothers as bread, cinnamon rolls (Mom's recipe) and yes, pasta was made.

 The yeast is good.

 Bruce made sure that no mistakes were made.

Frank possibly indicating that one loaf wouldn't be enough.

Okay... so instead of one oven busting loaf Paul made three.

Warm, aromatic and lightly toasted with cereal and fresh fruit.  A great way to start the day...




.........




...along with a dozen eggs and a pound each of bacon and sausage.  We are growing boys.

If you want a perfectly browned sausage Bruce would be the go-to guy.

Cinnamon Rolls

What is as sweet as the first day of Spring?  That would be Mom's cinnamon roll recipe rendered to perfection by brother Evan.  All it took was one of the brothers saying, "how about some cinnamon rolls?" to get the ball rolling.  Evan remembered that he'd posted the recipe on this very blog at an earlier date  (blogs do come in handy now and again) Paul had a freezer full of an assortment of flours and the rest is history.

The evening before.

Putting the goodies on the dough (a portion was raisin-less so Bruce wouldn't have to remove the pesky things).

The first two of four plates.

A close up of the goo before baking thanks to the miracle of macro photography.

YUM!

And Then There Was Pasta

I got a free hand-crank pasta machine many years ago and never used it although I'd threatened to on several occasions.  Over the July 4th weekend friends of ours, Emily and Tony Presti, came out to the house and I talked Emily into helping me make pasta.  She said the last time she'd helped she was 12 years old.  That was when her mother discovered there was pre-made pasta in the grocery store and never made it again.  It went okay so I figured we brothers could do it just to know the process and have a greater appreciation for the boxed stuff.  Anyway it felt like 100 degrees outside and we had a whole day to clean the kitchen should things go horribly awry.

Experienced flour-men, Bruce and Paul looking on bemused as Mark gets mired in "sticky finger syndrome".   They saw it coming.

Paul to the rescue, note my fingers but hey, my shirt is clean!

The process is going well.  Each two passes through the machine we went to a thinner setting then finally ran the sheets through the cutter side opting for a linguini shape. 

 Next time we'll make the dough even drier so separation by hand won't be required as much.  The new L.L. Bean mallet came in very handy.

Evan produced a lovely fresh tomato sauce and all was well.  I hope someone has a photo of the pile of steaks that Bruce and Frank grilled on the deck (mine a perfect medium rare as requested).  Local steamed corn,  cucumber from the garden and fresh mint tea made for a great dinner, with sparkling conversation of course!

NOAA at Work in Our Backyard

I told Mom about this.  She thought it interesting enough to post so here goes.  Last Saturday morning Amy and I went to fill the larder for guests arriving early afternoon.  When we got back a little after 10:30 AM there was a parachute hanging upside down in the star magnolia tree.  It crossed my mind that we'd been under rocket attack from the kids and the dads next door as they're always having some new kind of fun (often ending up in our backyard).  They're all nice folks.   We get along well and things will stay that way as long as they continue to let Tony and myself massacre them in backyard boccie.  Tony and Emily finally arrived and we sat under the tree sipping our summers coolers with olives, cheese etc.  After some time Tony said, "ah, Mark, what is that?"  Time to find out.   I wrapped the heavy string around my arms and had to use body weight to bring it down,  wrapping more string, pulling until it ripped loose from the tree and a box fell at our feet.  Here are the photos.  If you look closely you can see the wire on the left of one shot.  I think it sends info back to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration base as it's aloft and they like it returned for reuse. It goes in the mail this morning.

A Delayed Postcard from St Maurice

With apologies to "We Five Brothers", this entry is of more interest for "We Five Aeschlimans".

One wouldn't expect to see animals on a cute street like this. The street is Rue de Paris, in Charenton, the suburb right next to St. Maurice, and each year there is an agriculture show on the street. (Sorry, no goats...) But there were two cattle, and we (Hyrthal and Anna descendants of Stuckey/Lugbulls) may be related to these cattle. Well, not related by blood. Anabaptists from Switzerland were key in bringing their breed of cattle to France in the 1700's. An article that I have from the Centre's library credits a Pierre Lugbull for careful breeding of these cattle from Switzerland to produce the "Montbeliarde" breed, now one of the best and well known in France. It appears that this is the breed of cattle that was featured at the street fair. It is possible that the Pierre Lugbull who is pictured in the 1880's photo in the article is the uncle of our Great Grandma Stuckey. Or I could be totally wrong since there could have been several Pierre Lugbulls in that area of the Alsace at that time. In any case, it was people including our ancestors who were the highly acclaimed farmers in the Alsace from the 1700's until the mid 1800's by which time the majority (but not Pierre) had immigrated to North America. Our great grandmother Anna came to America in 1872.

The next two photos of food booths at the fair mention "terroir" in their signage. No need to be terrorized though; it refers to the land. The French are very aware and proud that each area of the country produces its unique regional products. This is especially true for cheeses.
And the inevitable display of bread! Unfortunately, this fair occurred at the end of our stay in Paris, so we could not stock up on any goodies.

Dunbar in Bloom 2010

For years, Janice has been going on the annual tour of Dunbar gardens to see what other amateurs are doing with their yards and gardens. One year, she came home and quietly mused, "I wonder if I can ever get my garden included?" Not many months later, she was invited to participate but, for perhaps four years, has not been able to do so because of work, being away, or just not feeling she was quite ready.

This year she took the plunge, and her glorious garden was visited by 51 other avid gardeners. Each participating garden is marked by a red and yellow flag, and a sheet of addresses was available for $3. People were allowed to come from 10-12 and 2-4:30 today (May 2nd, Sunday), so we had to stay home from church (shucks) to host the guests (and to keep an eye on things). I should add that Kay was an important part of the big push to get things ready, carefully weeding this and that. Believe it or not, Janice ran out of things for Kay to do in the garden. Things never looked so good.

After watching how things were progressing,
Paul and I decided to contribute to the effort by getting out of the way, so we headed downtown to a favourite used book store.
Our plan worked marvelously, Kay and Janice were hard at work, enjoying their individual solitudes.

Paul and Kay returned to Seattle soon after breakfast on Sunday helping with the breakfast dishes, and Janice started preparations for the tour. She put out a small table offering her business card (blog address) and free plants, which proved popular.
Then she roped off part of the lower patio because the uneven flagstones were too slippery in the light rain.
When everything was ready, she put out the special flag which signaled to gardeners that her garden was officially open (you may have to click on the picture to see the flag).
Here are closeups of a few posies:
Judy (my former secretary) was the first visitor, soon followed by others.
Even one of the organizers came to visit and seemed to be very pleased to finally meet Janice.
Janice is already assuming she will enter again next year, but will have to coordinate schedules with Kay if the place is to look this special.